Too Much Too Soon by New York Dolls

Too Much Too Soon, the New York Dolls' second album, hit the racks on Mercury on May 10, 1974, and it's every bit as trashy, loud and gloriously sloppy as its title promises. David Johansen hadn't liked how their debut sounded, so he went and got Shadow Morton, a veteran producer who'd soured on the business and found the Dolls' racket just the jolt he needed. They cut it at A&R Studios in New York City.

Short on new songs, the Dolls leaned on covers and re-cut demos, Johansen hamming it up in a gallery of voices while Morton piled on sound effects and female backing vocals. Johnny Thunders wrote "Chatterbox" and sang lead on it, a first for him. It stalled at 167 in Billboard, and after a rough tour Mercury dropped them. But plenty of critics liked it better than the debut, and it has since become a cult record and a blueprint for punk.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.