I want to know what hardware store Silvana shops at, because if I had a brush that broad, I could paint my house with one stroke.
Dude music is music that has nothing to offer people who are disenfranchised or oppressed, because it either is totally uninterested in their disenfranchisement/oppression, or actively profits from it.
We face the power of the twee indie band-military complex.
Oh hey, it's m. leblanc. I thought the voice was familiar.
Clearly she knew some people who were really douchey about music. But the only people I know who don't like a lot of music by women are wacko metalheads, so I found myself reading this and thinking "this... isn't anyone I know", and I don't think I'm oblivious enough to overlook it. Seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people, though, so I guess the world is full of douches.
I was prepared to not like the post based on LB's excerpt, but discovered that the actual post was more of a personal reflection than a blanket condemnation. Also, m leblanc Silvana acknowledges the broad nature of her indictment in comments:
I was just making generalizations because that's generally true. And because generalizations are fun.
And so the revolution is lost amongst aendless online noodling about whether or not some inconsequential art is prioritising the status quo, when we should be throwing bombs at the Arizonan embassies, as comrade Bob would say.
I'm unclear as to which specific bands she's complaining about.
I've got some gripes with the original post, but mleblanc pre-empts some of my objections with this:
Being a feminist who is into music and cares about feminism and women in music is a giant pain in the ass, because music is the greatest haven of all time for ITSJUSTMYOPINION-ism. Because, you see? Music is art. Which means if you try to criticize someone's personal taste, especially if you are suggesting that they don't like woman-made music because THEY HATE WOMEN, you will get nowhere. There is almost no argument you can make that will have any effect whatsoever, because it's just my opinion, man. And people believe, they believe with all their hearts, that they are entitled to their opinions when it comes to art, even if those opinions are stupid.
This principle is what makes race/gender/class conversations in general so difficult. So much of it involves subjective experience. But just because it's tough to grapple with doesn't mean that it's unimportant, or shouldn't be attempted.
Pretty much the sort of thinking i go to NRO to get.
I read the first piece when Yglesias linked it and enjoyed it. Even admitting the broad brush (which she does), I thought it still made good points that should have made people think. Which is the point, of course. However, what I was most struck by (because I'm like this about language) had nothing to do with the topic: "I remember when I started liking a Pavement album a real lot."
I was in college the first time I heard somebody use "a real lot," and thought it sounded so very weird that I ended up completely sidetracking the conversation. I had only ever heard "a whole lot" used. The friend I was talking with found "whole lot" just as foreign.
More importantly, what does my taste in film say about my biases against the elderly??!?
I think i was almost this insufferable once, at a brief point when evangelical christianity and OMGRADIOHEAD were both things i had to tell people about.
Having now gone and read the original post, it's fine as an impassioned statement of "Indie boys are often sexist dicks".
I read the post, which is so much better than any of the quotes that LB (and previously, Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon) picked from it, that I can only assume that LB has a sinister anti-Silvana agenda. Or maybe she hates all women. Amanda Marcotte is clearly in on it.
The piece (which has not made clear to me in any of the quotes), is a big rant because she was in a band with a bunch of incredible assholes who were assholish in a gendered way. The "dude music" quotes are in the context of bagging on these guys. Out of context, they sound stupid. The piece is in the same genre as the Hunter S. Thompson piece where he claimed that the people who voted for Hubert Humphrey also killed Jesus.
Even admitting the broad brush (which she does), I thought it still made good points that should have made people think.
I agree, which is why I think the sweeping generalizations in the paragraph at the end (the one quoted in the OP) ultimately hurt her argument. They are such an easy target for criticism, they make it too easy to ignore, dismiss, or forget the much more interesting points made earlier in the piece.
LB's agenda in tendentiously excerpting only those segments of the post that could be read as hilariously ludicrous out of context was clearly to ignite the rockist music-criticism debates here at unfogged, to which I say Hallelujah! Disco!
One of the things the original post made me think about was who are the female equivalents of outsider performers like Roky Erikson, Daniel Johnston, Wesley Willis, GG Allin, Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Jandek, etc? They all achieved cult hero status to some degree but I was hard pressed to even name any women who fit that same mold.
I loved your old anti-rock post that you're so embarrassed about these days, Sifu.
So much of it involves subjective experience. But just because it's tough to grapple with doesn't mean that it's unimportant, or shouldn't be attempted.
Oh yeah. If I have been assholish about this for a week or so, it is because I take it very seriously and personally.
Presuming everyone has followed the 2nd link. If not I'll cut and paste the relevant section.)
1) Spackerman self-describes himself as a beneficiary and prime example of how the patriarchy privileges male writers. Am I supporting and reinforcing the patriarchy by reading Spackerman? Of course I should read more women writers, but time and attention is limited, and this is zero-sum to a large degree.
2) Am I misogynist (and maybe racist) for listening to and enjoying, I don't know, Lauryn Hill or Nanci Griffith? (Pretty) Instead of say more Courtney or some women gangsta rapper I have never even tried to find?
I am being much less ironic or snarky here than you might think. I don't enjoy much 19th classical because I believe it reflects a racist, imperialist culture. I have trouble with cool West Coast Jazz, Mulligan Hall, Tjader (even MJQ) and do examine it and myself for racism and privilege. I see Rollins, Ayler, late Coltrane as a reaction. I do look at Musselwhite more carefully than Little Walter.
So Silvana is really scaring me, that I will lose some enjoyment of the vast majority of my music collection as I start questioning whether Lou Barlow is a "Dude" and Evanescence is about prettiness. Is Chrissie Hynde too pretty?
16: as she herself said in the follow-up, without the broad brush, who would've paid attention to it?
Probably the only place where Silvana went wrong was to pick prog rock as an example, since prog rock has been continually shit on by almost everybody continuously since 1969. It's like using furries as the prototype of sexist assholes -- perhaps true, and yet the world does not cry out for more furry-punching.
re: 18
The Shaggs?
I can think of lots of avant-garde female performers, but that's obviously not the same thing as the outsider type that you mention, though.
I guess you could almost shoehorn Lisa Suckdog into that role (and maybe kinda sorta Lydia Lunch but not really), but I don't think she's anywhere near as well known as the guys in 18.
20: but worrying about whether or not the female artists you listen to are "authentic"enough and not too pretty or girly or whatever is in itself pretty dude rock of course... Why should Lauryn Hill be discounted just because she doesn't do gangsta rap? Isn't she one of the most succesful and influential rap/hiphop/r&b artists of the past two decades?
24 written before I saw 23, and she really fits better under the avant-garde category too. Hmm.
let me tell you about the political message on cocteau twins records.
Of course, as already alluded to by others in this thread, the rockist critique has been made many times before. It's a good one, after all, and there's still a strong rockist strain in critical writing about popular music so there's no harm in repeating it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockism
I think if you like "indie rock", then the rockist idea is pretty incomprehensible. The whole point of indie rock is a careful analysis of who's authentic (the Ramones) and who's not (Journey).
God no, much indie rock is rockist in the extreme. Different canons, same basic features.
and re: 29
Analysis of 'authenticity' is precisely a rockist hallmark.
I don't enjoy much 19th classical because I believe it reflects a racist, imperialist culture.
Why limit it to the 19th century? Handel was court composer to George II. Mozart actually worked as chamber composer for the Holy Roman Emperor (and it doesn't get much more imperialist than an Emperor). Morales was part of the Iberian hegemonic project over the New World. Hendrix was a cog in the postwar American military-industrial complex. (the 101st Airborne, to be exact)
Probably the only place where Silvana went wrong was to pick prog rock as an example, since prog rock has been continually shit on by almost everybody continuously since 1969.
Music experts of Unfogged, perhaps you can clarify things for me--I was under the impression that while big-name UK prog rock was a bit dull, there was a lot of interesting (and specifically radical, even specifically feminist) prog-rock/difficult-to-categorize-music by people who also played prog rock. I may have been getting my genres totally confused, though.
All those folks who were at all associated with Henry Cow (and also Faust, IIRC) played all these anti-racist/anti-fascist fundraisers; there were various projects women's music/feminist projects that Dagmar Krause and Lindsey Cooper were involved with. I got the distinct sense that those Soft Machine guys were basically of the European 70s left, although I can't prove it.
And you see the ghost of prog rock in, like, the late Raincoats, right?
I always understood interesting UK prog rock (which is the only kind I'm familiar with) to be very concerned with recuperating radical UK history (Levellers, heretics, women radicals) and recuperating fancy UK classical and traditional music into a radical tradition. But I'm totally wrong?
Prog rock and fancy jazz expertise is constituted in ways that exclude women, though. Especially expertise in non-contemporary music.
Also, women who do fancy music tend to become invisible over time, so that whatever woman (Dagmar Krause, Lisa Suckdog, Diamanda Galas, Janelle Monae) is currently being discussed is often seen as the first one, or seen as the one female musician in a long line of male ones. (ie, everyone talks about Janelle Monae as being like James Brown; no one says that she's like Poly Styrene or Nenah Cherry or Kathleen Hannah, even though she is--partly because people want to relate her to an important (ie male) trajectory) and partly because Poly Styrene and Nenah Cherry aren't really remembered as significant musicians.
And so the revolution is lost
I like the music threads, because I learn so much.
But if you want to be depressed about Arizona, you can note that the highly unscientific yet has its finger on the pulse of America Yahoo online poll has 70% in favor of the law (and 4% "Maybe") with 3,000+ votes. Bah.
hope noone finds out that the sex pistols were a boy band and alan mcgee is prone to exaggeration!
expect a sternly written essay with lots of varieties of emphasis if i should ever find that out.
meanwhile, back to yell at my neighbors. they play HIP HOP (can you imagine) and i even saw a chicken running around.
31: The relationship between the rockist critique and Silvana's piece is somewhat awkward, since the critique would apply to the kind of music she seems to like. She may not herself be guilty of rockism, but if she's not, she may be the only fan of Pavement who is not.
i was going to make a joke about plaid shirts, but they've managed to go out of fashion and come back in, since the last time 'rockism' could possible be relevant.
partly because Poly Styrene and Nenah Cherry aren't really remembered as significant musicians.
This made me feel old. Really?
I have some music that could absolutely be described as "noodling", and in fact is heavily influenced by Cream, but was made in Zambia in the mid-seventies. Discuss!
41: Well, among certain punks perhaps they are. But how many people know about Cherry's early stuff with Rip Rig & Panic? A lot of it is absolutely brilliant, and it's so far out of print that if you're lucky you can pay a lot for it on vinyl. Maybe in other music scenes there are people who talk a lot about her later work, though?
I haven't read or talked to people who discuss Poly Styrene much as a musician or a lyricist. She gets mentioned for her fashion, for being biracial, for having some kind of mental illness later on. She gets described as a naive (in England's Dreaming, for example) who bring her nature to her music.
19: thanks, Walt. I'm only embarrassed by it because it was restrospectively obvious that I wrote it while hammered.
It would be interesting to unpick the relationship between gender and rockism--it's there, I think, although not as simply as this particular casual, for-the-funny excerpt would imply. Sure, it's easy enough to prove that a little bit of hyperbole is not after all literally true...
I think there's a accidental structural feature that helps reinforce the sexism in music. For whatever reason, dudes love canon-formation. I know I do. When I was a teenager, I had a list of the Five Greatest Rock Bands of All Time. (A list I still remember.) For a long time, I had a list in my head of the Five Greatest Songs of All Time. (I've forgotten what's on that list, though.) Women are less attached to this. So even if we lived in a world of relative equality, any considerable gender division in tastes will lead to the work of men being Immortal Classics, while the work of women being Pop Ephemera. I mean, Led Zeppelin sucks fully as much as Britney Spears, but in twenty years I can guess which one I'll still be hearing about.
44: We would have to see an example of your sober prose to make the judgment, something I'm sure will never happen.
46: you mean on TOP FIVE SCANDALOUS HAIRCUTS CHOICES OF ALL TIME? or TOP FIVE HARDEST MYTHLOVING BANDS EVAR?
partly because Poly Styrene and Nenah Cherry aren't really remembered as significant musicians.
This made me feel old. Really?
We're all old, Walt. Anyways, where does Wendy O. Williams fit into this Styrene/Cherry scheme? Does she exist, or is she of one of the shameful and forgotten?
m, help! I need somebody!
When I was a teenager, I had a list of the Five Greatest
Ha! This used to be a frequent and much beloved pastime. As I've gotten older, the music library has grown entirely too vast and varied to even attempt it any longer. Also, past a certain age, it was clear that I was no longer hip regardless of how many obscure bands I could cite.
46: But why? I mean, leaving out an ev psych explanation about the veldt? Not just why do men like canon formation (assuming that they do across class and race) but why don't women? And don't women? There are certain discourses about fashion, beauty, make-up, etc that are all about the Five Best 1920s Designers, argument over the essential shoe wardrobe, lists of the best moisturizers or red lipsticks or whatever...If there's anything more about a kind of canon formation than the perpetual argument over whether a "classic" beige trench really is a wardrobe essential....
Not just why do men like canon formation (assuming that they do across class and race) but why don't women?
Wait, I thought I was following the thread of the argument but now I'm confused. And it's been several days since I read Silvana's posts, so maybe it's in there and I forgot.
How does Walt's contention that men like to make lists have anything to do with whether men are more or less likely to include women artists on those lists? To me they seem like different issues.
And I will follow up 51 to say that you can devote all day to arguing exactly what constitutes a classic beige trench--like, are we talking your British version derived from army-wear or your nattier mod version or your seventies 20s revival or your eighties corporate-power one? And what collar is a classic? And who is the best maker? It's horribly dull, but not on the face of it duller than arguing over Stairway to Heaven.
33:Why limit it to the 19th century?
In the sense of elite bourgeois privilege, I certainly do not so limit. I am well aware, for instance, of the contrast with folk music
I think there's a accidental structural feature that helps reinforce the sexism in music. For whatever reason, dudes love canon-formation.
Accidental? Structural?
Silvana does mention Math-rock. I wonder about the intricate compositions of King Crimson Fripp (Starless) (and a lot of prog, etc) are gendered. And see, classical, above.
The early 60s criticisms of MJQ and Middle Miles are probably too dangerous for me to mention.
45: it's there, but it's also vastly complicated by issues of race and (perhaps especially) sexual orientation. Your typical rockist fits a very specific demographic across all three of those categories.
51: I had started speculating about rockism, proggish noodling and gender, thus the question of canon. I tend to think that rockism, certain kinds of expertise and canon-building all work to exclude women as participants and listees, etc etc.
its mutual appreciation connection vs. hegemonic semiautistism
patriarchy that comes from somewhere that isn't the veldt natch
51: Do women, though, in general? It's not that women don't have aesthetic rankings, obviously, but that women don't tend to carve them into stone tables and bring down from Sinai to bestow on the Ages.
if I had a brush that broad, I could paint my house with one stroke.
The Indie Rock Prick may be rarely seen outside of his native habitat of record stores and dorm rooms, but he still exists. In other words, #14 gets it exactly right.
Poly Styrene and Nenah Cherry aren't really remembered as significant musicians.
