Steve Earle “I Feel Alright”
In 1996, having shaken off five years of rust, sixty days in jail and a couple decades of addiction, Steve Earle released “I Feel Alright.” Whereas 1995s “Train a Comin’” found him looking backwards, “I Feel Alright” was a completely present album. It was vintage Earle, after the pink cloud had dissipated—honest, aching, and feeling “alright.” Which is to say he was not feeling great. But also he was not feeling awful. It was a hedge—somewhere between cautious and optimistic. “I Feel Alright” is the ultimate one day at a time response to the question, “How you doing?” As a description of Earle’s state of mind, it sounds appropriate. As a title for his sixth studio album, it feels like a radical understatement.
Devo “Smooth Noodle Maps”
Shortly after Mark Mothersbaugh scored “Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise,” but long before he worked on “Rushmore,” Devo was in flux. Dropped from Warner Brothers, they signed to Enigma Records, a label that specialized in crossover Metal, first rate, second wave Punk and just barely mainstream Art Rock. On paper, it seemed like a perfect fit. Unfortunately for both parties, “Total Devo,” from 1988, arrived with a thud and a sigh. If their Enigma debut anticipated the band’s break-up, though, “Smooth Noodle Maps,” from 1990, sealed it. The first Devo album not to chart in any English speaking country was not so much a commercial or critical failure (though it was both of those things) as it was something that Devo had never, ever been accused of. It was boring.
Teddy Pendergrass “Truly Blessed”
That was the conundrum Teddy faced in in the late Eighties — if and how to sing about sex from a wheelchair. After his accident, he was still a young man, closer to thirty than to forty. His sparkling smile was intact. His face was unscathed — in fact, he looked as handsome as ever. And while it is much harder to sing while seated, it is by no means impossible. As for everything else — the gliding onstage, the bend of the hips, the undressing, the working up a sweat, the showering and the burning hot oils — those were a lot more complicated. But Teddy did the work and made the transition. No, he was not the same person who drove a Maserati to perform at an arena full of women. He was something much less iconic but also much more sympathetic. He was an underdog — a redemption story.
Todd Rundgren “No World Order”
By 1992, Todd Rundgren — the guy who kind of, sort of invented Power Pop, who sang like Carole King, who could play any instrument, and who made Meat Loaf sound like a bat out of hell — was a middle-aged, former Rock star, former producer, father of two living in Marin County, California. If he’d proven anything during the previous decade, it was that he was deeply interested in the intersection of music and technology and largely disinterested in his own commercial prospects. Which meant that, if you were Warner Brothers Records, based in Burbank, California, and trying to sell a lot of albums, you probably wanted to steer clear from him. But, if you were Philips Electronics, based in Amsterdam, and you wanted to promote your new CD-i (compact disc interactive) players and discs, Todd Rundgren was definitely your guy.
Michael McDonald “Blink of an Eye”
There’s an aphorism that goes something like, “Brad Pitt is a character actor in a leading man’s body.” In music, there’s no direct equivalent for the Pitt aphorism. There are, of course, shy or mercurial singers — Bob Dylan and David Bowie fit that bill. But, solo artists, almost by definition, cannot be reluctant frontmen because they have no “back” to blend into. They are not part of a group — they are the show. The same applies to lead singers in bands, albeit for different reasons. There is really no such thing as a grudging frontman. A lead singer has to want it. Privately, they can be shy and awkward like Farrokh Bulsara, but when they hit the stage they have to be Freddie Mercury. That’s how it works. But, like all statutes, there are very rare exceptions. In the case of Rock and Roll frontmen, there is one indisputable outlier — a guy who sounds like Bob Seger and Darryl Hall at the same time. Who, once upon a time, looked like the love child of bearded, post-Beatles McCartney and a soul puppy. A guy whose voice is as rich as a yacht but who always preferred to be in the background, heard more than seen.
