Kick Out the Jams | ||||
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Live album by | ||||
Released | February 1969 | |||
Recorded | October 30–31, 1968 | |||
Venue | Grande Ballroom, Detroit, Michigan | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 39:52 | |||
Label | Elektra | |||
Producer | ||||
MC5 chronology | ||||
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Kick Out the Jams is the debut album by American rock band MC5. A live album, it was recorded at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit over two nights, Devil's Night and Halloween, 1968 and released in February 1969, by Elektra Records. [6]
The LP peaked at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 chart, with the title track peaking at No. 82 on the Billboard Hot 100. Although the album initially received an unfavorable review in Rolling Stone magazine upon its release, it has gone on to be considered an important forerunner to punk rock music, and was ranked number 294 in both 2003 and 2012 editions of Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" lists, [7] [8] and at number 349 in a 2020 revised list. [9]
The album peaked at number 30 on the Billboard albums chart, "in the wake of a publicity blitz", wrote Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). [10] In Canada, the album reached #37. [11]
While "Ramblin' Rose" and "Motor City Is Burning" open with the band's typical leftist and revolutionary rhetoric, it was the opening line to the title track that stirred up controversy. Vocalist Rob Tyner shouted, "And right now... right now... right now it's time to... kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" before the opening riffs. Elektra Records executives were offended by the line and had preferred to edit it out of the album (replacing the offending words with "brothers and sisters"), while the band and manager John Sinclair adamantly opposed this.[ citation needed ]
However in 2002, Wayne Kramer explained to Terry Gross on her show, Fresh Air, the band understood and accepted the single needed to be recorded without the profanity.
... we weren't complete idiots about it, you know, we knew that that would never be played on the radio. So we recorded an alternative intro, which was kick out the jams, brothers and sisters. And, you know, it might be an interesting footnote to look at it because what happened was we had agreed – we knew that, I mean, kick out the jams MF was not going to be a hit single. So we did this other version. And what we told Elektra Records was that we knew when the album version, the real version hit the stands that the stuff was going to hit the fan. But let the single get as firmly established in the charts as it can. Wait till it starts coming back down the charts before you put the album out ... because then we'll be a bona fide hit band. And then the controversy will work in our favor ... And the record company, in all their shortsighted lack of wisdom, when the single started going up the charts, they rushed the album out. And when they rushed the album out, of course, the stuff did hit the fan and the – and people started to be arrested for selling the album. [12]
The original release had "kick out the jams, Motherfuckers!" printed on the inside album cover, but was soon pulled from stores. Two versions were then released, both with censored album covers, with the uncensored audio version sold behind record counters.
Making matters worse, Hudson's department stores refused to carry the album. Tensions between the band and the Hudson's chain escalated to the point that the department stores refused to carry any album from the Elektra label after MC5 took out a full-page ad that, according to Danny Fields, "was just a picture of Rob Tyner, and all it said was 'Fuck Hudson's.' And it had the Elektra logo". [13] To end the conflict and to avoid further financial loss, Elektra dropped MC5 from their record label.
Later the same year, Jefferson Airplane recorded the song "We Can Be Together" for their Volunteers album, a song containing the word "motherfucker". Unlike Elektra, RCA Records released the album wholly uncensored.
"Kick out the jams" has been taken to be a slogan of the 1960s ethos of revolution and liberation, an incitement to "kick out" restrictions in various forms.[ citation needed ] To quote MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer from his interview with Caroline Boucher in Disc & Music Echo magazine on August 8, 1970:
People said "oh wow, 'kick out the jams' means break down restrictions" etc., and it made good copy, but when we wrote it we didn't have that in mind. We first used the phrase when we were the house band at a ballroom in Detroit, and we played there every week with another band from the area. [...] We got in the habit, being the sort of punks we are, of screaming at them to get off the stage, to kick out the jams, meaning stop jamming. We were saying it all the time and it became a sort of esoteric phrase. Now, I think people can get what they like out of it; that's one of the good things about rock and roll. [14]
The title has also been reinterpreted as an establishment message masquerading as a revolutionary anthem. David Bowie sings in the song "Cygnet Committee": "[We] stoned the poor on slogans such as/Wish You Could Hear/Love Is All We Need/Kick Out the Jams/Kick Out Your Mother".
