Fun Stuff > BAND
To hell with the canon
Johnny C:
Man the thing about wreckin' the canon is that it makes those of us who love the bands dissed re-evaluate what we love about them, and usually it strengthens our love of them anyways. It's like reverse psychology or something.
nuisance:
OK... *sleeves rolled up*
"classic" stuff:
After being exposed to large quantities of Bobs Dylan and Marley by workmates and close friends for many years I still fail to give a shit about either of them. Not that I think they're bad, I'm just largely uninterested in their music.
My favourite Stones material is when they found disco, singles like Miss You and Emotional Rescue.
I find James Brown, by and large, boring. Awesome, awesome bands, pity about the songs.
I can't stand Neil Young. His album 'Trans' is pretty funny, cos it predates Trans Am by a good decade or so, but sounds pretty much the same.
The less classic, "rock snob" canon selections:
I prefer sold-out, crooner Bryan Ferry material to Eno-era Roxy Music. Actually, now I think about it, I prefer Eno's ambient recordings to his rock albums, which is probably considered naughty by some.
I find Nick Drake's 'Pink Moon' cold and boring, not all harrowing and whatever else.
I don't like 80s hardcore. I don't mind Fugazi's Waiting Room, but I guess that's their big song for those who don't otherwise give two shits about the whole business.
I don't particularly like post-punk (i.e. what was happening in the late 70s, early 80s in Britain), although sometimes there were a few good songs going. Well, in some ways I love it, but I don't like listening to it. I own one Wire album somewhere, and have some PIL singles, but that's about as far as my enthusiasm stretches. I'm including Joy Division in here too.
Can't stand Gram Parsons.
Contemporary stuff:
I never really liked Public Enemy.
I quite like some Björk (she's an excellent gateway to her generally very creative collaborators - I was shocked when she just took a bunch of other people's tracks wholesale and sang on them for 'Vespertine'), quite like some Beck (although since 'Seachange' the return of the po-mo thing is broing the tits off me.. yet I don't want to hear another 'Seachange'... hmm), and quite like some PJ Harvey (of course, I'd go for 'Is This Desire?', for its more electronic focus). These are all artists who it seems like critics are unwilling to say a bad word about.
I don't like Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada. I became obsessed with post-dance electronica around 93-94, so not liking either of these artists kind of ruins other electronica fans' minds, it seems.
I think chart rap is more inventive, honest and inspiring than conscious/backpacker/indie stuff. By and large. The love given to artists like Jurassic 5 honestly makes me furious. And it's really dumb to get furious about music taste. Let's not talk about The Roots. Ooh great, there's a hip-hop act who embody the tired values of rock critics - let's all get excited about it!
Dunno if this is anti-canonical or what, but I love R&B singles. I love R Kelly's Ignition Remix, I think Beyonce's Crazy In Love is one of the best songs of the millenium (maybe second, behind Daft Punk's Digital Love), I'll probably never ever get sick of Brandy's What ABout Us.
I find what gets called "indie rock" (this contemporary, US-led thing, although the contemporary Brits are just as fucked) incredibly backwards-looking and frustratingly safe sounding. It seems like an endless recycling of ideas from 20-30 years earlier, a celebration of really conservative notions of "good songwriting" and a whole lot of authenticity as a posture. I think I'm just being angry at fans more than the artists here.
AARGH, enough!
Splunkle:
Led Zeppelin is interesting - listening to one of their albums is like, "blues, blues, blues, wait, prog rock?" which is always kinda nice. Though I find their blues stuff kinda boring... but I'm not that into blues, which is probably why. Personally, my favorite of theirs would have to be Achilles' Last Stand. But I'm a sucker for gratuitously long songs for no other reason than being long.
The Beatles best song is Back in the USSR. So riduculously "hey look, we can do the beach boys thing too!"
Actually, I can't really think of any artists/albums that everyone says I should like and then I don't... at least not off the top of my head.
--- Quote from: ImRonBurgundy? on 01 Oct 2006, 14:31 ---
--- Quote from: Johnny C on 01 Oct 2006, 13:02 ---Zep, on the other hand, have always come across as a posturing bunch of elitist "hard" rockers, hell-bent on technical prowess over the finer points of songcraft.
--- End quote ---
I agree, and this is basically what I was going to say about Led Zeppelin. I also just can't get into Pink Floyd. I find them dreadfully boring. Same with Broken Social Scene, for the most part.
--- End quote ---
Pink Floyd is rather heavily kinda ambient. And the whole point of ambient is to be boring. Well, not quite, but very backgroundy. I mean, one of the fundamental albums of the style was called "music for furniture" or somesuch. Its not something you litsen to, so much as put on while you do other stuff. Which is why, by the way, the vast majority of "ambient" stuff isn't really ambient at all - ambient influenced, sure, but not ambient.... anyways. The point of all this is thats its quite ok to be bored by ambient musics, because most people are. Including myself. Ahem. [/rant]
EDIT because I got ninja'ed: Neil Young is Canon now? Shit, sign me up for the haters crowd there. I know the man has talent, I just can't stand his voice. Some of the stuff he did with Crazy Horse is preety awesome though - 13 minute covers of "All Along the Watchtower" is where it is at, people.
Johnny C:
--- Quote from: nuisance on 01 Oct 2006, 21:42 ---Bob Marley
--- End quote ---
I like, quite literally, no reggae.
sjbrot:
The Stones were like a lot of groups: They had their time, wedged somewhere between an early period of questionable R & B and a latter period of crap, and now they're milking it. Of course, because they've come to a cultural signifier for an entire generation, grown past the distinction of band and all, they've been able to milk it like no other could.
Let's not forget, however, some of the awesome stuff. Let It Bleed and Beggar's Banquet, to name two specific examples, both rock strong and hard, with undeniable (in my mind, at least) standout tracks like "Gimme Shelter" and "Sympathy for the Devil", respectively.
The idea of a rock canon seems really weird. With a lot of different kinds of artists, the work isn't left up to interpration by them year after year after it's written. So, Kadinski isn't going to be painting the same painting more than once, but Alice Cooper will be singing "Eighteen" till the day he dies. Heller won't rewrite Catch-22 for a live audience, though a Morrissey audience would certainly feel cheated if "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" isn't played.
The idea of an established canon is important for people interested in music criticism. It's just the artists themselves and the ever changing context the music is used in that can bugger it up. Though, many times, the music that is seen as important only seemed so in a certain set of circumstances but now, years latter, it's rubbish.
About Kill Your Idols: Did anyone feel that Carmel Carrillo's essay on music she associated with break-ups seemed out of place and pointless?
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