Buster Pointdexter “Buster’s Spanish Rocketship”
The prevailing discourse has always been that Buster Pointdexter was “the act.” That the tuxedo, giant pompadour, martini glasses, Jump Blues, and Eighties Club Med by way of Fifties Havana vibes was David Johansen having a go at everyone. That ten years after the demise of The Dolls — the world’s greatest band that never had a chance — and years after working his way around the world with the David Johansen Band and ending up exactly where he started (nowhere), he needed to make us laugh so we wouldn’t cry. Buster Pointdexter was supposed to be a serious good time, but also in no way serious. It was a gag. A costume. Closer to Tenacious D than to The Dolls. But what started out as a lark — a mildly embarrassing side hustle even — became a career. What’s more, Buster was not a phase. He was not an alter ego or an id. Looking back now, Buster Pointdexter was the thing.
Styx “Brave New World”
Like Queen, with whom they’ve often been compared, Styx has always been the kind of band that swings for the fences. Most of the time they whiff — but in a charming “love the effort” sort of way. When they connected, however, as they did roughly one time per album between 1973 and 1982, they hit it out of the park. Way out of the park. During that run, DeYoung, Shaw, Young and the Panozzo brothers scored a half dozen top ten hits and five consecutive platinum-selling albums. And yet it always seemed to me that the band was a mistake — that we already had Queen and Journey. That DeYoung should be wowing audiences on Broadway (which he eventually did) and that Shaw should be fronting a Hair Metal band (which he also eventually did). By the end of the Nineties, seventeen years removed from the dystopian, sci-fi hit that broke the bank and the band, Styx were still swinging, but no longer connecting.
Dim Stars “Dim Stars”
Though it was released in 1991, “Dim Stars” sounds like New York City in 1988 — when Jon Spencer was fronting Pussy Galore and before Sonic Youth got a major label deal and when Avenue A was still sketchy and when everything stunk of imminent recession. Like all of those other things, you could call “Dim Stars” loose and offhanded, or you could call it sloppy. You could call it artful or avant garde, or you could say that it sounds like shit. But in fact, it really sounds like four different things. One, like Sonic Youth with Richard Hell splitting the difference between Thurston and Kim. Two, like a poorly made sequel to “Destiny Street.” Three, like an overqualified Scuzz Rock band that had not yet found its groove. And, finally, like a post-structuralist hipster cover band.
Billy Preston “You and I”
If 1979 marked the end of Billy Preston’s run as a Pop star, it was a beautiful finish. “Late at Night,” his first record for Motown and his last of the decade, found The Fifth Beatle after dark, conjuring a quiet storm. “With You I’m Born Again,” the album’s hit single, was a duet with Syreeta Wright that explained everything from Barbra Streisand to Luther Vandross. By 1982, however, “Billy Preston the superstar” was done. Lionel Richie, Prince and, mostly, Michael Jackson, had taken over his corner. The new music spigot was shut off. Guest work dried up. And, one day, the ubiquitous sideman found himself buried under a mountain of cocaine and bad decisions. And so, in 1997, as legal and financial problems mounted and rumors and innuendo swirled, Preston escaped six thousand miles from the bright lights of Hollywood into the open arms of a past prime Italian Electro Pop group named Novecento.
Rob Thomas “Chip Tooth Smile”
While I have been guilty of my fair share of Matchbox Twenty eye rolls, I was also guilty of not really knowing much about the band. They were always something of an enigma to me — a mystery that I couldn’t shake. Except, it wasn’t really the band I was interested in — it was their frontman, Rob Thomas. I had read all the facts (Wikipedia) and heard all the albums (four with Matchbox Twenty and four solo), but I still had zero clue. Was he more Adam Duritz or Ed Kowalczyk or Stephan Jenkins? Or was he my generation’s answer to Phil Collins and Lionel Richie? Generally speaking, time is the enemy of Rock and Roll. But it’s a dear friend to writers. Time furnishes us with perspective and evidence. It reveals lies and truths. It separates bad style from bad music and characters from their settings. Also, as Rust Cohle once suggested, time is just a flat circle. Time was very much on my side as I followed the investigation to its logical conclusion — Rob Thomas’ 2019 solo album, “Chip Tooth Smile.”
