Artist: New York Dolls
Album: Cause I Sez So
Year: 2009
Grade: 2 pretzels
Keeping with my current trend of bands that have no business still recording music, the magic spinning Pretzel Logic review-o-meter has landed on the New York Dolls and the second album of their wholly unnecessary reunion, Cause I Sez So. Although the legacy of the Dolls, in all their 70s glory, should never be detracted from, these new albums, recorded by a bunch of aging glam/punk lunatics pushing sixty, are something nobody needs. I’m glad a new generation (ie: my own) are being introduced to the Dolls in the process, but that’s about as positive as I can be.
The most glaring problem with Cause I Sez So is how fucking huge it sounds. The Dolls have become widely acclaimed after all these decades, but that doesn’t mean they should sound like an arena band. There’s so much goddamn space in this music. Everything is heavy on widescreen drama and fabricated excitement, instead of the sweaty, sloppy, thrilling sound that actually made them famous. The Dolls are one of those “Best Bar Band In The World” kind of acts and they just don’t sound that good when they sound this colossal.
The two surviving Dolls (the other three original ones have all died) go through the motions admirably, accompanied by the requisite hired help. Guitarist Sylvain Sylvain does the one thing he was put on Earth to do: play sleazy, hard blues licks until the end of the world. Even frontman David Johansen doesn’t sound horrible, even when he adopts a strange, faux-Bob Dylan affectation for songs like “My World”. However, some of the musical choices are a bit…how can I say this politely?…questionable, such as the flamenco-flavored “Temptation To Exist”. I mean…flamenco? Really?
Cause I Sez So ends up feeling like a Dolls record made by people who had no real idea of what people wanted from the band. I mean, just look at that title. What is the band trying to prove with the bad grammar and all that? These guys are approaching sixty. We’re not expecting them to still be incoherent, slobbering goons toppling around the stage in high heels. Stranger still is the reggae cover of their own “Trash”, one of the most famous songs from their debut album. I bet I could count on one hand the number of people in the world who desperately wanted a reggae “Trash”, but here I am, listening to it as I write this sentence. It’s these kinds of weird, perplexing artistic choices that assure me that the New York Dolls, as awesome as they once were, are a band that simply doesn’t need to exist anymore.
The most glaring problem with Cause I Sez So is how fucking huge it sounds. The Dolls have become widely acclaimed after all these decades, but that doesn’t mean they should sound like an arena band. There’s so much goddamn space in this music. Everything is heavy on widescreen drama and fabricated excitement, instead of the sweaty, sloppy, thrilling sound that actually made them famous. The Dolls are one of those “Best Bar Band In The World” kind of acts and they just don’t sound that good when they sound this colossal.
The two surviving Dolls (the other three original ones have all died) go through the motions admirably, accompanied by the requisite hired help. Guitarist Sylvain Sylvain does the one thing he was put on Earth to do: play sleazy, hard blues licks until the end of the world. Even frontman David Johansen doesn’t sound horrible, even when he adopts a strange, faux-Bob Dylan affectation for songs like “My World”. However, some of the musical choices are a bit…how can I say this politely?…questionable, such as the flamenco-flavored “Temptation To Exist”. I mean…flamenco? Really?
Cause I Sez So ends up feeling like a Dolls record made by people who had no real idea of what people wanted from the band. I mean, just look at that title. What is the band trying to prove with the bad grammar and all that? These guys are approaching sixty. We’re not expecting them to still be incoherent, slobbering goons toppling around the stage in high heels. Stranger still is the reggae cover of their own “Trash”, one of the most famous songs from their debut album. I bet I could count on one hand the number of people in the world who desperately wanted a reggae “Trash”, but here I am, listening to it as I write this sentence. It’s these kinds of weird, perplexing artistic choices that assure me that the New York Dolls, as awesome as they once were, are a band that simply doesn’t need to exist anymore.
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