Which did more harm to Peter Frampton's career, I'm In You or the Sgt. Pepper movie?

Particularly if we take into account I hadn't been born yet

 

You probably hate Christmas too.

 

He got packaged & marketed as something he wasn't by management & never recovered from it. I'd still like to have had his career though. I think he handled it all pretty well considering it's hard to be average after mega-success. He should have gotten a band together like Bowie did with Tin Machine & tried to rebuild his career that way.

 

How well did Tin Machine work for Bowie?

 

“I’m In You” is actually my favorite song of his.

 

Hey you kids, get off of my cloud!

 

In my opinion, pretty well. It got his creative juices flowing again, so to speak. I wasn't particularly taken with the Tin Machine material but it helped him get back on track in his own mind, I think. Watch any of the many solo live shows from the late 90s & he was hitting on all cylinders & seemed excited & happy. One of my favourite Bowie eras.

 

First album alright, but nothing special. Second album was meh....

 

I'm 37, I'm old enough to ignore what that meme is about. Gimme some classic old Simpsons!

 

You do know there’s a Beatle reference, right?

 

Yes, a Lennon reference, to be more precise.

 

One of the things that doesnt get mentioned much is that while Frampton is being presented as a teen idol,
the music he was making was hitting the "adult contemporary" charts, the realm of Hall & Oates and Chicago.

I listened to the IIY album today, and I was struck at how tepid and mid-tempo it all was.
No stomp like I Give You Money, or diamond hard guitar solos like on Do You Feel or I Wanna Go To The Sun.
The guitar on the album sounds like an after thought.
The only vocal where I felt he displayed any energy and joy was on Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

I liked FCA, didnt go crazy over it, but I liked it, a lot of energy on it.
Even when I didnt like a particular song musically, the vocal at least was delivered with some conviction.
But it was weird to listen to IIY album again, and feel disappointed listening to it.
Less visceral now than back when I was a young teen and thought, wow this really sucks.
But 42 years later, I cant say I was wrong back then. Its just so bland.

Again, just my opinion...

 

Velvet Underground?

 

The Quadraphonic days are apparently over...

 

That only appeared on your version of the album. Also, he was lumping the VU in with the Mothers, which, presumably meant he didn't actually dislike them.

Though, the VU never did have any appreciable commercial success, so I guess that still works.

 

That's what I marveled at earlier. In 1977, PF was an "A"-list rock star, but only 10 years later, he was reduced to sideman status on a Bowie tour.

In retrospect, it would've been nice if Bowie'd given PF a mini-opening set - let him do half-an-hour or so to try to build back his audience.

Possible Bowie was open to that and PF didn't want to do it...

 

Commercially, TM didn't do squat, but the band let Bowie clear his head after the wild 'n' wacky 80s.

I think TM was a net positive for Bowie. I think if he'd continued to plug away at pop stardom he would've both flopped in that regard and also lost tons of credibility...

 

Big difference between Bowie circa 1989 and Frampton circa... well, ever is that Bowie was already a major rock star before he became a stadium-headling pop star in 1983.

PF went from minor star to "A-list" almost overnight with "FCA", whereas Bowie had been famous for more than a decade when "Let's Dance" took him to a new level.

So Bowie was much better equipped to bounce back from a backlash than PF was.

In 1977, PF was "FCA" and not much else to the wider audience, whereas Bowie had lots of well-known songs before 1983.

So a TM-style situation for PF probably wouldn't have made any difference.

As I mentioned earlier, TM helped cleanse Bowie's palette and reset himself after the 80s, but PF just didn't have the track record that would've benefited from such an endeavor...

 

* Bowie picked Frampton as his guitarist on the Glass Spider World Tour to help get him back in the spotlight. Bowie & Frampton were very close friends going all the way back to grade school. Peter's dad was one of Bowie's instructors. There are some classic interviews with Frampton talking about young David Bowie in school. And Bowie opened for Humble Pie more than a few times!

Frampton has always been highly regarded as a pro and well-known as one of the nicest people in the wicked world of the music business, and my line of work, Concert Production. I was lucky enough to see him with both Humble Pie & Framton's Camel quite a few times. Just an amazing (& Loud) guitarist. I wish him the best and much happiness as he battles recently diagnosed Inclusion-Body Myositis.

Peter Frampton Talks Degenerative Muscle Disease Diagnosis, Farewell Tour

 

I saw that tour. Great show.

 

Yeah, I know Bowie went with Frampton at least in part due to their long relationship.

It remains astonishing to me that PF needed that minor boost only a decade after he was one of the world's biggest rock stars!

 

I never said he was ever in the same league as Bowie, just that a band route back to success might have been a better choice for him rather that continuing a solo career.

 

Personally, I agree with this. When the "I'm in You" single came out, I liked it OK, but the album was shockingly disappointing. I think the only things I found of mild interest were Rocky's Hot Club (Stevie Wonder participation IIRC) and Signed Sealed, Delivered. Weak songwriting. Haven't listened to it since it came out.

Then, the Sgt Pepper movie drove the nails in. I never saw it, but I HEARD enough about it to dismiss it, and him. He might have been able to bounce back from just one weak album (and album cover misstep) without losing total credibility, but the movie sealed it. It's too bad; he deserved a better career.

EDIT: Just checked to see if I still owned the record. Nope. Must have sold it in the 80s.