ARTICLE ABOUT Fanny FROM New Musical Express, April 28, 1973

A really good review for Fanny on this, their fourth album, but still the record buyers didn`t seem to “get” it – or they may have misjudged the musical qualities of one of the very first female rock bands. The start of the seventies was a very male-orientated place and this great band deserves much more credit than they got at the time. Cheers to Fanny – you did very well and the reviewer agrees!
Read on!

Fanny: “Mother`s Pride” (Reprise).

Album review by Charles Shaar Murray

By now, most people know that Fanny are one of the best rock bands currently functioning. Their albums, particularly “Charity Ball” (their second, but the first to be released here) are fine things to have around the house, and their gigs are always loud, funky, powerful, tuneful and delightfully rowdy.
Rock writers love `em for their effortless blending of the arts of rock and pop, as much as for anything else, and they never fail to send an audience home hoarse and happy.
So what’s the problem? Simply, Fanny don’t sell records. Why, I haven’t the least idea. Their last three singles have all been excellent, and their albums deliver the goods all right too.
Still, ours not to reason why. The new one is truly excellent, and I think that Todd Rundgren’s production has made all the difference. I’m no great admirer of Rundgren’s own records — he’s fast, funny and tricky but rather superficial — but he knows how to use a studio to get the best out of other folks.
Anyway, teaming him up with Fanny was definitely a masterstroke. His dexterity with the knobs and sliders means that the album doesn’t let up for a second.
On Randy Newman’s “Last Night I Had A Dream”, the phasing on the drums and piano give it just the right touch of menace. Alternatively, the smooth, light feel he gets on June’s silkily bitchy “Polecat Blues”, is a joy, and on “I Need You Need Me” the booming Spectorish sound supports Nickey Barclay’s frighteningly intense vocal with the perfect degree of paranoia.
Alice de Buhr, the mighty mistress of the sticks and skins, has a perfect drummer’s voice — a female American Ringo Starr tone in fact, and her calculated tuneless warble is brilliantly utilised on Nickey’s composition “Solid Gold”, which thanks the world for making the band a household word.
Please don’t allow Fanny to escape from Britain without your seeing them. They’re far too good to be dismissed as a bunch of chicks pretending to be a rock band. Hear them — and you’ll never put ’em down again. I promise.

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