Label: Toshiba Records (Japan), TOCP-7620
Style: Hard Rock, Classic Rock
Country: Flint, Michigan, U.S.
Time: 40:50
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 269 Mb
Charts: US #6, AU #9, CA #5, JP #7. US: Platinum.
The
power trio era’s little engine that could, Grand Funk Railroad, had
been defying odds stacked against them since day one, perplexing
highbrow critics and thrilling concert audiences with their relatable,
working-class rock and roll. But, deep down, the Michigan natives knew
it was still all about Survival.
That was the title that
vocalist/guitarist Mark Farner, bassist Mel Schacher and
drummer/vocalist Don Brewer ultimately selected for their fourth studio
LP, which followed the same, strenuous recording schedule that had seen
its predecessors punctually recorded and released in six months
intervals.
And yet, by now, Grand Funk’s undeniable commercial
prosperity was such that they could afford all of six weeks in the
studio with their manager, producer and overall taskmaster Terry Knight.
The resulting material certainly reflected this with better production
and smoother arrangements to go with typically varied songwriting, but
not a lot of it. Only five originals and a pair of covers comprised the
sum total of Survival’s contents.
"Country Road" locked into a
hypnotic riff for the duration, "All You've Got is Money" was a mean,
mean blues filled with tormented screams and hell-raising guitar
strangling. "Comfort Me" was the album’s anthemic number, inevitably
fueled by Age of Aquarius idealism, without coming off nearly as full of
itself as most of Grand Funk’s peer group.
A laid-back, soulful
cover of Dave Mason’s "Feelin' Alright" and another, growling hard rock
version of the Rolling Stones’ "Gimme Shelter" acknowledged the absence
of an obvious single – though both were eventually released as such. And
the false start and studio banter prefacing "I Want Freedom" (a
highlight that embodied prog-rock at its least pretentious), plus a
random, if rather morbid, conversation between kids preceded the almost
religious "I Can Feel Him in the Morning" – clearly serving as padding
for the overall shortness of songs.
Not that any excess ammunition
was needed to give most of the period's music critics a reason to
sharpen their knives for action. Indeed, Robert Christgau, the
self-proclaimed 'Dean of American Rock Critics,' echoed most pundits’
sentiments by dismissing Grand Funk’s latest as “For about a year I've
been saying that people aren't stupid, that there has to be something
new about this music, and of course there is -- it Americanizes Led
Zeppelin with a fervent ingenuousness that does justice to the broad
gestures of mass art. But now I read where various men of taste, having
reached similar conclusions, claim in addition actually to like the
stuff. That's going too far.”
And yet, Survival was another
commercial success, climbing to No. 6 in the U.S., No. 4 in Canada and
No. 9 in Australia -- figures that either matched or bettered Grand
Funk’s previous LP, Closer to Home, and, thus, gave no hint that the
Grand Funk gravy train was in danger of derailing anytime soon.
In
fact, not until the band’s fifth album, E Pluribus Funk, released barely
six months later, would the wear and tear of Mark, Don and Mel’s
punishing work schedule and their relationship with manager Terry Knight
begin to show – eventually threatening Grand Funk’s Survival, several
years further down the line.
(ultimateclassicrock.com/grand-funk-railroad-survival/)
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