Scritti Politti
- Thread starter mistersloane
- Start date
Yes, this is an incredible compilation of material. The compositions sounds completely nonsensical until you've heard them a few times and then you realize that there is an actual structure.
The rest of the discography is loses its appeal sequentially for me. "Songs to Remember" has a few nice cuts, but after that it's diminishing returns. Well, except for the new one which I actually quite like. Mostly I would concur that Green's attempt to subvert pop by being more pop than pop was a failure.
Yeah I agree. It reminds me of how Ruff Sqwad play around with composition on productions like this one:
http://download.yousendit.com/5DCDB73B1BFB608E
N
nomadologist
Guest
i can kind of buy cupid and psyche for its attempt to (as someone said before) be "more pop than pop", and for its flagrantly ridiculous production values (in a good way, it grows on you), but the "early" stuff just bugs the hell out of me. like i said "hegemony" is not a good song title, nor should it ever come up in rock music. it's just one of those words. like you wouldn't say "portentous" or "fortuitous" in rock/pop (maybe nick cave could pull it off if he slurred the third syllables enough). it just doesn't work, and i don't think any explanation of what they were trying to achieve would help, since to my ears it sounds like they must not have achieved it...
I think that awkwardness is what makes them so beguiling. The opening chords of Skank Bloc are always disorienting and have the same sense of sounding wrong and sqeezing something into pop that doesn't fit. And it's not like they're simply trying to 'disrupt' pop with wierdness, they have their own particular anti-groove which is hooky as anything.
N
nomadologist
Guest
to me their vocals sound like Alanis Morrissette as a man--too many syllables too often
swears
preppy-kei
swears
preppy-kei
The only Scritti albums I really love are STR and C&P85, the stuff before and after interests me, but I can live without it.
What's fascinating for me about Green is that you have this product of 70s UK leftism and state funded academia: art schools, libraries, the more radical/experimental side of punk, squatting on the dole, etc... And he used this background to propel himself into glossy 80s American-style hyper-commercial pop. It's really weird and jarring when you think about it.
What's fascinating for me about Green is that you have this product of 70s UK leftism and state funded academia: art schools, libraries, the more radical/experimental side of punk, squatting on the dole, etc... And he used this background to propel himself into glossy 80s American-style hyper-commercial pop. It's really weird and jarring when you think about it.
subvert47
I don't fight, I run away
Yes, though I didn't find it at all fascinating then. I just thought "what's this bunch of shite" and never listened to any of it since.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
I have to say I don't often buy music papers these days but bloody hell, no wonder I read MM, Sounds and NME nearly every week back then. That's a great piece. Huge bars from Reynolds and Gartside.
swears
preppy-kei
"wholesomeness, earnest expressiveness, honesty..."
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mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
now we know what band swears was in
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
I don't think that's such an unusual trajectory in terms of glossy 80s pop acts, though in it's extremes yes. But in a way much of that was kind of 'the route', how you lived as an artist. Sade and Thompson Twins come to mind, I'm sure there were quite a few others. Adam And The Ants, Culture Club, Teardrop Explodes, Curiosity Killed The Cat? I dunno. Latterly Pulp maybe?
swears
preppy-kei
Noel:
Yeah, what Peter York called "the video generation" coming up through art-schools and glam rock. But Scritti is an unusually extreme example of that tendency. And the way all the theory stayed with him, still talking about Derrida's ideas at his commercial peak as though it was totally natural for a pop star to be that academic.
Yeah, what Peter York called "the video generation" coming up through art-schools and glam rock. But Scritti is an unusually extreme example of that tendency. And the way all the theory stayed with him, still talking about Derrida's ideas at his commercial peak as though it was totally natural for a pop star to be that academic.
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Heh, Mick Hucknall?
From The Frantic Elevators
to Simply Red
Would've probably been more jarring if he'd been holding a pistol in his mouth on the Simply Red version, actually.
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swears
preppy-kei
Heh, Mick Hucknall?
Mr "Champagne socialist", urrrgghhh....