— Mark Sutherland
In the summer of 2003, the now defunct American music magazine Maxim Blender published their list of the '50 Worst Bands of All Time'. There's not much to see here really. Most of the acts (they weren't all bands) represent the low hanging fruit of music types everyone likes to belittle: Michael Bolton, Kenny G and Yanni are all present and correct. So are a fair number of prog rock groups from the seventies (The Alan Parsons Project, ELP) and middle-of-the-road nineties/early-two thousands bands who liked to pretend that they were "alternative" (Goo Goo Dolls, Toad the Wet Sprocket). On precisely ninety-four percent of this list you'll get no argument from me.
Thus, there are three selections here I took/take issue with. The most obvious is The Doors. Damn, that Jim Morrison biopic of Oliver Stone's really did a number on their legacy, didn't it? And I'm guilty of it too. I saw that film — in which Q Magazine would later hilariously quip that Val Kilmer had been "more Van than Jim" — and went from sort of liking them to not wanting to ever have anything to do with them for the rest of my life. (I was more charitable to the late Beatle after reading Albert Goldman's The Lives of John Lennon for god's sake) People went from revering Morrison as a poet and seeker to disavowing him as a drugged up, drunken and debauched dirtbag. Yet, he was all of these things. I can only take so much of The Doors but I rate their self-titled debut, Morrison Hotel and LA Woman highly and they released some top notch singles that weren't called "Hello I Love You". Best of all time? Not close. One of the worst ever? You're even further.
Next up is Crash Test Dummies, a band I'm still hoping to have the chance to write about in this space in the near future. I guess they paid the price for having a worldwide smash that got on people's nerves. It's now been a good while since they were last relevant so they probably don't have as many haters but there used to be plenty of them. Almost all of them despised "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" and I'm sure they still do. (Those much more perceptive critics hated their cover of XTC's "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" which is admittedly atrocious) I guess if we can judge a band based on one single then I'll counter with follow-up single "Afternoons and Coffeespoons" which is brilliant. Not so bad now, huh?
Finally, and most surprisingly, there's Arrested Development who did well for themselves for a short period of time and were critically acclaimed for their first album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... What could they have been doing on any Worst of All Time list?
Nothing about Single of the Fortnight Best New Single "Mr. Wendal" suggests they secretly sucked. I will say I struggled to remember it so it clearly didn't have the staying power of fellow hits "Tennessee" and "People Everyday", although that says more about my ambivalence towards hip hop back than anything else. As I have said before, I was always into that quirkier brand of rap that grew out of De La Soul and The Jungle Brothers so Arrested Development ought to have been just my thing.
While "People Everyday" is them at their best, "Mr. Wendal" isn't too far behind. While songs about homelessness may vary from empathetic (Madness' "One Better Day") all the way to exorcising white, middle class guilt (Phil Collins' "Another Day in Paradise" obviously) few tackle exploring bums from their own perspective. Mr. Wendal has freedom and he's wise. This all could make for a naive take on the matter but Arrested leader Speech makes it convincing. There's no tough talk about how this could "just as easily be me or you", just a screed on someone of above average intelligence, someone who is somebody regardless of his state, could be in such a situation. Not a celebration, not a tear-jerker, just an encounter with an old man, a gentleman who could well be someone's grandpa.
Being from that alternative hip hop movement mentioned above (though they hailed from Atlanta which makes them the missing link between De La Soul and Outkast), it would be easy to picture a single like "Mr. Wendal" garnering sufficient interest to give Arrested Development a number twenty-five hit (or thereabouts). This was the sort of chart placement normally reserved for groups of this ilk. Yet, while "Tennessee" would initially fail to crack the Top 40, "People Everyday" got to as high as number two, held off only by Boyz II Men's "End of the Road". Riding this momentum, "Wendal" managed to make it all the way into the Top 5. It wasn't simply kiddies, white guys and novelty songs that got rap into the upper echelons of the charts, even those hip hop types with good taste and subtlety and hooks could have a hit or two.
Wikipedia claims that "Mr. Wendal" had been paired with "Revolution" as a double A-side which is confirmed by the sleeve which has them marked as A and AA. Yet, the cover of the single puts one prominently over the other so I'm sticking with Mark Sutherland and focusing on the track that everyone cared about. Listening to the two back-to-back, there's no question which one sounds like a hit and which one is a passable filler for a film soundtrack. Arrested Development excelled at doing engaging little numbers about people going through difficult circumstances and "Revolution" is way too on the nose for them. Leave the sloganeering to Public Enemy and stick to what you're best at gang.
So, again, what made the people at Maxim Blender hate on Arrested Development a decade on from their heyday? Did they think their lineup featuring a "spiritual adviser" (the late Baba Oje) was too ludicrous to take seriously? Did they object to their use of dungarees and barnyards and the rural setting of their videos? Did they get cross by their appearances at various Folk Festivals around the world? Pick one or think up something else. It sure as shit couldn't have been their music.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Frank & Walters: "After All"
I read somewhere (in an old issue of Q Magazine, I think) that The Frank & Walters got their name from a pub. It sounds true and I've certainly heard dumber names for drinking establishments in my day but this isn't in fact the case. Apparently, Frank was an old grouch in their part of Ireland and Walter (or Walters) was also something of a crank as well. Those horrible old men that everyone deems a "character". I guess that's nice but I prefer the pub explanation. Either way, the mythology surrounding their name is easily the most fascinating thing about them. I'm usually a big sucker for sunshine jangle pop but I can't possibly get behind this example. Stale and slightly pitiful. I'd suggest them as a replacement for Arrested Development (or The Doors, or Crash Test Dummies) on a 'Worst Bands of All Time' list but the editors at Maxim Blender no doubt forgot that they ever existed — and who could blame them?
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