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Review
By the time this album was released they’d already packed enough rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle into their three years existence than most bands get in a lifetime. Having supported Rod Stewart, lost a drummer to heroin and lived as hard as their songs suggested, they’d emerged from a residency in New York’s Mercer Arts Center as both pariahs and icons. Hated by the old guard (Bob Harris’ sneering intro on the Old Grey Whistle Test showed exactly what his generation thought of these preening transvestite lookalikes) they gave early hope to a teen audience sick of bloated prog and muso posturing.
For their first album they’d taken the rather unusual step of hiring the decidedly muso Todd Rundgren. Legend has it that he’d been taken to see the band to demonstrate how awful they were, but decided that he liked them anyway. In the studio he took a largely hands-off approach which captured them in their raw essence. To this day fans blame Todd for the album’s somewhat muzzy tone, but the truth is that the band were victims of their own snobbishness; wresting the tapes from him before he could mix it properly.
No matter. The New York Dolls is a powerhouse of Stones swagger, bluesy attitude, garage punk sloppiness and 60s girl group pastiche. From the opening scream of “Personality Crisis” (which still sounds similar to Noddy Holder’s) via the social commentary of “Vietnamese baby” and chronicling of NY’s demi-monde in “Looking For A Kiss”, “Subway Train” or “Bad Girl” it appealed equally to fans of the MC5, glam or heavy metal. No one at this time had combined all this into a single band. The riffs of Johnny Thunders and the bawling of David Johansen gave birth to big hair metal as well as punk and still sounds like the end of civilisation. As their follow-up was so rightly named, Too Much Too Soon, it couldn’t last. But today their debut still startles on every listen. --Chris Jones
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Customer Reviews
A miracle? Well, no. Simply put, the New York Dolls' debut album is the most arrogant, glamourous, rude, cheeky, snarling, potent and above all brilliant rock album ever made. This album has everything, in fact, that a perfect rock album should.
Part Rolling Stones, part Stooges, part charity shop chic, the Dolls took image and music and mashed it together so effortlessly that the whole act seemed natural. Magnificent put-downs (Looking For A Kiss, Trash), arrogance par-excellance - God, they even get their covers to sound like their own (Pills). Johansson's snarl is perfect, Thunders' riffs sound more like a finely trained aural assault unit, and Nolan's drumming thuds along giving the Dolls the best guitar-drums axis ever committed to record.
You want attitude? You got it. You want glamour? You got it. You so desparate to prove the validity of rock 'n' roll as rebellion that you want your favourite bands to cuss old women? Hell, that's there too. If rock ever became a subject at school, well, here's your Shakespeare, boys!
No weak tracks. No substitute. No excuse not to buy it. Why I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love L-U-V.
Well, three decades late, I can see what the fuss was about. This is storming, raucous rock 'n' roll, setting a template not just for punk, but also for much of the '70s pop sound.
It's not difficult to see how much they influenced the Pistols, with Thunders' guitar licks liberally copied by Steve Jones. At the time they wouldn't have sounded (or looked) like anyone else. Today, they still sound sh*t hot, redy to influence a new generation of rockers.
Don't put it off any longer, buy this.
From the early days you knew it was going to be a rough ride as all of the band dressed in semi-drag, and one by one they became heroin addicts. By the end of it all, it was very messy with the survivors only achieving a slightly less extreme lifestyle, which would lead to further great musical output and the deaths of two band members from their excesses.
The music though - that was what they excelled at! Maybe it's a little toned down on this first record thanks to the production of Todd Rundgren, but what he did manage to do was to make the music far more accessible. 'Personality Crisis' is one of those songs that you cannot get out of your head once it's in there, and other tracks like 'Frankenstein' and 'Subway Train' are just as good. It's rooted in pretty conventional 50's rock and roll but with a heavy, heavy dose of 70's guitars and lots of attitude and a very rough edge. It's like listening to Chuck Berry after a bottle of scotch and a pound of amphetamine, and looking at 5 persons of undefinable gender after an explosion in a charity shop, but it's hell of an experience to crank up the volume and let this hit you in the head!
Their appearance was stunning even for the decade that fashion forgot, how many times do you see 5 men dressed in not so good drag and make up? I remember them playing on "The Old Grey Whistle Test" Everyone at school was stunned the next day and this was a pity as the music was forgotten even though they were awesome.
Just listen to this album and you too will be hooked by the Dolls raucous proto punk of the highest order
This lot tend to be talked about as if they were synonymous with Glam rock, but despite their hairspray, platforms and makeup (they were copying no one when they thought that was a good idea!) punk is a closer bedfellow. The songs are tinged with real throwaway pop sensibility (think the female vocal group of the 60s) and their lyric content is equally adolescent and throwaway, though clever and entertaining with it.
There is real pop ability in here too. Trash is hugely catchy, Jet boy a riot and Personality Crisis a bombastic, humorous masterpiece. I love singer David Johansen's argument with himself ("yeah yeah yeah! No No No!") at its start. And the shambolic attempt at a ballad that is Lonely Planet Boy is a treat.
No bad songs on this album and no one who copied them came even close. This is a great album.
love the Dools and this CD didnt let me down.See then two years ago and they didnt let me down. Read more
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