Why weren't the Raspberries bigger?

Would have been bigger if they had appeared several years earlier, their music was from a different era than when they played.

 

One of the all-time great American bands. But Carmen essentially made an absolutely colossal mistake with the matching suits. By the time they ditched the suits and looked cool, it was too late. They were permanently tarred by that image.

I saw one of the reunion shows, and it was one of the best live shows I've seen in my life (and I'd seen over 500 bands by the time I was 21). Live, there's pretty few bands in rock history who can touch them.

And some of you will still not believe that because of the suits. See?

 

Take a look at some of the vintage live footage of the band on Youtube. They could absolutely bring it in concert. Very tight, and Carmen's voice was really good.

 

Saw them when they toured Starting Over, and yes, they could rock. It's interesting, they had a lot of support form the pop fanatical fanzines of the time (early seventies), and in those circles, they counted as a hip listen. And, while late for the original pop onslaught of the sixties, they were early for the power pop comeback of the late seventies/early eighties. With shorter hair, the band I saw at The Bottom Line would've gone over very well at CBGB around 1979/1980.

 

You're missing the best part - the back cover!

Eric seems rather shy in the few interviews I've seen - maybe he just wasn't cut out to be a rock star...

The classical influence provided by Eric both in his writing and arranging and in his classical piano style in combination with the other great musicians in the band and everything each member brought to the table (echoes of The Who, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, etc..) gave Raspberries something totally unique in my opinion.

On the downside, each album has its forgettable 12-bar formula track or two - "Rock 'n' Roll Mama" etc..

 

Well, at least one guy was inspired fashion-wise by those white suits.

 

Well put.

I totally agree. I see a lot of comparisons to Pink Floyd. I don't see that at all. People tend not to see or hear things in context. Floyd was all about production,which is a hell of a lot easier than writing a catchy three minute pop tune with a good melody.
In my opinion,a good hook and melody on the verses trumps all. I have always felt,if a singer/songwriter could sit at a piano or play an acoustic guitar and sing and play a given song and it still resonated ,that is an art form.
Eric Carmen could sing circles around anybody in Floyd. The thing is,production came into its own when the Beatles broke new ground and music has never been the same. However,if you listen to early Beatles priori to Rubber Soul,that was what they were selling. Well crafted pop songs with little to no production. Great hooks,melodies,harmony,rhythm and lyrics of the day.
... If you took the veneer off of most of today's pop music,there would not be a lot there. The producers seem to have more to do with the music than the music itself.

 

Because Alice Cooper put on a better live show?

 

That makes sense. To date this is the only song I've knowingly heard by them, and I gotta admit my reaction was "This is it? This is the legendary Raspberries?" I thought the song was pretty lightweight and blah. I was expecting something more like Cheap Trick, I guess.

 

The Flame? Check out more than the singles boys before trashing! The last two stand proud among their genre. The first two contain some fine power pop moments.

 

Probably, because of the way they grow?

 

You're four pages late to that joke!

 

I mean, its amazing how many people are ready to dismiss having heard little to nothing. Listen to "Overnight Sensation" and tell me that's not only perfectly of it's time but also brilliant. I mean, Lennon loved it, right? For good reason. He appreciated the songwriting, the production mastery, the sentiment.

 

And of course bands shouldn't be smiling in photos.

 

I gave everybody the rundown earlier, see post #33 . They crafted great songs in a era of long solos and heavy metal bombast. Their singles had massive hooks and killer vocals. Eric Carmen once described their music as sunnier than The Beatles and more sophisticated than The Beach Boys. Their problem was wrong era for their music. If those same songs would have come out in 1967 or 1979 they could have possibly been huge. The first two LPs suffer from too many ballads but their 8 minute opus I Can Remember from the first album (done in one take by the way) is an incredible piece of music. Side 3 and Starting Over both really rock out but their initial audience had already moved on. As has been stated earlier the horny singles Go All The Way, I Wanna Be With You, Tonight and Ecstasy almost wear you out listening to them back to back. Overnight Sensation from Starting Over was named by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest 500 singles of all time and for good reason. It is a pop masterpiece. They deserved better at the time but at least they're still remembered. If you don't own their 4 albums you should really give them a chance and check them out.

 

Well said. Raspberries got very little respect when they came on the scene. I loved them but at the same time I kept hearing the Beatles influence and it did bother me a bit back then. Of course, not now.
Now, what I didn't get was when Eric Carmen went solo and doing 8 short songs and calling it an album. I felt ripped off every time I bought an album, but I still bought them. And, I still wished he included Hey Deannie on Boats Against the Current instead of leasing it to Shaun Cassidy.

 

The Raspberries - Let's Pretend & Starting Over

Darryl

 

LOL, I tried.

 

I thought at the time that "Go All The Way" was the best rock single since "Brown Sugar."

I'm still under that impression come to think of it.

 

Wow, that actually lowered my opinion even more-- everything I didn't like about their songs, sound, and Carmen's singing are all rolled into that clip. I'm sure I would like them much more without him.

 

I love, love, love that song. I'm not sure where it'd be on my favorites list, but it'd be a lot higher than 500. Maybe in the Top 100.

That transition from the "mono/AM radio" sound to the full-spectrum stereo mix kills me every time. "Wanna hit record... yeah! Wanna hit record... yeah! (Number one!)"

 

When I saw them in 2005, they pulled that off perfectly playing live!

 

The Onion's AV Club recently had a discussion about why some bands don't get as big as they ought to be, and one argument that frequently came up is that power-pop just doesn't sell, ever, at least in the United States: too pop for the rock audience, too rock for the pop audience. (Scroll down to Noel Murray's bit about Sloan, and follow up in the comments.) Even successful power-pop bands like Cheap Trick seem to have a ceiling for how big they get: sure, they got pretty big, but with those songs, and those performers, why didn't they get to be as big as (say) Van Halen?

 

When Michael McBride's drums come back in after the break has been described as the sound of a refrigerator falling down the stairs (at the 4:23 mark below).

The album Starting Over and the single Overnight Sensation (Hit Record) were named album and single of the year 1974 in Rolling Stone's year end issue. Ironically the review of the LP can be found in the Rolling Stone issue with The Beatles lunch box on the cover. They could never shake The Beatles clone tag just like fellow power poppers Badfinger.

Live clip from Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUnetTZeyhI