Track Listing

1. Personality Crisis
2. Looking For A Kiss
3. Vietnamese Baby
4. Lonely Planet Boy
5. Frankenstein
6. Trash
7. Bad Girl
8. Subway Train
9. Pills
10. Private World
11. Jet Boy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1694 in Music
• Released on: 1998-12-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 43 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
In 1972, when rock & roll was all but dead in Manhattan, five cross-dressing glam punks from the boroughs convened and began hammering out crude, sub-Chuck Berry rock for the downtown in-crowd. It took another year before a record company dared to sign them, thus foisting The New York Dolls on an essentially uninterested world. Taking their cue from the band's guitarist/Keef-alike Johnny Thunders, hardcore Dolls fans pooh-poohed Todd Rundgren's production as wimpy: twenty-five years after its release, songs like "Personality Crisis" and "Looking for a Kiss" sound more trashily invigorating than ever. With the Rolling Stones finished as a vital force by '73, the doomed Dolls were there to step into the void. A classic. --Barney Hoskyns

CD Description
Along with the Stooges, the New York Dolls were largely responsible for pioneering the sound and attitude of punk, and this, their self-titled debut, is one of the founding documents of post-'60s rock. Outrageous, shambolic, and bursting with energy, the Dolls borrowed from the amped-up, bluesy swagger of the Rolling Stones, the pop confections of Phil Spector, and the campy theatricality that would flower with the glam movement, yet brought it all together with a visceral impact that recalled the jolt of early rock & roll.

Customer Reviews

Glam Slam! Thank you, mamms!
Picture the scene - ill in bed with an abcess that confined me to a temporary life under the duvet, I put on the stereo out of desparation, eager to find something that could kick me out of my state. Minutes later, I was out of bed, pouting to the mirror, playing air guitar so vigourously that I ripped my arm out of my socket (well, sprained it anyway), and screeching along with the first verse of Personality Crisis.

A miracle? Well, no. Simply put, the New York Dolls' debut album is the most arrogant, glamourous, rude, cheeky, snarling, potent and above all brilliant rock album ever made. This album has everything, in fact, that a perfect rock album should.

Part Rolling Stones, part Stooges, part charity shop chic, the Dolls took image and music and mashed it together so effortlessly that the whole act seemed natural. Magnificent put-downs (Looking For A Kiss, Trash), arrogance par-excellance - God, they even get their covers to sound like their own (Pills). Johansson's snarl is perfect, Thunders' riffs sound more like a finely trained aural assault unit, and Nolan's drumming thuds along giving the Dolls the best guitar-drums axis ever committed to record.

You want attitude? You got it. You want glamour? You got it. You so desparate to prove the validity of rock 'n' roll as rebellion that you want your favourite bands to cuss old women? Hell, that's there too. If rock ever became a subject at school, well, here's your Shakespeare, boys!

No weak tracks. No substitute. No excuse not to buy it. Why I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love L-U-V.

Essential
This debut album by the New York Dolls is a must for anybody with an interest in Glam Rock and or punk. They brief career influenced a whole shed load of subsequent groups such as the Pistols and the Clash.

Their appearance was stunning even for the decade that fashion forgot, how many times do you see 5 men dressed in not so good drag and make up? I remember them playing on "The Old Grey Whistle Test" Everyone at school was stunned the next day and this was a pity as the music was forgotten even though they were awesome.

Just listen to this album and you too will be hooked by the Dolls raucous proto punk of the highest order

Glam Punk!
The New York Dolls were one of the earliest proto-punk bands to come out of New York. They were there when it all began, and did it harder and more sleazy than anyone else.

From the early days you knew it was going to be a rough ride as all of the band dressed in semi-drag, and one by one they became heroin addicts. By the end of it all, it was very messy with the survivors only achieving a slightly less extreme lifestyle, which would lead to further great musical output and the deaths of two band members from their excesses.

The music though - that was what they excelled at! Maybe it's a little toned down on this first record thanks to the production of Todd Rundgren, but what he did manage to do was to make the music far more accessible. 'Personality Crisis' is one of those songs that you cannot get out of your head once it's in there, and other tracks like 'Frankenstein' and 'Subway Train' are just as good. It's rooted in pretty conventional 50's rock and roll but with a heavy, heavy dose of 70's guitars and lots of attitude and a very rough edge. It's like listening to Chuck Berry after a bottle of scotch and a pound of amphetamine, and looking at 5 persons of undefinable gender after an explosion in a charity shop, but it's hell of an experience to crank up the volume and let this hit you in the head!