As remembered by whom? The Post-Punk era has been pretty exhaustively memoir-ed and analyzed and reissued over the last decade or so and among people who care about that period at all, Poly Styrene seems to have gotten her due. Maybe Lora Logic appears as a slightly larger figure, but that seems partly the result of a closer proximity to the music industry.
re: 39
Yes, Silvana's conflating all kinds of different things, yeah. I'm not reading the excerpt quoted by LB as any kind of coherent critique, but as just a coda to a more personal story.
But yeah, a lot of indie music is echt-rockist.
I never really got into the whole canon/list-making thing. Probably because I'm gay.
When I was a teenager, I had a list of the Five Greatest
Obligatory mention of High Fidelity, which dealt with this phenomenon.
how many people know about Cherry's early stuff with Rip Rig & Panic?
I do! Though I only learned in the last ten minutes that she was also in The Slits. When I was an early teen prowling record stores, I always checked their bin to surreptitiously ogle this album cover.
61: because I'm gay.
One of the Top Five Reasons not to be into the whole canon/list-making thing.
52: It is an interaction between intentional gender-bias and an accidental tendency to list-making. When I was a teenager, dudes liked dude music, and girls liked girl music -- which is not great, but won't necessarily lead to a world where the contribution of women is systematically written out of history. But when the men grow up and declare the stuff they liked as teenagers Works of Great Art, but women regard the stuff that they liked with a mixture of nostalgia and embarrassment, then that will lead to a historical narrative with only men in it.
And look, the questions Silvana raises can obviously be extended to almost all music. Leaving aside those women artists excluded by males who built the canon. there are still very very few women in classical or jazz, especially in instrumental and composition areas. Billie and Anita are playing the roles Silvana says are forced on them.
So all classical and jazz is profoundly gendered and likely formally misogynist.
Blues is just slightly more interesting, in that "belters" are welcome. Women blues guitarists are very rare.
Sue Foley is interesting, guitarist and vocalist, not really a belter, but not pretty like Raitt either.
You know who needs more credit for being just incredibly rockin'? Betty Davis, that's who!
re: 61
Me neither. Some friends and I put together 'desert island' spotify lists a while back. It took me ages to come up with a top 10 tracks, and I wouldn't remotely want to stand behind it. I don't really do that kind of list-making thing, generally.
On the other hand, I will enthusiastically rave about music for hours on end, and remember endless stupid trivial music minutiae, so I prob. have some of the Hornby-esque traits, just not the list-making or categorizing.
As remembered by whom? The Post-Punk era has been pretty exhaustively memoir-ed and analyzed and reissued over the last decade or so and among people who care about that period at all, Poly Styrene seems to have gotten her due. Maybe Lora Logic appears as a slightly larger figure, but that seems partly the result of a closer proximity to the music industry.
The issue is that these women were influential well beyond the narrow world of their scene, but they're forgotten in mainstream narrative. Their influence may literally persist (as I speculate about Janelle Monae) but it is not discussed. Instead, various mainstream/male artists are credited. It is precisely that "people who care about that period at all" know and no one else does.
This is not precisely new; one could usefully review How To Suppress Women's Writing.
well i guess the essay worked then. seeing how she bought into some dudes top ten list, she made a top ten list and now people think it must be written on stone.
well ok it wasn't in the linked post, i'm sure its forthcoming.
tastewank can be measured by blog comments i guess.
67: I was about to comment on Betty Davis. She rocked twice as hard as anybody else in the funk/R&B genre, for my money. She has never said what it was that made her drop out of the music business altogether.
there are still very very few women in classical or jazz, especially in instrumental and composition areas.
There aren't many female classical instrumentalists? Really?
Jazz _is_ interesting, though. Instrumental jazz must be one of the most gender skewed of all musical genres.
On the other hand, I will enthusiastically rave about music for hours on end, and remember endless stupid trivial music minutiae, so I prob. have some of the Hornby-esque traits, just not the list-making or categorizing.
Oh, sure. I'll do that, too. It's just that I'll end up enthusiastically raving about (oh, say) Wreckx-n-Effects and people will be like "you, sir, are doing it wrong."
71: some of her tracks are so shredding. It's like Lightning Bolt making dirty, dirty love to Funkadelic.
43 - I think Lora Logic has eclipsed her as the critically-praised one from X-Ray Spex; Essential Logic is very much in a line with, say, the Red Krayola and Kleenex, whereas Poly kind of drifted into a mellower and less well-thought-of musical vein following her religious conversion.
59.1 - My biggest problem with this piece was, "What, m. leblanc's douchebag bandmates didn't know and appreciate Sleater-Kinney by 2001"? Seriously, they had already been the biggest band in (that tiny little corner of) the world by that point, probably peaking as critics darlings and every mopey indie boy's unobtainable crushes around Dig Me Out.
If you haven't heard this album that finally got released last year after 33 years, it's blistering. Just awesome up one side and down the other.
67: Holy shit! I'd never heard of her before. How has this not been playing on the radio continuously since 1975? Why would any radio station play Boston instead of this?
72.1:Point, MM
Canonical composers?
PS:I also have to deal with this in critiques of modernist literature, whether, for example, the archtectonic styles of Yeats, Joyce, Mann are indications of privilege and masculinist.
76: This has got to be region-specific. I was in Seattle at the time, and everybody loved them, but Amanda at Pandagon described the exact same reaction as leblanc.
who gives a phuck about the go gos.
Me. And the Bangles. And Heavenly.
But I now have a problem with their "prettiness."
81: That's the exact kind of music that gets forgotten, though. The world would be a better place if you would forthrightly say the Go-Gos were awesome.
One thing about Betty Davis though: certain of her songs are not quite what you want on your ipod at 7 AM during the daily commute. Missed three stops before I could get off without causing offence.
Holy shit! I'd never heard of her before.
You clearly didn't grab ttaM's first mix, way back when. (I think it was the first one?)
Holy shit! I'd never heard of her before.
There's a good article on her here that includes the Carlos Santana quote: "She was the first Madonna, but Madonna is more like Marie Osmond when compared to Betty Davis."
But I now have a problem with their "prettiness."
Young people are attractive. No reason to hold that against them.
One thing that has come up in connection with 79.2 is Proust. Yeah, he is architectonic and nostalgic, but Proust is different from those other guys cause he's gay and he can't be privileged. Right. Proust wasn't privileged.
And then there is that horrific snob Wolff.
80 - This is incredibly bizarre to me. I was on the East Coast when "Dig Me Out" came out, and it was an enormous, enormous success. This isn't like, "Oh, Spitboy! Right, there were women in hardcore!" They were huge.
Of course the Go-Gos were ten kinds of awesome.
re: 84
Pretty sure Apo had a Betty Davis track on one of his mixes, too.
92: I was told this wouldn't be on the quiz.
This comment was ahead of its time.
Sorry about excerpting just the inflammatory bit -- the more personal end of the post was hard to pull quotes out of, and I figured the bit I quoted was interesting enough to get people to click through.
I was in Seattle at the time, and everybody loved them
By 2000, Sleater-Kinney were critical darlings in my (red) neck of the woods, too, and we aren't the most sophisticated folk. I can imagine the kind of Indie Prick who listened to the Pixies but not S-K, but it isn't pretty.
She was the first Madonna
I've always thought Cristina was the first Madonna.
88, 91: And yet based on wikipedia it appears that "Dig Me Out" did not make onto any of the charts. You folks just hang out in hip enclaves and have no clue about what is truly "huge" in the pop marketplace.
We haven't had a mix thread in a while. I'll put one up toward the end of the week, so y'all have time to think about it. On the topic at hand, the commentariat here is at least 50% women, but close to 100% of the mixes that have been posted are by teh doodz.
This thread is making me feel more musically uninformed than I've possibly ever felt.
Heebie you listen to girl music!
I'm sure you like good music too, heebs.
I could post a mix! Assuming that my laptop is still functional by week's end, that is. I hope there are detailed instructions somewhere, though.
98: as opposed to all those giant-selling Pavement records? If you want to find a canonical list of not-at-all-dude-music music, check out the pop charts.
Frowner, from the music comments you've left over the years, I'm quite certain any mixes you post would go straight into heavy rotation on my iPod.
104:
1. assemble tracks.
2. copy tracks to folder or directory.
3. find album cover jpg someplace and put into directory
4. make zip file of directory.
5. upload zip file to sendspace.com.
6. write comment with link to zip file posted on sendspace, and listing of track and artist names.
80/88: By 2001 in Chicago S-K were so absolutely huge among nerd indie boys that the kind of complaints I heard against them (S-K) were from babydykes saying things like, "The shows are way less fun now that there are *so many guys* there."
98 - But M. Leblanc was in a band with a bunch of Pavement-listening boner-delivery vehicles. We recognize that we're not talking about Bon Jovi and Snoop Dogg here. I would have guessed that the population who had opinions on the relative merits of Pavement albums but had never even heard of Sleater-Kinney would have been vanishingly small by post-2000.
For added complexity on your end but increased convenience for everybody else, use a tag editing program between steps 2 and 3 to change the track numbers and album name so it's already sorted when it gets dropped into iTunes.
In the latter half of the 90s, my main group of friends in college was just totally indifferent to music. I can't listen to music while I read or work on anything, so if I'm not driving much, I barely listen to music myself. So I liked music, but I didn't have any sort of scene where everyone knew Sleater-Kinney. But we knew lots of Puff Daddy!
Then I had some not-my-best friends who were more into swapping music, but I remember mostly indie rap from them. Lots of Tribe and stuff like that.
So in conclusion I'm very lame.
But I'll start downloading Unfogged mixes, starting now.
110: Okay, this is how gender works in canon formation--I don't even know what a tag-editing program is, and I attribute that to growing up in "math is difficult!" land in the 80s. And thus my mix will be less readily assimilated into canon.
107: That's too much work. I suggest just ripping the entirety of Tales from Topographic Oceans.
I've heard like half a Pavement song ever, and I like it that way.
Oh the gays do play at canon-making, most assuredly we do. And if I understand rockism correctly, there are parallels to that, too. They just involve, like, Furtwangler.
heebie you would totally like my unfogged mixes.
117: I was on an opera list for years and there are no list makers and canon disputers like gay opera fans. FACT.
Can we make it to 200 posts before comparing t.A.T.u. to the Donnas ? No.
Poly Styrene and Nenah Cherry aren't really remembered as significant musicians.
I think of them every time I'm sucking beer through a straws.
Frowner, if you wish to engage in highly-gendered activity, Kill Rock Stars is soliciting money for a vinyl edition of that Liliput reissue.
Les boys do caberet. Les boys are glad to be gay.
82: The world would be a better place if you would forthrightly say the Go-Gos were awesome.
I dunno about the Go-Gos. But the Bangles managed to achieve awesome on occasion, pop music or not
m, what with the tall bass player and whatnot
I remember that I actually purchased Call the Doctor on vinyl when it came out. I had a moment of being hip.
When do you all listen to music, anyway? That's my biggest impediment to this stuff. I can't think with music on. Which of you is listening to music right this very moment?
I also liked Tweety's old drunk post (even though I like, and will defend, Zepplin).
I hate indie rock as a concept and mostly hate it in practice -- no, scratch that, I hate the entire post-punk project of characterizing authentic hipsterishness in music based on some notion of purity, even though I like some individual groups OK. Mostly I could never understand why we were all supposed to like one crappy group that couldn't play over another.
My own tastes run heavily towards genres where musicianship is prized --jazz, metal, funk and soul, country. I suppose some of that, especially of course metal, which is basically an all-male domain, could be described as "dude music"; very little is political (except soul, and country in it's way). But so fucking what?
122: Wow, if I had more money to throw around...all my money is for me and anarchist causes right now, alas. Although anarchism has been kind of cruel to me these past few weeks, while music is at least fun.
117, 119: yes, but where is the canonical list of the 10 greatest Thunderpuss remixes?
126: mostly when running, these days.
125: I lived Nirvana before they were big. When they became big, it was very disconcerting. I had several months of people carefully consulting me on my musical opinions, at which point every band I'd ever heard of was on MTV.
Beth Orton? Chrissie Hynde? PJ Harvey? Bjork? Not all that influential musically, but Queen Latifah's interesting for having done what a bunch of rappers have, gone from music to movies, but without being a stereotypical hottie.
I'm past being hip, so maybe I should stay quiet. I can't say anything to the mindset of leblanc's bandmates, never knew anyone who thought that way. I guess there's not much of a way to discuss pop influence influence (against pop sales) without turning into "just my opinion" exchanges.
Well, maybe one thing-- music is often pretty private now, in that lots of people listen to music alone (on their earbuds). Maybe the social music scene, going out to catch bands or DJs (and caring about the music some, not just heading for a night out) fits guys better?
You know what band was completely inescapable in my scene in the early '90s? Bikini Kill. They were everywhere! I was not a fan.
126: I've been listening to music since I first read the thread. If you can't work while listening, that that would make it tough. I recommend classical music, because then you can safely look down on everybody who only half-listens to music while doing other things.
130: But then when would I listen to my podcasts?
When do you all listen to music, anyway?
126: I tend to have little dance parties for myself before going to sleep. (No, it's true!) Also, I play music while cooking, sewing, cleaning, etc.
Also, I am one of those people afflicted with perpetual earworm, which means that I am almost always thinking about music, however casually. At the moment, the "you can't get to high/'cause if you get too high/you'll surely be low" part of "Tightrope", thus indirectly various reggae and dub hits of the past with themes of vengeance and equality; also "Tightrope" turns into "Timebomb" in my head, causing me to think of Chumbawamba.
135: I stopped listening to podcasts while running until getting a little choked up listening to Dan Savage talk about the death of his mother and then actually choking and feeling like I was going to die. Sentimentality and physical exertion: a deadly combination!
119: That is the truth. Was this Opera-L? I read it years ago until it became unbearable specifically because it was mostly that kind of thing.
When do you all listen to music, anyway?
I almost entirely ceased listening to music four years ago when I moved and my CD player broke, and I started working longer hours. These days if I listen, it's either in the car (rarely, since I don't drive to work) or sometimes to the radio on a weekend morning.
I can't think with music on.
My working theory about myself is that if there is music on, I'm listening for the lyrics. This doesn't leave a lot of brain space for anything else. I'm rarely able to tolerate "background" music, except for instrumentals sometimes.
People can hold long conversations with the radio on are amazing to me. I place it in the category of people who appear unbothered by a TV in the background. Mystifying, but sufficiently widespread that I have to assume they're not all masochists.
132: The thing about progress is that it's frequently temporary, so later generations have to refight battles that previous generations thought they would won. There was a point where a gigantic number of bands with women in them were on the radio -- L7, Throwing Muses, Hole, a bunch more whose names I'm forgetting -- and then a year later they were all gone from the radio. If you were 13 when the wave hit, and you started listening to rock radio at 14, you would never have known it had happened.
Oh yeah, I also listen to music in the evening when doing non-computer crap like cooking or cleaning. Also during dinner. Also before going out. Also sometimes I just kick back with my pipe and slippers, sit in my chair, and turn on the hi-fi.
139: Yep! And that is exactly why I unsubscribed.
135: While spending time with HP, of course.
