Album · The Left Banke
Walk Away Renée / Pretty Ballerina by The Left Banke
Walk Away Renée / Pretty Ballerina is an album by The Left Banke, released in 1967. 2 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 6 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Walk Away Renee”, on 5 lists with a best position of #150.
Walk Away Renée/Pretty Ballerina, the Left Banke's debut, arrived on Smash in January 1967, named for the two hit singles that put this New York band on the map. Harry Lookofsky produced, and the sound is something fresh under the pop sun: string-laced chamber pop that the press took to calling Bach-rock or baroque rock, with vocal harmonies borrowed from the British Invasion crowd, the Beatles and the Zombies chief among them.
The LP itself didn't set the world alight at first and slid into obscurity, spending decades out of print before the 1992 set There's Gonna Be a Storm gathered it up and Sundazed reissued it in 2011 with a Bob Irwin remaster. Time has been kind: it is now held up as the textbook case of baroque pop, and Rolling Stone later ranked "Walk Away Renée" at number 220 on its list of the 500 greatest songs.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Walk Away Renée / Pretty Ballerina on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Walk Away Renee | 5 | #150 | – | 2001–2020 | |
| 2 | Pretty Ballerina | 1 | #1199 | – | 2020 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.