This is a fun game, best played down the pub, but should be good here as well.
Rules: we take turns, citing one artist per post (with accompanying rant if necessary) – where the reputation of a musical artist completely baffles you. It has to be someone, or a band, where they are very highly rated (so this isn’t the place to have a go at Pete Doherty) but you just don’t see it. Or you do see it! - you see a carefully orchestrated campaign of hype that has lasted decades. You see through what is tantamount to mass mind control. You know the Rock Emperor wears no gold lame suit – he wears no clothes at all! You have seen mass audiences confuse cool for quality, confuse the merely Loud with the holiest Rock. You have seen charlatans with stolen ideas fill stadia, while frail geniuses are cast out to move back in with their mothers and rot. Then again you've read about these frail geniuses one time too many – and ask if they’re so amazing, where exactly are their great records?
I won’t go first (although I have someone in mind). Hint: the bigger the target, the more fun.
Have at `em!
11 years ago
The Rolling Stones.
ReplyDeleteLook , I just don't get it.
When anyone - and I mean anyone in the press - talks about the 60s they always describe it as the era of 'The Beatles and the Stones'. Now you would have to be stark, raving Belgian not to agree with the former but the Stones?????
Nah.
Take away, I don't know, four or five songs, and they are just an ordinary, lumpy rock band with a few grizzled looking performers in their midst. If it was the punk scene they woudl be The Vibrators or Slaughter and The Dogs.
Sure, with tracks like Satisfaction, Brown Sugar and Angie they deserve to be mentioned in dispatches (as Baby Baby and Your A Bore do) and they were a highly visible part of the scene but in the same breathe as John Paul, George and the world's luckiest drummer? I think not M'lud.
I know you guys know more about the 60s than I do (and probably listen to far more of the music too) but the dominant British musos to me of that decade were The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks and The Small Faces. With The Who a clear second.
In the US, I would go for the Doors, the Velvets, the Beach Boys, the Phil Spector sound and, although he was a product of the 50s, Elvis, whose influence still loomed over the decade. All are better and more interesting than The Stones.
Is that the sort of thing you wanted Mas?
Choke! The Stones! That's one hell of a start. Yes, this is exactly what I want!
ReplyDeleteBob Marley.
ReplyDeleteRevered as a God - by people who'll seemingly revere any little bloke as a God, but still - his Lyceum gigs are regularly spoken about by those who were there in hushed reverential tones.
But, for us young folk, the evidence - the texts! - are the records he left behind. And what do they tell us? Only that Bob Marley was to reggae, roughly what Eric Clapton was to the Blues. A cozy laid back slowhanded version to chill to.
Bob Marley had no songs. None. To the extent that I can't tell you if he was actually able to sing. His lyrics were meaningless - No Woman No Cry is as baffling as Imagine, and that's as clear as it got - help yourself to an interchangable litany of redemption, babylon and ting. (I don't know why Marley was so obsessed by Ting, but a lot of us felt the same way)
Every song he did was the same slow slow speed. Nick nick nick on the guitar. Dismal.
70s rock critics may revere him. But can you imagine any of your mates seriously telling you they're getting into Bob Marley? It'd never happen, he's too much of a cartoon character now and the music just doesn't stand up. Who's got the time to listen to all that dreary crap? Who wants to get stoned enough to appreciate it?
And Punky Reggae Party is the worst bandwagon chasing title of the era.
Ok - you probably expected this, but:
ReplyDeleteBrian Wilson...
I'm not saying that I dislike the Beach Boys per se - Pet Sounds is undoubtedly an important album - but personally this is what I don't get - Brian's reputation seems mostly based on his importance as an artist rather than whether or not his music is enjoyable. And one fully realised album in 40-odd years seems a pretty thin oeuvre for genius who sits at the right hand of the Beatles in the pantheon of pop music. Sure, there's the argument that Wilson's recorded work represents only a hint of what could have been had mental illness not intervened, but this seems to ignore the obvious: an artist's mental state is intimately bound up with the nature and quality of their work. I haven't heard any art critics suggesting that van Gogh might have painted a few more good pictures if only he'd cheered up a bit. Later Beach Boys records seem to me seem to combine with an obsession with detail with a lack of focus that reminds me of those paintings of cityscapes by that autistic boy - undeniably brilliant but also the product of an inner world to which the rest of us have no access: ultimately alienating. Actually, on coming to this conclusion I've started to enjoy Brian's work more rather than less. I used to think I was supposed to find a sunniness and lightness of touch in them, and couldn't understand why I found them a bit cold and slightly queasy. As the product of a disturbed and obsessive imagination they make more sense...
Oh and U2 are shit and Bono is a c**t.
Paul McCartney: Obli-di-obli-da, the Frog Song, Mull of Kintyre. Soz, but Yesterday and Blackbird just don't make up for the above. Not a well thought out argument, but I thought I'd go for the big ones first.