126: Long commute. Only problem is mornings when my brain won't do music-with-words and Times puzzle at the same time. Times puzzle usually wins.
You know what band was completely inescapable in my scene in the early '90s? Bikini Kill. They were everywhere! I was not a fan.
You know, I actually didn't like Bikini Kill very much. I love Kathleen Hannah's Julie Ruin album, which is totally totally underrated. I'm afraid I'm a musical illiterate and I ended up liking more melodic stuff like that first Bratmobile EP just because it was more fun to sing along with. When riot grrrl was the thing musically, I was basically reading a lot of riot grrrl zines and listening to Raincoats, XRay Spex and a lot of stuff from Simple Machines. I look back and I don't really remember much about all the stuff everyone was listening to--Superchunk and The Blue Up? and the Jesus Lizard and so on.
146: Le Tigre can be okay. I just don't like aggro punky kinda abrasive stuff in general.
143: for a while the comments section at Parterre took over the better part of what Opera-L had been; to wit: lively commentary by knowledgeable folks. That's sort of in the process of becoming awful in its own way, too, though. But yeah, I use Opera-L as shorthand for talking about the most deadening canon-making habits of opera gays. Let us now list our five favorite utterances of the final consonant cluster in the Liebestod.
148: Wait, is there any question? The best version is Birgit Nilsson's.
I just remembered my experience that shows the truth of silvana's argument. My friends were into 60s rock, and I mentioned having discovered Joni Mitchell. They mocked me about this (essentially for liking a sucky girl singer-songwriter), and I mentioned that she wrote, "Woodstock" a song that as performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was part of their accepted canon. They refused to believe this -- they just said that I made this up.
I knew I was right, but this was back before google, before wikipedia etc so I would have had to go to a library or a good record store to prove it to them. I haven't talked to any of these friends in decades -- I wonder if they ever did figure out that Joni Mitchell wrote "Woodstock".
Let us now list our five favorite utterances of the final consonant cluster in the Liebestod.
I don't know nearly enough about opera to find this as funny as I do.
Finding music you can listen to while working definitely affects how much you absorb. Also finding a way to listen on the commute is nice-- I still burn CDs, they're disposable, packed with whatever's new and a few old favorites. Latin American electronic music is one good background for me-- Gotan Project, Nortec Collective, Curumin, Tremor
146 - Nothing wrong with the Raincoats or X-Ray Spex or a lot of stuff from Simple Machines. (I still love that second Tsunami LP to bits.) Is my memory of things messed up, or did a lot of C86 and twee stuff suddenly get much more up-front about their feminist leanings almost simultaneously with the riot grrl band explosion? Like to me Tiger Trap is as canonical as Bratmobile or Bikini Kill were, but I know that is not the received narrative at all, even though Tiger Trap is super awesome.
I could probably put more music into my commute. I've been stymied because the radio stations around here are plentiful enough and diverse-ish enough that I can keep myself entertained, more or less. Whereas burning CDs takes planning.
148: I am rather fond of La Cieca. I used to subscribe to the hot-pink zine version of Parterre Box in the 90s. (While "Monsterfat" Caballe-type jokes could get really boring, PB was mostly successful in being smart and hilarious. I haven't read it in a while.)
A big difference between me and my music-snob guy friends (to whom I owe a lot in terms of neat new music even if it sometimes came with snobbery and competition) is that they listen to a lot of music with less repetition than I do. I tend to listen to a handful of songs which I then know really, really well, adding just a couple of songs at a time to the rotation. It takes me many listens to "learn" a new record, to really appreciate it and long to hear it. I wish I could listen faster, so to speak, but when I try I always seem to miss things.
153: I loved Tiger Trap -- and Bratmobile, BK, Huggy Bear, etc.
burning CDs takes planning
Swapping albums on and off an iPod is definitely easier.
153: I do believe you are correct. There were those two compilations (Yoyo studios or something) that had a mix of twee and riot grrrl stuff....um, there was a Slant 6 a capella song, "I'm An Alien Movie Star" which I just love, and a cover of "Don't Mix the Colors" and....wow, I should dig those out tonight. There was a Heavenly song on one, I think.
Okay, tonight I go through the cassette box.
158: I'd have to rig up a way to listen to my iPod in the car, though.
I can relate to the last bit of 140 pretty well - it's pretty much an exact description of me. Right now I'm doing mind-numbing data analysis, so I'm listening to music I know very well, obviating the lyrics problem a bit and sucking up spare mental bandwidth so I don't go mad staring at big lists of numbers and obviously unphysical plots of what ought to be sexy, sexy data. Curse you, sexy data! Why do you spurn me so! I love you!
157: The only Huggybear I really really liked was the split EP with Bikini Kill that had the black and white cover--the one that had "Blow Dry" and "Baby's On A Mission" on it. They seemed to get more aggro in their later stuff--I could tell that it was good but I didn't enjoy it as much. I saw them once at Motor Oil Industrial Coffee in St. Paul--aggro, not half. The first time I was ever afraid of a band. I still have an old huggybear tee shirt packed away somewhere, I think; it's just a blue shirt with "Huggybear" spray-paint stenciled on it in read.
Good heavens. It really makes me sad to realize that the same awful misogynist shit that I was going through then has resurfaced in my life now. All those songs bring back so sharply the really terrible isolation, anger and sense of worthlessness I had in my particular little punk/activist community in the mid-nineties--the same stuff that has resurfaced in my current activist community. Nothing changes except my record collection.
The Bangles had insufficient irony, just a little in their first album.
I only listen to music in the evening and on weekends. It doesn't seem to impede whatever I pretend is thinking, although I do miss most of the lyrics. I think this is from my acid days, I have trouble appreciating music with the lights on.
Borrowing from all my friends, I am currently listening to the RS 1001 randomized. I have roughly 2/3 of it. Will add some pitchfork lists this year, others, then merge in my old favorites. I haven't a clue how to do playlists, and it may be against my egalitarian anarchic principles anyway.
160: They're pretty cheap these days.
155 La Cieca is in some sense like Jesus: it's more his followers who are the problem. The stuff he posts (and writes, unpseudonymously, for the Post) is erudite, hilarious, and in most cases fair.
It's weirdly pleasing to me that there's any overlap at all between these two worlds.
I don't go mad staring at big lists of numbers and obviously unphysical plots of what ought to be sexy, sexy data. Curse you, sexy data! Why do you spurn me so! I love you!
I go mad / Staring at numbers all day long
Sexy data / Where you gone?
Sexy daaaaaaaaataaaaa / You know I love you.
20, for grins
Faith No More
Joan Baez
Led Zeppelin
The Soft Boys
Pretenders
Bert Jansch
Roxy Music
Eels
New Order
Steely Dan
Prefab Sprout
Slayer
Alice Cooper
Miles Davis
Tim Buckley
Girls Against Boys
Dr John
Nirvana
The Doors
OMD
141: There was a point where a gigantic number of bands with women in them were on the radio -- L7, Throwing Muses, Hole, a bunch more whose names I'm forgetting -- and then a year later they were all gone from the radio.
I know all those bands! Hell, I have CD's by those bands!
147: I just don't like aggro punky kinda abrasive stuff in general.
I, OTOH, love punky aggro abrasive stuff.
164: The Bangles had insufficient irony, just a little in their first album.
They got better though!
m, go punky brewster
160: I have a gizmo that plugs into the lighter and plays stuff from my ipod through the radio. It has saved my sanity on many long trips. Audiobooks are good if the reader has a nice voice. I'm particularly fond of Bernard Mayes, who reads the version of Herodotus I have. Also good is Barbara Tuchman reading The Guns of August.
I like punk aggro stuff. I really liked Hole's first album, for example, which is something that nobody but me and maybe Saiselgy will admit to liking now.
Joni Mitchell is a pretty good example of canon-formation at work. At the time she was very popular, and loved by critics. Any critic who was around then, like Robert Cristgau, mentions her highly, but then she was disappeared from history with the classic rock revival (other than the Woodstock cover).
I used to listen to a fair bit of punky aggressive music, but less and less. It's a hard mood to do without lapsing into cliché. Especially in guitar-driven groups playing conventional song format material. When it's great, it's great, but often ... meh.
Arriving late to the thread*, I've read the first 100 comments, or so, and will catch up soon.
Like Bob, I have found myself thinking about those posts (and the entire Ladypalooza series) quite a bit, mostly with appreciation but with a slight sense of feeling implicated.
I have also found that reading the comments there has made me miss the discussions of feminism here (not that one's better than the other, but they have different dynamics).
I have one question for everybody. How many people reading this thread felt like the relative hipness of their musical tastes was a source of social capital or the lack thereof? I'm just curious because that's an element in a lot of music criticism but isn't true of my life or any of my friends, so I'm just curious how widespread it is.
On a related note, the original posts also got me thinking about how it is that musical tastes are something which seem particularly vulnerable to hostile criticism. It seems like music is a field in which it's rare for people to have real confidence in their opinions and easy to feel quite insecure about somebody saying, "you like [foo], they're insipid." I don't know if that is related to the fact that it's difficult to describe what it is about any given piece of music that appeals.
* Side note, I swear, half the interesting music threads on unfogged are posted late on a Sunday night which is a time when I am almost always away from the computer, and I find myself playing catch-up. I grumbled a bit when I saw this post this morning (and I was already running behind this morning), because I would have been very happy to have seen it at any point in the past week.
re: 172
Blue still appears in all the canonical 'top X' album lists as featured in the glossy music magazine of your choice.
I suppose that is an easier album to pigeon-hole along gender lines -- woman sings folky songs with personal/narrative lyrics -- than her material from even just a few years later, with all its jazz influences.
When do you all listen to music, anyway?
I do a lot of listening at work, on a portable CD player. I still resist using a computer as a music device (yes, I recognize that this is irrational and keeps me from appreciating the unfogged mixes as much as I might).
I can't think with music on.
Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. When I can't it's usually a sign that I'm tired and approaching the point at which I'd be better off stopping trying to work anyway.
172, 175, I can't imagine a version of music history that doesn't include Joni Mitchel as one of the major musical figures of the 70s.
I mean, I can imagine it, but I can't imagine having much interest in or respect for it.
Not only have I not heard of most of the bands mentioned above, I haven't heard of most of the genres. Easy to live in a bubble, I guess.
I listen to college radio driving to and from work -- they seem to like Animal Collective, or, more likely, that's a band I've heard of, and so I remember when I hear a song was theirs. iPod at my son's hockey practice when there aren't any hockey moms to flirt with, or when skiing alone.
Can't say that I've ever had any patience at all for talk of authenticity or cred or whatever.
Let's take Journey as an example. A couple guys in an established band (Santana) who want to try to explore a different sound do so, with modest local success. They figure out (or some record company guy tells them) that if they get a singer that appeals more to the teenage girls -- prettier, much higher voice -- and go with themes that resonate more for the teenage girls, they'll have great commercial success. They do this, and it works. Is it dude music if it's specifically dressed up for girls? Is it inauthentic because it's dressed up for girls? The problem can't be that Rolie and Schon left a band with something of an Afro-Latino sound to make "whiter" music, because most of the people who slag on Journey don't know/care about that. It is, I suppose, the fact that they have been successful entertainers. And so people who prize obscurity qua obscurity can't stand them.
I don't have any Journey on my iPod, but I'd gladly listen to any of their songs rather than a single minute of some whine about authenticity.
174: Oh, sure -- as a big dork in high school, I really enjoyed being able to say to myself, "Sure, X seems cool, but he likes Ned's Atomic Dustbin and has never even heard of Suicide!" To me that sort of collect-em-all hipper than thou mentality (and particularly its cousin, "girls only want boyfriends who have great skills", where Yngwie Malmsteen is the greatest musician in history) is where a lot of the scenester sexism flowed from back in the day. I feel like M. Leblanc was kind of sidling up to this and not quite knowing what she was reaching for, but then I got so boggled by the lameness of her band not knowing about Sleater-Kinney that I went and turned on some Thalia Zedek (she has awesome skills).
A big difference between me and my music-snob guy friends ... is that they listen to a lot of music with less repetition than I do. I tend to listen to a handful of songs which I then know really, really well, adding just a couple of songs at a time to the rotation. It takes me many listens to "learn" a new record
That is my experience as well. I need to listen to something at least 2 or 3 times before I even know what the appropriate mood and mindset for that album is. Then several more listens after that to pick up most of the words and get a sense of the individual songs.
Of course some things are obviously interesting or obviously not interesting on first listen.
177: It's called classic rock radio, my friend. The only Joni Mitchell song I heard as a teenager, as sung by Joni Mitchell, was "Songs to Aging Children," and that's only because she sings it in the movie Alice's Restaurant.
174: Oh, sure -- as a big dork in high school, . . . collect-em-all hipper than thou mentality
Great, I'm interested in hearing people's answer to that question. So you're one vote for musical taste strongly intertwined with social capital, for how many other people is that true?
Well, many high schools (at least used to) divide into tribes based on music fandom, which is not quite the same as music snobbery creating social capital, but is close.
I think high school music tribalism leads a lot of adults into a kind of liberalism of fear approach to music, where they don't bring up the subject at all for fear of causing offense (or being offended). I know I do this.
re: 182
Sure. When I was an early-teenage heavy metal fan liking the right sort of stuff was important, and people did a lot of boundary patrolling around the question of what was proper metal, and what wasn't. But not really when older, no.
I was/am probably known among some friends as a bit of an 'early adopter' of music so people would sometimes ask me about bands they'd heard of, because they guessed I'd probably have heard of them too, but I have other friends for whom I'm a musical ignoramus -- the people with entire rooms set aside for records -- so there wasn't much cachet to be had from it.
When I was in high school my musical taste would have been so easily mocked by snarkout, ttaM and their ilk that I'm not even going to tell you what I was into.
Now my musical taste is likely as easily mocked, by I retaliate by mocking the musical taste of everybody else, because mine, and mine alone, is superior.
This is not, I think, a strategy designed for social benefit.
As an undergrad, I DJ'd at UNC's radio station, which prided itself on obscurantism and genre-mixing within sets. My musical dorksterism provided social capital among other music dorks, in the same way that smoking pot provided instant social capital among other potheads. Outside of those cliques, either one was pretty much useless.
Now my musical taste is likely as easily mocked
Heck, you all know what my musical tastes look like.
re: 185
But I spent high school listening to really crap metal! Much of it wasn't even _good_ metal. I spent about 2 years looking like a reject from some odd central-scottish Poison tribute act.
I thought kd lang did a great job with Case of You.
"Musical taste strongly entwined with social capital" for me! In several iterations:
When I was young and punk rock and insecure and provincial, I was able to acquire snobbier music taste when I could not, for example, retroactively acquire an awesome citified childhood or beautiful features or a high school education at a neat alternative school. It was a venue where I could compete despite my relative lack of wealth, social experience, etc.
When my taste was still totally unformed, music snobbery was a soothing approach because I felt that I wasn't wasting my time. I'm really big on getting advice, buying the best you can afford, reading surveys and reviews and so on. I always figured that even if it turned out that I didn't really like, say, the Soft Boys, I wouldn't regret having spent the time listening to the music.
