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Jul 31, 2012

Alex Chilton - Like Flies on Sherbert (1979)


1. Boogie Shoes
2. My Rival
3. Hey! Little Child
4. Hook or Crook
5. I've Had It
6. Rock Hard
7. Girl After Girl
8. Waltz Across Texas
9. Alligator Man
10. Like Flies on Sherbert
11. No More The Moon Shine On Lorena

A strange album from Alex Chilton, master of perfect pop songs. Intentionally terrible in every way: production, musicianship, what is and isn't being recorded. I'm unsure whether he's deconstructing and leaving imperfect rock & roll like Neil Young did on Tonight's the Night to expose a song's constituents and capture the artist's anguish, or whether he's being chaotic and punk rock just for the sake of it. Either way I like it. True, nobody would care about Like Flies on Sherbert if it didn't have someone like Chilton behind it, but it's interesting because it's someone like Chilton being so unlistenably amateurish

B+

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7 comments:

  1. maxAugust 2, 2012 at 9:46 AM

    Thanks! And all good, your blog rulz

    ReplyDelete
  2. SeanAugust 11, 2012 at 3:45 AM

    I strongly disagree that it's unlistenably amateurish. Yes they were probably drunk when they recorded it, and much of it was tongue-in-cheek but the great Jim Dickinson (whom you don't mention) & Alex Chilton were certainly not amateurs. If the proto-indie sound puts anyone off they should maybe reconsider its antecedents (The Replacements, etc.)

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    Replies
    1. maxAugust 11, 2012 at 12:42 PM

      lol no shit they aren't amateurs. i even used hyperbole and called chilton 'the master of perfect pop songs.' fact is they went out to make this record sloppy and chaotic. i even gave it a b+ to show that i dig it

      Delete
    2. SeanAugust 13, 2012 at 9:41 AM

      In a way you were right.. just reading on Wikipedia & it says that Chilton used Dickinson on lead guitar because he was untrained on that instrument and Chilton thought he sounded like a struggling 14 y.o. player. I found it surprising that my young 20's redneck neighbors (who listen to mostly pop-country & rap) actually LIKED this album; they were out drinking beer one day when it was playing loudly through my window and one of the girls came over and asked who it was by.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 22, 2013 at 5:44 AM

    Can you do a re up on this? Thanks max.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousDecember 11, 2013 at 3:55 AM

    Thanks so much man

    ReplyDelete

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