I love the Spotnicks. They've got a unique sound and great shtick, not to mention Rocket Man was probably the song that got stuck in my head most last year and I ended up christening my blog with it.
I have here two Spotnicks albums that I haven't seen elsewhere, perhaps because I bought both of them in Europe (though the Spotnicks were from Sweden so that doesn't mean much). They both aren't very good for reasons I will detail, but first I should address the obvious question of "if they suck then why?"
First and foremost: I think that all records deserve the right to existence. I've come across so much great music from taking risks in the dollar bin, music that will never be written about in history books and are excluded from musical canon. A lot of it will be buried in time, plenty of it by the time the baby boomers croak. The internet provides a no-risk sampling environment for this music to be heard and continue to exist. And there's often a reason for bad music to exist, that Surfin' With Bo Diddley Album being a great example. There are better surf albums out there, but my curiosity was piqued and since it's the most visited page on this blog I'd wager I'm not the only one.
Secondly: This CD contains some of the only examples I can think of where all the foci of this blog come together: Sci-Fi, Rock & Roll and New Orleans. Specifically I'm talking about Take Me To The Mardi Gras and a vocals-present cover of Jambalaya. I'm kind of glad I got this album just to hear those alone, but there's some other odd ones like a cover of "My Baby Left me" and "The Great Snowman's" crazy banjo meltdown. They don't often make great songs, but really my judgement is clouded on all of these tracks; the production is just way too clean and cheesy throughout all these songs. The high-pitched undistorted guitar falls into Walgreens soundtrack territory. This claims to be a greatest hits collection but only out of their post-60's career, so despite what the cover might lead you to believe they've dropped the whole sci-fi thing and probably look more like this other album.
Oh my god how the mighty have fallen. "Yeah guys, the Spaceman thing didn't work but I'll tell you what's in right now is blue shirts, jeans and not getting haircuts. THAT'S our new uniform. However, I think synchronized guitar playing is still in. Except for you, fourth guitar player, you play guitar over there"
Just like 20 Nice Ditties or whatever the Swedish translates to, these are mostly covers and not particularly inspired, though they do have their moments. It's still got that clean sound, but not as unbearably so. And it does have their cover of Ghostriders in the Sky which rightfully made it onto my actual Greatest Hits album not featured in this post (I have it ripped but it just seems redundant considering that there are CD collections and albums available pretty easily. I could be convinced otherwise).
There you have it. You've got hard drive space you're a spotnicks nut, go forth and check these out, then watch that rocket man video again.
You can get "20 Heta Låtar" here
And Electrifying Spotnicks here
