Odd that Buddy Holly should choose to name his band The Crickets when his vocal style doesn't so much sound like "chirping" as a kind of gulping hiccup-yodel. Not that I mind. I'm just saying. If nothing else, Holly was probably the world's most astute creator of ear-worms - songs that, once you've heard them, you can't dislodge from your head no matter how hard you try. "Peggy Sue", "That'll Be The Day", "Oh Boy"... take your pick.
The original album featured 12 songs clocking in at under 26 minutes. The version I downloaded has 4 extra tracks added on - all covers, I think - and, to be honest, they're the ones I was most impressed with. As a survivor of the borderline pathological 50's nostalgia boom of the 1970s, most of Holly's oeuvre is as familiar to me as the taste of my own thumb, and I'm a firm believer in that old idiom about familiarity breeding contempt.
I should probably point out that I do appreciate the immeasurable influence Buddy Holly's take on rock and roll as a genre unto itself had on literally everyone who came after. Even without that fateful, legend-making winter's night plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa - a mere 18 months into his career - he still would have deserved that chart-topping shout-out from Weezer back in '94. Although which Saint's grave he pissed on to deserve the hideous ignominy of being portrayed by Gary Busey in his biopic - or having Don McLean write that wretched song about him - I have yet to figure out. "American Pie" my fat, white ass.
Had I heard it before? 95% of it.
Did I like it then? Rockabilly has never really turned my crank.
Do I like it now? Kind of.
Am I keeping it? Only the Standout Tracks.
Standout Tracks? "Oh Boy", "Not Fade Away", "That'll Be The Day", "It's So Easy"
Lubbock. Ugh. The Buddy Holly Museum is actually the pinnacle of Lubbock cultural achievement.
ReplyDeleteHah! Sounds like we got ourselves a disgruntled former Texan here.
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