New York Dolls
New York Dolls
1973
Album Summary
New York Dolls is the debut album by the American hard rock band New York Dolls. It was released on July 27, 1973, by Mercury Records. In the years leading up to the album, the Dolls had developed a local fanbase by playing regularly in lower Manhattan after forming in 1971. However, most music producers and record companies were reluctant to work with them because of their vulgarity and onstage fashion as well as homophobia in New York; the group later appeared in exaggerated drag on the album cover for shock value. After signing a contract with Mercury, the Dolls recorded their first album at The Record Plant in New York City with producer Todd Rundgren, who was known for his sophisticated pop tastes and held a lukewarm opinion of the band. Despite stories of conflicts during the recording sessions, lead singer David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain later said Rundgren successfully captured how the band sounded live. The resulting music on the album – a mix of carefree rock and roll, influences from Brill Building pop, and campy sensibilities – explores themes of urban youth, teen alienation, adolescent romance, and authenticity, as rendered in Johansen's colloquial and ambiguous lyrics. New York Dolls was met with widespread critical acclaim but sold poorly and polarized listeners. The band proved difficult to market outside their native New York and developed a reputation for rock-star excesses while touring the United States in support of the album. Despite its commercial failure, New York Dolls was an influential precursor to the 1970s punk rock movement as the group's crude musicianship and youthful attitude on the album challenged the prevailing trend of musical sophistication in popular music, particularly progressive rock. Among the most acclaimed albums in history, it has since been named in various publications as one of the best debut records in rock music and one of the greatest albums of all time.
WikipediaArchetypal “band who the bands you like like” for me. Had so much fun listening to this and can see the influence it had on so many bands I’m in to. Regret not having listened to them before.
I imagine I have listened to the New York Dolls before, but I didn’t recognize anything on the first listen. This sounds a bit like The Rolling Stones gussied up with lipstick and a chainsaw. The album cover drew me in immediately and perfectly reflects the rough and raw contents right down to the can of Schlitz next to the high-heel clogs. I love it… and I like to think I could make it with Frankenstein!
Sleazy as fuck, messy, trashy and raunchy. The Dolls’ sound was a powerhouse of glam-rock swagger, bluesy attitude, proto punk looseness and 60s rock’n’roll homage. It’s this fusion that gives the record its edge, its timeless sound, and is the essence of its influence and legacy across the decades. It’s also a hell of a lot of fun.
I don't think I've ever actually heard these guys before, although heaps of bands I like rate them. Ok it sounds like a punkier version of the rolling stones, which is about what I expected I guess. But it's catchy in that "fun enough sleaze rock that I would never accuse of being fantastic" kinda way. And it really drives home just how unoriginal Faster Pussycat was, hahaha. 3/5.
I can understand how they inspired so many punk acts that followed. Good history lesson into the genera
Now this is more like it! rock and roll! woo-hoo! I so enjoyed this record. it's raw, and dangerous, and rock and roll, and funny, and offensive, and everything I want from a rock and roll record. It has dead-set classic songs (Personality Crisis, Trash, Looking for a Kiss), some songs I already loved (Subway Train), and few that I am now just learning to love (bad Girl, Frankenstein). Loved this record. play it real loud!
No punk without the Dolls. Not surprised to see Todd Rungrens name over this either, hes been a common denominator in a few 4 and 5 star albums lately
Crap! Why have I never listened to this? So much pure energy coming from this band. They could power Vegas for a few years.
One of the most powerful end revolutionary albums in the history of music where almost every track is a masterpiece and the others are also beautiful and where the music is as perfect as the ideas behind it. Fantastic record from the start to the finish!
One of the most influential and important bands of my music listening career. Paved the way for Glam, Punk, and Post-Punk.
A wonderfully punky glam-rock album that slaps hard! Really enjoyed this and will be coming back to it. Favourite: Trash
Pre punk Glam Rock. Don't ya love the can of Schlitz in the cover art? This just makes me wanna get surly. Influenced so many bands. I just love this thing.