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [15] |
Chicago Tribune | [16] |
Classic Rock | 9/10 [17] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [18] |
New Musical Express | 9/10 [19] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [20] |
Select | 5/5 [21] |
Upon its release, critic Lester Bangs, writing his inaugural review for Rolling Stone, called Kick Out the Jams a "ridiculous, overbearing, pretentious album". [22] In contrast to this view, modern opinion of the album generally holds it in very high regard, noting its influence on rock music that has followed. Mark Deming of AllMusic called it "one of the most powerfully energetic live albums ever made" in a retrospective review. [15] PopMatters reviewer Adam Williams wrote, "For my money, 'Kick Out the Jams' is one of the greatest records ever pressed. It is a magnificent time portal into the past, a fleeting glimpse of a band that actually had the balls to walk it like they talked it" and that "no live recording has captured the primal elements of rock more than the MC5's inaugural effort." [23] Bangs himself would change his mind about the album, writing in a footnote in his Troggs essay "James Taylor Marked for Death":
Incidentally, I'm not trying to run down the Five, or write them off as some Troggs trifle. When I reviewed their first album in Rolling Stone, I finished by mentioning "The Troggs, who appeared with a similar sex-and-violence thing a couple of years back, and promptly sank into oblivion, where I imagine they are laughing at the MC5," and that of course is as snottily unkind to the Troggs as to the Five. But then, it was the first review I ever had published, and even if more death threats came in after that review than any other save Jann Wenner's Wheels of Fire massacre (and most of them from sweet home Detroit), I can see why people privileged enough to be part of the apocalyptic birth of the Five would be enraged. And to compound the irony, Kick Out the Jams has been my favorite album or at least one of the two or three most played for about three months now. [24]
In March 2005, Q magazine placed the song "Kick Out the Jams" at number 39 in its "100 Greatest Guitar Tracks" list. The same track was named the 65th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.
"The MC5 were a mercurial band," remarked guitarist Wayne Kramer. "We were inconsistent. All of a sudden, this was the night. It was a lot of pressure for us to be under. I hear it every time I listen to the record. I hear me making clumsy mistakes on the guitar; I hear Dennis all over on the tempos; I hear Rob not quite in the perfect voice he was capable of." [25]
All tracks are written by MC5 (Rob Tyner, Wayne Kramer, Fred "Sonic" Smith, Michael Davis, Dennis Thompson), except as noted
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Ramblin' Rose" | Fred Burch, Marijohn Wilkin | 4:15 |
2. | "Kick Out the Jams" | 2:52 | |
3. | "Come Together" | 4:29 | |
4. | "Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)" | 5:41 | |
Total length: | 17:17 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
5. | "Borderline" | 2:45 | |
6. | "Motor City Is Burning" | Al Smith | 6:04 |
7. | "I Want You Right Now" | Colin Frechter, Larry Page | 5:31 |
8. | "Starship" | MC5, Sun Ra | 8:15 |
Total length: | 22:35 |
Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist and critic. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines and was also a performing musician. The music critic Jim DeRogatis called him "America's greatest rock critic".
MC5 was an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1963. The classic line-up consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson. MC5 were listed by Parade as one of the best rock bands of all time and by VH1 as one of the greatest hard rock artists of all time. The band's first three albums are regarded by many as staples of rock music, and their 1969 song "Kick Out the Jams" is widely covered.
The Cars is the debut studio album by American rock band the Cars, released on June 6, 1978, by Elektra Records. The album was produced by longtime collaborator Roy Thomas Baker, and spawned several hit singles, including "Just What I Needed", "My Best Friend's Girl", and "Good Times Roll", as well as other radio and film hits such as "Bye Bye Love" and "Moving in Stereo". The Cars peaked at number 18 on the US Billboard 200 album chart, and has been certified 6x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Back in the USA is the first studio album by the American rock band MC5, released on January 15, 1970. It is their second album overall, following 1969's live album Kick Out the Jams.
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The Stooges is the debut studio album by American rock band the Stooges, released on August 5, 1969 by Elektra Records. Considered a landmark proto-punk release, the album peaked at number 106 on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The tracks "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "1969" were released as singles; "1969" was featured on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs" at number 35. In 2020, it was ranked number 488 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
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Robert W. Derminer, known as Rob Tyner, was an American musician best known as the lead singer for the Detroit proto-punk band MC5. His adopted surname was in tribute to the jazz pianist McCoy Tyner. It was Tyner who issued the rallying cry of "kick out the jams, motherfuckers" at the MC5's live concerts. Tyner had originally auditioned as the bass player, but the band felt his talents would be best used as the lead vocalist.
"Kick Out the Jams" is a song by MC5, released as a single in March 1969 by Elektra Records. The album of the same name caused some controversy due to inflammatory liner notes by the band's manager, John Sinclair, and the track's rallying cry of "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!". According to guitarist Wayne Kramer, the band recorded this as "Kick out the jams, brothers and sisters!" for the single released for radio play; lead vocalist Rob Tyner claimed this was done without group consensus. The edited version also appeared in some LP copies, which also withdrew Sinclair's excitable comments. The album was released in January 1969; reviews were mixed, but the album was relatively successful, quickly selling over 100,000 copies and peaking at #30 on the Billboard album chart in May 1969 during a 23-week stay.
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