PLUS: A Spotify playlistof the New York Dolls' best songs, below...
It's probably an oversimplification, but the music of the early seventies pretty much sucked. Sure, we had talented, cerebral cats like Randy Newman, Big Star, and David Bowie, who rocked out with rouge on. But it was dire if you were looking for stuff that was dangerous. And would make you jump out of your seat in school and draw dirty pictures on the overhead projector. Then, like God was listening, along came the New York Dolls. Forty years ago this month, these girlish guys, with hooks and looks, released their debut album and changed everything. They sang about having a "Personality Crisis," shooting drugs, and the questionable merits of having sex with Frankenstein. And influenced everybody, from crapmeisters Kiss to geniuses like the Ramones. So, as we celebrate this eponymous album, there's one big question: Why aren't the New York Dolls in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Sylvain Sylvain, one of the two original living Dolls, isn't sweating the induction. But the guitarist likes discussing it and those early days.
"One thing comes to mind about those days," says Sylvain, who, forty years on, still tawks like a Bowery Boy. "When we got signed, it was, 'About fuckin' time!' We were passed on by every record company. Even Mick Jagger himself. Mercury finally signed us. And Todd Rundgren ended up doing the record. He was a good choice, because he made us sound like we did live. There's really no production on the record. It's just the way the Dolls sounded."
So why is this group that inspired Rotten and Strummer not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
"I bet it has something to do with Clear Channel," Sylvain says, laughing. "Still, the fans love us. Kids discuss us on Twitter. People tattoo [guitarist] Johnny Thunders on their butts. Just tell the Hall of Fame this: If you don't vote for us, you're a bunch of fking Nixons!"
Robert Christgau, legendary music critic, has his own theories as to why this insanely influential band hasn't yet been inducted.
"They made made two great albums that had no commercial impact, then came back and made a few more. The first [of those, in 2006] is as great as the others. It's not the kind of thing you expect voters at the Hall of Fame to know, because they're pretty stupid," says Christgau. "The Stooges and the Ramones are their counterparts and they're in, right? But both had long careers. The Dolls should be in. My daughter, who's twenty-eight, thinks the Dolls are the greatest band of all time. Johnny Rotten loved them. Now you're beginning to build a case."
It should be noted that Christgau says all this in the same good-naturedly angry manner that characterizes his writing.
"The Sex Pistols, too, had a manager that promoted them well. The Dolls didn't. Do I like the Dolls better than the Sex Pistols? Yes," says Christgau. "They released three albums on which there isn't a single ordinary song. To do it twice in the seventies is enough. To come back thirty-two years later and make an old man's album on a foundation of what is defiantly 'kid's music' is evidence of the spiritual depth that [lead singer] David Johansen invested in those 'kid's' songs. David's a superb lyricist and helped to bring about punk. David and the Dolls are transitional figures."
For his part, David Johansen, the Dalai Lama of rock 'n' roll, speaks about the Hall of Fame with so much Zen bemusement he ends up dismantling it.
"I'm not particularly sentimental," says Johansen, in a voice so gravelly he sounds like Tom Waits's vocal coach. "So I guess getting inducted doesn't occur to me."
What does Johansen recall about making the Dolls' debut disc?
"In the studio, there were lots of flashing lights on the board. I was mesmerized by it all. Very pretty," he says, chuckling.
"We went into a room and just recorded. It wasn't like these people who conceptualize things. It was just a document of what was going on at the time. We were already playing those songs at the Mercer Arts Center. We had a couple days to make the record, so we just recorded it. Like a blues record. But everything in America is blues. The Archies are blues."
On why he thinks the band isn't in the Hall of Fame?
"Playa haters," Johansen says, cracking up. "But it doesn't concern me. It's a bit like Madame Tussauds. I don't go to Madame Tussauds."
And was notoriously difficult Todd Rundgren the right man to produce?
"As opposed to who? You gotta understand, people didn't want to work with us. They all thought they were going to catch something. We use to hang out at the back room of Max's [Kansas City], so we knew Todd from there. It wasn't, 'Who do we get to produce us?' It was, 'Todd's the only guy who isn't afraid of us.' Things were different in those days. People were a lot less evolved."
I mention that Rundgren, touring this summer, has been playing the Dolls' "Personality Crisis."
Poker-voiced, Johansen says, "That's a good song."
He riffs about existence, saying stuff like, "Life is a fracas, an unmapped terrain, a bit of geometry stricken with epilepsy." And then we get back to the Hall of Fame. The singer of one of rock's greatest bands ends our conversation oddly, by bowing to, possibly, one of its worst.
And you can't tell if he's kidding.
"Let's me ask you something," Johansen croaks in his best basso profundo. "Is Grand Funk in the Hall of Fame? They're not? Okay, then. I'll say this: I will not go into that fucking Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No way. Not until Grand Funk gets in first. How's that?"
As Robert Christgau says, there isn't a bad song on the first three Dolls albums. But just to get you started, so you can really rock out or score points with that strangely sexy girl at the bar who's been giving you the eye, here are a handful of the Best Songs of the New York Dolls.
1. "Personality Crisis," The New York Dolls, 1973 — The first song on the first side of the first album is simply one of the best rock 'n' roll songs ever made. From David Johansen's werewolf howls to Johnny Thunders' Chuck-Berry-on-smack licks, this song (about losing — or is that finding? — your mind) will get your party started. Even if you're alone.
2. "Looking for a Kiss," The New York Dolls, 1973 — Maybe their mission statement. David Jo, ever the survivor, ain't looking for a fix. He's looking for a kiss. Ain't we all?
3. "Babylon," Too Much, Too Soon, 1974 — This is why the hippies couldn't handle the Dolls. Who else starts their second album with a rockin' ode to Long Guy Land? Ecch! No, cool!
4. "Dance Like a Monkey," One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, 2006 — This Bo Diddley-inspired tune makes fun of evolutionists and creationists alike. It shows why Syl rocks and David doesn't really care about politics. He just wants to dance!
5. "'Cause I Sez So," 'Cause I Sez So, 2009 — Produced by old friend Todd Rundgren. You won't hear a cooler, more authentic rock song in your time. It totally grooves, while David mock-complains about how they have cameras pointed at you. Everywhere and always. And his point? Who the fuck cares?
Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture.
