I struggle with the proposition that there exist people who like Fleetwood Mac and/or constituent parts thereof.
My early adolescent crush on Chrissie Hynde, discussed here previously, is alive and well. I lurve her.
2: I feel nothing at all about Journey.
OT: I cannot be the only one who finds documentaries/magazine articles/etc. about successful Hollywood producers repetitive. Cough HBO's Jerry Weintraub hagiography cough The Kid Stays in the Picture cough. That Tolstoy quote about families probably applies, mutatis mutandis. How many up-from-booking-comedians-in-the-Catskills narratives can people enjoy?
I almost want to do a post entirely on how much I hate Journey. It's not just the hate, but how often one is bombarded with:
Just a smalltown boy
Born and raised in South Detroit
Took a midnight train going an-y-where...
deedle-deedey-deedle-deedey-deedle-deedey-deedle-deedley...
I confess to an abiding fondness for Rumours, and my teenage self desired Stevie Nicks intensely. That said, I haven't heard the album in ages except for "Songbird", which is painfully gauzy as a love song but sweet as a lullaby.
5: You've forgotten how awesome their other songs are. Here, listen to this.
I like L. Buckingham's solo things, I like "You Make Lovin' Fun" (not Buckingham/Nicks), I like "Age of Seventeen", I like "Silver Springs". The line "You'll never get away from the sound of the woman who loves you" is pretty memorable. Why the word "sound"?
I have been liking Tusk, which is new to me. I hadn't listened to much Fleetwood Mac prior.
And god, in the videos, the Journey guy is so passionate about his pain. I want to punch him.
Fleetwood Mac I think had moments, but Journey, blah. Although I do think "Don't Stop Believin'" was an inspired choice for The Sopranos ending. (Personally, I fill the blackness with Frank Booth coming out of the men's room with his oxygen mask on (I use him a lot).)
Personally, I fill the blackness with Frank Booth coming out of the men's room with his oxygen mask on (I use him a lot).
It may be time for a discussion of TMI, and precisely what sorts of I we don't want TM of.
I don't know. I'd read Frank Booth/Edith Wilson slashfic.
There are moments that were specifically created to be inhabitated by Journey songs. Finding those moments and filling them with the right Journey song is a holy endeavor. Unfortunately the problem for the past few decades, the 2000s and the 1980s more than the intervening one, has been that many moments created for some other purpose or for no purpose at all have been inhabitated by a Journey song which does not belong in them, leaving both the Journey songs and the moments angry at both the gods and man.
Fleetwood Mac is a little more all-purpose.
I have been liking Tusk.
For those who, like me, are unfamiliar with the album. Lindsey Buckingham apparently decided that he really, really didn't want to make Rumors 2 and that he wanted to do something more new-wave. He wrote half of the songs on the (double) album, which sit oddly and somewhat fascinatingly next to the Nicks and McVie songs.
15 is great. Tusk is great. Fleetwood Mac is like 10 different bands but 3 of them are amazing. Actually, I'm going to see Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks together in concert in a few weeks. Perhaps I will grow out my hair, then feather it.
It's kind of incredible how familiar every single song is on Rumors.
I confess to an abiding fondness for Rumours, and my teenage self desired Stevie Nicks intensely.
Yes, this.
There are moments that were specifically created to be inhabited by Journey songs.
Yes, this, with extra emphasis. Hearing five notes of "Who's Cryin' Now" carries me back to a particular moment in high school as if it were happening all over again.
Since this is the music thread, here's a suitable soundtrack for bobbing for pigs' feet. Contains no Journey or Fleetwood Mac.
Sleazy Greasy Cheap & Easy
01 The Raconteurs - Consoler of the Lonely
02 Black Pistol Fire - Bottle Rocket
03 Left Lane Cruiser - Cracker Barrel
04 Kasey Anderson and The Honkies - The Wrong Light
05 Elizabeth Cook - Rock 'n Roll Man
06 Ponderosa - Revolution
07 The Wynntown Marshals - You Can Have My Heart
08 Ray Wylie Hubbard - Down Home Country Blues
09 Kieran Kane - Way Down Below
10 Say Hi - Devils
11 Mark Growden - You Ain't Never Been Loved
12 Trampled by Turtles - Wait So Long
13 Rodney DeCroo - River Boat
14 Justin Townes Earle - Move Over Mama
15 Jessica Lea Mayfield - Our Hearts Are Wrong
16 Clem Snide - Westernly
17 The Red Hills - I'm a Mudslide, I'm a Nightmare
18 Deer Tick - Mange
19 The Dead Weather - Hustle and Cuss
20 Mike Ethan Messick - Must Be Time (featuring Mark Jungers & The Trishas)
21 Two Cow Garage - Skinny Legged Girl
22 Slobberbone - Haze of Drink
It seems we're just a few comments away from the 13,000 x Kobe-th comment.
On the subject of Fleetwood Mac, I think we didn't listen to much of them because my folks were pretty sure it would make me gay. And yet I was allowed to listen to the Moody Blues!
||
Length of chapter two, in toto: 13,500 words.
Length of chapter five, section one: 10,000 words.
HMMM.
|>
What's up with that "so" in the first quoted paragraph?
pretty sure it would make me gay
22 won't make you gay if you weren't already, but it might make you really slutty for a week or two. Caveat emptor.
I cannot be the only one who finds documentaries/magazine articles/etc. about successful Hollywood producers repetitive
I assume that the main reason most of these get written is LA is full of people who need to suck up to the subjects of these biographies.
22:downloading. Of course. Thanks
Journey sucked. Boston was good.
Fleetwood Mac is like 10 different bands but 3 of them are amazing.
This, but maybe 5 are good.
deedle-deedey-deedle-deedey-deedle-deedey-deedle-deedley...
this has managed to get stuck in my head a Kindermusik tune about a fly marrying a bumble bee.
That's very funny, a fly marrying a bumble bee.
I told you I'd shoot! But you didn't believe me!
In my mind, "Don't Stop Believing" is almost exclusively connected with Aileen Wuornos as portrayed in Monster. I think that movie killed everything else I used to associate with that song.
26: Unless you're being guided by some ornate architectonic, make the first section of chapter five into its own chapter. In any case, print it off and hand it in on its own. Picking up a fifty page dissertation chapter is dispiriting.
28: Caveat emptor or carpe emptor? Hmmm?
