'Canonical'-type shit you just don't get
- Thread starter Pearsall
- Start date
hamarplazt
100% No Soul Guaranteed
There's just too much overrated stuff to even mention... I think there's a point to almost everything that have been up here, actually.
But my personal winner: Jimi Hendrix! The incarnation of everything I hate about the electric guitar. The Liszt of rock - yuck!
But my personal winner: Jimi Hendrix! The incarnation of everything I hate about the electric guitar. The Liszt of rock - yuck!
Hating on the dissensus canon
Listing all these 60s rock bands is all very well, but out of the stuff that people on this board actually like and talk about that I just don't get, I pick above all:
Basic Channel
I've tried and I've tried to like this, but I just think it's boring. This is exactly the kind of thing I hated about the 90s techno scene. Earnest dullards in mud brown clothing banging on and on about dub and futurism and yawn yawn yawn - where are the thrills? I mean at least Mills and Hood bashed you round the head with brutal grooves while being "true people" but all this endless progressive "dubby" shit? Fuck off. It doesn't even sound like dub! Dub is interesting! Epitomises exactly why handbag house and happy hardcore were always a better choice for a good night out.
And a secondary hate (actually, sneakingly admit they have one good song, but as a canonical act, no way...)
Run DMC
Okay, so you can do nursery rhyme cadences over a rock riff. Any other tricks? No?
Listing all these 60s rock bands is all very well, but out of the stuff that people on this board actually like and talk about that I just don't get, I pick above all:
Basic Channel
I've tried and I've tried to like this, but I just think it's boring. This is exactly the kind of thing I hated about the 90s techno scene. Earnest dullards in mud brown clothing banging on and on about dub and futurism and yawn yawn yawn - where are the thrills? I mean at least Mills and Hood bashed you round the head with brutal grooves while being "true people" but all this endless progressive "dubby" shit? Fuck off. It doesn't even sound like dub! Dub is interesting! Epitomises exactly why handbag house and happy hardcore were always a better choice for a good night out.
And a secondary hate (actually, sneakingly admit they have one good song, but as a canonical act, no way...)
Run DMC
Okay, so you can do nursery rhyme cadences over a rock riff. Any other tricks? No?
You know what? Stone me if you like, but I’ve never rated that Phil Collins
Yeah but sticking with the Dissensus faves theme, I’ve never really liked Riko/Target’s ‘Chosen one’ – always thought it a bit of a lame tune, even though I pretty much like everything else by Target and Riko….so there
Yeah but sticking with the Dissensus faves theme, I’ve never really liked Riko/Target’s ‘Chosen one’ – always thought it a bit of a lame tune, even though I pretty much like everything else by Target and Riko….so there
Actually, quite a lot of stuff. I've never seen the appeal of The Doors. They sounded like they were trying to pull off some comedy Elizabethan lounge act. I can imagine Russ Abbott listening to the Doors.
It also happens that The Fall LPs everyone rec kons are the best (ie- Grotesque, Hex Enduction Hour, This Nation's Saving Grace, Extricate, The Unutterable) I think are the most boring.
I also never got John Spencer Blues Explosion. I'm not into all this 'authenticity' crap but there was something really fake and contrived about his band that seeped into the music itself. It sounds so quiet and naff and weedy. Even when you stick the volume up, it still sounds tepid.
The Beach Boys - a shame, as I really enjoyed Brian Wilson's biography ('Wouldn't It Be Nice') but musically I can't bear all those harmonies. It's a barber shop quartet ultimately. Not as shit as the Flying Pickets (fuck, what IS?) but heading down that path
I would have said The Beatles, but having seen The Thai Beatles live, I've had to revise my opinion slightly. If I had an ounce of creativity in my walking corpse, I'd get a Super 8, load up on cheap drugs, and fly over again to make an action-packed, future cult hit / trash splatter film starring The Thai Beatles. Loosely based on 'A Hard Day's Night' but called something like "Suck off Satan" instead
I never liked Kraftwerk either. Some tech head will be sniggering, "Blasphemy", but for God's sake, the Dr Who theme sounded way more explosive and gripping than anything on "Radioactivity". And every record they've released still sounds like it was made in 1974. Although "Pocket Calculator" and "Computer Love" are funny
It also happens that The Fall LPs everyone rec kons are the best (ie- Grotesque, Hex Enduction Hour, This Nation's Saving Grace, Extricate, The Unutterable) I think are the most boring.
