Random Music Opinions (not record reviews, don't worry)
I think I've been giving Beck a bad deal. I'd kinda given up paying attention to him, since Midnite Vultures was a pretty bad Prince album and there wasn't much I liked on Mutations.
But the fact that he'd even attempt a Prince album is pretty impressive... and the good songs on Mutations were really good. "Nobody's Fault" eventually became a great Marianne Faithfull song, too.
Conversely, I really hope R.E.M. packs it in soon. In Time was pretty painful to slog through.
My least favorite, or most laughable, comparison in record reviews is when so-and-so is "like the Stooges." I've heard many albums, many songs, some with garagey parts or fuzz pedals or wah-wah or aggressive punk style, but I've yet to hear anyone sound "like the Stooges." I'm not saying they're my favorite band evarr, but they were unique. It takes more than a lil fuzz to be them. Mudhoney sounded fucking nothing like the Stooges, for example.
The closest I ever heard anyone sound to the Stooges was the first Red Aunts album, Drag... and at the time, reviews just said, "Ahh, it's just the guy in Clawhammer's sister and they can't play."
I do hear some MC5 sounds on other folks' records, though. Was just listening to the Celibate Rifles's "Back in the Red." S' pretty MC5. Radio Birdman were kinda, too. I guess Australians sound like the MC5, sometimes.
As for garage revival, there is nothing as underimpressive as a band slavishly attempting to conform to style. I like some garage rock, sure... I have no problem with a band wanting to rock out... I would hope a new garage band wouldn't just... you know, dress like a '60s gang or just sing about the same empty shit that every other band sung about, though. These are times when the govt., even society itself, is quite unhealthy and often dangerous. These are not times to contribute another fucking party record to the pile... unless you're bringing some new form or style to the musical proceedings.
Maybe it's hard to be political on a rock record and not sound like a douche... but bands can at least try, or at least try some new direction... that is my only fear about the garage revival. It's easy to just assimilate into the system as a nostalgia act and claim you're doing something with guts; it's entirely different to actually do so.
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evening update -- Hah, well I've been reading my new Magnet mag and was mildly rebuked by the songwriters, in my above statements. Oh, I already knew I was a bit out of bounds saying that records should be "political" because "times have changed."
As I wrote the above, I was mindful of the passage in Tobias Wolff's Old School when a professor argues to poet Robert Frost for new directions (i.e. the Beats) in literature (the scene is set in 1960) because "surely" the world has changed, with the threat of the atom bomb, WW2, etc., to which Frost replies, icily, "Surely nothing," noting that pundits always describe the current times as hard times, and that he lost a friend to WW1.
Okay, I did err a little in suggesting our times new and different. And felt humbled when I read the following in the short on Blonde Redhead:
Amedeo Pace - "For us, the fact that we're in New York and all that has happened here and in the world, it is a very sad thing, but as far as music, it comes from a deeper place. I don't think I could ever sing about September 11 or politics, because there's so much about me I have to sing about before I get to that."
Kazu Makino - "But everything has something to do with the way the world is now. Music, whatever it absorbs, comes out in the end. People who play music, it's their burden to absorb everything that's around us and vomit it out a little bit. It doesn't have to be political."
I certainly don't want to commandeer BR's studio boards and make them sing about planes crashing into buildings or whatever. That wouldn't make a record better, per se... my point is just that- to grow, rock needs to change. To be relevant, a new band should avoid copying and (hopefully, in some way) reflect more than just empty rock fashion, of whichever decade. I don't mind people playing old-style rock, any more than old-style jazz or country-blues or classical... but I think it's dangerous to slavishly dress '60s and namedrop Vespa scooters or Twiggy or whatever like it's fuckin' '66 still, and act like it's not 2004... I think it's dangerous to either being relevant or interesting. I think just singing about driving a sportscar and whether someone is banging you or not and being cool is kinda limiting.
I, personally, would feel compelled to reflect the negatives of modern (apparently apathetic) suburban American, in some form, if I was writing lyrics... and I might take a stab.
