I was a big "Who" fan, and I think that "Who's Next" is probably the greatest rock album ever made. I think "Quadrophenia" is a great album. I think "By Numbers" and "Who Are You" are very good albums. I like their earlier stuff (i.e., My Generation, The Magic Bus, etc.).
HOWEVER, I have NEVER, EVER thought that "TOMMY" was a great album, or even a good one. I don't know...maybe it's too trippy for me, too much of a "Sixties" sound...too much like Townshend and company must have been doing tons of drugs while this was being made. Or maybe because it's one of the most self-important albums that I think has ever been made.
Those of you who read Uncut between 1998 and 2002, The Reaper was a monthly column that sacrificed sacred cows to the bloodthirsty hordes.
Even when I liked the artist being trashed, I enjoyed them, because they were so damn witty. I thought perhaps different writers took turns doing it, but it was all the genius of David Stubbs. Don't know why they stopped running it. Guess Uncut got too many letters from crybabies.
Even when it's all in fun, negative reviews certainly generate way more bad energy than most are willing to put up with. For an experiment, I temporarily created a section called Fester's Toxic Wastebin. The first lamb at the slaughter was Smashing Pumpkins' Machina/The Machines Of God. I got a death threat out of it! Oh Billy, don't take it so personally. I wasn't inspired to continue it, until a friend wanted to give Dizzee Rascal a solid beating.
Via Simon Reynold's blog, I was excited to see that Stubbs was starting his own blog. And just as I hoped, he has an archive of Reaper pieces. Enjoy!
Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. When Exile On Main Street became the critics' official "best Rolling Stones" album, they were blatantly wrong, it just doesn't have the songs, sound, caliber,or greatness of Let It Bleed or Beggars Banquet. But you know what? Exile is still a really fun listen, it's a singin' album, they were having fun making it and it can be enjoyed on its own terms.
I have an arguably unjustified loathing for everything Bjork. I respect that a lot of people like her and she's no pop idol (for now) so she's harmless sociologically but after seeing that footage of her beating the crap out of a reporter, she's off my artistic rollcall. I've been told a lot of her appeal is that she's cute but I just don't see it and her words, though poetic, never really say anything.
As for Lennon VS. Macca, there's no argument. Paul was and is a popstar who writes meaningless pop songs. Lennon was an emotional activist who wrote, while not always the easiest to listen to, driven works which will last a lot longer than Maccas. Granted, The Beatles wouldn't have been The Beatles without him and he has a handful of songs that have feeling, and his bass was kick-ass, but his art is shallow. Lennon always wrote from the heart and that is harder for people who just want to rock-out to understand.
I'm sort-of in agreement on Bjork, Fillmore, but I know I'm in the minority. The Bjork-worship in some circles is borderline cultish! I give her credit for being a maverick, being incredibly inventive, and doing something kind of different, but I just don't like it all that much.
As far as the Lennon vs. Macca argument, my initial point was that the cult of Lennon was an overreaction to his SOLO songwriting legacy. I'm not trying to discount what he meant (means) as a cultural icon. I just think his body of solo work is not as awe-inspiring as it is often alleged to be. And that's not to say that Macca's is...but, as a pop fan, I'll generally take Macca over Lennon on most days. Lennon has some flat-out BRILLIANT solo tracks, to be sure. And, as a social critic and rock star, he's probably without equal. I was only pointing to what I perceive as an over estimation of his solo corpus. But I'm probably wrong.
Yeah, I get ya'. There are a lot of duds in the solo Lennon catalogue (especially anything Yoko had a hand with). Macca's only good solo work was definitely before 1980, though. I love "Let Me Roll It" (mostly for the riffs) and I can listen to a couple other tracks but, yeah. I'd like to think I see them as they are I'd probably like Bjork too if I didn't have a circle of friends who keep raving about her constantly. It's like those old Bill Hicks routines about annoying non-smokers, "I'd love to quit smoking if I didn't think I'd become one of you."
The thing that made Bjork relatively easy to get into was that while I was growing up, I had nobody telling me that she was supposed to be great. I first saw her on the music video for "It's Oh So Quiet". I listened to rock exclusively in those days, so some weird looking girl from some country a million miles away named "Buh-dgork" did not even get a chance. Cut to eight years later. I have discovered Soulseek, and I have every album ever at my fingertips. My brother downloads Homogenic, and we listen. "This isn't bad. Actually, it's really really good. What have we been missing?"
But regardless of that, I think her music is brilliant. I think it's kinda lame to dislike someone's music because they did something you don't agree with.
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I got one word for ya'll,and you know what it is. ELVIS. As for the Lennon Vs. Macca argument, I fall on the side of Macca. Most of Lennons solo stuff was abysmal thanks to a combination of Yoko and heroin. Maccas stuff might be lightwieght, but at least its listenable. By the way, I preferred Lennons Beatles stuff to Maccas.
how about exile on main street??? there was only one good song on there and that was at the beginning " tumbeling dice" the rest just dont have any hooks or riffs , the stones are a traditional rock band if people like it cause they think its experimental than they need to clean out there ears
oh yeas the pumpkins double album while it had some good songs (most of them were singles) it had way too many songs that sounded alike but had pretenisous names to them , i think the record before that was much better and consice
never been a big fan of pink floyd i thought they should have stuck to simpler songs so dark side of the moon has never done it for me except one time when i was really wasted was the only time it sounded good to me and even then that mock operatic part in the middle still grates on me ( i hate opera !!)
