Richard Hell & The Voidoids: Blank Generation - 1977

Those of you familar with my blog will probably remember it is "The Punk Panther's Music Reviews". Well, my recent change of nomenclature to simply "The Panther" was a direct result of listening to this album. Why? It made me feel that a) punk was a "hell" of a long time ago and b) my musical taste these days has moved on considerably from this sort of punk, and indeed from a lot of punk altogether, however formative it was for my taste back in 1977-78. I just didn't feel punk anymore, at 66 years old. That doesn't mean I'm going to start listening to opera, though, just in case you getting worried about me. That said, a second listen to the album finds me - as is often the way - giving it a healthy re-assessment.

Anyway, to Richard Hell. Was his name really Hell? Hell, no. It was Meyers. He was a US punk, which was a different animal to the sloganeering, often politically-motivated UK sub-genre. His was a demi-monde of grubby Bowery clubs, equally grubby groupies, drug-addled nihilism and an overall look that made him look as he had spent the night sleeping on the pavement. The good looks he may have had were lost to seriously uncombed hair, open, often ripped leather jacket and a general vacuous appearance that screamed out rehab.

As for the music, well, apart from the reasonably appealing single, Blank Generation - a track I always knew from back then - and a vague recollection somewhere of the saucily-titled Love Comes In Spurts, I had no knowledge of the album, other than a cursory idea of what the band sounded like. In my mind, they were something like Television - somewhat dour music played by somewhat faceless guys, with touches of Iggy & the Stooges and maybe a little bit of early Talking Heads. Indeed the album has all of those things in it, but it is nowhere near as naunced and clever as Television's Marquee Moon or as quirkily melodic as Talking Heads' 77. It has some of the raw power (forgive me!) of Iggy's seminal album of the same name from four years earlier. It also has something of The Velvet Underound's proto-punk attitude about it.

Another thing that I feel worthy of pointing out before I continue is how typically punk and sneery Hell's voice is, coming over rather weak and bleaty in places as opposed to angry. So many punks sang like this and it sort of detracts from any menace they may have been trying to convey in their overall image. He was pretty young and harmless-looking after all, wasn't he?

On to the songs in more detail - Love Comes In Spurts is a fine, grinding punk single, to be fair, industrial, clunky and with a catchy chorus. Yes, I'll take this one. Liars Beware is pretty much archetypal early US punk - fast, furious and in possession of a fist-pumping "oh oh oh" refrain. One impressive thing throughout this album is Robert Quine's flexible, inventive guitar which, at times, far exceeds the requisite punk three chords. Listen to his mid-song work on this track and you will hear what I mean. Good stuff.

New Pleasure is an after-dark, noir punker that dabbles in deviance. Once again it is well backed, musically. Several UK punk groups admitted to taking inspiration from material like this, certainly The Sex Pistols on their more run-of-the-mill numbers and groups like 999, Magazine and Generation X. 

Betrayal Takes Two finds Richard bemoaning a relationship gone wrong on a slower number. Quine's guitar is searing on this one. The bass is nice and warm too, especially on the latest 40th anniversary remaster. Down At The Rock And Roll Club is a very NYC punk number, full of seediness, chunky backbeats and cascading rubbery basslines. A lovely heavy drum sound backs the rhythmic Who Says?, parts of which remind me in its clinky-dinky guitar sound of Talking Heads' afore-mentioned 77 album. Very much so, in fact. 

The old side two began with the now-iconic (well, almost) Blank Generation, a song which got us all claiming to be brain-dead, vacant ignoramuses (or should that be ignorami?), when in fact we were all off to bloody University. It's a great pus-spurting youthful protest song, though, summing up the sound of 1977 perfectly. Listening it now just immediately transports me right back there.

Perhaps the album's best track is the brooding, Television meets Magazine grind of Walking On The Water, a John Fogerty song that is full of vibrant fire. More of that Talking Heads melody is to be found on the attractive (comparatively) The Plan. It is the most pleasing track, musically, on the album and stands as an example of its hidden depths. 

Finally, it seemed that many punk groups felt obliged to put a lengthy clunker on their album, inspired by Television's Marquee Moon, no doubt, and here we had Another World to close the work with. It has that vaguely reggae-ish guitar skank to it and a fair amount of unease to its general feel. It drags on a couple of minutes too long as Hell starts yelping away but it goes without saying now that the guitar work on it is top notch.

What we had here was not a bad album at all. For 1977. Does it still stand up today? Probably not, but as a time and a place piece of work it is well worthy of consideration and a not unreasonable amount of praise. The spirit of 1977 is alive and well when I listen to this. Maybe the old Punk Panther is still stirring in his lair.