Entertainment For Lively Minds
Noughties Backlash - Overrated and Underrated?
Now that many of the polls are in and the de facto 'classics' of the noughties have been canonised and categorised, I was really disappointed to see some of my favourites barely represented. Wondered if the Massive agreed.
Overrated:
01. Radiohead Kid A
Ear-wrenchingly awful, portentous, self-absorbed and po-faced non-rock.
02. Wilco
Downhill from Being There - self-consciously dirtying up their sound and contriving to sound more atonal can't get away from the slowly diminishing returns from each album thereafter.
03.Animal Collective
There's only so far you can take Beach Boys harmonies and blissed out samples - especially when The Besnard Lakes did it so much better (see underrated).
04. The Strokes
New wave Power Pop but with nothing new (c.f. New Pornographers).
05. Bon Iver/Fleet Foxes
CSNY.
06. Arcade Fire.
Rock music as if played by The Men They Couldn't Hang. Dire.
Underrated:
01. Okkervil River
Black Sheep Boy and The Stage Names are surely some kind of lyrical high watermark?
02. New Pornographers
A body of work in the Noughties that takes the Power Pop torch from the Db's and hits new highs.
03. Besnard Lakes.
Better than Animal Collective.
04. Bonnie Prince Billy
Superwolf.
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Up to a point, Lord Copper
Green Gartside made some interesting comments about Arcade Fire, a group that I like up to a point:
I particularly like his point that the melodies stick too closely to the chord changes. INSW* but it seems to me that this is a sign of a fundamental lack of sophistication which holds them back. Having said all that, I quote like the *sound* of them, if you know what I mean.
* I'm no song writer.
That's interesting.
I have both albums, and think they are OK, but GG has nailed it there. He's right - it isn't really richly rewarding & inventive - it is mostly unreconstructed rock music. The music is alright for what it is, but the claims for the group are wrong. I'm not sure what claims the group make for their own music, or whether they are happy just to get on with it.
Thanks for posting that,
Thanks for posting that, David. What a spectacularly precise dissection of Arcade Fire! A really eloquent shoe-ing.
What makes the whole thing even worse is the back story construct - multiple deaths within the family leading to an album that confronts mortality and assuages the human spirit. If you were cynical you'd say it was almost X-Factoresque in terms of contrivance and manipulation.
Better dig out my copy of Skank Bloc Bologna.
But Green Garside
is a lapsed commie with a weird high pitched voice who makes a record every ten years.
Possibly...
...but he's a great music critic.
Possibly
or he just writes things you agree with.
Not at all
He writes about *music*, which is something most music critics (amateur and professional) carefully avoid. I don't feel anything like as strongly about Arcade Fire, for instance, as he does. I don't hate them at all. I quite like them but I am aware that they only go so far and he's very good at suggesting why.
true enough he does
write about music I just thought the Clarkson reference was a cheap shot and actual not very trueful AF are probably a bit to effete for JC's published tastes.
Clarkson? Arcade Fire? It'll never happen.
I don't believe
that Clarkson has any input on TG's incidental music other than a top level "make it very vroom" decree.
I'm sure he doesn't
Gartside's point was that The Arcade Fire make music for people in cars - meaning the "vroom" brigade. This clip suggests to me that the people who make TV for people in cars agree.
or they typed "car"
into itunes and came up with "no cars go" and thought oooh that sounds "vroom" and it was 6.30 pm and package needed to go out to be signed off.
The Clarksonistas
use leftfield pop in their trails for the same reason that Barclays use Donald Sutherland, Robbie Coltrane and Samuel L Jackson in their ads, and for the same reason that Sky throw their money at every "alternative" comedian that Edinburgh can throw at them.
They are sending us a message, and that message says: "You. Yes, you over there in that independent coffee shop, with your fair-trade chai and your Guardian Society open on your lap. The war is over; we have your countercultural heroes, and we're not letting them go - come to the dark side, and bring Tabatha, Zak, your rebirthing buddies and your Lesbian clog-dancing friends with you.
We've won!"
markiechops message to the Guardian
I thought that was one of the most spot on summations of a large quantity of the Guardian's readership.
