Music Revisionism

[My Name Is Ian]

My wife had NMH play in her living room when she lived in New Jersey and has that plane/record player hybrid logo tattooed on her chest. It's safe to say that she's a big fan of that whole Elephant 6 Recordings thing. I gave that album a few listens and disliked it so much that I didn't even tell her that I'd given it a go in the first place.

[Lang Spoon]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE

WOM, if this, the greatest moment in television, doesn’t open your ears to the magic of Stevie, then fuck sake man, deaf ears mate.

[Jah Womble]

I'll concede a secret 'toleration' of Level 42's The Sun Goes Down (Livin' It Up) and Hot Water.

Generally speaking, I didn't have a lot of truck with the white-socked car-roof-tapping soul boy brigade, however. My art school was full of 'em in the 1980s - they seemed mainly to be silversmiths and interior designers, for some reason. And they all drank lager/lager-top. (A lot of them were fairly decent footballers, as I recall.)

Not sure what any of this proves, tbh.

[Giggler]

For some reason, I'd managed to get it into my head that I Can't Wait by Nu Shooz was somehow related to Stock, Aitken & Waterman, but apparently it isn't. Anyway, that's one of the great pure pop songs of the 1980s, is that, and not because of the weird synthesised "dog" noises.

The booming beat on that takes me straight back to Arena roller skating rink in Bury - which would later become Sol/Viva nightclub - on the afternoon that Bury played Watford in the FA Cup 5th round in 85/86. That's a good thing, just so you know.

It's a great tune. Up there with Dooblay and It's Immaterial in mid-80s singles circles.

[Satchmo Distel]

Stevie went MOR after 1980 for some reason but his live work is still killer. Easily the best performer I have ever seen.

Every album from 1971-76 is essential. Arguably only The Beatles were that consistently great over 5 albums: very little filler.

[Various Artist]

Hmmm, now I'm unsure whether VA actually does like IJCTSILY or whether he is intentionally demonstrating the limit of his power, Canute style, his retainers having refused to accept that the waves of MOR sludge characterising SW's later output wouldn't sound better just on his say so.

I can't work out whether that's a triple negative or a quadruple, Benjm, so I'll just say "Yes, of course that's what I was doing"...

But no I do actually like it. I don't give a fig that everyone else seems to think it's MOR slop that can't hold a candle to his 1971-6 stuff; my liking that doesn't preclude liking this. Unironically, uncomplicatedly, genuinely. It just sounds to me like a great pop tune, a warm, affirmative, frankly joyful few minutes of melodic pleasure. If such a thing had been recorded by someone else, would it be 'OK' to enjoy it? I don't get why Stevie is held to some peculiar higher standard, apparently based on having produced that canon of earlier work then having had the temerity to sing about happily loving someone. It's not like he's the first person in popular music history who's ever done that, for goodness' sake.

It's not a tuneless dirge, or oversung histrionics, or an absurd genre appropriation. I mean, I understand that there's a consensus he went "sentimental" for much of his output post-1980, so I can see why en masse that would start to drag when he could've instead been laying down righteous funk workouts until Armageddon, and why this might colour people's perception if this were one such song among many – but I've not heard any of the rest of that stuff, I'm just taking this one song on its own here. And he's hardly Max Bygraves or something, wearing a cardigan in a rocking chair next to a roaring fire surrounded by bright-eyed children – he's just rather awkwardly singing into a phone in the video over a bouncy keyboard riff. You're all a bunch of cheerless beard-stroking musos, as far as I'm concerned.

[Hot Pepsi]

Another one of my unpopular opinions is liking a lot of Depeche Mode not despite the very literal and clunky lyrics, but because of them. Including Blasphemous Rumors and Black Celebration. Sometimes the best way to deal with sadness and anxiety, especially when you're young, is just to say it out loud and sit with it.

[G-Man]

Jazz-funk is still the genre that dare not show its face in public. It seems harsh in a world where apparently sane people will admit to liking Queen.