I also never got John Spencer Blues Explosion. I'm not into all this 'authenticity' crap but there was something really fake and contrived about his band that seeped into the music itself. It sounds so quiet and naff and weedy. Even when you stick the volume up, it still sounds tepid.
The Beach Boys - a shame, as I really enjoyed Brian Wilson's biography ('Wouldn't It Be Nice') but musically I can't bear all those harmonies. It's a barber shop quartet ultimately. Not as shit as the Flying Pickets (fuck, what IS?) but heading down that path
I would have said The Beatles, but having seen The Thai Beatles live, I've had to revise my opinion slightly. If I had an ounce of creativity in my walking corpse, I'd get a Super 8, load up on cheap drugs, and fly over again to make an action-packed, future cult hit / trash splatter film starring The Thai Beatles. Loosely based on 'A Hard Day's Night' but called something like "Suck off Satan" instead
I never liked Kraftwerk either. Some tech head will be sniggering, "Blasphemy", but for God's sake, the Dr Who theme sounded way more explosive and gripping than anything on "Radioactivity". And every record they've released still sounds like it was made in 1974. Although "Pocket Calculator" and "Computer Love" are funny
blissblogger
Well-known member
firing the canon
REM did become incredibly boring, "stipy" should be a derogatory adjective, like 'ooh, that's a bit stipy in't it, turn it off", but, BUT Murmur is a magical record and the one after it was good too
kinda half agree about the Beach Boys, their vocals are a bit castrated sounding, and Mike Love is a most embarassing frontman (just saw a documentary on the b.boys in the early 70s at their most sad sack, Love this mincing ninny onstage, Brian interviewed lying on his back in the hotel bedroom). But, cmon, good vibrations = supreme godhead innit
goldie got well wanky later on -- but the early productions on reinforced (when he worked with mysteirous character called something like dj freebase i think it is, plus one of 4 Hero) are supreme darkcore godhead innit.
apart from that i would say that every single artiste mentioned so far (with the exception of Mc5, the roots, run dmc, and zappa... possibly slint too although that's a slow grower, that record) are unquestionably great, you are all sad hataz, and the comments on Michael Jackson ('rock with you' is the sistine chapel of discofunk and 'don't stop til you get enough' is, er, the taj majal or something) and Hendrix are actually certifiable. Seriously these are lapses of taste and basic perceptual/cognitive functioning that verge on being aesthetically disabled.
REM did become incredibly boring, "stipy" should be a derogatory adjective, like 'ooh, that's a bit stipy in't it, turn it off", but, BUT Murmur is a magical record and the one after it was good too
kinda half agree about the Beach Boys, their vocals are a bit castrated sounding, and Mike Love is a most embarassing frontman (just saw a documentary on the b.boys in the early 70s at their most sad sack, Love this mincing ninny onstage, Brian interviewed lying on his back in the hotel bedroom). But, cmon, good vibrations = supreme godhead innit
goldie got well wanky later on -- but the early productions on reinforced (when he worked with mysteirous character called something like dj freebase i think it is, plus one of 4 Hero) are supreme darkcore godhead innit.
apart from that i would say that every single artiste mentioned so far (with the exception of Mc5, the roots, run dmc, and zappa... possibly slint too although that's a slow grower, that record) are unquestionably great, you are all sad hataz, and the comments on Michael Jackson ('rock with you' is the sistine chapel of discofunk and 'don't stop til you get enough' is, er, the taj majal or something) and Hendrix are actually certifiable. Seriously these are lapses of taste and basic perceptual/cognitive functioning that verge on being aesthetically disabled.
bassnation
the abyss
bun-u said:
"in the air tonight" is a tune, no matter what anyone says.
curious that he gets props stateside from the hip hop community but uk hipsters just don't get it!
bassnation said:"in the air tonight" is a tune, no matter what anyone says.
curious that he gets props stateside from the hip hop community but uk hipsters just don't get it!
