December 18, 200618 yr Author Hey guys, sorry it's been such a long time, but I've just been so busy, and it didn't help that I got distracted by other things on the site.... But anyway, here's the long-awaited TOP 5..... NUMBER FIVE - THE SMITHS - THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT The Smiths - vocals, guitar, bass and drums... The archetypal set-up for bands all through the ages of popular music, but it's what you do with it that counts.... And by CHRIST these four young men from Manchester did something utterly unique and amazing with what is the basic set-up... The Morrissey/Marr songwriting partnership is, for me, a far more potent and multi-layered one than Lennon and McCartney, I dunno if that's just a generational thing (as no doubt Mushy will argue) or not, I just know how I feel, and I dont think that anyone before or since in popular music has EVER touched the hand of "god" the way that these two musical geniuses have... And yes, this IS 'Pop' music, The Smiths were an out and out fukkin' phenomenon in the 80s, if you weren't there, you just cannot imagine how big a phenomenon and how inspirational they were... They have directly and indirectly touched and directed the past 20 years of guitar pop, Indie and Alternative music, no Smiths = no Stone Roses, no Happy Mondays, no Oasis, no Franz Ferdinand, no Kaiser Chiefs, no Keane, no Arctic Monkeys, no Razorlight, no Libertines, no Placebo.... Even the likes of A Perfect Circle, Deftones and Korn have cited The Smiths/Morrissey as being influential... Of course, the utterly lazy, stereotypical response to The Smiths is "oh, they were depressing"... What a pathetic and woefully inaccurate assessment and one that blatantly shows no knowlege of the works of Morrissey and Marr.. Depressing??? Are you fukkin' JOKING ME??? Their lyrics spoke of finding an inner strength, of being who you wanted to be, of being free of the constraints of society;their concerts were absolutely JOYOUS expressions of cameraderie and love - haven't you even seen the footage of legions of young men taking to the stage, hugging Morrissey and Marr, kissing them, dancing on stage, free to express who they really are inside...??? Just where is the fukkin' depression????? Morrissey himself was (and still is to a degree) the very personification of the juxtaposition of asexuality and a raw sensuousness.. He crossed the line between the masculine and the feminine with an unbelievable potency. NOBODY has done this in the way he did, even Bowie needed to take on the role of character in order to achieve this, Morrissey was only ever himself, and this is what to me makes him probably the most unique artist of certainly HIS generation, but I would argue just about any really... And Marr, the perfect guitarist to give sound to Morrissey's poetry, his breathtaking guitarwork and abilities as a musician are often totally under-rated, but he was a fantastic technical guitar player, he just didn't need to do noodly, wanky little guitar solos every two minutes to prove his ability.. Depressing...??? Not a bit of it, absolutely GLORIOUS, intelligent, involving, hopelessly romantic, highly personal, socially conscious (my GOD, how they detested Thatcher...LOL) and inspiring popular art, as important as Mozart, Elvis, The Beatles, The Sex Pistols.... SUPPLEMENTAL - A fantastic five-part documentary by Granada called "These Things Take Time"... The clips are about five minutes each, watch and learn.... FmZhXmBk-Bo There Is A Light That Never Goes Out IldBpkuUNUQ Documentary part one C-5tFqlZkYI Documentary part two UR6XcUvoDZI Documetary part three een1fZ_LhdE Documentary part four Zas4juyxthg Documentary part five
December 18, 200618 yr i'm waiting for this to finish and will have one big reply :) :o Looking forward to that.
