THE SMALL FACES – “All Or Nothing”
You can still hear records that sound like this in the charts occasionally, because the big late-90s Britrock boom was built on this template and some of that generation of bands have lingered. It seems to be a model that guys like Richard Ashcroft, who take themselves and their music pretty seriously, reach for, and I can understand why.
The Small Faces have picked up an expressive vocabulary from soul, with lots of stock interjections and hints of call-and-response, even if there’s no actual response. It’s a music that values noise and technique (though not yet to the point where they become a priority) and I don’t know where that came from, maybe just from in-circuit cockfighting among the newer groups. And then you’ve got some vestiges of pop songwriting or reflex: those “ba-ba-ba-das”, for instance, and the dynamics – tantrum swings of aggression and volume – might be half-borrowings from the foghorn pop of Cilla, too. But it’s not as disciplined as pop has been – even if it’s only three minutes long it feels longer, feels like the band are giving themselves space and time to preen a bit.
This all combines into a sound I recognise as “rock” – whether it rocks or not – and react against, even though it’s interesting seeing it develop here. It’s deeply unfair to blame the Small Faces for the iniquities of their descendents, but I find “All Or Nothing” charmless anyway. I think the bullish interruptions – “Come on children!” “Mmm yeah” “You know what I mean!” and the familiar rest – strip out the vulnerability the song needs to be sympathetic, and leaves it red-faced, self-satisfied, even bullying.
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I’m kind of glad that a mad experimental conceit like Rigby/Submarine made it to number one but this is a much more honest, decent and true number one. The Beatles may have been heroes to most, and all that, but it makes me angry that almost everything else of the era has to be judged by how far they fall short of the “perfection” of the Beatles blueprint. The sad thing is, if the Emperor has no shoes, Mark Chapman’s actions have ensured we’ll never have the opportunity to call him on it now.
From time to time, generally when my years of experience in the computer industry get passed over, I find myself asking myself what a thirty-year-old knows that I don’t. One very plausible answer to this question is that I don’t know what it’s like to be thirty in a world where the Beatles have always been part of the furniture, like an old chintz sofa. Yes, the Beatles are very much of their time, but that’s because in many very important ways they are their time. Like Hamlet, they seem full of clichés but those clichés were once fresh and startlingly new.
The Beatles were my first favourite band. Which should be a huge thing, but it wasn’t, really: like you say, for my generation they were that chintz sofa that had been in the corner of the room as long as you could remember. The music I took with me to university was half a dozen Beatles albums on cassette. The music I took away from university, of course, was a very different kettle of sound.
Shamefully, as a callow youth I dismissed the first few Beatles albums as “primitive”, just some teenagers making a noise on guitars. Now, thanks to the Popular Project, I can finally see what a completely different world of energy and verve they represented compared to the sounds around them at the time. But at the same time, I’m finding the Beatles during their later reinvention period mawkish and adolescent in all the places I previously thought they could do no wrong. The Stones and the Kinks #1′s still sound fresh and vigorous to me 40 years on, the Beatles already a bit played out, already stooping to galumphing comedy numbers in a desperate attempt to find something to replace their initial, unrepeatable explosion on the world.
Is it fair to dismiss the Beatles for no longer exciting my ears when I have heard most of their songs 10,000 times over since before I could even understand the lyrics? Almost certainly not, but equally I feel a bit protective of the “dross” of the 60s when a run of reviews goes “awful, awful, just about bearable I suppose, awful, ooh something by the Beatles, it’s a long way from their best but it’s still by them, 7/10″. Most or all of these songs got to #1 because quite a lot of people out there loved them, I guess I just want the ones that history hasn’t smiled on to get one last fair shake of the stick. I know the story of why the Beatles got popular already, inside out. The Small Faces story, and a thousand other pop stories, interest me more now.
I’ve been loving your revivals and comments on these threads Matthew but I think you’ve got a bit of a bee in your bonnet about my overrating the Beatles!
