Musical Content
The music on The Spotlight Kid is simpler and slower than on the group's two previous releases, the uncompromisingly original Trout Mask Replica and the frenetic Lick My Decals Off, Baby. This was in part an attempt by Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition as the band had made virtually no money during the previous three years – at the time of recording, the band members were subsisting on welfare food handouts and remittances from their parents. Van Vliet offered that he "got tired of scaring people with what I was doing... I realized that I had to give them something to hang their hat on, so I started working more of a beat into the music." Magic Band members have also said that the slower performances were due in part to Van Vliet's inability to fit his lyrics with the faster instrumental backing of the earlier albums, a problem that was exacerbated in that he almost never rehearsed with the group.
Read more about this topic: The Spotlight Kid
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or content:
“Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”
—Anonymous. Popular saying.
Dating from World War I—when it was used by U.S. soldiers—or before, the saying was associated with nightclub hostess Texas Quinan in the 1920s. It was the title of a song recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1927, and of a Cole Porter musical in 1929.
“Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)