And now, of course, I display correct musical taste--correctly nonconformist and (for my circles) refined--as a way of performing middle-class-itude. I show my expertise in shopping and acquisition by knowing what is rare and where to find it; I show that I am a cultured (again, for my circles) grown-up by liking difficult music. I mean, that's not how I consciously think about it, but that's more or less what I'm doing. Probably with greater intensity since I have no money and a low-prestige job and basically run with a fringey bunch of anarchists and hippies.
Also, I tend to be very conscious of and worried about unspoken social rules (even, I think, for an Unfogger) and displaying correct taste is soothing.
The thing is, I like my music now (which I didn't always in early days of snobbery) but I could probably like other kinds of music with different social connotations just as much.
And I thought that Tigger Outlaw was a different person from JM.
Henry Cow—you know, the guys (and gals!)—who put "art is not a mirror, it is a hammer", and who played complex music because radical politics demanded radical art—would have been interested to learn that anything that they actively profited from disenfranchisement.
Lindsay Cooper—you know, of the Feminist Improvising Group—especially might be surprised to learn this.
I spent about 2 years looking like a reject from some odd central-scottish Poison tribute act.
You have to post pictures at some time. That might outdo the Apo mullet pictures.
191 -- OK, I just watched the scene on Youtube. I still cannot believe that that is JM -- voice seems all wrong, and the face too.
I was kinda waiting for you to weigh in irritatedly, neb.
193: I believe there were pictures posted way back in the archives somewhere. A whole lot of hair was involved.
191, 194: Oh, I just now figured out that JM=Joni Mitchell, not Jackmormon. Man, had this conversation gotten confusing.
188: I'm sure yours was bad, but the defining feature of the music I liked is that it was all really, really wussy.
May I quote myself from upthread?
All those folks who were at all associated with Henry Cow (and also Faust, IIRC) played all these anti-racist/anti-fascist fundraisers; there were various women's music/feminist projects that Dagmar Krause and Lindsey Cooper were involved with. I got the distinct sense that those Soft Machine guys were basically of the European 70s left, although I can't prove it.
I think this has much more to do with a bad narrative about prog rock than about prog rock itself. Honestly, I'd always thought prog rock was boring noodling until I ended up hearing Faust and Captain Beefheart and so on because I read about them in connection with The Red Krayola. I had no idea that prog rock was anything other than Emerson Lake & Palmer.
187: Dude! I forgot you liked Ferron. I feel so close to you now.
190: That's very astute. I was most into explicitly exhibiting good taste in music when I worked as a secretary. Pretty much the same kind of music, too. Now that I think about it, that's the exact period of my life when I bought both X-Ray Spex and Nenah Cherry albums.
re: 193
I only have one photo from that period, with my brother. Which I posted once before, but where I'm not wearing make-up or properly glammed up.
http://prot.com/?aHR0cDovL3d3dy5tY2dyYXR0YW4uZjJzLmNvbS9oYWlyYnJvLmpwZw==
201: I saw that pic and instantly got a Collective Soul song stuck in my head. Dammit.
When I was a teenager I waited up all night in line to get tickets for Emerson, Lake, and Powell. That's when Palmer went AWOL, and they had to get Cozy Powell from Whitesnake to be their drummer.
Dude! I forgot you liked Ferron.
Heh, that's funny. I feel like I've been pushing Ferron pretty heavily on this blog for a couple of years now. I suppose that just means bringing her up two or three times a year.
Oh, Frowner, I just got to that comment!
I don't know about all the members of the Soft Machine, but you can be fairly certain that original drummer Robert Wyatt was (and is) a gigantic leftist. The others (to my knowledge) were less overtly political (though Hugh Hopper's album 1984 is excellent!), and I would be, at a minimum, surprised to discover that anyone associated with the Canterbury scene wasn't at least a little politically left, if not exactly radical.
Gentle Giant is one of those not-quite-big-time bands, I mean bigger than Henry Cow but I think smaller than Van der Graaf Generator, that kind of baffles me.
It occurs to me though that outside of the Canterbury scene and its descendants, and outside of the folk rock/prog-folk continuum, I don't really know much about specifically UK prog. (Or even where you'd put, say, the Third Ear Band.) Especially as it relates to politics—most of them weren't so in-your-face about it, I think. (Or I just don't know; I mean, the narratives here are pretty one-sided.)
So I was getting super confused (not knowing much about her earlier history), but I'm glad that I've now confirmed that it's Neneh Cherry you're talking about and not some ironic name-appropriating indie type who was actually named Nenah Cherry.
And I totally didn't know Neneh Cherry was on The Young Ones. That's amazingly awesome!
I only remember you bringing it up once, and being similarly impressed. The list of non-lesbian Ferron fans is not very long.
Nor that Neneh Cherry and Massive Attack collaborated in the Raw Like Sushi days: what?!?
Wikipedia is blowing my mind right now.
There aren't many female classical instrumentalists? Really?
McManus seems to have backed down from this, so I'll say, yes, really, at least in top orchestras. This is changing (blind auditions have helped) but it's been a big problem, especially if the woman is auditioning for a not traditionally female (harp, flute, you know) instrument.
201: xoxoxoxoxoxo ! Also, is your brother still that apple-cheeked and adorable?
(Too bad, I'd like to see a makeup one. I like boys wearing makeup. I have one pic of eyelinered CA from back in the day, and I could die from the cuteness.)
207: We live in the future now, Sifu. Any spelling that Google accepts is okay. For example, "Sifu Tweeties" is now an acceptable spelling of your psuedonym.
I'm so shocked that snarkout turned on Thalia Zedek rather than some Azita project.
How many people reading this thread felt like the relative hipness of their musical tastes was a source of social capital or the lack thereof?
Never, in any meaningful way. Music and sports are areas in which I'm completely willing to engage in gentle ribbing, but there's very little emotion or intensity attached.
However, I have been near (without participating in) many social circles in which musical taste was important. It continues to confound me how fragile some people's constructs are in this area, and how tightly their identities seem -- I can get instantly, powerfully defensive with the best of them if someone judges my moral integrity, but getting truly defensive over liking a band? I can't recall it ever happening.
Re:212
Heh. He's six foot plus, and has a ridiculously deep voice now. No apple cheeks either, but, although as a teenager it'd embarrass him, I can still see some resemblance.
207: Sorry about that. In other "not knowing things about Neneh Cherry" news, it was not until well after I had begun my obsessive search for Rip Rig & Panic tracks that I realized that Neneh Cherry was any relation at all to Don Cherry.
205: I tend to assume that other people are more thorough than I am and read all the comments before writing their own. To my delight, this is apparently not true!
Maybe I'll write an introductory article about UK prog stuff for the zine I'm working on. Everything else is vegan cooking techniques, but why not?
217: Er, I should clarify that 'round here my minimal ("Henry Cow is neat! You too should listen to Soft Machine!") knowledge will be of interest to my readers; not that I'm uniquely qualified on this topic. (Especially since your comments, nosflow, usually send me googling)
(Especially since your comments, nosflow, usually send me googling)
But isn't that, really, nosflow's game?
You should listen to Robert Wyatt's Mid-Eighties if you haven't!
217.1: I was wondering that was the same band you were looking for. Neat!
My game is to be a source of infectious enthusiasm, Nick.
I briefly thought Neneh was married to now-76-year-old host of Hockey Night in Canada.
musical taste strongly intertwined with social capital, for how many other people is that true?
Pierre Bourdieu claims, roughly speaking, that this is always true. Of course, he never really got Joy Division.
My game is to be a source of infectious enthusiasm, Nick.
Well yes, of course. You can mentally insert "In addition to being a source of infectious enthusiasm" after the "but" to 219.
I like to think of nosflow as an escaped manifestation of the AI behind Google's AdSense.
214 - I had to Google the name. I've heard a couple of Scissor Girls songs, but am pretty much entirely unfamiliar with her work. I like U.S. Maple but don't like most of Jim O'Rourke's work. Further, I like the idea of the Sun City Girls more than I like listening to the Sun City Girls. Should I still check out her stuff?
But Thalia Zedek really does have mad skills.
But Thalia Zedek really does have mad skills.
From wikipedia: she played clarinet in the marching band under band director Charles Sickafus.
I'm shocked that somebody with that name would chose to work with children. That seems like asking for trouble.
Well, I have heard exactly zero Scissor Girls songs, and zero Bride of No-No songs, and I don't even know precisely how U.S. Maple and the Sun City Girls fit in here. But I like her second (or perhaps really technically third) solo album, Life on the Fly. When it came out I found it kind of Steely Dan-esque, but that's mostly because of the prominent electric piano, I think. This is the first track.
Did any of you listen to me when I recommended Grovesnor the other day? I bet you didn't.
I'll just have to put some on my mix.
I really bet it would go over well with some of you. It's like Yacht Glitch.
212: (Too bad, I'd like to see a makeup one. I like boys wearing makeup.
Female-fronted nü mëtãl band with bonus boy w/ lipstick: Guano Apes - Open Your Eyes (You tube).
m, that'll keep y'all busy for awhile
205:As far as politics go, the Italians and Germans proggers were AFAIK, radically leftist in theory and music praxis.
But who the fuck wasn't in 1972?
The politics of Magma have been called into question occasionally, and I believe that Samla Mammas Manna and Univers Zero were more or less apolitical.
But who the fuck wasn't in 1972?
Those of us born in 1968.
I show my expertise in shopping and acquisition by knowing what is rare and where to find it;
Only to be outdone by any tween with a broadband connection... My partner was a huge Northern Soul collector, back in the days when it was barely possible to get Jackson 5 albums in the UK (so to speak); she largely burned out on music because it's become so easy to find even the most obscure bands online these days...
If you want to know about the ties between Rip Rig and Panic, Neneh Cherrey, Massive Attack and Tricky et all, you could do worse than read Straight Outa Bristol.
235:Who knows, if they had allowed you to protest and vote? I'm sure infantilization played a role.
Child empowerment and liberation is partly about expanding the Democratic base.
If there's anyone it's inappropriate to infantilize, it's infants.
I interrupted my Betty Davis listening to finally listen to the Tik-Tok song that offended Charli Carpenter over at LGM. This acoustic cover is compelling.
Look, I have few absolute principles, but
a) There should be no exclusionary qualifications attached to the franchise
b) I am in no position to consider others justifications for their votes in order to devalue their vote as vote, or as a reason to question the universal franchise.
I am not particularly bothered that an adult votes for the redhead. There will be people who don't trust redheads. This is a political problem, not an institutional one.
So anybody that can remotely understand what a vote is, should be able to vote. Or hell, even those who don't understand, if they express a desire to vote.
I am on the edge of granting my dogs the franchise.
Domestic affairs in the mcmanus household are on the verge of gettign very interesting.
232: I think peeing my pants and screaming inappropriately is pretty fucking radical.
(from the follow-up post)
women artificially raise their voices around the time of puberty, limiting their vocal range and depriving themselves of full use of their from-the-gut voice.
I don't think I knew this. I started losing my hearing, from the top frequencies and then spreading down, around 14. In the present, many people comment on my unexpectedly low voice (which I can't really hear). Huh.
245: I had a female friend from Korea who had a high-pitched voice when speaking in Korean, and a low throaty voice when speaking English. It was a striking difference.
240: I couldn't figure out what is so especially offensive about that song. Have men never boasted exaggeratedly about their drinking and partying behaviors in song?
I'll admit to being a pretty badly behaved person at parties sometimes. But I've never been the craziest person there, just occasionally the craziest girl. People are pretty judgmental about chicks.
244: All two-year-olds are GG Allin!
The Silvana posts, and the Amanda Marcotte one that came before it were out of some alien universe for me. They implicitly assume a level of value placed on musical tastes not just beyond mine, but beyond most people I've known. I'm not sure how this 'dude music' thing applies to those of us who like to listen to music but who don't see it as part of their identity. The closest I get to understanding their anger is occasional encounters with SFF fans who say they don't like female writers or who demonstratively show contempt for urban fantasy while expressing their love for mil SF or classic space opera. Also, how about non rock/pop type stuff? The genre I'm probably most into is jazz, which places a strong value on demonstrating instrumental virtuosity. It's also one where if you don't generally listen to stuff done in the past forty years, you're likely to have no non-vocalist female musicians.
Also, before this discussion I had no idea that S-K were a female group. I still have no idea what they or Pavement sound like.
It's good to know the spirit of GG Allin lives on.
247: Her objection was that it made the singer sound underage, and that this was modeling bad behavior for her own tween. People really do interpret identical behavior from women and men completely differently in this way. Amy Winehouse doesn't stand out from any number of male rock stars, but she's the one you always here about.
The best part of your first link is the public service video in the morning about the importance of not sleeping with someone who's too drunk, and that condoms are so important, you should use too. If only today's stars were so conscious of the public good.
253: When I was 10 or so, I started listening to a lot of rap music about drugs, drink, and sex. I didn't start doing any of those things until I was 19. I do think music and books affect the way we conceive of "bad" behavior, but it's not a direct causal relationship with the onset of bad behavior.
I think I'm also a bit sensitive about this because I didn't find such a big double-standard about partying in Ohio. What's extra-weird is that my girlfriends from there used to be *nuts* at parties, way too crazy for me, but after moving to NYC, those same girls sit quietly and giggle while the guys do stupid drunk stuff, or serve food.
...or [these girls] serve food.
Also, I, like Thorn in the other thread, have unnecessarily hyphenated "double standard." It must have happened almost exactly at the same time.
A. You'll understand hyphenation better once you guys have a couple kids.
B. I just don't like the way women's hyphenation sounds, is all.
GG Allin is the dude playing guitar at the end of Saturday Night Live, right?
I saw The Fuxedos Friday night and that familiar walkdown quoted that in the middle of a song to great effect. The tenor sax helps a lot.
B. I just don't like the way women's hyphenation sounds, is all.
"I'll tell you why I won't vote for Obama. That rap music isn't even music! It's just shouting!"
-Sifu Tweety, I think.
I used to have this theory that despite all stereotypes, that people in NYC used to be a little too self-conscious to be as wild as people elsewhere. (I developed this theory after a long bar-crawl with my wife's brother in and around the Bowery. He seemed much more interested in striking the right pose than anything else, and all of the bars we went to were full of people doing the same.) Basically, I took the scene from Pecker where the guy who gets tea-bagged in Baltimore shouts how New York was never like this! to be documentary.
BTW NickS is being strangely humble in this thread (or I'm not reading closely) -- he's already responded to Silvana twice at Before You Listen, and in her comments.
I'm definitely in favor of everyone with every type of genitals doing stupid drunk stuff all the time. I'm afraid I'm somewhat a fan of the worst kind of dude music though. Even on purely aesthetic grounds I can't defend it. But I also really like Carla Bruni! Is that ok? Where does Neil Diamond fit in?
Where does Neil Diamond fit in?
Westchester?
261: I think the fear is being taken for a woman who is low-class, enthusiastic, and/or from New Jersey. Enjoying yourself is sort of a guy thing.
everyone with every type of genitals
That's gotta be a small set of people.
264: I knew there was a place for me out there.
266: Right, and they need to be at the forefront of outrageousness. The rest of us need to step aside.
