Various Artists - Ace Records Halloween Compilations

No long-winded Halloween stories this year; I couldn't think of any that were of any import or interest. But during the year, I gathered up a few more releases related to the holiday, and wanted to get a couple of them posted here before Friday - so here you are.

The first, These Ghoulish Things - Horror Hits For Halloween, was released in 2005. It contains some superb selections of horror rock from the Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll, between 1957 and 1964. Artists both renowned (like Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Bo Diddley) and obscure are featured here. But what makes this release unique is that it also contains several 1962 radio station plugs recorded by Mr. "Monster Mash" himself, Bobby "Boris" Pickett. In all, many of the tunes on this disc had never before been released on CD, making this an essential album for connoisseurs of this genre. Here's the lineup:

1 Radio Plug for Monster Mash on Station KFWB - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett
2 Screamin' Ball (At Dracula Hall) - the Duponts
3 Drac's Back - Billy Demarco & Count Dracula
4 Midnight Stroll - Revels
5 Ghost Train - Virgil Holmes
6 The Mummy's Ball - The Verdicts
7 Frankenstein's Den - The Hollywood Flames
8 I'm the Wolfman - Round Robin
9 Spooksville - The Nu-Trends
10 The Munster's Theme - Milton Delugg & the All-Stars
11 Coolest Little Monster - John Zacherle
12 Monster Party - Bill Dogett
13 The Creature (From Outer Space) - The Jayhawks
14 Mr. Were-Wolf - The Kac-Ties
15 Radio Station Promo for Bill Gavin - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett
16 My Son, the Vampire - Allan Sherman
17 The Monster - Bobby Please & the Pleasers
18 Theme from the Addams Family - The Fiends
19 Nightmare Mash - Billy Lee Riley
20 The Voo Doo Walk - Sonny Richard's Panics W/Cindy and Misty
21 Feast of the Mau Mau - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
22 Frankenstein's Party - The Swingin' Phillies
23 Legend of Sleepy Hollow - The Monotones
24 Bo Meets the Monster - Bo Diddley
25 Rockin' in the Graveyard - Jackie Morningstar
26 Radio Plug for Monster Mash on Station WCOP - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett
27 Monster Mash - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett
28 The Vampire - Orvin Yoes

The second one here, Mostly Ghostly: More Horror for Halloween, coming out a few years later, was a follow-up of sorts to These Ghoulish Things.  All of the music on this album is from the same general time period as the earlier comp, i.e., late '50s/early '60s. Allmusic.com put together a great summation of this compilation that I really can't add much to or refute:

If you're looking for a non-run-of-the-mill soundtrack to your next Halloween party, this disc, and its predecessor, These Ghoulish Things: Horror Hits for Halloween, should just about tide you over the first round of trick and treat. Devoted wholly to rock/horror novelties from the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s, just a couple of these 25 tracks... were hits. And as a matter of fact, just a few of the other artists... will be familiar to the average knowledgeable rock fan. Since these are essentially novelty songs, you might not feel much like pulling them out on occasions other than Halloween, much like you only play Christmas albums at a certain time of year.

The songs are longer on novelty than musical value, but if nothing else, they're entertaining relics of just how outrageously silly early rock & roll performers (and labels) would get in search of a quick hit. Some of the songs, too, are pretty strong in their own right, especially Sutch's "'Til the Following Night" (one of the best pre-Beatles rock & roll records from Britain), "Haunted House," and the Moontrekkers' instrumental "Night of the Vampire" (one of Joe Meek's best productions). It doesn't get much weirder than Gary "Spider" Webb's "The Cave, Pt. 1," consisting mostly of a boy and a girl sporadically calling out to each other in a cave as guitars twang and drums throb.

Beatles' novelties, to stretch the thread more, don't get much weirder than Gene Moss & the Monsters' "I Want to Bite Your Hand," issued in the wake of the Fab Four's invasion of the U.S. For Cramps fans, there's the original version of "The Goo Goo Muck," as first heard on Ronnie Cook & the Gaylads' 1962 single.

Here's the track list for this one as well:

1 Dracula's Theme - The Ghouls
2 Til' The Following Night - Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages
3 Do The Zombie - The Symbols
4 Haunted House - Jumpin' Gene Simmons
5 Dinner With Drac - John Zacherle
6 The Goo Goo Muck - Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads
7 The Mad Scientist - Zanies
8 The Cave - Chuck Holden
9 Spooky Movies - Roy Clark
10 They're Here - Boots Walker
11 Black And Hairy - Screaming Lord Sutch
12 The Hearse - Terry Teen
13 Terrible Ivan - Art Roberts
14 Night Of The Vampire - The Moontrekkers
15 The Mummy - The Naturals
16 I Was A Teenage Creature - Lord Luther
17 The Cave - Gary 'Spider' Webb
18 The Cat - Rod Willis
19 Zombi - The Monotones
20 Alligator Wine - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
21 Morgus The Magnificent - Morgus & The Three Ghouls
22 Sleepy Hollow - The Last Word
23 Rockin' Zombie - The Crewnecks
24 I Want To Bite Your Hand - Gene Moss & The Monsters

So, that's that. For your enjoyment this holiday weekend, here are two superb and lauded Halloween-themed releases put out on the Ace Records label: These Ghoulish Things - Horror Hits For Halloween in 2005, and Mostly Ghostly: More Horror for Halloween in 2012. Have a spooky, scary, fun listen, and as always, let me know what you think.

