User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Buy MLB playoff tickets, plus 2011 World Series, 2011 ALCS tickets and NLCS game tickets. We also have Texas Rangers playoff schedule, tickets to Red Sox games and Yankees game tickets. Plus, buy Phillies baseball tickets, Tigers playoff tickets and the biggies like ALDS baseball tickets and 2011 NLDS tickets. |
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
Page rendered in 2.2569 seconds
40 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
2) Richard and Linda Thompson: "Shoot Out The Lights"
3) The Mothers of Invention: "We're Only In It For The Money"
4) Beatles: "Revolver"
5) Van Morrison: "Astral Weeks"
OH, LIKE WOW!...You don't have the Freddy Henchi and the Soulsetters version , do you?!
...:)
It's not even the best album released on October 24, 1995.
Elvis Costello and the Attractions - This Year's Model
The Clash - London Calling
Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville
Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
Iggy Pop/James Williamson---Kill City
The Pixies---Surfer Rosa
Alice in Chains---Jar of Flies
Smashing Pumpkins-----Siamese Dream
ZZ Top---Tres Hombres
I was thinking about this after Rather Ripped came out, but if you consider both peak and career value, Sonic Youth is arguably the greatest American rock band.
I would stake the argument with you in agreement, for sure. "Rather Ripped" is no masterpiece for arguments sake but it is better than the dredge REM has put out lately.
WALEWANDER - I always thought you'd have a GBV album in your top 5...
I also can't begin to explain how much I ####### hate 'My Chemical Romance'.
Yeah, REM has the great peak and a long career, but the band has put up way too many OPS+ 85 albums in the last decade.
Sonic Youth's only one below + 85 would be 'NYC Ghost's & Flowers' and maybe 'Thousand Leaves'.
Revolver
Double Nickels on the Dime
Wild Gift
Rubber Soul
Forever Changes
Maggot Brain
Axis Bold As Love
The Who-Live at Leeds
Eat a Peach
But I'm here now, so in no discriminatory order...
1. Sonic Youth -- Daydream Nation
2. Yo La Tengo -- I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
3. Van Morrison -- Astral Weeks
4. They Might Be Giants -- Flood
5. Nick Drake -- Five Leaves Left
I'd need the Drake to commit suicide to because I only had five records. Mountain Goats' Tallahassee could also be used for this purpose to good effect. In fact, it would be nice if John Darnielle would just agree to come along and be the island house band.
This album sucked so hard I considered writing iTunes an email to see if they could take the mp3s back and give me my money back. Anyway.
How dare you! I've listened to that album probably 100 times now, and I enjoy it more every time I listen to it.
You're not the first person I've spoken to that responded that way to it though. I've played it for a dozen or so people who were the kind of people I'd expect to be open to it. A couple of them absolutely loved it. The rest alternated between being bored and being frustrated and annoyed. So, what I've gathered is that, even among people who like that sort of music, it's not for most people. At least we can all agree on "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea."
The Amhurst College "Zumbyes"...featuring Ken Howard (of White Shadow fame) as a soloist...plus a neato pic!
There...I said it.
I know that it's all relative, but I'd rather listen to Degello or even El Loco. I'll grant you "La Grange".
44magnum's list intrigues me, but I'm not all that familiar with X or Funkadelic. Can I count Nuggets as a desert island disc?
I was kind of excited for it, because I'd heard it reccomended by more than one person, and heard the Microphones compared favorably to Neutral Milk Hotel -- but when I got the album, my response was twofold:
1) Most of this is music only under the broadest definition of the term. (And I'm someone who listens to Squarepusher and Autechre, so the problem isn't that it's ugly.)
2) This guy listened to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and thought, "Hey! I can do this! Only more pretentious! It'll be great!"
There are a couple of things on there that I don't mind, but I never listen to it anymore, so I can't remember what they're called. I just felt ripped off.
My Bloody Valentine could be returning...
Don't kid about this kind of ####. Where did you hear that?
2. Metallica - Kill 'em All
3. Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
4. Led Zeppelin IV
5. Stones - Sticky Fingers
Pavement, Yo La Tengo, NRBQ, The Beach Boys!
It is interesting how lacking the American band scene is compared to the British scene.
Pitchfork
Especially because there are like five times as many Americans as Britons, and it's been that way for a long time.
