By STEVE SIMELS
ANOTHER (YAWN) TEN BEST LIST THIS is the time of year, traditionally, when critics in all fields trot out their Ten Bests. The reasons for this bizarre seasonal preoccupation have always been a bit vague, but still, not to be outdone, I'm about to trot out my own. However, since this column coincides With STEREO REVIEW'S Record of the Year fiesta (which I participate in), perhaps a word of explanation is in order.
What follows, then, are the records I voted for, some of which actually won.
As you'll notice, though, all my nominees are rock-and-roll; I firmly believe that, despite rock's current hard times, it's still unquestionably the most vital form of popular music. But the rest of my fellow critics can't be expected to share my prejudices, so it's understand able that several of these albums didn't make the list. All right, a little traveling music, Ray!
Steeleye Span: "Parcel of Rogues." By all odds, Steeleye, one of the count less British folk-rock bands that ultimately derive from Fairport Convention, should be as boring as any of the countless British blues bands that ultimately derive from John Mayall. But in reality they're probably the most exciting and original band in England at the moment. Somehow, they've managed to be simultaneously purist and shatteringly contemporary, and have become both the world's first Elizabethan heavy metal band and a fascinating reminder that Pete Townshend and John Lennon really come out of the same tradition as Anon., the famous composer of all the Renaissance ditties Steeleye performs.
The Byrds: "Byrds." I don't care what anybody says, this is a great record. Most of the critical carping about it has centered on the lack of electricity, to which I can only say So What? All the early Byrds albums were significantly different from one another, so if their reunion is primarily acoustic, I don't see how that in itself is a betrayal of some sort. Besides, the material is gorgeous, the singing is gorgeous, and the whole enterprise has, as Ken Emerson ob served, a kind of quiet integrity; I doubt that any other band could match it at this stage of the game.
Bruce Springsteen: "Greetings from Asbury Park, N J ." Of course, I spent my adolescence in the Garden (or is it Pizza?) State, so perhaps I'm prejudiced.
Still, despite the kiss-of-death "New Dylan" hype that Columbia has given him, and despite the fact that most of the current crop of singer/songwriters give me a swift pain, I have no doubt that this kid has really got it. For one thing, his lyrics are a terrific combination of Dylan's Highway 61 speed-freak ramble-epics with poignant accounts of what Lester Bangs has called "the interrupted dry grope of growing up in the Sixties." For another, his music is an absolutely haunting kind of mutated sleazy r-&-b, and his band is fantastic. It all reminds me of what Van Morrison might be doing if he ever stopped whining.
The Rolling Stones: "Goats Head Soup." The Stones are having image problems these days, or so some critics think; actually, given that 95 percent of the new wave of rockers are so obsessed with them, it's more like a case of re verse cannibalism-with everyone imitating them, how could they help but sound like imitators? Anyway, this is, for the Stones, a second-rate album, but I don't hear anybody else doing anything significantly better, and it will have to suffice.
The Who: "Quadrophenia." Despite a succession of mediocre solo albums, the unconscionably long wait since "Who's Next," and Townshend's infatuation with Meher Baba (the Silent Cal of the spiritual set), the Who looks, with this album, stronger than ever. "Quadrophenia" has almost too much going for it-literary ambitions, sex and drugs, teenage Angst, and some of the most incisive playing they've ever done. But if the Who,-as Greil Marcus has declared, is the spirit of rock-and-roll, then, on the evidence of this album at least, rock is in better shape than some of us realized.
Iggy and the Stooges: "Raw Power." And speaking of rock-and-roll, this is where we separate the men from the boys, if you'll pardon the expression.
The Stooges used to be a standing joke around my house (I still can't really listen to their Elektra albums), but not any more; songs like Search and Destroy and Gimme Danger are about the purest rock anyone has made in ages, and James Williamson gets my vote as guitarist of the century.
Roy Wood: "Boulders." This is probably the first one-man show by a rock artist that really succeeds, and it's a hell of a lot of fun to boot. Wood is a terribly clever fellow- clever enough, in fact, to have approached this solo effort precisely as he would have approached any of his group ventures. And, since he can pull it off technically, the emphasis re mains on the songs, where it belongs.
There's been a lot of yammer lately about a Neo-Beatles movement from the likes of the Raspberries, the Stories, and Big Star, but in terms of imagination and pop savvy, this is a lot closer to what the Fab Four represented.
John Cale: " Paris 1919." Cale is something of a misunderstood genius, but here, for the first time since he left the Velvets, he's come up with some thing really accessible; the result, de spite haunting lyrics, symphonic arrangements, and some of the best Procol Harum-style tunes since "A Salty Dog," is an album that has sold less than any since Van Dyke Parks. Ah, well.
Mott the Hoople: "Mott." Mott is finally making it, but I have serious doubts about the group's ability to continue without Mick Ralph's plaintive vocals and guitar to counterbalance Ian Hunter's increasing superstar affectations. This used to be a great band, be fore Bowie got his hands on them; now, as much as I love them, they're looking like the Ian Hunter Show. Still, even if this turns out to be their creative swan song, they couldn't have gone out any stronger.
Blues Project: " Reunion in Central Park." If there had never been a Blues Project, there would never have been guitar virtuosos, drum solos, and flutes in a rock-and-roll context. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but only a little, and it's not their fault that their disciples have beaten those ideas into the ground; at their best, which was never adequately captured on record, they were over whelming. This reunion is a vindication of everything they stood for, and coming, as it does, almost seven years after they broke up, it's better than anyone could have dared hope. It is, finally, a well-engineered documentation of the group performing at its peak, and bless all concerned.
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