And yes, I admit there are some sane people amongst them (I'm sure there are a number here), but the image of the slightly crusty liberal who'll believe in a cause simply because its in a paper, not in their hearts, before heading off to the Big Chill festival to watch a world music ensemble whilst smoking a large quantity of weed.
See South Park episode 127 for exactly the type of people I mean.
Thanks,
I hope I didn't come across too snottily, mind, because I was dissing myself more than anyone else there.
My Lesbian friends are
My Lesbian friends are mortally offended by the suggestion that they would go clog dancing...
Yep
I am a Grauniad reader but I think Mr Chops has provided a pretty neat précis of a significant portion of the readership.
Thank God the paper knows it too and can laugh about it :)
tee hee
that being said the BBC have randomly used every single piece of vaguely catchy leftfield music for their trails. I half expected to see the "One show" to start the other week with Giles Brandreth in his wellies handing out food parcels to the people of Cockermouth while "Riverman" by Nick Drake played in the background.
Possibly,
but his records somehow keep improving.
"The battle against unreconstructed rock music continues."
I get really narked about this. Why does everything need to be battling against what has gone before? I don't see anything wrong, per se, with working within the context of your influences, and I've never seen the use of being "new" for the sake of it. Who says "unreconstructed rock music" NEEDS battling against? As a genre, it's had maybe 40 years to bed in: I don't think it's anywhere near done, yet.
Take, for example, The Hold Steady. I really love this band, but do I pretend they're anything more than an agglomeration of AC/DC and the E Street Band? No. Because they actually recognise what their brand of rock music is for, and that's to have a good time to, while simultaneously engaging brain
Since we're on the subject of overratedness, here's my Number 1 on a list of overrated things: originality. Over-emphasis on being original leads almost inexorably to snobbery, smugness and complete unlistenability. It's OK to recycle your influences if you can do it engagingly and interestingly.
And I really disagree with Gartside's Arcade Fire "dissection". Their music is deliberately a weaving together of very simple - almost primitive - musical ideas. They never claimed to be Haydn, or Penderecki, and if following the changes with your melodies was good enough for the Ramones, it's fine with me. (Oh, and he's seriously levelling a charge of melismatic diva-ish cod-emotion at WIN BUTLER? Goodness me. What a load of obtuse bollocks.)
Gartside's a snob: even if he were right about the Clarkson thing (he's not - Clarkson would be revolted by Arcade Fire) there's nothing wrong with music that works well in cars. Fortunately, Arcade Fire (especially "Funeral") works equally well anywhere.
The one thing that probably unites
a lot of people who use this forum is a degree of snobbery when it comes to music; it's a fulcrum for people who consider themselves discerning, and a touch of snootiness is the inevitable bi-product - no bad thing, as far as I'm concerned.
The other thing that unites people anywhere is their love of originality and newness, be it on their stereo, their bookshelves, their beds or their dining table, even if it's just a "new-to-them" experience or a mere marketing illusion.
If we didn't, we wouldn't buy stuff we didn't need, footballers wouldn't wear pink boots, Jonathan Ive would be out of a job, trains would still belch out filthy (but supposedly romantic) steam and coal-dust, and it would be approximately 1854.
Furthermore, I doubt that Arcade Fire would work equally well at a Japanese Tea Drinking Ceremony, a funeral (ironically), the soundtrack of "La Dolce Vita", or an hour in a flotation tank with Vanessa Feltz.
"an hour in a flotation tank with Vanessa Feltz"
Thanks for that - good job I'd just finshed my sandwich.
I haven't even got a car
but I'm rather fond of Arcade Fire, despite their tendency to stick to horizontal melodies etc. At least Gartside actually critiques them constructively, however. I assume he's not an NME journalist?
*secretly writes rant along the lines of "How dare this man slag off my favourite band, he obviously knows nothing about music. I bet he listens to Nickelback"*
Reading Green's words reminds me..
If you can't play a musical instrument, don't try to be a music critic. Journalists and critics are very good at writing. If we're lucky. If they also know something about their subject, I view that as a bonus. And being able to name every member of The Fall in chronological order is not knowing about music. I would suggest that knowing the difference between a major and minor chord, by ear, would be a good starter.