I think there are a few things at work here:
1) Partly, it's cultural. The British have been treating pop music as an art form, rather than a form of entertainment, for a lot longer than we have, and I believe they still view it in that way a lot more than Americans do. I mean this as a non-judgemental observation on the way the two cultures view pop songs.
2) The American musical industry has frequently been dominated by labels, songwriting factories, and producers who A) work with many artists and B) focus on singles, thus resulting in a relative paucity of great albums by American bands. Examples: Motown, Philly Soul, Brill Building, Phil Spector, Hitsville, many many hip-hop DJs, Dust Brothers, and even lesser guys like Babyface.
3) A lot -- and I mean a lot -- more American hitmakers are solo artists, or are of the "Famous Guy & the Less Famous Guys" variety; this phenomenon spreads from Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, through Elvis, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, through a huge number of important MCs who are too numerous to name. When you think about it, a disproportionate number of American musical greats are solo artists, and a significantly smaller number of bands have achieved any sustained, worthwhile output -- the Byrds, the Beach Boys, Yo la Tengo, De la Soul, Pavement, and surprisingly few others fall under this category. Meanwhile, nearly every important British act you can think of -- the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, and so on and so forth -- is a band, at least outside the genre of electronica. Draw what anthropological conclusions from that you will.
1) Sonic Youth - EVOL
2) My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
3) DJ Shadow - Entroducing...
4) Quasimoto - The Unseen
5) Beck - Mutations (IMHO, he has to be in the running for best composer/musician America has produced. Right up there with Ellington, Davis and Dylan).
And 2006 was a great year. In no order, the five I enjoyed the most:
1) Girl Talk - Night Ripper
2) Ghostface Killah - More Fish (Fishscale gets honorable mention)
3) Jdilla - Donuts
4) Beck - The Information
5) Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
Whoever was putting out the anticipated 2007 releases, LCD Soundsystem has one in the works. My friend got a listen of a few of the tracks and already claims it's going to be the album of the year.
Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk
David Byrne - Look into the Eyeball
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Restricted to my (23-year-old) lifetime. More of a favorite than best, and not really very rock, but I'll stick with it. MBV, Automatic for the People, OK Computer and Crowded House nearly made the list.
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
The Essex Green - Cannibal Sea
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
only frenchs love REM here in europe... but they are as pretentious as REM
No ####, have you heard their first 5-6 albums? They are ####### classics!
Whoa, I forgot Destroyer's Rubies. Swap that in for whichever 2006 one you like the least...
I really do think 'Rubies' is my top dog for 2006. I can't get enough of it.
That was me. I'm looking forward to that, for sure.
One album that is growing on meis the Rapture's new one. Bit of a pick me up almost...
I read about MBV Voxter on pitchfork. Forgot to link it!!
In terms of shoegazing, I will say I prefer Ladies and Gents we are floting in space to Loveless...
Especially because there are like five times as many Americans as Britons, and it's been that way for a long time.
wow...a laughriot, considering the fact that the American media=charts=fans machinery has been falling all over themselves for decades over crapinski Brit bands...while thousands of underground American bands never see the light of day.
But...I'd much rather have it this way...cause there is no way Ricky Luanda would look good in Paul Weller's tights!
just thought I'd throw that out there.
Anyone like it? I am liking it after 3 or so listens.
i heard that Stipes hates shiny happy people. I appreciate that song more since then heh
its true that repoz, there are thousands of underground american bands that nobody knows in europe, we are plenty of supergrass, blur, and all that brit ####
Now all the day with coldplay on the radio
Can you blame him???
1) Partly, it's cultural. The British have been treating pop music as an art form, rather than a form of entertainment, for a lot longer than we have, and I believe they still view it in that way a lot more than Americans do. I mean this as a non-judgemental observation on the way the two cultures view pop songs.
Maybe I'm listening to the wrong stuff, but a lot of American indie rock just rubs me the wrong way. Not all, but quite a bit of British indie music produced during the Winter of Discontent and the Thatcher era is desperate, angry stuff, even if it's not explicitly political (but a lot of it is). Even now, there is a class consciousness that is totally invisible from a lot of the American music I've listened to. Meanwhile, we're six years into Bush, and it seems to me a lot of American indie bands are doing dream pop or concept albums. Screw that - get angry!
