I love cheese. I’ll eat almost any type of cheese, but I stop short at brie. I really don’t like that family of soft, runny cheeses. The texture is not pleasing. The taste is boring and even opposed to my sensory idea of enjoyment.
However, there’s a category between “like” and “don’t like”l I call it Swiss cheese. Among cheeses I eat, Swiss cheese is as distasteful and boring as it gets. A cheese any more distasteful and boring is a cheese I probably won’t like. I have taken to using the expression “the Swiss cheese of ________” to describe this feeling I have in various areas. For instance, Doris Day is my Swiss cheese of attractive women. Ham – you know, the ham sandwich type of ham – is my Swiss cheese of meats. It probably make a lot of sense that ham sandwiches often include Swiss cheese.
I have a Swiss cheese of rock: Seger. I wish I could lower my standards a bit more and say Mellencamp, but despite the fact that I can tolerate that guy, I never get a positive vibe from any song of his beside “Cherry Bomb” (I think that’s the title. Seger, on the other hand, is barely enjoyable in small doses.
What do you think? Who’s your Swiss cheese of rock?
I look forward to your responses.
A band that gets no love, or even mention around these parts, Loverboy. The have great sing-along hooks that are as stupid as the Ramones without the hint of irony. Hot Girls In Love!
In the sense of “I’ll go there, absent any more appealing alternatives” — I’m gonna have to go with Elton.
Jethro Tull — they really ride the knife’s edge delineating interesting, melodic and idiosyncratic rock on this side, and absurd, pompous crap on the other.
Great suggestions, so far. Keep ’em comiing.
Isn’t this a variation on the Most Mediocre Rock Musician question I asked on the old version of this list a couple years back? In the poll that followed, Bob Seger won out, with Pearl Jam slightly less mediocre and Mellencamp slightly more.
I’ve lately decided that I really hate Mellencamp’s music. Why? Okay, Seger’s “Like A Rock” ended up on an endlessly shown commercial, but I don’t quite get the impression that Seger wrote it simply so that it would BE a commercial. Every one of Mellencamp’s hits sounds like he wrote it hoping it would end up on an ad. Seriously: listen to those songs with that in mind, and you’ll see what I mean. Notice all the lines that are consciously “catchy” advertising slogans.
But for this current question, and maybe (maybe) leaving aside their first album, I’m going to say The Police. I never have any desire to hear their music, but rarely hate it enough to turn it off. And it’s almost interesting except that, in the end, it just isn’t.
Could be a variation on a theme, as you suggest Mwall. There’s no harm in restating our Rock Values now and then.
What you say about Mellencamp is SPOT ON! I saw some fluff piece with him visiting “the troops” at a VA hospital recently. He was walking around in his tight jeans and flannel shirt, playing acoustic versions of his patriotic songs to keep the spirits up. At one point he handed his guitar to a disabled vet who played one of his songs back to the Master. Mellencamp was digging it heavily, and even I felt healed by this exchange.
He may be a great guy with great intentions despite his mediocre music, but let’s face it, the main problem with Mellencamp is his Look. Do you agree?
Speaking just for myself, I haven’t seen that much of his look; I recall seeing videos of several of the hits years back, and I’m remembering his album covers now. In the early days he looked like a teen WB actor doing a third-rate Jerry Lee Lewis imitation. As genuine American as a Levi’s ad.
I don’t know if Mellencamp’s problem is his Look. I think the issue is more one of aspiration. There was some kind of strange chain of events where Springsteen decided he wanted to be Dylan (to the point that it seemed like he convinced himself that Dylan’s kid was his for a year or so there), Mellencamp decided he wanted to be Springsteen and Bon Jovi also decided he wanted to be Springsteen, but missed and accidentally failed at being Mellencamp.
Mellencamp probably would have been better off accepting his fate at being Beardless Seger. But either way, he peaked with his guest spot on SCTV.
Fine read on Mellencamp and the larger implications, Alexmagic!
In the past, I’ve found myself defending Mellencamp in the halls of rock, at least relative to Seger. I think Mellencamp sounds better on the radio — in part because Kenny Arnoff’s snare drum is always so damn loud. Upon further reflection, however, I am reminded that I like very little of his music. But it makes me laugh, which counts for something, and again, is more than I can say for Seger’s. I did notice recently that he always done this shimmy dance that’s up there with those of Davy Jones and Axl Rose.
And he did appear on camera with an Ed Grimley haircut, so there’s that.
There really hasn’t been a more blatant rock crime as of late than Mellencamp’s “This is America” song. I mean, it’s fine to be patriotic, but to celebrate patriotism as some sort of mindless, infantile attachment is just plain pathetic.
And say what you will but at least the Boss never falls into this trap. Whatever he’s singing about is treated with some measure of dignity and intelligence.
