Deep Album Cuts Vol. 218: New York Dolls
New York Dolls guitarist/pianist Sylvain Sylvain passed away earlier this month, he was one of only two consistent members of the band across all five of their studio albums, alongside David Johansen, so I thought I'd look back at their catalog.
New York Dolls deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. Frankenstein
New York Dolls deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. Frankenstein
2. Looking For A Kiss
3. Subway Train
4. Pills
5. Lonely Planet Boy
6. Private World
7. It's Too Late
8. Chatterbox
9. Bad Detective
10. Don't Start Me Talking
11. Plenty Of Music
12. Fishnets & Cigarettes
13. Punishing World
14. Take A Good Look At My Good Looks
15. Muddy Bones
16. This Is Ridiculous
17. My World
18. Exorcism Of Despair
19. Streetcake
20. End Of The Summer
21. Kids Like You
Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from New York Dolls (1973)
Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from New York Dolls (1973)
Tracks 7, 8, 9 and 10 from Too Much Too Soon (1974)
Tracks 11, 12, 13 and 14 from One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This (2006)
Tracks 15, 16, 17 and 18 from Cause I Sez So (2009)
Tracks 19, 20, 21 and 22 from Dancing Backward In High Heels (2011)
Obviously, New York Dolls are kind of a quintessential cult band, I've read about them far more than I've listened to them, and they never had a true hit single. But they did sign to Mercury Records in the '70s and record at The Record Plant with Todd Rundgren, and all of their albums except the last one were on the Billboard 200, so they were really aiming for the mainstream, even if they never quite got there as much as some of the CBGB's bands they influenced.
The singles on their debut ("Personality Crisis," "Trash" and "Jet Boy") loom large over the band's legacy as their most enduring songs, and I think my first exposure to one of their songs was Sonic Youth's cover of "Personality Crisis." But that whole album is amazing, I particularly like their rendition of Bo Diddley's "Pills" (which was later the basis for The Geraldine Fibbers' twangier recording of the song). I remember being really confused the day I realized that the frontman of New York Dolls was the guy I'd grown up knowing as Buster Poindexter from "Hot Hot Hot" and the Bill Murray movie Scrooged, and I kind of assumed he was some kind of comedian or actor who had a brief fluke music career (of course, eventually I saw the entire "Hot Hot Hot" video, which opens with him talking about New York Dolls and holding up copies of their old records).
Delving into their catalog recently, though, I was pretty impressed with everything. Too Much Too Soon is arguably as good as the debut, although I don't know how this stuff sounded to people in the '70s when everyone else was much more polished, I'm hearing it through the lens of someone who grew up hearing bands play the kind of loose and irreverent style of rock and roll that they helped invent. And the three post-reunion albums David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain made are about as good as any band has made 30 years after their original classics, especially considering that they didn't have Johnny Thunders around to help conjure their old sound and co-write songs. One thing I will say was consistent across their catalog: pretty much every album closes with a memorable tune, they always saved the best for last.
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on Tuesday, January 26, 2021 at 12:23 PM.
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