Current British music, granted, is not explicitly political, but it is rollicking, forward, puff your chest out stuff and with a sense of who you are.
The British also get the blues and r&b, big time. A huge portion of British music is influenced by R&B and the Blues - even bands like the Clash, since the Clash were inspired by the Small Faces, Mott the Hoople and Dylan - and British bands have no qualms with borrowing and using R&B and Blues ideas in their music - there's even an indigenous movements like Northern soul and British blues. No American band would ever have the balls to have Bo Diddley, Lee Dorsey and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five open for them like the Clash did.
Maybe it's the stage I am in my life, but I'm pissed off, angry, and I don't have a lot of money. If I want to hear music that echoes those emotions, I'm going into British mod and punk. Even Madchester seems to exhibit more of that class feeling that American music is doing for me right now.
Did you know: There are British charts that are independent of American ones?
True fact.
1. The Paper Chase, Now You Are One Of Us
2. The Thermals, The Body, The Blood, The Machine
3. De Rosa, Mend
4. Aereogramme, My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go
5. The Hold Steady, Boys And Girls In America
What can I say...my Chemikal Underground fetish strikes again.
Warnie is more of a god than Jack White
I've never understood what the point of the White Stripes was. Bo-ring.
I suspect this is because British racial dynamics are wildly different, and white people there do not feel that they are incapable of appreciating or interpreting "black" music the way many white people here do.
I guess all those A-Bones/Conolly shows with Rockin' Ronnie Dawson, Otis Blackwell, Esquerita, Hasil Adkins, Wally Tax and many others don't count.
Yep.
BTW, (ex-Delgado) Emma Pollock is atop the list of 2007 albums I can't wait to hear. It's supposed to be out in April or May. Unfortunately, there's still no word on any Alun Woodward solo work.
To play the blues really loud and really well. The White Stripes are a blues band, for all intensive purposes, and they do this quite well. Their cover of Stop Breaking Down is awesome, and blows the #### out of every cover of Stop Breaking Down I have ever heard, including The Stones cover on Exile on Main St. It's snarling, mean, loud stuff - Muddy Waters would have loved it. A lot of American musicians play Stevie Ray Vaughan covers, which they think of as "blues". Not to take anything away from SRV, but there was only one SRV, and trying to imitate him is droll.
What Jack White does, and what I think is fairly unique in modern American rock, is that he interprets blues in the manner which it was originally interpreted. John Mayer covers Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix and Clapton. Jack White covers Son House, Blind Willie McTell and St. James Infirmary Blues. He plays both twelve-bar blues and blues without the "typical" chord progressions, stuff that tends to be older and source material rather than covering the revivalists the way Mayer does.
I find this deeply interesting and the results are pleasurable.
I suspect this is because British racial dynamics are wildly different, and white people there do not feel that they are incapable of appreciating or interpreting "black" music the way many white people here do.
Which frankly just means that white people here are complete pussies, and to be honest, pussies who are afraid of black people. Obviously, it takes balls to play black music. But the idea that white people are not allowed to play black music is a completely white-enforced and white-created idea. The Clash played their music in an area of South London that was far blacker, meaner and tougher than any white American band has experienced in quite a while, and the local community (and Lee Perry) loved their reggae. Hell, Harlem loved their music - the Magnificent Dance, an instrumental of their song the Magnificent Seven (which is the first good song by a white group - Debbie Harry can't rap for ####), was the hit of summer 1981 there.
Frankly, the problem is that American indie music is driven by colleges and the middle-class, not the streets. I'd send them all out on the streets and go busk for a little while, and start playing some music that gets people dropping their dollars in their guitar cases, then let them back in the recording studio.
The Clash did it first.
No way, NYC Ghosts & Flowers was just sad but A Thousand Leaves is gorgeous. Definitely in my top 5 by them. After that I'd say EJSTANS and Rather Ripped are their weakest but still well above average. Even stuff like the Ciccone Youth album and the SYR eps are great. Remarkable consistancy.
The Steve Miller Band had Buddy Guy-Junior Wells and other blues acts as openers long before The Clash...as did Sir Doug Sahm/Band/Quintet with Junior Parker, Freddy Fender, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee...Little Feat amazingly had Allen Toussaint as their opener during the '75 tour...and much more.
If you're playing modern, popular music, you're playing "black" music.
