Little Orphan Albums

While some albums are destined for greatness, thousands wind up in cut-out bins. Often, the albums remain forgotten.  But some of these “orphan albums” have found appreciative owners who wonder, “Why wasn’t this record a top ten album—or even a top 200 album?”  Of course, beauty rests in the ears of the record owner.

Dwight Garner of The New York Times cited Maggie and Terrie Roches’ Seductive Reasoning from 1975 as an “orphan album” that bombed despite support from Paul Simon. He kickstarted their career by hiring the sisters to sing on his “Was a Sunny Day” on 1973’s There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. Paul also played guitar and produced one of the ten songs on the Roches’ album, only to realize that the world wasn’t ready for songs with clever titles like “If You Empty Out All Your Pockets, You Could Not Make The Change.”

Two years later, Suzzy joined her sisters as they sang Christmas carols in New York City in December to pay their rent.  But the three bounced back, releasing albums that never achieved commercial success but were beloved by critics.

This was more than could be said about Iggy Pop and the Stooges’ unhinged 1970 album Fun House. An October 29, 1970, review by Charles Burton in Rolling Stone called the record “so exquisitely horrible and down and out.”  The Stooges’ LP never entered the Billboard Top 200 chart, but found a home in the heart of Jack White, who called it “the greatest rock and roll record ever made.” But heavy guitar riffs mixed with heavy drugs took their toll on the group, with Iggy stating, “I’d been in an impossible band living an impossible life.”

While Iggy found a wider audience by going solo, Mick Fleetwood knew his solo albums would sell far less than a Fleetwood Mac record. At least he’d have less drama. Two of Mick’s pals, Christine McVie and Lindsay Buckingham, as well as Beach Boy Carl Wilson, wrote, sang, and played on Mick’s second solo offering, the very listenable I’m Not Me from 1983.

While recording the album, Lindsay came face to face with Billy Burnette, the guitarist and singer who replaced him in Fleetwood Mac four years later.

There are too many orphan albums to list. Some may have failed to click with American audiences because they were “too,” as in “too British,” like The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. It’s filled with reference points that are foreign to non-Brits.

Perhaps the Ramones’ first record (Ramones) didn’t connect with the masses because it was too simple.  Then there’s the case of Andrew Gold’s fascinating The Fraternal Order of the All: Greetings from Planet Love. Record buyers in 1997 didn’t want to hear Gold paying tribute to ’60s groups with songs that sound as if they could’ve been released by the Doors, the Byrds, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Dylan.

Gold also took an uncommercial route by naming his band The Fraternal Order of the All (that’s a mouthful)–even though the group consisted of Gold playing all of the instruments. 10cc member Graham Gouldman recalled Gold’s unique skillset: “He did a lot of sessions with lots of different people. And this one time, he did a session for Brian Wilson where they wanted some backing vocals from Andrew. But they rejected it because what Andrew did just sounded too much like The Beach Boys! He could sound like anybody you wanted. He was a genius.”

But some orphans take years to find thousands of homes.  Such is the case of the Violent Femmes’ excellent debut.  The album was released in 1983 but took eight years to crack the Billboard 200, peaking at 171, when it finally reached Gold record status.

The Ramones’ debut, which featured radio-unfriendly fare like “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,” only sold 6,000 in its first year, then took 38 years to achieve gold record (non-orphan) status.  Today, two tunes from these once-neglected albums play in stadiums throughout the world thanks to the opening guitar riff to the Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun” and Joey Ramone shouting, “Hey! Ho! Let’s go!” from “Blitzkrieg Bop.”

If it took years for these two stellar albums to achieve success, then there’s hope for scores of orphan LP’s like Beth Orton’s Trailer Park, Gene Clark’s No Other, Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue, Jellyfish’s Bellybutton, Paul Kelly’s Under the Sun, Eire Apparent by Eire Apparent (featuring future Wings’ guitarist Henry McCullough and produced by Jimi Hendrix), and every Big Star album.

-Mark Daponte

Photo: Andrew Gold (public domain)