Yeah, I really should find some way to do that; there's a slight problem in that (as currently conceived) all the pieces of the fifth chapter fit together more tightly than any of the chapters fits with any other. The real problem is that the problem the fifth chapter is supposed to address is gigantic.
28: Caveat emptor or carpe emptor? Hmmm?
Or carpe emptorem?
I mean "find some way to do that" other than just declaring the first section to be a chapter, which is obviously possible.
pop music really does allow men more opportunities to experiment with fashion and to decorate themselves than most fields.
Just last night, M/tch and I were lamenting the lack of Adam Ant in our lives.
Journey sucked. Boston was good.
I still have Boston's first album, and "More Than a Feeling" still rocks.
|| It is good to get Becks-style in the sun, in the yard, in shorts and a cami, while digging holes in the dirt.|>
||Oh, also, I miss you guys and regret my recent real world period of productivity.|>
Di sounds so cheerful that I can only assume she's burying UNG.
37: Can you turn each of the chapter-sections into a chapter, then group the chapters in a book-section?
I do not know who Lindsey Buckingham is.
Obviously that was incredibly important information.
Also, I second 42.2. Steal? Usurp? Whatever; me too.
Also! If anyone feels like reading something in order to annoy themselves into a cardiac event, you know, because you're bored and you have the insurance or something, I can help with that. (OT, since I have no idea who that mannish lesbian Lindsey in the OP is.)
46, 49: By this point in the thread, you should.
The real problem is that the problem the fifth chapter is supposed to address is gigantic.
Have you considered turning this chapter into your thesis?
43: Only metaphorically. Rory went with the fiance to the dress fitting the other day and chose to wear the shirt Leo gave her for her birthday. She also wore the shirt when we had dinner with UNG and the fiance for Rory's b-day. Whatever the future with Leo may be, I find this deeply gratifying.
Today, I am building my garden and deciding whether i want to pursue an academic job opportunity. And drinking local beers. Life is good.
and i don't know Lindsey Buckingham, either.
(Heebie, I feel you in particular owe penance for that list of Journey songs. Seriously? They've all blended together in my ear in one hellish, treacly soup. Why would you do this to people you like?)
Apo, 22 is fantastic. I am also hoping for slutty.
IME, slutty is a great way to stop bereaving. ymmv, but we'll never know until you try and then report back.
Stanley, how does your brain work? In some sort of delightful way, sure, but what about specifics?
It would be easier if I could pretend I took some sort of vow of chastity or something.
Um. This will be the first place I report. Obvs.
(Running off to Home Depot, don't want to be rude.)
lindsay buckingham's "trouble" is a good song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCRNDQNjCK4
@50
It's hard to tell who the bigger douchebag is, the author or the subject of the article.
37: then turn Chapter 5 into your dissertation, which you'll enjoy writing more as a consequence of your engagement with the huge problem at hand. And then hive the rest of the chapters off into articles. I'm here to help. Because I have love to give.
I hadn't seen Minivet's 52 when I wrote my 63. Now I feel shame rather than love. And I can't say for certain that I have much useful help to give.
52 and 63, incidentally, are the exact advice given to Leo re: his thesis by his de facto advisor. It must be odd having that much of value in your head and worth writing about.
29 I cannot be the only one who finds documentaries/magazine articles/etc. about successful Hollywood producers repetitive
Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I got what it takes. She said "I'll turn you on sonny to something strong, play the song with the funky break"
VH1: .. meanwhile, behind the scenes, things were beginning to fall apart.
46. It was required study for people in the suburbs. Mailed out like samples of Tide of something.
Mmm, Adam Ant. It was all done so badly, especially compared to David Bowie; and yet, be still my heart.
Fleetwood Mac is like 10 different bands but 3 of them are amazing.
This is exactly right,
Actually, I'm going to see Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks together in concert in a few weeks.
I've always had a bit of a crush on Rod Stewart, and
Perhaps I will grow out my hair, then feather it.
Please do.
I had no idea who Lindsey Buckingham was until this thread. Fleetwood Mac was roughly in my timeline, and I seem to be familiar with a number of their individual songs, but not with discrete albums. I just didn't find anything of interest to follow in them, I think, though I didn't eschew them (as I did Journey); I suspect it's because I identified them with Stevie Nicks, and female-lead-singer bands usually don't capture my attention.
Boston was okay. I liked Kansas enough to buy an album. On a scale of one to ten in terms of interest/liking:
Journey: 2
Fleetwood Mac: 4, respectfully
Boston: 5
Kansas: 7
I feel like Chicago needs mentioned. Anybody really know what time it is?
Resolved: Bands named after places suck.
I'm telling you, Kansas was pretty good! I never paid attention to Chicago.
72 gets it exactly right.
You know who I had a crush on until I heard her smoker's cough? Kim whatsherface from The Kills, who also does the vocals on most of the The Dead Weather stuff.
Really. Listen to the intro on - shit, what's it called? Cheap and cheerful? Instant (lady)boner-killer.
Whenever I think of the state of Kansas (which I'm ashamed to admit I've never visited), I think of dust in the wind. Accurate?
I love Stevie Nicks. All that flowing fabric: she really knows how to make the most of a piece of chiffon. I recall watching the Grammies when I was a kid, and my mother saying of Stevie, 'Isn't she pretty? But God love her heart, that poor girl must be on drugs.'
72 gets it exactly right.
You know who I had a crush on until I heard her smoker's cough? Kim whatsherface from The Kills, who also does the vocals on most of the The Dead Weather stuff.
Really. Listen to the intro on - shit, what's it called? Cheap and cheerful? Instant (lady)boner-killer.
In fact, it is 2x the lady boner killer.
70 is bizarre to the point of making me actually want to check up on Parsimon to make sure she's OK.
Wrongshore is right that Journey has its place, but "Don't Stop Believing" really should not be an occasional joke, not in the Eighth Inning of every goddamn baseball game I go to.
Resolved: Bands named after places suck.
Why do you hate America?
Also, the Berlin Philharmonic is actually pretty good.
52/63: this advice comes rather late. And to 63 specifically, I definitely would not enjoy doing that (or rather there I would definitely not enjoy doing 70% of that and to really do the 30% I might enjoy right I'd have to enter a completely different program).
I mean, to be honest, I don't think it's that big of a problem. I think it's basically been addressed sufficiently well many times over. But mine is a minority view.
