When I talk about 5 Albums That Should Have Changed The World I want to be very clear what I’m saying. These are not albums that didn’t sell well (though they didn’t) and this isn’t about paying homage to those pioneers who became legends later in their careers. To me that’s way too simple, to just re-list the same bands people always list as leaders or to come up with a list of records that started as poor sellers only later to sell millions of copies on reputation alone.
Bands like Black Flag, The Stooges, MC5, Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, Tom Waits and so on all belong in that category. These are musical giants to be worshipped and revered and it’s that worship alone that leaves them out of what I’m talking about. It’s true Black Flag records didn’t start out selling well or being heralded as anything important outside the scene they were in but that has changed.
Everybody understands that those bands are heroes, or at the very least they’ve heard of the band and know of their importance. Some of these musical stalwarts like Patti Smith or Tom Waits have become iconic figures in music that are so elevated from their original unknown status we barely remember that time at all. These bands and their records actually did change the world as opposed to these five that should have but didn’t.
These five albums were released with content that should have caused a revolution in music but instead fell by the wayside. Some had careers that continued on and some just ceased to exist after their album came out. Whatever the case the particular musical contribution I’m talking about was either too smart, ahead of it’s time or just fell on deaf and ignorant ears. I champion these records and I want to see them get the accolades they deserve. In short I want people to know why these are 5 Albums That Should Have Changed The World.
1. DEATH: Politicians For The Whole World To See
Now technically “For The Whole World To See” isn’t the name of Death’s original album because, basically, a record community simply not ready to handle a band this raw denied them the ability to have a full record.
Brothers Bobby and Dannis Hackney formed death in 1971 and while most African American musicians were making soul or funk in this era the Hackney’s kept their trio on the road of hard driving punk and garage rhythms that presaged punk by several years.
This fundamental dedication to a street level smash mouth form of rock n’ roll made it difficult for Death to find a real following amongst their own ethnic peers or in a white music community often scared by such powerful African American musicians. The band hit Detroit’s United Sounds Studios to record a full length paid for by Columbia Records Clive Davis.
When Davis pressed the band to change the name to something more commercially viable the Hackney’s refused, in true punk spirit. According to the Hackney family Clive Davis pulled the funding and the band was only able to record seven songs. Death released a 7” with the tunes “Politicians In My Eyes” b/w Keep On Knocking that sold 500 copies before they disbanded.
This was the real deal stuff on the same vibe the MC5 and The Stooges were on. Death was a rock band that built their chops from the sixties garage bands but added an element of fistfight rawness that was unparalleled.
Death not only wrote straight hard driving garage punk jams, they also managed to include some psychedelic and prog-rock elements without ever losing the straight rock influence. With their political lyrics, music and the African American element Death was a band that could have ignited a fire that burned hotter than their peers MC5 or The Stooges. To be honest between the music and the ideals the MC5 were essentially Death with better distribution and better luck, oh and white.
Death’s music was largely lost in the annals of rock history until the Drag City record label dusted off these seven gems and put out the “For The Whole World To See” retrospective. Listening to it now, with all that’s happened in music, it’s hard not to wonder what Death’s contribution would have been had they been allowed to shine?
2. DE LA SOUL: De La Soul Is Dead
I know it seems odd to see a band like De La Soul in an article like this but their second full-length album De La Soul Is Dead more than fits the bill. When De La Souls’ first album “3 Feet High And Rising” came out it took the world by storm. Those of us lucky enough to be there when it hit can remember it as one of the few times you sat in front of your record player just amazed at what you were hearing.
Between their look and the whole D.A.I.S.Y. Age ideal De La Soul was often referred to as hippies, which wasn’t the case. D.A.I.S.Y. meant Da Inner Sound Y’all, which was an attempt by the group to get people more interested in following their inner voice than trends.
With their vibe being misunderstood but their music being loved it would have been easy for De La Soul to melt into what the public wanted and come out with a sequel to 3 Feet High And Rising. However that wasn’t the style of a group who had already stretched the boundaries of hip-hop far beyond what anybody thought it could be. Instead De La Soul got darker, edgier, more cryptic and more experimental.
