Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

[Gangster Octopus]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Harry Truscott wrote:

As a sidebar, when Tim Minchin chose a Deep Purple song on Desert Island Discs the other day he was the first person EVER to do so. What kind of world do we live in?

One where sixteen year old white boys don't get invited onto Desert Island Discs?

[Wyatt Earp]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Renart wrote:

Hard to say, but it seems possible. (The Doors' influence on Joy Division seems obvious, but most JD fans I know don't like to acknowledge it. And of course Joy Division has been very influential.)

I think Morrison's baritone vocal clearly influenced Curtis, but what AdC said was "performance-wise", and I can't see that. Morrison was the strutting alpha male; Ian Curtis looked terrified, and moved like a half-paralysed butterfly pinned to a specimen table. The vibe was a million miles away.

And Joy Division weren't a very Doorsy band musically. Ray Manzarek's keyboard parts, in terms of timbre, melody and (above all) rhythm, were utterly different from those of Joy Division, which owed much more, even before they became New Order, to the more frenetic end of German music. And those keyboard lines were really central to the Doors' sound.

When I think "British, big in late 70s/early 80s, influenced by the Doors", I think, in different ways, the Stranglers and Echo and the Bunnymen. (Both of which I prefer to the original, though both of which were, again in different ways, dead annoying.)

[Stumpy Pepys]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Joy Division is a red-herring; AoC's talking about Jim Morrison as a performer, not as a singer.

I'm tempted to agree with him on that count. In the same way as someone like Little Richard.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

But "influential" doesn't always mean it was a good influence. Eddie Vedder's vocals were influential, too, and I hate his and his imitators' voices.

I really meant stage presence when referring to performance.

Morrison's voice was OK but nothing remarkable, but he was magnetic in action. Elvis, Jagger, Morrison, Bowie, Rotten, all dramatically altered on-stage attitude in a "nothing like them before — everyone trying the same thing after" sense.

[edit: scooped by SP]

[Renart]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

I guess I'm not thinking of performing and singing as being entirely separable like that, but fair enough. Yes, Morrison was quite influential in his stage moves and public image, too, in addition to his vocals.

I agree with everything Mr. on Earth wrote, too. I just think it's funny that Joy Division fans are often uncomfortable about the Doors influence, because they're seen as so uncool now. (The backlash began after the Val Kilmer movie, I think.)

[Bruno]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

(Apologies for leaning on the word 'interesting' above. This is what happens when I'm in a hurry.)

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

George wrote:

Whilst the likes of The Doors have seen their standing crash through the floor The Carpenters appear to have seen an upsurge in their reputation in recent years. There should be a stock market type index where the fluctuating fortunes of these 'classic' acts can be measured.

Yeah, The Carpenters is an interesting one. From syrupy, saccharine dweeb MOR merchants to alternative heroes.

I think it goes back to Karen Carpenter's adoption by the riot grrls, Hole, Kim and Kelly Deal of the Breeders and the Throwing Muses in the early 90's. All had grown up listening to their mum's Carpenter's records as kids in the 70's.

The fact Carpenter was also a drummer (rare for a female) who famously wore a T-shirt emblazoned 'girl power' also helped her to icon status and with Sonic Youth's cover of Superstar in 1994 her alt rock canonisation was complete- as was The Carpenters music.

I still think The Carpenters are sugary shite mind.

[Gangster Octopus]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Renart wrote:

The backlash [against The Doors] began after the Val Kilmer movie, I think.

Possibly earlier...

[Wyatt Earp]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Renart wrote:

(The backlash began after the Val Kilmer movie, I think.)

Not sinnit. (And I hated them long before it was fashionable etc etc...)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

(The backlash began after the Val Kilmer movie, I think.)

Indeed. Just awful on so many levels.

Morrison was the strutting alpha male;

Alpha male, maybe. But he certainly never strutted. He curled, entwined, caressed, posed and used silence masterfully. His act was also organised into presence/non-presence in order to induce tension and drama. No one had done that shit before, or at least nowhere near as well.

