The New York Dolls

This band put in a blender; the bittersweet melodramas of The Shangri-Las; the Chicago Blues of Sonny Boy Williamson; the raunchy Rock'n'Roll of Little Richard; the swaggering posture of The Rolling Stones; the tough inner-city sounds of the Stooges; and the androgyny and suggestive lyrics of T.Rex & Bowie, and came up with The New York Dolls.

It doesn't matter that they were not gay (possibly a bisexual or two among them, but we won't go into that). The thing is, they were responsible for one of the first cracks in the inpenetrable armour of the straight male image in the US. As frontman David Johansen had said, "Some people thought we were gay, and some people didn't. But we were like the toughest gang of dykes you ever saw, so if people came up to us and started something, they would regret it. I remember one time, I was standing on Third Ave. and Third St., with David Bowie. We were trying to cross Third Ave., and this truck-driver drives by. He thought we were girls, and he started yelling at us, 'I want to eat your c--t, baby!' I said, 'Oh yeah, dude, well, you're going to have to suck my d--k!' And Bowie was saying, 'Oh no, David, don't provoke him!' And I said, 'Listen, that's the way we talk here in New York.' I wasn't going to let some idiot deter me from where I was going."

Sylvain Sylvain and Billy Murcia, who went to junior high school and high school together, started playing in a band called "the Pox" in 1967. After the frontman quit, Murcia and Sylvain started a clothing business called Truth and Soul and Sylvain took a job at A Different Drummer, a men's boutique that was across the street from the New York Doll Hospital, a doll repair shop. Sylvain claimed that the shop inspired the name for their future band. In 1970 they formed a band again and recruited Johnny Thunders to join on bass, though Sylvain ended up teaching him to play guitar. They called themselves the Dolls. When Sylvain left the band to spend a few months in London, Thunders and Murcia went their separate ways.

Thunders was eventually recruited by Kane and Rick Rivets, who had been playing together in the Bronx. At Thunders' suggestion, Murcia replaced the original drummer. Thunders played lead guitar and sang for the band Actress. An October 1971 rehearsal tape recorded by Rivets was released as Dawn of the Dolls. When Thunders decided that he no longer wanted to be the front man, David Johansen joined the band. Initially, the group was composed of singer David Johansen, guitarists Johnny Thunders and Rick Rivets (who was replaced by Sylvain Sylvain after a few months), bass guitarist Arthur "Killer" Kane and drummer Billy Murcia.

The original lineup's first performance was on Christmas Eve 1971 at a homeless shelter, the Endicott Hotel. After getting a manager and attracting some music industry interest, the New York Dolls got a break when Rod Stewart invited them to open for him at a London concert. While on a brief tour of England in 1972, Murcia was invited to a party, where he passed out from an accidental overdose of quaaludes and alcohol. He was put in a bathtub and force-fed coffee in an attempt to revive him. Instead, it resulted in asphyxiation. He was found dead on the morning of November 6, 1972, at the age of 21. He was replaced by Jerry Nolan, a friend of the band.

After signing to Mercury Records, the New York Dolls recorded their first album at The Record Plant in New York with producer Todd Rundgren, who was known for his sophisticated Pop tastes and held a lukewarm opinion of the band. Despite stories of conflicts during the recording sessions, lead singer David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain later said Rundgren successfully captured how the band sounded live. Their music on the album incorporates carefree Rock and Roll, Brill Building Pop influences, and campy sensibilities, while Johansen's colloquial and ambiguous lyrics explore themes of urban youth, teen alienation, adolescent romance, and authenticity.

New York Dolls was released on July 27, 1973, in the United States and on October 19 in the United Kingdom. Its controversial cover featured the band dressed in exaggerated drag, including high wigs, messy make-up, high heels, and garters. The photo was used for shock value, and on the back of the album, the band is photographed in their usual stage wear.

New York Dolls was not a commercial success and only reached #116 in the US, while in the UK, it failed to chart altogether. The record sold over 100,000 copies at the time and fell well short of expectations in the press. According to Rolling Stone in 2003, it ultimately sold fewer than 500,000 copies.

New York Dolls nonetheless received widespread acclaim from contemporary critics. In a rave review for NME, Nick Kent said the band's raunchy style of Rock and Roll was vividly recorded by Rundgren on an album that, besides Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power (1973), served as the only one "so far to fully define just exactly where 1970s Rock should be coming from". Ellen Willis, writing for The New Yorker, said it was by far the year's most compelling Hard Rock album and that at least half of its songs were immediate classics, particularly Personality Crisis and Trash, which she called "transcendent". Here's Personality Crisis:

In Trash, Johansen undercut his vaguely pansexual beliefs with the possibility of going to "fairyland" if he took a "lover's leap" with the song's subject. (What is a pansexual? A bisexual who also does animals? Just asking...)

New York Dolls has since been often cited as one of the greatest debut albums in Rock music, one of the genre's most popular cult records, and a foundational work for the late 1970s Punk Rock movement. It was a pivotal influence on many of the Rock and Roll, Punk, and Glam Rock groups that followed, including the Ramones, Kiss, the Sex Pistols, The Damned, and Guns N' Roses. According to The Mojo Collection (2007), the record ignited Punk Rock and could still inspire more movements because of the music's abundant attitude and passion, while Encyclopedia of Popular Music writer Colin Larkin deemed it "a major landmark in Rock history, oozing attitude, vitality and controversy from every note".

