Hello out there!
Artists and the distance they feel when confronted with early works, a special topic! Scott Walker won’t be singing, say, „The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore)“ again in a hurry. Doesn’t make the song any less perfect. Radiohead don’t generally do „Creep“ as a crowdpleasing encore. Kraftwerk all but pretend their first two albums don’t exist. Lou Reed panned Transformer and indeed most of his work on bad days (although on other days he’d proclaim their genius). Green Gartside isn’t enamoured of the early “indie” Scritti Politti oeuvre. Start asking Brian Eno about Roxy Music (with bright eyes), and you‘re history!
REM shrug off Fables Of The Reconstruction, The Smiths moaned about their debut, and Alex Chilton was less than enthusiastic about Big Star’s work. Talk Talk and My Bloody Valentine seem faintly embarrassed by the first things to bear their name, and Kevin Rowland far prefers his recent releases to his Eighties ones. John Lennon notoriously shrieked on the Plastic Ono Band album that “I don’t believe in Beatles”, though he was just doing the 1970 version of trolling. And read what Van Morrison says about Astral Weeks to undermine its value, you won’t believe it! And in the jazz field, Art Lande is very sceptical about the probably best album he ever did, „Red Lanta“, with Jan Garbarek. Not even to mention Keith Jarrett‘s response to journalists singing a song of praise on his Köln Concert.
Kate Bush disliked her albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes so much that she restructured and re-recorded tracks for the ill-advised The Director’s Cut release in 2011. This had the effect of making lifelong fans feel like we were being told we had cloth ears, and that our fond memories were worthless. And that’s the awkward thing when our favourite bands slag off the records which made us first fall in puppy love with them. It feels like they’re telling you you’re a mug. You got duped. (Ever get the feeling …?)
Except you didn’t, because what the listener hears is what the listener hears, and therefore you’re right. You’re no more wrong because the source tells you so than you are if some reviewer says your favourite record sucks. The artist is of course coming at it from an extremely subjective position, laced with equal parts hubris and self-doubt. Eugene O’Neill wanted the manuscript to Long Day’s Journey Into Night buried: his widow disobeyed. What did Eugene know?
Thank you for reading, best, Chris!