[Renart]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Heh. He's the Lizard King of Rock and Roll! I meant the hipster backlash, I suppose. When I was in high school, The Doors were one of the hippie/sixties bands it was OK to like. (Along with The Velvet Underground, Love, and various garage rock bands.) But once the movie came out and frat bros started wearing Doors T-shirts, they were dropped.

The Carpenters are aural Valium. I'm occasionally in the mood for that, but not usually. I do like "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" a lot but they didn't write that.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Gangster Octopus wrote:

Renart wrote:

The backlash [against The Doors] began after the Val Kilmer movie, I think.

Possibly earlier...

That was the despair period. The backlash was post-mortem, and I think its — once again — theatrical circumstances paved the way for the backlash, the movie just put wheels under it.

[Reed John]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Renart wrote:

Heh. He's the Lizard King of Rock and Roll! I meant the hipster backlash, I suppose. When I was in high school, The Doors were one of the hippie/sixties bands it was OK to like. (Along with The Velvet Underground, Love, and various garage rock bands.) But once the movie came out and frat bros started wearing Doors T-shirts, they were dropped.

Nobody at my school had heard of The Velvet Underground or Love. Sixties music, especially the Beatles, was very popular accross the board. in my school. The only rock station we had played nothing but Godawful hair-metal (that we were tired of by 1985) and classic rock like Foreigner and REO Speedwagon (most of which we were sick of by 1984). Then they started to play "Album Oriented Rock" which was mostly The Doors, Zeppelin, and The Who. Sometimes Cream. It was such a welcome change that those bands became popular. But by that time, I'd gotten more into "college music." But everyone I knew liked The Beatles - at least some of their stuff. I don't recall anyone I knew being particularly into The Stones.

I recall that the kids who were actually in bands and could competently play the guitar or drums were all into Hendrix.

The Carpenters are aural Valium. I'm occasionally in the mood for that, but not usually. I do like "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" a lot but they didn't write that.

We had that shit on 8-track in our old Country Squire woody station wagon!

[Bruno]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

The Carpenters were somebody you might find amongst your parents' records, with the Judy Collins, John Denver, Barry Manilow, and Neil Diamond.

[Renart]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Well, I went to high school in the Bay Area, where sixties rock is pretty much part of the civic religion. One of Jerry Garcia's daughters and the daughter of one of The Monkees went to high school with me, Grace Slick was a fixture at local AA meetings, Carlos Santana played tennis at the park where my dad was a ranger, etc. All of which made teenage rebellion a bit complicated. Listening to the sixties rock they played on the radio was like listening to dad music, so you had to find the more obscure stuff. (And picking bands from L.A. and New York rather than San Francisco went against the grain, too.) I remember everybody liking The Beatles, though, even if we didn't play them much.

The Carpenters are truly meant to be played on the eight-track of a woody station wagon! Just like Dr. Dre should be played in a '64 Impala lowrider.

[Bruno]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Grace Slick was a fixture at local AA meetings

Eh, screw the anonymous part!

[Reed John]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

It's hard for anyone to dislike the Beatles because there's something for everyone, so to speak, in their output.

It's easy to forget how much ground the Beatles covered in a short period. Even if we count the Hamburg era where they were, as I understand it, pretty much a Chuck Berry tribute band, their whole career was about 13 years. How many other bands evolved so much in such a short period? And it was only, what, five years(?), between "She Loves You (yeah yeah yeah)" and The White Album. Remarkable.

[Renart]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Oh yeah, I guess I broke the code there. "Grace from Mill Valley" was a fixture at some regular meetings in the area.

(She's been quite open about her participation in AA since her recovery, though, so I don't feel too bad.)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

The Carpenters were somebody you might find amongst your parents' records, with the Judy Collins, John Denver, Barry Manilow, and Neil Diamond.