New York Dolls has frequently been named one of the greatest albums of all-time; according to Acclaimed Music, it is the 155th most ranked record on critics' all-time lists. In 1978, it was ranked as the 199th greatest record ever in Paul Gambaccini's book Rock Critics' Choice: The Top 200 Albums, which polled a number of leading music journalists and record collectors. Christgau, one of the critics polled, named it the 15th best album of the 1970s in The Village Voice the following year. New York Dolls was included in Neil Strauss's 1996 list of the 100 most influential alternative records, and the Spin Alternative Record Guide (1995) named it the 70th best alternative album. In 2002, it was included on a list published by Q of the 100 best Punk records, while Mojo named it both the 13th greatest Punk album and the 49th greatest album of all time. In 2003, Rolling Stone placed the record at number 213 on its 500 greatest albums list and Personality Crisis at number 271 on its 500 greatest songs list. In 2007, Mojo polled a panel of prominent recording artists and songwriters for the magazine's list of "100 Records That Changed the World", in which New York Dolls was voted the 39th most influential and inspirational record ever. English singer Morrissey named it his favorite album in a list for The Quietus in 2010. According to Paul Myers, the record "struck such a chord with Morrissey that he was not only moved to form his own influential group, The Smiths ... but would eventually convince the surviving Dolls to reunite [in 2004]". In 2013, New York Dolls was placed at number 355 on NME's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Here's Looking for a Kiss, which tells a story of adolescent romantic desire hampered by peers who use drugs.

Vietnamese Baby dealt with the impact of the Vietnam War at the time on everyday activities for people, whose fun was undermined by thoughts of collective guilt.

Frankenstein (Orig.) was titled with a qualifier because Rock musician Edgar Winter had released his 1973 song of the same name before the band could record their own: "Our song Frankenstein was a big hit in our live show ... Now, his thing didn't sound at all like ours, but I'm sure he stole our title", Sylvain jokingly said.

I'm sure most of you wouldn't mind listening to The Edgar Winter Group version:

Jet Boy is the closing track and second single off the album. The lyrics are simply about a jet boy who stole his baby. There is little explanation as to what a jet boy is other than to say that he flies around New York City. Tony Glover of Rolling Stone Magazine described the song as "Marvel Comics meets the Lower East Side."

Too Much Too Soon was released by Mercury Records on May 10, 1974, to poor sales and only charted at #167 on the Billboard 200. After a problem-ridden national tour, the New York Dolls were dropped by Mercury and disbanded a few years later. The album received positive reviews from most critics, some of whom felt Shadow Morton's production (best known for his work with The Shangri-Las), highlighted the group's raw sound and made it a better record than their first. Like their debut album, Too Much Too Soon became one of the most popular cult records in Rock music and has since been viewed by music journalists as a precursor to Punk Rock.

The record opened with Babylon, which Rock journalist Toby Creswell named as one of the greatest songs of all time in his book 1001 Songs:

Ellen Willis wrote that she learned to appreciate Too Much Too Soon more than New York Dolls after seeing the band perform songs from the former album in concert, particularly Human Being and Puss 'n' Boots. Here's Human Being:

... And here's Puss 'n' Boots:

Chatterbox was written and sung by Thunders, whom Willis felt "uses his voice as a wailing instrument" in a manner similar to Robert Plant.

Since Robert Plant is mentioned, here's how he "uses his voice as a wailing instrument":

And in honour of their producer, Shadow Morton, here's one of the best songs of all-time. Disregard the idiot on the motorbike.

Murcia's wasn't the only untimely death for the Dolls. Thunders died in New Orleans in 1991, allegedly of an overdose of both heroin and methadone. It also came to light that he suffered from t-cell leukemia. Nolan died in 1992 following a stroke, brought about by bacterial meningitis. Arthur Kane's died on July 13, 2004, from leukemia.

On July 24, 2006, the two surviving members of the original Dolls, Johansen and Sylvain, having reformed the NY Dolls by recruiting new musicians, released their first studio album in 32 years, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This. It charted at #129 on the US Top 200 (it peaked at #3 in Finland!) and received positive reviews from most critics.

Here's Tom Waitsian Maimed Happiness:

Here's a spirited soda-shop strut called Rainbow Store:

Here's the Springsteen-inspired Dancing on the Lip of the Volcano (featuring backing vocals from Michael Stipe):

2009's 'Cause I Sez So suggests this band has little interest in living in the past, including their own. Todd Rundgren, who produced the Dolls' brilliant 1973 debut, was behind the controls for this set, and the first two songs, Cause I Sez So and Muddy Bones, conjure up the sloppy downtown energy of the Dolls MK 1. But after that one-two punch, the album shifts gears, easing into a groove that's more easygoing and mature than the classic Dolls assault, with a warmer and more subdued approach.

Here's opener Cause I Sez So:

Lonely So Long is a great Pop tune with a faint resemblance to the Beatles:

Nobody Got No Bizness is a high-spirited, hip-shaking R&B shuffle:

Temptation to Exist is a melodramatic big ballad:

Dancing Backward in High Heels was their last studio album, in 2011. It was met with mixed reviews. The album recalls the original group's influences, rather than the Dolls themselves, most notably classic ‘60s Rock, Girl Group sounds, and vintage R&B rather than the beautifully shambolic Hard Rock of their salad days.

I'm so Fabulous is a witty attack on out of towners in the Big Apple:

The night-life tales of Round and Round She Goes suggest that the boys are still up for a rowdy good time:

Streetcake is a good Pop tune:

In a 2016 interview with Getintothis, Earl Slick, the session guitarist who held previous stints with David Bowie and John Lennon and had been recruited by Johansen and Sylvain for the tour following their last album, confirmed the band was over. "Oh, yeah, it’s long gone. There was no point in doing it anymore and it was kinda spent." Gone, but not forgotten in the History of Rock, as well as in the lengthy fight to liberate gender roles and sexual identities.