Oct 172008
Townspeople,
This is your Rock Town Hall! If you’ve already got Back Office privileges and can initiate threads, by all means use your privileges! If you’d like to acquire such privileges, let us know. If you’ve got a comment that needs to be made, what are you waiting for? If you’re just dropping in and find yourself feeling the need to make your voice heard, don’t hesitate to register and post your thoughts. The world of intelligent rock discussion benefits from your participation. Even your input, Links Linkerson.
What’s with the popular unpopularity of “She’s a Woman”? I can see not liking it, but it’s forgettable enough, isn’t it. Who gets *really* bugged by that song? Can you explain further?
I should say that the other least faves are ones you hear more often, which seems to help their odiousness. And I almost never hear that song played except by completists.
General, I was the first to vote for “She’s a Woman”. I hate that song – the horrible lyrics and Sammy Davis Jr singing by McCartney outweigh anything I like about the rhythm. There are other Beatles songs I don’t like, but that’s one that makes me feel like they’re stooping to their lowest point to fill an album. Yuck!
Anybody here have anything positive to say about the Roxy Music albums Manifesto or Flesh + Blood? Or does everybody agree that they suck?
Manifesto is good. I still don’t have Flesh + Blood, but I like a couple of the singles from it.
I like Manifesto a lot. Just make sure you get the one with the rock version of Angel Eyes. Flesh + Blood isn’t horrible, but it’s not one of their best.
Those two later period Roxy albums are all right, Mwall. I’d go as far to say that Manifesto is good. You just have to be prepared for hearing them in-between two of their most effective and powerful phases. Think a perennial playoff team muddling through a season with their second-string QB.
Fellow Townspeople, I would like to know the song I heard twice on the radio yesterday, once at a medical office & later during my lunch. It starts off w/the riff from “Werwolves From London” & then goes into “Sweet Home Alabama” while the singer sings about spending the summer of ’89 hangin’ w/his honey, drinkin’ wine & listenin’ to “Sweet Home Alabama”. Is this a Kid Rock song? I’ve cheerfully ignored modern pop culture for the past 15+ years, so it seems like this song was a hit.
Yes, it’s a Kid Rock song, Diskojoe. And it’s a hit. Ugh! Continue to take refuge in Rock Town Hall, where we knowlegeably talk about Little Feat and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Thanks, Mr. Mod, I appreciate it very much. I just think it was funny that I heard it twice in the same day.
The anti-Abbey Road votes are the ones I scratched my head over. Get rid of She Came In Through The Bathroom Window and You Never Give Me Your Money? Really?
I voted for When I Get Home. “When I get home tonight/I’m gonna hold her tight/I’m gonna love her til the cows come home…” has to be the worst lyric they ever put out.
I enjoy She’s a Woman. I like when Ringo goes to the aerosol spray can sound on the hi-hats, and also really like the Harrison guitar responses on the verses as well as his very tasty solo.
I’m Happy Just to Dance with You is a real dog. Imagine you’re Harrison, Lennon and McCartney have at that point ripped off all these enormous hit songs, and they ask you to sing that turd. You can picture Mac and Lennon in their hotel suite writing it, and laughing as they agree they will dump it on Harrison since it’s beneath them both.
What’s not suprising is that most of these songs are Paulie’s. My vote is for “Fool on The Hill”. Man that song sucks.
I’m surprised at the votes for “Yellow Submarine”. I always thought that was among the best of their kiddie songs.
Loveable oaf, Mal Evans gets to play on one friggin’ Beatles song, and members of the hall slap him down by voting Silver Hammer as most erasable tune in their catalogue.
Love Manifesto. Though not my favorite by far, from beginning to end I think it is one of the strongest and most consistent Roxy efforts. It is the pinnacle of that late 70s-80s sound that they were going for. The sound that they carried just a tad too far on Avalon.
Flesh is the only album I’ve never heard.
