Turn It Up - Rock Hall Nominees, Part 1

David and Charles spotlight this year's nominees in a special two-part Turn It Up

It’s that time of year again - the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its latest set of nominees for induction last week. So we thought we’d spotlight a track by each of them this week in a special double edition of Turn It Up. Here’s part one, with the rest coming Friday. We’re offering them in no particular order. Keep in mind that this isn’t meant to represent our picks for who should get inducted - we’ll get to that soon enough! Instead, we’re highlighting a great and/or notable track by each of the contenders. Each day, we’re also including two Rock Hall Wishlist entries at the end, spotlighting two artists who aren’t in the Rock Hall, and aren’t nominated this year, but who very much deserve induction.

(Editors’ note: We also welcome a special guest today! When Charles saw Maná on the list of nominees, he immediately thought of his longtime friend Eric Wenninger, who first told him about the band and who’s spent a lot of time with their music over the years. So we’re turning things over to Eric to talk about this crucial group, since we knew he’d do a better job than we would.)

Mariah Carey – “Always Be My Baby” (from Daydream, 1995)

I think my very favorite Mariah Carey records, especially among her astonishing and continuing run of hits, are the ones where she finds a space between her most soaring dance-pop and her torchiest ballads. “Always Be My Baby” is a prime example of this sweet spot, where Carey sways inside the kind of bubbling groove that proved such a deathless source of pleasure in this era of pop, hip-hop, and R&B. (Or country – this song seemed then and seems now like a country hit waiting to happen.) I also love how deeply “Always Be My Baby” demonstrates Carey’s under-discussed work as pop auteur. As Andrew Chan explores in his fantastic recent book, her writing and production are a crucial element to her success in several pop eras and an important counterpoint to the sadly predictable framing of Carey as simply a vehicle for the artistic (and other) desires of her male collaborators. With Carey caressing the melody supported by affirming background responders, “Always Be My Baby” is as sweet as the first kiss and as sad as the last one. Leave it to the Queen of Christmas to strand us underneath the mistletoe. - CH (reprinted from last year)

Oasis – “The Hindu Times” (from Heathen Chemistry, 2002)

Back in 2002, for reasons too boring to describe here, I was in Ireland and hadn’t heard any rock ‘n’ roll for over a week. For me, this was a Footloose level of deprivation. I found my way into a record store in Dublin, where the about-to-be-released Oasis album was on the listening station. I was a fan, even in less starved circumstances. I put the headphones on, “The Hindu Times” started, and I legitimately had one of the purest moments of rock catharsis that I’ve ever experienced. The big drums, the cascading guitars, Liam Gallagher’s snotty declarations, the lyrics that are so cliched that they almost sound new again – it was, in all its corny maximalist glory, a fitting microcosm for the broader Oasis experience. The grandiosity has always been the point with Liam and Noel and company, of course. But at their best, which is more often than you might think, the unabashed self-importance is matched by massive hooks and arrangements that make even the most obvious homages in their playbook feel fresh somehow. I’d never argue for “The Hindu Times” as one of the best Oasis songs, but it’s my favorite. Because there’s no other Oasis song that I heard that day in the Irish record store, with those massive drums and cascading guitars and the rest turned up as loud as they’d go. Sometimes the old tricks are all you need. - CH (reprinted from last year)

Maná - “Cuando los Ángeles Lloran” (from Cuando los Ángeles Lloran, 1995)

At a time when many Latinx artists had to “cross over” by singing in English to expand their reach, Mexican band Maná just kept rocking out en español. Their sound is a fusion of genres—rock & roll, of course, but also reggae, ska, and funk. In many of their songs, lead singer Fernando “Fher” Olvera gives voice to love’s yearnings and heartbreaks. Llorar (crying) is often compared with llover (raining) and you’ll frequently hear words that rhyme with corazón (heart). The song “Cuando los Ángeles Lloran” (When Angels Cry) is a softer ballad that has all the classic Maná sounds, but with an added lyrical depth that highlights an aspect of the group I admire—their protest. It tells the story of Chico Mendes, the Brazilian activist murdered in 1988 for his efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest. Here, too, llorar and llover mix together, but for a different reason: when an earthly angel like Mendes dies, the angels above cry along with us—and it rains. Beyond their environmental and social advocacy, Maná tells stories that connect with the human experience. It’s why they’ve remained a staple in the Latin rock scene for so long—transcending borders and generations, and absolutely earning this historic nomination. - Eric Wenninger (check out Eric’s great newsletter An Uncommon Commute)

The Black Crowes - “Go Faster” (from By Your Side, 1999)