255: Is this a college thing? Girls are allowed to be wild and crazy in college, but then they are supposed to grow up. Luckily, boys never have to grow up.
But, this does not actually match my own experiences at all. My wife and her girlfriends get wild and crazy all the time. So maybe it is Ohio.
263: But I also really like Carla Bruni!
On aesthetic grounds, I really like this set of covers by Agent Orange.
On the other hand, on dude music grounds, I'm sure I screwed up somewhere back there around Wendy O. Williams, who just can't get a break even though she's dead. I guess I had best go and search youtube for some Garbage vids.
m, fucking kill me
269: I have mentioned before how impressed I was by the party skills of Will and BR's friends, who are adults. At their friends' party, it was the women who were really getting wild.
BTW NickS is being strangely humble in this thread
I was going to link to those posts but then I realized that I'd made five comments in quick succession and I thought that if I added a link at that point nobody would read it,
I do think, on the subject of m leblanc's posts that it's worth repeating the comment that she made at spackerman's
If I was writing to a male audience, I would have written it a lot differently. But I wasn't. Not to say that men can't read it. I hope they do! I'm glad they are! But convincing people to examine their privilege wasn't my aim, pointing out that privilege to the other people who have also experienced it was, giving a voice to it, and describing it in a way that made other women think "hey, maybe that wasn't just me."
271: That was in Virginia, right? So, just getting away from NYC is the key?
Neil Diamond is a little interesting. I view the male part of his fan base as part of a historical narrative that goes Frank Sinatra -> Johnny Mathis -> Neil Diamond -> Association? -> Willie Nelson > > > some bathetic indie sobster in Des Moines. Bill Callahan?
Queens to Westchester to Woodstock to Boulder to ? for drunken sentimental fratboys with limited imaginations
drunken sentimental fratboys with limited imaginations
Hmmm. I like Sinatra, Mathis, Diamond, and Willie Nelson, and the shoe does seem to fit ....
Bob, there is no denying that Neil Diamond likes him some bathos, but what he has in common with Sinatra, Mathis, or Willie Nelson - aside from being a white dude who sings (and probably the bathos) - you will have to spell out. Not that you have ever risen to that challenge.
According to The Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music 1955-1978, Neil Diamond arose in the wake of the British Invasion along with Dusty Springfield, Nancy Sinatra, and the Hollies, and begat Shaun Cassidy and Barry Manilow. Or maybe not; as famous as that graphic is, it's not terribly useful.
It makes some sense. He wrote all the Monkees songs and his early work is quite fond the organ and tambourine. And there's a pandering tin pan alley element that one definitely finds in Shaun Cassidy and Manilow.
I would like to write about Neil Diamond one day, but I don't actually know anything about music. But there's something so simultaneously awful and fake and true and decent about him that I find compelling.
"Cracklin' Rosie" is my karaoke go-to.
I saw Neil Diamond at the Hollywood Bowl two summers ago. The man knows him some show business.
276:It is partly by analysis of exclusion, and I am talking about a very specific type.
The Sinatra/Mathis/Diamond fan (I am describing) would not buy:
Mel Torme, Nick Drake, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, George Jones, Ray Price, the vast majority of blues if any, Ray Charles
Maybe he would buy Nat King Cole or some Elvis. Maybe Everlys or Sandpipers
This kind of guy would not be interested in kind of metal, even hair metal, but would also be repelled by new Romantic (Pet Shop Boys) or twee, so it isn't about the melodic.
I see it as a form of dude rock.
Masculine but sensitive, cool but not intellectual.
Bob is actually talking about one specific guy. His name is Jake. He likes Mathis and Sinatra and Neil Diamond, but not Mel Torme. He lives down the street.
282:No I knew a bunch of them.
Pet Sounds would be the only Beach Boys, and as hard as they would get. Odyssey and Oracle or Pearls Before Swine would be way off their radar, and weird and arty.
Pearls Before Swine would be way off their radar, and weird and arty.
Pearls Before Swine are kind of weird. I mean they're definitely not mainstream.
I think you'll find that the album is called Oddessey and Oracle, bob.
278: Wait, what? Boyce and Hart wrote the best of the early Monkees songs.
its easier to listen to music if you don't care what the lyrics are about. i only turn it off to talk to someone or watch a movie.
tiger trap is awesome. joni mitchel, and television, sucks.
If you don't like the Velvet (motherfucking) Fog, then you, sir, are no friend of mine.
285: One 'd' dude, and I did know the story, know it was a mistake of the cover artists and not the musicians decision. I am no so sure why they kept it for forty years.
I can't say what was going thru my head, but I made a conscious decision.
I like a lot of dude music. Led Zeppelin, Black Flag, AC/DC, Steely Dan. I can see how the ubiquity of dude music is a problem for female music fans though.
The term "rockism" is silly to me. A lot of people like songs that rock out. Heavy metal fans are not suffering from false consciousness.
286: Natilo is not a believer.
I didn't know about Boyce and Hart. I don't know how I'd rank the songs, but I do like Last Train, which was the duo.
It's a little bit me, a little bit you.
291: "rockism" doesn't really refer to that. It is more of a reference to the tendency by rock (which is to say, popular music) critics to ascribe a lesser seriousness to dance music or other pop forms as compared to straight white boys makin' rock 'n roll.
Wow. I was really hoping that with 300 comments, this would be an old-fashioned unfogged gender-fight.
Y'all disappoint me.
"rockism" doesn't really refer to that. It is more of a reference to the tendency by rock (which is to say, popular music) critics to ascribe a lesser seriousness to dance music or other pop forms as compared to straight white boys makin' rock 'n roll.
except not always:
296: we're all too pussified anymore.
Wow. I was really hoping that with 300 comments, this would be an old-fashioned unfogged gender-fight.
It's kind of surprising how tame we've become. We still make me laugh though.
Hey, I did what I could to pick the best quote for fight-starting purposes.
I'm afraid it's all catchphrases from here on out.
Y'all disappoint me.
Boys rule, girls drool. At singing.
"Cracklin' Rosie" is my karaoke go-to.
Mine too! Duet at UnfoggeDCon III!
Y'all disappoint me.
Garbage - I'm Only Happy When it Rains
m, wonder why it feels so good to feel so bad
OMG 304! So happy.
For me, it started when a friend and I spent the day bopping around San Francisco improvising "The Karaoke Kid" on video. Synopsis: After failing in the heist of a matching chair for my mob boss, I was given one last chance to set things right by entertaining his club (played by The Mint) with a karaoke rendition of "Mercy Mercy Me". Unfortunately when we got to the club they didn't have "Mercy Mercy Me", so we went with "Cracklin' Rosie" but had them introduced it as Mercy Mercy Me.
re: 294
And also a privileging of 'authenticity' by those same critics. Where authenticity is at odds with playfulness, or the adopting of unconventional roles, or any conscious artifice or 'performance', any creation that isn't some sort of autochthonous act of self-creation by the genius (male) auteur writer/performer. The rockist canon admits of music that isn't _rock_ as a genre, but not much that it isn't like rock music in terms of its creation mythology.
296 - it's Morley; ninety percent of what he says you don't have to take seriously, the other ten percent is wrong.
To get all earnest for a bit having now read up on the discussion around the original posts, what struck me is how much it was about consuming the right music to show you were down with the ladyez, not about what you do but what you own, which isn't really any great improvement. Political correctness through your music collection.
I love Morley. I quite like that he talks crap sometimes, in part because he's so transparently, openly in love with music. I can think of very few established critics that I see giddly raving like a teenager about some new band quite as much as Morley. He doesn't remotely come across as someone concerned to impress people through his record collection. Not in the slightest. In fact, he often comes across as embarrassingly happy to champion very uncool music.
I don't think Pete Wylie's coining of the term was remotely about impressing the ladyez, either. The whole think is a sardonic reaction against a particular strain of thinking about music that was prevalent then, and which remains fairly prevalent now. It's not about what music you like. Finding the 'rockist' critique quite a useful one -- as long as you don't take it too seriously* -- isn't remotely incompatible with liking a lot of 'rockist' approved music.
* it is, after all, basically a music critics' in-joke ...
Well, this really couldn't have been more appropriately timed.
"Bob is not authentic at all," she said. "He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I."
http://www.nme.com/news/joni-mitchell/50798
joni mitchell, rockist.
Neil Diamond arose in the wake of the British Invasion along with Dusty Springfield
Say what? Dusty was an Irish lass, born and bred in north London.
Folk musicians were rockists avant la lettre.
Folk musicians were rockists avant la lettre.
I imagine it was ever thus. "Buxtehude? You cannot be serious! Mindless nurdler, I tell you. Oh, Bach likes him, does he? Well, what does that prove? Go get an earful of some Pachelbel, that'll straighten you out."
a-and he went electric at Newport! Judas!
You, Sir, are a traitor to your age cohort.
No, they took all the credit that should have gone to Jeff Beck. Seriously, though, if you just know their albums they do kind of suck. Live, they ran through all the crowd pleasers as quickly as they could and then settled down to play the blues for an hour or so, as well as any white outfit I've ever heard. Like a different band.
When I saw them, they did a great acoustic medley. Not exactly what a bunch of the folks had come to see, but it sure worked for me.
On the other hand, will Brit be this creepy in 30 years? Is that girl his granddaughter's classmate?
To be fair, it's more likely the grandchild's nanny.
Is that girl his granddaughter's classmate?
Hey, chill a bit. I don't recognise that girl, but it's a recognised thing for younger artists to play with the people they grew up listening to if they get the chance. Were you creeped out by the Petshop boys working with Dusty Springfield and Liza Minnelli?
77: hey, thanks--I hadn't seen that, and it's really good.
You're welcome! I was super-excited when they announced it was finally being released, and then it somehow ended up being even better than I'd hoped. It breaks my heart that she quit recording altogether after that because, man, the trajectory she was on was just absurd.
320 -- Is she singing? No. Playing the guitar? Nope. She's just there because otherwise we might have trouble imagining him marrying someone young enough to have his baby.
309 - I think you mean Does it matter what is shown / Just as long as everyone knows / What is selling, what to buy / It's the stock market for your hi-fi!
Is she singing? No. Playing the guitar? Nope.
Not? I can't tell, as I don't have a sound card at work? Then sure, you're right - she's a prop, like Spinal Tap's dwarfs.
we might have trouble imagining him marrying someone young enough to have his baby.
He's 62. Half plus seven gives 38. No problem.
I am a traitor to my age cohort, which is why I get such a thrill from saying Led Zeppelin sucks.
314: This reminds me that it's fair game among opera people (who I hate to keep bringing up but it's the dark corner of fandom I have spent time in) to say that the best singing happened before the recording era and everything since is just a pale imitation. It's quite maddening. There's not much you can say to such arguments or, perhaps more to the point, to such people. Also, I love a good Buxtehude joke.
best singing happened before the recording era and everything since is just a pale imitation
...and Bordeaux has never been the same since Phylloxera. I've heard - we all have - recordings of Caruso, who was regarded as the greatest of all time in his day and only just worked into the recording era. Making every possible allowance for conditions and technology, he doesn't strike me as being significantly better than several modern tenors.
Oh, the same way people know that Kirk and Spock were doin' it, you know?
I mean, I guess they can listen to scritchy cylinders of singers who were past prime or retired when the recording era began in ernest (let's say Jean de Reszke, because I think they would say Jean de Reszke) and read treatises on singing by Marchesi and accounts of what was heard at the first Italian performance of Guiglelmo Tell when Duprez sang the first tenor C in chest voice and conclude that they don't make 'em like that anymore.
I'm lumping serious musicological inquiry with semi-informed loopy fandom for effect, but really, I think plenty of it is the same kind of certainty that underlies statements like "Harry + Snape = OTP." [That may need an asterisk to denote an unidiomatic utterance...I don't actually know from Harry Potter but it's the most fun fandom to mock.]
Deconstruction is so easy that it should no longer be taken seriously. And it's almost always employed by have-nots.
I just assume that people who say they like rock and roll but that Led Zepplin sucks are posturing for effect or lying. Overrated by some and overplayed? Sure. Excessive references to Mordor and other such nonsense? Yes. Beloved by parking lot bullies? This too. But as OFE says there is the core of an incredible white blues band there, some interesting and (for the time and still) fairly experimental arrangements, the partial creation of a new genre, and some pure joy there, even in the most popular songs. I mean, I really can get not liking white rock at all, and that Betty Davis album (thanks!) shows where the real action was in the 70s, but if you do, how can you hate Zepplin. People who like Sleater Kinney (the later stuff in particular) or Nirvana but hate Zepplin are especially weird, since the whole Seattle 90s sound owes so much to Zepplin. Why, it's almost as if the whole thing is about clothes and hair!
There hasn't been an actor worth a damn since Garrick.
Garrick? I think you mean Burbage, pal...
329: In those cases lots of hand waving is done at the age at which the singer made the recording. They were really much better *before* that.
And yet I like white rock, and I hate Zeppelin. I am some sort of genetic sport. I can't think of one good think to say about them, other than the Yngwie Malmsteen/cover-of-Guitar-magazine "but they were such talented musicians!" argument. I can't think of a single song of theirs that I would miss if it was deleted from history. Maybe "Kashmir". Incredible white blues bands were not a particularly new or amazing thing by the 70s. Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Plamer had experimental arrangements had nobody tells you you have to like them. The genre they created is one that I can basically do without.
Maybe there's a direct causal chain from Led Zeppelin to Nirvana (something I don't believe, by maybe it's true), but there is a direct causal chain from lots of things that suck to lots of things that don't. The Beatles were inspired by all kinds of things that I don't like either.
And I'll admit to liking Yes, so my clothes and hair preferences are subtle.
332: I love Zep like I love candy and moral superiority, but with a few more hobbits in the lyrics they'd be Marillion, and no sane person wants that.
Half plus seven gives 38. No problem
Your lips to God's ears, buddy.
336: Right, exactly. Patti was in her 60's when she recorded. Some people find a certain appeal in her singing even then (I suppose I do, to a point) but mostly it's this act of extrapolation...Patti was a great star, and I guess you hear some evidence of what vocal technique was about then. Toss in some forceful nostalgia that looks a little like hatred for the present and, Bob's your uncle, Patti is obviously a better singer than anyone now, and they never will sing like that again.
334 - It's all been downhill since Thespis.
There were some baritones who absolutely killed on the veldt.
Patti Smith recorded prior to 2006, Mr Smearcase.
I'm speaking of Patti LuPone, of course.
Ok, I'm not.
Wendy O. Williams has not been forgotten.
332 et seq.: I can tell you exactly what bugs me about Zeppelin: Robert Plant sings in the wrong key, consistently. Everything else about them, including the hobbits, is okay. But once I had that pointed out for me, it was like the universe shifted ever so slightly, producing a constant, unpleasant clanging noise.
Of course I also don't really care for much white rock.
Because of this thread I am listening to "Roundabout".
347 is totally true, but is also true of SO MUCH white rock.
If we can just get another hundred comments we can top the parenting thread.
Nick wants to top the parenting thread.
Though, technically, I was thinking about a group effort.
Just repost your entire blog in this thread.
joni mitchell, rockist.
