The album cover, via History’s Dumpster
Now that people are buying LPs again—please, for the love of God or GG Allin or whomever you hold sacred, do not call them “vinyls”—it’s time to talk about standards of quality. By all means, let’s talk about Amon Düül II’s Yeti, James Brown’s Hell, Black Sabbath’s Vol. 4, Jimi’s Axis and Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda. Yes, of course, Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet and Miles Davis’ Live-Evil and the Velvets’ White Light/White Heat. Monsters on the turntable, every one!
But if you want to demonstrate to yourself and others that you are a person of gravity who only listens to the hardest jams on wax, what you need to do is buy, play and display a copy of The Best of Marcel Marceao. Yes, it is misspelled, presumably to diminish the label’s liability in the eyes of the actual Marcel Marceau, though he was not known to be litigious. Released by MGM and Gone-If Records—gonef is Yiddish for “thief”—in 1970, this particular record album includes 38 minutes of silence and two minutes of canned applause. Why, it’s the goods! Just think how disquieting it will be for others when you put on “that silent record” again and a faraway look returns to your eye.
Record label detail, via History’s Dumpster
I first read about this album in Greil Marcus’ Lipstick Traces. There, it’s associated with Guy Debord’s 1952 film Hurlements en faveur de Sade, which provoked riots by avoiding the use of images. Marcus notes that The Best of Marcel Marceao was released by MGM president Mike Curb, who was later elected lieutenant governor of California “and, for a time, seriously discussed as a Republican candidate for the presidency”; however, he omits the author of the gag, record man Michael Viner, who produced the entertainment at the 1972 Republican National Convention and Nixon’s 1973 inaugural ball at the Kennedy Center. Without doubt, both evenings of real class compared to the orgies of refrigerant huffing expected to provide the fun at this year’s GOP festivities. (It is my sincere hope to see Larry the Cable Guy and Tila Tequila lose consciousness under a garbage bag while Donald Trump “fishes out” on the floor, convulsing and vomiting and choking and pissing and shitting until his heart stops and his spine extrudes from his groin.)
The sound of silence, after the jump…
