George Starostin's Reviews

 THE HOLLIES

"I love Jennifer Eccles, I know that she loves me"

General Rating: 3

Introduction

ALBUM REVIEWS:

I don't really like talking in terms of 'pure rock' or 'pure pop' music. As you might have guessed, I'm a fan of diversity, and 'pureness' doesn't really combine well with diversity. Great bands, starting from the Beatles and ending with... er... Ten Years After, maybe, were all fairly diverse. However, if there is a 'pure pop' band to be found somewhere around, it would certainly be the Hollies. One of Britain's most famous bands ever (they were actually only beaten by the Beatles in terms of hit singles in the Sixties), they seem to be pretty much neglected in the States, which is understandable. Americans don't really need the Hollies that much. Their national pride are the Beach Boys, whom the Hollies could have been said to be pretty much a reflection of... at least, in some ways. Famous for their catchy pop melodies, scarce, but always rational, instrumentation, and, above all, immaculate vocal harmonies, they could have been dubbed as British Invasion bubblegum, along with Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers and other stuff like that, if not for one reason. The Hollies were hugely professional. Their music probably represented the highest level of Britpop which nobody could help to attain, not even the Beatles. I mean, the Beatles weren't really 'pop' in the 'pure' sense: they were a beat group, their image was 'wild' - not as wild as the Stones, of course, but not quite tame nevertheless, and, moreover, they were hugely unpredictable. Their main 'function' was to innovate, and their 'pure pop' stage, if there ever was one, was just one of the multiple transitions they underwent over the years.
The Hollies, meanwhile, had none of that. They just delivered album after album of perfect, smooth, well-polished, ideally memorable ditties with good, sometimes slightly intelligent, but never snobby or pretentious, lyrics, drenched in great three-part harmonies of Clarke, Hicks and Nash. They might seem a little samey to the unexperienced listener, but not really: the guys did know a lot about music and they took good care not to end up sounding like they were re-writing the same melody again and again. This blistering pop marathon lasted for about three years before time took its toll on the band and they decided to get experimental, too: 1967 even brought them a 'psychedelic' vibe. However, 1967 turned out to be the culmination of their 'evolution': soon afterwards Nash, who was always the 'innovative' one, quit to join forces with Crosby and Stills, and the others led the band back onto its 'pure pop' rails. Guess what? They fell out of the public life totally by 1969. That doesn't mean that their late Sixties - early Seventies output is worthless, though. In fact, some of their later albums still hold up quite well (Distant Light is one of my favourites). The problem is that they did little to change, mostly sticking with the same early Sixties formula, and this eventually led to their transformation into very long-bearded 'dinosaurs'. Then again, same thing happened to the Beach Boys, didn't it? Anyway, if you do enjoy the classic epoch of pre-1967 'silly pop' as much as I do, your collection is not complete without at least half a dozen Hollies albums. Start from either For Certain Because or Butterfly (although the latter isn't so typical), and have fun and fun and fun forever!
I understand that for any typical American classic rock fan my rating the Hollies on the same level with, for instance, Led Zeppelin, might seem absolutely ridiculous, if not to say blasphemous. (I have already received a couple deadhead flames on the subject). But remember: it's not historical importance or terms of influence or the overall hype that I'm after. I'm reviewing music, and the actual music that the Hollies made (aka: guitar melodies, vocal harmonies and aural hooks) is worth standing the test of time, just as well as, say, the Beach Boys'. Stay away from the usual 'anti-pop' bias and you'll see that these dudes were pretty awesome composers, far more advanced, actually, than Jimmy Page could ever hope to be in the middle of all his blues-ripping. I give the Hollies a three - not because they were influential (which they were; just imagine the Moody Blues without their influence), but because they released a string of highly enjoyable albums in the Sixties: not strikingly brilliant, but solid and consistent, with a relatively small percent of filler and a lot of fun and entertaining value.
Lineup: Allan Clarke - vocals; Graham Nash - guitar, vocals; Eric Haydock - bass guitar; Don Rathbone - drums. This earliest version, formed somewhere around 1961, didn't really last long after they'd started the sessions. The 'classic' line-up preserved Clarke and Nash and in 1963 replaced Rathbone by Bobby Elliot, and added Tony Hicks, guitar. The Clarke-Hicks-Nash conglomerate became the center of the band for five crucial years of their existence. Haydock quit in 1966, replaced by Bernie Calvert. In 1969 Nash joined CSN and was replaced by Terry Sylvester (guitar, vocals); thus was inaugurated the second version of the band, the one featured on their last great hit - the 1974 'Air That I Breathe'. They did a lot of records even after that, but I wouldn't know about them, really (they were mostly panned to death by critics). In another world, maybe. If you know anything about post-1974 Hollies records and think they are any good, E-mail me and maybe I'll give it an afterthought. As far as I understand, the Hollies are still around and playing some British clubs and barrooms - somehow, these youthful pop bands of the Sixties seem to be tenacious. Speak o' the Beach Boys, for instance.
The main problem with the Hollies is that, as it happens with nearly every underrated band, most of their original albums are out of print, and not that easy to get. I'm still missing a lot of their key 1964-65 records, absolutely crucial to the understanding of their real value, and this page is by no means a definite survey of their output, rather a short little introduction to the world's greatest 'pure pop' band. If there ever was one.

