Jun 152007
Links, people!
In RTH’s not-so-olden days, I believe Mr. Mod longed for Paul McCartney to drop the cheesy light show and smoke bombs. Looks like industry insiders and Macca diehards got Mr. Mod’s wish!
Peter Hook, Billy Childish, Wayne Coyne, that guy from Franz Ferdinand and others give their picks for the most overrated album ever. Read the highly amusing and gauntlet-throwing article here!
Links!
Thanks for those links, Oats! I’d like to extend a hearty handshake to the dude who opined:
…the Strokes are the new Duran Duran; the new decadence for the new millennium.
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
Plurbie, you need to read the link about overrated LPs; I suspect you’ll find much to agree with in it — as well as a few teeth-gnashingly WRONG items. (The reasons given for not liking the first VU album, for example. In addition to that being one of the *two* VU LPs even worth dropping a needle on… well, let’s just say the dude gets it all wrong.)
I agree! This article is right up Eplurb’s alley.
Also, hrrundi have you softened on your anti-VU stance?
The cut on the first VU album is great, and fairly accurate. The one problem with the guy’s cuts, though, is that he ignores the handful of great songs on that album and has no appreciation from some of the screechers that I like at the end of side 2. Love the cut on the bad production. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who has beefs with crap production.
Pretty funny to see the new Arcade Fire on that list. Can an album that’s only been out 3 months be considered overrated? Funny, too, that that Gartside guy criticized the lack of “interesting rhythms,” as Epluribus might put it.
And howzabout the Franz Ferdinand guy’s piece on Marquee Moon? Now you know, Eplurbie, what it feels like to get shot by your own gun.
Oats,
People are finally beginning to see the light.
Talk to ya soon!
E. Pluribus
Great link, Oats!
I love the line “This is a sacred cow but that doesn’t mean it can’t be turned into hamburger. ” – talking about the Velvets (I hate that moniker – what are the worst band nicknames?)
I love Teenage Fanclub but absolutely refuse to call them “The Fannies.”
Good one. I love the Trashcan Sinatras, but I refuse to call them “The Trashies”. Similarly, I think “The Weddoes” is an absolutely awful nickname for The Wedding Present.
I think referring to Bob Seger’s longtime accompanists as The Silver Bullshit Band is uncalled for.
There’s only one JB, and it ain’t Jackson Browne.
I also can’t stand references to the Moptops for the Beatles. Some things are long past their expiration date.
I heard the Arcade Fire guys on Terry Gross last week. They’re discussing the record and I’m thinkin’, Hey, this sounds like it might be interesting”, then they play something and, WHOA, it’s not happenin’ at all. I think the Scritti guy gets it pretty accurately.
couldn’t they find anyone who hates “zen arcade”, “daydream nation”, and “ok computer” and too?
It would have been cool if each person in the piece cut on someone else’s record, you know, Scritti says a Milkshakes album sucks and then Childish says Franz Ferdinand sucks…
I really only like Craig Finn and Billy Childish, so the other guys can blow me. I mean, ripping on Abba because you went to awful parties? Go to better parties. I’d never rip on Abba because, well, because they’re Abba! They know they don’t rock.
The Flaming Lips never impressed me, either. My kids dig them, but Wayne Coyne seems to spend a lot of time proving that while he doesn’t like Nevermind he knows it’s totally influential and no one will ever talk about him like that. Sour grapes, I say.
But Billy and Craig get it so right, where the Franz Ferdinand dude just misses the point entirely (doesn’t he know The Fratelli’s do his job better than him, anyway?).
I always liked Jim DeRogatis’ Kill Your Idols book, where he lets everyone take a stab at the sacred cows. Sure a few of them get it wrong, but the problem with so much of the classic rock established thought is that 1966 to 1980 is the only valid music ever created, and it slowly regresses each year. I was there. I wasn’t impressed with most of it.