"in the air tonight" would be nothing without the drum break! In fact the saving grace of Collins entire career is that 3 seconds!
blissblogger
Well-known member
blind spots
blind spots is good cos that's an admission of aesthetic disability
i forgot to put phil collins and autechre as exceptions (neither of whom i'd say were canonical in any generally accepted sense)
mind you 'turn it on turn it on again' by genesis is er rather good
dylan -- yeah but secretly i know i'm wrong there, and actually when i actually hear a dylan song i usually have to nod my head in silent relucant assent, but there's some kind of associatonal impediment to me getting into him, what he stands for (dylanology, lyrics>sound etc) of course there are ways of celebrating dylan that bypass the text-privileging, for his grain of voice, the wild thin mercury sound etc etc
i totally understand the anti-canonical impulse and have indulged it in the past. it's a nice multiple buzz -- a bit of sacrilege, a bit of 'everybody else are fools', a bit of 'this obscure thing i like is actually so much better than this thing that actually succeeded in its own time' -- my own faves with the latter being John's Children/The Eyes > The Who
but i think the attitude to music from the Sixties that is sometimes evidenced on here often appears to be generational ressentiment -- quite understandable, to be sick and tired of this stuff being shoved down your throat, the endless loop of retro-culture, mojo/vhi/uncut, lists of the best albums of all time, etc etc... it's bound to creates sensations of ennui and nausea
BUT most of the stuff in the rock canon, i would say 95 percent of it actually, is to my ears incontestably excellent
the psychological process of it, i suspect, often goes like this -- you hear something Canonical and initially are unimpressed and cos it's a more interesting posture, and a little bit of a relief too, something to strike off the list, you stay with that impression. and kind of cherish a bit
but see if i'd stuck with my initial impression of 'huh? so what?' to Astral Weeks, well i'd have missed out on an album that has illuminated my life, one of my all time favorite records
see, to me it's all about enlarging the canon or building extra wings to it, rather than dislodging stuff altogether -- the damaging thing is not the existence of canons per se but when they are upheld as the model of what music properly is and should always be (the feedback loop that created Britpop, or earlier J&MC and Spacemen 3 even, or....)
but goign back to the origianl question, one thing i don't understand is why Eric Clapton is so venerated. or maybe he isn't anymore, but at one time people used to write things like Eric Clapton is God on walls
blind spots is good cos that's an admission of aesthetic disability
i forgot to put phil collins and autechre as exceptions (neither of whom i'd say were canonical in any generally accepted sense)
mind you 'turn it on turn it on again' by genesis is er rather good
dylan -- yeah but secretly i know i'm wrong there, and actually when i actually hear a dylan song i usually have to nod my head in silent relucant assent, but there's some kind of associatonal impediment to me getting into him, what he stands for (dylanology, lyrics>sound etc) of course there are ways of celebrating dylan that bypass the text-privileging, for his grain of voice, the wild thin mercury sound etc etc
i totally understand the anti-canonical impulse and have indulged it in the past. it's a nice multiple buzz -- a bit of sacrilege, a bit of 'everybody else are fools', a bit of 'this obscure thing i like is actually so much better than this thing that actually succeeded in its own time' -- my own faves with the latter being John's Children/The Eyes > The Who
but i think the attitude to music from the Sixties that is sometimes evidenced on here often appears to be generational ressentiment -- quite understandable, to be sick and tired of this stuff being shoved down your throat, the endless loop of retro-culture, mojo/vhi/uncut, lists of the best albums of all time, etc etc... it's bound to creates sensations of ennui and nausea
BUT most of the stuff in the rock canon, i would say 95 percent of it actually, is to my ears incontestably excellent
the psychological process of it, i suspect, often goes like this -- you hear something Canonical and initially are unimpressed and cos it's a more interesting posture, and a little bit of a relief too, something to strike off the list, you stay with that impression. and kind of cherish a bit
but see if i'd stuck with my initial impression of 'huh? so what?' to Astral Weeks, well i'd have missed out on an album that has illuminated my life, one of my all time favorite records
see, to me it's all about enlarging the canon or building extra wings to it, rather than dislodging stuff altogether -- the damaging thing is not the existence of canons per se but when they are upheld as the model of what music properly is and should always be (the feedback loop that created Britpop, or earlier J&MC and Spacemen 3 even, or....)
