With fairly few exceptions, just about every band has released one turkey at one point or another (though even most of those turkeys have their defenders). Both The Clash and their fans alike wish 1985’s Cut the Crap never happened. Black metal acolytes unanimously agree that Celtic Frost’s 1988 foray into all things “glam,” Cold Lake, was a strenuous mistake. My own beloved Killing Joke still invariably wince at invocations of their troubled, numerology-informed ersatz-prog opus, Outside the Gate. Nobody mentions Lou Reed’s first solo, post-Velvet Underground album, and with good reason. Ministry dearly wishes With Sympathy was no longer available. The list goes on.
For The Ramones, there were arguably a few embarrassing chapters (much like their fellow New Yorkers in KISS), but across the board, most fans would probably agree that their darkest hour would be Dee Dee’s ill-considered detour into Hip Hop under the unfortunate nom-de-plume, “Dee Dee King.”
That all being said, the video for ….god, help us,… “Funky Man” does come rife with many a scene of the Lower East Side of yore (the yore in this instance being 1989). Though rigorously un-funky, it’s a lovely-albeit-lead-footed limp through a downtown that’s just not really there anymore. Thanks, once again, to the NYHC Chronicles for unearthing this one. It’s better with the sound down.
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