Pretty Things - The Rhythm & Blues Years (2xCD) 2001

Everybody's got to have an idol, an ideal that one strives to reach and, if possible, surpass. For the Pretty Things, such an ideal were the Rolling Stones. This was really a predictable thing, though: the band was founded around 1964 by Dick Taylor, former bass player for the Stones before they actually had a recording contract. Dick quit the band because of financial troubles and personal ambitions (not content with his minor role since Brian Jones shoved him in the background), and became one of the founding fathers for the Pretty Things - but the band still kept a tight connection with the Stones. Initially, their image was supposed to be modelled after the Stones, only even more hardcore: they were even wilder, had even longer hair, and were banned from even more TV shows than the Stones ever have. At least, that's how the legend goes. Too bad that the actual music played by the Pretties was nowhere near as enduring as the Stones' stuff: the band was nowhere near as professional or talented, and their lead singer, Phil May, had, to put it mildly, a pretty limited vocal potential. Thus, the Pretties' early albums are rife with filler, even if the aggressive rock'n'roll energy contained in their best stuff easily compensates for the weaker numbers.
This all began to change around the Summer of Love epoch: unlike gazillions of their even less talented and/or ambitiousd colleagues, the Pretties had time and will to jump on the accelerating rock music wagon (together with the Stones!) and drifted away into artsier, more sophisticated territory. Unfortunately, the band never really made the big time; despite a few moderate hits, their image had already been soldered as that of second-rate Stones imitators, and this, taken together with poor management and inner lineup problems, never did much to improve the band's financial situation. And yet, it's the late Sixties that count for the Pretties - not every band can successfully transform itself from a basic R'n'B outfit into a full-blown psychedelic machine, but that's exactly what happened. The 1967 record, Emotions, is a minor (and thoroughly underrated) Brit-pop/psycho gem, but, of course, it's the 1968 tour de force, S. F. Sorrow, that the Pretties are going to be remembered for, if they are going to be remembered at all: the first rock opera (or 'rock narrative', whatever), a cohesive and complex album with a level of twistedness and sophistication no other former R'n'B band, not even the Stones, would ever achieve. If anything, S. F. Sorrow just goes to show that the band had serious potential in them, and were actually able to realize that potential instead of always drag in the shadow of their superior pals.
Too bad neither Emotions nor S. F. Sorrow hit the big time; after their failure, the disillusioned Dick Taylor quit the band, and although it dragged on for half a decade more, fuelled mostly by the energy of Phil May, and released three more LPs at least one of which (Parachute) is said to be very good, by the mid-70s it was obvious that there was simply nowhere else to go. The Pretties therefore disbanded into nothing, and despite several attempts at reunions and even some new studio output and live performances in the Nineties, they're still a pretty dark spot in popular culture.
I'm not an avid fan, of course, but one thing is obvious - the Pretty Things are more than just a potential bait for collectors of Sixties' antiques (and while we're at it, it is every Sixties' antiques collector's duty to procure the band's catalog in its entirety, now!). They didn't have that much talent in them, nor did they possess a particular thoughtful inspired talented creative guy; most of the band's best compositions are group efforts. Yet they seem to have possessed a certain 'group mentality' that was enough for their records, at least, the 1967-68 ones, not to sound like weak pathetic clones, but instead provoke a strong and deep emotional reaction. They were trend-followers, but they didn't follow these trends in half-measures: there's enough soul and feeling in their music to make it likeable. They never deserve anything more than a weak two on the band rating scale, that's for sure, but neither should they just be allowed to sink in the general mire of talentless mid-Sixties rip-offs because, frankly speaking, they were better than most. Don't believe me? Buy S. F. Sorrow today and spin it three times in a row to see what I mean. Then slowly and gradually work your way forwards and backwards, never letting your expectations run before the actual music - and hoopla, you just might have something there.
(starling.rinet.ru/music/pretty.htm)