Genesis were bloody brilliant, even for a few years after Gabriel left. And from 73-81 Phil Collins was a renaissance man.
We're living through a Golden Age of music (cos we've got everything that's ever been made, plus more being made all the time).
Reggae - with the honourable exception of Dub - and particularly Marley, was/were trite, twee and regressive.
Aqua were pretty good, for a while.
The Black Eyed Peas' Elephant album was outstanding.
The Hammer's version of 'I'm Forever Blowin' Bubbles' by the 1975 Cup Final squad was the best football song ever (dig that crazy keyboard!)
Charlie Watts, Ringo Starr and Nick Mason are the three luckiest people on earth. (OK, that might not be 'unpopular', but I just needed to get it off my chest.)
Charlie Watts, Ringo Starr and Nick Mason are the three luckiest people on earth. (OK, that might not be 'unpopular', but I just needed to get it off my chest.)
I'm 100% with you on Starr, and have made the point a number of times on here. And been beaten profusely for it.
At least as far as Watts and Starr are concerned, it's both a very popular opinion and very wrong.
Yeah. The thing about Ringo is kind of the conventional wisdom, if anything: "Not even the best drummer in the Beatles" and so on. But it's not true.
And I don't get how anyone could think it true of Watts. For my money he's the absolutely perfect drummer for the Rolling Stones, and one of the main reasons they were such a great band. And even if you don't agree with that, how do you miss the man's evident mastery of what he's doing? You may not like the results, but they're exactly the results he's after. Jagger and Richards, who are many things but no fools either of them, have always known what they had there.
At least as far as Watts and Starr are concerned, it's both a very popular opinion and very wrong.
Yeah. The thing about Ringo is kind of the conventional wisdom, if anything: "Not even the best drummer in the Beatles" and so on. But it's not true.
And I don't get how anyone could think it true of Watts. For my money he's the absolutely perfect drummer for the Rolling Stones, and one of the main reasons they were such a great band. And even if you don't agree with that, how do you miss the man's evident mastery of what he's doing? You may not like the results, but they're exactly the results he's after. Jagger and Richards, who are many things but no fools either of them, have always known what they had there.
Ok, I'll accept that Ringo can be made a case for; he occasionally featured, and I guess he had to cope with drumming to something that was very original at the time.
But Watts is down there with Mason. Always following the beat, never making it, and often so far behind that he's hanging on for dear life...his playing on, e.g. We Love You, shows a man, sans ideas, desperately playing something...the 'results' are what any number of similar drummers at the time could have produced, but miles better. Hence the luck. As to Jagger and Richards' perseverence, honestly I have no idea - which may prove your point!
Not for nothing, but Watts is the only other Stone, besides Jagger and Richards, who owns part of the 'company'. Everyone else is and has been a hired hand.
My (perhaps faulty) litmus test for Starr is "could any other drummer at the time have done what he did and the Beatles been just as successful?" Yes. Would you have ever heard of Starr otherwise? No. I mean, we'd not have had Octopus's Garden, but we'd have soldiered on somehow.
You won't find a drummer that knows his stuff that will slag off Ringo's drumming and no-one that will slag off Watt's drumming.
As for WOM's litmus test, it does stack up I am afraid. I have seen many bands get rid of their original drummer and get a technically better drummer and it doesn't work. Sometimes, it is because they don't know when not to play, sometimes it's because they play no part in the song-writing, sometimes it is because the original chemistry of the band has been disrupted, sometimes it is just because they are cunts.
The chemistry of a band is very important, as much so as song-writing and musical ability, sometimes moreso. You will often get a player who is perfunctory at best but he is in the band as they were a load of mates and her was the one that didn't know an instrument so they taught him one usually bass. Either that or he becomes the singer like Bon Scott or, indeed, me.
The disaster is when one of the original members leaves or is sacked and then they have to put a finger on what it was that the last guy did and try and replace that. Either that or they try and get a guy in that hasn't got the elements that irritated them about the last guy. Then you end up with a whole new set of issues as the bits that irritated you about the other guy were probably part of what input that he put into the band. For instance, the fact that the singer you kicked out ended up nicking all your girlfriends may also be what made him a great frontman or the fact that you had to teach the bassist his lines meant that he never tried to do a 15 minute bass solo.
Ringo may not have been the best technically for the Beatles but he may have been the best drummer for the Beatles because he didn't overplay or was the butt of the jokes for the other guys or he would always take the ugly groupie that hung around with the pretty ones or a combination of these and more
I find, and always will find, the cult of Elvis Presley overrated and annoying.
