Blank Generation

by

Richard Hell & the Voidoids

Edit

As the most bone idle feckless self-absorbed pretentious drug sponge of the CBGBs mid-70s scene except possibly for Tom Verlaine, Hell's records should have been dreadful. Jazz-punk, French Decadent poetry, sixth-form nihilism - it should be Sting on skag, that bad. But almost all of the Voidoid's exceedingly limited output is fantastic, particularly this his first record. He swings with existential angst, on "Blank Generation". He screams smuttily, on "Love Comes in Spurts". He gurgles, entreats, and howls, before choking his guts up, on "Another World". And then he croons "All The Way" as the last drunks get carried out of the downtown dropout disco at dawn. The Voidoids (Ivan Julian, Bob Quine and Marc Bell) are not what you expect of punk pioneers. They crank out a racket when required, but then turn off at right angles. Even when they make a real row it's angular and jazzy. They could have backed Julie London, James Brown or Iggy without a second thought, and that gives Hell absolute freedom to make whatever noise he likes. Everyone goes on and on and on about Quine, but he is quite an amazing player. He flips about between hideous noise, classic Rock'n'Roll, 50s swing, bebop, jazz-funk and whatever else within the space of an 8 bar break. Every picture you ever see of him he looks like someone's dad but he is the business.

Like Marquee Moon, Blank Generation is not what you expect punk rock to be, not if you've been used to the UK Subs, or the Damned, or Nirvana, or Green Day. It's trickier, sharper, funnier and more surprising in any way you can think of. And it swings. So it's a crying bloody shame Richard Hell only made one and a half other blasted records, the lazy get.

People love to play He Was First with Richard Hell: he was an early member of both Television and the Heartbreakers, his early demos with the pre-Television band the Neon Boys in 1973 are sometimes credited as the first "official" punk rock recordings, and he and John Lydon are in a strange competition for having invented the ripped-up punk rock fashion sense. And certainly this debut album of his is incredibly influential. But leaving all that to the side and focusing on it purely as music, I'd say it's okay, but nothing special.

Actually, strike that. There is something special about the album as well. I'm kind of walking a tightrope with this record, because on the one hand I really don't think it's worthy of all the terrific praise that's been heaped on it over the years. The title track is probably the most famous song from it, but as punk rock anthems go, I can take it or leave it. Much better is album opener "Love Comes in Spurts", which is a re-recording of one of those Neon Boys demos from '73, and "I'm Your Man", a slower strutting rocker not added to the album until the CD release in 1990. The rest of this would be fairly standard snotty early punk rock with a slightly pretentious singer, sounding a little quaint today, if not for the inventive guitar work of Robert Quine and Ivan Julian. Unlike most people in their scene who worked off a degraded template of the MC5 and the New York Dolls, Quine and Julian's riffs were complicated patterns that worked off each other in ways that were pretty unique for rock in general, let alone early punk. In fact, their edgy back-and-forth is very similar to some later emo groups, like the Dismemberment Plan or even At the Drive-In.

In the end, I'm sure I'm not appreciating this album the way that a lot of rock fans are who put themselves into the era in which it was first released, and I certainly don't follow the mythology of Richard Hell the way many do. But this is still a good record, with no serious low points and a couple of high ones. If you're into punk rock, it's worth getting. By the way, I normally suggest that everyone go out and find an original pressing of records when there's a different album cover involved, but in fact the artwork on the vinyl version of this disc is damn ugly, and you're much better off with the CD. Really. A shirtless Richard Hell is something no one needs.