Achtung! Garbage is the best female fronted rock band ever.
- Thread starter Honkridge
- Start date
VoidTerraFirma
Live to wine
I guess you didn't make it to the Black Sabbath rave-up that kicks in at the 3
0 mark. Or maybe you did. Whatever...Don't be in a hurry to grow old, bro.
Embrace the new.
Buy the album of the band you've never heard of.
Go to the show where you don't know any of the songs.
When you were 20 years old and feeling the passion, nostalgic crusty old dudes were calling all your favorite bands "rehashed". And they were wrong.
Don't be that guy. The only way to be young is to be young right now and be young tomorrow. Rise to it.
Or be a Dylan nerd...
Last edited:
Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
They've been around a million years. They have a million albums. This is one of their best...from, like, a million years ago...
OGG
Master of the Meh
Meh,
I've lost all will to argue. It's crossroads time for OGG... I realized recently that if I took the time and energy I spend on fruitless endeavors and focused it on something constructive that I'd be... much more constructive.
I could have built a LEGO ladder to the moon by now.
I'm about to become a very boring forumite. Apologies in advance to those looking forward to anything resembling me giving a fuck. Fresh out.
Not that long ago, I was faced with the very real prospect of permanently losing my ability to play an instrument of any kind, and the thought of never picking up a guitar again devastated me WAY more than anything I posted on the subject here really eluded to. The grief was profound.
I was somehow blessed with the good fortune of recovering from that first hand surgery at a phenomenal pace, and with unheard of success. This unexpected window of opportunity has been a gift of unimaginable joy for me.
That window is open for another month, and then we roll the dice all over again by repeating that surgery on the "important" hand in terms of playing guitar. I'm focused on manifesting the best possible outcome once again. Trivialities are simply no longer worth the effort. My perspective has been forever altered. As you (Doctor) know Via PMs, the last month was a watershed period of change that was brutal. I had a full blown identity crisis going on with all of the various challenges and opportunities etc. My mind was not in a good place at random intervals and for random reasons. It was something that sucked to endure, and something I wish had endured much earlier in life.
It's ALL good. In fact... It's pretty great, and I'm going to make damned sure it stays that way.
Love you guys! You're all aces.
335clone
Living the dream
There is a difference between suggestions and interrupting your playlist. I don't have a pandora account, but I use one at work all the time, and it's incredible how blatant they are about over promoting certain artists. I had the same song come up on three distinctly different artist oriented channels in the same day. I realize youtube does the same if you let it roll after listening to a song that you searched for, but I rarely use that function and choose to browse the 'recommended for you' menu to look for similar artists.
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
Well I couldn't come up with a modern popular music critic worth reading myself, but I'd like to think they're still out there. It's fairly easy to come up with great music critics in the jazz and classical fields. I grew up reading Lester Bangs (not saying he was great, of course because I did like prog rock back then) and Robert Hilburn in the LA Times (and syndicated). And of course Martin Williams and Leonard Feather in the jazz field.
Today if I need a short synopsis of an artist and their discography I usually go to all music.com. They were originally a for print publication before the advent of internet, but their online site is pretty good.
gtrjunior
Wannabe
No, I didn't make it to the Sabbath rave up. But I got almost there. I stopped because the whole song was the same droning riff..... over and over and Over and over and....I guess you didn't make it to the Black Sabbath rave-up that kicks in at the 3
Don't be in a hurry to grow old, bro.
Embrace the new.
Buy the album of the band you've never heard of.
Go to the show where you don't know any of the songs.
When you were 20 years old and feeling the passion, nostalgic crusty old dudes were calling all your favorite bands "rehashed". And they were wrong.
Don't be that guy. The only way to be young is to be young right now and be young tomorrow. Rise to it.
Or be a Dylan nerd...
Believe me, I'm in no hurry to grow old. And I'd buy, listen to and go to shows if there were bands putting out music that spoke to me....but there aren't many that do. The 20 year old me hated techno-pop or New Wave as it was called then. This is the same, just repackaged and relabeled with new faces.