They were, but even at the time were a small group of heads and hipsters who either found the lushness of Karen's voice irresistible, (I'll put my hand way, way up for that) or admired Richard's production skills. I vaguely recall a party around 1971 talking to a musician who worked with Dave Brubeck. He went on-and-on about RC's arrangements and how brilliant they were. He spent at least two hours deconstructing the saxophone break on Rainy Days and Mondays alone, I seem to vaguely recall. Mind you we were both utterly wasted at the time so it could have been two minutes.

[Renart]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

I've noticed quite a few younger hipsters being very into Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac, too. Not that they were ever quite as square as The Carpenters, but they were definitely considered uncool corporate rock by punk/alternative types in the eighties and nineties.

[Wyatt Earp]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

Brunislaw wrote:

It matters to me in as much as I tend to get bored with music that rides along the surface, so to speak.

I don't think I quite see it that way, really--though my metaphor of (in effect) "fewer dimensions" and yours of "on the surface" are of course very similar.

Where I start from is that I love pop music, and always have. Really, really, really, really love it. A lot of it I react to quite viscerally, I guess, but I think that's not inappropriate for music; I react to much painting and sculpture quite viscerally too. (And I don't react to it all viscerally.)

What I would say--perhaps "concede" is apt--is that with a lot of pop songs, including some of the greats, once you've got the One Thing about the song, that's all you need to get. With Beethoven's Ninth, you hear something you hadn't heard before every time you listen; with "Tutti Frutti", you hear the same three minutes of camp exuberance you heard last time. But there's a sense, and I insist an artistic sense, in which "Tutti Frutti", though not replete, is nonetheless complete. There's nothing missing from it, as such: that's where the "on the surface" metaphor fails to capture the distinction I'm trying to draw.

It's this feeling that drives those conversations about "the perfect pop song", I think. Hackneyed as those conversations often are, they stem from this feeling that we pop fans share, that some records kind of hit the one thing they hit square-on: that they represent a local optimum: that anything that's a bit like them but not exactly like them would be nowhere near so pleasing.

At any rate, if the yardstick is whether one's life is enriched by an artform (and, I mean, perhaps it isn't), then pop fits the bill, a hundredfold. I can't imagine a popless life. It would be like a loveless life.

[G-Man]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

A Carpenters backlash? Fucking hell, what next? An anti-Bacharach/David crusade?

As AdC says, it's the vocals and arrangements, and some damn smart songchoices. Anyone who doesn't get touched by "Goodbye To Love" AND dig the guitar solo is dead inside.

[Renart]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

G.Man wrote:

A Carpenters backlash? Fucking hell, what next? An anti-Bacharach/David crusade?

As AdC says, it's the vocals and arrangements, and some damn smart songchoices. Anyone who doesn't get touched by "Goodbye To Love" AND dig the guitar solo is dead inside.

I like "I Won't Last a Day Without You," too. They were far too mellow for me to appreciate when I was younger, but I certainly recognize and admire the songcraft now. It's fairly rare that I want to listen to them, but that's more to do with mood than anything.

[Wyatt Earp]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

G.Man wrote:

A Carpenters backlash? Fucking hell, what next? An anti-Bacharach/David crusade?

As AdC says, it's the vocals and arrangements, and some damn smart songchoices. Anyone who doesn't get touched by "Goodbye To Love" AND dig the guitar solo is dead inside.

Hmm. I get what people like about The Carpenters, I think, but I don't own anything by them, and it wouldn't bother me if I never heard them again. So either I'm an affectless psycho, or you're guilty of a little hyperbole. Or, you know, a bit of both.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Potentially unpopular opinions that you hold true

I don't think I responded as viscerally as I now do to The Carpenters before I visited Southern California. SoCal music to me at that time (1973) meant Love, The Byrds, Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield. But I entered the state from Mexico on the bus, and as I was sitting there on the freeway headed to LA, soaking in the saturated colours, I watched as a guy on a chopper with eight foot long chrome front forks ride past (with his feet on the handlebars.) One song suddenly enveloped me:

"Such a feelings coming over me
There is wonder in almost everything I see
Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes
And I won't be surprised if it's a dream."

Sung in that sumptuous ice-creamy voice. It was just so utterly right in every sense.