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Mustache-Rock Albums
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 17-Nov-06 @ 12:57 PM| You don't have to rock a mustache to play mustache rock, but it helps. See, a mustache-rock band knows how to work a grill, steal your old lady and drink crappy beer while shirtless. And though at times it crosses over into classic- and Southern-rock territory, MR has the distinct advantage of not totally blowing. These 10 bands know that love doesn't "last forever"-they just need it to last till tomorrow. Maybe Tuesday. Welcome to Awesome Town. |
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The Eagles Hotel California (ASYLUM,1976)  You might remember that atrocious Ataris song “Boys Of Summer” from a few years back. Well, Don Henley, the singing drummer from the Eagles, wrote that after he went solo, and what does he care if the cover version blows? His old band still has the biggest-selling record of all time. Anyway, Hotel California is probably the last record your dad felt cool buying. Back then, the Eagles were three-fifths mustachioed and five-fifths awesome. Songs like “Desperado” and “Take It To The Limit” might seem overplayed by now, but they basically invented the ’70s and California at the same time-and got your mom pregnant.
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Black Sabbath Paranoid (VERTIGO,1970)  Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi has wielded one of the most influential axes in rock history and worn the face that launched a thousand mustaches. The title track from the band’s classic second album put the charging menace into heavy metal and separated Sabbath from their largely blues-influenced forebears (see the oft-mustachioed Led Zeppelin). “War Pigs” is a study in tension and release that features a spooky anti-war lyric and a furious riff Bob Dylan never could have written (weak mustache power there). As for “Iron Man”? “Heavy boots full of lead. Fills his victims full of dread.” Picture that dude-what’s he wearing? You guessed it.
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The Allman Brothers Band Idlewild South (CAPRICORN,1970)  One of the quintessential tenets of mustache rock is a vague desire to blaze on down the highway. Sometimes, you’re on the run from the law-or a woman-and sometimes, you’ve just “gotta get away.” Often confused, facial-hair-wise, with the Doobie Brothers, the Allman Brothers make the cut here because two of them died in motorcycle crashes. That’s called living the dream. For their second album, Idlewild South, Gregg Allman wrote what is probably history’s best-known MR classic, “Midnight Rider”: “I don’t own the clothes I’m wearing/And I’ve got one more silver dollar.../But I’m not gonna let ’em catch the Midnight Rider.” You can practically hear the wind in the dude’s mustache on that one.
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Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers S/T (MCA,1976)  Tom Petty hasn’t always worn a mustache, but his guitar has. Petty and his boys set the bar pretty high right out of the gates in ’76 with this classic debut album. Never before had anyone blended traditional rock with a bluesy garage attitude and somehow come up with power-pop. The greatest singles artist of our life time may have done it better with the massive number of face-rocking hits he wrote later on, but for my money, it doesn’t get cooler than the smooth mustache groove of “Breakdown” and the jangly take-it-easy style of “American Girl.”
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Hall & Oates Rock ’N Soul Part 1: Greatest Hits (RCA,1990)  Forget what I said about Tom Petty: In terms of hit singles, the only thing more famous than John Oates’ mustache are the tunes that buzzed beneath his lip canopy on every good song written in the ’80s. Since he and Daryl Hall had the annoying habit of spreading those songs between records, you should probably start with Rock ’N Soul Part 1 to get the full white-soul flavor of this dynamic duo: “Say It Isn’t So,” “Sara Smile,” “She’s Gone,” “Rich Girl,” “Kiss On My List,” “You Make My Dreams”... That is insane. Literally insane. The most appropriate soundtrack for driving into a big city at night: the lights, the sounds, the ’stache.
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Kings Of Leon Youth & Young Manhood (RCA,2003)  Arriving decades after their forebears, these four hirsute Southern boys put the MR aesthetic on the map for the MySpace generation. I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing, but let’s give them props anyway for taking the best bits of Neil Young (see: sideburn rock) and Tom Petty, and for wearing the Strokes’ haircuts on their faces. They’re a little like the Luke Skywalkers of mustache rock. They’ve got a decent grasp of the force, but they’re too young to fully harness the power of the lightsabers under their noses. The song “Molly’s Chambers” from this record is the blueprint for contemporary MR.
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Le Tigre Feminist Sweepstakes (MR. LADY,2001)  Le Tigre are the only female mustache-rock band I’m aware of (except maybe Mariah Carey), and that also officially makes them the best ever. Their self-titled debut features the indie dancefloor smash “Deceptacon,” but the non-binary-gender-identified (or whatever) J.D. Sampson wasn’t in the band back then, so that sort of ruins the whole concept. Plus, Kathleen Hannah has been rewriting that song ever since, like on Feminist Sweepstakes’ bratty keyboard snarlers “FYR” and “On Guard.” Le Tigre’s first-wave neo-nü-wave sound may have been responsible for electroclash, but don’t hold that against them.
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The White Stripes De Stijl (V2,2000)  A lot of the White Stripes’ fanbase crosses over into beard-rock territory (girl jeans, crying into the mirror), but the pastiest guitar swashbuckler in America practically lectures on the history of mustache rock every time he plays a note. On this, hands down the Stripes’ best album, it’s either a nod to the Kinks (Dave Davies, known mustache-wearer) on “You’re Pretty Good Lookin’ (For A Girl),” the Beastie Boys on “Hello Operator,” the Beatles on “Apple Blossom,” Led Zeppelin on “Why Can’t You Be Nicer To Me?” or whatever old-timey blues guy he rips off everywhere else. Our man Jack has the blood of his forefathers’ mustaches running through his chubby fingers.
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Death From Above 1979 You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine (VICE,2004)  These guys won the award for Outstanding Use Of A Mustache In An Ad Campaign with the release of their debut album, You’re A Woman, I’m a Machine. Death From Above’s signature mustaches suggest the best parts of sex and violence with a sound that draws from two mustache-rock staples: sexually ambiguous disco thump and proto-metal screech. A song like “Blood On Our Hands” is proof that your mustache doesn’t have to be flaked with little white rocks to absolutely slay a club-although sometimes your tunes sound better if it is.
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Eagles Of Death Metal Death By Sexy (DOWNTOWN,2006)  The jury’s still out on whether Eagles Of Death Metal singer Jesse Hughes’ mustache is ironic (irony being the natural foe of the true mustache), but Hughes’ partnership with Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme brings him some serious mustache cred. Unlike, say, Wolfmother, who are simply influenced by MR legends, EODM work a meta-mustache angle-i.e., the mustache as comment on “the mustache.” But “I Want You So Bad (Boys Bad News)” rocks hard and “I Got a Feelin’ (Just Nineteen)” is a jam about a teen girl that’s creepy enough to hit the MR mark. Plus, you know, they’re the “Eagles” of death metal.
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