If it wasn’t for my aunt playing Grand Funk’s 1973 watershed
\nalbum
\nWe’re An American Band<\/i> around me when I was about six years
\nold, chances are I wouldn’t have found the desire when I was in
\nhigh school to acquire as many albums of this band as possible.
\nWhile Mark Farner and crew were hardly one-hit wonders, sometimes I
\nwonder what caused people to look at this band in the late
\n’60s-early ’70s as the next big thing.<\/p>\n
Their debut album,
\nOn Time<\/i>, shows occasional flashes of brilliance, but not
\nnearly enough to suggest to me, some 30 years since its release,
\nthat this trio was going to make a big splash on the music scene.
\nIt also didn’t suggest that the band would suffer from an identity
\ncrisis for some time; they’d be known as “Grand Funk Railroad” and
\n“Grand Funk” for some time.<\/p>\n
This particular album might be best remembered for the song
\n“Heartbreaker,” which became one of the earliest hits for Grand
\nFunk Railroad. The 3\/4-time tempo creates almost a rock waltz, with
\nthe harmony vocals of drummer Don Brewer and guitarist\/keyboardist
\nFarner lighting up the track. These days, it sounds a little dated,
\nbut I can still hear some of the magic that powered this track when
\nit first hit the airwaves.<\/p>\n
Bassist Mel Schacher could well be the sole bright spot
\nthroughout the course of this album, weaving his way through
\nintricate bass lines like it was second nature to him. One of the
\nbetter tracks on
\nOn Time<\/i>, “Are You Ready,” gives Schacher the chance to
\ndemonstrate his skill, and he does so without seeming like he was
\nshowing off on the bass. Other tracks that stand out on this album
\ninclude “Time Machine” and “Into The Sun”.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the passage of time has not been kind to the bulk
\nof
\nOn Time<\/i>. Tracks like “Anybody’s Answer,” “Call Yourself A
\nMan” and “Ups And Downs” all show too many signs of age, and are
\nmore nostalgia than cutting-edge rock today. The songwriting seemed
\nto weaken as the album progressed, even to the point of going to a
\nbridge of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” – good grief!<\/p>\n
Another sign of age that is embarassingly present on this album
\nis the extended drum solo of “T.N.U.C.” (Gee, wonder what
\nthat<\/i> spells backwards?) It’s one thing if a drummer really
\nhas the skills to make their entire kit come alive, a la Neil
\nPeart. It’s another thing when a drummer like Brewer turns a solo
\nopportunity into so much “whack-whack-whack” patterns on the snare,
\none tom-tom and a cymbal. “T.N.U.C.” would have been better named
\n“T.U.M.S.”<\/p>\n
Granted,
\nOn Time<\/i> was a debut effort, and usually I’m a little more
\nunderstanding with a band’s first try. But the hype that was built
\nup around Grand Funk Railroad in their early days (which,
\nadmittedly, I wasn’t even alive for a lot of) makes me still expect
\nto be blown out of my shoes when the needle hits the vinyl of this
\nrecord. Sadly, that didn’t happen often enough.<\/p>\n
\nOn Time<\/i> is not a common album to lay your hands on these
\ndays (though it is available on CD), but unless you’re someone who
\njust absolutely has to own every disc by a band you’re into, you’d
\nbe best off sticking with the greatest hits compilations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5688],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-39145","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-grand-funk-railroad","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39145"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39145"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}