From Prince to Tom Petty Awesome Album Liner Notes from Back in the Day
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From Prince to Tom Petty Awesome Album Liner Notes From Back in the Day Lois M. Kirkpatrick 2 Copyright © 2019 Lois Kirkpatrick All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without express written permission from the author. 3 Back in the day, music lovers used to buy physical albums they could hold in their hands. Back when music was mostly sold on vinyl records, liner notes were printed on the paper sleeves (or “liners”) inside the record jackets. Liner notes helped educate listeners about the music they were about to hear. Sometimes liner notes described the artist’s inspiration for particular songs; at other times they explained the reasons the record was made. Some liner notes were soapboxes, giving writers a space to rant about pet peeves or political issues. A few record companies began printing liner notes on the back covers of record jackets. These outside liner notes were often written by publicists, or promotional writers from the company’s marketing department. Their essays had the same purpose as the blurbs printed on the back covers of books: to get you to buy the product. “The idea was to read the back of the record and decide if this was a piece you wanted to hear,” explains Tim Page, the Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic of The Washington Post. Page has written more than 200 liner notes, and was nominated for a Grammy award for liner notes in 2002. Many of the rock records produced in the late ‘60s had no liner notes. “After awhile rock groups felt it was very uncool to seem to be hyping the product,” Page says. They wanted the music to speak for itself. When the music industry switched from vinyl records to cassette tapes in the ‘70s, even groups that wanted liner notes could no longer feature them on the back cover; there was no room. So liner notes reverted back to being a special feature that customers could only enjoy after buying the tape. 4 In the ‘80s and ‘90s, record labels began to reissue popular releases from rock’s early years. By this time, music critics had “started taking rock seriously,” Page says, “and with rock reissues, liner notes are now expected.” Along with reissues, liner notes are also usually featured on compilation CDs, box sets and tribute albums. For these occasions, they’re often written by famous music journalists, biographers or celebrities. Jim Steinblatt runs the annual Deems Taylor awards for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. (ASCAP, like BMI, is an organization that makes sure music creators get paid when their works are performed publicly.) Each year ASCAP gives awards to liner notes writers. Steinblatt says, “liner notes are very common in reissues, compilations and historic recordings – these naturally lend themselves to commentary.” He explains that “Pop, rock and R&B reissues excite curiosity among listeners who want to understand ‘the back story’ behind these recordings.” While liner notes have become almost mandatory on reissues and “greatest hits” releases, most original recordings by rap and pop artists don’t feature them. “Most pop discs dispense with liner notes entirely these days,” says Tom Piazza, editor of Setting the Tempo: Fifty Years of Great Jazz Liner Notes. “The overall trend,” he adds, “is away from text in general -- in liner notes as in all aspects of media. Even in magazines, articles are getting shorter, and the layouts are more graphically oriented than text oriented.” Page concurs that “we do have a growing problem in this country where some people just don’t read.” 5 “So many of the pop albums out now just list the order of the tracks and the words of the songs,” says The Recording Academy’s Senior Vice President of Awards, Dianne Theriot. “They don’t go into the history and stories of the artists.” Will this trend continue? Will record labels avoid including liner notes on work released by new rock, rap and pop acts – until each artist has amassed enough hits for a retrospective? Or will labels include liner notes as a bonus feature on recordings by new artists, the way that commentary tracks are featured on DVDs? “I suppose that they may become a digitally-available option for download,” ASCAP’s Steinblatt predicts. “I personally hope that the packaging and liner notes accompanying pop music recordings do not disappear.” He adds: “I like to hold and look at something tangible when listening to a recording I've bought.” “Award-Winning” vs. “Greatest” Every year The Recording Academy awards a Grammy for what their judges consider the best liner notes from the previous year. Liner notes for jazz, folk, classical or R&B box sets usually win the Grammy. The Academy’s Theriot explains that Grammy-nominated liner notes feature original writing that includes “extensive notes, stories, research, legends, or how the album was recorded.” When trying to pick a Grammy winner from among the 200-plus liner notes sent in by record companies each year, the judging committee looks for well- researched writing that flows well and is relevant to the recording. That’s not the case with the liner notes picked for this book. 6 The criteria used for deciding which liner notes got included on the following pages are these: the liner notes had to be cool, quirky or celebrity-inked. Even more importantly, they had to be available. The author scoured local brick-and-mortar stores, photocopied album jackets, and in some cases, bought the records in order to hand- transcribe their liner notes. Some liner notes had inscrutable lettering on oddly-colored paper, making them difficult to decipher. Care was taken to transcribe them exactly as written, so they are presented here with their original misspellings. Enjoy 34 of the most awesome pop, rock and film soundtrack liner notes of all time. # # # 7 1. Artists: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rob Zombie, Eddie Vedder with Zeke, Metallica, U2, KISS, Marilyn Manson, Garbage, Green Day, The Pretenders, Rancid, Pete Yorn, The Offspring, Rooney, and Tom Waits Liner Notes Author: Stephen King Album/CD: We’re a Happy Family: A Tribute to the Ramones 2003 Sony Sure, you know that Stephen King has written more than 40 novels and inspired more than 30 films and TV projects. If you’re a true fan of King’s “oeuvre,” you also know that the man has actual rock cred. You know it not just based on the rock references planted throughout his books and movies. Nor because of the fact that he owns WKIT, a rock radio station in his adopted town of Bangor, Maine. You know that it’s also not just based on the fact that he’s worked on a Broadway musical with John Mellancamp. You know that the man is, himself, a rocker. Yes. Stephen King played guitar and sang with the band The Rock Bottom Remainders. The Rock Bottom Remainders was a rock group made up almost entirely of bestselling authors. Its various lineups usually included Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Scott Turow, Mitch Albom, Ridley Pearson, Roy Blount, Jr. and others such as Simpsons creator Matt Groening. The band debuted at the 1992 American Booksellers Association, an event which was described by The Washington Post as “the most heavily promoted musical debut 8 since the Monkees.” The Remainders cemented their rocker cred by performing at the opening weekend of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 1995. The Remainders have even gotten Hall of Famers Bruce Springsteen and Roger McGuinn, the founder of The Byrds, to perform with them. The Remainders produced a CD, a video and a book: Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America With Three Chords and an Attitude. - - - - - - - - - - - - First of all I want to say that I liked Disco and if you have a problem reading quote/unquote Liner Notes from someone who liked Disco, then it’s a bona fide case of tuff titty said the kitty. Second of all I need to say that I didn’t agree to do these quote/unquote Liner Notes because I thought WE’RE A HAPPY FAMILY, the CD you now hold in your sweaty little hands, would be particularly good. I agreed because I loved the Ramones from the first time I heard them, gabba- gabba-hey and all that, but even more importantly because Rob Zombie asked me to do it and one rule of my life is NEVER SAY NO TO A MAN CALLED ZOMBIE. Also Mr. Zombie made HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES, a movie for Ramones fans if there ever was one (you know it’s true even if all you know about it is the f***in’ title) and Universal Pitchers is just 2-chickensh** to release it and I thought I might get an advance look if I was on Mr. Zombie’s good side (I’m an optimist and thus believe he must have a good side). [Note to reader: Paragraph breaks inserted by author.] But tribute albums? Ogod, I thought. Usually just an occasion for RECORDING ARTISTES to cover songs they could not have thought up in the wildest wetdreams (you know it’s true). Also an opportunity for the record companies to do what they do best, which is to Rake In the Long Green. Johnny Cash tribute album? Piece O’ Sh** (Elvis ain’t on it). Chuck Berry tribute album? Not too bad, as it was from the movie HAIL HAIL ROCK AND ROLL. Little Richard tribute album? Not a Piece O’ Sh** because it hasn’t been made yet.