I think I've been giving Beck a bad deal. I'd kinda given up paying attention to him, since Midnite Vultures was a pretty bad Prince album and there wasn't much I liked on Mutations.
But the fact that he'd even attempt a Prince album is pretty impressive... and the good songs on Mutations were really good. "Nobody's Fault" eventually became a great Marianne Faithfull song, too.
Conversely, I really hope R.E.M. packs it in soon. In Time was pretty painful to slog through.
My least favorite, or most laughable, comparison in record reviews is when so-and-so is "like the Stooges." I've heard many albums, many songs, some with garagey parts or fuzz pedals or wah-wah or aggressive punk style, but I've yet to hear anyone sound "like the Stooges." I'm not saying they're my favorite band evarr, but they were unique. It takes more than a lil fuzz to be them. Mudhoney sounded fucking nothing like the Stooges, for example.
The closest I ever heard anyone sound to the Stooges was the first Red Aunts album, Drag... and at the time, reviews just said, "Ahh, it's just the guy in Clawhammer's sister and they can't play."
I do hear some MC5 sounds on other folks' records, though. Was just listening to the Celibate Rifles's "Back in the Red." S' pretty MC5. Radio Birdman were kinda, too. I guess Australians sound like the MC5, sometimes.
As for garage revival, there is nothing as underimpressive as a band slavishly attempting to conform to style. I like some garage rock, sure... I have no problem with a band wanting to rock out... I would hope a new garage band wouldn't just... you know, dress like a '60s gang or just sing about the same empty shit that every other band sung about, though. These are times when the govt., even society itself, is quite unhealthy and often dangerous. These are not times to contribute another fucking party record to the pile... unless you're bringing some new form or style to the musical proceedings.
Maybe it's hard to be political on a rock record and not sound like a douche... but bands can at least try, or at least try some new direction... that is my only fear about the garage revival. It's easy to just assimilate into the system as a nostalgia act and claim you're doing something with guts; it's entirely different to actually do so.
-- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - --
evening update -- Hah, well I've been reading my new Magnet mag and was mildly rebuked by the songwriters, in my above statements. Oh, I already knew I was a bit out of bounds saying that records should be "political" because "times have changed."
As I wrote the above, I was mindful of the passage in Tobias Wolff's Old School when a professor argues to poet Robert Frost for new directions (i.e. the Beats) in literature (the scene is set in 1960) because "surely" the world has changed, with the threat of the atom bomb, WW2, etc., to which Frost replies, icily, "Surely nothing," noting that pundits always describe the current times as hard times, and that he lost a friend to WW1.
Okay, I did err a little in suggesting our times new and different. And felt humbled when I read the following in the short on Blonde Redhead:
Amedeo Pace - "For us, the fact that we're in New York and all that has happened here and in the world, it is a very sad thing, but as far as music, it comes from a deeper place. I don't think I could ever sing about September 11 or politics, because there's so much about me I have to sing about before I get to that."
Kazu Makino - "But everything has something to do with the way the world is now. Music, whatever it absorbs, comes out in the end. People who play music, it's their burden to absorb everything that's around us and vomit it out a little bit. It doesn't have to be political."
I certainly don't want to commandeer BR's studio boards and make them sing about planes crashing into buildings or whatever. That wouldn't make a record better, per se... my point is just that- to grow, rock needs to change. To be relevant, a new band should avoid copying and (hopefully, in some way) reflect more than just empty rock fashion, of whichever decade. I don't mind people playing old-style rock, any more than old-style jazz or country-blues or classical... but I think it's dangerous to slavishly dress '60s and namedrop Vespa scooters or Twiggy or whatever like it's fuckin' '66 still, and act like it's not 2004... I think it's dangerous to either being relevant or interesting. I think just singing about driving a sportscar and whether someone is banging you or not and being cool is kinda limiting.
I, personally, would feel compelled to reflect the negatives of modern (apparently apathetic) suburban American, in some form, if I was writing lyrics... and I might take a stab.
VIEW 13 of 13 COMMENTS
Thankfully, my SG buddies aren't spread out all over the world as much as yours dude, so i guess you've got it worse than me.
And the entire population of Hackney can go and suck my stump .