I’ve been listening to the new Glen Campbell album, Ghost On the Canvas. It’s a very good, if a little uneven, album, but then I’m someone who thinks Glen Campbell could sing just about anything and I’ll find something of interest in it.
The title cut is written by Paul Westerberg and is better than anything I’ve heard from him in years, but that could be Campbell’s singing and not the song. There are other tracks by Jakob Dylan (the standout track to me) and Teddy Thompson (another great track) and Robert Pollard. It could do with the elimination of 3 or 4 cuts, but I like it just fine.
I bring it up though because of the marketing campaign behind it: “Glen Campbell went public in June with the news that he has Alzheimer’s disease, and he’s marking the twilight of his life with a surprisingly ambitious project. The country singer’s final, revealing album.” Oh, and a final tour.
Now, on the one hand, what else could or should he do? He knows his recording/performing days are numbered. He wants to make a final album (statement?). I suppose he could just record the album and tour, not reveal the Alzheimer’s, and leave like Joe DiMaggio but something more seems required. So why does this still seem somewhat distasteful to me?
Of course, when it comes to distasteful marketing campaigns for albums, nobody comes close to Melissa Etheridge:
- “Oooh, I’m a lesbian and this album is the first one I’ve felt like I could really be me on.”
- “Oooh, I’m married to the ex-wife of some actor and this album celebrates our love and life together.”
- “Oooh, my spouse and I have two children and, guess what, David Crosby is the genetic father; learn all about it in the songs from my new album.”
- “Oooh, that ex-wife of some actor left me; feel the pain on my new album.”
Poor Melissa, although, none of these campaigns seem to have done much for her career…
Any other marketing campaigns you recall unfondly?
The first Premature Farewell Tour that comes to mind is Naomi Judd’s. It’s been 20 years since Naomi Judd announced the farewell tour for The Judds because of her hepatitis C? She hasn’t done a whole lot with her daughter Wynnona since then, but her solo career as a singer, actor, and talk-show host has chugged along.
Toby Keith exploiting the tragedy of 9/11 and its aftermath.
Isn’t Beady Eye’s tour promoted with, “I got rid of my fooking brother Noel and now I can finally fooking Rock!”
Or then The Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over Tour. Where hell freezing over just meant five guys hit the lottery three nights a week, and you can pay to watch.
Bowie’ s Glass Spider tour, maybe the first for which an artist declared he would subsequently refuse to play his hits.
I still think the Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville is a song-by-song feminist deconstruction of Exile on Main Street spiel, so eagerly parroted by the rock critics for whom it was custom designed like catnip for kittens, was a classic of sorts.
Something else that always sticks in my mind was when Dylan’s dreadful album Down in the Groove (1988) came out it bore a sticker that said, I think in these exact words, “10 songs worthy of the Dylan legacy,” which was precisely the opposite of the truth.
“Brian’s back!” springs to mind. Thanks a lot, MIKE LOVE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFQu9tR6KRo
And then there’s Lou Reed whose every album has the same marketing theme which has provided the title for more threads than any other here at RTH.
Woo-hoo! My first Pince Nez. That would be the “Sound & Vision” tour in 1990 that you are talking about Mr. Mod!
Some of the reunion stuff for older bands really strains credibility — return to form — best album since . . . blah, blah, blah. Rolling Stone is particularly fond of giving three and four star reviews and hype to warhorse acts that get around to releasing new material.
The most recent example is The Cars 2011 album, which is pretty dull, save for a couple of tracks. Most of the live show reviews of the reunion tour that I saw were pretty savage, though. Hard to hide how boring they were . . . and are . . . live.
Lou Reed backed by Metallica IS how his musik was always meant to sound like!
Not to mention “The New Cars.”
There’s almost an air of apology surrounding each new Lou release, isn’t there? “Lou’s really serious this time. No, he honestly means it! No more screwing around. This is the real thing!”
“It’s the best Lou Reed album since 1984’s New Sensations . . . a real return to form for the godfather of the punk movement.”
If that’s so, CONGRATULATIONS! Feels good, doesn’t it? 🙂
So what was The Glass Spider Tour, just one we all giggled about for some other reason? I thought that was the tour that set up Bowie’s lifelong commitment to Tin Soldier, or whatever the hell that BAND, man, was called.