75: I don't know if it's accurate about the state of Kansas, but that's a Kansas song. Also "Carry on my Wayward Son," and "The Wall." Wikipedia tells me that Kansas is/was a prog rock band, so there you go. I was beginning to form early tastes, though I didn't know it at the time.
78.1: How so? That list was to reflect my responses to their music at the time.
I also hate Asia, so there's that.
The Berlin Philharmonic is not a band. However, having perused a list of bands named after placed, I must admit that I like Beirut and Portishead.
I'm taking these comments all the way to 1400000.
87: I'm not sure MovableType or the server have that kind of stamina.
You have to keep commenting until the roots of the server's hair turn red.
And the blog falls silent as the commentariat contemplates the possibility.
I always thought Lindsey Buckingham was a girl. Perhaps the girl who sang "You Make Loving Fun". But no.
81: well, as Mary Catherine's mum always said, "It's never too late for good advice." Of course there's no knowing if the advice on offer is any good. And, based on your follow-up, it's probably quite bad. So, let's chalk this up to one of those very rare occasions when MC's mum overstated her case.
I'm just contemplating my navel what my musically-inclined life was like in, say, 1980, and wondering at the idea that there's a right and a wrong about which bands were appropriate to like or dislike.
Some of you weren't alive in 1980, correct?
Musing: there was no internet, so you were limited to pop radio and whatever researches you or your friends had done into things that weren't heard on the radio. An exploratory time! There was something to be said for it.
P.S. Journey sucks.
I was alive (what bliss!) in 1980. Even then, there were bands that were right and wrong to like.
I was not alive in 1980. But at least now I'm old enough to be spending Saturday night drinking and doing my taxes.
Even then, there were bands that were right and wrong to like.
Within certain limits, I guess, certainly. But is it wrong of me to think that some time in the 70s, into the 80s, a divergence of tastes emerged?
I'm not a scholar of music history by any means, but it seems to me that there was a resurgence of pop somewhere around that time, and people started moving in one direction or another: either you favor musicianship, or you don't, as much.
That's how it felt to me, in any case. I have no doubt that similar cleavages have occurred since, so I'm certainly not suggesting that this was a pivotal time, but as lived, at the time, it felt like you knew what was formulaic and what wasn't.
Looks like I owe about $10. In the past I've always either owed or been owed hundreds of dollars. Such a trivial amount of money seems silly. Can't I just, like, buy Uncle Sam a drink sometime and call it even?
If you get Uncle Sam good and liquored up, I bet that without too much effort you could convince him that our Manifest Destiny demands that we conquer Canada. Then I'll be able to have all the Tim Horton maple donuts I want!
99: I think that says more about you being at a certain age at that time. I'd be hardpressed to think of any time that didn't have formulaic pop, clever entertaining pop, alternative music, some formulaic and some not, etc.
Buckingham looks a little like Rahm Emanuel in that first pic.
102: I think that says more about you being at a certain age at that time.
I've posed that possibility a couple of times, yeah, though it's not just my being a certain age, it's that (Anglo-American) society was in a certain frame of mind at the time. Lady Gaga sucks, also.
Just kidding. But look: put someone who was a terrific fan of Zeppelin and the Stones and Genesis and Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and The Band and Jethro Tull into this era and ask him or her whether it's right or wrong to like Lady Gaga.
I can't get a grip on this idea that there are bands that are right and wrong to like -- unless we're just talking about shitty musicians.
94: I wasn't alive in 1980, but I thought this was rather evocative of how arcane an endeavor it once was find non-popular music, from the review of Keith Richard's memoir (passworded):
Keith sees [Jagger] around town, selling ice cream in front of Dartford town hall, and in the fullness of time they bond over records:Did we hit it off? You get in a carriage with a guy that's got Rockin' at the Hops by Chuck Berry on Chess Records, and The Best of Muddy Waters also under his arm, you are gonna hit it off. It's the real shit. I had no idea how to get hold of that.
Mick "had the London thing down," had contacts, a catalog from Chess records... Mick had seen Buddy Holly play, and played the Buddy Holly songs he heard--if he didn't play them, he wouldn't hear them--in bars around Dartford.
...They depended, for their force, on a body-memory of those early cravings for music they knew only by rumor and innuendo. Other cravings, for drugs and fame, were not sufficient, and had much more dire downsides. The early Stones were in a constant huddle, dissecting blues songs in front of the speakers and playing them back for each other and then for their few fans. They thought of themselves, not even as a band, really, but as a way of distributing music the radio never played.
A friend's adopted two-year-old son confided in her that "I figured out who my birth mother is."
She hasn't actually hidden that information from him, just paced it out. "Who?" she asked.
"Lady Gaga," he said.
She doesn't want to disabuse him of the notion, but she doesn't want him to ever feel she lied to him. I suggested an "I can neither confirm nor deny" response.
From back in the day (circa 1980): Disco Sucks! That was a whole genre that was not right (for some people) to like.
Earlier today I was meeting a friend for coffee and I mentioned Orly Taitz. He didn't know if he knew her, so I started to google her name for him and was surprised when my phone suggested "orly taitz lady gaga" as what search terms I must have been after.
Also, parsimon: you do know that Lady Gaga can actually, like, sing for real and play the piano for real, right? She's not Rebecca Black.
Resolved: Bands named after places suck.
You're forgetting about Europe.
Robert Plant can't sing in the right key to save his life, also.
Rumours is all kinds of awesome. I listened to it on 8 track.
As is Tusk. What a great hate song. Definitely on my anti-Valentine's list.
106: That was a good review. It obviously wasn't as difficult to come by music in the mid/late seventies as it was then, so the echo made me wince a bit.
109.2: Yes, I know. I'm not dissing Lady Gaga's actual musicianship: she's just an easy reference for something. Am I wrong in thinking that her popular hits don't necessarily reflect her singing and playing ability?
OT: Just saw a documentary called The Parking Lot. Excellent!
This is the only recording of Tusk it's okay to like.
Disco does suck.
Okay! I submit! There were right and wrong things to like!
Shit.
||
Hartley & Digby on Lumet
That's my comment at #1. Compassion & empathy for losers and sinners, Lumet went a couple steps past liberal I think. I liked his NYC too.
|>
114: my roommate works at that parking lot.
Without disco, I never would have heard the story of how my favorite high-school science teacher paid his way through grad school by winning cash prizes in disco-dancing competitions, so I think it's a net win.
119: Well, I did learn how to do the hustle.