Unless you're playing electric polka.
intents!
And I must be getting old, because I only bought 2 albums of new music in 2006, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Alan Jackson, and both were mild disappointments.
Allow me to retort...
I think you're overlooking a few genres that were/are band driven --
Southern rock may not be everyone's cup of tea, and you aren't going to get the "wow" one gets when hearing Beggars Banquet or Rubber Soul, but Lynard Skynard, the Allman Brothers, and the Black Crowes are fine bands (in the case of the Crowes, I'd even say 'great').
The grunge scene was very much band-driven - Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, etc.
Ditto metal - Metallica, Megadeath, and the like.
Also overlooked -- CCR, and I think Cheap Trick is criminally underrated. Sure, sure, no one put a gun a to their head and forced them to record "The Flame" --- but their debut and In Color are dazzling albums (and oft-referenced by more bands than you'd think... I've probably seen the Trick a dozen times -- and in those dozen times, I've also seen both Eddie Vedder and Billy Corgan - twice - come one stage for quick sets with them).
I think it is interesting though -- the Beatles rapidly moved from tight foursome to 4 guys writing separately (well... 3 guys and Ringo occasionally penning a ditty like Octopus's Garden), then finally breaking up... and that slide seemed to coincide with their invasion of America. The Stones, too, pretty much starting sucking wind when they became 'Americanized'... the near-decade split between Richards and Jagger... the horrid Emotional Rescue (or hell, everything since Some Girls, with an exception for maybe Tattoo You, which was really just outtakes that didn't make the Some Girls cut).
Thousand Leaves just never entered my system properly. I might give it another shot once 2007 hits a lull, new release wise.
or just a question of distance, and only hits arrive in america and you dont have to listen the rest. But it's true that britons love american popular music, i dont think its a question of race, they love country music too. Mark Knopfler got famous first singing folk music with southern accent in the pubs. And now you got Stewart getting rich singing old american songs
"Not all, but quite a bit of British indie music produced during the Winter of Discontent and the Thatcher era is desperate, angry stuff, even if it's not explicitly political (but a lot of it is). Even now, there is a class consciousness that is totally invisible from a lot of the American music I've listened to. Meanwhile, we're six years into Bush, and it seems to me a lot of American indie bands are doing dream pop or concept albums. Screw that - get angry!"
yeh, maybe thats why the Thatcher goverment was the longest in UK in XX, she saved the english economy and the laborist in the gov keeps all her reforms
America lived the same in 60s , and all you keep of those "compromised" songs is a bunch of idiotic and old-fashioned slogans
but you still have the Oscars! "bush is worse than hitler ho ho ho lets go with sarandon to visit castro hi hi hi"
David Bowie and Elvis Costello say hi.
And Flynn, I think you'll enjoy the new Jarvis Cocker record.
1. The Hold Steady, Boys & Girls In America
2. Ladyhawk, S/T
3. Drive-By Truckers, A Blessing And A Curse
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Show Your Bones
5. Band of Horses, Everything All The Time
6. Islands, Return to the Sea
7. Brightblack Morning Light, Everybody Daylight
8. Rhymefest, Blue Collar
9. The Pipettes, We Are The Pipettes
10. The Coup, Pick A Bigger Weapon
11. Neil Young, Living With War
12. Lady Sovereign, Public Warning
13. Jarvis Cocker, Jarvis
14. BGhostface Killah, Fishscale
15. Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
I dunno, no one has managed to mention the Beta Band.
Simply put, if all of these bands are so good, how come I (representing the people who watch and enjoy American Idol and think that Abba, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson and Billy Joel are all great artists) have never heard of them?
Put another way, why aren't these indie bands famous in mainstream America if they are better than or equal to all the famous bands/singers. Do they not want to be famous and rich? Would that be selling out?
To those of you who know all these bands it may seem impossible that a cultural literate pop culture junkie has never heard of them -- but believe me, there are millions upon millions of us who have never heard of 70% of the bands mentioned in this thread.
The music industry prefers to market what is easily digestible and disposable, because it's a simpler task to market it, and has a stranglehold on most channels of bringing popular music to the masses.
There is worthy stuff out there, but most of the time you have to seek it out - and most people don't have the time or energy to do so.
Put it this way: is Budweiser the best beer on the planet?
