The 33 1/3 Rules Of Rock and Roll

One of the many well-known people I've connected with on the Internet was Jimmy Guterman, the onetime rock critic who, with his friend Owen O'Donnell, wrote the classic 1991 book "The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time," which compiled their choices for the fifty worst singles ever, the fifty worst albums ever, and the four worst acts ever, along with special sections involving Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, and bands who went from good to bad by trying to carry on without a key member, among other things. With regard to their choices for worst records and artists, I agreed with them a third of the time, I disagreed with them (forcefully, in the case of Crosby, Stills and Nash) another third of the time, and I didn't have any opinion one way or the other in cases (another third of the time) in which I was wholly ignorant. (I didn't have an opinion when they cited Yes's Tales From Topographic Oceans as one of the worst albums ever because I had never heard it; now that my long years of innocence have ended, I have to agree that it is a spectacularly bad album, certainly one of the worst records from a "classic rock" band, though maybe not one of the absolute worst records in all rock, classic or otherwise. But it's still bad.)

Anyway, I was connected with Jimmy Guterman and several other contributors (including Owen O'Donnell) through a message board Jimmy Guterman himself ran for a few years until he decided to retire it. Not surprisingly, he and I exasperated each other over Crosby, Stills and Nash, though he thought I did a pretty good job making sense of Michael Jackson. One feature I remember from "The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time" was a spelling out of "The 33 1/3 Rules Of Rock and Roll," which was a curious feature for them to include. After insisting in their introduction that there's no consensus as to what's good or bad beyond the general agreement among fans and critics as to what the best rock and roll records are, they set rules that would seem to force such a consensus. But after reviewing these rules, I found myself agreeing with some of them, even as I disagreed with others.  I've long since lost my copy of "The Worst Rock and Roll Records Of All Time," and so I'd never had the 33 1/3 Rules Of Rock and Roll available to me since.

Until now, thanks to the Internet. I found Messrs. Guterman and O'Donnell's list posted online, and so I present it here on my blog, along with my responses. The rules themselves are in boldface, with my responses in regular type. Some of these rules make perfect sense to me; others don't. What do you think? Read on.

1. Do not retain a band's name if the most important member(s) has left the group. Does anybody (even Pete Townshend) really like anything the Who have recorded since Keith Moon died in 1978? Actually, I do.  I thought there were a couple of energetic numbers from 1981's Face Dances album (particularly "You Better You Bet") and a few good songs on 1982's It's Hard (the title track, "Athena," and "Eminence Front"), but that's about it.  Point made, but some bands have been able to go on without a key member; AC/DC replaced the irreplaceable Bon Scott with Brian Johnson, then they recorded Back In Black.

2. Do not sing a song about Elvis, especially if you have never been in a recording studio before. Agreed. I only wish someone had told Marc Cohn that when he recorded "Walking In Memphis" and not only made it the first track of his debut album but also made it his debut single. Those lyrics about the ghost of Elvis walking up to and right through the gates of Graceland to meet a "pretty little thing" in the Jungle Room were not only banal, they were creepy.

3. Do not record for Arista Records. In the late eighties, Clive Davis's label was a haven for art-rock has-beens eager for one last pillage, like GTR and the Kantner-Balin-Casady Band (both of which broke up after one album) and Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (pending). Arista's flagship "new" artists of the time, particularly Milli Vanilli, were cynical exploitation units. Every label goes through a weak period. Give Davis some credit, he signed Patti Smith and saved Aretha Franklin by picking her up from Atlantic after her disco album bombed, and he also signed Graham Parker, whose debut Arista album Squeezing Out Sparks was easily the best LP of his career. True, this all happened in the seventies and early eighties, but it's still a formidable legacy that outweighs Milli Vanilli and all those Yes and Jefferson Airplane alumni bands. And even though Whitney Houston, one of Arista's flagship new artists of the latter half of the eighties, was criticized for letting Davis homogenize her sound, no one would call her product exploitative. Anyway, Davis left the very label he founded to found another one, and Arista was folded into RCA in 2011, so this rule is moot. (P.S. Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe [sounds like an advertising agency] did fold after one album.)