Well, yes and no. I don't like that whole He Was The King, Man, The King Of Rock And Roll shtick either.
But Elvis was an incredible singer and, believe it or not, producer. In his rock 'n' roll pomp he coud reinvent a song like no other. Compare Carl Perkins' "Blues Suede Shows" to what Elvis' cover. Or better, listen to the novelty version of "Hound Dog" which Elvis' borrowed from (he took nothing from Thornton's), and see how he turns the thing into something utterly explosive, something so punk like few songs had ever been. Listen to Glen Reeve's demo of Heartbreak Hotel, and figure out how Elvis got from that to what appeared on his record.
And Elvis produced all that, recording loads of takes while the nominal producer sat back and relaxed.
Like nobody before him, Elvis fused the R&B and country sensibilities that were the foundation of rock 'n' roll. And Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" was a reworking of a Bob Willis record, so Berry did some fusing before Elvis ever entered an RCA studio. But Elvis took that several notches higher.
Rock 'n' Roll Elvis was pivotal and the music is still great. I don't like the "King" label because he was part of a revolutionary vanguard that also included people like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and, a little later, Buddy Holly. But the cult must not diminish what a great singer, performer and producer of rock 'n' roll Elvis was for those first couple of years.
Rock 'n' Roll Elvis was pivotal and the music is still great. I don't like the "King" label because he was part of a revolutionary vanguard that also included people like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and, a little later, Buddy Holly. But the cult must not diminish what a great singer, performer and producer of rock 'n' roll Elvis was for those first couple of years.
This.
In terms of his contribution, I recognize that he did do more than just rip off black artists, as is commonly alleged, but that just puts him in with maybe a dozen or so others that more or less invented rock and roll as we know it in the late 50s. But I don't think he stands above Buddy Holly or Chuck Berry, for example.
In that respect, he is a bit like the Beatles or The Sex Pistols. Each of these deserve a lot of credit for what they did, but the mainstream media tends to potrary them as dominating their era to a far greater degree than they actually did and being representative of the "sound" of that time when in fact they were just one of many fruits of their time and place.
I also find the whole tragectory of his career to be disappointing. And, I think, maybe he did too. All of those shit films and the later fatter, Vegas years that were an embarassment to rock and roll (if in fact they had any relationship to rock and roll at all.) Besides, rock and roll doesn't need a king. That's the whole point, I thought.
Still, maybe if he'd lived, cleaned up, lost weight, we could have enjoyed his latter Rick Rubin-collaboration years. It's like he died too soon but not quite soon enough.
G.Man and I have disagreed with each other about our favourite Elvis eras but there is really no point in me echoing his summary for the most part.
What I disagree with greatly (and G.Man wasn't referring to this) is the blanket slagging of his post-Army years. For a start, the "68 Comeback Special" is a great, awesome performance. It is pretty much live (check out the feedback throughout Hound Dog), the range of songs is brilliant from the "unplugged" section to the gospel section. He looks supercool, of course, and he has a great rapport with the audience especially considering the length of the show. This would mean nothing, of course, if his voice wasn't great but, to me, his voice is at its absolute best here.
He combines his early punk rock and roll rawness and energy with the richness that he gained as he got older. More to the point, he is absolutely hungry in this performance. You can hear it in his voice, the sound of a man that has forgotten what he loved about performing and has found it again but without taking it for granted like young musicians do. He is testing himself here and winning. I even forgive him pissing around with "Love Me Tender"
The other thing is that he didn't lose it when he hit Vegas. "That's the Way It Is" is filmed after he had done three seasons at Vegas. It's not as good as "Comeback Special" but it's still pretty good, Elvis' voice is still awesome, he is still as fit as fiddle and the performance is great especially the rehearsal parts that echo his unplugged section in "68..."
People tend to judge post-army Elvis on "Aloha from Hawaii", the films, thousands of shit camp impersonators and songs that have been overplayed. Even saying that about the latter, it is amazing how often an Elvis song comes on my headphones and I am blown away by it anew. "Suspicious Minds" came on yesterday and the slow build is great but, good grief, when it starts coming to a crescendo, your hairs don't just stand up on end, the whole of your head is electric and this was recorded in 1969.
Indeed, even a lot of the films are great fun and are miles better than any of the stuff that Bowie or bloody Jagger did.
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