What do YOU think about the Hollies? Mail your ideas

Your worthy comments:

Tom Sperry <ctsperry@pacbell.net> (29.01.2000)

Douglas Treible <d_treible@email.msn.com> (25.02.2000)

Tom Swinford <tasbooks@extremezone.com> (27.02.2000)

Itay Reiss <ireiss11@yahoo.com> (08.04.2000)

Bob Josef <Trfesok@aol.com> (20.10.2000)

Jeff Blehar <jdb3@jhu.edu> (20.11.2000)

ALBUM REVIEWS
IN THE HOLLIES' STYLE

Year Of Release: 1964
Record rating = 7
Overall rating = 10

A typical first-class Merseybeat album: when it's not over-saccharine, it's good pop fun.
Best song: NITTY GRITTY/SOMETHING'S GOT A HOLD ON ME

This is actually the album that starts the real Hollies - their debut record never actually showed any specific style, but the title of their second effort perfectly matches the contents, because truly and verily this is very much in the Hollies' style. First, the boys must be given credit for actually writing most of this record: seven out of twelve songs are credited to 'Ransford', which was the band's collective pseudonym. Not too soon, either, because by now it was obvious that the Hollies couldn't have stood the R'n'B competition with major competitors such as - even - the Beatles, let alone the Stones. Their cover of 'Too Much Monkey Business', a song that only the above-mentioned Beatles and Stones had the good taste not to include on their regular studio albums (not that it's a bad song, it was just overabused and overplayed to oversickening by just about every second-hand Merseybeat outfit), proves just that: it's even weaker than the Kinks' version, and the Davies gang weren't that hot with their R'n'B either. The solo break is kinda cute, but the voices singing the main melody shake and quiver, as if they were afraid they'd lose the verses while rapping 'em in the Berry tradition, and the main criminy is that all the lyrics are understandable - what a perverse thing for a fast R'n'B number.
Ha ha, enough irony. On the other hand, the medley that opens the record is terrific, with a magnificent Clarke lead vocal in the 'Nitty Gritty' part and unforgettable group harmonies on the 'Something's Got A Hold On Me' part. Which reminds me - this is the first place where you gotta encounter those magnificent multi-part audacious harmonies, the only thing on which the Hollies could really beat the Beatles. Also, the Haydock/Elliot rhythm section is finally picking up steam, with the bassist laying on thick fluent lines which he obviously copied from Bill Wyman and the drummer copying Ringo's heavy cymbal-thrashing style; it's not that I'm calling the team an ultra-professional one, not even for their time, but they definitely spent more time on rehashing their playing techniques than, say, the Kinks or even the Animals (I'm really meaning the rhythm section, you understand). This strange half-Stones/half-Beatles style plus superb harmonies really makes this (and many more songs) stand out and grab your attention despite all odds.
And the other covers are chosen wisely, too - they only embarrass themselves on the ultra-sugary 'I Thought Of You Last Night' with false falsettos and very very gentle acoustic guitars (a thing the Beatles thankfully never did). But 'It's In Her Kiss' and 'What Kind Of Boy' are excellent Motownish songs with all the hooks in place, and the Hollies do them all the 'Merseybeat justice'.
The thing that's most fun are the originals, though. No, the Hollies haven't reached their songwriting peak yet, and parts and pieces of their self-penned numbers sound kinda clumsy and naive. 'To You My Love', for instance, has a gorgeous melody with a fascinating resolution of the main vocal part, but the middle-eight contrasts with it very roughly, sounding like a crude rip-off of some teenybopper stuff like 'Honeymoon Song' or something like that. And they also go over the top with songs like 'Time For Love', with overbearing lyrics ('don't you know it's time for love', really) and harmonies that should be saved for better material. The arrangements are exceedingly simple as well... but then again, remember the Beatles' arrangements in 1964.
Basically, from the 'adequacy' point of view, there are very few accusations one could hurl towards the record - it's chock-full of first-rate pop compositions, every one of which has at least a tiny detail making it unique. 'Come On Home' has that tricky little contrast before group harmonies and Clarke's (Nash's?) solo line ('now I found out... you left me on my own'). 'You'll Be Mine' has such a bold, gamy introductory 'vocalization' that it's hardly forgettable. 'Don't You Know' has some of the most complicated harmonies on here, and 'Set Me Free' is the band's best try at penning down something rhythm-and-bluesish. Aw, as usual, it's impossible to actually describe the songs, unless you'd expect me to hang out the sheetnotes or lay down the MP3s - which I would gladly do in a more perfect world free from bloodsucking commercialization.
Of course, it's still a long hard road to albums like For Certain Because, and I can only give this particular record an overall rating of 10, because, good as it is, it was 1964 for Chrissake. And Ron Richards' original liner notes, still preserved for the CD release of this record, really annoy me: I realize it's just a standard promotional text, but his constant appraisal of the band's playing skills is ridiculous. He should stick to praising the harmonies and the... and the harmonies again. At least half of these vocal melodies are sheer genius, ample proof that the Hollies were, indeed, one of Britain's major, not minor, bands of the decade. So what if they didn't make the crossover to the States? Too bad for the States, I say.