And also, from the rest of the interview, apparently a victim of a weird ailment discussed here before:
I have this weird, incurable disease that seems like it's from outer space.... Fibers in a variety of colors protrude out of my skin like mushrooms after a rainstorm: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral. Morgellons is a slow, unpredictable killer -- a terrorist disease: it will blow up one of your organs, leaving you in bed for a year.... In America, the Morgellons is always diagnosed as "delusion of parasites," and they send you to a psychiatrist. I'm actually trying to get out of the music business to battle for Morgellons sufferers to receive the credibility that's owed to them.
Zep was fun, at least the first two albums. I never appreciated their live stuff. Page started as a bassist, and I always considered his best talent to be arranging.
Hard blues psych, but not that hard. Truth was hard. Benefit and Aqualung were hard. There was something comfortable and reassuring about Led Zeppelin. Like fast food.
Recommended psych blues:Halfbreed by Keef Hartley. Overdog us also decent
a weird ailment discussed here before
349: I won a promo copy of Tales of Topographic Oceans in a college radio station contest by knowing that Brian Davison from The Nice went on to form a group called Every Which Way (I was hopeless). I quite enjoyed Yes back in the day, but Tales was awful even for me.
356: !!! I was going to say, "That sounds like delusional parasitosis," which, oddly, I was just reading about (in the LRB! a thing written by a woman who got crabs and then thought they were crawling all over her body!) -- and it turns out that there are people who say that Morgellons is delusional parasitosis, and other people who get very upset about that.
and it turns out that there are people who say that Morgellons is delusional parasitosis
Because the fibers have never been seen by any medical professional, if I remember right.
other people who get very upset about that
Because they are delusional.
Since we're discussing Led Zeppelin -- has anybody hear read Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me by Martin Millar? I loved it.
No, but I have read Hammer of the Gods.
Well, but are fibers really parasites?
365: Well, the doctor at the end of that WaPo article had some interesting things to say about space men, apparently.
I greatly prefer the spelling "fibre" to "fiber". Oh to be in England, now that metastasis's here!
Excuse me. Metathesis. All this medicine talk confused me.
The Led Zeppelin -- > Nirvana causal history described above gets it wrong.
Surely the primary influence on grunge, and on stoner rock, and on most of the other 80s/90s (and later) genres of loud guitar music that eschew proggy arrangements, guitar solos, and lyrics about elves, is Black Sabbath? A better and more interesting band, by far, to my ears than Zeppelin.
I don't mind Zeppelin at all, but the description of them as basically a heavy blues band above gets it right. There's not really a great deal of innovation happening there. Some fantastic riffs, great rhythm section, a few really cracking songs, but ultimately not that influential as a band, I think.
A better and more interesting band, by far, to my ears than Zeppelin.
I totally agree -- I think that Sabbath is both by far the better group and, ultimately, the more influential one, although Zeppelin is more poppy. But I do think it's wrong to write off Zeppelin as non-influential straddled the line between hard blues, metal, and 60s rock in a way that was pertty foundational for a lot of groups. There's much more going on there than there is, say, with Deep Purple.
As for Nirvana specifically, they were quite open about acknowledging the Zeppelin influence; they started off by playing Zep covers, notably Heartbreaker and the Immigrant Song.
re: 373
I don't know. There were a lot of groups in the UK playing 'heavy blues' at the tail end of the 60s. Zeppelin were the one that broke big world wide, but, in the UK at least, I really don't think they were a big influence on the way rock and metal developed after the early 70s. There's a sense in which they preserved in aspic the sound of the late 60s, and honed it for a mass audience, but I'm not sure that really translated into a lasting influence. Perhaps it's different in the US?
"Preserved in aspic" is a lot worse-sounding than "preserved in amber".
Because the fibers have never been seen by any medical professional, if I remember right.
I guess the missed the pictures at the morgellons foundation website.
(link from Apo's post linked above)
I was listening to Paranoid yesterday after my brief fit of Boston music (Thalia Zedek/Come; Mission of Burma; Volcano Suns). Aren't the Melvins pretty up-front about the Sabbath influence?
Come, whom I have never heard, sound a lot more interesting (I mean as to description, obviously) than Zedek's solo albums do (as heard), to me.
If the Melvins aren't upfront about the Sabbath influence, maybe it's because they wear it so much on their sleeves that they needn't address it at all.
You know, just because the fibers always end up being textiles doesn't mean they weren't emerging from someone's skin.
Also I don't like Led Zeppelin but I am content to leave that unexamined.
Perhaps it's different in the US?
Almost certainly. I believe LZ was much bigger here, and the similar English hard-blues bands much less known. Of course I wasn't alive then, so I don't really know. But the key thing for influence is that LZ still has an incredibly large-scale radio presence in the US; you can probably turn on the dial anywhere in the USA and on at least one station, at least once every ten minutes, a LZ song is playing. Of course, that gives rise to a lot of LZ hatred, as well.
I'd say that this is just an example of a great band at its prime.
Of course I wasn't alive then, so I don't really know.
You know, "Robert Halford" sounds like a handle of someone in their 50s. Now I'm suspecting "Robert Halford" of having some youthful not-just-your-name meaning.
re: 380
They don't get much airplay here. Punk had much more of a cleansing influence in the UK. Classic rock doesn't get much mainstream airplay in the UK at all.
Younger bands with a rock influence -- Kings of Leon, etc -- get airplay, but 60s and 70s classic rock doesn't get much at all on national radio.
Speaking of elaborately crafted speculative fictions sung over sludgy guitar riffs, this discussion is making me want to listen to Hawkwind and Gong again (admittedly, less sludge in the latter case).
Heebie, this is what I look like.
Acid Mothers Gong had some sludge. Maybe New York Gong too; I can't remember.
Gongzilla and Pierre Moerlen's Gong are pretty sludge-free.
Zeppelin was the first proper supergroup, weren't they, the first one to actually have longlasting commercial succes? Arguably responsible for AOR?
What separates them from the other English hard-blues bands is that they aren't boring you to death with their purism. The opening to "Kashmir" on its own is worth ten John Mayall's Blues Breakers, even if you secretly hope it's that Puff Daddy Godzilla song instead when you hear that riff.
Also, nobody mentioned Cream yet?
Though I don't think Gongzilla is formally related to Daevid Allen's Gong at all.
Cream is mentioned first in comment 42.
Pierre Moerlen's Gong tastes of rasberry cordial. Great to listen to on the threadmill.
And this is what Halford looks like in the witness stand. Perhaps it was this experience that drew him to a career in law.
Punk had much more of a cleansing influence in the UK.
This sounds remarkably sinister.
I had the same misconception about Brock Landers originally. Apparently I just assume lawyers are in their 50s.
Hey man, don't rush me. I'm getting there.
When I was in high school my musical taste would have been so easily mocked by snarkout, ttaM and their ilk that I'm not even going to tell you what I was into.
I'm sure yours was bad, but the defining feature of the music I liked is that it was all really, really wussy.
You've already said too much. In high school you liked Depeche Mode, The Smiths/Morrisey, Eurasure, Electronic, The Cure, Duran Duran, New Order, Psychedelic Furs, etc. Wus.
Since the Betty Davis links in this thread have changed my life forever I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to take this thread to 1000.
I'm not sure I've ever managed to listen to Tales fro Topographic Oceans all the way through. On the other hand, I was in a cheapo burrito place a couple of months ago, and I heard a song that sounded familiar, and I thought "wow, this song kicks ass." It was "Yours is no disgrace".
Punk was never as mainstream here in the US, which means we never got the cleansing piles of AOR skulls lining the streets.
There's a fun club mix of Don't Fear the Reaper floating around, also a couple of AC/DC remixes. Robert Plant's moaning sounds a lot better as background to a good rhythm track.
People who know about punk, could you please tell me whether the band 7 Seconds (with Kevin Seconds) was actually a big deal? I hang out with people who were in that scene, and I don't know how much retrospective cred to give them.
395: sometimes the truth is harder than the pain inside.
7 Seconds (with Kevin Seconds) was actually a big deal
Not really, but they've certainly lasted longer than their peers.
395: not dorky enough.
I was going to say. Almost everything on that list is more hip than anything I listened to in HS.
Also, in case anybody cares, I've ordered a copy of the Betty Davis album mentioned in 77.
the band 7 Seconds
That immediately made me think of this comic.
Yeah, 395 is the cool boy I had a bit of a crush on at MIT, and never did anything about.
395: not dorky enough.
Huh, I can't imagine much dorkier than Erasure or wussier than Morrisey, which is actually the type of music I listened to and was relentlessly made fun of by the cooler stoners who were listening to, I don't know, Primus and Big Black.
Now I'm very curious, what music is wussier than Morrisey?
You mean, because they're not old and sick and stuff, presumably because they were straight edge?
Primus and Big Black, united in the same person?
Now I'm very curious, what music is wussier than Morrisey?
The Carpenters?
Richard Marx and Brian Adams.
Now I'm very curious, what music is wussier than Morrisey?
Smog? Current 93 when they amp up the fey?
Other wussy things popular in 1992: En Vogue, Michael Bolton, P.M. Dawn, Jon Secada, Vanessa Williams.
Even fey Current 93 is too dark to be wussier than Morrisey. To 410 I'd add Chris Issak.
Morrisey was someone I'd never listened to in high school because he was synonymous with wussiness, then discovered I actually liked through pandora.
414: I thought then, and think now, that En Vogue are fucking awesome. PM Dawn was OK.
Ditto on the En Vogue. Totally not wussy.
The UK had an entire scene of trembling fey boys, and girls in floral dresses and Doc Martins singing fey songs, for fey people. Compared to which, En Vogue are Slipknot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C86_(music)
re: 397
Yes, punk had a massive effect in the UK. Even if it didn't really penetrate completely into the mainstream it's been more or less compulsory for 'taste-makers' in the UK to genuflect in the direction of punk, or at least bits of the aesthetic and the world-view if not the music, ever since. The UK music scene always seems to be trying to invent/discover/bullshit its way to another year zero of the same type.
Punk in the UK doesn't/didn't mean the same sort of thing it does/did in the US, though.
You mean, because they're not old and sick and stuff
I haven't kept up with them so I couldn't really say, but they've been around for, like, 30 years now.
I like the guessing game. None of the bands I liked (taken alone) is so horrible or so wussy (and none is as poppy or as terrible as, say, Michael Bolton). Indeed, most of them have their fans on this blog, I suspect. But taken together as the expression of the musical self-conception of a nominally rebellious teen they are the very picture of wussiness.
I totally liked (and like) En Vogue, but would never have admitted that fact at the time. I was listening to PM Dawn just the other day. They really hold up!
It also occurs to me that I'm really talking about an era from ca. age 13 to ca. age 16. Things began to change very rapidly when I started smoking pot at 17.
419: The particular bands are unimportant. What matters is whether they all had a four-chord song.
Hmmm. We're talking about the Boston area circa 1987-1992, I think. And music that was not quite as wussy as Morrissey but that Tweety is ashamed to mention for some other reason. I'm going to bet REM was one of the bands, and U2 another one.
Maybe whoever sang that "You're unbelievable!" song.
Wasn't Sifu a young nerd? Doesn't that mean Rush and things on Doctor Demento? (I think we've already had the Doctor Demento discussion.) So, I'm imagining mixed tapes with "Marvin, the Paranoid Android" and "Red Barchetta."
Now I'm very curious, what music is wussier than Morrisey?
Orange Juice.
The Connells.
Del Amitri.
Really? I hope it's Demento. If the big reveal is that a young nerd liked Rush and then grew out of it, I'm going to be pretty disappointed.
I said it was part of the story. I'll give you another obvious part: I was hugely into TMBG.
I liked Dr. Demento but didn't really know where to get albums by the artists he featured.
422- EMF.
...what? It was on the radio a lot.
I said it was part of the story. I'll give you another obvious part: I was hugely into TMBG.
OK, so the other part was Moxy Fruvous.
OMG PM Dawn! Baby, you send me...
We had a dorky "You're Unbelievable!" knock-off that went "You're indivisible!" About being prime and stuff.
The Connells are not wussier than Morissey.
Aggh, I was going to guess TMBG but it seemed too obvious.
I will bet you liked, but did not own, Midnight Oil's Beds are Burning and the Church's Under the Milky Way Tonight.
I will bet you liked, but did not own, Midnight Oil's Beds are Burning and the Church's Under the Milky Way Tonight.
You're absolutely correct on the first count, but while I'd heard of the Church vaguely they didn't really have as much impact on the east coast (no KROQ for us).
I owned (well, still own) every single thing released by the Church up through Under the Milky Way Tonight.
I would start providing evidence for three claims: that the Connells are wussier than Morrissey in the "wussiest song", "least wussy song", AND "median wussiness" head-to-head regressions, but I'm only familiar with three Connells albums.
Has Morrissey ever released anything as wussy as "Waiting My Turn"?
But then they were on commercial radio and I was too cool to be listening to that, don't you know, and lost track of them altogether. This past winter, I downloaded their stuff since then out of curiosity and they've held up pretty well.
You're absolutely correct on the first count, but while I'd heard of the Church vaguely they didn't really have as much impact on the east coast (no KROQ for us).
Ah, the Dream Academy then.
Oh man. I just realized I'd been forgetting about one CD that amps the wussiness up considerably.
440 has got to be Suzanne Vega.
Nope. Dunno Dream Academy.
I'm trying to put together my high school top 10 but I think I only owned like 8 cassettes.
442: think bigger. Or at least worse.
383: this discussion is making me want to listen to Hawkwind and Gong again (admittedly, less sludge in the latter case).
I had heard of Hawkwind before because I used to read alt.magick (the tale of why I read it is an uninteresting saga of x-posting), and a Norwegian schizophrenic posted there, and he incessantly talked about Hawkwind. He incessantly talked about Hawkwind and killing people, so I always thought Hawkwind was something someone just faked up. Instead, it's actually Spinal Tap come to life. Wow. Weird.
386: The opening to "Kashmir" on its own is worth ten John Mayall's Blues Breakers, even if you secretly hope it's that Puff Daddy Godzilla song instead when you hear that riff.
Ofra Haza semi-a capella hymnal version of Kashmir.
m, now there's an awesome voice
I'm pretty sure the wussiest music is either Carl Thomas, "Emotional", or K-Ci and Jojo, "All My Life". I'm pretty sure I've cleaned up the market on wussy music.
446: I liked Sinear O'Connor a lot, but I can't remember if I ever owned an album by her, or just a Cassingle.
445: I really liked the MTV Unplugged 10,000 Maniacs, but again I'm not sure I ever owned it.
If this is going to be just twee new wave, well, I unironically dig most of that. "Life in a Northern Town" is an awesome song.
Okay, we're going out soon, so it's time:
TMBG - Flood
Rush - Farewell to Kings
Enya - Watermark
Paul Simon - Graceland, Best of Simon & Garfunkel
Indigo Girls - Indigo Girls
Souxsie and the Banshees - Superstition
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless
Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians - Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars
Have you heard the Devo cover of "Head like a Hole", Sifu?
Oh, it all seems so obvious in retrospect. I suppose it was Enya that upped the wussiness, but frankly I think that the Indigo Girls are wussier.