Just kidding. But look: put someone who was a terrific fan of Zeppelin and the Stones and Genesis and Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and The Band and Jethro Tull into this era and ask him or her whether it's right or wrong to like Lady Gaga.
Yo.
I won't say. You forgot Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou all poignant in bluejeans and peasant blouses and personal heartache informed by smoke and cocaine.
Every generation has its own style. Lady Gaga might scare the dogs on my lawn but she and her fans are ok by me.
124:How does the blog attract such people.
123: Bob gets it right. So I can have liked Kansas when I was 14, okay?!
As for disco, it's just not my cup of tea, but y'all who are into it are fine, though I don't really remember how to do the hustle any more.
Thinking about high school teachers reminds me that my high school psychology teacher once gave an impromptu lecture on who Stevie Nicks was sleeping with when, and how it affected the sound of Fleetwood Mac.
Surely this is the best Freaks and Geeks disco dancing scene.
"They don't care that ReRun's fat, because he's got the moves."
Actually, maybe this was even a better Freaks and Geeks disco scene.
What a great show.
I had totally forgotten that Lizzy Caplan was on Freaks and Geeks.
||
I should put this in a more appropriate thread, but if people haven't seen it:
Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone column on Paul Ryan's budget plan. The opening is typically snotty on Taibbi's part -- which I find enjoyable.
|>
99.4. Heh heh. She said *cleavage*.
In re Gaga... I kinda dig whichever album it is Leo gave me. He, however, would surely marry Gaga if he could.
99.4. Heh heh. She said *cleavage*.
In re Gaga... I kinda dig whichever album it is Leo gave me. He, however, would surely marry Gaga if he could.
And I'll just say plainly: if you guys aren't reading Balloon Juice, you're missing something. (Never mind the comment threads; the posts are good.)
My twelve-year old daughter keeps singing "Don't stop believing" around the house, having heard it on Glee, and sending me into grumpy-old-man mode (or should that be grumpier-old man?)
How dare she be listening to the bad music of my youth? Why can't she show some originality and find her own bad music to listen to? etc etc
well, as Mary Catherine's mum always said, "It's never too late for good advice."
Geez, how'd you know that my mum has always said that? She has also always said, 'There's never a pocket in a shroud,' which is a bit ghoulish, admittedly, though probably sound advice.
And just to attempt to put a damper on potential fantasies of Manifest Destiny, I think we can all agree that Chilliwack, B.C. was ill-served by the eponymous band.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that "Manifest Destiny's Child" gets hundreds of Google hits.
Beirut and Texas is the Reason are bands I like that are named for places.
Oh, and Phoenix. I'll cop to liking them.
I would suggest that bands whose name simply is a place name are much more likely to suck than bands with a name that contains a place name. I would guess Phoenix isn't named for the city, which might excuse them from the test. Don't know about Beirut, which is a weird thing to name a band inspired by music from the Balkans (maybe they're named for beer pong?).
I once tried to suggest a band I was playing with name itself after one of the remote Canadian provinces, but the other band members were having Nunavut.
Detroit Cobras, the New York Dolls.
Architecture in Helsinki are OK sometimes.
Certainly Europe sucked. I didn't realize until just now that Asia had reformed and released new albums in 2008 and 2010.
I liked Antarctica.
145: That's a territory. And Yukon just stop that.
There was a song a few years ago by Alaska in Winter that I liked.
The Rurral Alberta Advantage are pretty fab.
"Halloween, Alaska" is not named after a place that actually exists in Alaska.
150: Oh, yeah! I'd heard them on Pandora and had meant to look 'em up. Thanks.
I have mixed feelings about Of Montreal, but there's another one.
I'm pretty fond of some of Of Montreal's albums.
Without reading the thread, I'll just note that Die Antwoord continue to be The Fokken Shit. Enough courage in their conviction for twenty bands, and Yo-Landi Vi$$er is exactly what Lady Gaga tried to be and failed.
Of Montreal's stage act just kind of bewilders me, but not in the way they might want it to; it's more a "Marilyn Manson going door-to-door trying to shock people" kind of thing. But I do like some of their music quite a bit (although there are a couple of their albums that were total duds, at least from my point of view).
156: There are several cities named Stanley (Las Malvinas/Falkland Islands, for instance), but no bands come to mind.
Yo-Landi Vi$$er is exactly what Lady Gaga tried to be and failed.
Lady Gaga is failing at what she's trying to be?
IMO Beirut the band totally sucks. Drone Drone Drone isn't any cooler just because you are pretending to be the soundtrack of a Kusturica film.
Actually, "Drone Drone Reverb Drone" sums up a lot of my problem with indie rock today. Get off of my lawn!
But just to be positive, Apo's mix in 22 is totally freaking awesome.
160: $he wa$ n0t, 1n f@ct, "b0rn 2 B." Y0-Landi wa$.
160 is so wrong it makes me wonder if Halford is thinking of a different band or if I don't actually understand what "drone" means.
I mean until the horns kick it there's not a lot of rise and fall in the the instruments in this song, but there are plenty of interesting rhythms and bass parts, which are more about creating chanson/cabaret base to build on than droning.
Now this is drone.
And so to bed.
I'm pretty sure I first encountered Beirut in the form of "Elephant Gun" on Apo's Apomerica mix from long ago. So, thanks Apo!
I was quite taken by this Beirut Blogotheque appearance.
Architecture in Helsinki are OK sometimes.
Lies.
Akron/Family has some killer tracks, though.
Also good: Bethlehem; the Cracow Klezmer Band; the Warsaw Village Band; Currituck Co.; the Etchingham Steam Band; Gaza; New York Gong; Koenji Hyakkei; Nazca.
I like The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Pacific Ocean.
169: Have you seen the movie? I watched it while on a band tour, which seemed particularly appropriate.
There's a lot of music that I hated as a teenager that I later realized was okay or even good. So I was surprised when, thanks to fucking Glee reviving them, that Journey is even worse than I remember.
I freaked out my wife the other day by knowing the words to "Bad Romance".
Yo-Landi Vi$$er is exactly what Lady Gaga tried to be and failed.
Unbearable and horrifying?
164 -- It's the dude's voice that's droning. The music as a whole is just depressing, as taking any fundamentally fun form of music and making it lame would be.