ReplyDeleteThe Clash.
ReplyDeleteI know, I know, it’s a horrible thing to pick on The Clash. They were one of the consensus groups of our youth, their new singles were no-brainer purchases, and the albums marked significant points of our young lives.
But their once towering reputation is looking shaky these days, and it’s worth having a look at why.
1. Punk. As time goes by, it seems there was only one true punk, that it all existed in Johnny Rotten’s head and attitude. Everyone else was a copyist and bandwagon jumper of some sort, and The Clash were as guilty of this as anyone. The 101ers were a pub rock band, blown out by Joe Strummer following the latest trend. OK, this kind of thing happens all the time. But whereas pictures of early 70s Rotten show a long haired guy with 100% punk mania attitude, pictures of Strummer in the 101ers show a Springsteen wannabe – something he always remained in my eyes, and a factor that may have been a bridge for Sam and other punx to full on Springsteen fandom later in life. Now I don’t like Springsteen, but that’s not the point, the point is that Strummer never seemed like the real deal and the more we find out about him, the more this turns out to be true.
2. Class liars. Strummer and Jones were liars about their social class. Fine, unless your whole stance is based around your honesty and integrity.
3. Reggae and rock. The Clash get star billing in any review of punk rock because of the supposed tight link between punk and reggae, and the fact that only they had a go at merging the two musics. A shame that it’s piss-weak shit then.
4. Jail Guitar Doors. We’d never heard a proper rock band, and The Clash’s appeal was built around this fact. They were a solid group, especially with Topper Headon as a great drummer who really bossed the group. But they were too rock, and things that impressed me then don’t impress me now – take Jail Guitar Doors, which I once though of as one of their great b-sides. Now I can’t get past the stupid title. Strummer later sacked Mick for being “too rock’n’roll” – which, considering they started playing trad rock as soon as they got a decent drummer is a bit rich.
5. Their long, long decline. They jumped the shark as early as Bankrobber. The Sandinista singles like The Call-Up and Radio Clash are bad, bad records.
6. They said they were bored with the USA and then spent all their time there. This is a shibboleth isn’t it? Too trite to even mention. But why not? The group simply misrepresented themselves at the outset. “No Elvis Beatles or Rolling Stones” from a group featuring the most notorious Keef wannabe this side of the New York Dolls! How much more hypocrisy could a group possibly dish out?
So, for me it’s not dislike – Complete Control, Clash City Rockers and White Man In Hammersmith Palais are still amazing – but their reputation is a crumbling edifice. Take away all their punk cred and ask yourself - did they ever even approach a record as great as All The Young Dudes? Because that was the arena they were really completing in. The Clash sound worse by the year, yes some of it’s U2’s fault, as they continue to take crusade rock to the rooftops. But still, a 3 star act, that’s all.
The Clash!! As Mas said, 'choke...'
ReplyDeleteI guess there ought to be a defence somewhere (I would do so for Marley too) but I kind of like the fact that it isn't on this thread. Let's make this one just for vitriol. And maybe have a defence one separate?
Are we sticking just with music? If not I have plenty to say about why the Lord of the Rings is total and utter crap.
Yes, defences will commence next week. Brian Wilson! >choke!<
ReplyDeleteMusic only for this one. But let's do shite fantasy soon!
'Scuse the unpleasantness.
ReplyDeleteVan Morrison.
Where to start with this fucker? Astral Weeks is totally overrated, the only 60s classic album I bought and didn't like in the 80s. He is an ugly, miserable piece of shit of course, and whenever he's an influence on anyone, it's usually some raggle taggle Irish nationalism garbage. Whenever I see him it's usually some all-star thing (I wouldn't turn on the telly to see anything with his name on) and as he waddles up to the mike, me heart always sinks, as he then totally over-emotes the life out of whatever the hell it is he's supposed to be barking, I just wish he'd die right there on the spot.
Weed-on fleece is a funny joke for us dads though.
Bob Dylan
ReplyDeleteNeeds no argument he's a C**t. Cleverest guy to ever pick up a guitar and write songs, bollocks. Smarmiest prima donna, with a shit voice and sixth form poetry, ever. Only a handful of his work can I bear to listen to without skipping. I have them all of course as I'm so cool. Why wasn't I into Dylan when I was 18 then? When I was 21 I was the coolest guy alive, yet Dylan was nowhere on my horizon.
I remember Mark Cover's dad being a Saxondale type character with a Bob Dylan obsession, when we were teenagers, and thinking "what kind of a twat will I be in my forties?"
Well here is your answer right here.
With you on the Clash, there are only a handful of Clash songs I can play without skipping forward. But I WILL defend them next week...
I am guessing that dissing literarture isn't going to be as much fun.