Listen Without Prejudice
One day, in 1997, having been up all night at work, I went into Golden Discs in the Iliac Center in Dublin to pick up the Verve’s “Urban Hynms” on CD. Ah I can see it now as I walk in the door – I can still see it – I went over to the shelf, picked up the CD, bought it and went home. On arriving home I opened the bag – and – lo and behold – I had bought “Marchin’ Already” by a band that I had never heard of called Ocean Colour Scene. The covers of the two albums were 60s similar – the OCS album looking like something that the Byrds would have released in 1969. The music – well is was terrific – good old riff based driving guitar rock – a top notch band with a terrific vocalist. I did not return the record; indeed I have enjoyed listening to it ever since. Of course, I subsequently discovered that the same band had released an even better record 2 years earlier called “Mosely Shoals.” If you are a rock music fan – and I am – these are great albums that you can pick up for next to nothing on CD – but will cost you an arm an a leg on vinyl
So what? Not long after the release of Marchin’ Already, I went to see OCS at the Point Depot in Dublin. I was the oldest person there – the average age was about 17. And boy were the crowd into it! A great concert. OCS, at the time had a lot of young fans, but the quality of their product fell off rapidly, and although they are still together (and work as Paul Weller’s backing band), they don’t stir much interest these days.
Here is the thing – Google “Ocean Colour Scene” and read what was written about them at the time – terms like “dad rock” and “trad rock” and general vitriol launched by virtually all critics that absolutely HATED them. These were the same critics who loved Oasis – a second rate overly loud Beatles cover band – who happened to have a number of very hummable songs. I feel I still have to apologize for liking those two OCS albums (and their Baggy-Era debut) as it seems to signify that I have some sad dad-rock-trad-rock-sad-rock taste. Strangely, then, one should remember that Led Zeppelin received the exact same sour critical appraisal – indeed for the duration of their existence they routinely had bad album reviews – and sold millions.
Anyway – a strange thing happened to me the other day. My car multichanged advanced to the next disc (I had been listening to Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolance) and on came a charming folky-bluesy-swampy record, beautifully mastered – dead clean – no reverb – no loudness – just good old honkey tonk. So whose record was this – perhaps the new Felice Brothers album, Blitzen Trapper, maybe Fleet Foxes, maybe some other nu-folk band whose record I picked up. No, not at all! It was Little Feat’s debut album – Little Feat (1971) – and one of the most contemporary albums that I have heard all year. In fact – I think it is one of the great “forgotten” albums that every collection should own (nice Musical Fidelity vinyl reissue available for $30). But think about it – a 43 year old record sounds “fresh” by todays standards because virtually everything released now is retromania in the extreme. And so what if it is? – Musical forms by definition are limited – once Jazz did fusion, the only way forward was backward (Wynton Marsalis). There hasn’t been a whole lot of original music since the 1970s – virtually everything that I have listened to in my lifetime is derivative. Bob Dylan in 1962 was derivative. The Beatles? The Stones?
My advice – ignore critics – they laud crappy records with a 5 minute shelf life – there was never anything wrong with “Trad” rock – whateverthehell that means.
Go back and listen to Ocean Colour Scene’s early albums, and listen without prejudice.
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