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Thanks for the input on Roxy, guys. On a first listen, Manifesto is a real snore. At least Flesh + Blood has a few more hooks, on the best songs anyway. I suppose I’ll give Manifesto a try again at another time when I don’t mind a groovy soporific.
Funny. I just acquired Flesh+Blood and was surprised at how underwhelming it is. I enjoyed it a bit but clearly their worst effort for me.
I picked up the Wreckless Eric/Any Rigby CD that I first found out in this hallowed hall this weekend to get Kid Rock out of my mind & I’m liking it so far. Standouts include “Astrovan” & “Men With Sandals”.
What’s with the hate of “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You”? That’s my fave rave song from the Hard Days Night album.
I like “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You” as well, Diskojoe.
I’ve been digging through the Wreckless Eric/Amy Rigby album as well. There’s a little tale Chickenfrank and I will have to tell. I have not yet had time to write up my perspective.
Sammy, my sense was (and again, only a first listen) that Manifesto was just a lesser version of the things that make Stranded and Country Life interesting. Flesh + Blood was more hit and miss, but the few good songs seem to be the prototype for the Avalon sound. In fact there was at least one cut on there (“Only Love” I think) that I always get confused about and think is on Avalon.
I haven’t listened to Manifesto in ages, but I get what Mwall’s saying. To me, Manifesto is like a stew or casserole of the last good bits of those mid-period albums. It’s not the most exciting dish to spin, but I used to find it hearty and surprisingly satisfying after I got over the initial disappointment of a rehashed meal.
Manifesto is not a stew of leftovers. The problem I think that most people have is the production. There was what, 4 or 5, years between the previous studio album and Manifesto.
I actually see Manifesto as a manifestation of everything that Ferry had done up until then. I think it stands as the album that he always wanted to make.
The songs are very strong and may only feel watered down due to your dislike of the production.
I view the album as a new era of Roxy Music. An evolution. Some bands evolve in ways we dig and some don’t. I can’t really say that this incarnation is my favorite, it isn’t, but I accept it as something new.
I also think that it set the stage for an amazing amount of crap. The Lexicons of Love out there are a permanent skid mark on what Roxy was doing and probably taint opinions.
I’ll even stick up for Avalon as only being slightly less successful in this effort as Manifesto.
If you’ve only listened to it once or haven’t in years, spin it with an open mind and groove to the bliss boys and girls.
Sammy wrote:
I hope you weren’t directing that to me. I like the production. I think 75% of the album’s strength is the production. To me, the production sets a mood that makes it possible for me to like the album regardless of the fact that there aren’t a lot of “killer” songs that I’d single out.
I’m man enough to admit that Avalon is great. I’ve got no beef with the album’s slick production. I know I usually don’t go for that kind of thing, but it’s just what’s required of the content.
It was the royal “you”.
With the exception of Cry, Cry, Cry and Stronger Through the Years, every song is strong and even those have their moments.
Killers: Angel Eyes, Ain’t That So, Dance Away and Spin Me Round.
This is the album that Let’s Dance Bowie cried himself to sleep to for much of the 80s.
I picked up the Wreckless Eric/Any Rigby CD that I first found out in this hallowed hall this weekend to get Kid Rock out of my mind & I’m liking it so far. Standouts include “Astrovan” & “Men With Sandals”.
“Men With Sandals” is a tremendous and sly bit of song-smithery. On the strength of that tune alone I will probably be acquiring a ton of Amy Rigby records in the near future. I went to the Wreckless Rigby show a few weeks back, expecting to be pleasantly entertained. It was just the two of them. Most fun I’ve had at a show in a very long time. Really freakin’ great. Eric still oozes punk (in the original idealist DIY configuration) and his singing voice sounds exactly the same as on his non-hits. Amy has a pretty incredible intensity to her singing, almost in a Wanda Jackson/50’s R ‘n’ R kind of way. She bears down on a song full-bore and it’s a sight to see.
TVox: there is much to be savored in Amy Rigby’s solo career. You have some good times ahead of you.