Entertainment For Lively Minds
Elvis Costello, Gareth Hunt?
The Elvis Was a Stiff thread got me thinking. I used to love Costello's work in the early to mid 80s, but these days I'm as likely to be irritated by him as pleased when a track comes up on my iPod.
It's his backing vocals - sometimes HIS backing vocals, that is, when he sings in support of his own lead vocal. Listen, if you dare, to This Is Hell off the Brutal Youth album. What's that irritating nasally whine echoing and repeating in double time what Elvis is singing? Why, it's Elvis.
I think the one moment I realised that he wasn't king after all was when I heard Black Coffee in Bed by Squeeze. Elvis produced it and supplies backing vocals - no problem with that as Chris Difford and Glenn Tillbrook did some great work on Trust and Imperial Bedroom. Anyway, as Black Coffee is fading out, the chorus repeating over and over, Elvis is freestyling and he sings, in that loud 'hey, I got soul' bellow he occasionally adopts, he sings 'NO MILK OR SUGAR'.
NO. MILK. OR. SUGAR.
The scales fell from my eyes and I thought, he's a bit of a tit really, isn't he?
So, tell me about bad backing vocals, tell me about the moment you had doubts about your musical heroes, tell me how you like your coffee.
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I remember really wrestling with myself...
...in my mid twenties, after a painful realisation that Kurt Cobain was actually probably kind of an arsehole. Not only that, but with that realisation came a follow-up: Nirvana are for teenagers. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was the BIGGEST Nirvana fan, and I stand by that, but they have very little to say to me any more.
A big part of that is the laziness of the lyrics, actually. I really value a good lyric, and some of the stuff Kurt faux-artily slurs over the top of Nirvana songs is just really, really shit. I can't quite get past that, now.
Have an up arrow for that.
I fell for the FFWHHROSH as much as anyone; they rediscovered the teenage rock fan in me, after years of thinking I had to hide my Sabbath LPs. However listening to them now, Cobain's lyrics are a real problem. Amongst all the angst and self-loathing, I just don't *believe* him: something doesn't quite ring true, can't really put my finger on it even though obviously he was a tortured soul. The only song that I can bear these days is Where Did You Sleep Last Night, a cover version.
likely to be irritated by him when a track comes on my ipod
Well then don't upload the tracks you don't like to your I-pod
simples