The archaeopteryx of rock. Like how the paradigm-smashing fossil established the evolutionary connection between the dinosaurs and the birds, the New York Dolls are the missing link between so much of 70s rock. Along with the hard rock instrumentation, the most obvious strand to their DNA is glam: just look at the cover. But this is not the elegant, new aristocracy glam of Bowie and Roxy Music, but a base, trashy glam of crassness, crapulence and good bad taste. This trash glam had its cohorts in Jayne County and its progeny in the Cramps and, later, hair metal (Guns N Roses covered the Dolls' Human Being on "The Spaghetti Incident?"?. But combine that trash glam with short, fast, raucous and devilish music, and the resultant mutation is late 70s punk rock (Malcolm McLaren managed the New York Dolls for a short while, ludicrously trying to give the Dolls a communist image). This punk link has led many acts, particularly British ones, to cite the Dolls on the educational section of their CVs. Indeed, the New York Dolls are Morrissey's favourite band, and he once wrote a fan history of the group and got the surviving members to reunite at a festival he was curating. Yet the New York Dolls' bluesiness shows that the main forefathers of the Dolls were the Rolling Stones, and David Johansen's cockwalk is a straight lift from Mick Jagger's peacock strut. Extrapolating their influences further, plenty of the New York Dolls' oeuvre reveals an iron connection to 60s garage rock (the genre-defining garage rock compilation Nuggets came out in 1972). In any case, like the archaeopteryx, the New York Dolls also had a few feathers. Still. historical importance is not the same as quality. Amalgamating so many trends in rock may just mean you don't fully satisfy anyone. Now, I like the New York Dolls, both the band and the album, but I need to digest before I can judge whether I find them filling. Well, let's start squirting some enzymes onto this bad boy. Firstly, the titles are brilliant. Personality Crisis, Looking for a Kiss, Trash, Bad Girl, Pills: those are exactly the names of the songs you want from a band looking like this. You don't put on this record expecting a soundtrack to acupuncture at the spa, you want to hear this while you score (a line or a fuck) in the most mould-encrusted bathroom imaginable. So, on the first front, the New York Dolls win that battle. But the war, as I see it, shall be fought on two fronts: whether the music is good and whether the aesthetic is worthwhile. I know I'm being cautious in my assessment, because I love many of the songs on here, and I love the sleaze of the New York Dolls. I love the idea that the trash, the bums, the losers are the ones having the most fun, with their sucking dick to get some green to blow on Chinese rocks (and yes, I understand the reality is not quite so gleeful). Hell, I prefer the New York Dolls to the Ramones; it's safe, conservative even, to like the Ramones. You don't even need to listen to them, you can just buy the t-shirt. At least the New York Dolls aren't quite so corporate. With hindsight, it's evident that the New York Dolls could only produce at most two albums at their peak. Their stance was not conducive to a sustained career, they were too troubled, the limitations of their skills at the time would have meant their style would have quickly become formulaic. That said, they only produced two albums at their peak, so such counterfactuals are moot. And I'm just reviewing one album here, which happens to be their best. Why am I dancing around instead of praising this album efflusively? Well, the most signifcant flaw to this album is the production. The producer was Todd Rundgren, who by his own admission was not simpatico with the New York Dolls or the juvenile punk movement. As such, the occasional song feels a tad underpowered, but not enough to devalue the songs themselves. But the main reason for my dithering goes back to that list at the beginning of what the New York Dolls were. Yes, they were a crucial fusion of glam, punk, bluesy rock and hard rock, but they were not the best at any of those genres. They were not the best glam group, duh, that was Bowie, with Roxy Music the clear silver medallists. They weren't the best punk groups (the Sex Pistols, who also did trash better), nor even the best American punk group (the Stooges). The best Rolling Stones ripoffs were probably still the Rolling Stones. They were not the hardest rocking band in hard rock, which surely discounts them from the title of best hard rock band. They were not the best New York band (although the standard answer is the Velvet Underground, I'll go for the wondrous Suicide). They weren't the most sordid band of the time (Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, or is it technically Gary Glitter?). They weren't even the best band managed by Malcolm McLaren. You want some superlative to attach to the New York Dolls, but for any adjective you suggest, you can always think of a band who were just a little bit more. After all, does anyone have the archaeopteryx as their favourite dinosaur? Mine's the deinonychus. Still, brilliant album, so 5 stars for that. NoRadio, signing off.