Their run of scores on Popular goes: 7-8-7-6-8-8-7-7-9-10-5-6-8-4-5-4. I think I like “Paperback Writer” and “Lady Madonna” a lot more than most crits do, but then I like “Hey Jude” and “I Feel Fine” less, and I agree there’s a marked decline (though I place it a bit later than you seem to).
(For comparison, the Stones get: 7-6-6-9-9-9-9-6.)
Also, I don’t think anybody in 1966 was dismissing the Kinks, the Stones or the Faces as dross. They were huge, and in important ways they each did one particular thing better than the Beatles. The point I made about All Or Nothing when it first came up in Popular still stands – it falls short of representing the best they could do. Now if Itchycoo Park, or Lazy Sunday, or (my personal favourite) Tin Soldier had reached the top I think they’d be getting very high marks but All Or Nothing just doesn’t cut it for me. For raw excitement laced with vitriol (which is what the Stones excelled at) it falls well short of Out Of Time for me. It was the summer of River Deep Mountain High too, which holds an honourable place in my pantheon.
On the other hand, the Beatles went places nobody else dared, and they did it with a lot of wit too. Nobody else in 1966 could have got away with putting two starkly contrasting tracks like Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine back to back and carrying them both off with panache. Let alone including them both on an album alongside Tomorrow Never Knows. TNK may sound crude these days but it’s very hard to explain now just how exciting it was then, especially since it sowed the seed of much of what was going on from the mid-1980s onwards. TNK wasn’t totally original, but lifting its ideas from the extreme avant-garde and planting it firmly in mainstream pop was revolutionary.
The tail in the Beatles’ output comes when acrimony set in and there was no room for wit any more. And it’s questionable whether the last two or three number ones are Beatles in any more than the name on the label.
What fascinates me about this period in pop history is the vast difference between how music looked and sounded in 1962 (the year I was born) and 1969/70 – from an era where Cliff and Frank Ifield were dominant to the time of Woodstock, Hendrix and heavy rock. How did we get from A to B and how influential were the Beatles in that progression? It’s not quite accurate to say, as I read somewhere, that the Beatles were ahead of their peers at every step, but their achievements must have opened the door for others – would the Kinks and the Who have found such a big audience if the Beatles hadn’t broken through a year or two earlier? (And the Stones’ second single was a Lennon-McCartney song.) Couple that with transatlantic influences such as Dylan and the Beach Boys, and of course the drugs, and you get more adventurous music being made and consumed year on year. That’s a fairly simplistic summary of a process that has been the subject of entire books, but that’s why the 60s intrigue me more than any other decade.
And Matthew, a fair shake of the stick for records history hasn’t smiled on is one of the essential things about Popular. Some of the “classic canon” tracks get far from an easy ride, and others that have often been dismissed get a good reappraisal. We might not agree with everything Tom and the comments crew say, but it sure makes you think. Stick around.
i think in 65-66 it was still a race of potentially near equals, and that this was part of the thrill: beatle-success had opened a door and a generation of groups were jostling through it, in friendly rivalry; what skewed it was the speed with which the beatles in particular drew vastly far ahead of everyone else (in terms of sales rather than sustained quality); by 68, they’d kind of spoiled it for everyone (by ruthlessly exploiting their headstart to fund their retreat from touring — which no one else could afford — and their dive into pure studiowork; and last but not least by the incredible bitterness of their divorce — i assume groups had broken up before, but the public ugliness was i suspect surprisingly traumatic for those in their generation who took them as a model)
#31 – also, one of the things I like about Popular is that tracks *I* dismiss tend to get a stout defence from one of the crew! It allows me to indulge my own prejudices a little more, which in turn lets me understand them better.
I’m intrigued by some of your choices of words there, sukrat – “ruthlessly”, “exploiting”… was touring so lucrative in those days as compared to everything else a band did, that you needed to “fund” a retreat from it? Wasn’t it a band’s choice if they found the uneven contest between fan-noise and amplification and the increasing technicality of their records made live performance impractical? And how would the Beatles not touring spoil it for everyone else?