Glass Spider was a really badly designed late 80’s tour with terrible costumes, bad “Labyrinth” hair, overblown set design, too many people onstage(dancers, Frampton), and it was a tour in support of his first REALLY bad album. Also, the name kind of reeks of “remember when i was awesome?”
Zevon is dying, and he’s all mad about it. Find out how mad and raw he is. Pick up a copy today.
Good call — it’s hard not sound harsh and I really don’t blame the Campbell or Zevon folks, but it is a bit macabre.
The “I’m sober” now marketing campaigns are kind of cliche too. Aerosmith, Scott Weiland, Brian Wilson, Depeche Mode, Bowie, have all engaged in this old saw.
The worst for me was the recent DEVO album. The went all Internet and Viral I believe with a website/Facebook campaign where people could pick the songs on the album. They hired one of the ad world’s hottest agency, Mother in LA. And garnered a shit load of press.
Album sold almost nothing. Yay!
If this doesn’t make you want to punch Devo and the Ad Agency in the face, nothing will:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO9GEicoX0c&feature=relmfu
Ha, just realized Devo was the visual of the presidential hair post!
Should just be the new cars smell, but, people like that too.
This just reminds me of how I would go onto the old notlame website, and 90 percent of the albums would have a description referencing some band I love. Yeah, this sounds like the Who, but only if you meant their cover of Bucket T.
“Let’s face it,” says Reed in a gravelly monotone, “I’ve been running on fumes for years and basically taking people’s money. You know that, I know that. But this time I’m fully committed and I’ve made the record I’ve always wanted to make. The record you’ve always known I could make. This is it; this is the one.”
Yes, and can some sane people please cast their votes in the poll? The machete is ready.
David Crosby and Iggy Pop, too.
But the album is actually pretty decent.
I think it’s actually pretty terrific. The first time I listened to it, I was thinking it was gonna be my favorite Devo album since the first until the last two songs, where it sort of runs out of steam. Every time I play it it surprises me how much I like it, though.
I remember the first I knew of notlame. I think it was pre-internet because I think it was hard copy. Anyway, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, reading these lavish reviews of bands I’d never heard of with comparisons to so many bands I loved. So I agonized, cut a lengthy list down to about 8 CDs and bought them.
Sure wish there was a market for that junk…
Westerberg is another one with that. His I’m sober and staying home with the kids album followed by his I’m drinking again album.
I’ve already swung the machete myself.
touche!
The old RIYL ploy — cost me hundreds of dollars.
Subaru: “This car is like punk rock!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLhfxI8T2cU
Yes, a friend of mine once parodied the descriptions on the notlame site, saying, “they sound like the Raspberries, but racist!”
In 1990 after the release of the first Tin Machine album, RYKO put out the “Sound & Vision” boxset & convinced Bowie to do a solo tour to promote it. He agreed, but with the stipulation that as this was basically a greatest hits tour, it would be the last time he would ever perform any of his hits again.
He was already going against his decree of never performing as a solo artist again, (he supposedly wanted Tin Machine to be taken seriously!) so he proclaimed that this would be the las’ time his audience would get to hear him perform the hits.
That proclamation lasted til 1995 I believe, when he started touring as a solo act again.
OK, I just looked up the Glass Spider Tour to figure out what I had in mind. It turns out that was the tour when he announced he was going to play more deep cutz and less of his standards. And he declared that he was going to be more dramatic than ever before. I see why I got confused. Thanks again for straightening me out, jeangray!
I think that one is pretty great, too. After the first time I heard it, my reaction was that more bands should take 22 (?) years between studio albums. It still sounded like DEVO, but…fresh!
“Favre’s Back!”
aaaaaghgg, sorry. Right answer, wrong website. Like the Dr John song 2011 remix-update says
The closing paragraph to this review raises a solid question.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inthemix/Review-Glen-Campbell-at-Irvine-Auditorium.html
Somebody’s making $$$.
That’s what I was questioning in the opening to the thread – what else could or should he do?
It’s just hard to know whether a Brian Wilson really wants to be out there looking like the proverbial deer in the headlights or whether it’s Mike Love/Dr. Landy/Melinda Wilson/fill-in-the-blank who wants him out there.
I guess for Glen Campbell we’ll know if this final tour goes on as long as Cher’s.
That was my band “The White Grapes” we sounded like Big Star and Jellyfish too!!