Good idea. Wild Flower Soul is great, as you said, and it's full of other great tracks. French Tickler might be my favorite Kim song, Sunday is classic and the two Lee tracks and Snare Girl are just beautiful.
Honestly, you don't have any problem grouping Avril and Kelly with The Beatles and Springsteen? Even with the more appropriate comparison for those two(Abba) the talent gulf is huge.
Tool - 10,000 Days
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife - how has no one mentioned this one yet?!
Band of Horses - Everything all the Time
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
and either the Flaming Lips' At War with the Mystics or the Regina Spektor album
Also exciting new stuff for 07:
The Mary Timony Band, featuring 2/3 of Dischord's Medications!
As for why indie music isn't more popular, #163 pretty much nails it, as record companies are only interested in getting a 15 yr old's $$ than marketing truly great music. And for me personally, I truly do enjoy the thrill of the hunt in uncovering something unconventional that isn't marketed to the masses. Does that make me a bit of an indie/underground music snob? Maybe...
Why must you oppress the black man further by blaming them for things like Celine Dion and boy bands?
Why must you oppress the black man further by blaming them for things like Celine Dion and boy bands?
RDF.
Don't forget Nickelback. No way can Nickelback be blamed on black people.
Now that I think about it, forget Nickelback. Please.
Budweiser is the biggest selling beer. McDonald's th ebiggest selling restaurant. Popularity rarely means high quality; while obscurity does not always mean low quality.
Right. But they also don't market it because in many cases they are probably accurately gauging that there is much more limited audience, regardless of their efforts.
And...if they did market those bands more, some of them would probably evolve into something that their current fans despise.
Michael Jackson, Thriller
Paul Simon, Graceland
I'm less certain of the next three, since there's a gap to a tightly-bunched group, and I'm sure there are albums I haven't listened to, or haven't listened to enough, that would replace these. But, at least for right now ...
White Stripes, Elephant
Eddie from Ohio, Looking out the Fishbowl
The Clash, London Calling
True. And in my experience, the people who put a lot of effort into finding indie music get a big kick out of talking about it, as this thread shows, whereas somebody who is into U2, (much less Kelly Clarkson or Abba) doesn't really broadcast it. It's kind of a cultural code/status issue. I remember when I started listening to U2 in '81 in 10th grade, it was still "edgy" enough to be "cool." Now, a 20 year-old asks me what I like and I say "U2" I often get a little smirk in return. A good sign I'm aging.
There is a local station here that plays a lot of the bands on these lists, and I do listen to that station a lot in the car. I like what I have heard of Tool's "10,000 Days."
Well, what do you mean by quality?
Budweiser is popular internationally, not just in the US. People actually prefer the taste of Budweiser (I don't understand how, but I have met these people) to other beers.
McDonald's has food that is designed to taste good, chemically. It's not a mistake that every McDonald's is full of people all the time.
Taste, of course, is purely subjective. But when a billion people like something, chances are it's pretty good at performing its goal by any objective, non-snobbish metric.
We should all be as lucky as to be appreciated to the degree Budweiser and McDonald's are.
That's true, but it's also true that for many of us, internet message boards are the only place we can engage in conversation about this music. Outside here and the board for the internet station I listen to, I don't really know anyone who shares my taste in music.
My top 5 of 2006:
The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
Thom Yorke - The Erasor
My top 5 albums for an island:
Springsteen - Born to Run
Radiohead - OK Computer
The Postal Service - Give Up (gotta have something upbeat)
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
The Hold Steady - Seperation Sunday
I'd also like to thank everyone for submitting their lists...my LimeWire's been very busy for the past few days.
U2 - War in place of the greatest rock album of all time
Eh, there's a really far leap from the Arcade Fire or the Decemberists to the blues. It's related, but distantly. Like second cousins or something, maybe met at a family reunion once. Though I actually like the Arcade Fire.
Southern rock may not be everyone's cup of tea, and you aren't going to get the "wow" one gets when hearing Beggars Banquet or Rubber Soul, but Lynard Skynard, the Allman Brothers, and the Black Crowes are fine bands (in the case of the Crowes, I'd even say 'great').
Wait, the Crowes are great and the Allman Brothers are not? Allman Brothers with a living Duane Allman is some of the best stuff ever. The thing about most great bands is that in great bands, everybody's good or really good (Moon, Entwhistle, Townshend, Daltrey, all legends on their instruments [I'm counting RD's voice as an instrument]). The Allman Brothers had six people in their band, and they're all fantastic.