John Hiatt “Perfectly Good Guitar”
There’s a concept in child rearing — and I’m honestly not sure if it’s armchair psychology or actual science or what — called “perfectly adequate” parenting. Its premise is radically simple: that parents should be no more or no less than their child needs. One the one hand, it makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, nobody really wants to be “perfectly adequate.” Not in parenting. Not in life. Not in work. And, certainly, not in music. Pop music is defined by highs and lows. By mania and soul. The road in between is longer, and oftentimes much harder. It’s a workmanlike path — one that is rarely disruptive or revelatory, but is eventually, and amazingly, just right. Richard Thompson is always perfectly adequate. Sometimes more. Never any less. John Prine. Lyle Lovett. Nick Lowe. Always perfectly adequate. But of all the singers I can think of, the one who is most truly perfectly adequate — whose skill is evident, whose records are solid and whose faith and commitment is unwavering — is John Hiatt.
Tin Machine “Tin Machine II”
By the late Eighties, there were no fresh blood for David Bowie — the greatest vampire in Rock and Roll — to suck. The top Rock radio songs of 1988 included Henry Lee Summer’s “I Wish I Had a Girl” (what? who?), Bruce Hornsby and the Range’s “Valley Road” (rocks so light) and Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers’ “I’m Not Your Man” (not a typo, I checked). After two consecutive duds, Bowie was desperate for inspiration, but the pickings were slim. And so, he did what desperate people do. He found the nearest available guy and went all in. No research. No courtship. He just needed a guy with a beating heart, pumping blood and some capacity to make music. But mostly, he someone who could be a willing host to a brilliant parasite. Reeves Gabrels was that new host. And, in spite of his regal sounding name, he was truly just a guy — a guy from Staten Island, New York, who happened to be married to David Bowie’s tour publicist. One day, Gabrels was playing steel guitar in Rhode Island for a band called Rubber Rodeo. A year later, he was the cofounder of Tin Machine.
Fred Schneider “Just Fred”
Fred Schneider was an unlikely frontman. For one thing, he either could not or would not sing. Similarly, he seemed more interested in John Waters than in John Lydon. Fred never dreamed of making the next “Like a Rolling Stone.” He wanted to make the next “Monster Mash.” And so he spent over a decade, from “Rock Lobster” through “Love Shack,” blurring the lines between novelty Pop and artsy Rock. But, in 1996, at the very height of Alt, Fred Schneider reemerged as a solo act. During a time wherein “Alternative culture” had become overly serious, it was revealed that “Just Fred” was produced by Steve Albini and featured a cast of stalwart Indie Rock veterans as the backing band. On the surface, it sounded all wrong. No keyboards. No Kate Pierson or Cindy Wilson. No party. It seemed contrarian and willfully provocative, like hearing that sweet, adorable Alyssa Milano — Sam from “Who’s The Boss” — was making a turn into adult, erotic thrillers. But, in the same way that I definitely checked out “Poison Ivy 2,” I was not not curious about “Just Fred.”
Leon Russell “Anything Can Happen”
Having spent more than a decade building his reputation as the “guy to call” when you needed a guy, Leon Russell was suddenly more than just “a guy.” He became “the guy.” In 1970, after touring with Delaney and Bonnie and releasing a critically adored solo debut, he put on his top hat, dusted off his beard and assembled the greatest live band on the planet for Joe Cocker’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” tour. And though the experience nearly killed him (and his bandmates), it marked the beginning of the next phase of his storied career. Whereas during the 1960s, Russell was on the side or behind the scenes, in the 1970s, he was a frontman, gracing album covers, standing center stage, and sharing the limelight with everyone from George Harrison to Willie Nelson. For a natural introvert who was perhaps meant to be a bandleader more than a Pop star, it proved to be too much for him. Depleted and lost, the man who’d released over a dozen albums in the Seventies, eked out only two the following decade. By the Nineties, he was stuck somewhere between the “where are you now” and the “who’s that guy” files. Leon Russell lost his way and then began to fade out, until, one day, Bruce Hornsby came a calling.
Willy DeVille “Backstreets of Desire”
When Dylan went from folkie hobo to poet in black turtleneck and shades, it seemed like affect. When Bowie went from Ziggy to Thin White Duke, it felt like an art project. And when Madonna went from Material Girl to S&M Barbarella, it came off like a marketing stunt. But Willy DeVille was the genuine article — a real life shapeshifter. The man born William Borsay Jr., from Stamford, Connecticut, would become a Spanish Harlem pimp, a Bowery gutter prince, a riverboat gambler, and a Navajo mystic. In 1992, somewhere between the Bayou and his eventual return to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, he briefly wound up in Los Angeles. And, in spite of crippling addiction and decades of commercial disappointments, Willy made one of the great, barely heard Roots Rock albums of the decade. “Backstreets of Desire” might read like something from Springsteen’s swamps of Jersey, but it sounds like the Los Angeles that made Los Lobos, Tom Waits and Warren Zevon.