4. Rock and roll songs with an orchestral choir are bound to be horrible. (Sole exception: the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want.") This goes without saying.

5. Rock lyrics are not poetry (especially if Sting or Bono writes them). Agreed, agreed, a thousand times agreed. I wrote an essay making the same case, noting that rock lyrics usually don't ring true so much when someone merely recites them off a page - take it from someone (me, I'm afraid) who tried to do so at a poetry reading in college. Someone should have told Paul McCartney that before he recited some of his Beatles songs at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. Bob Dylan's lyrics certainly ring truer when sung. Jim Morrison wrote rock lyrics and he wrote poetry, but he never confused the two. But, to be fair to Paul McCartney, the late Allen Ginsberg made a compelling case for the lyrics of "Eleanor Rigby" being a poem. But Alan Hull's Lindisfarne song "Lady Eleanor" isn't.

6. The quality of a rock and roll song is inversely proportional to the number of instruments on it (unless you're Van Morrison). For proof that this is correct, listen to Richard Harris' recording of Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park," which Webb also produced.

7. Supergroups never are. No, supergroups sometimes are. Crosby, Stills and Nash lived up to expectations when they weren't arguing, even though Guterman and O'Donnell despise them. Want a better example? How about Bad Company? Two parts Free, one part Mott the Hoople, one part King Crimson - six albums in eight years (1974 to 1982).  Most of their songs are classic rock favorites. Not bad for a bad company of superstars. ;-) (I'm not counting BadCo's reunion records here, as I'm not really a fan of reunions.)

8. Rock stars are not actors. And look at at all the bad movies David Bowie and Gene Simmons made before they found that out.

9. Actors are not rock stars. See my response to rule 6. Also consider John Travolta's two albums from the seventies.

10. White rock and roll stars who talk about their R&B roots are probably lying. Similarly, anyone born after April 1954 who records at the Sun Studio is a poseur. Furthermore, a return to roots in not necessarily a good thing. Listened to John Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll lately?  I'm inclined to give white performers who talk about their R&B roots the benefit of the doubt, except for Michael Bolton, and I certainly wouldn't extend a benefit of the doubt to Justin Timberlake. Someone should tell him he's a good actor and refer him to rule 9. Also, anyone born after April 1954 who records at the Sun Studio is not necessarily a poseur; maybe such an artist is recording there because every other studio in the Memphis area is booked at the time. (I don't get the month and year reference here; if this is supposed to refer to Elvis Presley's first Sun session, he actually recorded at Sun for the first time in July 1953.) As for John Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll album . . . was it really that bad? I've heard various cuts from it, and I didn't think they were all that terrible.

11. Don't sing a song about your dead parent, especially if that parent was a celebrity. This is the Hank Williams, Jr. rule. Not all songs referring to deceased parents are terrible, though if you must record one, don't go over the top.  Taste is very important in dealing with such a subject. But if your dead parent was a celebrity, I agree that there's no way you can make a good record from it.

12. Elvis is dead. Gee, that's a nasty thing to say about someone just because he collaborated with Burt Bacharach . . . oops, wrong Elvis. :-D

13. Do not go to art school. Attention, aspiring rockers: Don't listen to Guterman and O'Donnell on this one. A training in fine arts will expand your imagination and allow you to write more challenging songs and play more innovative music.

14. The more controversial the cause embraced, the more likely the star may actually be committed to it. Do you know anyone in favor of hunger or homelessness? This rule is actually dated, because there's no such thing as a non-controversial cause these days. Even Michelle Obama's anti-obesity cause is controversial. Just committing yourself to a cause at all is controversial. And while I don't know anyone in favor of hunger or homelessness, that's only because I don't know anyone in the Tea Party - least of all anyone who cheered all the extremist positions at the Republican 2012 presidential debates.