Whether or not this is ground zero for punk rock is largely irrelevant. What the Dolls accomplish on this record is a youthful exuberance which threatened to change pop music in a very dangerous way. As a diehard (yet reluctant) Morrissey fan, my exposure to the band came largely as a result of the latter's passion for their music. In the mind of one of pop music's most literate voices, this is the pinnacle. The songs are rammed with memorable hooks thanks to Johnny Thunders' ear for a melody, and David Johansen's flamboyant snarl obliterated the boundaries of 'taste' for the next several decades. They were a band ultimately blighted by misfortune, and Todd Rundgren's less than flattering production slightly dulls some of the energy of certain tracks. But this is a bonafide classic - from 'Trash' to 'Subway Train', this is all killer no filler. Enough with the banalities already, it's a five star masterpiece.
This album is a lot of fun. Raucous, trashy proto-punk that never gets old. The music is rough edged and fall-down-the-stairs messy, but served up with humor and sass. The Dolls were destined not to last very long, but wow, what an impression they made. Fave Songs (All songs, from most to least favorite): Trash, Jet Boy, Subway Train, Private World, Vietnamese Baby, Looking for a Kiss, Personality Crisis, Pills, Bad Girl, Lonely Planet Boy, Frankenstein
10/10 heard this for the first time today, but I really think this is one of the best punk albums I’ve ever heard perfect from beginning to end
Good rock stuff. An earlier album contained a cover of one of these songs
Pues rock bien hechecito, rock pesado (?), a veces hasta vibras pank, sentí. No tengo mucho más que añadir, sino que me entretuvo, las modulaciones de la voz están divertidas. Mis preferidas: "Lonely Planet Boy", "Trash" y "Pills". 8.5/10
Lol. Pues al fin de cuentas sí me gustó aunquenlo empecé con hueva sabiendo que era glam rock. Sobretodo Frankenstein tiene un build-up muy divertido. Mood: don't cha ask me of I love you
It's decent this, not something I'd rush to put on but I like the sound
Another great album. I feel like I'm being very generous recently but its been a good run.
This is a classic. I hear all the proto-punk, what surprised me was when they settled down into some more Stones like qualities from the era. I look forward to digging deeper into this album
This album just makes me laugh. the vocals are so funny to me, and the music is pretty rocking. A very unique sound and I can appreciate that
4 for sure, would do 4.5 if I could. A couple classic ones in here and just a good rambunctious sound all around.
This album is great. I enjoy their sound a lot. I probably won’t listen to this much if at all, but I enjoyed the time I spent with it. I’m definitely glad I heard this.
Solid punk rock album. "Personality Crisis" stood out the most, I'd say.
A perfect album. It just kicks ass top to bottom. People don't know the New York Dolls and that's a real shame.
A great album of sleazy rock and roll. Great guitar work interesting touches like the piano in personality crisis. Still holds the seeds of Punk with the energy and the do whatever we want attitude. A very important album. 4.5 stars
Really groundbreaking album in the punk rock scene, but not as hard as. I expected to be. Got a Rolling Stones vibe if they tried to be punk. Very good.
The original GLAM!!! Loud, proud, and definitely cross-dressing, these Dolls will let you know what you're in for with the very first track. The vibrancy of David Jo Hansen's vocal performance brings the music to life, you can tell the group was destined for greatness just listening to it. Iconic.
Don't like pianos used like this Corny Good voice Good energy Busy It's good! Trash is v.good This is great.
Good punk/hard rock with a buzz from New York. This must have been bitchin live.
A lot of glam, a lot of punk, and a whole lot of rock n roll. These guys were way ahead of their time.
Great album - you can definitely see where it's come from and where music is going to go after it.
Didn't like it at first, but it really grew on me after a second listen.
Surprisingly enjoyable and is a much better precursor to punk than some other bands.