Cheap Trick “Cheap Trick”
The idea of a “return to form” is nothing new. Neil Young’s “Freedom” was his “return to form.” So was Clapton’s “Journeyman.” Dylan has probably “returned to form” half a dozen times in his career. The implication is the same: that some beloved, aging artist who had lost their way was finally making great music again -- music that confirmed their original brilliance. In 1997, ahead of their thirteenth studio album, writers and publicists were insisting that Cheap Trick’s latest was a return to form. Fans came out from the woodwork. Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer portended the event. Cheap Trick had found their way back. The band that Mike Damone and millions of Japanese teenagers once loved was coming back to get their due. But for a group whose success was so fast and so fleeting, and whose last hit was a hairy, ten year old power ballad, it was fair to wonder: what form were they returning to, exactly?
The Doobie Brothers “Brotherhood”
Today, they are the butt of a joke that started as an internet meme. They signify an amalgam of 1970s idealism, kitsch and grooviness alongside early 80s cool, coked up excess. All because of four albums they released between 1976 and 1980, and because of Michael McDonald’s proximity to Steely Dan, Christopher Cross and Kenny Loggins. Because of that, The Doobies are Twitter jokes and Spotify playlists more than they are “China Grove,” “Black Water,” “What A Fool Believes” and the bootlegging scandal from “What’s Happening!!” For nearly a decade, however, they were the American monoculture. Not The Eagles or Fleetwood Mac or M*A*S*H. The Doobie Brothers. They were the opposite of a punchline. The opposite of any one thing. They were everything. Then, one day, everything became too much and they were gone. By the time they came back, everything had changed. Everything, except The Doobie Brothers.
Booker T and the M.G.’s “That’s the Way It Should Be”
We are living in the golden age of music documentaries. In the last year alone, we got “Get Back,” “The Summer of Soul” and “The Velvet Underground.” Before those, there was the one about Ronnie James Dio and the one about Sparks and the Alanis one and the Poly Styrene one and, oh, that Karen Dalton one. It seems like every year, as part of the battle for streaming service supremacy, we get dozens of new additions to the canon. But the one that, for some reason, has yet to be made is the one about the bi-racial house band for Stax Records who made Otis Redding sound like Otis Redding and who were, in their own right, among the most important, but least documented, bands in R&B history. In 1994, seventeen years after their “last” album, they returned to make it final. Even in middle-age, Booker T. and the M.G.’s were flawless but soon forgotten.
Jim Palmer “The Unnatural”
In 1991, just months after forty-three year old Nolan Ryan had thrown yet another another no-hitter, but six years after forty-nine year old Jim Brown was bested by Franco Harris in the forty-yard dash, Jim Palmer was making a comeback. The former Orioles great was forty-five at the time and already a member of the baseball Hall of Fame. To some, the decision only confirmed their long held view: That Palmer was vain — a genetically gifted prima donna who required outsized attention. Fans, meanwhile, knew the the other Jim Palmer — the one who’d who’d spent decades playing through pain, getting booed and doubted, while still delivering pennants for the O’s. They saw the return as the last comeback in a career of comebacks for an unnaturally great pitcher who — yes — happened to resemble “The Natural.”
Chicago “Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus”
Some albums remain hidden because they were not made for public consumption. “The Basement Tapes” comes to mind. Others sit on the shelf because of incessant tinkering. “Chinese Democracy” might fit that bill. Sometimes, as with The Beach Boys’ “Smile” or Jeff Buckley’s “Grace,” the issues are entirely more human. But “Stone of Sisyphus,” Chicago’s thirty second album, recorded to be their twenty second album, is a different sort of animal. It was not released for the most obvious and depressing of reasons: their record label hated it. In its wide embrace of Rap, Slow Jams and Phil Collins, “Sisyphus” marked a return to the band’s eclectic roots. But in its wanton disregard for hits, it also served as a final farewell to the Cetera afterglow and an uncertain hello to the great unknown.