It would be misleading to search for 'Fuck You Yankee Blue Jeans' on google maps just to prove a point.
lindsay buckingham is an unparalleled musical genius whose influence is most obvious on prince, both overall song structure and, particularly, guitar solos. fire up "I know I'm not wrong" and some "I could never take the place of your man" and see what I'm talking about.
Drone and loving it: Leif Inge's ''9 Beet Stretch"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEJd7ete_PU
re: 180
Wasn't there an Unfogged post on 9 Beet Stretch a few years back?
There's a Justin Bieber stretch floating around on youtube which is surprisingly lovely. Although, all stretched pop tunes end up sounding like Mogwai and/or Sigur Ros.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QspuCt1FM9M
32: Just have to say how happy the Burl Ives quote made me, though my favorite is probably "A sow is a lady pig."
I don't know anything about music, but I sure do learn a lot here! Thanks, guys!
the essence of liking anything aesthetically is making and believing totalizing claims about it.
That was too generous to the fucking boomers.
My mom was in a Rammstein video.
176: Unbearably and horrifyingly awe-$ome...
(Honestly, I'm a little bit disturbed myself at having to admit I find Yo-Landi rather fokken compelling. Is it the mullet? The gap in her teeth? The blinged-out just-this-side-of-crack-ho aesthetic? The spastic all-out performance style? A therapy-worthy fetish for Afrikaner accents in women? Probably all of the above. Nevertheless, if lovin' her is wrong, I don't wanna be right.)
Anyway. Enough of that. Since I'm going to be downloading apo's mix from earlier in the thread, I thought I'd best upload something. This is something:
Never Shake a Manchild
01 And Then He Kissed Me - Asobi Seksu
02 Pearl's Dream - Bat For Lashes
03 Little Bird - Lisa Misovsky
04 Sunshine Blues - Bahamas
05 Make You Crazy - Brett Dennen feat. Femi Kuti
06 Risin' High - Ancient Astronauts feat. Rashaan Ahmad
07 House Music - Cadence Weapon
08 Sierra Leone (Ephixa Remix) - Mt. Eden Dubstep
09 Tenderoni (Renaud Mix) - Cameo
10 Sunshine Of Your Love - Spanky Wilson
11 Now That I'm Gone - Charles Bradley & The Bullets
12 Am I Wasting My Time - Eli "Paperboy" Reed & The True Loves
13 Taller Children - Elizabeth & The Catapult
14 Vocal Chords - Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jr.
15 True Stories - Datarock
16 Invasion - Birds of Avalon
17 Jump Into the Fire - Nilsson Schmilsson
18 When She Comes Home - Deer Tick
19 Sweet Seventeen - Dirty Beaches
20 Youth - Beach Fossils
21 Purple - California Wives
BONUS TRACK 1 Mannish Boy - Muddy Waters
BONUS TRACK 2 Trails - Asobi Seksu
BONUS TRACK 3 Some Chords - Deadmau5
BONUS TRACK 4 Celestial Fantasy op. 44 - Alan Hohvaness
Downloadable here.
22 won't make you gay if you weren't already, but it might make you really slutty for a week or two.
From the opening chords, I'm looking for trouble. So great, apo.
Track 9 in the above mix is "Chromeo," not "Cameo." Ooops.
Um, "Jump into the Fire" is by Harry Nilsson, on the record Nilsson Schmilsson. But yes, this looks like an amazing mix.
And I love Yo-Landi too. A friend from South Africa promises that if I come visit her she will take me to the hairdresser who does Yo-Landi's cut. (I will not look good afterward, but it seems like a plan.)
Honestly, I'm a little bit disturbed myself at having to admit I find Yo-Landi rather fokken compelling.
She's amazingly compelling. She's straight out of Peter Pan's world of unsupervised perma-kids, but she makes you believe that she spends her time doing things so creatively freaky that we couldn't imagine them.
Nilsson Schmilsson was my favorite album throughout most of childhood, and it's still the thing that most often gets put on my record player now. I love Nilsson very very much.
but she makes you believe that she spends her time doing things so creatively freaky that we couldn't imagine them.
Is this bad? It's part of her character. I sort of like that Die Antwoord has to deal with people recognizing them from previous performance art acts, and that these are put-on personae. Why not? It seems a lot more playful and inviting than the Gaga pose of "this is just who I am."
Is this bad?
No. It's compelling.
194: She's straight out of Peter Pan's world of unsupervised perma-kids, but she makes you believe that she spends her time doing things so creatively freaky that we couldn't imagine them.
That's a great way of putting it.
195.1: The funny part is that one isn't just a typo. When I dug the track up I was all like: "Wow, I never knew he actually called his band 'Nilsson Schmilsson.' Rather droll, and unusual for the era."
I mean, to be honest, I don't think it's that big of a problem. I think it's basically been addressed sufficiently well many times over. But mine is a minority view.
I'm finding it pleasant right now to imagine this as the epigraph to, like, every dissertation, ever.
Yes, I know. I'm not dissing Lady Gaga's actual musicianship: she's just an easy reference for something. Am I wrong in thinking that her popular hits don't necessarily reflect her singing and playing ability?
Well, sure, but couldn't you say that about Mozart? Great pianist, but that's not exactly what made him a superstar (as opposed to just Wolfie the prodigy). Even if it weren't true in earlier eras--and from the little I know of it, I suspect it was true at least as early as the 60s, Wall of Sound, etc.--pop music is about production, and I don't think it's unfair to say 'production' is the modern equivalent to 'composition'.
Disco does suck.
Disco will never be over. It will always live in our minds and hearts. Something like this that was this big, and this important, and this great, will never die. Oh for a few years, maybe many years it will be considered passe and ridiculous. It will be misrepresented, caricatured and sneered at, or worse, completely ignored. People will laugh about John Travolta, Olivia Newton John, white polyester suits and platform shoes and going like this! [Mimics Saturday Night Fever pose] But we had nothing to do with those things and still loved disco. Those who didn't understand will never understand. Disco was much more, and much better than all that. Disco was too great and too much fun to be gone forever. It has got to come back someday. I just hope it will be in our own lifetimes.
I love the crazy freaky blonde from Die Antwoord, because she is hilarious -- oh, really? A white coat of rats, you say? And then you're going to suggestively snap your hips (thanks for that phrase Di, yes, salacious as hell) while wearing a burlap sack? Delightful! -- and yet still just this side of ridiculous to be very, very attractive. I'm not sure "compelling" covers it.
And thanks, DS!
