Review: Raspberries – Self Titled

Raspberries – Raspberries

It’s awfully hard to figure this band out. Many times an album, especially a debut album, will go in numerous directions functioning as an exposure to the band’s versatility. This album can head in as many as three different paths within the tight boundaries of a two-and-a-half minute track. I’m not saying it’s good…I’m just saying I like it.

Let’s look at the LP opener, “Go All The Way.” A commercial piece of music if ever there was one, the cut sounds for the first five seconds like a Stones or Humble Pie track. The curt, sassy sound of a twanging lead guitar. A moment later and the guitar is replaced by a disciplined strum behind a falsetto vocal.

Three cuts later and we are served up a tasty piece of rock ‘n roll in “Rock & Roll Mama,” a classic tune that, had the Stones themselves done it, every pimply high school band in America would chalk up in the repertoire.

Raspberries is the type of band that in a year could either be headlining the Sports Arena or a part of the never-never land of oblivion.

Courtesy of the Door (aka San Diego Door) – Cameron Crowe –  June 8, 1972  – June 22, 1972