Rock Bands Finding Their Voice Again Sep 26 2005

[darkstar]

International Herald Tribune

Rock Bands Finding Their Voices - Again
By Jeff Leeds The New York Times

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2005

Members of the British rock band Queen thought they'd never tour
again after Freddie Mercury, their flamboyant lead singer, died of
an AIDS-related illness in November 1991. Big hits like the camp
opera "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the rock-swing "Crazy Little Thing
Called Love" seemed uniquely suited to Mercury, who carried them
with just the proper mix of kitsch and bluster.

But Queen's fortunes did not die with Mercury after all. The band
has been selling out arenas across Europe, and they've been doing it
with a singer who sounds nothing like their late star: Paul Rodgers,
singer of 1970s hits like "Feel Like Makin' Love" and "Ready for
Love" with the rock band Bad Company, who has given Queen's
catalogue a bluesy tinge.

Queen isn't alone. Today many well-known rock bands are pursuing
second acts with new lead singers, raising questions not only about
just how far the trend can go, but about where a band's identity
truly lies.

The Cars are the latest major band reported to be considering a new
lead singer (the rocker Todd Rundgren in place of Ric Ocasek, who
since leaving the band has built a reputation as a record producer,
and Ben Orr, who died five years ago). Foreigner hired a new
frontman, Kelly Hansen, in March after the exit of Lou Gramm,
following the examples in recent years of reconstituted bands like
Lynyrd Skynyrd, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Van Halen.

The Australian rock band INXS, which lost its lead singer some years
ago, is going one better. On the television show "Rock Star: INXS,"
the surviving members turned their loss into an asset, making their
auditions with a variety of singers a form of entertainment in their
own right. J.D. Fortune was named the new lead singer of INXS on
Sept. 20, and he will sing on the band's next album, "Switch."

Music executives say a band's ability to outlive its singer usually
depends on which was more influential: the songs or the cult of
personality. In the case of Motown ensembles on the oldies circuit,
the songs win out every time. The same is true for a relatively
faceless band like Styx; on its own and as part of packages with
other bands, it has generated more than $90 million in box office
sales since 1999, when it parted company with Dennis DeYoung, its
singer and keyboardist, hiring Lawrence Gowan to fill in.

For bands strongly identified with a lead vocalist, things are
tougher. Not all Queen fans are happy with the arrival of Rodgers,
who also sang for the bands Free, of which he was a founder in 1968,
and the Firm, a short-lived 1980s outfit. On the message board at
queenzone.com, one poster who goes by the name KingMercury echoed a
common feeling toward Queen + Paul Rodgers, as the act is now
known. "I will not complain about the current tour, and if its right
to tour under the name of Queen," the message said, "but, Queen,
that fabulous and giant band, died with Freddie, in 1991." Still,
for the casual fan, a sound-alike singer belting out a proven hit
often is good enough, says John Kalodner, the artist scout who is
credited with developing acts like Foreigner and Aerosmith. "If a
performer can pull off a song 75, 80 percent, people will have the
rest in their head," he said.

Daniel Nester, a professor at the College of St. Rose in Albany, New
York, who has written two books about the band - even though he
never saw the original Queen - dismisses the purists. "Legacy,
schmegacy," he said, "From my end, it's like, 'Milk it all you
want.' I want to see them play."

For bands considering a new lineup, it helps that the hits of the
1970s and early 1980s are still in rotation on classic rock stations
and that the defining works still sell. Queen's 1992 greatest-hits
album, for instance, still sells roughly 7,000 copies a week. But
that's the old lineup. Soldiering on behind a new singer usually
means selling fewer CDs and playing to smaller audiences. And no one
really thinks that these band's new songs will return them to their
commercial peaks. Journey, for one, has been giving its latest album
free to fans who bought tickets to its recent tour.

If a band's facelessness can become an asset in preserving its
identity, then today's crop of revivalists may be in the right place
at the right time - a moment in pop music when the form of the song
itself seems to trump any band's imagery or personality. Online,
music fans are displaying a preference for individual songs over
albums by a ratio of more than a 20 to 1. (It's called iTunes, after
all, not iAlbums.) Some say this is also a moment when the rock
warhorses of the 1970s and '80s face scant competition.

"We live in a hip-hop nation," said David Goffin, executive producer
of "Rock Star: INXS." And the relative dearth of major rock acts, he
added, provides an opening for bands like INXS and others to re-
emerge.

Still, cautionary tales abound. Van Halen touched off a civil war
among its fans when it replaced David Lee Roth with Sammy Hagar,
though it continued to crank out commercial hits (and its dynamic
lead guitarist, Eddie Van Halen, gave some continuity to the band's
identity). A subsequent decision to hire Gary Cherone to take
Hagar's place proved disastrous at record stores and the box office.
Nor did the former Cult singer Ian Astbury do much for the
reconstituted Doors, when he toured with them three decades after
Jim Morrison's death.

"Jim Morrison wasn't just some yahoo singing for the Doors; he was a
personality," said Shane Roeschlein, editor in chief of an online
music magazine, themusicedge.com. "Morrison was much like a limb on
a body. So in that aspect, if you lost your arm you'd get a
prosthetic, and it could be a really good and realistic prosthetic
arm, but it'd never be your arm."

