![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaObPnfiEu-K9Bs0OSuV4E29gZcfS_T8WOIj0wl42YCqlNMevtr3GNZLEbANpP-BlHrfCfxckWJ8mEv_qmv6JboqJemN4HUrMlnLzqNFJDXBHUBzOV6lf9FVY7rP3vtRrRkOh-jN1KfoQ/s320/realramona.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE19L4K8sqdEKoud5SAJgqtdmzeQh4BqWhw2Hx_o2N3Z6LdSjNfAz3eBS3V4uT6sxUeYNVHCX2fGDWRc89jv8eU2_gJ8l68ny6F91hog_dcLleZIKUC9lzXJGtZpeB2xgx8v-lMibCciw/s320/throwingmusesuntitled.JPG)
Throwing Muses' untitled first album (left), which I have and treasure on vinyl and CD, has had a furtive history. The band was the first American group signed to the then-white-hot English label 4AD, and Kristin Hersh's songwriting, like Thelonious Monk's piano-playing, arrived fully formed (as a friend once put it, "she's an 'is-type' artist, not a 'growth-type' artist"). The album was arguably the most seismically significant debut since Dylan's—genuinely life-changing for many people, many of whom were women. But it was never released in America—has not been to this day—although you can find all ten of its songs on a Rykodisk archive CD called
In A Doghouse![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vc5K_MaVZG5N9JU4OutmORx14AzRRFR7_hTQ0_CwIIAKjcaGungtz4hQnoAkXUdaGg_HY-eOjrGkNQrhxKP3eJzbfkq1tBylg1eEbhvapLUdW-Y1ZNRImx6Qb_knkfCJa4jmKyABzKZ7--wKle-eF2IMydZn8ffzfv8wjbwTvzDw=s0-d)
, grouped with an early EP and some demo tapes once famous as bootlegs, in murky, bottom-of-a-[wishing]-well sound.
That sort of thing is fine with "just music," but great albums are holistic artistic creations that deserve to be respected as having an intended sequence and arc, a defined beginning and end. To have the untitled debut relegated to such treatment (while better, I suppose, than if it were not available at all)—well, it's a tawdry fate for a record that ought to be celebrated as one of the artistic high points of the 1980s....
READ ON
Posted by: MIKE JOHNSTON
0 comments:
Post a Comment