December 18, 200618 yr Author Amazing Scott, one of the most informative threads on Buzzjack ever. Why thank you for you kind words.... I wonder if my head will be able to fit through my living room door with such compliments..... :lol: :lol:
December 18, 200618 yr Author NUMBER FOUR - PIXIES - DEBASER In the annals of Indie/Alternative music, there is really no more a tragic story of a missed opportunity than The Pixies.... Theirs is really a 'what if...?' scenario if ever there was, and that 'what if...?' revolves almost totally around the question of 'what if the Pixies hadn't disintegrated in 1991..?'.... Many have theorised that it would have been the Pixies and not Nirvana that would've made that wonderful, big breakthrough which just totally opened everything up.. And there really is a hell of a lot of evidence to support that... Their fanbase had been steadily growing album by album, and they were quietly and very measuredly making a real impact, major labels were taking a very keen interest, their last album "Trompe Le Monde" had done good business and singles "Planet of Sound" and the brilliant cover of JAMC's "Head On" (surely a candidate for best cover version ever...) was getting heavy rotation on MTV.. It seemed as though it was only a matter of time before Pixies really hit the big time.... Then the split.. It really was sudden and shocking and nobody really knew what had actually happened.. Bassist Kim Deal was reportedly unhappy about not being able to contribute artistically to the band, Black Francis had tended to operate a very tight grip on the artistic vision of the band, writing whole albums totally by himself. Kim also had her side-project The Breeders, and early indications seemed to suggest that Deal was in the right, that Pixies would perhaps have been a more multi-layered band had it been more collaborative rather than just relying on a single vision (however great that may have been...). I think that if Pixies had been the ones to make the big breakthrough, then the whole scene would've been a bit different and a lot more interesting.. As much as I may have liked some of the Grunge bands, they were somewhat limited in their musical approach, Pixies would've inspired a far more fluid and multi-layered scope to proceedings, they weren't nearly as bogged down in the 70s Hard Rock mentality (being influenced by as diverse a bunch as Sex Pistols, Stooges, Beach Boys, Duane Eddy and Peter, Paul and Mary!!!), and I reckon that what came after Grunge (Nu Metal, Emo and others..) would've been vastly more broad in its approach as well, and thusly making for a much more interesting US Alt Rock scene in general.. Of course you have your Flaming Lips, your Pavements, your Sonic Youths, your Mars Voltas but they tend to be consigned more to the margins, hardly mainstream, imagine if these bands were more typical of the scene... WOW!!! Instead of Limp Dick or Linkin Park, you have bands influenced more by these other guys coming through..... Smashing Pumpkins/Deftones/Jane's Addiction were a pretty good halfway house, unfortunately they were not typical and the generic Nu Metal sludge, which came directly after Grunge, dominated the late 90s/00s like a particularly unwelcome dose of the clap.... Ahh, what might have been.... :rolleyes: They reformed in 2004 and went on a fantastic world tour to a generally ecstatic welcome, the sense of unfinished business is palpable.... We still await a new Pixies album with baited breath however.... SUPPLEMENTAL - "Cecilia Ann and Alison" performed live on The Word in 1990 yHbsBidn-5E Debaser wUqSMzmBA14 Pixies on The Word - 1990
December 18, 200618 yr heck - i may even do something similar... but will be just top 20 songs i think. My head would explode if I tried to go any further - haha! the big surprise is how few songs we both choose, but quite a few similar bands :)
December 18, 200618 yr Author NUMBER THREE - NEW ORDER - BLUE MONDAY From the ashes of Joy Division, Barney Sumner, Stephen Morris and Peter Hook formed New Order and how NO sounded was somewhat of a total difference to how Joy Division had, more emphasis on synths, but still with a pretty trademark bass-sound (you couldn't seriously expect Hooky to play any other way let's face it.....), Barney graduated to lead vocals, but let's face it, he's not really the strongest singer in the world compared to Ian Curtis' umistakeable deep, gravelly vocals.. New Order/Factory records more or less kicked off the whole 'Madchester' scene about a good five years too early, there is no doubt that Happy Mondays were influenced by NO's style, and one shouldn't forget the influence of Tony Wilson himself really, or that of legendary producers Martin Hannett and Arthur Baker... "Blue Monday" is rightly credited as being one of the tunes that really inspired the whole Techno, Rave and Dance scene that was to come and they are certainly an influence on many of the Industrial and EBM bands that I listen to (Apoptygma Berzerk especially..); it's hard to believe that this is 1983, it still sounds utterly amazing, there have been various remixes and different versions done of this legendary track, but the original is still very much the definitive version of the song... New Order's best material is undoubtedly the 80s/early 90s (forgetting that rather lousy world cup song they did with John Barnes attempting to rap and Keith Allen just making a tit of himself, as usual....), more recent material has been rather patchy, but it's really only because they set such unbelievable high standards both in their Joy Division and their 80s material... By a lesser band's standards, it's mainly pretty okay.... SUPPLEMENTAL - A clip of their live performance of "Blue Monday" on TOTP.. New Order were one of the few bands who would always insist on doing live performances on TV... n_mNbbryyZI Blue Monday Vid Wt7wrcdQKRM Blue Monday on TOTP
December 18, 200618 yr Author heck - i may even do something similar... but will be just top 20 songs i think. My head would explode if I tried to go any further - haha! the big surprise is how few songs we both choose, but quite a few similar bands :) I await your list with anticipation mate.... :)
December 18, 200618 yr Author Listened to 5 and 3. Very good, especially 5. Wot about Pixies then....? :P :lol:
December 18, 200618 yr Wot about Pixies then....? :P :lol: I could give them a listen. Never heard anything by them before.