Top five 2006:
Lady Sovereign - Public Warning
Ludes - Dark Art of Happiness
New Young Pony Club EP
Pinker Tones - Million Colour Revolution
Lily Allen - Smile
Top Five ever:
Allman Brothers Band - Live at Fillmore East
The Clash - London Calling
The Who - Live at Leeds
Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star-Club
Albert King - Born Under a Bad Sign
Define Americanized. I think Exile On Main St. is very American, for example.
Bands like the Decemberists and the Arcade Fire derive from basic Rock N' Roll. Their songs are written using the same conventions, structures and chord progressions. Where'd we get Rock N' Roll? It came from blues. Pretty directly from blues.
You're thinking of it more in terms of "there's strings, there's bells, it's more melodic than blues etc." and that's where you see it as something other than the bare bones, as I was referring to it as.
Why must you oppress the black man further by blaming them for things like Celine Dion and boy bands?
Now that this has been brought to my attention, I apologize for my statements.
But why is there a limited audience if the music is so good? Is hte mainstrwam not smart enough to get what is good music? Do you have to have a good ear or a good sense of music or rhythm to get indie rock? I understand how you can argue that crap can become popular due to marketing, but in what other industry is the best stuff virtually unknown where price isn't a factor?
My top 5 albums:
Graceland
Greetings from Asbury Park
Beatles: 1967-1970
Jagged Little Pill
Storm Front
I think one reason that hasn't been mentioned is that today's music has become increasingly fractured. I may think the Decemberists are great, but the market for folk music that sounds like Yes and Death Cab all rolled into one is probably small and lacking in universal appeal. Someone else's definition of great music will focus on some other niche. IMO, the stuff that gets universal airplay, marketing support, and ultimately popularity, generally covers a larger spectrum, which is why many music fans probably find it lacking, or a bit generic. Basically as a music fan, I can drill down to a very specific sound I desire, and there will be an indie band with no chance at mainstream success catering to my specific musical tastes.
That's interesting, because it frames a definition of quality. "Great music" is what the listener thinks sounds "great."
Except how do I reconcile that with the simple fact that The Beatles' "A Day In The Life"* is just a much, much better piece of music than Celene Dion's "My Heart Will Go On"?
*Feel free to insert your own wonderful piece of music, or mediocre peice of music, or terrible piece of music. The sentence will still be true.
Well - admittedly a loose definition... I was thinking more of Mick going international (I forget the model he married in the early 70s....not Hall...)... I was thinking of starting their own label... of some of the boys (mick especially) spending less time in the UK, more time abroad/in the US... of the Stones becoming less a band and more a 'phenomenom' or a 'commodity'.... Brian Jones dying... the aftermath of Altamont (which yes, I know was several years before Exile)...
Maybe I'm thinking more of Mick taking control of the band's direction over Richards - despite both being Brits, Mick has just always seemed more 'American'.
...and BTW... I refuse to let this thread die until someone agrees with on the criminal underratedness of early Cheap Trick.
The Band is the sine qua non example of this. All amazing players, three great singers, and they could play the hell out of almost every major American popular style.
That's a fair question, and I feel comfortable saying mainstream popularity, record sales, downloads, MTV airplay, etc. isn't the answer. More often than not, its going to be a question of subjectivity. When the majority regards a piece of music as "classic" or "timeless" or "freakin' awesome," I'd say its a case of people's collective subjectivities actually agreeing on something after they've had the opportunity to reflect/analyze/enjoy the music over a period of time. On the other hand, some music professor somewhere can probably demonstrate why "A Day in the Life" is better than "My Heart Will Go On" based on the complexity of the time signitures or chord progressions or difficulty of performance or something along those lines. Who knows, maybe after enough reflection, music lovers of the year 2112 will frown on your Celine bashing when the Beatles are exposed as the frauds they are.*
*just kidding, of course...
You'd have been better off citing "Heaven Tonight," or the better half of "Dream Police." They're better known for mostly good reasons.
There's also a reason the studio version of "I Want You To Want Me" remains obscure.
Nonetheless, I'm not sure how underrated their music really is now; it's discussed as an antecedent for a whole slew of rock music, ranging from Nirvana to Fountains of Wayne.