Even INXS has had its troubles with this formula. Before agreeing to
find a new singer on "Rock Star," it toured with a series of
performers poorly matched to the band, including Terence Trent
D'Arby, the soul singer ("Wishing Well," "If You Let Me Stay").

INXS still must emerge from the shadow of Michael Hutchence, the
lead singer who died in an apparent suicide hanging in 1997.
Kalodner said Hutchence had been so integral to the band that it may
never record successfully again. Kalodner recently pulled out of
plans to work with the newly formed INXS on its new album, which is
scheduled for release on Nov. 29.

"I just didn't fell good about trying to replace Michael," he
said. "A band is never the same when they replace a singer, ever. It
loses something both in the voice and in the whole dynamic of the
band. Obviously it can be done, but the more and more I saw of it
the less I felt good about it."

Goffin of "Rock Star," while careful to pay respect to Hutchence,
said that the band had a lot going for it. "They have eight years
between what happened and now. And they have a television show,
which is a week-to-week transformation, where everyone can see what
the band can be. They lost one of their instruments. You're
replacing a significant part of the band. You really have a chance
to regenerate a band."

Doc McGhee, who represents the rockers Kiss, has another twist on
the idea altogether: He has been toying with the idea of recruiting
an entire band to replace the original Kiss and don the band's
famous makeup. "Kiss is more like Doritos or Pepsi, as far as a
brand name is concerned," he said. "They're more characters than the
individual person. I think they have a legitimate chance to carry
the franchise."

www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/26/news/queen.php

[jimbo]

yeah some negativity to the new incarnation. I would just like to say this about ROTS and the press. Yes they've got some bad reviews but keep in mind much of them are by reviewers who didn't like the original Doors and/or Jim. Can't expect to dislike one and like the other. This one is a better written article at least

[ensenada]

the thing is the doors have the great songs, but they also had the great personality that was jim. and i believe when they lost jim, they lost a massive chunk of what the doors really were. he was the front man on the front line, he had the charisma and he was the embodiment of rock itself. with him gone, we still have the songs that ROTS and other trib bands can pump out, we can still lose ourselves in them. but they will never be the doors again without jim.
i love othervoices as an album, but i almost treat it seerate from the other albums, because jim's influence has gone and a magical ingredient has also gone. but musically and for the characters still involved in othercircles, its still a superb album.

[jimbo]

I have no problem with negative press, obviously many people object to the Doors without Jim (many of them are unaware the band continued to 73') I just hate it when reporters trash the reincarnation but didn't like Jim either.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

jimbo said:

yeah some negativity to the new incarnation. I would just like to say this about ROTS and the press. Yes they've got some bad reviews but keep in mind much of them are by reviewers who didn't like the original Doors and/or Jim. Can't expect to dislike one and like the other. This one is a better written article at least

What utter nonsense....I have read reviews by people who claimed they were huge Doors fans that said these liars were a pile of shit......
Here we get the martyr card again.....everybody who gives these scum a bad review is anti Doors...well I am not anti Doors and these scumbag lying thieves don't get one iota of a break from me!
These slime have had bad reviews coming outta their asses and one more important thing to note is they are ignored by the mainstream rock press completely!
Nobody gives a rats ass about your tribute band Jimbo.....a few dozen die hards on the LL who will buy into Manzareks lies but the vast majority of those who go to see these shitbags go because it said The Doors.....You don't have a following for your piece of shit band....your audience is made up of Doors fans who go to say they have seen Ray but mostly Robby and general rock fans who go to see bands from the 60s and 70s for the nostalgia trip and a smattering of dork die hards who will prattle on that shit in the whirlpool is a good song because they are so desperate that they think if they say this shit often enough someone else will believe it too!
A motley crew that cannot sustain a band and once The Doors name has gone for good and the tribute show is diluted with vomit like cops talk you will have the hall to yourselves....

[jimbo]

admin said:

jimbo said:

yeah some negativity to the new incarnation. I would just like to say this about ROTS and the press. Yes they've got some bad reviews but keep in mind much of them are by reviewers who didn't like the original Doors and/or Jim. Can't expect to dislike one and like the other. This one is a better written article at least

What utter nonsense....I have read reviews by people who claimed they were huge Doors fans that said these liars were a pile of shit......
Here we get the martyr card again.....everybody who gives these scum a bad review is anti Doors...well I am not anti Doors and these scumbag lying thieves don't get one iota of a break from me!
These slime have had bad reviews coming outta their asses and one more important thing to note is they are ignored by the mainstream rock press completely!
Nobody gives a rats ass about your tribute band Jimbo.....a few dozen die hards on the LL who will buy into Manzareks lies but the vast majority of those who go to see these shitbags go because it said The Doors.....You don't have a following for your piece of shit band....your audience is made up of Doors fans who go to say they have seen Ray but mostly Robby and general rock fans who go to see bands from the 60s and 70s for the nostalgia trip and a smattering of dork die hards who will prattle on that shit in the whirlpool is a good song because they are so desperate that they think if they say this shit often enough someone else will believe it too!
A motley crew that cannot sustain a band and once The Doors name has gone for good and the tribute show is diluted with vomit like cops talk you will have the hall to yourselves....

you missed what I said COMPLETELY Alex. I clearly stated in my first post that when journalists/critics write negative about D21C its fine with me and I expect it. Its when people who hated the original Doors bother to write negative reviews about D21C. If they didn't like Jim then of course they wont like Ian and the rest of the band. You just picked apart what I said and turned it around on me. I even said that the main article that was posted in this thread was well written.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

jimbo said:

you missed what I said COMPLETELY Alex. I clearly stated in my first post that when journalists/critics write negative about D21C its fine with me and I expect it. Its when people who hated the original Doors bother to write negative reviews about D21C. If they didn't like Jim then of course they wont like Ian and the rest of the band. You just picked apart what I said and turned it around on me. I even said that the main article that was posted in this thread was well written.

No I did not!
You said this!

jimbo said:

Yes they've got some bad reviews but keep in mind much of them are by reviewers who didn't like the original Doors and/or Jim.

Thats a complete distortion of the facts. I have read pretty much all of the reviews on the dork gigs and what you said is not true. Some of those who have written disparaging reviews of these liars have even mentioned they like The Doors in their write ups most do not say one way or the other.
To generalise that the majority are written by Doors haters anyway is martyrdom in action as usual with you dork lot. Your shite band gets bad reviews because its a shite band playing a piss poor parody of the Doors......not a tribute band like many of the worthy guys who play day in day out their tributes to The Doors but a bunch of charlatans who pass themselves off as the new real thing.....
They are panned because they are a Z rate Manzarek vision of the real thing put togetehr to feed his greed and ego and many many people see through that including a lot of the audience of these creeps.......
Like Ray you fans like to play the martyr card that everyone is against you because they hate The Doors....I don't hate The Doors and I would not give these bastards the shit off my shoe....

[jimbo]

yes I said much of them, but not ALL of them. If its legitimate negativity toward the band then I dont mind. I just hate poor journalism. I hate when they say Ian is "squeezing into Jim's leather pants" when Ian hasn't worn them since Storytellers.

[jimbo]

one example:

From "Ow. That Hurt's. Quit. Website

March 25, 2003

This Is All Your Fault, Huxley

Sometime in December I heard The Doors on the radio. Big deal, right? The Doors are always on the radio, aren't they? Well, no, I'm pretty sure I would have noticed if they were, being a Doors hater and all. Then I started hearing them on lots of radio stations. "This is really weird, " I thought. So I rented the Oliver Stone movie to see whether there was some piece of pop culture that corresponded with something that was going on now and that would inspire a renewed interest in The Doors.

Well, first of all it's always a mistake to rent an Oliver Stone movie. I don't care which one we're talking about; they are all bad And God help you if happen to find yourself watching U-Turn for some reason. But there was nothing. The Doors a movie whose pop culture references correspond to the kind of pop culture mining that was going on in the late 80s--hippies, leather fringe, Woodstock sentimentalism--that sort of thing. We're well into 70s nostalgia and The Doors has none of that. That's when I suspected that something was afoot.

Sure enough, The Doors--or most of them, at least--have regrouped. John Densmore, it seems, has a problem with the whole thing. But Manzarek and Krieger have teamed with Stewart Copeland and--ridiculously--Ian Astbury to bring you new Doors recordings. They made appearances on late night television. They are touring. A-ha! That would account for the sudden radio play.

Clear Channel stations have notoriously tight playlists, so there had to be a reason that they would add The Doors, if there weren't an organic groundswell of popularity. Touring is that reason. See, Clear Channel not only owns every third radio station in the country, they also own lots of the country's venues. This includes Houston's Verizon Wireless Theater. And guess where The Doors are playing (March 28, mark your calendars!)? Yup. So Clear Channel stands to gain a stack o' cash by booking The Doors in its venues and then promoting them on its radio stations. Way to work both sides and create an artificial pop culture phenomenon, Clear Channel. The sad thing, though, is when I turn on the radio and hear The Doors on non-Clear Channel stations, stations that more than likely heard all The Doors hype and wanted to get in on the action.

Welcome to the future. It looks to be just as dystopian as you feared. And while the manufactured culture isn't quite on par with the engineered happiness of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, you can't deny the irony of a band that was named for Huxley's The Doors of Perception being used in Clear Channel's new order.

Posted by Justin at March 25, 2003 02:29 PM

www.justincrane.com/movabletype/archives/000060.html

[jym]

jimbo said:

I hate when they say Ian is "squeezing into Jim's leather pants" when Ian hasn't worn them since Storytellers.

That isn't meant to be literal, a metaphor, like walking in the shoes of someone else.

[jimbo]

jym said:

jimbo said:

I hate when they say Ian is "squeezing into Jim's leather pants" when Ian hasn't worn them since Storytellers.

That isn't meant to be literal, a metaphor, like walking in the shoes of someone else.

yeah I realize that too, but still as a journalist I like to see good writing