And again, the sheer magnitude of their fame would mean that their break-up was world news in a way no other band’s had ever been (I think it was the only other news item referred to in “Apollo 13” wasn’t it?) – I doubt that the bitterness was unique to their break-up.
i think the beatles were very consciously competitive from a very strong position — which would have been fun at first for their rivals, and annoying later (when it became obvious how enormous the advantage was, of concetnrated time in the studio — everyone else had snatched moments between tours; the beatles went in, as their dayjob, every day for several years)
touring wasn’t always especially lucrative in itself, more a necessary chore for less established bands to promote the work that made the money (singles and later LP sales); the beatles had simply carved themselves a total (and at the time totally unique) permanent holiday from this, and used it to concentrate on R&D (as opposed to retiring entirely and forever to yachts in the med, which they could well have done, if they didn’t enjoy being “toppermost of the poppermost” so much)
re the bitterness: i’m serious about this — the glue of early counterculture was the good feel vibe of the beatles, the sense of shared joy, and the group that did most to present this as a vast public communal option smashed it in a tantrum — i doubt the bitterness was worse than in eg cream, but the effect on the kids was just ugely more widespread; it cast a pall over the whole of pop culture, where any other group break-up just cast a pall over the relevant fans
just to be clea: i’m not using the word “exploited” in a pejorative sense, i meanthey grabed an opportunity — but it’s also key that they saw it as an opportunity (as opposed to a problem) so quicjkly — and i’m using the word “ruthless” as much as anything to describe their own attitudeto themselves — by 66 they didn’t (economically) need to come in to work day in day out, but what you take away from the obsessive nerd detail of mark lewisohn’s books, for example, is how driven they were; how culturally ambitious — it’s easy to take for granted in hinfsight, because i set up a pattern everyone followed, which we’re now so used to we can hardly see; but there’s actually something a bit startling about how they responded to the pointlessness (bcz of teen-screaming) of touring…
obviously the downside of all being in the same room for four years is that they grew very fed up of one another
apologies for all the typos, my keyboard is sticking a lot this morning
Their ambition was through the roof, which I’m sure we all think is a good thing, so I do find ‘ruthless’ an odd word to use. As Rosie says about Tomorrow Never Knows, it’s easy to take this all-encompassing sense of adventure for granted when you read the Beatles story for the umpteenth time – only four years before Revolver, people were amazed by Adam Faith’s gently mid-brow appearance on Face To Face – in ’66 Pop was the epicentre of British art, and that was, no question, down to The Beatles.
The Beach Boys ‘exploited’ their position too, at least Brian Wilson did, more than a year before the Beatles which – seeing how much Paul admired Pet Sounds – may have planted that non-touring seed in their heads.
As for The Small Faces, they seem more unconditionally loved than almost any other 60s band, including The Beatles – at least people agree that the Get Back/Let It Be sessions were a terrible mistake. About ten years ago I wrote a piece which dared to suggest Steve Marriott could be a little irritating and overblown, and I STILL get grief from narky mods.
Do they? I think (on Tuesdays and alternate Thursdays) that Let it Be is their best record! Partly due to misunderstanding The Story, so I thought the garbled, audibly bored* mess of Abbey Road was the one that they decided they couldn’t release, and so John Paul George and Ringo went back into the studio and as if by magic, they were the Beatles again, and laid down a fine final chapter.
*This opinion is probably dependent on me never seeing them being visibly bored in Let It Be the film.
Sukrat #35 – thinking about your phrase that the Fabs’ break-up “cast a pall over the whole of pop culture”… didn’t Lennon say something like “it’s only a pop group, nobody died”? Devastating as the split must have been to fans worldwide, it was just a band, and elsewhere people HAD died – Brian Jones, Meredith Hunter at Altamont, and soon afterwards Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison – the pall can only have been partly due to the Beatles.