I never minded Bob Seger. Sure, his latter career is awful, but some of his early stuff is pretty fun. I really like Rambin’ Gamblin’ Man and I thought Smokin’ O.P.’s was fun. John Mellencamp can’t even decide what his name is, so he’s just always had this Kiss kind of vibe to me – which is that I get the impression he’d sing or play anything that would get him on the radio and TV. He’s not dedicated to anything except seeing and hearing himself.
Scorpions are my Swiss Cheese band. They’re completely mediocre, and even occasionally kind of rocked, but they seemed like every time they were about to really rock, they chickened out and let the singer be the focal point. I guess they even have a new album out. I’m sure it carries on their great tradition of blending in.
Speaking of Johnny Cougar, he’s got a new song about The Jena 6. I watched the video, it includes the Big Snare Sound and The Acoustic Guitar of the Great Midwest. They took the time to print all the words to the song (in blood red over the video. Masters of War it ain’t, but then again it sounds like all his other songs. I found the link here:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1906357/posts
Which has some pretty far right wing people bitching about it. Which makes me wonder, what do they have to listen to? I don’t like Johnny Cougar because I think his music sucks, but he’s generally on the same side of the social/political fence as me. I don’t think I have any music that supports views I disagree with, but I know some very conservative people that tell me they just don’t listen to the lyrics of The Stones or Beatles. I think that would be hard to do.
I’ve always had a weak spot for John Cougar Mellencamp’s records although I felt creeped out by his persona by 1985’s SCARECROW. And Jeez, look at these lyrics:
“He was born on the fourth day of july
So his parents called him independence day
He married a girl named justice who gave birth
To a son called nation
Then she walked away…”
“Chorus:
Oh oh
When a nation cries
His tears fall down like missiles from the skies
Justice look into independences eyes
Can you make everything alright
Can you keep your nation warm tonight”
-Justice & Independence ´85
Isn’t he worried that bad art could hurt his cause?
But bad as Mellenhead can be the general state of decline demanded that his spot in the pop fabric be re-cast by Jon Bon Jovi, who is sort of Mellencamp-lite, a pretty thin brew indeed.
-db
np Scout Niblett – THIS FOOL CAN DIE NOW
Anyone see Mellencamp’s star vehicle FALLING FROM GRACE? Mr. Mod might stop getting to weepy over TENDER MERCIES if he gave this gem a chance.
2000 Man, good point about conservatives who worry about rock lyrics having limited options. Isn’t this part of the reason country has gotten so big? A lot of that modern country I hear in passing is actually pretty good, musically, but I suspect a good deal of it is more “value oriented” than I typically care to hear.
dbuskirk, I have not seen Cougar’s star turn, but I heard it was actually pretty good. Now you’ve got me tearing up over the thought of Duvall’s gait in the final scenes of Tender Mercies.
There’s always CCM vor ‘values’ conservatives. You don’t hear as much about CCM anymore, do you?
The ‘market’ conservatives could always listen to blingcentric gangsta rap. The “me and my crew have lots of money so fuck everybody else” attitude should feel very familiar.
Commercial country music is for the Republican voter base, the people who don’t realize that they’ve voting against their own self-interest.
BigSteve sez:
The ‘market’ conservatives could always listen to blingcentric gangsta rap. The “me and my crew have lots of money so fuck everybody else” attitude should feel very familiar.
I say:
Groan.
I knew that would get a groan out of hvb. Help us out then, buddy, and give us some examples of music that reflect noble conservative economics.
Noble conservative economics: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
One song I can get behind whose economics are in some sense noble and conservative is Cheap Trick’s “Taxman, Mr. Heath.” Even there though the lyrics sometimes irk me just a little. But its rags to riches only to be ruined by the government theme has definite appeal.
Forget Cheap Trick; I appeal to the Beatles themselves — in “Taxman.”
But in general, I gather up all the songs with distinctly pragmatic lyrics about cause and effect, supply and demand, and buying and selling the things people want at as fair a price as can be reasonably negotiated, and I lay them at BigSteve’s feet. It’s a mighty big pile.
A mighty big pile is right, considering you can’t come up with a single title.
Swinging to the other side of the spectrum – a line in “White Man in Hammersmith Palais”
“Why not phone up Robin Hood and ask him for wealth distrubution”
I just found out that John Mellencamp is a nominee for induction into the RnR Hall of Fame.
I guess it’s just like the NHL or NBA playoffs: anyone with a half-decent record can get in.
Which of Mellencamp’s half-decent records is the most half-decent?
That one with him on the cover wearing jeans and sporting three-day-old hair. That one.
FWIW – I remember Eric Peterson really liking “Scarecrow” when it came out in 85 or 86. I think it got a “pretty great” on the EP scale
That’s a great one andyr. I love “White Man in Hammersmith Palais” for many reasons and that line is among them. It also made me think of that line in “The Equaliser” about the “stealers of Zion”, though I can’t recall it exactly right now.