Graham Reid | | 2 min read
Sir Rockaby
The programme for releasing albums is much the same as it ever was: a drip-feed of singles, promotion and PR swing into action, interviews . . .
The biggest difference between now and five or six decades ago are the use of diverse social media and the number of digital platforms to release on.
Two things which cannot be factored in or predicted are . . . timing and luck.
The best marketing campaign isn't going to work if outside factors are in play which no one can predict.
The release of Elvis Presley's soundtrack to Double Trouble, his latest acting-on-autopilot film, the same week as the Beatles' Sgt Pepper showed just how wide the gap had become between The King and the zeitgeist.
Double Trouble clocked in at just 22 minutes and barely scraped into the US top 50.
And sometimes it's just bad luck and unfortunate timing combined.
A month after Kurt Cobain shot himself, Frank Black – formerly of the Pixies, the influential pre-grunge band which prepared the ground for the likes of Nirvana – released his second solo album, Teenager of the Year, which didn't get the traction and attention it deserved.
There are many explanation for its disappointing performance: it didn't reflect the gloomy mood of the angst-filled grunge generation at the time; maybe a double album of 22 songs was too much to assimilate; chaotic indulgences like the explosive openers Whatever Happened to Pong? and Thalassocracy were immediate turnoffs; possible the humour of songs like Two Reeler (a defence of the vaudevillian violence of Three Stooges), the drowsy lullaby of Sir Rockaby(covered by Luke Buda during lockdown) and sudden swerves – the pop of I Could Stay Here Forever to boogie headbang on Hostess with the Mostest – were annoyingly disruptive.
The 30th anniversary remastered reissue of what many now accept as Black's best solo outing offers a chance for reassessment and the timing couldn't be better.
The re-formed Pixies are touring again – they opened for Pearl Jam here recently and return as headliners later this year – and former Pixie Kim Deal's album Nobody Loves You More was among the best albums of last year.
Co-produced with bassist/keyboard player Eric Drew Feldham (formerly in Captain Beefheart's idiosyncratic Magic Band and who played with the Pixies in their latter stages) and with Pixies' guitarist Joey Santiago among the lengthy cast, Teenager of the Year covered a lot of bases.
Perhaps too many: there's economic pop (the understated Speedy Marie and the singalong Big Red) . . .
The bristling downer power pop single Headache; the Who-like power chords of Freedom Rock; the jerky quirky Fiddle Riddle; spoken word over unorthodox settings (Ole Mulholland); space rock (Fazer Eyes) . . .
Headache
Teenager of the Year remains a challenging but ultimately rewarding outlier in Frank Black's career outside the Pixies but – reheard out of the context of its time – its strength is in that sometimes bewildering diversity and fine songs which, admittedly, require patient extrication.
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You can hear this album at Spotify here and iTunes. Available on double vinyl.
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