The result was De La Soul Is Dead an album so incredibly different than anything having been attempted in hip hop either before or since that the record buying public had no choice but to reject it. The album was released in 1991 when the largely ignorant and annoying world of “Gangsta Rap” began to garner its foothold on the genre. De La Soul took their dislike of this style so far that they blatantly made fun of it on De La Soul Is Dead. Not being a “hard” or easily digestible record De La Soul Is Dead was considered a failure when it was first released.
The funny part is that it is now one of the most influential albums in the history of music without people even knowing it. Most modern underground hip hop today from MF Doom to Doseone owe their entire existence to an album that should have killed Gangsta Rap and blown open new doors in Hip Hop. De La Soul Is Dead should have done for rap what the Minutemen’s “Double Nickels On The Dime” did for punk but the public wasn’t ready. Nowadays you can hear elements of De La Soul’s second album in a lot of the underground or “intelligent” rap out there.
The bizarre loops and samples De La Soul used combined with the production of Prince Paul would be seen today as incredibly forward thinking but in the early nineties was simply called “weird”. The use of the recorded “skits”, the intricate pop culture lyrics that often flowed outside of the music or off beat were not conducive to multi-platinum success in the nineties. In the current underground hip hop climate those aspects are not only applauded but also expected. De La Soul Is Dead should have burned the world down when it came out, instead it has had to wait fifteen years or more for its influence to be felt.
3. DEADGUY: Fixation On A Co-Worker
There are only a few times when the world of extreme music can actually move forward from the stagnant place it occupies into a world of real creativity. One of those times was the arrival in 1994 of Deadguy. This New Jersey band was called everything from metal to hardcore and belonged in neither category and yet both at the same time.
That’s what made Deadguy so incredible, their ability to cut out their own niche and, in short, create their own genre of music. Deadguy wrote incredibly harsh, violent, complicated music that took influences from metal, hardcore, noise music and punk. Guitar riffs that sprayed out at you like machinegun fire coupled with basic rhythms that pounced on every note turned Fixation On a Co-Worker into an opus of bleak disdain and self-loathing. Original vocalist Tim Singer had a scream that reached into your soul and plucked out everything that tormented you. His lyrics were incredibly emotional but also intelligent enough to be universally understood. Tim may have been singing about his own pain but you could totally relate to it.
Fixation On A Co-Worker is one of the few albums, in any genre, that can be called perfect. It is end to end an absolutely flawless example of what happens when true creativity and artistic merit enter into the world of extreme music. Not only is there not one bad song on this album there is also not one arena of heavy/extreme music you can put it in. Sure the album may have had its roots in bands like The Dazzling Killmen and Rorschach (where Deadguy guitarist Keith Huckins actually played) but Deadguy brought something new into the mix.
Fixation On A Co-Worker took what Deadguy were already doing and ratcheted it up a notch. The musical textures became more complex; the music itself became bleaker while still managing to stay complicated. Fixation felt like a living entity that was growing and changing as you listened to it. The guitar tones, production, the way the music interacted with the vocals, it was incredibly new and incredibly innovative. When the album came out those of us involved in the underground music scene were convinced it would destroy the world of extreme music and force it to be rebuilt stronger, smarter and better.
Once again this was not to be. The simple fact that Deadguy had broken new ground in the world of extreme music scared a lot of people. The metal kids didn’t understand the hardcore elements, the hardcore kids didn’t understand the metal aspects and for many it was just too hard to figure out. Fixation On A Co-Worker is an album so ahead of the curve, so ahead of anything being done in the genre of extreme music it still stands alone fourteen years later.
The worst part of it is that this mindless, talentless offshoot of hardcore called “Metalcore” tries to owe its origins to Deadguy, which is simply not true. Metalcore is a boring, repetitious and mindless genre that owes more to Gorilla’s smacking the ground with their fists than anything as brilliant as Fixation On A Co-Worker a record so far outside the box it made all of us re-think the box entirely.
4. ONLY LIVING WITNESS: Innocents
There are times in the world when a perfect storm hits and while some of us are around to see it, others just fail to understand it. Boston band Only Living Witness was one such perfect storm and their sophomore album Innocents should have made them legends. In my estimation Innocents is the “Nevermind” of heavy metal.
The reason Innocents should have been that revered is that it constitutes the same unique marriage of integrity and talent with an ability to appeal to a mass audience. Only Living Witness were a heavy band to be sure but their music was so unique and so well structured that it actually became catchy. Purist metalheads heard Innocents and loved it but so did college kids, punks, even basic rock fans found themselves loving Innocents for no other reason than it was that fucking good.