The Black Crowes’ first two albums are great, filled with vibrant southern-boy Faces/Stones pastiches that wear their influences on their sleeves but don’t get swallowed up by them. Still, my favorite Crowes track by a Georgia mile – and the one I recommend most – is “Go Faster,” the first track on their glossy 1999 effort By Your Side. After a brief invocation from Chris Robinson and guitar-slinging brother Rich, drummer Steve Gorman (always their secret weapon) kicks into a double-barreled rock groove that sends the band hurtling alongside him. This boogie is so full tilt that it seems ready to fall apart at any second, but it builds into an effortlessly catchy chorus that pulls off the neat track of sounding exactly like what it’s about. Eschewing the band’s trippier, jammier sides (which are loved by their fanbase but have never been my jam), “Go Faster” captures the vroom-vroom impulse that’s motivated (or, pardon me, motorvated) great rock ‘n’ roll over the years. Chris Robinson’s harmonica wails away, and the Black Crowes (not to mention their listeners) hang on for dear life as “Go Faster” rockets to its conclusion. They’ve never sounded better. – CH

Joe Cocker – “Seven Days” (from Sheffield Steel, 1982)

Joe Cocker was a fantastic singer. Sounding soulful and ravaged, phlegmy but phlegmatic, Cocker was perhaps the first and surely among the best of Ray Charles’s innumerable rock acolytes. As early as 1969, critic Robert Christgau judged the British star “the best rock interpreter,” simple as that. That same year, Cocker famously appeared at Woodstock and over the years, with a little help from mad dog tourmate Leon Russell and John Belushi, became an icon—at least for a generation or so there. A few chart hits helped his status, as did a half dozen classic rock radio staples on repeat somewhere even now. The hits stopped but he kept singing and recording—nearly 40 albums in all. He released seven albums this century alone, including distinctive takes on “You Haven’t Done Nothing,” “One,” “Everybody Hurts” and others up to his 2014 death. Outside of the early sets that made his reputation, my favorite Cocker album is 1982’s Sheffield Steel where he worked with reggae rhythm masters Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. Highlights include uniquely Cocker takes on Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross,” fellow Brother Ray acolyte Randy Newman’s “Marie,” and this lesser-known Bob Dylan song, “Seven Days.” Sly and Robbie play funky as hell as Joe waits for the arrival of his “beautiful comrade from the north.” Cocker’s desire rebounds between patient resignation and the absolute irritation that a week is a long fucking time. Just one of the better vocals this singer’s singer ever cut. –DC

Cyndi Lauper – “I Drove All Night” (from A Night to Remember, 1989)

Like Cocker, Cyndi Lauper is best known for a particular moment—the early 1980s, in her case, when her legitimately great solo debut, She’s So Unusual, lived up to its title by introducing a one-of-a-kind vocalist. “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “She-Bop” were the riotous grrrl-power hits, but the album also highlighted her skills as an interpreter, covering The Brains and Prince with equal success. There were more treasured and influential pop hits to come—and then a few decades of infrequent but varied releases worth your time. A 2016 country album, for example, included her version of an earlier era’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart.” Her anthemic 1989 version of “I Drove All Night” is something else altogether though. Instead of waiting for her man to arrive, she’s going to him—and fleeing unnamed existential troubles that are sticky and cruel, cold and dark. She’s sweaty and emotionally present as always—but uncharacteristically not fun. Sometimes there’s a long road of hard work ahead before you get to the good part. – DC

Billy Idol w/ Generation X– “Dancing with Myself” (from Kiss Me Deadly, 1981)

You know Billy Idol’s handful of hits—all of them fun and memorable examples of post-punk while also standing as models of pop punk to come, all of them taking themselves very seriously in a way that either embraces camp or stumbles upon it, all of them indistinguishable from his sneer and raised fist, ideal for MTV. “Dancing with Myself,” a 1981 cut with this earlier band Generation X which was rereleased after “White Wedding” broke through, is my favorite Idol by a long way: It has a new wavey bounce, kind of Go-Go’s meet the Clash, and itchy, propulsive rhythm guitar. I like the way here and there Idol breaks into an Elvis impersonation and the way his attack allows for loneliness, if not exactly alienation, while clearly being focused on hogging the spotlight and also on jacking off. – DC

New Order – “Your Silent Face” (from Power, Corruption & Lies, 1983)

