I hate that band -- EXCEPT... - Page 2

You haven't listened to much Buckley or Wainwright, then? At least three-quarters of the songs on Grace aren't love songs by any definition (and there are even fewer on Sketches, an album that has virtually no sensitive-songwriter signifiers), and Wainwright's songs are pretty much all over the place, subject-matter wise. My favorite of his albums is Want One, which has maybe a couple straightforward love songs on it.

This is true, I have not. I have nothing at all against these guys...and, for the most part, have liked what I've heard by both of them.

I think R. Kelly is some sort of truly brilliant, ornate in-joke that I will never be a part of. But, without irony, I can totally feel "If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time".

"Have I the Right" by the Honeycombs. The rest of their shit is so bad.

I may respect what Marilyn Manson is about (marketing), but mostly hate his music except for "Mechanical Animals." Did he work with someone special on that album?

This probably fits better in a "guilty pleasures"-type thread, but damned if Lenny Kravitz's "Mama Said" isn't a JAM that comes up on the old ipod now and again. In fact there are a few songs on that album I don't hate (there, I said it).

Not really...er, maybe someone special, but no one really of note (Michael Bienhorn--producer of Superunkown and Celebrity Skin recorded it, but he doesn't seem to have any particular style). It was all the Bowie-aping, methinks, that makes that album tolerable, even today.

Are you talking about "Always on the Run"? Because I'll second that as a fine song from a craptacular artist.

Yep, that's the one. He should get dumped by Lisa Bonet more often.

Interesting. Don't think I'd heard of him before but those are both well-rounded, relatively pop-y albums by their respective bands, so that makes since.

Damn right. I have plenty of time for Waits and Dylan cos there is more wit and charm and humour in one ounce of their dicks than there is in all the "new guys" put together. And I don't even listen to them that much. Shit, I probably couldn't even name you an album, but "The Piano has been Drinking" is a twisted kind of brilliance, as is much of Dylan's (admittedly earlier) output.

As with so many things, its just a matter of choice. But I would never put on any of these guys' music out of choice. Except Buckley's Hallelujah.

Yeah, I sometimes wonder if the '60s/'70s were so great just cos rock was new or...?

I mean, it just doesn't seem like there have been many (any?) artists who've come sense that carry the same gravitas as Dylan/Waits/Cohen. Even if you don't like their voices, musical styles, etc....you can't deny that they are master songwriters, capable of turning the world on its ear with the turn of a phrase.

I'd argue that Roger Waters from Floyd could do that.

It's all just perspective. No one would have put Waits in the same category as Dylan when he first came out. American fans may have liked Zeppelin out of the gate, but critics and many English music fans fucking loathed them. Sometimes, it takes years for critical and fan perspective to come around on an artist.

Elvis Costello, to my mind, has put out a greater number of excellent albums - better lyrics and definitely better music - than Dylan. He was a "new guy" at one point. Nick Cave was once a "new guy" (you want gravitas - there you go). Radiohead are "new guys."

Classic rock radio has done such a number on people that they think all of the best rock music was made decades ago, but that's such bullshit. It's probably comforting for some, because they can lie to themselves that they've already heard all of the good stuff. Their ignorance about "that modern music the kids listen to" is entirely justified, because it's all crap, anyway, right?

I'm not even sure why we're talking about Buckley or Wainwright in comparison with Waits or Dylan. My point was that putting them in the same camp as some pop fuckwit like James Blunt because they're "singer-songwriters" is just stupid.

Anyway, wit, charm, humor... whatever. That's a perfectly fine catch-all evaluation for a comedian or a leading man. It doesn't fit all models in music. I like that Costello or Paul Westerberg can make me laugh with a great line, but I don't listen to Miles Davis for his sense of humor or Peter Gabriel for his charm.

While Buckley actually was a pretty funny guy if you listen to some interviews, that's pretty goddamn obviously not what he was going for in his music most of the time. Of course, the fucker was a gifted guitarist, a constantly-experimenting songwriter, and, oh yeah, could hit notes that people just don't hit. Wainwright, on the other hand, continues to be exceptionally charming and funny in concert, and it comes out in a number of his songs, too... if you actually, you know, listen to them.