Outside of the music the central appeal to Only Living Witness was vocalist Jonah Jenkins who had a range that most singers would kill for. Jenkins voice was like nothing else in metal at all. He could actually sing but with a force that punctured even the most jaded music fan and an honesty that swept you up in what was going on. Like all great singers Jenkins could weave his own personal pains into songs that anybody could identify with and put their own pain onto. He managed to communicate something to everybody who could hear him.
Innocents also marked a massive change in style and sound from Only Living Witness’s debut album “Prone Mortal Form”. The music of Innocents was bigger, less straightforward tan Prone, with riffs that were thick and had actual weight to them instead of just being heavy. Innocents almost had a stonerrock feel to it years before stonerrock would become the well-known genre it is today. Understand that this album wasn’t stonerrock but it had that earthy connection, that feeling of pure weight to it that so many other bands have tried to duplicate.
This wasn’t a rock record, a metal record, a punk record or even a pop record; it was a mixture of all of those things. Only Living Witness weren’t afraid to write actual songs instead of just bashing listeners over the head with riffs. They used space, silence and sparse arrangements in ways bands hadn’t even dreamed of. When it was over you were left with an album full of artistic integrity, musical creativity and the ability to appeal to anyone who enjoyed music. It should have been one of those records people remembered where they were the first time they heard it.
Sadly internal strife tore Only Living Witness apart before they could properly promote Innocents but the album has survived the test of time. Other bands in the music community site Innocents and Only Living Witness as major influences on how they write music. This was an album that should have created a new avenue for heavy music instead of vanishing before it got a chance to.
5. SIR LORD BALTIMORE: Kingdom Come
Sir Lord Baltimore are one of the shameful victims of the forgotten seventies rock scene. Not the stuff that people cling to now like Zeppelin or Sabbath or even Grand Funk Railroad but the bands that made great music in the era and was forgotten,
Sir Lord Baltimore’s Kingdom Come is a raw slab of distorted guitars and fast-paced rhythms. It is the Godfather of Heavy Metal just as much as anything Black Sabbath put out but without the recognition. What the band Sir Lord Baltimore were doing wasn’t being done during the seventies rock age and was summarily dismissed by many as just pure noise. It was the dubious distinction of actually being the first album referred to as “Heavy Metal” in a Creem review in 1971.
What makes Sir Lord Baltimore so incredible and their being forgotten so tragic is that they were actually heavier and more chaotic than Black Sabbath. Sabbath’s self-titled debut album came out the same year as Kingdome Come but was infinitely more simplistic and blues based. Kingdom Come took blues and turned it on its head by using distortion to turn those riffs into powerful chunks of weighted sound. In the era that they came out of Sir Lord Baltimore were scary and confusing.
The band also used dynamics better than Sabbath did in the early days. Kingdom Come is filled with odd time signatures and psychedelic sections that add new dimensions to the heavy music they were already writing. Coupled with the extended guitar solos and dark themes Kingdom Come was essentially Sabbath before Sabbath really figured out what they were doing.
Don’t get me wrong Black Sabbath are superior song writers but Sir Lord Baltimore were the first to really make heavy music that wasn’t littered with flowery sentiments or false claims of brotherhood. This album fully announced the end of the peace and love movement and a hello to the realities of the darker world we were facing. It’s the first heavy metal record and it should have punched a whole into music instead of largely being ignored.
Vocally Kingdom Come was all over the place, ranging from straight ahead singing to weird bantering and then high screams. The lyrics were hard to figure out and largely unimportant, it was more the feeling the entire album was putting forward. Sir Lord Baltimore released only one other record before disbanding but have come together for reunion shows in recent years.
Kingdom Come personified not only the early stages of Heavy Metal but also the best in progressive and epic sounding rock albums. I don’t begrudge Black Sabbath their standing as the world’s first heavy metal band, I just don’t know how deserved it is. If Sir Lord Baltimore’s Kingdom Come hadn’t been so weird, so heavy and so tripped out I believe it would have struck the music world like a bolt of lightening and be regarded as the first Heavy Metal album.
So there you have it, the five albums I feel should have changed the world but didn’t. I’m sure other people have different ideas and I invite everybody to compare, contrast and argue. Meanwhile I’m going to take these five albums and listen to them over and over again.