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I agree with you on the "Exile..." thing, a very light wieght effort, given way too much credit, and as for the Pumpkins, they were the group I considered posting in the "Most over-rated" forum.
im sooo glad were getting some critical consensus here it makes me glad my ears havent completly failed me i mean i love the stones but i never got exile i think vodoo lounge (wich by the way was my first stones album and it got me into them hardcore ) was ten times better
im not a huge dylan fan cause of his voice but i think hes great live from what ive seen hes a talented performer who knows how to reshape his songs live and i would never bemean his or lou reeds songwriting ability but since there voices are crap i prefer to listen to other people cover there songs
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quote:Originally posted by curefreak: how about exile on main street??? there was only one good song on there and that was at the beginning " tumbeling dice" the rest just dont have any hooks or riffs , the stones are a traditional rock band if people like it cause they think its experimental than they need to clean out there ears
Look back one page on this thread, curefreak, and you'll see "Exile" has already been tackled by asc85 and others...
Don't worry, Mr.Freak sometimes when I see a topic posted, I'm so much in a hurry to get my opinion of my chest, that I bang away a response without checkin' if some one hasn't already made the same point. They get a bit precious about that 'round here.
quote:Originally posted by burning man: Yeah, don't feel to badly. It wasn't as rough as the "...this topic has been done to death." response that I got when I posted a comment elsewhere on this site.
Don't feel too bad. You're a latecomer to the party, and you've missed a lot of the conversations, but never be afraid to try to restart them. Many of these threads died in mid-summer and need resurrection. The worst that can happen is that nobody cares to respond...I've launched more than my fair share of dud topics.
Great topic btw! It's been a momentous experience as a serious music fan, getting up the courage to say: Dylan "The Jesus of singer-songwriters himself" is overrated! Ah, feels great:
Blonde on Blonde? Rainy day women. 'nuff said.
Blood on the Tracks? Why on earth is this album worshiped so! Sure, half of it is good, but it's hardly a masterpiece. I'd pay good money never to hear how brilliant the sing-songey "idiot wind" or overlong "Lily, rosemary and the jack of hearts" ever again...
And with "Love and Theft" he accomplished the rare ability to sound like any corner bar band...
Honestly, the only album from him I love as much as respect is Time Out of Mind...and, still, I have to admit 17 f*cking minutes of highlands is freakish.
~Ash
Just gotta add everything said previously about Exile and Tommy, I agree wholeheartedly.
Pink Floyd- Wish You Were Here. This is the chic pick for "better than Dark side," but the only thing I really like on it is Shine on... Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar have dated horribly...
More Floyd to skewer- The Wall. My god, this is an embarrasing album. Seriously, how can a rich, brilliant man like Waters sound like the most obnoxious 14 year old brat on earch? The end sequence with the trial is so godawfully bad, its laugh out loud funny! I think it just might be the most whiny, pretentious album ever made. Why doesn't Animals ever get any credit? Dark as hell, but it's got some great songwriting, brilliant guitar work and it's the most contemporary sounding album they ever made.
Godspeed you Black emporer! - Slow riot. Give me a break, they play a SCALE for fifteen minutes as loud and slow as possible, pound a drum kit for every note, and insert a soundbite of some raving street loon to "set the mood." I second Joe Tangari when he said "I'm a mortal enemy of Godspeed." What's weird is that I've listened to their other albums, and I think Yanqui UXO is actually very good- they've definitely improved. Just in time for the critical backlash... ::sigh::
quote:Originally posted by Ashurra: Great topic btw! It's been a momentous experience as a serious music fan, getting up the courage to say: Dylan "The Jesus of singer-songwriters himself" is overrated! Ah, feels great:
Blonde on Blonde? Rainy day women. 'nuff said.
Blood on the Tracks? Why on earth is this album worshiped so! Sure, half of it is good, but it's hardly a masterpiece. I'd pay good money never to hear how brilliant the sing-songey "idiot wind" or overlong "Lily, rosemary and the jack of hearts" ever again...
And with "Love and Theft" he accomplished the rare ability to sound like any corner bar band...
Honestly, the only album from him I love as much as respect is Time Out of Mind...and, still, I have to admit 17 f*cking minutes of highlands is freakish.
~Ash
Just gotta add everything said previously about Exile and Tommy, I agree wholeheartedly.
Woah,Ash, sweatheart.Bring it down an octave. "Me thinks the lady dost protest too much". You have obviously given Dylan a bit if thought, and in the process you have bumped up against the enigma that is Robert Zimmerman. I feel your pain. I was once where you are now, but, help is at hand.
The FIRST thing you must understand about Mr Dylan, is that he is playing a charecter. In order to become, he musy adopt a charecter through which he can speak. That is not the person you are listening to, but merely the facade of a personna he has adopted at the time. Why he adopts that particular persona, at any given time is a mystery, even to him,and it is the cracking of this code that is at the heart of the puzzle.
If you are truly interested in knowing what makes Dylan the icon that he is, I whole-heartedly reccommend you read "Song and dance man" by Micheal Gray. It is extremely heavy going, but I guarantee you a deeper understanding of the workings of genius. Besides, if you read it you won't have to read "The golden bough", "Ullysess" or ts eliot.
"I should have been a pair if ragged claws scuttling across the floors of uncertain seas"
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