I have always loved “All or Nothing” and do not regard it at all as a weak part of their portfolio as has been suggested. It is, however, nowhere near their best track or even single, which for me is clearly obvious. A short while ago on the Ken Bruce show, a fellow won through on a round of “Popmaster”, which got him onto the supplementary quiz where one is required to name three chart hits in ten seconds by a named act. Bruce paused, as is his wont, before shouting out “The Small Faces!!” The contestant immediately named “Itchycoo Park” and then floundered, eventually mentioning “the one about the noisy neighbours” as Bruce sympathtically counted him out. Ken then told the guy that he had actually missed out the group’s only number one and also “the brilliant ‘Tin Soldier’”. I couldn’t agree more with this, as I have no hesitation in naming “Tin Soldier” as one of the best records of the sixties. Paul Weller, for what it’s worth, thought so too, the track popping up as his first “Desert Island Disc” when he had the pleasure of being marooned by that ravashing creature Kirsty Young a little while back. If I ever got an invite for that show, I’d have to nominate Kirsty as my luxuary. Doubt if she’d allow it, alas. I’d probably have to make do with an unlimited supply of Chateau Lafite ’61. What a drag!
Todd Rundgren also considered “Tin Soldier” to be one of the great ones, at least he said so in the liner notes for the Ever Popular Tortured-Artist Effect, on which he covered the song.
I like this, although not as much as some of their other songs. For the rest, the Stones were, to me, already the Beatles equals (not yet as consistent, it’s true, and lacking George Martin’s finishing touches, but with the Brian Jones magic and, at their best, some of the sharpest lyrics of the time) while remember that across the channel the likes of Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy, Jacques Dutronc and Michel Polnareff were making music every bit the equal of what was coming out of London.
p.s. That didn’t sound as enthusiastic as it should have done – the Small Faces were magical and All or Nothing is very good. Just maybe not quite as good as, say, the Ogden’s tracks.
seeing as this thread has been revived… 60s/70s nostalgia-cliche alert; for me its a record I can’t separate from a crappy Dansette and a small pile of singles mostly picked up, fairly indiscriminately, by my dad at jumble sales. In that context, aged 8ish, I never heard it as bullying or boorish – I think because what really registered and what I never really got past was the tone and the insistent fourths of the intro, which do still, to me, sound vulnerable/resigned/slightly mournful, whatever happens in the rest of the song. Especially as they struggled to be heard through scratched vinyl and a well-worn needle (sorry, but I did warn you)
there are some recordings of the Small Faces from various 60s pop shows (including this song) currently available here:
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=812
TOTPWatch: The Small Faces performed All Or Nothing on Top Of The Pops on four occasions;
11 August 1966. Also in the studio that week were; Billy Fury, David & Jonathan and The Alan Price Set. David Jacobs was the host.
1 September 1966. Also in the studio that week were; The Seekers and Sandie Shaw, plus The Go Jo’s interpretation of ‘Working In A Coalmine’. Alan Freeman was the host.
9 September 1966. Also in the studio that week were; David & Jonathan, The Fortunes and The Searchers. David Jacobs was the host.
27 December 1966. Also in the studio that holiday were; Chris Farlowe and Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames, plus The Go Jo’s interpretation of ‘Good Vibrations’. Alan Freeman and Simon Dee were the hosts.
None of these editions survive.
@Billy S. It’s heart-breaking seeing these ‘no editions survive’ listings. In the normal run of things many of these eps. would have become cornerstones of our shared pop cultural memory of the ’60s. :(
The shambolic and timid nature of the surviving sixties TOTP footage suggests that probably not much of value was erased. I’m relieved that most of it no longer exists since the illusion of greatness is always more comfortable than the letdown reality of seeing it.
If you go down to this year’s ‘Missing Believed Wiped’ screening of recently rediscovered lost British television at the NFT on Sunday, you can see a ‘Ready Steady Go!’ BFI sources aren’t saying who’s featured on this one in advance.
We’re also getting an early Dennis Potter play for ’30 Minute Theatre’, ‘Emergency Ward 9′ and some ITV variety performance of a reunited Pete & Dud from 1978, which I suspect might be a bit grizzly. The announcement that the bill will include “a half-hour BBC treat for science fiction fans” has raised hopes, but I think that’s just going to be the 1963 Patrick Moore interview with Arthur C Clarke recently shown on BBC4.