Re: (TV) playlists

["Philip P. Obbard" <pobbard@yahoo.com>]

I'll agree with this. It took me years to really get into ELECTRIC WARRIOR; the
first time I heard, I found it unremarkable. As I had often seen Bolan
mentioned along with Bowie and Roxy Music, I was not expecting such an
understated record. It took a while for me to get hooked, but like MARQUEE
MOON, after a half-dozen listens of so, I was. Finally, four years after
getting ELECTRIC WARRIOR, I picked up SLIDER and TANX (the reissues with loads
of a-sides and b-sides) and got hooked on both as well.

The thing is: the band rocks, but Bolan almost doesn't, having an ethereal,
above-the-track quality to his vocals, and they dominate the tracks. Having
never heard any live T. Rex material, I'm not sure if this is a feature that
holds true live, or if it's a product of the record's production. It definitely
is a feature of all 3 LPs and 2 comps I've heard of his work, though. His voice
is such a distinctive feature that I think it's hard to get around it if you
don't appreciate it (not unlike Verlaine's, actually).

I will also say this: if I were really into lyrics, I'm not sure I'd be a T.
Rex fan. His lyrics are goofy at best and painfully repetitive at worst. But I
haven't been able to pay attention to lyrics in music for about ten years;
somewhere along the way I stopped caring as much about their meaning and just
started to appreciate the *sounds* of words (something I might have picked up
listening to Bowie, Eno, and John Cale). While I know the words to every
Beatles song by heart (stuff I learned before I was 10), I definitely don't
know the words to every Television or Verlaine song.

Lastly, I'd be a liar if I said I thought Marc Bolan had a lot of musical
ideas. He has barely a handful of great ideas, and at his peak he recycles them
over and over (not unlike Brian Wilson, to use another good example), sometimes
several times over a single LP!

--Philip

--- eric gregory <crackcity_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
> hmmm...never thought of em as particularly tough to
> "get", tho i can see plain ol not digging em (or
> better, him).
>
> --- Jay Pontrelli <jaypontrelli@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Frankly, I don't "get" T. Rex.


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