And you are right that the whole is wussier than the sum of its parts.
399: 7 Seconds was, IIRC, big with the "straightedge" set. (Think rather dour punks, drug-and-supposedly-alcohol-free and not at all frustrated about that, no sir.) Never got into it myself, there were too many SHARPs on the straightedge scene.
I'm trying to put together my high school top 10 but I think I only owned like 8 cassettes.
HS 10 Vinyl
It's a Beautiful Day
Surrealistic Pillow
PSRaT
Fuck I don't remember
My sisters'...she discovered sex and acid summer 68 or 69 with a German exchange student
I listened to baseball on the radio, every Sox and Cubs game including spring training;Tigers or Cards when Chicago was off until the early 70s. Poured over the Sporting News with a sliderule. Music didn't exist.
I had the last six items on your list. The Enya might have been best left a secret.
449: Good lord, how many people have written songs title "Jesse" or "Jessie?"
Everybody knows I love Sarah from Another Sunny Day and Action Painting through Heavenly and Harvest Ministers to Talulah Gosh and Wake
Just another rage-filled violent anarchist, I suppose
Is the theme "Top music from high school"? or Wussiest complilation?
399: 7 Seconds were a big deal (so far as that kind of thing goes). They weren't dour at all -- famously upbeat and positive, in fact, and not straight-edge, except that they had a "be a good person, and not a dick" message. They also wrote, and I've linked it before, "Not Just Boys Fun," which was an explicit call not to be a violent jag in the pit, so that women, who had as much right to be there as men, could join the fun. And for that I will always love them.
I meant the scene was dour, not the band.
Huh. Well if you want a former Second to teach you to lift weights, such a thing is readily available in Sacramento.
she discovered sex and acid summer 68 or 69 with a German exchange student
I just saw this movie, Das wilde Lebem. While completely insipid, the movie features the female protagonist becoming sixtiesfied by randomly hitchhiking with the members of Amon Düül on their way to Kommune 1, which was cool.
464: SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice. Nominally.
458: the cadre demands rigorous honesty lest the process of reëducation be compromised.
7 Seconds did a truly excellent version of Nina's "99 Red Balloons." Fun show the one time I saw them.
453: Wow, I have had six of those, but not Enya, Indigo, Edie Brickell or Dolby. Huh. I really can't figure Farewell to Kings, which has to be the second worst Rush record just above Caress of Steel. Why not Permanant Waves or 2112 or even Grace Under Pressure (all of which avoids the obvious choice of Moving Pictures)?
Acoustic, yet... hardcore: New Model Army - 51st State (of America)
m, woo
IIRTL70sC, in the US, punk was for white boys, and disco and reggae were for everyone else. Including white boys who wanted to be around girls. Hence the impact, both in musical terms, and in social terms (going back to the OP).
When I think of the heaviest rotation from my high school days, I think of the following:
Dylan: BOTT & Billy
Airp: Worst; Starsh: R Octo
Zep: 1-4, HOTH
Yes, ELP: ouevre to CTTE, BSS respectively (Neither taste survived the summer after senior year)
Every single person I knew, or who knew anyone I knew had Frampton Comes Alive senior year. (Hotel California came out the next year: everyone that had had FCA got HC).
FM: FM
Who: Quad
PF: DSM, WYWH
Tull: Aqualung, TAAB
Beatles: Ouevre
No girls on that list (except in Fleetwood Mac). I ended up with a girlfriend senior year (and beyond) who really liked Joni Mitchell, and then I did too.
Charley's list is similar to mine, except that most of those things were the canon, really, and not necessarily on heavy active rotation. Though I had no taste whatsoever for Jefferson Airplane. (No Rolling Stones? No Rush?)
Heavy rotation in late high school would have been Zeppelin, yes, but also Yes and King Crimson, and Tull, as well as CSNY and ELP. Some forays into Moody Blues, Black Sabbath. This is basically the art rock/prog rock that Silvana says is dude music, so go figure (her characterization makes little to no sense to me).
Just a couple of years later, that art/prog rock taste shifted to, like, Elvis Costello.
I'm blanking on what Charley's "PF: DSM, WYWH" could be.
"PF: DSM, WYWH"
Never mind. Got it. PF: ouevre.
I went through so many social transformations in high school (92-96) that you wouldn't be able to capture the progression meaningfully in 10 albums. Prior to, I listened to anything that Adam Curry featured on MTV Countdown from 1987-1991: hair metal, Miami bass and dance music getting particularly heavy rotation (I remember passionately lip syncing Whitesnake "Here I Go Again," and I can still run through the entirety of "Ice, Ice, Baby").
From 1991 to 1993, I lost interest in music and spent all my free time playing computer RPGs, though I think I bought Dr. Dre's Chronic and an Onyx single in this period (and I listened to the Doors a lot after the movie came out).
When I started smoking pot, I went straight to all the music that would likely feature in a Lollapalooza tour, Woodstock '94, or show up in the soundtrack to "Singles" and "Reality Bites."
By the time I was being discriminating (94-96), the range of things being regularly played would still include:
(1) Nirvana, In Utero
(2) Beastie Boys, Check Your Head
(3) Pharcyde, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde
(4) Ween, Chocolate and Cheese
(5) Aphex Twin, I Care Because You Do
(6) The Orb, Orbus Terrarum
(7) Portishead, Dummy
(8) Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
(9) Bad Religion, Recipe for Hate
(10) Radiohead, The Bends
I didn't get snobby (i.e., things you wouldn't here on MTV) until college.
Also, the best computer RPG was Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant.
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, is my guess.
"Ugh" to the typos in 480.
CC was making us work for some of that.
It's funny -- most of the stuff I was listening to in late high school was not contemporary. Why? Hm, well: disaffection from pop radio by that point. I mean, people were listening to Journey (!) and AC/DC. Which, okay, the latter was listenable. They were also listening to, I dunno, Christopher Cross? A person had no choice but to explore; I started with Rolling Stone magazine's 5-star album list.
I am very old. That is my take away from you people's high school lists.
I guess I have a couple years on CC, but early college 70-72 I frakking forget
Late Beatles
Moodys 1st 3
Led Zep 1st two
Quicksilver 1st 3
Dead Anthem
Soft Machine 3rd
PF Umma & AHM
Chicago I & II
Isaac Hayes
Sly Stand & Hits
Vanilla Fudge
Cheap Thrills & Kozmic
Joni Judy Collins James Taylor
CSNY & solo Neil
Santana 1 & Abraxas
Bitches Brew & Pharoah Sanders;
Creedence
Court & Poseidon & Lizard
Beautiful Day
Airplane All
This is so boring...so much stuff I didn't hear til 80s, like Astral Weeks and Forever Changes and then even more after 2000 like Fairport and Mother Earth
||
That was a fucker of a headwind. Low gear all thirteen miles home. OTOH, I hardly noticed the hills.
|>
Just horrible to not have heard Tago Mago or PFM until I was 50. I feel like I wasted some acid.
I should've known 481 would be unnecessary!
The High School Top Ten. Hmmm.
In no particular order:
METAL: (1) Metallica's "Black Album" was a must for interacting with anyone who had a mullet haircut. (I couldn't get into Slayer or Sepultura.) (2) Living Colour's "Stain" still seemed like a good idea at the time and I was being contrarian. In the rap/funk/metal subcategory, I loved (3) Faith No More's "Angel Dust," even though it wasn't as great as "The Real Thing" and hope had faded that this kind of music was the future.
ROCK: Canadian douche-rock (or alternatively, 'bag-rock if you prefer to abbreviate "douchebag" differently) was a necessity for parties; hence (4) Tom Cochrane's "Mad Mad World," about which the less said the better. But I genuinely loved (5) The Tragically Hip's "Fully, Completely," the band's eternal niche in 'bag-rock notwithstanding. (6) The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" immediately preceded their loss of Frusciante and was still great. That reprehensible musical necrophiliac (7) Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way" came along in time for senior year, and was a crossover hit with the hip-hop headz I was hanging out with at the time.
HIP-HOP, R&B: I listened to so much of this in senior year that it could have its own top ten. But the top high-school albums were (8) Cypress Hill's "Cypress Hill" and (9) Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Doggystyle". (Wu-Tang came out in '93 but too late to be high-school listening for me.) For embarrassment factor, I will see Sifu's Enya and raise him one (10) Boyz II Men's "Cooleyhighharmony". (For added cheese: I was in a wannabe boy-band quartet that covered "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday," which I also sang in a duet at prom.)
Not represented, but listened to: "grunge" (though I gamely went out and bought some plaid and listened to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains along with everybody else). Punk (which my issues with some of its visible constituents at the time -- see upthread -- mostly prevented me from fully appreciating). "Techno" and what would later be "electronica" (I had raver friends but never really got into the rave scene). Zeppelin (the stoners loved it).
That's funny pars, because the music I was listening to in HS was contemporary. Other than the Beatles -- and I should fairly specify Rubber Soul and later -- most of that came out while I was in high school. I'm not familiar at all with Rush, and don't believe I've ever heard one of their records. Abandoning prog altogether in 1976 will do that.
I guess I had Sticky Fingers, Exile on Mainstreet, and Through the Past Darkly. That's junior high for me.
Even into the late 90s, I used to say I didn't have a single record by anyone who hadn't put one out by 1975. Not strictly true, but mostly true. And I'm not particularly sorry about it: I've heard snippets of what I missed (except, apparently, Rush), and I'm not generally all that impressed. Multiply me times a zillion, and that's why the music that came out when I was in high school (72-76) and later records by the same folks (River, Wall, etc) is still on the radio. I am kind of sorry about that.
Bob's reminded me of Caravanserai.
real rocker/metal grrls are way hotter than bratty punk fashionista skank
And this is how I learned The Troll of Sorrow is gay.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
which does not seem to be on the radio still. Not that it was on the radio then either.
486: Yes, Steady NW 20+ mph and gusts in the 30s is very trying. I literally broke into tears on a ride once when the wind turned around just as I did so I got headwinds both ways.
though I gamely went out and bought some plaid
This is funny.
How come nobody listened to singer-songwriters? I do admit I haven't really read the thread, and did see some references upthread to, um, Neil Diamond (about whom you know my feelings) and to Joni Mitchell. Still, DS: no Bruce Cockburn?
It's interesting that people are mentioning chiefly bands. Maybe it's a high school thing, which may or may not carry into adult life.
The very pleasant young women across the hall from me in our freshman dorm liked the Beach Boys, and when she had it loud, 4 or 5 of us guys would gather around her door and sing the high harmonies.
Good thing punk got rid of that kind of stuff.
Good thing punk got rid of that kind of stuff.
Not likely. Punk insured that everyone was in a band.
495: Still, DS: no Bruce Cockburn?
We had a nasty joke about Bruce, sung to the tune of "If A Tree Falls in the Forest": "If a tree fell on Bruce Cockburn / would anybody care?"
What can I say, we were callow teenagers.
489: That's funny pars, because the music I was listening to in HS was contemporary.
It makes sense; you're 6 years older than me. So I was listening to stuff that was *old* by the time I got to it. The Rush thing I wouldn't worry about in the slightest: I listened because they were a thing in the eyes of a number of musicians. I still have two copies, somehow, of 2112 on vinyl.
495 -- After I got to college, I switched to the Grateful Dead major, with the David Crosby/Van Morrison/Bruce Springsteen minor.
It only just now occurs to me that parse might like those outtakes from the If I Could Only Remember My Name sessions. I'll email you some, when I get home from Idaho.
My high school playlist:
Chili Peppers
Jane's Addiction
Steely Dan
Dire Straits
Phish
Naughty By Nature
Snoop Dogg
Rolling Stones
Simon & Garfunkel
Lots of top 40 rap+hip hop
No grunge, although this was 91-95. It kind of annoyed me for not having a good beat, although now I like more of it.
497 -- Have you ever sung along with the Beach Boys' backing vocals? Or the Pips, for that matter? It's pretty much the anti-punk.
498: I was teasing you. Bruce is a fellow Canadian! Solidarity! Except for that thing about how he's so ... emotive. Eww.
I didn't really listen to popular music in high school until my senior year.
500: outtakes from the If I Could Only Remember My Name sessions
Um. Is that Grateful Dead? Uh.
504: Except for that thing about how he's so ... emotive. Eww.
Yes, and also awful. But I respect his earnestness, these days, which I didn't back then.
503: Denial is so TOS, TOS. Don't you think it's time to stop running from what you feel?
509: Oh, okay, that's cool. As long as it's not the Dead. I have trouble with the noodling, with the Dead. Apologies to all those Dead fans out there.
507: Dearheart, Cockburn isn't awful (how does that even make sense?), but his earning your respect is good enough, and should we ever meet, we can be peaceable about this matter.
511: Fair enough. ("Awful" was too harsh, I feel a little bad about that.)
511 is completely correct.
Really, Cockburn has worked in so many different styles it's hard to imagine that you would object to all of them. For example "Going to the County," "Tokyo," "Call It Democracy" are all pretty different from each other.
Ooh, this is a fun exercise. My high school favorites are hugely embarrassing, I think:
Mariah Carey - Musicbox
En Vogue - Funky Divas
Matchbox 20 - Yourself or Someone Like You
Tori Amos - From the Choirgirl Hotel, Little Earthquakes
Jewel - Pieces of You
Alannis Morrisette - Jagged Little Pill
Beastie Boys - Hello, Nasty
Ani DiFranco - Living in the Clip
Sublime - Sublime
Loreena McKennitt - The Book of Secrets
Green Day - Dookie
This is from 1995-1999. I essentially didn't listen to much music beyond my parents' stuff (so, folk, bluegrass, americana) until about 1997. I'm sure there are some other influential high school singles, but these are the albums I played all the time. I have slightly better taste now.
513.2: Oh, it's possible to work badly in multiple styles. But I'm not defending the "awful" thing, really.
476: ,em>Every single person I knew, or who knew anyone I knew had Frampton Comes Alive senior year.
Much as with Hawkwind, I often wondered if Peter Frampton was imaginary. Never heard him on the radio, never had any of his records. Hell, when I was 11 or so, I wanted to go to the Longhorn Ballroom and see the Sex Pistols, even though that was the show they were going to play the night after they broke up (so I could not have gone anyways).
m, Frampton who?
Someone has to make everyone else look better. Very commercial list, very 90s teen girl.
To share in the embarrassment, I know that Ani album well enough to know the actual title was "Living In Clip."
"Hello, Nasty" is still a respectable choice.
Jewel's writing eventually inspired the greatest poetry book of all time.
Oops. "Living in Clip" is actually still in heavy rotation, so I shouldn't have made that mistake. "Hello, Nasty" was me trying to channel the spirit of one of my much, much cooler friends.
I know that Ani album well enough to know the actual title was "Living In Clip."
And it's really quite good (if not uniformly so).
Oh my god. It dawns on me that I forgot one. One that should remain locked away in my memory, but, well, I still have the CD (though I haven't listened to it in about 10 years).
Ace of Base
Ace of Base
I CAST THEE OUT!!! THE POWER OF THE RIFF COMPELS YOU!!!