December 18, 200618 yr Author NUMBER TWO - RADIOHEAD - STREET SPIRIT (FADE OUT) It was so hard to pick out one particular track for this truly remakable band, so many to choose from, so many amazing songs, but "Street Spirit" just edged it because of its heartbreaking vocals and melancholy guitar sound, "while my guitar gently weeps" indeed..... Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood really are the consummate musical artists of our age, everything they do has purpose, reason and even if it takes that reason a while (and a few YEARS in the case of "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" for me.... :lol: ) to hit home, when it finally does, you just sit back in fukkin' AWE of this absolutely magnificent band... Really.... The weird part of the Radiohead story is that their debut single "Creep" (which I have purposely NOT chosen to put on here, because the band themselves are frankly sick of it... :lol: ) was only picked up here because it had become popular in the states... How fukked up is that?? We needed the Yanks to sell us back one of our own bands..... :o Anyway, things really started gathering momentum for them in the mid-90s during the whole 'Britpop' thing, but really they stood head and shoulders above that for the most part and emerged with what was by far the best album of that particular era ("OK Computer"). I suppose the closest peers to Radiohead in a strange sort of way are these left-field, awkward, angular bands and artists who push similar boundaries within their respective genres - Tool, Mars Volta, Aphex Twin, etc... Radiohead's forays into electronica have been quite dazzling and astounding as well, "Kid A" was an incredibly risky undertaking after their first three more 'orthodox' albums, but I can totally understand why they did it, so many other bands were coming along, ripping off their style that it just didn't seem like it was theirs anymore, so a change in direction was necessary to stay ahead... And how they stay ahead of everyone else..... Bands like Coldplay could keep going for another 20 years and they still wouldn't catch up to what Radiohead are doing or where they are creatively. Their videos are extraordinary as well, a truly artistic vision, very few bands are so sussed and so definite about what imagery goes with the music, in this sense they are very much like Tool and Aphex as well in dealing with the multimedia aspects... Radiohead live shows are genuine events, let's make no bones about that either... Their headlining slot at Glastonbury is still talked of in hushed, reverent tones, as well it should, they played a fukkin' blinder.... Now that Kylie is thankfully a no-show for 2007, here's hoping for a return gig.... SUPPLEMENTAL - several absolutely legendary live performances. You LUCKY people..... BrZTNhW44-o Street Spirit video XxGkQE6tPa0 Paranoid Android - Live on "Later with Jools Holland" 0WEMmw2aqMI Airbag - Live on "Later with Jools Holland" hiKzpDeDyKc No Surprises - Glasto 2003 COKnG_wWjHo 2+2=5 - Glasto 2003
December 18, 200618 yr Author I could give them a listen. Never heard anything by them before. The whole point of this topic is for people to listen to stuff they haven't heard before.... :lol: Off you go, back to the beginning.....
December 18, 200618 yr Author Okay, now I'm going to torment you all and make you guess what the Number One is gonna be.... :lol: :lol: Can you guess what it is...?
December 18, 200618 yr Wow.. i've actually heard of some of them! :lol: I was gonna guess that your no.1 was a Smiths song, but obviously not.. Edited December 18, 200618 yr by Y!kes
December 18, 200618 yr Author is it the cheeky girls - touch my bum (the young gods remix???) :lol: :lol:
December 18, 200618 yr :lol: :lol: fyi: some young gods tunes coming to the random area soon!!! http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/index.php?a...t=0#entry632038 vote for belguim!!!! NOW!!!!
December 18, 200618 yr Off you go, back to the beginning..... It'd take too long! Plus I'm not really a huge fan of indie music. I'm waiting for the metal one you said you'd do.
December 19, 200618 yr Author It'd take too long! Plus I'm not really a huge fan of indie music. I'm waiting for the metal one you said you'd do. But there's indie and there's Indie...., this list is more the latter. I can understand your hostility to the stuff that's being claimed is indie these days by the NME and others..
Create an account or sign in to comment