Make contentious statements

[Guest Kinetic]

Non-Rebuttal: You got me there.  But I'd like to give an honorable mention to Matador, who not only signed a lot of bands who have become personal favorites over the last decaded (Pavement, Belle and Sebastian, Yo La Tengo, etc.) but were also savvy enough to get the best distribution deal in indie label history, as far as I can tell.  Which I realize makes them somewhat un-indie.  Either way.

 

Statement: If he's not yet, Paul Westerberg needs to get back on the wagon.  He hasn't written a good song in about ten years.

[Guest Anorak]

I actually agree with that. He's written some passable stuff during that time maybe but it's just all so flaccid and disposable compared to what he did with the Replacements. It's easy to mistake most of his 90's stuff for some middle of the road Goo Goo Dolls/Rembrants style MOR crap. It's like he got his demons out, together with a last batch of decent tunes with 'All Shook Down' and has entered a terminally boring and uninspired middle age. I saw the other day that Westerberg has not one but two new albums out and they both got good reviews! Will we be eating our words soon? Has anyone else heard these records? I got the cynical feeling that maybe the reviewer was an old Replacements fan who was trying to convince himself it was a return to form as the same magazine gave his last mediocre album a rave review as well.

 

Statement: Green Day are one of the most unfairly maligned bands of recent history and totally undeserving of the cheapshots people have given them because of their success. If they never would have broke big nobody would have a bad word to say about them.

[Guest JohnSkins]

REBUTTAL:  When Green Day hit it big, their critics felt that they were giving punk a bad name and that they were no longer supporting the "punk" lifestlye and D.I.Y. ethic.  Also, it was felt that they didn't pay their dues like many other bands did before moving to a major label.  I'm not really the biggest fan of Green Day but it's just my opinion that for the most part when a band signs to a major label there is a part of their sound that changes to an extent.  It might even be something as simple as a cleaner recording sound (I like tape noise, it gives some albums character)   Shit who knows, labeling groups sell outs is dumb and I try not to.  But it's hard not to disagree that SOMETHING changes after you sign to a major.

 

STATEMENT:  1967 was the greatest year for music EVER and no year will ever come close again.

[Guest Kinetic]

Non-Rebuttal: Definitely somewhere in there.  It's incredible to think that all of those great, incredibly influential bands and musicians were around at the same time.  Velvet Underground, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Doors, Bob Dylan, the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, etc.  These are some of the best bands ever, all releasing some of their peak material in the same 3-4 year period.  Fucking incredible.

 

Statement: Courtney Love is to talented what Robin Williams is to funny.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

STATEMENT: SST Records is (was) the greatest indie label EVER.

Rebuttal: If they were in fact the greatest indie label, I would either have heard of them, as is the case with Sub Pop and Lookout! Records, in which case they are so big that they hardly qualify as indie labels.  Or they would've been eaten up by a major label because major labels are looking for talent!

 

Statement: The Velvet Underground & Nico self-titled album (the one with the Andy Warhol cover) is little more than glorified noise.  How is it that these guys are revered as being so revolutionary when there's nary a hook or even organized structure on the album? Why do so many "experimental" artists have work that is so poorly constructed that they feel they have to hide behind a label that makes it sound like art?

 

Blah, sorry that's too long, but did I do OK? Oops, sorry I just realized I answered the wrong one.  Be back with a true follow-up in a little bit.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Statement: Courtney Love is to talented what Robin Williams is to funny.

If by this statement you are trying to imply that Ms. Love is untalented, you are sorely mistaken.  Although Robin Williams is best known for more family-oriented "safe comedy/dramedy" roles such as "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Patch Adams", anyone who has seen "Death to Smoochy" or (for a much better example) his stand-up routine can attest that he can, when given the opportunity, perform some much darker, edgier comedy.  And, given that you don't like family-oriented roles, the stand-up stuff is what you would consider funny, although really it all is.  Thus, by your definition, Courtney Love is talented, and certainly not a murderess!

 

Statement: "Selling out" is the best thing a musician can do because it increases the number of receptors to their message, which is why less popular "cult" bands will be forgotten or remembered solely as footnotes, because not enough people will have heard their songs and their messages to make it worthwhile.

[Guest Kinetic]

Statement: "Selling out" is the best thing a musician can do because it increases the number of receptors to their message, which is why less popular "cult" bands will be forgotten or remembered solely as footnotes, because not enough people will have heard their songs and their messages to make it worthwhile.

Note: Robin Williams isn't funny.  He's zany, quirky, and likes to use goofy voices at random intervals.  That, to me, doesn't equate to funny in any way.  I'm not sure how those rumors got started, but I'm making a point to dispel them whenever possible.

 

Rebuttal: It all depends on your definition of selling out.  If you change your music to adhere to a more mainstream sensibility, than your message may no longer be worth hearing.  But the people who really want to hear it will find it eventually.  Like the Velvet Underground, for example.  A band that wasn't really appreciated by most when they were around, but have since become icons of that style of music.  And they totally deserve it, too.  In summary, selling out implies diluting your music to appeal to more people.  In doing that, a musician can potentially discard whatever quality made their music worth hearing in the first place.  So it isn't good, mang.

 

Statement: I just recently purchased Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water and I really, really like it.  Am I crazy?

[Guest swan]

STATEMENT: SST Records is (was) the greatest indie label EVER.

Rebuttal: If they were in fact the greatest indie label, I would either have heard of them, as is the case with Sub Pop and Lookout! Records, in which case they are so big that they hardly qualify as indie labels.  Or they would've been eaten up by a major label because major labels are looking for talent!

A little info. SST out records by Soundgarden, Black Flag(Fitting since it was founded by Gregg Ginn), the Minutemen and All.

 

Find out the history of a great American DIY record label:

http://www.sstsuperstore.com/

 

Personally being from the Chicago area my heart lies with the late Wax Trax.

[Guest JohnSkins]

Wax Trax!  Holy shit, that's a name from the past(I'm from the Chicago area too).  Too bad Victory isn't as strong as it once was, I really liked the stuff they put out, ANYWAY...

 

REBUTTAL: Simon and Garfunkle is the shit, don't feel too bad about it.  I like them too, but I need to be in a certain mood to listen to them.

 

STATEMENT:  The greatest B-side/Unreleased Song ever is Led Zeppelin's "Hey Hey, What Can I Do"

[Guest muzanisa]

Rebuttal. How can Led Zeppelin have a B-Side when they never released any singles?

 

Statement - Women musicians are just as good as men but only the shitty pretty ones get signed and more importantly pushed by the record companies.

[Guest Kinetic]

Statement - Women musicians are just as good as men but only the shitty pretty ones get signed and more importantly pushed by the record companies.

Rebuttal: There are a lot of female musicians who are just as talented as the average male musician.  As a whole, however, I honestly think male musicians are more talented.  That could be my male bias coming through, but it's just how I feel.

 

Statement: I'd rather be kicked in the groin repeatedly by a horse than listen to anything by Huey Lewis and the News.

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

Statement: I'd rather be kicked in the groin repeatedly by a horse than listen to anything by Huey Lewis and the News.

 

I have never heard them before so I don't want to get kicked in the groin.

 

Statement: Randy Newman sucks.

[Guest swan]

Rebuttal. How can Led Zeppelin have a B-Side when they never released any singles?

Huh? Stairway To Heaven was the B-side to Rock and Roll.

[Guest Kinetic]

Statement: Randy Newman sucks.

Rebuttal: His soundtrack stuff is lame beyond all comparison, I grant you.  And "I Love L.A." pretty much sucks, as well.  But I hear he's a decent songwriter...or at least he was in the 70s.  I can't vouch for that personally.  I may not be the most qualified person to rebutt that statement.

 

Statement: When the new site goes up, it should have a music column.  A music column written by me.

[Guest JohnSkins]

REBUTTAL:  I think that the new site should have a music column but I think that there should be a few writers for it.  I should be one of them, I've noticed a few posters on the board with both taste and musical knowledge, so 3-7 guys writing once a week sounds good.

 

STATEMENT:  Vinyl is an inherently superior medium as far as sound quality goes.

[Guest muzanisa]

Statement Zeppelin had a policy of only bringing out albums that was not respected by their American record company.

 

Rebuttal, Huey lewis and the news suck but I think Kinetic you may have one album featuring the musicans from that band. I also get the feeling you know which one.

 

Rebuttal- A lot of old albums sound better on vinyl because they are remixed and reproduced for CD.

[Guest Kinetic]

I think--and that's in italics because it's the operative word--that Clover, the band that backed Elvis Costello on My Aim is True was Huey Lewis' band prior to The News.  I could be totally off on that, though.

 

I like the idea of having several different writers for the music column.  A lot of different perspectives are all always good.  Just as long as I'm one of them.

 

Rebuttal: Vinyl is great for old albums.  Dylan sounds a lot better on vinyl.  All folk sounds better on vinyl.  Country, as well.  If music doesn't look like it has any place on a small, shimmering disc than it'll probably sound better on vinyl.  But most modern music sounds better on CD.  The actual sound quality in itself is no contest--CDs may be cheaply manufactured, but they sound like absolute gold.  There's no hissing or popping, no tape noise, none of the unintentional ambience you get from vinyl.  You can't play records in your car, though, so obviously CDs are worth buying.

 

Statement: The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat is criminally overrated.

[Guest muzanisa]

Rebuttal- Lady Godiva's operation, the Gift and Sister Ray are all great tracks and the rest are pretty good, unless you just mean the title track which does suck. John Cale is a musical genius as is Lou Reed to a lesser extent. The Velvets were a great great band in their original line up.

 

Clover were indeed the prototype News.

 

 

Statement - The current Nu-Metal scene is just as manufactured as any pop boy band.

[Guest Kinetic]

Rebuttal The key difference, I'd say, is that most of the nu-metal bands actuall form of their own volition, rather than being thrown together by a husky man from Orlando.  The way the music is promoted and so on, however, is pretty much exactly the same.  Everyone has to sound more or less alike.  You have to have a certain mindset and message.  All of the stuff is homogenized and designed for play on MTV and radio.  Bland, bland, bland.

 

Statement: A musician being too good at an instrument is often to the detriment of the band he's in.

[Guest Brush with Greatness]

Statement: A musician being too good at an instrument is often to the detriment of the band he's in.

Rebuttal:  It totally depends on the rest of the band.  Some can can carry a band (like Flea with the RHCP, who would be no where near as good without him) and other strong players need a second strong player in the band to make it good.  The rare time there is a situation where a superiour musician outgrows a band, but it is hardly ever detrimental.

 

Statement: The Tragically Hip may be the greatest band ever and should be recognized as such despite a lack of mainstream success in the US.

[Guest BobbyBacklund]

Sorry, but I just have never heard of SST Records. But being a musician, I felt bad for not replying in this thread yet. I will dispute a few other points though, and make some of my own:

 

1) Slipknot makes Godawful music, but Joey is one of the best drummers around today. No doubt in my mind. I couldn't really explain it, but I knew there was SOMETHING enjoyable about Slipklnot, and every drummer I know seems to concur.

 

2) The guitar solo in Stairway To Heaven is revered so much, because the whole fretboard is used, basically. All the scales are involved, aeolean, Fraisian(sp?), etc. Nothing outside of Jazz manages to do this. The thing is, Stairway To Heaven is actually a quality Rock song, with great songwriting. The combination of these two things make it the best Guitar solo ever.

 

Three arguments:

 

1) David Usher is one of the best songwriters, and artists of this generation. Canadians know what I am talking about.

 

2) Neil Peart may in fact be the best drummer ever. His solos are unmatched, and he carried that band.

 

3) Slav Simanic is one of the best guitarists in the world today.

 

So there you go, dispute that.

[Guest swan]

Sorry, but I just have never heard of SST Records.

 

 

2) Neil Peart may in fact be the best drummer ever. His solos are unmatched, and he carried that band.

If your not a fan of 80's DIY punk then you would never of heard of SST. Soundgarden has a kick ass album on SST and of course all the Blag Flag stuff. If your a fan of the Decendents you'll enjoy All.

 

Rebuttal:While I believe Neil is probally the greatest rock drummer of all time I think its going out on a limb to say he carried the band. The music on the '74 release Rush was very strong, but did lack in the lyric department. When Neil joined the band for "Fly By Night" the song writing got noticibly better. Each musician in the group can make a claim to being one of the best for their respected instrument, IMO of course. Basically with or without Neil, they still had a high level of musicainship.

[Guest godthedog]

i guess i can start this over.

 

statement: john lennon is sickeningly overrated as a human being, especially when he was with the beatles.  when his son julian was born, instead of spending the weekend with his wife to see it he went bar-hopping with brian epstein.  while his 'primal scream' period produced one of the greatest albums ever, the famous interview during it revealed him to be self-important, contentious, bitter and childish.  on his album 'imagine', he paints a picture of a perfectly peaceful world on the title track, and near the end of the album does a 4-minute rant about how pissed off he is at paul mccartney.  he was just as selfish and petty as the rest of us, he wasn't some pop culture saint.

[Guest The Man in Blak]

Rebuttal: As far as John Lennon goes, the main bent in his music was all about honesty and self-confession and, as it can be seen in his first two albums, Lennon didn't pull any punches on anything from his parental situation to Paul McCartney to what he felt was a realistic view of peace in the song "Imagine."  He never proclaimed himself to be anything other than the Working Class Hero, the guy that will tell it to you straight, no matter how it may scar your opinion of God, the World, or even Lennon himself.  

 

And as far as raising Julian, to say that Lennon was in the middle of a cultural popularity that was totally unparalleled by anything else before and since then would be a slight understatement.  The Beatles changed everything and all of the Fab Four, including John, ended up making the sacrifice of being incarcerated within their own unprecedented fame.

 

Statement: Stevie Ray Vaughan was quite a virtuoso guitar player, but as an overall musician, he's tremendously overrated, due in part to his untimely death.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Statement: Stevie Ray Vaughan was quite a virtuoso guitar player, but as an overall musician, he's tremendously overrated, due in part to his untimely death.

Rebuttal: This statement may or may not be true, depending on what you consider an "overall musician".  It's true that Vaughan's early career was one where he simply played back-up with the occasional solo, and even afterward, some of his best material was that he played as "the Vaughan brothers" with his older brother Jimmie.  If overall musician embodies composition, there is no denying the structure and beauty of instrumentals such as "Lenny", and the classic blues shuffle format well-embodied in tracks like "Pride and Joy" and "Look at Little Sister", amongst many others.  At the same time, the tracks are pretty much traditional blues themes of sorrow and troubled times, with some of the most enjoyable parts being the guitar, but its like that for every blues artist and the majority of blues pieces.  I doubt a blues great like Albert King would give even the time of day to Vaughan, much less record a studio session with him, if he wasn't a good overall musician.

 

Statement: Grandaddy is criminally underrated.

[Guest Kinetic]

Statement: Grandaddy is criminally underrated.

All I've heard is The Sophtware Slump and that, in my opinion, is spotty at best.  A superior band and production team could have whittled it down into a great album, but as it stands tracks like "Jed The Humanoid" can be excruciating upon repeated listens.  And if Coldplay wasn't proof enough, "So You'll Aim Towards The Sky" should establish once and for all why you should never, ever attempt to rip off Radiohead.  Which is not to say that it's a bad album by any means.  I just couldn't see why some people were screaming "Album of the year!" in 2000, when it's really just an average album by a band with a lot of potential.  

 

Statement: Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone is the best single of all time.

[Guest goodhelmet]

Rebuttal: while "Like a Rolling Stone" was a remarkable song and ushered in the electric Dylan phase, it is NOT the greatest single of all time. Listening to the song today, the record feels dated and lacks the initial edge I once thought it had. Songs like "Blowing in the Wind" and "Masters of War" are still socially relevant and don't sound stuck in the 60's.

 

Statement: "Hey Jude" is the perfect song

[Guest Anorak]

Rebuttal: I agree that 'Hey Jude' is one of the most flawless pop songs ever recorded. Its a timeless melody and arrangement, so simple and effective.

 

 

Statement: Soungarden were the best band of the grunge era

[Guest Kinetic]

Statement: Soungarden were the best band of the grunge era

Rebuttal: While Superunknown is a good album, it was the only one they released during the "grunge era."  I'd say you're right on this point had Nirvana and Pearl Jam never formed.  Those were the three bands with any authenticity that managed to REALLY cash in on that movement.  And of those three, Soundgarden was the worst one.  So, no.

 

Statement:  As was said in High Fidelity, listening to countless hours worth of music about loneliness, misery, and failed relationships can make you a really, truly unhappy person.  The music comes before the misery and plays no small part in breeding future unhappiness within you.

[Guest godthedog]

rebuttal: this theory implies basically that all members of society are passive sheep, a theory that psychologists have found problematic.  there are 2 ways to react to what you are being told by the media: you can accept it & swallow it down, or you can disagree and rebel against it.  it is ultimately the individual's decision to let the music make him unhappy, and not the fault of sad songwriters.

 

statement: 'the pod', by ween, is the most obviously drug-influenced album in the history of the world.  albums like 'revolver' and 'dark side of the moon' have drug-influenced songwriting and ideas, but if you listen to 'the pod' it is blatantly obvious that gene and dean were stoned out of their minds during every stage of conceiving, writing & recording the album.  even more obvious than their previous album, 'godweensatan'.  the hilariously bad lyrics (see 'the stallion', pt 2), the hilariously bad instrumentation (see 'sorry charlie', the songs that make absolutely no sense at all (see 'pollo asado')...it's all there.