15. Whatever you do, Jerry Lee Lewis has already done it. Probably better, too. I would amend that to read, "Whatever you do, Jerry Lee Lewis and David Crosby have already done it. Probably better, too." No one can top the Cros's five months in a Texas prison, because no rocker would last longer than that.

16. A list is not a song. (Most blatant recent violation: Billy Joel's evasive "We Didn't Start the Fire.") Agreed. And, while we're at it, a list is not a poem, either. I know folks will disagree with me on this, but Maya Angelou's "On the Pulse of Morning," which she recited at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inaugural ceremony, is a piece of junk. Listing ethnic groups that make up America's population isn't reading a poem, it's reading a census report. But that's just me.

17. Established artists should not allow family members into the band. I don't know if I can comment on this, because I have no idea how Wolfgang Van Halen is doing playing bass in his dad Eddie's namesake band as Michael Anthony's replacement. But that's not the personnel change that ruined Van Halen anyway.

18. There is no reason besides greed for an established performer to accept corporate sponsorship. Absolutely.  The Rolling Stones didn't need Jovan to pay the bills for their 1981-82 tour.  This rule rightly exempts non-established bands, and so the Del Fuegos, an unknown band that did beer commercials in the eighties, probably just accepted corporate sponsorship for the publicity. (Not that those beer ads did the Del Fuegos any good.)

19. Live records should reflect what a performance actually sounded like when it occurred. We loved the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense until we found out how many studios were used for post-production. Yes indeed! It's a cheat to overdub a bass line on or mix out a guitar from a live recording. The only reasonable exception for this rule would be The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, because if it had been made to reflect what the performance actually sounded like when it happened, you wouldn't be able to hear any music! :-D Hmm, maybe that's why it's been out of print for so long.

20. Videos are commercials. It's too bad Michael Jackson never realized this. Not only did he make extended musical shorts with big-name movie directors, he even made documentaries showing how they were made. "The Making of 'Thriller'"? Please. And, of course, Madonna has always spoken of her videos as art, an idea as plausible as her British accent . . . or her assertion that her career is "always about the music."

21. Good politics are not what make good lyrics. This rule is especially true with regard to the sort of white bourgeois lefty folk music you hear on public radio, where you hear songs about specific issues, like overreliance on automobiles or nuclear waste dumping in oceans. Too bad Graham Nash - who did a song on one of his solo albums about the latter issue, with an emphasis on "mutant sponges" - didn't follow Stephen Stills' lead and promote his politics through what Stills calls "the art of lobbying." Stills now uses a telephone instead of his guitar.

22. Formidable technical proficiency is never sufficient. This rule explains why art rock is always bad. I agree that great instrumental ability isn't good enough on its own, but I disagree with the assertion that all art rock is bad. Art rockers who have followed this rule and produce direct music with straightforward lyrics have made some of the most essential records in rock history. Sadly, for every art rock band that understands this rule (Pink Floyd), there are two that don't (Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer).

23. Neither is formidable hair. (Exception: Little Richard.) I can't argue with that. Even the Beatles didn't make it on haircuts alone.

24. Do not hang out with Jeff Lynne or Dave Stewart. They will produce your record, you will have to take part in periodic psychedelic revivals, and you'll start dressing like them. Do you want to wear a paisley vest and cowboy boots that badly? I honestly don't remember seeing Tom Petty dressed in a paisley vest, though I think he was wearing cowboy boots long before he hooked up with Lynne or Stewart. And you can't convince me that Petty's music has suffered because of these associations.

25. Cult artists are frequently just as boring and predictable as mainstream ones. This is also called the Robyn Hitchcock rule. It depends. Some cult artists are always surprising their listeners. That's why they're not mainstream.

26. Heavy metal should be fast.  Yes, but can we agree that Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused" is one of the greatest metal songs ever? And I can't think of any metal songs slower than that one.

27. Punk happened. (Note tense.) Indeed it did. And when it happened again in Seattle in 1991, it was called "grunge." My point here is that punk will keep happening over and over, so long as there are times when pop gets complacent enough to cause a backlash of outrage against the musical status quo. And wherever punk happens next - Scottsbluff, Nebraska, or maybe Charleston, West Virginia - it will be called something else.