Tak zmylkowej okladki dawno nie bylo, czlowiek spodziewal sie babskiego grania z nowego jorku w synthowej stylowce, a dostal harde rokowanie, ktore podchodzi nawet pod punka, w wydaniu przebierancow cancelowanych z powodu hamerykanskiej homofobii lat 70, ktorzy najbardziej kojarza mi sie z rolujacymi stonesami, debiutancki material new york dollsow to 42 minutowy album z 73, piecioosobowy sklad, wiec niby klasyka, ale sporo dziwnych rzeczy dzieje sie tam instrumentalnie, pierwsza beda uzyte gongi, harmonijki piania, czy moogowe synthy, ktore najlepiej slychac na traku vietnamese boy, jesli chodzi o sam styl muzyczny to bandzie udalo sie uchwycic livowy vibe, bo sluchajac plyty czuje sie jakby bylo sie w prawdziwej nowo jorskiej spelunie w ktorej czuc grajacych ze sceny, nie ma tutaj dopieszczenia szczegolow, a raczej czuc energie i ducha zespolu jaki zostal przelany na ten krazek, do tego dochodza odwazne, dziwne i nieodpowiednie do radiowego odtwarzania teksty, ktore lubieznoscia potrafia nawet dorownywac stonesowych kompozycja, ale najwazniejsze ze czuc ze calosc byla pisana z jakims konceptem, bo czuc z krazka miejskosc zespolu, smrod i brud miasta przelany na wynylaka, wiec nie dziwie sie ze mieli cultowy fanbejs, jesli tak brzmia krazki, to co dopiero musialo sie wyprawiac na koncertach, ciezko dojsc do tego czy wokal pana Davida Johansena jest dobry, bo poza tym ze pasuje do klimatu calego krazka, to mocno zalezy od danego kawalka, do tego sporo jest chorkowania pozostalych czlonkow bandy, ktorych zwlaszcza slychac na utworze trash, teksty sa creditowanie glownie dla spiewajacego pana, ale poza panem Nolanem drumiarzem kazdy czlonek jest zcreditowany na przynajmniej jednym kawalki, do tego dochodzi tez jeden cover, pills od Diddley Bo, z pickow na liste dodam wspomnianego trasha, pillsa i openingowego personality crisis, chociaz calosc jest niesamowiscie sluchalna i pomimo tego, ze nie jest to jakis koncept album, to czuc z niego tozsamosc zespolu, ktora sama za siebie sprzedaje plyte dla mnie
This was a lot of fun. I didn't appreciate this as much as it deserves on previous listens
It took a few songs but I got into it eventually. The clarity on this album is impressive given the quality of other Profi punk records. There’s a lot to like about this album. The melodies are catchy, and the musicianship is better than I was expecting based on what I had read. The singing is a bit flat sometimes but is overall good. This album sounds ahead of its time and clearly influenced the New York punk scene that would emerge.
Spirited, energetic, in your face rock and roll, rate this how you want the Dolls don’t care. A riot.
Fuck Whispering Bob Harris, this rocks as well as anything did in 1973.
Okay, so I know everyone says this was the original punk album, but I see this more as an American Slade - with the pop hooks, heaviness and sense of fun. Y'am Alllllllllright if you will. It's good fun, especially Trash and Frankenstein, and I can see how it blew American minds - bless em, they've always been a few years behind the civilised world.
Loved this, it's the best punk album we've had so far IMO. Given it's a punk record, goes without saying that it's full of energy and edge, but they hold it together really well. It teeters on the edge of being a bit too sleazy, but just stays on the right side of the line and is all the better for that. Solid consistency all the way through, it's a few yeras after the Stooges record we had recently and it seems to have taken that sound and refined it to make something that bit better. 4/5.
Fun to listen to. Kind of punky rock and roll. I enjoyed would probably listen to some of them again. 4/5
Fun album. Has read a ton about this one but never really listened. 4/5
Cool to hear the very beginnings of punk taking shape. You can hear how the genre progressed from here while at the same time hearing the contemporary glam, hard rock and other sounds.
I hadn't ever listened to the New York Dolls despite knowing they influenced a lot of artists I did listen to. This is a fun record and more musical than I would have expected - a nice mix of rock & roll and brash, punkish rock. Pretty amazing how good this is given the questionable aspirations of most members in the group and their age at the time. I also have to assume New York Dolls had a massive influence on many 80s hair-metal bands that adopted similar crossdressing stage personas (Motley Crue, Poison, etc). "Personality Crisis," "Frankenstein," and "Trash" were my favorites.