I've got no problem with differences in taste. But when you're clearly coming from a position of ignorance, I think you're opening yourself up for criticism.

Pop gets hated, and it may be relatively weak for U2 - but for about 90% of the bands out there, it would be a career highlight we'd be at worst calling a guilty pleasure.

I wouldn't call my position one of ignorance...I like all sort of musics and appreciate a good give and take. And you mention a lot of great artists...I guess what I was referring to was the attention to songcraft.

Radiohead is, without a doubt, one of the best bands ever--but they've really gotten away from an emphasis on songwriting in favor of atmosphere. Which is anything but a bad thing...to my mind, kid a is one of the best records of the rock era.

For great songwriting, Elvis Costello and Nick Cave definitely are up there in the same category as Waits, Dylan, Cohen. I guess the difference being that those that I mentioned can and will spend years crafting a particular line or verse and that attention to the smallest detail really shows and stands the test of time. Lord knows that Dylan's had his dark days--and at least half of his catalogue is tossed-off bullshit--but he's also written songs that are broad enough to contain whole decades of American history while being focused enough to speak to one individual on a very personal level.

I just don't even think there are many musicians who even aspire to that level of craft any more (or maybe there are--M Ward, Sufjan Stevens, etc. and they just don't have the cultural impact the others have achieved). I don't know...coming from a background of indie rock--where the prevailing ideology can be summed up by 'keep it like a secret'--I have to wonder where the all the cultural icons have gone.

I dig Korn's 'Make Me Bad' and 'Freak on a Leash', but the rest...

I think it's still there, though. The problem is that, a few decades removed from the beginning of the rock genre, musicians essentially have two choices - create music in the style of the innovators like Dylan and be considered derivative or try to innovate. If you go with the former, even if you're a fairly gifted wordsmith like Sufjan Stevens, Ben Gibbard, or Matt Berninger of the National, you get unfairly stacked up against your antecedents and criticized for NOT being innovative or influential like they were (and how COULD you be - Dylan got there first!). If you go with the latter, you get criticized for style over "substance," with the idea of "substance" having been defined by those earlier artists, as well. In other words, how is what Radiohead does not a result of "songwriting," just as much as what Dylan or Waits do? It's just a different type of songwriting.

This is mythologizing. I tend to do it, too, with artists I love, but it's not reality. The reality is that Costello has written lyrics to some of his best songs in a matter of minutes, and the organ part on "Like A Rolling Stone" was played by a guy who barely knew how to play organ*. "Great" songwriting today comes about in pretty much the exact same way it's always come about - a combination of planning and happy accidents. There wasn't some paradigm shift where new artists stopped being able to "write songs that are broad enough to contain whole decades of American history while being focused enough to speak to one individual on a very personal level." The attempts are still there, and, I'd argue, the successes are still there, too, whether they're widely acknowledged or not.

Of course, artists still aspire to that level of craft. What do you think drives artists to create, anyway? The cultural impact is strictly a matter of audience, not performer. Thoughtful rock music doesn't have a large, mainstream audience anymore. This probably has a lot more to do with novelty and evolving notions of what "selling out" means, which is what you were kind of getting at, than the fact that artists are no longer trying to write Great Songs.

* Here's an interesting anecdote about the mythologizing of great songwriters. I once read an interview in which Costello pointed out how only Dylan could write an amazing line like "I have been over the lanes and rambles" as he did in "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." The interviewer had to correct him: the line is "mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's." When you want someone to be great, you tend to fill in the gaps to make them great.

I guess that's just it...it is a different type of songwriting. If you hear Costello or, say, Stephen Merritt from Magnetic Fields speak about their approach to writing, its quite different than the way most musicians approach their craft. It is probably the same with Cave and a few others. There's, I guess, more of a consciousness on the part of the writer of tradition, of following in the footsteps of other great songwriters. When these guys write they not only draw on the history of pop songwriting but are also casting an eye towards the future--Merritt, Costello, Dylan, Waits, Cohen, Neil Young...each writes knowing that, if the song is good, it will be covered many times over and it will be twisted and turned and made into something new. This is also reflected in the numerous covers these artists do...constantly reinterpreting and representing older songs in a way that makes them distinctly their own.

