Every once in a while the music industry's major players lose
their illusory grasp on what they deem to be the listening public's pulse
and everything goes up for grabs. 1972 was not one of those times; thuggish
metal, wanky prog rock, and goopy singer-songwriter dross dominated the
airwaves and packed the stadiums. That year Lenny Kaye uttered a cry in the
wilderness, a wail that harkened back to one of those times.
During the
middle 1960s rock and roll was exhilarating, bursting with promise, wild
and fun and accessible to any kid with an electric guitar and a garage
where he could play it. From its squalling opener, The Electric Prunes' "I
Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)," through crazed stompers by The
Thirteenth Floor Elevators and The Standells and Count Five, to The Magic
Mushrooms' trippy closer "It's-A-Happening," the original Nuggets was
that cry. It revived and validated the adolescent aggression and
rudimentary song craft that birthed and will always renew great rock and
roll; when punk rock erupted a few years later, its architects used
Nuggets as a blueprint.
This 4 CD boxed set is handsomely packaged
and compulsively annotated. Its 118 tracks broaden Kaye's original
conception to include material that's a bit more bluesy (Captain
Beefheart's "Diddy Wah Diddy") or bouncy (The Beau Brummels' "Laugh,
Laugh") or primitive (The Monks' "Complication"), but the additions don't
dilute his fundamental vision.
If you like this album, check out:
The Monks Black Monk Time
The Thirteenth Floor Elevators Levitation
Pink Floyd The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
The Velvet Underground Loaded
The Byrds The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Guided By Voices Bee Thousand