Happy Halloween! 

Please use the email links below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

• Various Artists - These Ghoulish Things - Horror Hits For Halloween: Send Email
• Various Artists - Mostly Ghostly: More Horror for Halloween: Send Email

 

(Oh, and just in case you were wondering - yes, there WAS a recording of "The Cave, Pt. 2" by Gary Webb, a follow-up to the original.  For the sake of completeness, here it is for your listening pleasure - however, you won't find it as being much of a variation of "Pt. 1":)

 

Poll Results: "Rolling Stone recently updated its '500 Greatest Albums of All Time' list . . . but none of the following albums appeared on either the 2003 or 2012 list. Which in your opinion are the most glaring omissions?

I'm a little late in posting these poll results - pardon. There's a lot here to go over.

When Rolling Stone first compiled "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2003, a lot of critics rightly pointed out that it seemed that the list was heavily weighted towards 'classic' rock releases from the '60s and '70s.  Nine years later, they decided to give the list another go, I assume to correct the earlier mistakes in judgement and bring a new, fresher, hipper take to the compilation by bringing more modern sounds into the mix.  All in all, I can't say that their attempt was completely successful - their latest album list looks remarkably similar to the earlier one, with what are for the most part only minor changes and deletions.

Rolling Stone cheated a little in updating their list - they had to make room for new artists and albums, but at the same time it was as though they couldn't bear the thought of reducing the level of recognition previously afforded to those older artists/groups.  So in many cases, what the magazine did was to reduce the total number of albums a classic artist had on the list and consolidate their music onto a representative compilation album, which they would then rank just as highly as the artist's previous albums on the '03 list.

For example, in 2003, both volumes of Robert Johnson's King Of The Delta Blues Singers were included, at #27 and #424, respectively. But for the 2012 survey, the magazine replaced both albums with The Complete Recordings, a single release containing all of Johnson's music. For Robert Johnson, this move makes sense - he never did any albums, so The Complete Recordings is the definitive compilation from a music pioneer. But they made similar moves that made less sense - like deleting Creedence Clearwater Revival's Green River and Cosmo's Factory discs, replacing them in 2012 with the Chronicles, Vol. 1 compilation - but still retaining the band's album Willy And The Poor Boys on the new list. The magazine did a similar sort of thing with Otis Redding, Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds and James Brown, reducing their multiple entries on the 2003 list to one or two representative (and highly ranked) albums/compilations on the 2012 list - a backhanded, BS way for Rolling Stone to have its cake and eat it too.

Anyway, let's get to the REAL changes in the polls . . .

Losers:

The two bands that apparently suffered the biggest loss of reputation between the 2003 and 2012 lists were No Doubt and, most especially, Nick Drake - and deservedly so, in my opinion.

Nick Drake died in 1974 and for nearly 25 years was virtually unknown; posthumous awareness of his music really didn't begin to rise until the famous Volkswagen Cabrio TV commercial in 1999, featuring his song "Pink Moon".

His mainstream popularity peaked in the early 2000s - just about the same time that Rolling Stone began its initial album survey. So, without a doubt, that wave of Nick Drake adulation/nostalgia found its way into the 2003 list, which featured all three of his studio albums (Bryter Layter at #245, Five Leaves Left at #283, and Pink Moon at #320). By 2012, only Pink Moon remains. Personally, while I am impressed with Drake's guitar technique and lyrics, after a while, all of his stuff starts to sound a little bit samey. Frankly, a little bit of Nick Drake goes a long way . . . I'd always felt that his newfound glorification was just a wee bit overblown, so I can fully support Rolling Stone cutting back on recognizing his music.

As for No Doubt - well, I never understood the attraction for this group in the first place. In my mind, this band was an inferior doppleganger of the more superior West Coast "Third Wave Ska" bands in whose wake No Doubt developed - bands like Fishbone and The Untouchables. I remember when Tragic Kingdom came out - I was living in Cambridge, MA during the summer of '96, and the local alternative station played songs like "Just A Girl", "Spiderwebs" and "Don't Speak" to death. Every time I heard one of those 'blah' songs, that was my cue to change the channel. I felt that the band brought nothing new or particularly exciting to the table, and their links to ska were tenuous, if at all. At their top-dollar best, No Doubt was a 'OK' pop band with an attractive lead singer - not exactly a groundbreaking formula, and especially not one deserving of multiple "best album" recognition. The 2003 list had both Rock Steady (#316) and Tragic Kingdom (#441) - both are gone from the latest list. Good riddance.