Its not that I think Radiohead or, even, the Beatles care(d) any less about their songs...but they're writing is cast with more of an eye towards self-expression, of creating and establishing a mood, etc...and this shows in the presentation. If you compare the records of the artists in the above paragraph to those of Radiohead, the Beatles and others...there's much less of a concern for production and polish (except for maybe Waits...honing broken-down sounds in his chicken shed)...part of that may be a lack of care on the artist's part, but I also think there's a knowledge at work that they are not presenting the final version of a given song, and that there never will be a 'final version'.


I have to respectfully disagree...'Like a Rolling Stone' has been covered over 100 times, in countless different languages. It has inspired paintings, comics, novels. Al Kooper's organ part is exceptional and holds together Dylan's version, but it is by no means the song. And, as Greil Marcus has written, there was no precedent for the song's effect. Sure, it came at a moment when the culture was in the midst of a radical shift, but there's much more to it than that. It changed American pop music permanently and all at once. Further, few people were expecting that album to have such an impact--or any, really. Folkies had disowned Dylan, by and large, for going electric. Rockers were not really interested...and Dylan was called a major sell-out based on the title alone (a not-so-subtle nod to the commercial success of the Stones and rock music, in general). He was booed 'round the country and the world for the first several months of touring behing that record...not exactly the expected embrace for a song that would become a cultural icon.

The contemporary musicians we've discussed, by and large, are well-recieved whenever they put out new music, which comes on a giant wave of hype. I don't know if its the artists' approach that has changed or if it is the industry or the audience...but Radiohead, Wilco, Stevens, and others will never be able to claim that they weren't as culturally significant simply becuase not enough people were paying attention.

And it is not 'mythologizing' to point out that the artists I've metioned sometimes spend years on a particular song or lyric...it is fact (particularly in the case of Waits and Cohen, each of which has taken over a decade to finish particular songs). That's not to say that one can't write something incredible at the drop of a hat--all of the examples we've mentioned are exceptionally talented and inspired people.

I don't really think that's true. If I understand what you're getting at, anyways. I think that thoughtful rock music is no longer very popular because the best and brightest artists have turned away from the audience (as Bono has often criticized Radiohead for doing). The success of Coldplay proves this, in a way--they are not the best band or best songwriters, but they've taken the work of much better, more sophisticated artists and made it universal and achieved phenomenal success in doing so. Adn its not just that they're more popular than Radiohead, etc...they intend to write songs that will move the audience, regardless of who that audience is...and it shows, Jay-Z, Timbaland and Kayne West have all sought out Coldplay for production/collarboration. Because, regardless of who you are, its terribly difficult to resist 'Clocks' or 'the Scientist'. They are just great songs. If Coldplay were half as talented (IMHO) as Radiohead, they could easily effect music and culture the way others in the past have. Seems to be, however, that the artists that talented have little interest in engaging the culture in that way...and, I think, everyone sufferes for it.

I don't think it's true at all that those artists write songs with a mind toward cover potential (and, judging from the number of good Costello and Waits covers, they probably shouldn't). Few artists sit down to write The Defining Anthem of a Generation (granted, there may be a few exceptions in which the artist is going for something that grandiose - "Born to Run," for instance - but those are necessarily exceptions). It's usually luck when something resonates with an enormous audience.

Although it's interesting that you later link the Beatles' aesthetic to Radiohead's, since their songs have been covered more often than anything by Dylan or the others you mention above.

I find it impossible to make this distinction for most artists. For every mood piece like "Strawberry Fields Forever," there's a highly-coverable, universally-applicable song like "Yesterday." For every anthemic "Like a Rolling Stone," there's... well, the last couple Dylan albums that seem far more about sound than songwriting to me.

