I love the Modern Lovers.
In the issue of fairness for this week’s column, I wholeheartedly admit that I love the Modern Lovers. For me, they are a special band, relatively new on my radar, but nevertheless a group that deserves discussion. When I set out to conceive of a concept for Under the Influence, my goal was to look at bands, scenes, trends in music and look at how they influence and/or were influenced the musical world around them/us. I feel I have done this with varying degrees of success.
With that said, I feel that this is the easiest and hardest column I have written yet. Easy because it is glaringly obvious to anyone who has listened to any amount of the Modern Lovers material that their influence is evident, on superficial and underlying levels. This is also difficult because I want everyone to realize what a great band they are while also being objective. If I hadn’t stated previously, I love the Modern Lovers.
Despite recording their one and only album 33 years ago, the Modern Lovers self-titled debut sounds every bit as relevant and fresh as it did in 1972. And much like Jonathon Richmond’s idols, The Velvet Underground, the Modern Lovers are a band out of its time; simultaneously timeless and contemporary. To those who love them, the Modern Lovers occupy a space that is expressed in a manner that suggests that they are a living, breathing entity. Ask someone about the lovers and they will say they are a great band, not they were a great band.
For an entire generation, Jonathon Richmond is just the weird guy who famously sung songs in Kingpin and There’s Something About Mary. But in 1970, he was just a 17 year old weird guy who sung songs that absolutely no one paid attention to. Moving from Boston to New York to meet Lou Reed and company, he actually crashed on the Velvet’s manager’s couch for a couple of weeks. Returning to Boston dejected, he formed the Modern Lovers with some like minded souls.
Music in the early 1970’s can be best typified in polarities. The dominant trends were the testosterone-filled, aggressive hard rock/heavy metal movement, as typified by The Who, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin, and the soft, introspected work of singer/songwriters James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Elton John (although Bernie Taupin wrote Elton’s songs, he was lumped in with that movement). What one lacked in subtlety, the other lacked in rebellion, and both had its fair share of pretentiousness. There was a huge space in the middle for music that was unassumingly self-conscious, but also direct and honest.
Ironically, the Modern Lovers first gained exposure with a song that is unlike most of their output, That isn’t to say that “Hospital” doesn’t fit with any of the other material that will appear on the debut, but its somber tone (typified by the opening organ melody and Richmond’s palpably nervous “vocals”) contradicts the optimism that weaves throughout the album. A minor bidding war for the band occurred, which was eventually won by Warner Bros. Going into the studio in 1972, they laid the majority of the album during two break neck sessions.
Not knowing what to do with the music (along with Richmond’s decision to abort the band), the album lay in limbo for four full years. Finally released in 1976, the sound and energy of the album meshed well with the music coming out of the CBGB scene at the time. We now call that scene punk, but that word conjures so many ideas and notions (many of them false) that it is best to just say they were aesthetic siblings. Sure, The Ramones came out of that scene, but so did Blondie, The Talking Heads, and Television. The desire of those bands to create something original while working within the framework of the music they loved as teenagers (Motown, Elvis, and “the spirit of 1956” as Richmond says in “Roadrunner”) is the red thread that connects them all. The fact that the Modern Lovers tapped into that four years before anyone else is just an example of how they were ahead of their time.
I discovered the Modern Lovers a couple of years ago. I had always heard of the band, but just never listened to them. Then one night, I caught “Pablo Picasso” on college radio and was immediately struck by the first words uttered by what sounded like an inebriated crooner. “Some people try to pick up girls and get called assholes,” Richmond bellows in a sad mumble. It gave me a slight chuckle. I immediately judged it as some sort of novelty, but as I listened, I could hear the sophistication in the songs construction, as the Strokes-ish riff (unknowing at the time the song was recorded 5 years before the first Stroke was born) and bar blues piano intertwined with each other effortlessly.
Listening or reading Richmond’s lyrics and one can clearly trace its heritage to such contemporary artists such as Jens Lekman, Beck, and Rivers Cuomo. Most of his lyrics have a childlike quality (his biggest solo hit was “Ice Cream Man”) while at the same time display an intelligence and maturity that defied his young age. On “Dignified and Old,” Richmond begins the song by lamenting “My telephone never rings/she never calls me,” then the song segways into an anthem (“I say ‘hey kids’/(hey kids)/Someday, we’re gonna be dignified and old/together”) about his generation realizing its potential.
Singing songs about girls was well-worn territory before Richmond made a stab at it, but his very direct, un-poetic approach was poetry in and of itself. As he spells out “G-I-R-L-F-R-E-N” in “Girlfriend,” it brings a smirk (or an eye-roll) while conveying a sadness that is relatable to everyone.
Because Jonathon Richmond is so intertwined with the Modern Lovers (to add confusion, Richmond’s backing band for his solo albums were the “Modern Lovers,” which were an entirely different set of musicians), people forget about the other incredibly talented artists in the original group. Jerry Harrison would go on and join the Talking Heads, and drummer David Robinson would join another band that grew big out of Boston, The Cars.
Many critics point to the Sex Pistols cover of “Roadrunner” on The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle as the definitive link between the Velvet Underground’s cerebral genesis to the snarling swagger that punk typified at the end of the decade. The Pistols covered another song on the album, Sinatra‘s “My Way,” but was done in a mocking fashion to the old guard they were rebelling against. “Roadrunner” was coming from an area of reverence to the work of Richmond and the lovers, and it can be heard clearly throughout.
In closing, I hope I was able to show my reverence for the Modern Lovers. Give me some feedback on what you think of the band or their music or their place in rock history. Until next time.