521: Yes, the old Ani was pretty great. Before she lost her anger, which seems too common a story.
ok, are the people on about better opera from before the invention of recording actually talking about how opera needs castrati? they stopped being manufactured about the right time for only a few to be recorded.
Alannis Morrisette - Jagged Little Pill
The Valedictory speech at my graduation was crafted around individual lines from "Ironic." The people at my high school were really cheesy. I remember the biggest instance of absenteeism occurred the day tickets were to go on sale for a Jimmy Buffett concert.
Sifu's high school music collection is alarmingly close to my own, although I'm proud to say that I remain Rush-free.
Also REALLY popular at my high school: Hootie and the Blowfish
Top 5, Sophomore year of HS:
Simon and Garfunkel
Billy Joel
Beatles, (Revolver and later).
Styx
John Denver
Top 5 Junior year of HS
Beefeater.
9353
Subhumans (UK)
Minor Threat
Marginal Man
finding actual blues to be completely boring, and thus knowing almost nothign about it, i could totally believe the difference between the white blues and black blues bands is the white ones are playing with more expensive sound equipment.
528: I had their CD too but I never listened to it very much. The best part is that all of these albums remain in my possession.
527: that's hilarious, and unsurprising for some reason.
hm, top five sophomore year:
*mxpx
*five iron frenzy
top five junior year:
*stone roses
*beatles (revolver and later)
*blur
i forget the other ones, but those make for a nice inversion of robs list
Wow, holy crap, 514 is a shining example of embarassment for us all. Well played. Truth be told, I have kind of a shameful thing for Sublime. I blame it on being a white southern Californian.
Honestly, my high school taste was not that dissimilar from my taste now (more like lots of lots of additions than rejecting things that I liked then). It helped that I started smoking pot at 13 (gave it up completely at 19). I still like Metallica and Iron Maiden and Public Enemy and Soul2Soul and Miles Davis and DeeLite and Nirvana. I guess I no longer like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Guns 'n' Roses.
I'm not sure my list is quite right, because somewhere in that time I started listening to my father's record collection, which he never listened to but still had around. I remember there were about 6 albums by The Moody Blues and another half dozen by the Modern Jazz Quartet. All of that would have cropped up in top five lists for both sophomore and junior year of HS.
i wonder if the thing abotu british music thus:
small island & bbc -> most everyone listens to the same kind of stuff -> trends are bigger since fewer subcultures can survive
I guess I pretended to like the Grateful Dead for about three months in early high school. Then I hated them for about 20 years, and now I kind of like them, for reals.
Oh, Janes Addiction. Possibly the biggest band of my early high school years. I still like them, although honestly I haven't listened to them in years and years and years.
When I was in high school, the only music that I listened to was the Dead. Ok, I also listened to the Jerry Garcia Band. And sometimes Little Feat.
Various Dead shows on cassette tapes mostly.
I think my rat bastard brother stole my original Steal Your Face record, Blues for Allah, and Mars Hotel.
High school was 83-86 for me, and there were two distinct sets of music I was listening to in roughly equal amounts:
Group A was holdovers from junior high: Van Halen, Aerosmith, Kiss, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy/Black Sabbath, Hendrix
Group B: Bauhaus, R.E.M., Meat Puppets, The Church, U2, The Cult, The Cure, XTC, Peter Gabriel, Dead Kennedys, electric Miles Davis
From 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM on most Saturday nights in 1995-1996, I was generally hearing a continuous remix of these three songs at the after hours I went to:
(1) Robert Miles, "Children"
(2) Josh Wink, "Higher State of Consciousness"
(3) Rabbit in the Moon, "O.B.E."
Top 40 Radio really has nothing on the club scene in terms of wearing out tracks.
My hair is too pretty to dread, Will.
Oh, will.
Sorry, parse, but the clips I sent are a little noodlish. I was getting hungry, and didn't really wait for your responses before I got them going. I did have a nice Basque dinner, though, so, you know, it wasn't a total loss.
Fall of my freshman year, I was all set to go to the Last Waltz. Would have been cool, I think. But my girlfriend convinced me to go to Tahoe instead and have a lot of sex with her. I'm not sorry about that.
I love the internet for how easy it is to find new-to-you music.
Currently, I love the Orishas, Tinariwen, Avett Brothers, Bon Iver, Old Crow Medicine Show, RL Burnside, and Galactic.
Galactic
Ding ding ding. They are really great. Amazingly, my 65 year old bureaucrat mother turned me on to them.
Not as good as the Betty Davis album linked above, though.
My, uh, 77 year old mother, who has in general astonishing musical taste, is really into Vampire Weekend these days.
I forgot Vampire Weekend. And oudemia turned me on to Serge Gainsburg.
As early as middle school I was trying to cultivate good musical taste, reading the SPIN Alternative Record Guide, realizing that logically the stuff actually on the radio is a tiny subset of the music that I could buy, and spending hour after hour paging through the catalogs of distro websites and record labels which distributed other record labels (mostly Sub Pop and Matador). The local record store chain was very good and actually had Magnet and The Big Takeover magazines. I tried to record 120 Minutes every week. At around 14 my favorite albums were by Guided By Voices, Superchunk, Luna, Velocity Girl, Dinosaur Jr, Curve, Magnapop, and Rocket From The Crypt, in addition to Weezer, Green Day, Rancid, Pennywise, and NOFX like my friends. And the Sisters of Mercy.
I remember being disappointed by some bands like Polvo, Helium, Arcwelder, and aMiniature who were encomiated by Magnet Magazine. "This must be for college students", I thought.
Prior to, I listened to anything that Adam Curry featured on MTV Countdown from 1987-1991
Curry on the original Coutndown was always the highlight of the week in the mid-eighties for me. Once he buggered off to the states and MTV that was that for us though, as my parents were probably the only family in the country not to take full cable tv but only the standard channels, barely more than you could get with an aerial. I missed everything good on tv until about '95.
I had a really boring, limited taste in music in high school: lots of metal: Maiden, Anthrax, Slayer, Sepultura, Guns 'N Roses, then Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Megadeth, Biohazard, etc. etc. Other than that it was mostly Springsteen, some Dutch pop (Doe Maar, Toontje Lager, het Goede Doel) and misc. crap.
Sifu's list is what I listened to in college, once I got sick of classic rock. Not the Enya, though. I had some standards.
I haven't listened to the Indigo Girls in a long time, but I remember them being good. Aren't they good?
Top Ten Albums, High School: 1983-1986
(E/dina, shh, don't tell anyone)
Violent Vemmes s/t
Zen Arcade Husker Du
Armed Forces, Elvis
Fire of Love, Gun Club
Let It Be, Replacements
Rattlesnakes, Lloyd Cole
High Land, Hard Rain, Aztec Camera
Talking To The Taxman About Poetry, Billy Bragg
II & II , Camper Van
Rain Dogs, Tom Waits
I was a big friendless loser.
As mentioned above, high school was mostly about heavy metal or rock for me. So, from about age 13 - 16, or so, the top albums would probably have been something like:
Iron Maiden - Live After Death [live album, but it was the first album of theirs I bought]
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Guns'N'Roses - AFD
Megadeth - Peace Sells
Testament - The Legacy
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Blood Sugar, etc
Living Colour - Vivid
Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking [although it was more their live show that blew me away than the album itself]
and various poppier/glammier rock bands [Bon Jovi, Poison, Cinderella, Faster Pussycat, et al], which influenced the sort of music I was playing in bands at the time, but not really what I listened to at home much. But around about age 16/17 I had a massive epiphany which stemmed in part from listening to more alternative/indie music [influenced in part by the Jane's Addiction album]. So, by the time I was the equivalent of a US high school senior and the year after, it was:
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew [total breakthrough album for me, the single album that almost completely changed what I listened to]
Tom Waits- Swordfishtrombones
Public Enemy - Apocalypse '91*
Stravinsky - The Firebird [and some other 20th c. classical stuff]
Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory
Joni Mitchell - Hejira**
plus various funk and funk-rock things. James Brown, Funkadelic, Fishbone, Defunkt, etc. I had a friend at the time who was a couple of years ahead of me at school who'd gotten heavily into jazz and was feeding me lots of classic bebop and late 50s/early 60s stuff. And I still listened to a fair bit of metal at the time, too.
* that was the album that came out around the time, it was a several years later before I heard their classic late 80s albums.
** still the only album of hers I regularly listen to.
Argh, that previous comment came out a lot longer than I expected ...
re: 552
You liked some good stuff in high school!
Yeah, 552 is boringly respectable.
I couldn't remember who En Vogue was until this second. Liking them is also not embarrassing.
What did I listen to at "high school"?
1. Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced?
2. Cream: Disraeli Gears (and the rest)
3. Jefferson Airplane: After Bathing at Baxters
4. John Mayall: Hard Road (featuring Peter Green)
5. Julie Driscoll/Brian Auger: Open
And anything the Beatles and the Stones came out with, etc. yadda, yadda... And then I saw Muddy live and began to understand.
555: Thanks! Will you be my friend? I didn't so much get that reaction at the time, though in retrospect this perhaps did not stem merely from my musical taste.
On preview, I apologize for what appears in the rear-view mirror (but so not, at least in my circles, at the time) to be my boringness and respectableness.
Aren't they good?
At music, not so much. But apparently they rock the Times crossword.
556: I couldn't remember who En Vogue was until this second. Liking them is also not embarrassing.
Yes it bloody is!
Somehow, I had not heard of Galactic before this thread. Loving it!
Given that Apo and I seem to have completely disjoint musical preferences, I guess that means I shouldn't bother with them.
Huh. Despite my total lack of interest in music, a surprising amount of this stuff is familiar from what friends were listening to in high school.
Filling in the time gap between bob and CC in high school
Cream Disraeli Gears--first purchased album; CSN&Y; Neil Young; King Crimson; Pink Floyd: Meddle; ELP; The Nice; The Who Who's Next; Airplane; James Gang (local interest); Stones Sticky Fingers; Bowie; Simon & Garfunkel; Judy Collins.
I'm confused by Blanding's statement that liking those bands made him a loner weirdo in Minnesota. My impression was that everyone in the Twin Cities was handed a bunch of Replacements albums and a healthy spoonful of indie-rock music snobbery at birth.
The first tape I bought, I think, was Europe's The Final Countdown. Then something by Men Without Hats, and Alphaville's The Breathtaking Blue, which was my favorite thing for a year in high school. I got into jazz partly because I liked it and partly because nobody else was into it so being into it wouldn't lock me in to any one social group (I didn't consider the high probability that it would contribute to my alienation from all the social groups). So I got a couple albums by Branford Marsalis, then picked up the Thelonious Monk Blue Note compilation (by this time on CD).
I wasn't really into music enough until college to even attempt a real top 10 for high school. I will admit to having owned Living in Clip and attending an Ani concert and an Indigo Girls concert (the latter because I was bored one summer and some people I sort of knew were taking a road trip down to Las Cruces for it).
The Final Countdown is completely redeemed by this cover.
568 is surprisingly charming. Forgivably off-key but it's not like I'm going to download his version to my ipod, so.
re: 568
B lle and Sbastian made a half-hearted stab at covering it at a gig a while back, too. Which makes for some sort of Ghostbusters-style crossing-the-beams event.
It didn't make me a loner weirdo; it just didn't do anything to prevent it, as my particular suburban high school was not the one where they were handing out Stink.
Of course, Mpls itself was loaded with cool record stores and had lots of great all-ages shows (I was lucky enough to see the Replacements live a couple of times in the Bob Stinson days).
I should probably mention at this point that the first two albums I owned were the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and Billy Joel's The Stranger.
Oooh, I just remembered something embarrassing. I think the first CD that I owned was Synchronicity by the Police. I think that was a gift, but I definitely owned and listened to Ten Sumner's Tales after that.
My favorite band in high school was probably the Replacements; I wore out my copies of Sorry, Ma; Stink; and Let It Be -- and then pouted a whole lot when Tim came out because I hated it. But pawing through my records, besides the obvious punk rock, I find that I was really, really into a whole bunch of jangly collegey-type stuff -- like The Feelies, and Dumptruck, and Euro-jangle like Aztec Camera (oh 12-strings, I still love you so) and The Bluebells.
In short: Blandings and I could have been hs friends and drunk Egly-Ouriet together at keggers.
Oh, the first album I asked for and received was the Shawn Cassidy album (he covered "De Doo Run Run"!!!). The first album I bought with my own money was the Kinks' Give the People What They Want. 5th grade. I am ooooold.
The first albums I owned were Loverboy, Lovin' Every Minute Of It, and Dana Dane, Dana Dane With Fame. At least I had taste, fools.
The first records I remember being mine were a Sesame Street album and a Jackson 5 single that was cut off the back of a cereal box. They got played on my white and orange plastic all-in-one record player. The first records I bought with my own allowance money were 45s of "In the Navy" and "YMCA". The first dozen or so albums I owned were all by KISS.
573: My own high-school tastes are responsible for my knowing that you meant Ten Summoner's Tales.
I didn't develop any respectable taste until college.
reading the SPIN Alternative Record Guide,
This was big for me, especially for getting into the proto-punk and post-punk roots of the music that was coming out at the time. I was also reading All Music Guide in its early years, 1996-1997.
3. Jefferson Airplane: After Bathing at Baxters
This album needs more love. It's as weird and great as the pre-Meddle Floyd, The United States of America, and Silver Apples, which are respectable these days.
Oh, the first album I asked for and received was the Shawn Cassidy album (he covered "De Doo Run Run"!!!).
I was going to say you spelled all four words in that song title wrong, but it looks like "Da Doo Ron Ron" is more common than "Da Do Ron Ron".
I believe the first album I bought may have been a cassette of Steeleye Span's All Around My Hat.
I'm not even sure how humiliating a confession that is. Possibly it means I'm cool -- I doubt it, but anything's possible.
570: I think what it shows is that kid's piano and ukeleles have richer and more musical tones than mid-80s keyboards costing thousands of dollars.
Heh. Well, poor "Shaun"* got left in the back of the car and got warped pretty early on. Also, my Hardy Boy allegiance switched to Parker Stevenson (ph? who knows! I am not looking that up).
*I remembered that it wasn't Sean, because my cousin Sean was like "Why can't he spell his name?"
When I was a kid I didn't really like any music except the Stray Cats. At age 11 I started buying cassettes, starting with new jack swing but within a couple months shifting to things like Counting Crows and Stone Temple Pilots. The indie-rock 120 Minutes period wasn't for a couple more years.
You were only 11 when the Counting Crows came out? Jeebus.
I used to obsessively go through a bunch of those guides. I had the Trouser Press guide too.
My first single was "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson. Years later, on a whim, I went to see Joe Jackson in concert. He was good, much better than on record.
My first album was Kilroy Was Here, by Styx. It turned out the only song I liked on it was the single, "Mr. Roboto".
Huh. Somehow I thought Cryptic Ned was around 5 years older than me. Not sure why.
People born in the 80s should be banned.
590: Halle-fucking-lujah. The best thing we could to combat global warming would be to ban everybody born in the 80s.
Albums that obsessed me in '94-'98:
Parklife/Definitely Maybe/Music for the Jilted Generation/Dig Your Own Hole/How To Operate With a Blown Mind/Tellin' Stories/Remedy.