Other artists taking a drubbing between the 2003 and 2012 lists include Roxy Music (Avalon and Country Life deleted, Siren and For Your Pleasure dropped three spots each, to #374 and #397 respectively), Alanis Morrisette (Jagged Little Pill removed - thank God), and Hank Williams, Jr. - apparently the 2012 committee didn't take to kindly to Junior's recent politically-charged comments; his compilation, formerly at #225, is completely out.

Winners:

If anything, the 2012 poll is Radiohead's critical coming-out party. Five Radiohead albums now grace this chart, with Amnesiac and In Rainbows joining the three band albums that made the 2003 list (The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A). Kid A made the most remarkable improvement in its critical reception between the polls, rising more than 350 spots, from #428 in '03 to #67 in '12. The other big gainer in the new poll is Kanye West. Three of his albums (Late Registration at #118, The College Dropout at #298, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at #353) are all new entries.

It seems that for the new poll, Rolling Stone made a rather obvious attempt to show itself to be eclectic in its selections, and tried to move away from honoring the usual hoary rock chestnuts considered "classic" by its aging editors and critics. In some cases, this works - for instance, it's good to see The Arcade Fire's Funeral (at #151), Sleater-Kinney's Dig Me Out (at #272) and The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs (at #454) on the list; recognition of these great works are, in some cases, long overdue.

But in other instances, the magazine goes too far in its attempt to be hip and modern. In my opinion, it's a big stretch to believe that albums by Vampire Weekend, The Arctic Monkeys, LCD Soundsystem and M.I.A. somehow rise to the level of "The 500 Greatest". And some new entries, like Manu Chao's Proxima Estacion Esperanza, Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linux, and the compilation The Indestructible Beat Of Soweto, just leave me (and I'm sure many others) scratching my head in bewilderment. In my mind, it helps if the music you're calling the 'greatest ever' has been heard by more than a couple of music critics  . . . especially if these albums replace deleted ones by The Beatles (With The Beatles, a shocking removal), Massive Attack (Mezzanine) and Roxy Music (Country Life), or rank higher than Gang Of Four's Entertainment! and Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. If it's not something that a reasonably informed and open-minded music lover is aware of, then it simply shouldn't be on the list.  Poorly done by RS, in my mind; there are plenty of other albums that are probably more deserving of honor . . .

The Poll:

. . . all of which leads back to my question: what omitted albums do you feel should have been on the updated list? I listed an number of albums for this poll, selected according to their renown, influence or representation of a specific genre of music. Here are the results:

10 (58%)   Combat Rock - The Clash
8 (47%)     Skylarking - XTC
8 (47%)     Boston - Boston
4 (23%)     The Specials - The Specials
4 (23%)     In My Tribe - 10,000 Maniacs
4 (23%)     Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
4 (23%)     Broken English - Marianne Faithful
3 (17%)     My Life In The Bush of Ghosts - Brian Eno & David Byrne
3 (17%)     The La's - The La's
3 (17%)     Standing On A Beach/Staring At The Sea - The Cure
2 (11%)     Signals, Calls & Marches - Mission Of Burma
2 (11%)     United States Live - Laurie Anderson
2 (11%)     Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits
2 (11%)     Technique - New Order
2 (11%)     Diesel & Dust - Midnight Oil
2 (11%)     The Stax Story (Vol. 1-4) - Various Artists
2 (11%)     Colossal Youth - Young Marble Giants
1 (5%)      The Trinity Session - Cowboy Junkies
1 (5%)      The Rise & Fall - Madness
1 (5%)      Atlantic Rhythm & Blues, Vol. 1-8 - Various Artists
1 (5%)      Hitsville U.S.A.: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971 - Various Artists
1 (5%)      Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933-1944 - Billie Holiday
0 (0%)      Emperor Tomato Ketchup - Stereolab
0 (0%)      Computer World - Kraftwerk
0 (0%)      Only The Lonely - Frank Sinatra
0 (0%)      Heaven Or Las Vegas - Cocteau Twins
0 (0%)      Labour Of Love - UB40
0 (0%)      1979-1983 (Vol. 1 & 2) - Bauhaus
0 (0%)      Bustin' Out: The Best of Rick James - Rick James
0 (0%)      The Whole Story - Kate Bush

I completely concur with these poll results. Combat Rock, I've already said more than enough here about how great I think this album is. Boston is the second-best selling debut album of all time in the U.S. (just behind Guns 'N' Roses Appetite For Destruction), with over 17 million units sold. And Skylarking, whether accidentally or not, is one of the most perfect 'song cycle' albums ever made, and one of the few discs I can listen to from start to finish without skipping over songs - everything just fits. I would have liked to have seen more votes for Computer World, hugely influential in the worlds of electronica, early rap (listen to the beat in "Planet Rock" again sometime) and alternative music (I'm looking at you, Coldplay), and for My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, another influential album that's also one of my personal all-time favorites.  But I guess you can't have everything.

Anyway, here's a link to the overall 2003 and 2012 RS500 lists that I put together, showing the differences between the two polls: album movements, deletions and additions. Thanks to everyone who participated.  I'll try to come up with another poll topic very soon.