Monster Movie [Original recording reissued]

Can | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 19, 1998)
• Original Release Date: 1969
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Mute U.S.
• ASIN: B0000067X4
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #326,959 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Father Cannot Yell

2. Mary, Mary So Contrary

3. Outside My Door

4. Yoo Doo Right

Editorial Reviews

Japan pressing has been remastered and comes packaged in a paper sleeve. Vine. 2005. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Monster...very literally!, January 25, 2000

By 

DAC Crowell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monster Movie (Audio CD)

There are scant few records recorded in the late 1960s that sound like they could've been done last week. The Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat" is one. And this is another. "Monster Movie" belongs in the same pantheon of influential greats as that record, to be sure. Starting off with the berserker sonic vortex of "Father Cannot Yell", the band carves out a wild patch of territory somewhere between noise-rock, jazz improv, New Music, and beat-poet-ranting that hits home like a .44 magnum bullet to the brain even to this day. The whole second half of the release is taken up by the amazing 'Yoo Doo Right', which is one of the truly great jam classics of all time, featuring astounding work by all the band, topped by the ranting, yowling declamations of Malcolm Mooney. As opposed to the 'peace and love' and candy-rock pretentions of its contemporaries, "Monster Movie" is like salt on a raw nerve...and it hurts so GOOOOOD!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smoke a Haiku Cigarette with Can, October 17, 2005

By 

William Scalzo (Niagara Falls, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monster Movie (Audio CD)

The thing that impresses me most about Can is that while their sound changed dramatically over the years, there was an amazing consistency to their classic run of albums. Monster Movie was their debut, and the only full-length album they released with Malcolm Mooney on vocals (Delay 1968 didn't see the light of day for many years afterward.) On Monster Movie, one can point out many similarities with other acts, such as the acid-drenched Velvet Underground guitar tones, the funky extended beats a la James Brown and the beat-poetry-as-vocals approach of the Doors. But Can sounds nothing less than completely original in the way they blend these elements with their own unique perspectives.

Mooney shared the same offbeat concept of lead vocals as his successor, Damo Suzuki. The big difference is that Mooney was an expatriate American and spoke English as a first language, meaning you can actually make out what he's "singing" (reciting might be more apt!) Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Damo Suzuki's work with the band, but it's cool to hear the vocals so upfront and lyrically discernable on a Can CD. Mooney tosses off terrific little poetic non-sequiters like the one I used in my review title all over this album.

Elsewhere, guitarist Michael Karoli, keyboard player Irmin Schmidt and bassist Holger Czukay were playing a lot rougher and more psychedelic than later albums, while Jaki Liebezeit was his usual precision-controlled monster self on drums. This was a sound that the band would continue through tracks like "Mother Sky" and the Tago Mago extravaganza, before abandoning it for a more ambient direction.

"Father Cannot Yell" is a perfect encapsulation of this early style, with Mooney ranting about fathers who haven't been born yet while the band kicks up a storm that could rival the great "Mother Sky" for intensity. Can's twisted take on the "Mary Mary" nursery rhyme culminates with Mooney's hoarse repetition of the title repeated until it becomes an incantation, while the band swirls and pounds. The real sleeper here is "Outside My Door," a terrific psychedelic nugget with some nice (uncredited) harmonica that was unique in the Can lexicon. By the way, my copy shows this song as being 7:22 for some reason. It's actually 4:05.

The epic, side-long "Yoo Doo Right" was alleged to have been edited from a 12-hour(!) jam session that could rival the Grateful Dead's of the time. It is a mammoth stew of everything that made this inaguaral edition of Can so great, with every member getting a chance to shine before it's finished knocking you out of your seat. "Yoo Doo Right" is worth the price of admission on it's own in the same way that "Mother Sky" was on Soundtracks, but like that album, we can only count our blessings that the surrounding tracks are so great.

This latest remaster, a hybrid this time, improves tremendously over the original vinyl album but not very much over the last remastered edition of this CD. There is a color booklet with some historic pictures and liner notes. My only slight gripe is that some bonus tracks from the Mooney era would have been nice, such as "Connection" and "The Empress & The Ukraine King." But this is a classic 5-star record in it's own right, as was virtually everything this band recorded up to and including Landed.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here's where it all starts "mary, oh mary so quite contrary", December 10, 2002

By 

gone daddy gone - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monster Movie (Audio CD)

Can's debut is just stunning, right out the gate with "father cannot yell" what a record! This was back with original vocalist Malcom Mooney, who just lets it all go on this record in the tradition of the truly possessed, he becomes at times hysterical in the energy he channels on this record, you fear that this much passion and terror and love and intensity coming from one person would kill them. And it nearly did. But the band can do no wrong here, this is when Karoli was still in his Syd Barrett meets Sterling Morrisson guitar phase, and it became a legitimate style in and of itself, but one he more or less discards after "mother sky" a little ways down the road. But back to monster movie, with that strange alteration of Jack Kirby's idea of god as a devourer, Galactus, on the cover. And this record will devour, oh listen to "Mary". One of the greatest rock songs of all time, one of the greatest guitar lines of all time (both the rhythm and the lead) and listen to Malcom get hysterical as he calls her name ("Marymarymarymarymarymary- marymarymarymarymary -MARYMARYMARYMARYMARY MARYMARYMARYMARYMARY") whoa. Incredible stuff. and there's more. Everything is great, the classic "Yoo doo right" it's all here, you need this record if you are interested in Rock music, experimental music, or experimental rock music, of which Can were indeed the kings.