I'm quite happy to wear my JAZZ-FUNK or FUSION shirt in public (but where I live, to love fusion is a badge of honour). Of course, there is a whole lot of really boring by-the-numbers shit in that genre, especially virtually everything made after 1990. But I can happily spent a few hours with the Crusaders, Eric Gale, Blue Mitchell, Roy Ayers, Idris Muhammad, George Duke, (early) Grover Washington, Dave Grusin, Diane Schuur, Chuck Mangione, Ramsey Lewis, Oliver Sain or (in small doses) Spyro Gyra.

It always strikes me that among people who dismiss fusion are those who'll hail the genius of the themes of '80s TV shows like Taxi or Night Court or Hill Street Blues, which are fusion tracks.

[Sam]

I love jazz funk, pre- and (some) post-1990. Having never knowingly heard a Level 42 track, though, this thread is the first time I've learned that's what they are. I'd always assumed they were some '80s pop-rock outfit.

And 'I Just Called To Say I Loved You' is fine. Not great, not awful. Just fine. Possibly, as Benjm suggests, partly because of who recorded it - there are a lot of very successful artists who barely did anything approaching it, but for Stevie it's a dirge compared with his earlier stuff.

My personal favourite of the 1980s schlock-era Stevie Wonder is 'Part Time Lover', though.

[My Name Is Ian]

The booming beat on that takes me straight back to Arena roller skating rink in Bury - which would later become Sol/Viva nightclub - on the afternoon that Bury played Watford in the FA Cup 5th round in 85/86. That's a good thing, just so you know.

It's a great tune. Up there with Dooblay and It's Immaterial in mid-80s singles circles.

"Big booming beat." Exactly that. There's something kind of relentless about it.

[Jah Womble]

I love jazz funk, pre- and (some) post-1990. Having never knowingly heard a Level 42 track, though, this thread is the first time I've learned that's what they are. I'd always assumed they were some '80s pop-rock outfit.

Not sure I'd describe Level 42 as 'jazz funk', tbh - although I'll concede that a lot of that scene's followers seemed to like them. Perhaps I'm hopelessly wrong, but jazz-funk (at the commercial end, anyway) conjures up the early-eighties likes of Light Of The World, Beggar & Co, Freeez, Incognito, maybe even (yikes) Shakatak. A lot of bands influenced by Weather Report and The Crusaders, at any rate. I could be mistaken, however - I liked some of the music, but the scene itself wasn't really for me, man.

Viz Stevie - he could still pull one or two gems out of the bag after the end of the seventies. Not as many, mind.

[Benjm]

VA makes a strong case for IJCTSILY and ultimately it's pop music and the ears want what they want. Stevie's favouring softer styles in the '80s isn't damning in itself and Prince's funky 1990s also require a good deal of sifting to reveal the nuggets. SW is, as VA and Sam say, a victim of the expectations his earlier work generated.

Just on its own merits, I really dislike IJCTSILY. It sounds like he was exploring the pre-sets on a new keyboard and thought, "That'll do." The tempo seems designed for maximum irritation. But really my personal issue with it is that it was number one for six weeks when I was fourteen and getting into music. It was inescapable so I have heard it many, many more times than anyone should have to, at a point in life when it still seemed outrageous that, say, New Order or The Smiths weren't routinely holding the number one spot for months at a time. For the purposes of leaving a lasting enmity for the song, it was perfect timing. I quite like Saturday Night by Whigfield, which has a similar naggingly insistent quality but was released long after it had stopped seeming important whether the stuff I liked got onto TOTP.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Just on its own merits, I really dislike IJCTSILY. It sounds like he was exploring the pre-sets on a new keyboard and thought, "That'll do." .

Yeah, there's something of the John Shuttleworth about the keyboard arrangement. It's not a bad song per se; it would just benefit from a remix.

[G-Man]

I remember well the moment I heard it for the first time. In my sister's living room in Germany, listening to the radio. A new Stevie song? How very exciting. And then that, from the man who only two years earlier had made "Do I Do". This nursery rhyme melody with -- yes, as Benjm right says -- the lazy "pre-sets on a new keyboard" production, was instantly risible. It was he betrayal of a legacy and an artistic bankruptcy declaration. So, yeah, my dislike of it relates to the reputation of the artist. But I can think of no arrangement and interpretation outside the genre of trash metal which might make this wretched thing sound like a good song.

