Day After Day #143: Personality Crisis

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Personality Crisis (1973)

Sometimes it's possible to be a too ahead of your time. The New York Dolls definitely fell into that category. Formed in New York City in the early '70s, the initial era of the band was fleeting and commercially disappointing, but it inspired a wide range of musicians and genres in the decades to come.

Guitarist Sylvain Sylvain and drummer Billy Murcia began playing in bands together in high school and in 1970 they formed the Dolls. Eventually they added Johnny Thunders on guitar before splitting up. Thunders joined a band called Actress with bassist Arthur Kane and guitarist Rick Rivets, adding Murcia on drums; Thunders sang and played lead guitar, but when he didn't want to be the frontman anymore, David Johansen was brought in to sing. The band name was changed to the New York Dolls and they played their first gig on Christmas Eve 1971 at a homeless shelter.

Rod Stewart invited them to open for the Faces in London in 1972, but while on tour in England, Murcia died of an overdose. Jerry Nolan replaced him on drums. They developed some buzz playing shows around New York and eventually signed a deal with Mercury Records. The band became known for cross-dressing and wearing makeup on stage as much as for their raucous hard rock sound.

Musician Todd Rundgren produced the band's self-titled debut and despite reports of clashes between the precise Rundgren and the rough and tumble Dolls, the album is a classic. In addition to having a shocking (for the time) album cover that had the band dressed in wigs, high heels, makeup and garters, the record was vital, raw and chaotic. It's considered one of the major influences on the punk rock scene that emerged a few years later, but it also .

"Personality Crisis" was the lead track on the album and part of a double A-side single with "Trash" and right out of the gate, the band makes it clear it won't be ignored.

"Well, we can't take it this week/And her friends don't want another speech/Hoping for a better day to hear what she's got to say/All about that personality crisis, you got it while it was hot/But now frustration and heartache is what you got/That's why they talk about personality."

The song is a shambolic rager, driven by Thunders' guitar work and Sylvain's rollicking piano as Johansen wastes no time delivering the goods with his Noo Yawk attitude. 

"And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon/Change on into the wolfman howlin' at the moon/Got a personality crisis, you got it while it was hot/It's always hard to when frustration and heartache what you got/Now with all the crossin' fingers Mother Nature sends/Your mirror's gettin' jammed up with all your friends/That personality, everything is starting to blend/Personality, when your mind starts to blend/Got so much personality, impression of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend/Personality, wonderin' how celebrities ever mend."

Audiences and critics weren't sure what to make of the Dolls; some loved them, some hated them. A Creem magazine poll voted the band both best and worst new group of 1973. The album didn't sell well, hitting #116 on the Billboard 200. A follow-up album, 1974's Too Much Too Soon, performed even worse (#167). By 1975, the band was playing smaller venues and drugs and alcohol were taking their toll. Malcolm McLaren became their informal manager that year. Kane was replaced for a bunch of shows when he was too messed up to play; during a Southern tour, Thunders and Nolan left after an argument and Blackie Lawless (later of glam metal act W.A.S.P.) replaced Thunders for the rest of the tour. The band split up and then reformed for a tour in Japan with a different lineup. The Dolls toured throughout '76 before playing their last show on December 30 with Blondie.

In addition to inspiring bands like KISS and Aerosmith, who in turn inspired a whole generation of hard rock and metal acts, the Dolls helped kick off the New York punk scene, which featured bands like the Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Patti Smith, Talking Heads and Television. They were also cited as influences for early British punk acts like the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned. One of their biggest British fans was a young Morrissey, who went on to front the Smiths. And of course, the Dolls were clearly the template for the androgynous glam metal bands that sprung up in the '80s like Motley Crue and Poison and their many imitators.

After they left the Dolls, Thunders and Nolan formed the Heartbreakers with Richard Hell, who had left Television. Thunders later went solo and eventually died in 1991 of a drug overdose. Nolan died in 1992 after a stroke. Kane and Lawless formed the Killer Kane Band in 1976. Sylvain formed the Criminals and recorded solo albums. And Johansen began a solo career and later took on the lounge lizard persona Buster Poindexter; he also became an actor and appeared in movies including Scrooged and Freejack (where he starred with Mick Jagger, who he was often compared to in the early '70s).

In 2004, Morrissey arranged a reunion of the three surviving Dolls (Johansen, Sylvain and Kane) at the Meltdown Festival in London, just before Kane died. The following year, Johansen and Sylvain announced a tour and new album, which was released in 2006. They released two more albums in 2009 and 2011 before splitting a few years later. Sylvain died in 2021, leaving Johansen as the last surviving original Doll.