I like (re)nominating Joy Division and New Order together, as in a sense one band. Not so much because they have mostly the same line ups. But because it was the suicide of Joy Division’s frontperson Ian Curtis that pushed a New Order upon the surviving members—a cruel final collaboration. (I also like the joint nomination because the sounds of the two bands are often much more of a piece, especially on the successor band’s earliest releases, than is usually allowed by those writing about them: It is not jarring at all to move from Joy Division’s post-punk Unknown Pleasures to New Order’s Movement.) I take it that “Your Silent Face,” my favorite New Order cut, the first song on side two of their masterpiece, Power, Corruption & Lies, is about their decision to dump the old plan (“the sign that leads the way”) for a new one “(the path we cannot take”)—or, rather, to have such a decision forced upon you, like it or not. The members of New Order are angry at Curtis and grieving his loss, but they’re irritated with our expectations too: I think that final “piss off” is for you and me, not their friend. But this reading of the song is something I’ve come to over decades and has nothing to do with why I liked the song so much in the moment. It’s the sound that hooks me, that tumbling rhythm running the group and us up our particular hills, the naked and shockingly twangy guitar lines, the ambiguous washes of synth (funereal? terrified? peaceful?) bearing us up and off to some destination, both frigid and warm, that we’ve yet to locate on any map. Feels like the place may have some kind of dance floor though. – DC

Rock Hall Wishlist: New York Dolls and Roberta Flack

New York Dolls – “Personality Crisis” (from New York Dolls, 1973)

The first time I heard a record by the New York Dolls, I didn’t get it and I didn’t like it. Feeling a sense of obligation (and the Dolls love from so many of my favorite rock writers), I listened again: I got it this time, but I still didn’t really like it. Something made me give them a third try, though, and then I realized just how great they were. Crunchy glam-rock filtered through girl groups and the British Invasion, with a pop-art sensibility that drew equally from both sides of the hyphen, the New York Dolls’ records are a glorious mess of riffs and hooks that strut across the stereo in platform heels. “Personality Crisis,” the first track that caught me, is a perfect symbol of how the group’s smeared-lipstick messiness just barely hides the radio-ready locomotive of their best songs: Johnny Thunders’ and Sylvain Sylvain’s sledgehammer riffs careen against steady propulsion from bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane and drummer Jerry Nelson, with David Johansen bellowing and pouting his way through the deceptively dynamic melody. Their small catalog – thankfully supplemented by a couple of fine reunion albums featuring Johansen and Sylvain as the group’s survivors – points the way forward to both jagged and sugar-sweet sides of the punk and New Wave spectrum, as well as how often they overlapped in artists from Joan Jett to Guns ‘N’ Roses to The Strokes and beyond. And their gender-fucked, trashy-glamour iconography is no less influential and still just as bracing and beautiful. They’re all gone now, with Johansen’s death last week making him the last one to leave the party. But they sound as good and important as they ever have, and it’s beyond time that the Rock Hall showed them some love. L-U-V. – CH

Roberta Flack – “Feel Like Makin’ Love” (from Feel Like Makin’ Love, 1975)

By any metric, the late Roberta Flack should be a Rock Hall shoo-in: She has the hits (many of which have endured and evolved into something like standards), she has the great albums (both solo and with the inestimable Donny Hathaway, another glaring Rock Hall omission), and she has the influence, with her echo heard in much of the most interesting music that’s been made in the last several decades. Her distinctiveness may, in fact, be part of what has made her hard to pin into such canon-making conversations. As Jason King and Ann Powers have both brilliantly explored, Flack’s commitment to the soft and slippery edges both made her uniquely great (and beloved among her fans) and has sometimes rendered her out of place in the larger, deeply limited, rock(ist)-centered narratives that still frame so many canon-making projects. (This is especially true, of course, for Black women working such sonic territory.) But even a cursory listen to Flack’s catalog – records like “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” from the gorgeous self-produced 1975 album of the same name, later covered by D’Angelo (among many others) and nestled comfortably within the pop-rock-soul-folk-jazz mix that produced so much of the best and most celebrated music of the ‘70s – reveals Flack as one of her era’s best and most transformative artists. Don’t get it twisted: Roberta Flack certainly doesn’t need the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to affirm her brilliance or impact. But she so deeply deserves induction, and I so wish she’d received it while she was still with us. – CH

Recommended reading/listening:

-Ann Powers on Roberta Flack, for NPR.com

-Ashawnta Jackson on Roberta Flack, for PBS.com

-Ashawnta Jackson on Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, for Oxford American

-JJ Skolnik on Roberta Flack’s importance for LGBTQIA+ fans, for PBS.com

-Elizabeth Nelson on Roberta Flack’s First Take, for Pitchfork

-Hanif Abdurraqib on Roberta Flack, for The New Yorker

-Daniel Wolff and Danny Alexander talk about critic Dave Marsh, at Rock’s Backpages

-Natalie Weiner on the country music descendants of “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” for Don’t Rock the Inbox

-Ellen Angelico profiles unsung Nashville musician Shelly Bush on the new podcast Girl In A Hurry

-Hanif Abdurraqib on The Clash, on the podcast Key Change/Song Exploder

-Annie Zaleski on David Johansen, for NPR.com

(from Jet 7/70)

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