I like that there is at least one real white rat in the coat of stuffed white rats.
To be clear, 200 was intended to be disagreeing with Parsimon's 'Disco does suck', and to be endorsing the youtube'd speech from 'Last Days of Disco.'
snap your hips (thanks for that phrase Di, yes, salacious as hell)
In fairness, donaq, will deserves the credit for that one. But I'm sure you just forgot that part of TFA.
TFA? I am woefully ignorant of most internet traditions, I think. Or just dense at figuring them out? Either way, 2007: before my time!
But I like to be fair: thanks will!
MERGANSER! I WILL GET NOTHING DONE ALL DAY!
208: BWAH HA HA HA!
206: TFA = The Fucking Archives--which one is expected to have read.
P.S. Use the space bar to clear all cells.
TFA?[...]Either way, 2007: before my time!
No one is excused from the obligation to R(ead)T(he)F(ucking)A(rchivies).
On preview, Mergpwned, but I added value.
204: We came across something like this before! I sat putting together a really good one for hours.
And, because I have a ton of shit to do for tomorrow, of course I looked up the screengrab I took of that one and plugged it into this one. Yay.
Movie about BJM, I mean.
Good movie, it felt very believable.
I love Nilsson very very much.
Have you watched the documentary, Who is Harry Nilsson? It looks interesting.
216:
Something like:
OOOXOXXOOOO
XXXOXOXXXOO
would work.
217: I thought so too. Despite not being particularly invested in either the Dandy Warhols or the BJM, before or after, I think it's my favorite rock doc.
This is the exact same thing as the other one, just presented without any context or credit.
218: Mom has; I haven't yet. She says it's good.
219: OK:
ooooooooooooooox
oooooooxoxooooxo
xooxxxoooooooooo
oxoxoooooxooxxoo
ooxoxxoxxoooxooo
oxooooxooooxxooo
ooxooooxoooooooo
oooxoooxoxoxoooo
ooxooxxoxoooxoox
oooxoxooxoxoxoxo
oxoxooxooooxoxox
oooxoxoxoxxooxoo
xoxoxoxxxoooooxo
oxoxoxoxoxxooxox
oooxoxxxoxoxoxox
xxxxxxxxxxxoxoxo
The other one made it possible to copy and paste your design to share with others.
apo's mix is pretty badass, as expected. Thanks apo!
Awesome! Here's mine:
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOXO
OOXOOOXOOOXOXOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOXO
OXOOXXOOXXOXOOOO
XOOOOOOOOOOOOXXO
OOOOOOOOOOOOXOXO
OOOXOXOXXXOOOOOX
OOOOOOXOOOOXOOXO
OOOOOOOOOOOXOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOXOOOO
OOOXOOOOOOOOOXOO
OOOXOOOOXOOOOOXO
OXOOOOOOXOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOXOOOOOOX
OOOOOOXOOOOXOOOX
OOOOOOOOOOOXOOOO
200: Disco will never be over.
That may be true, but I will probably not buy an album and listen to it, for this is not a question of objective value: it's not whether disco was an important historical development, it's whether I -- me! -- like the music enough to freely conceive a desire to listen to some of it. And I don't.
199: pop music is about production, and I don't think it's unfair to say 'production' is the modern equivalent to 'composition'.
It's not unfair to say that, but I don't like it.
Slight improvement: remove the X from the last cell of line 7 and add an X in the first cell of line 7:
XOOXOXOXXXOOOOOO
By the way, this thread inspired me to stop procrastinating and put up a post on Tusk.
It's not unfair to say that, but I don't like it.
Why not?
231: Mm, I guess I think that production too often substitutes for musicianship. I feel the need to be very cautious in anything I say about this, for fear of being accused of being prescriptivist, or narrow-minded or some such, but a catchy schtick, or glossy production and performance, just doesn't do it for me in the absence of clear musical interest.
I realize that you're saying -- I think -- that production is musical value.
I might add that I studied piano for 12 years, with a lot of music theory thrown in, and I have a tendency to prefer certain types of things, so I'm probably just what I said: one who prefers what I think of as musicianship.
I think you're being too cautious.
I would be inclined to say that production and songwriting/musicianship can be analogous virtues, without being identical, or placing the same weight on them.
Perhaps the best analogy would be between production in music and cinematography in film. You don't usually go to see a movie just for the cinematography but, at the same time, it's a crucial part of what makes a movie good or bad.
I'm not sure I was trying to make much of any claim; I know too little about music to have any strong opinions. I don't even know fully what 'producers' do, but I had the vague impression that, at least on the more heavily-produced end, it was basically what a composor for a big orchestra does: put together different sorts of sounds into a finished piece of music. But I may be just really wrong about what a producer (typically) does.
Awhile back, I read Lewis Shiner's "Glimpses"--a sort of magical-realist take on music, the 60s, aging, nostalgia, where the plot is driven by the protagonist's sudden ability to summon up records that might have been but weren't, like the Beach Boys' "Smile", The Doors' Lizard King album, etc. Recommended! I bring this up because, looking now at the Wikipedia article on "Smile," it strikes me as the sort of work where it's just very hard to separate production from composition. I suppose that's what I was getting at.
Again, I'm speaking from a place of profound musical ignorance; I may well be "not even wrong" to such a degree it's not worth engaging with.
234: Just to be clear, I didn't mention my musical training back in the day in order to make an argument from authority. Just to say that that's probably why I have the tastes I do.
re: 232
I think it's pretty hard to separate great production from musicianship. Producing can be a creative act. Someone is doing something interesting and creative with music, it's just that they are doing it via mixing desks, and tape, and computers, and FX, rather than via acoustic instruments, say. A surprising number of 'non-musician' producers of electronic music are actually perfectly competent players of instruments, it's just that instrumental performance isn't the thing they pursue as the core part of the music they make.
Producing can be a creative act.
The Bomb Squad. For my money, nobody was more important in popular music during the late 80s and early 90s.
re: 237
Yeah, and there are loads of other examples.
[Although currently hating whatever producer put the sub-bass on whatever record I can very faintly hear resonating through my building. Just loud enough that I can hear subliminal 'beats'.]
You know who were un-fucking-believable musicians? Session players at disco labels.
I certainly thought so, though the fact that everything I know believe about 60s music/culture comes from Glimpses and The Amageddon Rag has probably given me a bit of a skewed perspective on the era.