Don't you know I need your ideas

FOR CERTAIN BECAUSE

Year Of Release: 1966
Record rating = 9
Overall rating = 12

One of the most perfect examples of pop songwriting. Buy this as an 'ethalon'.
Best song: STOP STOP STOP

Their fourth album was a major breakthrough - the songs were mostly written by the Clark/Hicks/Nash conglomerate, and there wasn't even a single cover among them (not that the Hollies couldn't do covers, mind you). These songs aren't spectacular, of course. What strikes me most about them is just the care, the quality with which they were written. The melodies are all original; the verses are all carefully structured; the harmonies, as usual, are immaculate and, moreover, twisted to the point of virtuosity... just a breathtakingly well-written album.
Let's see: the biggest hit here was 'Stop! Stop! Stop!', a fast, swirling whoopla with a highly distinguishable twinkling banjo riff that gets you really going round and round and round. Groovy! But that's only the beginning (actually, the end, 'cause it's the last track on the album). The first track is just as enjoyable and, funny enough, it's also built on a groovy banjo line - the instrument seems to have been pretty much favoured by the band around the time. Other than that, 'What's Wrong With The Way I Live' is also the genuine independency anthem on the album, with one of the greatest refrains of all time - 'What's wrong with the way I live/The way I use my time/People should live their lives/Leaving me to mine'. It gets you tapping your foot and whistling along from the very first second, which is quite a nice way to start an album and, seeing that the last track does exactly the same thing, one can certainly assume that this is a hella energetic record... nah, not quite.
It's actually much more diverse than that, with songs alternating between really fast numbers and slow, moody 'spookers'. Sometimes they're even quite weird in tempo, like the supposedly generic (but not quite) love song 'Pay You Back With Interest' which starts slow as an old farmer's ode to his meadows and then speeds the refrain up as if the band suddenly remembers what they're actually there for.
Yeah, nothing totally phenomenal about this album; but they guys were so clever that they inserted little hookey-hooks into every single ditty on here, which contributes quite a lot to their memorability. Thus, 'Tell Me To My Face' has a totally charming stingy guitar line and a slightly 'Eastern dancing' style, that is, it reminds me a little of Indian music, but without the 'metaphysical stuff', like those with no knowledge about philosophy would say. 'Clown' is a sad lament about, well, a clown, also betraying certain Eastern influences, even if it's introduced by little circus keyboard ('vibes') noises. You could easily call the song the band's first venture into psychedelia - the lyrics are rather straightforward, but the echoey guitars and vocals and the somber bass line are clearly the kind of stuff that would become oh so familiar next year. Spooky.
On the 'positive' side, we have 'Suspicious Look In Your Eyes', highlighted by the ear-piercing 'bap bap's and Clarke's almost sardonic vocals - 'you got that suspicious look in yoooour eeeeeeee-iiiiiii-eeeees...'. 'It's You' is distinguishable by the wild harmonica which is a perfect reflection for the choruses. 'High Classed' is a hilarious piece of social commentary, punctuated by silly brass passages, although the line that said 'you eat caviar while I eat toast' always sounded kinda fake and banal to me - the Hollies eating toast? they probably just didn't like caviar!; 'Peculiar Situation' has the second best refrain on record ('Ain't that a peculiar situation/We're lovers but we don't make love'); and 'What Went Wrong' is just a fascinating piece of singing, although the brass intro is awfully generic and somewhat lacking in good taste. 'Crusader' is the only tune that seriously lets the record down, a lengthy, boring, somewhat pointlessly nostalgic musing with little genuine emotion or anything (in fact, were it not for this song, I'd have easily given the record a 10); even so, the vocal harmonies can't be blamed. Luckily, 'Don't Even Think About Changing' patches things up: starting as a typical Stones song (the guitar licks are, in fact, copped from 'Everybody Needs Somebody To Love'), it quickly shifts directions and turns into another typical Hollies raving with shrill harmonica in the choruses and a general feel of pop perfection. Finally, we get to 'Stop Stop Stop', and you're off there complaining that the record ended a bit too soon for your tastes...
If you ever see this record, be sure to get it. Everybody needs to know what a British pop band could look like in its prime. Not a lot of bands could get eleven short and catchy songs on the album at that time, none of which would really suck. Not even the Kinks, dang it. Hell, not even the Who!! Okay, they learned how to make albums later on in their career, but... this is just so self-assured, so tight, so professional, that it makes me go wow... Drop all the pretenses, bring your feet on the ground, and face reality: who cares if 1966, the year of a musical revolution, saw the Hollies firmly defend their position as an unambitious, simplistic pop ensemble? It's the melody, oh dear friends, the melody that matters above all the experimentation, and there's enough melodies on For Certain Because to keep a typical Nineties band alive for years.

Tell me to my face what you think about the album

BUTTERFLY

Year Of Release: 1967
Record rating = 10
Overall rating = 13

More perfect popwriting, with that groovy 1967 vibe making the material seem more serious than it is.
Best song: WOULD YOU BELIEVE

Their best. What happens when you take twelve first-rate pop cuts, the likes of which you've already heard before, of course, but then you add some ridiculous over-instrumentation, dip it into some carefully balanced sound effects, and write some no-nonsense lyrics that don't necessarily fall into the 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' scheme? You get the Hollies' most diverse, entertaining and carefully produced LP. Butterfly is a typical child of the Summer of Love, of course. Not that the Hollies were a really hip band. They were always extremely slow on the move when it came to experimentation and following new trends, so the album can't be called revolutionary at any cost - in fact, I think they were one of the last bands to tread psychedelia long after the Beatles, Hendrix, Pink Floyd and the Airplane established its rules. Even so, they are extremely careful and wary with it: quite a lot of the tracks here are written according to the earlier, 'safe and sound' formula. But in retrospect, I think that's alright: by doing so, they avoided falling into the usual 'trap of 1967' - going wild with technophilia and acid and forsaking music as such. In that respect, Butterfly can be called one of the most musically satisfying creations of the year: whenever you get tired of your 'Within You Without You', or your 'Interstellar Overdrive', or 'Third Stone From The Sun', put on this here record. You won't regret it.
From a pure musical point of view, there ain't a lot of progression here: the melodies aren't very different from their earlier albums. Thus, the pretty, chugging-along happy ditty 'Away Away Away' could have been written at least three years ago; the harmony-wise wonderful 'Wishyouawish' and 'Postcard' are more of the same - typical hooky Hollies material (swell, of course). And, so as not to let everybody forget that they are still the same Hollies, they turn in yet another in their series of social comments - the stratificatory 'Charlie And Fred', albeit not the best tune on here. However, most of the songs have at least a little something about them that slightly elevates them over the usual happy pop level. The album opener, 'Dear Eloise', features a Mellotron in the introduction, and the line 'could be the best thing that's happened to me' has a weird tremolo effect on the word 'happe-ne-ne-ne-ned'. Dunno why, but sounds good. The main 'bulk' of the song has little to do with psychedelia, of course - it's a straight, unbelievably jovial and well-crafted pop melody, but the intro and outro are thus drenched in some of the more contemporary trends. 'Maker' is built on the obligatory sitar line, and its lyrics are a far cry from the usualy Hollies' subjects. This is psychedelia! By the way, the sitar is put to good use, maybe even better than in 'Within You Without You'; sure, it's kinda hard to imagine Graham Nash and Allan Clark as the Gurus for the new generation, and the lyrics about 'days of yellow saffron' and 'jack-o-lanterns glimmering' are pretty goofy, but the song works anyway, even if it's a rather ridiculous throwaway. Then there's 'Would You Believe', of course, probably an outtake from their earlier Would You Believe album; but I don't know how it could have sounded in 1966, whereas on here, with its pompous, stomping orchestral arrangement and terrific group harmonies, it sounds just fine. Sounds a lot like early Moody Blues, in fact, which is no surprise: the Moodies certainly got a lot of their inspiration by listening to the Hollies. Darn, I just can't help singing along to the mighty refrain when it comes along... 'would you believe I'm in love with you, would you believe I'm in love, and I can't help myself...' ...sorry.
The only place where they go a little over the top is the silly pot anthem 'Try It' (who'd ever have thought the Hollies, the 'good boys', would ever be singing a line like 'won't you try it now?' Go figure!) It features ridiculous 'astral' noises which not only sound dated now, they already sounded dated then, after Piper showed everybody what the 'real' astral noises were. The song itself is immaculate, though, although the way they sing the word 'rainbow' brings images of the Beatles' 'Rain' to me. Well, all the world is one big company. And, anyway, even the silly astral mistake is corrected by the next psycho anthem, 'Step Inside', as well as the closing gentle, almost acoustic title track. For many, 'Butterfly' is one of the best numbers one the record - I can't really see how that could be so, as it's one of the least catchy numbers here, but then again, maybe I'm just too keen on catchiness. The pompous orchestration is a bit too much for me to take on here, too, but the vocal melody is impeccable. Anyway, if you're a Moody Blues fan, you're sure to appreciate it dearly.
Any serious missteps? One. The stupid, sugary 'Pegasus' sounds like a soundtrack to a bad film on Greek mythology. As usual, it has a hook and a melody, but it's obvious that it was just another in their series of half-baked, insecure and derivative psycho efforts; the endlessly repeated refrain 'I'm Pegasus The Flying Hoss' ends up getting on my nerves. So we got it already - why keep on defining the damn creature? However, one fly in the soup don't spoil the cake.
Of course, American audiences know this album as Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse (the latter is the title of the band's most complex and experimentative single). Geez, some more musical industry misguidance. Try to find the original, or you'll be left without 'Try It' and 'Elevated Observations?', a nice little acoustic ditty dealing with 'high matters'. Hey, but how come they put that question mark at the end? Were they trying to put down their own pretentiousness? Good lads!

Step inside and mail your ideas

CONFESSIONS OF THE MIND

Year Of Release: 1970
Record rating = 7
Overall rating = 10

Average mechanical pop music - listenable, but the jovial excitement is long gone. Give credit to the professionalism, though.
Best song: CONFESSIONS OF THE MIND

