bands that don't do it for you

Oh and I don't really get the Beatles. Wrote some good songs yes, but they were a ruddy boy band whose fame greatly exceeds their musical skills IMHO.

Still, I would agree that they were vastly superior to The Bloody Smiths.

 

The Smiths only produced one track I can listen to - How Soon is Now .The rest really is unlistenable tedium. I bought the singles album and couldn't even force myself to listen to the whole of each track once. Wish someone could explain their appeal to me.

 

When you typed "ruddy boy band" are you sure you didn't mean to type "the inventors of modern pop music, without whom nothing that came after would exist, and Lennon & McCartney are the most significant songwriting duo in 20th Century popular music history"?



-- Ian

 

I'm sure he meant something like that but you missed out the bit that should have said "... and Marr and Morrissey come a close second in terms of influence and prolific output" (or am I in fact thinking of XTC??)

 

And surely you meant Rush?

 

Did I say something?

What a great idea for a tribute band.

I'll put the kettle on, you bring the biscuits. Rich Tea if you please.

Now That's What I Call Contentious.

 

<puts pompous arse hat on, after all, it suits me>

Only a little bit. It's very hard to name a group in western pop music who came after them who weren't, either consciously or unconsciously, influenced by, or reacting against, the Beatles. And you can't say that about any other group to anything like the same extent (not credibly, anyway).

-- Ian

 

<dons own trilby of self importance>

It's contentious in that the Beedles themselves were an invention of their own influences. Modern pop music would of course still exist without the Fabs. The late sixties and seventies would have of course been totally different as you hint, but who's to say we still wouldn't have ended up in the same place, having to endure Natasha Beddingfield or whatever the bloody hell her name is?

 

Aha. The alternative theories of divergent and convergent time streams. Isaac Asimov once wrote a novel about that

 

The Stones and Led Zep will mean more to me than the beatles ever could from that era.

If todays pap muzak is an extension of what the beatles did - they should be shot.

oops - sorry John, i didnt mean it literally.

congrats to drummer boy for thomas the tank engine though.

 

<dons the trousers of psychic perception>

I reckon things would have been a lot different. Cliff Richard and Engelbert Humperdinck would have been the gurus of Britpop, for a start. Britpop was bad enough as it was, but imagine the full horror of that thought...

One of the greatest things about the Beatles is how they are much more than the sum of their influences. They did genuinely new things (which is not to say other people didn't too, of course).

-- Ian

 

<pulls on the slippers of metaphysical repose and puffs on the pipe of armchair philosophy>

Aah but we are mere humans and cannot possibly divine such things. I'm off for me supper.

 

Why fly in the face of public opinion after all

 

hmm.

In regard of The Beatles.

I think you have to look at their music in the context of the date of its release.

I sometimes look at old charts from the time, and you will see Beatles tracks surrounded by lounge schmultz, cilla black if you're lucky - generally music of another era.

The Beatles were years ahead, and originators of their time. We can only look back and compare, and see them as the formative band they were. I think when we instead compare their music to modern releases, the context of their importance is lost.

Some of their tunes are timeless classics however. I dont think this songwriting has become dated, although the production and some of the content has IMHO.

 

You are perceptive Ian - I didn't mean to say that at all

They had a lot less influence on a lot of modern music than they are credited for IMHO. Certainly I don't see much influence in most of my collection. More important influences for me would be Holland Dozier Holland, Gamble & Huff, and some of the great early blues artists.

Indeed with the modern popularity of hip hop and studio based dance musc, I could argue that early reggae and particularly dub from the likes of Prince Jammy, Lee Perry,and King Tubby, has had the greatest influence on much of what is sold today.

I think it's an English obsession that the Beatles were responsible for modern music. Truth is I massively prefer the Stones from that era, whose music as we all know was heavily influenced by Blues and Soul. Much of what I see in the charts today is similarly steeped in black music tradition.

 

I think people have been a little bit unfair on the Smiths. In my opinion they are one of the few bands that have produced consitant albums. The music is also very good and refreshing for the 1980's. People may say the lyrics are depressing but I think they are also beatiful.

"if a double decker bus crashes into us to die by your side is a heavenly place to be"

Morrissey as a song writers dosn't hide anything, many bands think they can't do this or that because its offensive. Morrissey frankly didn't care, this resulted in some great lyrics without the need for swearing all the time like some american acts.

"its time the tale the were told, of how they took a child and made them old..."

Not many people would dare to write them lyrics just a few years after the moors murderers were locked up.

 

Yep pretty much agree - keane got one ok song i suppose. You can chuck snow patrol and travis in there as well as mentioned elsewhere. And also as mentioned elsewhere so called hip hop and R'n'B.

Actually to be honest it really is easier to list the good stuff. Theres just so much utter toss out there.

Actually ive got one that i never got that apparently many others did. Radiohead. Hate it, cant stand it. Go figure.

Drat, forgot robbie. Nothing worse. Mind you will be fun watching him sink like the talentless prat he is now that he no longer has someone writing songs for him. After, of course, the obligatory Best of Robbie 1 & 2 and Best Christmas Robbie Ever and More Robbie Crooning at the Albert Hall.

 

hmmmmmmm,anyone regard Punk as anything more that part of social history? its great when SLF or the Pistols come on the radio,but does anyone actaully play it at home?

 

I agree with you Saab. And it's a pity bands like Green Day haven't realised that punk was dead and gone long ago.

Michael.