The 20 year old me had absolutely nothing in life....no responsibility, a shitty job, lived at home with mom and dad and spent all his free time smoking pot and playing guitar....
The 44 year old me has a good job, a house, an amazing wife, 2 dogs and a shit ton of top end guitar gear....
If you're giving me a choice,
I'll be the guy I am right now....
Crusty and jaded. (Musically)
But I'm not a Dylan fan although I have nothing against him. But that was not my generation.
Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
I have read and still read a shitload of rock and pop journalism. And there's not one critic out there that I'd hold up as universally good/insightful. Partly that's because the form as it is in this moment (and as it has been trending for the last 10-15 years) doesn't really foster excellence. The rise of clickbait culture incentivizes "hot takes" and edgy-cute provocations (not unlike Bangs' least good moments). And the only real counterweight is pious handjobbery and academic pretenses--which are more grating on the whole than the cult of snark. (That's right...I'm looking at you...Greg Kot...Jessica Hopper...Paste Magazine...Steven Thomas Erlewine...Ta Nehisi Cotes...Steven Hyden...etc.)
Now, all those folks I've just bashed have done interesting stuff and stuff that has gotten me thinking on more than one occasion. Maybe if bands were better or if pop culture was less awful or if the internet hadn't pulled the rug out from under journalism these (and other) writers would have risen to the occasion with more regularity. Maybe if rock and pop audiences were less anti-intellectual, less dogmatic, and--frankly--less stupid, we might have better rock and pop criticism. I mean, I've been reading Pitchfork daily since practically the beginning, and although they have always had certain editorial quirks over there, Ryan Schrieber et al. used to do something a lot more compelling than the current bland poptimist regurgitation of press releases that Condé Nast is doing now. But clearly there is money (eyeballs) in normcore reporting and hero worship and other content- and perspective-free verbal rice cakes.
Expecting any critic to be your all the time best buddy who agrees with your opinions and flatters your taste is a stupid thing to want. As is "objective" arts and culture coverage. But if you enjoy--or more likely, if you are pathologically compelled by FOMO--keeping up with pop culture, critics (at their best) provide ways to test your perspectives, sharpen your own critical chops, and reconsider stuff you might otherwise have glossed over.
Pop and rock critics are welcome (if sometimes annoying) participants in the creation of a more robust and more engaging popular music discourse. Without them, you just have label/artist/management hype and nostalgic non-thought like the bucket of thin, chunkless vomit that is the Dave Grohl feature in the latest Tone Report...
https://s2cdn.joomag.com/pdf/0/240/240715/1200618.pdf?name=Tone+Report+Weekly+188&1500055961
In short, rock critics are a necessary evil. At their best, they provide entertainment and insight. Even when bad, they provide a perspective to sharpen your own opinion against. Except for Anthony Fantano. He should be boiled alive in liquid pig shit.
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
Yep, agreed. Last paper publication I used to read was Mojo, which I liked a lot. They covered every decade since the 60s and know the new artists. Every year I'll google best ____ bands of 20** and make a trip to the record store to buy CDs of artist I missed, since radio now sucks. Pitchfork is sometimes a good source, but they're really gone downhill.
Seems like a big gaping hole in the music industry that there's no great way to promote adventurous new music (that doesn't eventually get bought out by corporations promoting the 10 or so top popular artists). In LA we still have KCRW radio which has always been good. Half of what they play is really interesting, and the other half is like "WTF!? I could have written and recorded that!" (Adult indie stuff).
smorgdonkey
Kick Henry Jackassowski
Musicians need to be less bitchy.
The general public needs to have the vast oceans curated for them because they often pick some of the crappiest crap and it becomes a monster hit.
The general public needs to have the vast oceans curated for them because they often pick some of the crappiest crap and it becomes a monster hit.