28. If you have recorded more than three albums, someone will some day compile a boxed set dedicated to your oeuvre and Rolling Stone will give it four stars and call it a "grand summary, especially valuable in pristine CD."  Gee, Jimmy and Owen make this sound like a bad thing.  Boxed sets usually do a pretty good job in presenting an artiste's work - even the bad artistes - and call me crazy, but I think it's always fascinating to hear alternate takes and unreleased songs, which leads to a lot of second-guessing over whether the artistes should have gone with this version or that song.  (Note: The Beatles' Anthology series was a boxed set without the box.)

29. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is an oxymoron. If you want your work to be recognized in a museum, learn to paint. I saw the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, a year after it opened, and I thought it did a pretty decent job of presenting the genre's history. Sadly, it's since trivialized itself with questionable inductions and dubious exhibits, and it's only going to get worse as the current crop of pop "artists" become eligible for induction over time. As for rock stars who produce work that belongs in a museum, Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell paint, though they're no Tony Bennett. :-D

30. Admit you're balding.  I suppose that would explain the mediocrity of many of Elton John's eighties records. All those hats he was wearing then . . .

31. Love is not all you need. Psychedelic lyrics never ring true after you've come down. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I've heard a lot of those psychedelic songs from the late sixties and early seventies (the Grateful Dead's American Beauty is one of my all-time favorite albums), and I've never gotten high on anything . . . and I've always appreciated their messages. If we all have love, everything else will fall into place.

32. Do not record cover versions of Motown or Stax/Volt hits. I would add the following corollary: " . . . unless you began recording before 1967." This would exempt the British Invasion bands, as well as Chris Farlowe, but not Linda Ronstadt or James Taylor. Don't get me wrong, I like JT, but he's not a good interpreter of R&B classics and never has been. It's simply not one of his strengths.

33. Rock and roll is but one small part of the music being made on this planet. Rockers who think they're changing the world are in fact only reaching a small part of it. This rule becomes more relevant by the year, as rock keeps losing more of its audience to rap and as more rock radio stations keep going off the air; rockers aren't even changing America now, let alone the world. But I would point out that many rock recordings got smuggled into Eastern Europe during the Cold War, which likely made rock and roll a contributing factor in the fall of the Iron Curtain, an argument also made by noted rock and roll historian Meredith Vieira. I'll accept any interpretation of history that denies Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher credit for ending the Cold War. Even this one.

33 1/3. Do not die before Albert Goldman. Albert Goldman was a poison-pen biographer who wrote scathingly salacious life stories about deceased rock stars (Elvis Presley, John Lennon) who, being deceased, could not defend themselves against him. Goldman himself died in 1993 - while researching a planned book on Jim Morrison - so this rule is as irrelevant as Goldman is.

So there you have it.  This list of rules is not definitive, and a good deal of it was written more in jest than in seriousness, but they still present a reasonable overview of what constitutes a good or bad rock and roll record.  Guterman and O'Donnell were also displaying their humor in saying that if you break these rules, you will make bad rock and roll, and that two guys looking for a fast buck will write about you.

As I looked over this list, I began checking it against the work of Family, the greatest band you've never heard.  I have contended on my Family page (a link to which is on this blog) that Family never made a bad album when they were together in the late sixties and early seventies, and so I wanted to see if they made music running afoul of the rules here that I agree with.  No, they didn't.  Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney continued their partnership after Family's last album, but without drummer Rob Townsend, who was the most important member for holding Family together in the same way Keith Moon held the Who together, they wisely changed their name to Streetwalkers. Family never sang about Elvis, they never claimed to be poets, they never put too many instruments on one song, they never thought they were changing the world, and they've never been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! And Chappo admitted he was balding as early as 1970! Case closed: Family never made bad rock and roll!  So that's why Guterman and O'Donnell never wrote about them.  I'm only sorry that Guterman, who wrote a solo sequel on rock's best records, didn't know about Family and so didn't write about them then, either.