1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 358. The Modern Lovers – The Modern Lovers (1976)

 

This album is classed as “proto-punk”, but personally I think “proto-Indie” is a better way of describing it. Yes, the album opener Roadrunner uses the classic punk time signature of three double-timed bars and a pair of power chords on the fourth bar (1&2&/1&2&/1&2&/3! 4!) for the rhythm guitar, and was apparently an inspiration for John Lydon, but the rest of the album has a different feel. 

Much of it is a bit of a mixture of influences from Velvet Underground and The Doors, the latter particularly reflected in Jerry Harrison’s keyboards on Astral Plane, and the slow and atmospheric Hospital. A Velvet Underground feel, especially from their first two albums, is present in the repetitive underlying rhythms to She Cracked and Pablo Picasso, which states that “Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole”. He probably was, and with some justification, but still. The singer Jonathon Richman is opining about how Picasso had no trouble talking to girls, and there’s a lot of that kind of teenage angst riddled through the album. 

And like Ramones earlier, The Modern Lovers take the idea of the Fifties teen anthem and update it with a rougher garage style. The track Old World for example, echoes the 1963 hit Let’s Dance (Chris Monetz) on the organ refrain, but ends with the sentiment “goodbye old world”. It takes nostalgia, absorbs what it can, and then casts it off. 

In many ways it is an album that prefigures the future. Keyboardist Jerry Harrison will become part of Talking Heads, drummer David Robinson will become part of The Cars. Singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter Richman has elements of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed to his singing – largely he sings like he can’t be bothered, but is actually very good when the song calls for it, but mostly he reminded me of Gerard Langley of Nineties group The Blue Aeroplanes, especially on the track Someone I Care About. This style works really well for the music. 

Perhaps because they sound like little bits of lots of artists that I like, I really enjoyed this one, and the blend was enough that they have enough of their own sound , even if this album was pretty much a stepping stone between musical genres.