August 18, 2005
Brit-pop
So, I've been thinking about the big things in life recently- life, death, love, brit-pop, mainly just brit-pop. I have rekindled my love of Blur nd for the past week have been on a steady diet of Parklife and The Great Escape. It's making me strong. Also, the other night I watched this documentary about the late 70's early 80's music scene out of Sheffield. It was called Made in Sheffield. It was terrible. The sleeve made it sound like it was going to be somewhat about Pulp, which is why I watched it. But mainly it just had Jarvis Cocker talking about other bands. Cabaret Voltaire and the Human League were the focus of the film. And both of these bands were rubbish. Cabaret Voltaire is one of the alltime worst bands. I was tricked into buying one of their CD's once. Now I use it as a coaster. The Human League is just as bad. You might know them from that 80's pop hit that goes, "Don't you want me baby, don't you want me ohohohoh." Early Human League was like a sinister Kraftwerk, if Kraftwerk was a group of Brits who made terrible music, rather than a group of German robots (or maybe technically they were androids. I don't know, I'll have to ask Huffine.)
But anyway. Brit-pop, huh. Good stuff. I've been thinking about the whole Blur vs. Oasis thing, and to be honest, I don't know how anybody could think that Oasis was better. Sure, Oasis had some good things going for it, the whole Liam-Noel dynamic was fun. There were some great singles too- "Supersonic", "Cigarettes and Alcohol", "Don't Look Back in Anger". Oasis could rip off the best of 'em with the best of 'em. Take for example that new single "Layla", which is a great remake of "Street Fighting Man." And then there's that song that ripped off the Coca-Cola song.
But let's be honest about a few things. Noel has put the most awful lyrics to good tunes since Paul McCartney. "Slowly walking down the hall/Faster than a cannonball." Now that's just stupid. It employs my all time least favorite lyrical device, the nonsensical contradiction (for a textbook example of this, see Bush- "Glycerine"). Oasis also loses points in my book for the fact that the frontman is not the leader of the band. This for some reason always annoys me, which is the only reason I don't like the Who nearly as much as I know I should.
But Blur, now there's a band. Good tunes, pretty good lyrics, good style. Just out there singin' songs, livin' the dream. And sure, Damon Albarn is just a pretty boy, but he's still cooler than Noel and Liam and their contrived attempts to be bad boys.
But enough about Blur and Oasis. Pulp in my opinion was the best Brit pop band. The 1998 record This is Hardcore, is one of the most insanely underated records of all time. In fact, it's in my all time top 3. And "Common People" was the best Brit-pop single. Jarvis Cocker is a genius. If you would like to look further into Brit-pop, I have written some questions to elicit study and discussion.
1) Justine Frischmann of Elastica- Hottest rock chick ever?
Sub-Question- Too good for Damon Albarn, or, too good for anyone?
2)The (London) Suede- terrible, or just slightly terrible?
3)the Morrissey song "Suedhead" is on
a) Viva Hate
b) Bona Drag
c) Both
4) Which is a sadder comment on America- the fact that the only hit Blur had
in America was "Song 2" (that Woo-Hoo song); or the fact that Americans
actually like "Song 2".
In unrelated news, my new band The Old Guard will be holding auditions to replace a founding member who played somethin, who recently moved away. Auditions will begin tomorrow, sometime after dusk but before dawn. If you wanne be a part of rock history, be there.
Our sound is like Cabaret Voltaire.
Posted by acm at 12:16 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
M. Trevor Higgins
M. Trevor Higgins- worst "journalist" in Chattanooga.
Posted by acm at 01:47 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
The Smiths vs. the Talking Heads
So, there's this kid that I work with, and he loves his Talking Heads. I think that he loves the Talking Heads more than anything else in the whole wide world. He makes these claims that the Talking Heads are better than such and such band, and better than this food, and cuter than that girl over there washing her car. It has really gotten out of hand. He once tried to argue the indefensible position that the Talking Heads were better than the Rolling Stones. Now, I hate my classic rock as much as the next guy, but comon, man, Exile on Main Street, Mick, Kieth, Street Fighting Man, Moonlight Mile, Sticky Fingers, Bittersweet Symphony- you just can't top them. Then he took the slightly, and I mean very slightly, more defensible position that the Talking Heads were better than the Smiths. This was after I took the position that the Smiths were better than the Talking Heads. He called me crazy and then I did a little dance, and he said that I couldn't find anybody else who thinks that the Smiths are better than Talking Heads. So now I take it to you, the zero people (besides myself) who read my blog, to prove to my coworker that I am not crazy. Who's comin' with me.
To prove it to him I'll break it down into simple categories that I (and you) will rate on a scale of 1 to 10, 10, of course, being the best, and whoever has the higher total at the end wins the title of best band.
THE SMITHS/ THE TALKING HEADS
9 BAND NAME 7
10 FRONTMAN 8
BEST* ALBUM (proper)
8 The Queen is Dead/Remain in Light 9
ALBUM (compilation)
10 Louder Than Bombs/ 7
Sand in the Vaseline
WORST ALBUM
6 Strangeways Here We Come/
Naked 2
CUTER BASSIST
0 Andy Rourke/Tina Weymouth 6
SONG
10 There's A Light That Never Goes Out/
Naive Melody(This Must Be the Place)
9
EXTRA CREDIT: The Smiths get 5 extra points for their album artwork and 2 extra points for the guitar player having the same last name as me. The Talking Heads get 2 extra points for David Byrnes' dancing on the Stop Making Sense film, and lose 5 points for the fact that the best member of the band, Brian Eno, wasn't even a member of the band.
TOTALS
THE SMITHS: 60 points THE TALKING HEADS: 45 points
And, of course the Smiths win, hands down.
Try it out for yourself, you'll thank me in the morning.
*At least, what the critical concensus of best album seems to be.
Posted by acm at 12:26 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 09, 2005
where have all the bloggers gone?
Huffine, I mean, Postmodernism, I'm speaking to you. And also to Kid Shovel. Call me sometime this week Kid. Am I gonna have to pick up the slack for the both of you? I mean, if that's what I hafta do, then I'm gonna do it.
Posted by acm at 11:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack