Sonic Youth Gossip - Popular music opinions

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ZEROpumpkins

Silver is the worst Pixies song and it appears on the best Pixies album.
Gigantic is the best Pixies song w/ Kim on vocals.

the worst Pixies song is Veloria

Quote:

Originally Posted by swa(y)

very disputable...yes.

new york and london have produced greater amounts of shit music though. there bigger cities...and excluding the people that actually come from them, and think its important to consider the ammount of people that actually move to them (atleast NY) in hopes of gaining success. no one ever says they want to move to nowhereville, alabama in hopes of making it.

you take away the scene, you got the artist. the lone artist, in my opinon, is not guarenteed, but more likely, to create more interesting stuff, more honest stuff....than the guys whos got fifty million bands in his local community to pull inspiration and influence from. he tends to also have more honest opinions, well maybe "honest" isnt the right word, but more "personal" opinions on music he has heard and been influenced by (music ussualy from other places he may or may not have been too from other places) than the people who were actually there, or given opportunity to experience that music in person.

look what a figures like kurt cobain has to say about black flag, then look at what thurston has to say about them. not that one persons opinion is more important than the other....but ones going to talk about it more from a historical perspective, like lecturing...to where the other is more prone to talk about it from a more personal perspective....how the music influenced them personally and what it meant to them as an individual...as opposed to what it meant to the history of music as a whole. i think both have their places, and no, im not saying one is better than the other. its important to have both sorts of individuals....but i relate more to the person that can say what black flag means to them as an individual, than the person that wants to say what black flag did to shape punk rock, metal (which they seemed to have a pretty major influence on....i hear black flag all in pantera).

i dont know man. i really dont think it matters much either way. if yr a good band, yr a good band, and if yr not, yr not. least thats the way i look at it.

Yeah, of course you get creative people everywhere, and it's not as if they wouldn't be able to feel the same way about certain things while making any kind of music. There isn't a strict rule that says that you have to come from a certain background in order to make rebellious music and come across as a pissed-off human being. It's not for me to list the big number of musicians who made anti-establishment music and came from cosy backgrounds, but you get the drift. Also, feeling a certain way doesn't necessarily mean that you understand your own condition or that of others. It can happen that you have a lot of anger inside you and you want to filter it through creativity, but anger alone is not a good way to get messages across.

much music that I would never buy and play at my house is fantastic when heard live
(zydeco for example)

James Dean Bradfield is as responsible as Richey Edwards for making "The Holy Bible" as great as it is

Quote:

Originally Posted by swa(y)

look what a figures like kurt cobain has to say about black flag, then look at what thurston has to say about them. not that one persons opinion is more important than the other....but ones going to talk about it more from a historical perspective, like lecturing...to where the other is more prone to talk about it from a more personal perspective....how the music influenced them personally and what it meant to them as an individual...as opposed to what it meant to the history of music as a whole. i think both have their places, and no, im not saying one is better than the other. its important to have both sorts of individuals....but i relate more to the person that can say what black flag means to them as an individual, than the person that wants to say what black flag did to shape punk rock, metal (which they seemed to have a pretty major influence on....i hear black flag all in pantera).

I think you missed a consistency to your argument, again. One talks about it in the way they want to talk about it, which is true to themselves. Another talks about in a different way, also from their own perspective and experience. One is slightly more akin to the language of academia, and reveals one side of a cultural event. Another talks about in a different language, alien to academia, and reveals another side of a cultural event. Neither side are incommensurable, neither epistemically sovereign. The point is that both are expressing what the cultural event means to them as individuals - you side with one side, that's fine. I generally prefer the (alleged) opposite. The 'academic' side appeals to some sort of cultural ossification, or worse, to the objective, but this at no point seals the personal interpretation into some hermetic academic bubble.

I talk/ write, mostly, on the [arguably faux-] academic side of things; I'm not going to stop doing so, because that's how I react to the world. My personal interpretation.

Also, I'm still annoyed* by your fetishisation of poverty. Generally speaking, good artists make good art, although there's the ocassional shit artist making good art, and a great many good artists making shit art. Lou Reed's dead posh. As is William Burroughs. Oasis aren't. Social demographics in relation to art don't really prove anything except as an observation of the artist's social demographics, which is an entirely pointless point.

*In theory - this is argumentative practice, after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

the worst Pixies song is Veloria

That's not a very popular opinion. Bossanova is a weak album though.

The thing about most music revolutions and major movements is that they are mostly reactionary, especially in relation to their environment and social climate. I agree that any demographic can produce good art and music, it is absolutely unnecessary to rely on your personal strife and struggle to create good and meaningful art that can speak to people. But; on the other hand; the really significant, socially-liberating music movements and revolutions have mostly, in the main, been initiated and cultivated in the streets, the sidewalks and under the bridges, among the disaffected, the homeless, the unemployed, the desperate. Rarely has there been an upper-middle class, suburban kid who has managed to create art or music that has spoken to the world as plaintively or as emotionally as the art or music from the kid who dropped out of school, living on the streets. Unless, of course, you count Eminem...

I agree with swa(y) that some good art can come from shitty backgrounds. But I also think there has been great art from those who had a good background.

Do the Beasty Boys still own their kick-ass studio? Some of the shit they have in their is amazing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by swa(y)

im not obcessed with poverty...i just identify more so with artists that come from difficult/controversial backgrounds. i find that shit situations can lead to good art.

I didn't say 'obcessed', I said 'fetishisation', which you've perpetrated again in this post. I'm not going to tell everyone to read posts carefully but if you will insist on playing the firebrand provacateur, you should tread a little more carefully.

On that note, there are plenty of posters around here who play the provacteur much more convincingly and with better grace. No need to name names, I'm sure they know who they are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

the worst Pixies song is Veloria

What?!

Quote:

Originally Posted by k-krack

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator
the worst Pixies song is Veloria

What?!

Ditto.

I really like Velouria, even if it's a bit too reminiscent of Monkey's gone to heaven.

According to the music press in ye goode olde UK, the best Beatles album in "Sergeant Pepper". I dunno about that, though - me reckoneth that "White Album" has better choons and is more inventive, innit.

I do agree with the masses though that "Ghost Town" by The Specials is one of the best number 1 hits ever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by swa(y)

yeah...some are far better at pretending to be assholes than you are.

poor people are alright by me, whats the big deal? wether its a fetish, an obcession, a class i understand.....who cares?

if ya wanna attack me, attack me, dont beat around the bush about it though man. save that shit for next time when yr eating out yr grandfathers ass-pussy, pussy.
\

ive been nice, but i dont have to be.

Oooh, big heap of meh to that post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Torn Curtain

Ditto.

I really like Velouria, even if it's a bit too reminiscent of Monkey's gone to heaven.

veloria sucks ass. it has a great instruemntal beggining, the first minute or so, and the the sopng starts and it is the absolute worst lyrics frank black ever wrote with the absolute worst rhyme scheme and the single worst tepid melody ever

worst pixies song ever

my veloria
even I adore ya

BARF

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

the worst Pixies song is Veloria

Alisson is crapy too.

Someone in theater shop today put on a Pixies mix (or maybe it was an officially released Best Of, I do not know) and I realized why it's been a long while since I last bothered to listen to them.
Because I didn't really miss hearing them all that much.
I should take those albums down to the second hand shop. I took about 50 down there the other day. Not because I hated them so much but because I really need to raise money for the London trip in spring.
I'd imagine Dead is still a good song though. Always liked Dead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by groar

the pixies fail to stand the test of time,the pixies fail,the pixies were better when they were dead-but I like Safari and stories about Kim Deal using shoe polish in her hair.

Well that's unpopular rather than popular.