After a yearlong break in LP recording, loss of a key member (Nash, who went on to join CSN), a panned album of Dylan covers and a slightly more successful album of self-penned material (as you might guess, I still haven't found either of them, the only copies I see are cruelly expensive Japanese imports), the Hollies replaced Nash with ex-Swinging Blue Jeans Terry Sylvester and decided to carry on. However, either their time was long gone or they just lost the spark, but Confessions Of The Mind isn't anywhere as pretty as their classic mid-Sixties releases. It's a good thing, though, that the Hollies were always a 'pure', only very slightly experimental traditional pop band. Their style didn't change much over the years, but at least that guaranteed their absolute mastery of it. This results in the fact that the album in question is certainly not a load of crap (counterexample: the Byrds, who preferred wild experimentation to a steady, but unremarkable career and utterly lost the war). It's just not very interesting. On the positive side, the melodies are still existent, the vocal harmonies are immaculate as usual, the playing and production are top-notch, and the songs aren't overlong (except the title track) or seriously tampered with. On the negative side, they just don't seem to have any real life in them. Now I know that's not an objective remark, but I really can't express it otherwise.
The only concrete objection I can put forward is that the lyrics are for the most part incredibly dumb, usually lame social or psychological comments. 'Highlights' include contemplations on the fate of a little girl whose parents are about to get divorced ('Little Girl'), on the fate of another little girl who's under her mother's thumb ('Too Young To Be Married') and a faint lyrical copy of the Stones' 'Mother's Little Helper' ('Perfect Lady Housewife'). These lyrics are plain horrible. But anyway, who listens to a Hollies album for the lyrics? Their penchant for social commentary was there as early as 1966, and it wasn't always pretty intelligent.
As it is, I don't even have any favourites or see any particular stinkers on here. Okay, so I thought the title track, with its five minutes and thirty seconds, was gonna be a stinker cuz it started like an over-orchestrated, rhythmless operatic piece of schlock; but soon enough it turned itself into a pleasant pop rocker, which partially redeemed it for me. It's actually quite complex for the Hollies, which makes it sound in parts uncannily like a Moody Blues song (well, I've always made a point that the Moody Blues were nothing but an over-complicated, over-puffed-up version of the Hollies). Anyway, 'Confessions Of The Mind' go through several different parts, from 'atmospheric slow with bad orchestra' to 'bouncy fast with good orchestra', and incorporates a really fun guitar solo, too. I do find, however, that the 'she gives me everything...' lines are lifted from the Yardbirds' 'For Your Love'. Anybody else notice the resemblance? Whatever, as the most ambitious and mildly successful 'experimental' track on here, this gets my vote for best song.
Other 'surprises' include Clarke and Sylvester's 'Man Without A Heart', a proto-Europop stomper that yet again presages some of the Moody Blues' work, namely, 'I'm Just A Singer (In A Rock'n'Roll Band)'. Dang it, most of the Moodies' songs can be traced back to the Hollies. Pathetic, isn't it? No, I'm not saying the Moodies lifted the melody - but they lifted the same thump-thump-thumping rhythm and the same vocal harmonies style. In fact, this is about the earliest representative of Europop that I can actually recognize - shouldn't the Hollies be treated as musical revolutionaries, eh? The same nice pair also pumps out a couple more screamers, like the joyful album closer 'I Wanna Shout' (marred by underproduction - the song BEGS for a wall-of-sound production) and the dumb, but hummable 'Perfect Lady Housewife'. And the echoey guitar introduction to 'Isn't It Nice' is one of the most gorgeous moments on the whole record - the song itself, catchy and pleasant as it is, hardly lives up to that minimalistic splash of beauty, but I already don't care.
But the album's main songwriter turns out to be Hicks, with at least five full writing credits and one collaboration with the 'nice pair'. His is the pseudo-epic title track, and he also contributes a couple nice ballads ('Lady Please'), as well as an unbelievingly stupid anti-war song ('Frightened Lady') and an excellent retro sendup bringing us back to the classic Sixties' phase ('Little Girl' - couldn't that ditty come off from For Certain Because? Easily.) 'Survival Of The Fittest', with the magnificent 'descending resolution' of the vocal melody in the chorus, is also a beautiful retro surprise, and a good way to start off the record.
Anyway, why am I discussing these songs, really? You won't understand anything about them from my scattered comments. Just one more sentence and I'm shutting up. These songs are not at all distinctive - a pretty sloppy mess of second-rate pop writing with a few underrated gems mixed in. To hell with it. But any bad songs? Not a single one. Yeah, the hooks are thin and take some time to be discovered, but they're there all right. I understand why many fans and critics prefer to piss on this record, but it's just as it goes with a brilliant piano player - even when he's tired and feeling off his head, you can still feel the hidden genius on the tips of his fingers. At least the style is immaculate as ever.
So if you see Confessions for a decent price ('decent' meaning 'not exceeding one dollar'), you might just as well grab it. Because it isn't a bad record. No Hollies album I ever heard is a bad record - just make sure it's not your first buy. And if you're a diehard fan, it shouldn't at all disappoint you if you just manage to lower your expectations a little bit.

I wanna shout it out loud: MAIL YOUR IDEAS!!!

