The Pretty Things

Rage Before Beauty

Snapper

In their heyday, the Pretty Things were maybe the nastiest band around, racking up a truly admirable 61 convictions. The hilarious liner notes to their new album answers the following question in the affirmative: "didn't they live with Brian Jones and get into real fights and have bisexual encounters in the mid 60s and get banned from places and stuff?" But it never explains why anyone should listen to this album and not their 60s triumphs. They out-Stoned the Stones. Unfortunately, both of these bands are still around. The Stones have sucked for a good long time, but the Pretty Things remained blessedly silent after 1980. Until now. They are all on the dark side of 50 now and it is to their credit that low, low quality of the music here probably cannot be blamed on their age. If the album had lived half-way up to one brilliant proposed title, "Fuck Oasis and Fuck You," I wouldn't be able to recommend it more highly. Instead, it just sucks in a genial bar-rock kind of way. I could single out some songs for being egregiously inferior, but why rub their in it? The Pretty Things deserve to be every bit as rich and famous as the Stones, but this is not evidence likely to sway anyone. Benjamin L. McKean