Wait, the Crowes are great and the Allman Brothers are not? Allman Brothers with a living Duane Allman is some of the best stuff ever. The thing about most great bands is that in great bands, everybody's good or really good (Moon, Entwhistle, Townshend, Daltrey, all legends on their instruments [I'm counting RD's voice as an instrument]). The Allman Brothers had six people in their band, and they're all fantastic.
Matter of taste - I love Allman Brothers, and Duane Allman has a great sound -- but in terms of total package, I simply prefer the Black Crowes... more frenetic, I guess. It was a highly subjective statement - I recognize that the Allmans were more of a foundational band, and the Crowes are really picking up where the Stones left off when they quit being a damn good Rock and Blooze band, but I'm just a bigger Crowes fan.
I think it's interesting though -- "great bands, everyone's good or really good" -- would you honestly classify Ringo Starr as a "good" drummer? If I'm not mistaken, I think Paul basically re-did most of the drum tracks on the White Album himself. I hope I don't come off as 'anti-Ringo' -- but compare him to other 'great' drummers... Bonham, Moon, Watts, etc -- I don't think Ringo is anywhere near the same class. Of course, Paul, John, and George were so good - they masked a lot.
You'd have been better off citing "Heaven Tonight," or the better half of "Dream Police." They're better known for mostly good reasons.
There's also a reason the studio version of "I Want You To Want Me" remains obscure.
Nonetheless, I'm not sure how underrated their music really is now; it's discussed as an antecedent for a whole slew of rock music, ranging from Nirvana to Fountains of Wayne.
He's a Whore and Oh, Candy (off the debut) are two absolutley ####### songs -- but in very different veins (which is maybe why I just think the album is so damn cool). Heavan Tonight and Dream Police, I also like -- but I don't know that there are any tracks off of either of them I'd listen to before Whore or Candy.
That asterisk is totally unnecessary as there is hardly a more wonderful piece of music than A Day in the Life.
OK Computer
This Year's Model
Born To Run
London Calling
Physical Graffiti
This is true and there's a good reason for it. Music is art and almost all great art has one common characteristic; a certain level of originality. Mostly what we are discussing here is rock-like music and rock has reached the point where the possible variations of the traditional forms are so well explored previously by other artists that anyone attempting real creativity and artistic expression has to go at least a bit out into left field and into non-radio friendly territory.
This is why today there is very little popular rock music that is any good while and most of the real artists in popular music today are rappers because the genre is much younger and there's still room for creativity.
Even a magazine like Rolling Stone, which is basically devoted to popular rock music for the masses, had a top 10 albums for '06 that included 4 indie bands that receive almost no radio play, 2 rap albums, a somewhat obscure metal album and honorary spots for Dylan and Waits. They did manage to throw RHCP in at number 2 which honestly just seems rather silly.
I agree - read a review of Mellancamp's American Fool written in the early 80s vs. a review that might have been penned more recently as some sort of retrospective... Or hell -- take Exile as an even starker example... didn't sell well, wasn't critically well-received - but you'd have a hard time finding a rock critic today that wouldn't put it in his or her top 100 albums.
Maybe it's just me - but I find it pretty rare that an album/single that -- years later would make my 'top X' list immediately pops into my head as 'classic' the first time I hear it. On the other hand - most singles I can remember really loving the moment I heard them the first time, I would have a hard time calling 'great'. Coming of age in the 80s -- I liked Bruce, but didn't "love" the Boss... OTOH, I LOVED Huey Lewis but today - doubt there's much in the News catalog I would skip to get to the next artist.
I always get reallyyy leary of "best of YEAR" lists - maybe I just have a slower ear, but I'd bet that had I made an annual "best of" list every year of my life, very few of those albums would make a "best all time" list I came up with today...
It's also another big reason I have so much trouble with Indie music - the next hot thing changes so fast, I always feel like I need time to catch up. I wouldn't chalk it up to cultural influence/conforming socially either - there are plenty of bands that I've never "gotten" -- the Chili Peppers do nothing for me... neither does Paul Simon/Simon & Garfunkel...
And what role would the priests of the Temple of Syrinx play in all this?
They ripped it off the Beatles ofcourse.
meh, given my nick, I should choose some Radiohead album for a desert island I guess. though classical music works for me!
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main