Response albums.

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I just bought Mind Transplant by Alphonse Mouzon, and it's really quite obviously a response to Spectrum by Billy Cobham, released a year or so earlier. First Cobham released a fusion record driven by synth and guitar, then Mouzon did the same, right down to employing the same guitarist (Tommy Bolin). But Cobham had only one guitarist, whereas Mouzon has three, and while Cobham drummed fast, Mouzon drums even faster! It's really a nice album and not a wholesale copy of Spectrum - it's less jazz, for example, and the repetition of simple riffs makes it sound almost like post rock bands such as Circle. But it's interesting to note how clearly it is a reaction to a previous LP, and I was wondering if there were other response albums such as this.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 28 January 2007 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

Is it on the same label? Same producer? I mean it's possible that the label was just trying to copy a successful formula rather than Mouzon wanting to "respond" to Cobham.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Sunday, 28 January 2007 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

supposedly, liz phair's exile in guyville is a song for song response to exile on main st. i wish some could, eh, explain it to me.

― mrcvndrhlst (marcdrums), Sunday, 28 January 2007 15:42 (nineteen years ago)

it made good copy for journalists

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 28 January 2007 17:06 (nineteen years ago)

guyville/exile = total hokum

― hearditonthexico (rogermexico), Sunday, 28 January 2007 17:52 (nineteen years ago)

supposedly, liz phair's exile in guyville is a song for song response to exile on main st. i wish some could, eh, explain it to me.

funny thing about that...a few weeks before that record came out she did an interview on a chicago radio station and was asked about her record's relationship to the stones'. she was surprised at the question, said she'd never heard the stones record, and seemed genuinely amused at what she saw as a coincidence (similar titles, same number of songs).

i guess her publicist or whomever advised her to change her tune and play up the stones-response angle.

― Lawrence the Looter (Lawrence the Looter), Sunday, 28 January 2007 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

i always thought it was total hokum, too, until my band was asked to cover track 10 on both albums ("happy" and "fuck & run") for a tribute show. "fuck & run" is easy to hear as an answer song to "happy." it's a one-night stand being sung about from the opposite point of view (hurt, angry girl looking for love instead of carefree, reckless guy looking for a quick shot of happy). perhaps if i cared enough to listen closely to other song-by-song matchups, i'd hear more like that.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Sunday, 28 January 2007 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

brian wilson says the beach boys' pet sounds was largely a response to the beatles' rubber soul. they don't really sound that much alike, but wilson has said it was the cohesion of rubber soul, the idea of treating an album as an album, that set him off. in turn, paul mccartney has said the orchestrated feel of sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band was at least in part a response to pet sounds. and that one's easier to hear.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Sunday, 28 January 2007 18:16 (nineteen years ago)

The Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime is a sort-of response to Husker Du's Zen Arcade.

― MacDara Conroy (MacDara), Sunday, 28 January 2007 19:00 (nineteen years ago)

killing is my business...and business is good! is a response to kill 'em all in various ways

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Monday, 29 January 2007 11:14 (nineteen years ago)

Eazy-E's "187-um" is a response to "The Chronic", I think. It goes to the extent of totally ripping off Dre's signature production.

― richard wood johnson (rwj), Monday, 29 January 2007 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

I heard a radio interview some years back in which Liz Phair said Guyville was a song to song response and then she even gave examples...also, how in the world could she never of heard x on mainstreet and then just coincidentally name her album X in guyville? COme on kids, use your heads...

Anyway just about every album that the Rolling stones did in the 60s was a 'response' (more like a rip off actually) of a Beatles album...

― Abra K. Dabra (householdname), Monday, 29 January 2007 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

"call and" albums are better

― latebloomer: crapness 2 the Nth degree (latebloomer), Monday, 29 January 2007 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

i agree that the guyville/exile thing is totally bogus. there's no fucking connection whatsoever, especially on a song-by-song basis. I don't even pick up a connection on a tonal or topical level. if you ask me, the "response" angle was a deliberately misinformational marketing gimmick that actually deceived people into buying the album and finding tenuous connections that weren't really there.

do you happen to have any written sources on this? I'd like to read up on this.

― richard wood johnson (rwj), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 00:11 (nineteen years ago)

Perhaps in title only:

Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me

Norah Jones - Come Away With Me

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 00:27 (nineteen years ago)

I hear Jerry Butler's THE FACTS OF LIFE, Curtis Mayfield's ROOTS and Michael James Kirkland's HANG ON IN THERE as answers to Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON. About half of Kirkland's album is a blatant imitation (the rest is love songs); there seems to be an emphasis on social-consciousness songs on Butler's LP (plus there's a photo collage in the gatefold, just like you-know-who); Curtis was already doing the "progressive soul" thing when Marvin released his breakthrough, but even so, ROOTS is PRODUCED like WHAT'S GOING ON.

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 02:49 (nineteen years ago)

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