One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This

Background

After reuniting in 2004, David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain reformed the New York Dolls without original members Johnny Thunders, Arthur Kane, and Jerry Nolan, all of whom had died prior to the album's recording. The album's title is a reference to Virgil's Aeneid, 1.203: forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Guest artists on the album include Michael Stipe, Laura Jane Grace, and Iggy Pop. A special limited edition version of the album was released with the bonus track "Seventeen" featuring blues musician Bo Diddley and a making-of-the-album DVD entitled On the Lip. The album cover was featured in the iPod nano 4th generation poster. Johansen said of the album, "It's a rock'n'roll record, and not a lot of people make rock'n'roll records today. They make weird marching music, or Hitler Youth rally music. Sheesh, there are some fucked-up records out there."

Critical reception

One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 75, based on 25 reviews. Q magazine called it a "career highlight" for the New York Dolls, while Spin critic Doug Brod hailed it as "a striking return to form". According to Dotmusic writer Jamie Gill, the album succeeded as a resolute "back to basics rock record" and weltering exploration of decadent rock and roll. Andrew Perry from The Observer felt it was the kind of boisterous, playful collection of songs "which, genuinely, nobody has the spirit or wit to put together these days". In the opinion of Rolling Stone's David Fricke, the intense record reconciled the frenzied music of the band's early years with the matured formalism of David Johansen's 1978 self-titled solo album. AllMusic's Mark Deming believed the songs were philosophical, multisyllabic, and surprisingly intellectual for a group that was once decadent and fashionably punk. Writing for Blender, Robert Christgau deemed Johansen a "far more practiced and studied" songwriter, who "mourns mortality and celebrates contingency in the most searching lyrics of the year—lyrics deepened by how much fun the band is having"; he assigned it an "A+" grade in his Consumer Guide review.

In a mixed review, Pitchfork Media critic Stuart Berman observed a less provocative style from the New York Dolls, writing that they sounded too humbled and restrained. Greg Kot wrote in the Chicago Tribune that the band's new members lacked "personality", while NME magazine dismissed the new line-up as "an above-average pub-rock band". Charlotte Robinson of PopMatters was confounded by the songwriting and described the album as "an odd little number perched somewhere between being embarrassing Dolls-by-numbers and true to the original band's memory". Leonie Cooper from The Guardian found the "beefed-up production and Johansen's more gravelly voice" predictable, although he felt their songwriting had matured.

At the end of 2006, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This appeared on several critics' lists of the year's best albums. It was voted the 43rd best record of the year in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll and was ranked 29th by The Observer, 27th by Mojo, 17th by Blender, 12th by Rolling Stone, 8th by Classic Rock, and 4th by Hits. Christgau named it his album of the year, and in 2009, he ranked it as the ninth best album of the 2000s decade.

Track listing

All lyrics were written by David Johansen and all music by Sylvain Sylvain, except where noted.

1. "We're All in Love" (Johansen, Sami Yaffa) – 4:38
2. "Runnin' Around" – 4:11
3. "Plenty of Music" – 4:00
4. "Dance Like a Monkey" – 3:38
5. "Punishing World" (Johansen, Steve Conte) – 2:37
6. "Maimed Happiness" – 3:01
7. "Fishnets and Cigarettes" – 3:13
8. "Gotta Get Away from Tommy" (Johansen, Conte) – 2:27
9. "Dancing on the Lip of a Volcano" – 4:18
10. "I Ain't Got Nothing" (Johansen, Brian Koonin) – 4:27
11. "Rainbow Store" (Johansen, Conte) – 2:57
12. "Gimme Luv and Turn on the Light" – 3:18
13. "Take a Good Look at My Good Looks" (Johansen, Sylvain, Conte) – 5:00

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.

New York Dolls

Additional personnel

Production