[Jah Womble]

Yeah, there's something of the John Shuttleworth about the keyboard arrangement.

You've nailed it. It's 'midi-tations', but ten years earlier.

[Patrick Thistle]

OK, I'll have a go.

Zooropa is the best U2 album because it captures them right on the cusp of ditching the sound that made them famous and before they actually found a sound that worked. Which makes it a really interesting listen. Plus it's got The Wanderer on with Johnny Cash singing instead of Bono and that's a fab song.

Ace of Base's Happy Nation album is often forgotten as the pop album of the early 90s. When people talk about 90s music they never talk about how All That She Wants was ubiquitous in 1993, and how that was a great thing.

This one is for the Canadians, Phantom Power was a better album than either Fully Completely or Day for Night, which everyone reckons are the Tragically Hip's two best albums. I'm thinking in terms of a complete listening experience - there is more variety in the songs and at the same time there is a coherence to the album that isn't always evident in their other works. Their absolute best album, however, was World Container because that doesn't have a single duff track on it and there is at least one on every other album they released. (I do love Fully Completely though. At the Hundredth Meridian, probably their best song.)

[My Name Is Ian]

You've nailed it. It's 'midi-tations', but ten years earlier.

Right down to that completely gormless "duh-duh-duh" at the very end of it. It's as though they've channelled all the very worst that could be managed from synth production in 1984. It's sub-Casio.

[3 Colours Red]

Pinkerton is the worst Weezer album pre-Make Believe.

When Rivers Cuomo said it was diseased, he wasn't wrong. It's pretentious and it's obvious it comes from a dark period in his life. Anguish can produce great art but it's not what I want from Weezer.

[Hot Pepsi]

Kris Kross' Jump is the second greatest pop song of the early 90s and one of the greatest of all times.


Young MC's Bust a Move is #1.

Peak sampling.

[WOM]

This one is for the Canadians, Phantom Power was a better album than either Fully Completely or Day for Night, which everyone reckons are the Tragically Hip's two best albums. I'm thinking in terms of a complete listening experience - there is more variety in the songs and at the same time there is a coherence to the album that isn't always evident in their other works. Their absolute best album, however, was World Container because that doesn't have a single duff track on it and there is at least one on every other album they released. (I do love Fully Completely though. At the Hundredth Meridian, probably their best song.)

This is interesting. Can't say you're wrong, or right. I've never spent much time with World Container, because it came after the 'popular drop off' of the Hip and didn't have the radio-ready singles that contribute to the canon.

Your theory on Phantom Power is interesting; it has Bobcaygeon and (of course) Fireworks, which is easily a 10/10 song in my books. It's just perfect. But for power and strength and emotion of being just the right albums at just the right time, it's hard to top FC or DfN. I mean, we actually went to Sam The Record Man on Yonge Street at midnight to buy DfN when it was released. It was a mob scene. That's how big they were here, then.

Fully Completely is hard to top, though. That was The Hip at the peak of their power, with Another Roadside Attraction and utter ubiquity on the radio.

[Toby Gymshorts]

There's only one Phantom Power in my life, and it's by SFA.

[Sean of the Shed]

OK, I'll have a go.

Zooropa is the best U2 album because it captures them right on the cusp of ditching the sound that made them famous and before they actually found a sound that worked. Which makes it a really interesting listen. Plus it's got The Wanderer on with Johnny Cash singing instead of Bono and that's a fab song.

I was thinking of posting the exact same thing. This was most definitely U2 at their peak.

[Furtho]

Neil Tennant said something along the lines of SAW making good pop records, but that they had stopped short of trying to be fabulous. I suppose their production line approach precludes the kind of extravagance that that word implies. But things like Kylie’s Hand On Your Heart, Love At First Sight and of course The Reynolds Girls’ I’d Rather Jack are all ace.

[Giggler]

The synths at the very start of I'd Rather Jack are what I imagine synapses sound like as they snap.

[WOM]

Christ, I just watched / heard that I'd Rather Jack for the first time ever. That's fucking dire on a whole different scale.