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Having been a member of Television in their pre-Marquee Moon days, stoked the bass for The Heartbreakers and chased by Malcolm McLaren during his New York Dolls phase, Richard Hell had already packed a lot into his CV by the time he got round to recording this seminal album. With his sulking bruise of a voice, torn clothes and a king-size sneer that Elvis would have been proud of, Hell was every inch a punk rock icon long before the safety-pinned crowds cottoned on to the new threads. Unlike the vast majority of the clones that would follow, there was a keen intelligence at work behind the pose.
He was into his late twenties when he stepped up to the microphone to record his tequila-fuelled vocals and for all their off-the-cuff artlessness, his words were honed by a voracious high-brow reading habit. Wry innuendo aside, “Love Comes In Spurts” traces the emotional atrophy of a childhood where love is doled out in miserly packages. Abuse of another kind is alluded to in “Liars Beware” and the anger of “Betrayal Takes Two isn’t deployed every which way but conveyed with the precision of a stiletto blade. As with the words, there’s more to music than first meets the ear. Though the vernacular deals in three-chord slang, Robert Quine’s maturity (35 at the time and as much influenced by Ornette Coleman as the Velvet Underground) lends the guitar parts on the album (shared with Ivan Julien) a subtle complexity that would not sound out of place on a Captain Beefheart album.
Eclectic cover versions (Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Walking On Water” and lounge crooning standard “All The Way”) add to the patina of deft accomplishment. There’s a neat Talking Heads-type sophistication about “The Plan”, whilst the epic twitch-funk smoke of “Another World” billows crazily like steam escaping from a New York street. There are perhaps only a handful of records which encapsulate the environment that spawned them but The Blank Generation bottles up the smell and feel of the whole NY CBGB era, making it a thrilling and improbably poignant listening experience. --Sid Smith
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Product Description
feat. 'love comes in spurts' Influential 1977 album from New York punk innovators.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
A must have. Hell had already performed versions of some of the key tracks - including Love Comes in Spurts and Blank Generation - during his spells with Television and the Heartbreakers. But the versions on this legendary album finally allowed the songs to stand out as some of the great recordings of the punk period. Hell's lyrics - among the sharpest of the era - find their ideal foil with Ivan Julian and Robert Quine's uncanny guitar interplay. While Hell's wordplay and decent bass playing fitted made him an ideal frontman, Quine is in many ways the star of the show. His remarkable solos heralded the arrival of a major talent, whose work - despite spells with Lou Reed, Lloyd Cole and Matthew Sweet - never really got the recognition that one of the all time great guitarists deserved.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Richard Hell, the influential punk/poet self styled Rimbaud figure of New York punk. It follows that his music with the Voidoids should also be suitably nihilistic. It is. Love Comes In Spurts is Hell's love song, with an unmissable double entendre. His voice is shaky, unsure, like an American Vic Goddard. His lyrics however, are sharp, clever and reveal his intensly intelligent mind which is hidden behind the dumb punk exterior. The sublime Blank Generation, one of the classic punk singles of all time, influenced the Sex Pistols Pretty Vacant. The connection is obvious. But the differences are vast. The Pistols... lyrics offer no passion, no ideals and no sense of a future other than a superficial one. Hell offers us the blank to fill in as we choose. Instead of I Belong To The Blank Generation, Hell intended there to be a space where 'Blank' should be. You work out the rest. Hell remains a romantic, albeit a doomed one, throughout and his follow up album Destiny Street is just as good if not better. Guitar supplied by 'virtuoso' and one time Lou Reed guitarist Bob Quinn. An excellent album, punk noise but ethics from somewhere else altogether.
Format:Audio CD
If you love the pistols and the clash you have to get this !!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Hell is other people
Richard was the midwife of punk rock, never fully entering the tent as the creator of the universe. He was one template Malcolm gazed in with awe whilst managing the Dolls. Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2010 by Dr. Delvis Memphistopheles
New York Art Punk
This album appeared the same year as the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks and is in the same league. Read more
Published on 10 Oct 2002 by Pieter
The Hives with rips in his clothes and too much hair soap.
My sister used to work for a record PR company in the late 70's and came home with an armfull of Richard Hell. This record stuck itself to my turntable. Read more
Published on 17 May 2002 by philip@ghostboy.com
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