but goign back to the origianl question, one thing i don't understand is why Eric Clapton is so venerated. or maybe he isn't anymore, but at one time people used to write things like Eric Clapton is God on walls
bassnation said:"in the air tonight" is a tune, no matter what anyone says.
curious that he gets props stateside from the hip hop community but uk hipsters just don't get it!
Sorry. But even an H-bomb couldn't convince me that Phil Collins is anything more than some shrivelled up, embarrassing, defective Bob Hoskins clone whose musical career should never have progressed beyond dancing on a bottle top (with a flame held underneath it) as part of some seaside freak show. And that even were he to single-handedly find a cure for AIDS and broker a workable peace deal in the Middle East, he should still be shot for transforming "Can't Hurry Love" into a wedding party anthem for cunts who wear boating shoes and their cardigans around their necks. If the US hip hop community are really bigging up this cretin, no wonder I haven't heard any decent stateside rap for donkey's.
bassnation
the abyss
martin said:
true, and i'm not talking about actually, y'know, liking the guy - but hes still released the odd good record. can't let hate blind you to the truth, man.
and no good stateside rap for donkeys? christ, theres loads of great hip hop, either underground or commercial. just plucking something from the top of my head, that new snoop tune vs the neptunes, heavy as fuck. and yes they are bigging him up, to the point of recording a tribute lp a few years back, they see him as a HUGE influence on the genre.
maybe they see something in him that you don't, won't or can't. your loss, but even so i never thought i'd find myself defending phil bloody collins on a music forum.
my blind spot is what simon calls the "lyrics>sound" thing in regards to dylan. though i have to say that i do enjoy two dylan albums quite a bit- "blood on the tracks" and the pat garrett and billy the kid soundtrack- but that has more to do with some sort of weakness i have for grim western themes.
since i was a kid i've had trouble listening to any music that depends on lyrics for its enjoyment- any review that quotes lyrics at me always makes me squirm and stop paying attention- and not just folk or singer-songwriter type things. this extends to punk and hiphop also- i only hear the production, never the lyrics. and if that's an aesthetic disabilty on my part- well so be it. maybe i'll grow into it.
since i was a kid i've had trouble listening to any music that depends on lyrics for its enjoyment- any review that quotes lyrics at me always makes me squirm and stop paying attention- and not just folk or singer-songwriter type things. this extends to punk and hiphop also- i only hear the production, never the lyrics. and if that's an aesthetic disabilty on my part- well so be it. maybe i'll grow into it.
Well I know it's become common now to want to break away from notions of 'trendiness' and delve into guilty pleasures that everyone was too scared to admit they secretly liked. To shed the cosy armour of hipsterism and genuinely listen to artists, no matter how 'naff' they may have been perceived. Even if it involves listening to Phil Collins, Dean Friedman or Cliff Richard.
