Artist: Buddy Holly & The Crickets
Album: The 'Chirping' Crickets
Year: 1957
Ooh-wee-ooh, I look just like Buddy Holly. Ohh-whoa, and you're Mary Tyler Moore.
I think I can see some comparison between Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo at the beginning of his musical career and Buddy Holly. Both were bespectacled, normal-looking dudes who played relatively direct, simple tunes.
This album from The Crickets was one of the first rock-and-roll albums out there and it's a pretty good one. It pretty much establishes the template for that classic tame "oldies" sound, not far off from The Beatles' early stuff. These are tunes about girls and unrequited love with gentle, sighing oohs and ahhs for backing vocals. The songs are breezy and don't overstay their welcome, most clocking in around the 2:00 mark. It starts off with the catchy "Oh Boy!" and moves on to the call-and-response "Not Fade Away." "Tell Me How" is buoyed by a strong melody and is propelled forward by the most evident drum backbeat on the album. The real winner here is the quintessential "That'll Be the Day," which has been used in countless commercials and has been oft-covered over the years.
Did I love this album? Not really. It's pleasant enough music and I can respect its influence. The songs are catchy but there's nothing really transcendent here. I don't really think Buddy Holly was that dynamite of a frontman compared with someone like Elvis, if these songs are any indication. Maybe if he hadn't died in a plane crash in February 1959, he would have been capable of bigger and better things as he and The Crickets honed their craft.
Rating: Worth a listen
No comments:
Post a Comment