I hate to name drop but, just like my old pal Martin Luther King Jr., I once had a dream myself. I had a dream that li’l chillun would one day hold hands and listen to a band that sounded like an inspired cross between Pere Ubu and the Ramones via Bob Dylan; I had a dream.
Well, I have been to the mountaintop and, lo, that dream has turned into an unbridled nightmare because, having gotten my wish, I can safely say with certitude that Youth & Young Manhood is the most wretchedly hideous record I’ve ever had the unfortunate displeasure of hearing in my 30 years as a professional rock critic. In fact, not only is it the absolute worst rock ’n’ roll album ever released in the entire history of recorded music, this steaming stench-pile of aural excrement reeks so rank that it makes the previous titleholder, Lord Sutch And His Heavy Friends, sound like A Love Supreme by comparison.
And since talent obviously had nothing to do with it, just how did these nodded-out bums ever get signed to a major label in the first place? Payola? A mob connection? Or has RCA actually sunk so low as to release abhorrent abortions like this under the grievously misguided belief that they actually contain even the slightest shred of artistic merit?
It’s impossible to see how, given that the hopelessly inept studio “production” is a pretentiously trendy ploy at being hiply unpolished; the hoarse guttural attempt at “singing” is a junked-out atonal assault on anyone who isn’t fortunate enough to be deaf as a post.
The laughable album title says it all because Youth & Young Manhood is as amateurishly grade school as it gets — and that’s an insult to every talented toddler currently rolling around in kindergarten.
Somebody oughta tell these immature little boys to wipe their runny noses and go home until they grow up, because downloading music isn’t what’s killing the record industry — it’s ill-advised releases like this which are absolutely guaranteed to drive you up the wall. The ultimate nadir — it doesn’t get any worse than this.
E-mail Jeffrey Morgan at [email protected].