But bollocks to that! I still thinking smoking fags, listening to garage punk and speedcore techno, wearing wrap around shades and going "How boring" everytime Girls Aloud come on TV is like, really cool! It's inevitable - all this hyping up Genesis, Kim Cairns etc - is going to result in a backlash. The kids are going to go mental, grinding the new "Rough Trade AOR Box Set" underfoot, into the Portobello Road pavement, as they demand obscure Nash the Slash type anti-heroes to obsess about for the next five days. Kill your idols and remember, never listen to any song that lasts more than 1 min 59 seconds (unless it's an extended dub version of a track by some ultra rare Bulgarian industrial outfit that only two other people on the Net have heard of). You know it makes sense
But bollocks to that! I still thinking smoking fags, listening to garage punk and speedcore techno, wearing wrap around shades and going "How boring" everytime Girls Aloud come on TV is like, really cool! It's inevitable - all this hyping up Genesis, Kim Cairns etc - is going to result in a backlash. The kids are going to go mental, grinding the new "Rough Trade AOR Box Set" underfoot, into the Portobello Road pavement, as they demand obscure Nash the Slash type anti-heroes to obsess about for the next five days. Kill your idols and remember, never listen to any song that lasts more than 1 min 59 seconds (unless it's an extended dub version of a track by some ultra rare Bulgarian industrial outfit that only two other people on the Net have heard of). You know it makes sense
But the thing is, Phil Collins is (or was) a very accomplished drummer. Even if you slag off everything Genesis have ever done, there are still the sessions for Eno and his work with Brand X. Collins' entire career is replete with extremely good drum breaks; whether or not you actually like the stuff he's playing along to. Oh, and he's a better vocalist than Peter Gabriel.AshRa said:
The solo career is still complete pants though.
mind_philip
saw the light
All of grime... it's just poor people music, innit
And whoever it was dissing harmonies??? I mean, please... me and the 2 other people I've got with me copying everything I say a 3rd and a 5th above me TOTALLY disagree with you.
And whoever it was dissing harmonies??? I mean, please... me and the 2 other people I've got with me copying everything I say a 3rd and a 5th above me TOTALLY disagree with you.
I want someone to explain to me why Neil Young isn't a wheezy, vainglorious git
Also why Pavement aren't the smug ramblings of someone nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is on top of the most funkless, prosaic and sloppy of indie rock. and why their influence has not been utterly malign
See also- Will Oldham, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Silver Jews, Songs Ohia....
funny though, I hated Joni Mitchell for ages, mainly for Big Fucking Yellow Fucking Taxi and surprised myself by falling totally in love with Hissing of Summer Lawns while extremely drunk and finding it was still incredible sober....so maybe some of this stuff does need proper attention...maybe I shouldn't have taped over Astral Weeks.
also- Phil Collins' drumming on Before and After Science redeems many a sin. And yeah In the air Tonight is great....someone once told me it was inspired by PiL's 'Flowers of Romance', so THERE
Also why Pavement aren't the smug ramblings of someone nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is on top of the most funkless, prosaic and sloppy of indie rock. and why their influence has not been utterly malign
See also- Will Oldham, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Silver Jews, Songs Ohia....
funny though, I hated Joni Mitchell for ages, mainly for Big Fucking Yellow Fucking Taxi and surprised myself by falling totally in love with Hissing of Summer Lawns while extremely drunk and finding it was still incredible sober....so maybe some of this stuff does need proper attention...maybe I shouldn't have taped over Astral Weeks.
also- Phil Collins' drumming on Before and After Science redeems many a sin. And yeah In the air Tonight is great....someone once told me it was inspired by PiL's 'Flowers of Romance', so THERE
bassnation
the abyss
martin said:
i used to have a 7" by a hardcore punk band whos name now escapes me, with over 50 songs on it. each song was like a split second of frantic drumming and a singer going "neeeeeearrrrrgggggghhhhh" - you'd look at the lyric sheet and see paragraphs of dense lyrics about bringing multinationals down. those were the days.
and lets be honest that whole breakcore thing bites that style big time but with less panache and professionalism.