Those two books have also have a very humanizing effect on how I read McManus; I "hear" him as some blend of the books' protagonists.
A surprising number of 'non-musician' producers of electronic music are actually perfectly competent players of instruments
I'm not sure why this should be surprising. The best house producers I know had extensive schooling in music (one toured with Tommy Dorsey while in high school, the other studied composition at the musikhochschule in Vienna). They can do things with harmony and turnarounds that most house producers (and, for that matter, the vast majority of rock bands form whatever era) really have no grasp of.
(This comment not particularly directed at ttaM, who I'm sure knows this and is being nice.)
re: 244
Yeah, not surprising to me, but surprising, I think, to people of a more 'rockist' bent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockism
@244: Lil' Louis' dad was a professional blues guitarist.
Also, the whole house tradition owes so much to counterpoint. Layers, dynamics, pacing, and then, when you're ready, simultaneity!
Also, the whole house tradition owes so much to counterpoint.
Yeah, although I think that's partly a technology dictates form thing. It's just much easier to build tracks that way working in a step sequencer.
Not knocking house music, just pointing out that just as giving someone a guitar tends to [often] lead to people making certain kinds of choices vis a vis harmony or rhythm, ditto sequencers.
248: I don't think that's a knock at all; talented musicians working within limitations is, like, what's good about music.
re: 249
Yeah. I used to participate in a home recording forum where you'd get imposed a limitation each month.
'Record tunes only using these 3 notes'
'No repetitive beats'
etc
Limitations are great for unlocking inspiration.
238.last: I'm always astonished by how identifiable an almost inaudible baseline is. Fairly frequently, I'll have a song I don't particularly like or have any interest in running through my head, listen hard, and realize that I can hear a vague thumping from someplace, which when I stick my head out into the hallway turns out to be that song.
246: "Rockism" I had never heard of. (I'm not being accused of it, am I?)
in fairness, donaq, will deserves the credit for that one
Oh, sure. Like will just learned how to snap his hips all by himself...
talented musicians working within limitations is, like, what's good about music
252: "Disco sucks" is typically a symptom of rockism in those to whom it is an archival phenomenon. On the matter of those who lived through disco, all bets are off.
On the matter of those who lived through disco, all bets are off.
For the record, I don't particularly buy this.
Yeah, I bet you could get me to lower the price a fair bit.
I just don't like what I find to be overproduced, repetitive, and fairly interchangeable music. Some of my sentiments are similar to those articulated in the linked wikipedia piece on Rockism, but I'd not go as far as that piece does.
Rockism places value on the idea of the composer and performer as an auteur; authentic music is composed as a sincere form of self-expression, and usually performed by those who composed it. This is as opposed to the notion of manufactured "pop" music, created in assembly line fashion by teams of hired record producers and technicians and performed by pop stars who have little input into the creative process, designed to appeal to a mass market and make profits rather than express authentic sentiments.
I wouldn't particularly speak of authenticity, but the second sentence there describes something that I admit I don't admire.
Parsimon, the point of the critique is that the second sentence is a misleading, inaccurate stereotype that is as true of musical styles you appreiciate as it is ones you dislike. If you'll pardon me for spelling it out.
259: Oh. I might be laboring under a misapprehension about the music I like, then. I'll consider.
I confess to being slightly bewildered: is the idea that since all music that one hears is produced, all manners and forms of production are equal? That's what I'd dissent from.
I'm not wanting to stage a huge fight here; I've already said that if you like disco, that's fine. I don't happen to. I also don't like opera. I do like reggae, and some ska (which can be heavily produced). I don't like a lot of what I think of as pop. I do tend to like acoustic music, and some electronic music. I very much like King Crimson. So if you force me to come up with some general notion to capture what-I-don't-like, all I manage to find is that I don't like generic pop.
I should shut up now. I'm not really managing to clarify anything.
I do stand corrected in any suggestion I may have made that disco bands (and producers) are lacking in musicianship. I understand what you mean there.
Can I just say that I've been listening to Apo's mix for two days now, and it's so, so great. I'm starting to feel like Kenny Powers. I'm about three listens away from buying a jet ski and finding a river chick.
260: I'm not sure that there's a particularly compact description to be had. Perhaps you like the music that has familiar, fond associations for you?
How do you feel about Motown, parsimon?
263: Maybe. That may be true of us all. The reason I'm fond of the music I like is because I like it, after all; it's not all nostalgia by any means. Akron/Family is cool. Radiohead is cool. Piano Magic (which is not piano music) is cool. Each of these I encountered within the last 5 years. So it's not just nostalgia; although I guess I -- like everyone else, I assume -- tend to form fond and familiar associations in connection with the music I like. I do think it starts with the music itself.
Motown is great.
I think so too. "Factory like"!
You've caught me in a trap for sure, which definitely shows that Lady Gaga is as good as Andres Segovia.
I wasn't trying to be all "Gotcha, parsimon!" so sorry if 268 came off that way.
270: No worries. The musical question at hand has strayed all over the place by now, and I haven't exactly managed to be clear, because I don't find any one thing to express why I do and don't like what I do and don't like. It's perfectly reasonable to tell me that my stabs at it thus far don't pass muster.
Lady Gaga is pathetic and uninteresting compared to Andres Segovia, though, right?
Forget I said that.
I'm finding it pleasant right now to imagine this as the epigraph to, like, every dissertation, ever.
Even better (from Concrete): "[I]f the truth were known, every intellectual work, like every other work, is grossly overrated, and there is no intellectual work in this generally overrated world which could not be dispensed with[.]"
It's just a short hop from there to the attitude of one guy who told me it was a waste of time to listen to any music after 1900 because none of it had lived up to people like Bach or Beethoven, and there just isn't enough time in life to bother with inferior things.
Right, from 273 it's a short hop to its being a waste of time to listen to anything at all.
(Although that would strictly speaking be fallacious, since one can't go from the dispensability of any arbitrary work to the dispensability of all works simultaneously.)
274: Similarly, it's just a short hop from that to supposing that all music is equally interesting and engaging. Which I deny.
Have we made caricatures of our respective positions yet?
278: So, I may as well just listen to Laura Branigan over and over. I don't have to change, but now I have a reason. Thank you philosophy.
Lady Gaga is as good as Andres Segovia
I've never heard Lady Gaga play guitar, but Charo was pretty good. Segovia wouldn't have been as good at being Lady Gaga, but you never know; he was an improbably good guitarist for a guy whose fingers were likened to sausages.