DISTANT LIGHT

Year Of Release: 1971
Record rating = 8
Overall rating = 11

Improved, improved very much - the songs aren't as uniform and the hooks are less formulaic.
Best song: LONG COOL WOMAN (IN A BLACK DRESS)

Sometimes a massive artistic failure leads to an unexpected peak - I don't know the exact reason, but it might have something to do with a kind of 'repentance', or maybe a shock and the resulting painful search of new ways and new creative ideas. This is exactly what happened. The Hollies were so used to being smash hit producers in Britain that the flop of their last couple of records seemed to have a sobering effect on them. This particular piece of vinyl is a huge improvement over the nasty Confessions Of The Mind. Even though it features essentially the same bunch of songwriters, the same band members and the same production values, it's still loads better. Technically this is in a large part due to a serious shift in sound: where Confessions was just your average bop-pop record, Distant Light is a much bolder effort, incorporating elements of gospel, rhythm and blues and even hard rock (yup, a couple of tracks do feature loud distorted guitars). The sound is much more mean in general, yet some of the songs are still good time pop, and this makes for a diverse and ear-feeding listen. Strange enough, it seems to be a long-time fan "disfavourite", but I'd have to ascribe that just to the very same reason: the Hollies expand beyond their formula and so end up losing some of their hardcore fans. Yet it was a relative commercial success for them, which means that the expansion did also work the other way round.
Thus, this is the record that features the first (and best) of their series of Creedence Clearwater Revival rip-offs: on 'Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)' Sylvester sings uncannily close to John Fogerty like the latter did on echoey songs like 'Green River'. The number itself isn't anything special, of course, but still, these Fogerty-style vocals, the goofy lyrical subject and the bouncy rhythm guitar make me happy and giddy. It was a number two hit in the States, too: apparently, the public must have thought it was CCR masking as the Hollies, and did the band a favour - as far as I know, none of their earlier material ever charted as high in America. What a dirty little trick. :)
Other 'heavy' tracks include the bizarre 'You Know The Score' (with a boring and dragging organ/chorus mid-section, unfortunately - multi-part songs weren't really that band's true specialization), and yet another Fogerty-inspired, paranoid song called 'Hold On', with particularly murky lyrics, but we're really not discussing lyrics if we're into the Hollies. 'Pull Down The Blind' is a strange kind of song, too, with echoey double-tracked vocals and relatively hard guitars, a style which they had never tried previously. All these songs are attractive if only for the fact that they sound nothing like classic Hollies; but in accordance with the Hollies tradition, they're all fantastically catchy and well-produced.
The group harmonies are also on the rise, as witnessed by the album opener, 'What A Life I've Led': a potential dumb newborn anthem that could have fit on Dylan's Saved, it's elevated by Sylvester's tongue-in-cheek singing (literally) and these wonderful harmonies that suddenly sound fresh and exciting again. Perhaps it would be better to leave out the female backup voices - no need to gospelize the song even further - and, of course, it's not that rare kind of gospel anthem, like the Stones' 'Shine A Light', that's able to really bring tears to your eyes, but it's shimmering gospel pop that's engaging and hilarious nevertheless. 'Long Dark Road' and 'A Little Thing Like Love' are just as exciting, with huge, memorable choruses. And none of these banal social comments! The little crying girls and perfect ladies housewives make way for the standard love songs, on one hand, and ridiculous FBI story parodies, on the other. I mean, I prefer my Hollies dumb and simplistic; leave social comments to Jethro Tull and Dylan, because normally I don't expect to follow the lyrics on a Hollies record, and Confessions Of The Mind virtually forced me to.
In all, the album has maybe one bad song in all, the lengthy gospelish 'Promised Land' (at least, it's lyrically gospelish). Sounds somewhat pedestrian, I'd say, and doesn't fit in with these other 'whoppers'. Plus, at times the band tends to water down its sound, like on the piano-based 'Look What We've Got', a song that has a perfectly acceptable melody, but ends up sounding like a mediocre Elton John ballad since the piano never tends to be all that distinctive.
A strange thing, really, how they could have made such a good record in 1971. Of course, Britain was much more busy with praising symph rock at the time. Sheez. I respect symph rock, but give Power Pop a chance, will ya? They didn't and the album didn't chart. Nowadays it's probably impossible to find except on Japanese imports. How come the Japs have everything and the Americanos don't? I didn't get that as a Jap import, though. I got it as a cheap 'licensed' Russian CD copy! Grand and groovy! Anyway, if you see a Jap throw this out of the window, make sure you're standing under it, 'cause you'll love it. If you ain't an ELP freak, of course; in that case, better pick up Tarkus from same year (hey, I love that one, too).
Unfortunately, here ends my little Hollies collection. As far as I know, they had at least one more significant album in the Seventies - their 1974 self-titled record that featured their last huge hit, 'The Air That I Breathe' (a classic, by the way). I'm not really interested in the later records, but I'll be looking for all the pre-1975 material with verve.

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