I agree that Radiohead (or Led Zeppelin or Fugazi) seem to function on a somewhat different level, but it's because of the instruments available. Electronics (and more prominent rhythm parts and collaborative instrumental interplay) have become more important in the rock and pop formats, and they're now employed for songwriting, just as guitar and piano were prior. If the actual songs at the heart of Radiohead's recorded output seem harder to remove from their performance, I'd argue that this is still just a matter of perspective. That the Beatles and Dylan and other artists of their time wrote their songs on guitar and piano informs how we perceive a song's "song-ness," but I don't think we need to put that much stock in this. It's the old "if you remove most of the instruments from the piece and sing it accompanied on guitar or piano, does it still sound good?" question. Historically speaking, this question is sort of shortsighted, since you wouldn't evaluate a symphony (nor anything written before the 20th Century, really) in this way, nor would you evaluate most post-1950s pieces of jazz this way.


I don't know about that. Dylan's studio version of "Like a Rolling Stone" is about as lightning-in-a-bottle as you get. I can't imagine a more definitive version, and much of that has to do with performance and delivery, which I think you're underrating for these guys. Kooper's organ part sounds fantastic, precisely because he was untrained at the time. Dylan's delivery is top-notch. (I'm glad you removed Tom Waits from the equation, because, post-Swordfishtrombones, his arrangements are just as married to his songs as Radiohead's are to theirs). I guess what I'm saying is that an unpolished performance of a great song does not indicate a higher priority on the songwriting than the song - it might just mean that the song sounds better played loose.

Yeah, but has there ever been a version better than Dylan's studio recording? If so, I haven't heard it. Dylan's notoriously difficult to cover well. Many try, most fail, and that's mostly because a lot of what makes him great is in how he delivers his lines. The same is even more true of Waits and Costello.

Yeah, but Marcus is the king of all rock mythologizers (and I love him for it), and I think he'd agree that the greatness of "Like A Rolling Stone" was partially a happy accident. The "gone electric" backlash against Dylan has been largely overstated (more mythologizing), and it's really not all that surprising that an electric approach would be more broadly embraced by an audience that was taken with rock bands like the Beatles.

Dylan was arguably bigger than any of these artists (maybe with the exception of Radiohead) even before he released Hwy 61, and he was certainly well-received critically. Bringing It All Back Home was a top 10 hit.

It's mythologizing to make it sound like this was all they were doing during that decade. The gap between Frank's Wild Years and Bone Machine wasn't necessarily spent poring over notebooks and figuring out key changes. A lot of it was probably spent having a family, acting in movies, and such. And sometimes songs just sit. Just because an artist wrote something in 1978 and didn't release it until 2007 doesn't mean that he dedicated a ton of his attention to completing it. He might have just come across it in a notebook, said, "hey, this is actually better than I thought it was," written a new bridge, and recorded it.

Young artists typically don't have the luxury of sitting out a decade to raise a family/have a go at an acting career/write songs, if only for the fact that they haven't reached the point in a career where they can rest like Waits and Cohen have. Check out how quickly Dylan, Cohen, Waits, and all of those others released albums in their youths.

The idea's patently ridiculous. I don't think Stephen Merritt, Colin Meloy, Ben Gibbard, or Sufjan Stevens would have any problems if the masses took to their music (plus, most of these guys probably sell about as well as or better than Cohen or Waits these days, anyway - Radiohead certainly does). The problem is the fragmentation of the pop music audience and, probably, the fact that no single act is going to appeal as much to everyone as was possible when there were only a few big fish in a tiny pond circa 1965.

No, it's that the pop audience isn't interested in being engaged in that way anymore. The fact that a band like Coldplay can release the same album over and over again and keep having hits is proof of this. If Coldplay were half as talented (or, more to the point, risky or innovative) as Radiohead, they wouldn't be in the position that they are today. It's not like the difference between Coldplay and Radiohead is in marketing - it's in how easily digestible their respective catalogs are. Just as advertised, Coldplay is a reliable and bland Big Mac. That's what people want.

I think this is the main reason I love Waits so much and hate covers of his songs (though Wicked Grin by John Hammond is a brilliant collection of Waits' covers). Other artists always grasp the meaning of his lyrics but they never bring anything new to the table from an arrangement perspective. There's so many possible ways of covering his stuff yet people seem to like to do the straight forward sing the lyrics/read the sheet music covers of his stuff.

Even his straight forward stuff like "Road to Peace" is all about the production and the arrangement as well as the lyrics and music. It works as a whole.