A surprising number of 'non-musician' producers of electronic music are actually perfectly competent players of instruments
And some of them (e.g. Squarepusher) are somewhat too competent on their instruments.
Charo used to play guitar on The Love Boat from time to time. Good stuff.
it's just a short hop from that to supposing that all music is equally interesting and engaging.
I'm not sure I follow why that would be.
talented musicians working within limitations is, like, what's good about music
also.
This thread reminds my why I am inclined to say that I have enough faith in my musical tastes to assert that the music that I like is, in fact, generally good, but I have much less confidence in my judgment that a given piece of music is not good.
I am so much better acquainted with the music that I do like than the music that I do not like that my assessments are not symmetrical.
That said, I think it would be foolish for anyone to argue that there's no such thing as bad music. Sturgeon's Law still applies.
283: If all musics are equally uninteresting, then all are equally interesting. All are equal. It's a short hop.
a guy whose fingers were likened to sausages.
I have this reaction every time I see Itzhak Perlman. Perhaps sausages are more agile than one would expect.
285: I'm... sort of lost. Who is saying that all music is uniformly terrible?
288: That was the argument essear recounted in 274.
The guy who only liked music from before 1900?
290: Who, me? 274 does provide a comparative: all musics post 1900 are terrible, in comparison to Bach and Beethoven. Okay. Wouldn't it still follow that all music post 1900 is equally good?
The guy described in 274 is expressing a classicizing thought, that once you've identified the Really Good Stuff you needn't bother listening to anything else. Nothing about that implies that the RGS is equally good or that the "anything else" is all equally bad. So, no, it wouldn't follow that all post-1900 music is equally good. No judgment about its quality is being passed other than: no reason to listen to it since none of it measures up with the great music from history.
The problem with putting Lady Gaga down in comparison to Segovia (aside from its being a really weird comparison) is that it seems to lead to a similar sort of classicism, in which we always assess the present in terms of the monumental works of the past and (unsurprisingly) find the present lacking. You get the same kind of thing from people who wonder why you'd listen to David S. Ware rather than jazz legends from the 50s.
Yeah. It's just an attitude I don't understand very well; it's like saying "I've decided to just re-read Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare for the rest of my life, and not touch any more recent texts, because I don't think anything else lives up."
And now I ban myself.
I myself am not the guy in 274, and my comparison of Lady Gaga to Segovia was intended to be really weird precisely in order to say that there are some things I don't favor, and other things I do. I like classical guitar; I don't like bling very much, not because it doesn't live up to classical guitar, but because it's annoying. Musical value is not judged along a single continuum: right!
Over and out.
"ping" is a style of music represented on Anthony Moore's Reed Whistle and Sticks.
It's like you've never experienced Bling Crosby.
Weird. That's the petroglyph for Sarah Palin.
262: Aww thanks, Halford.
buying a jet ski and finding a river chick
I did warn you it might turn you slutty.
301: I just downloaded it tonight. That Trampled by Turtles track is hot.
Yeah, those guys are badasses. Punk bluegrass!
re: the OP
FWIW, there's a running Mighty Boosh joke about tusk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JphJfwsUbT4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzZCoe38_hM
re: 272
Lady Gaga is pathetic and uninteresting compared to Andres Segovia, though, right?
That would cue my 'why Segovia is shit' rant. Influential as hell and all that, but all that rubato can bugger the fuck off.
re: 307
Heh, yeah.
Although I think you could make a pretty good case that the current crop of classical guitarists, even those who aren't particularly well known, are pretty much universally (technically) better players than Segovia.* Although some people (not me) really like Segovia's interpretations, I'd also argue that a lot of them play the same repertoire in much more interesting and musical ways. But then we're definitely in riding the gusty bus territory.
* although they probably wouldn't exist in the numbers they do, if he hadn't existed.
My mother was cleaning out some old boxes of books and found KISS fan mail I wrote (but apparently never mailed) when I was 11 years old. Showed it to me Saturday night when she came over to watch the kids. The envelope was quite fancily decorated and I had included my home phone number in case they wanted to call me.
Given that most if not everything Segovia recorded has been recorded by guitarists who ride on my own gusty bus*, I don't listen to him anymore. Not that he doesn't deserve his place in history.
*There aren't that many, mostly because my job keeps me listening to other music, but I can confirm that John Williams and David Tanenbaum are objectively awesome in live performance.
Arguing about whether Lady Gaga is better than Segovia is like arguing about whether the horses of San Marco are better than wienerschnitzel.
re: 312
Not really a big fan of her either, tbh. Or rather, it was amusing for about 15 minutes, and is no longer.
Was more pushing back at the status of Segovia as a canonical 'proper' musician. A lot of people don't like his way of performing that material, and a lot of critics argue that his influence is fairly pernicious and that it is a good thing that he (posthumously) doesn't exert anything like as much influence as he once did.
This classical guitar video is a nice cure for world-weariness. (Found while poking around on youtube after parsimon's references to Segovia.)
313: But if you want to listen to Roisin Murphy, why not just...?
re: 316
I listen to Roisin Murphy all the time. Both the Matthew Herbert produced one, and the newer one. Also, Grace Jones, if we are listing people Lady Gaga has totally ripped off.
There's nothing wrong with ripping others off. Of all the overrated things in this generally overrated world, originality is one of the most overrated.
318: exactly right! I get in trouble with my artist friends for saying it.
k-sky: the eagle flies at midnight the press is in the mail.
re: 318
I like me some slavish imitation at times, too. But it's the combination of a near total lack of (musical) originality combined with a continuing chorus -- some self-proclaimed, some from popular press -- that makes claims to precisely that originality. It gets irritating. Irritating enough (for me) to outweigh the fun bits [some which are nicely entertaining).
Originality, also, authenticity. That's another over-rated thing. See 'rockism' above.
There's nothing wrong with ripping others off.
True, true. But originality is still a virtue (if overrated).
Originality, also, authenticity. That's another over-rated thing. See 'rockism' above.
There is a quality which I care about but don't have a good term for, but which would overlap significantly with what people call "authenticity." Call it "conviction", for lack of a better word. By which I mean, does the performance measure up the challenges that the material poses for itself? This can mean both, "does the performance honor the emotional weight of the material" and also, "do they actually perform the required elements, or just gesture at them (or steal from other people who have done it before?"