That's Arsejuice, with respect
I don't want to read reviews of The Stooges that pranny on about aeolian cadences, diminished fifths or diatonic harmonies; if I want that spodwankage I'll listen to proper music. This is rock n' roll we're talking about, and I want to read impassioned reviews by smack-addled popspazmos whose soul objective is to remind you that primitive bongo-thumping is still the quickest way to get a drug-free erecttion. did Lester Bangs die in vein (sic)?
Well next months edition
of Word is going to be empty then. Does this theory extend to film making? Writing about Formula One? Not saying that musicians can't bring there own take on the subject but most of them aren't as analytical/reflective as GG (which probably stems more from him spending too long in squats arguing about whether a mung casseroles are symbol of capitalist oppression rather than his time to tuning basses etc.).
In short, Chris, yes..
I'd much rather read stuff written by someone who understands what they're going on about. Alan Green or Alan Hansen? In terms of film-making, is it not more instructive to listen to Alex Cox than Mark Kermode? We all know a bit about music here but when someone who truly knows what they're on about sticks their two penn'orth in, we sit back and listen. There's a few studio-jockeys and musicians here who, via their posts, have rightly killed ill-informed debates stone-dead with irrefutable logic.
No actually
what you like are people who are good critics there are plenty of make weight ex-pros wheeled out on MOTD or similar who mutter platitudes and cliches. The same is true of music and elsewhere when it comes to how music makes you feel as a listener musicians don't have exclusive rights on insight. "studio-jockeys and musicians " can be just as bound by predujice, self interest yes the may be able to bring objective facts or experience but are no more insightful on subjective side of music. Knowing techinical langauge etc doesn't help Green Garside explain why Arcade Fire had 50 thousnad people jumping up and down in the mud at glastonbury in fact his muscial knowledge has helped form a predujice which prevents him from expressing himself clearly on the simple joy of music.
Girls Aloud
overrated
Absolutely, although The
Absolutely, although The Promise is a guilty pleasure of mine.
Underrated. Hugely.
Maybe it's the snobbish muso/critic that comes out every now and then (and heaven knows I'm as guilty as that as the next man) but take away the tabloid headlines, the reality contest beginnings and the photoshopped and airbrused images and just look at the songs, there's a fine, fine body of work there.
Not been a better pop song than "No Good Advice" in 25 years. The session musicians and the songwriters need a pay rise...(which I'm sure they got in 2004!)
Girls Aloud are good but faceless
I had a recent argument (good natured) with a friend of mine about Girls Aloud. He was of the opinion that, contrary to the popular opinion that the scale of Girls Aloud's success proves that the band (the five women themselves) have a rare and unique musical talent.
I disagreed.
I like their songs, but it's really anonymous stuff. Good material with good branding, that's all. In other words it could be any five women up there (to a point) and the result would be the same.
What's my point? There's an interesting distinction between a good self-contained band who have the goods, and a "band" like Girls Aloud who are just a well-marketed front for a good songwriting team. Nothing wrong with it per se (and it's a well established tradition) but I tend to like singers not songs: if the singer can't put their own individual mark on the material things tend to get a bit two dimensional. Like Girls Aloud.
How can they be overrated?
I have virtually no views on the music of Girls Aloud, as I've only knowingly heard one of their songs (can't remember the title, thought it was quite good). My instinct is to loathe them, and I know that's my problem, and possibly my loss.
However, John, I have to disagree that they're underrated: they are widely praised by critics in all sort of unexpected places - broadsheets as well as tabloids, plenty of folk on the massive, Julie Burchill, etc etc. They're often used as an exemplar of "perfect pop" while their writing/production team are hailed as geniuses. I'm not qualified to say they're overrated, as I don't know the music well enough, but from the evidence I've seen, heard and read, underrated they are most certainly not.
"Overrated":
The use of the terms "overrated" and "underrated" they have ceased to mean anything. "overrated" = a band I don't like that other people seem to like, "underrated" bands I like that best my mate and our lass take the piss out of me for liking and that never get on the cover of magazines that sell a tenth of what they use to sell. Overrated seems to equate to being 3rd on the bill on Saturday night at Latitude, underrated playing that stage next to lake before the Royal Ballet come on but after one of Squeeze do a solo set.
Sorry but I've just started to loath the use "Over" and "Underrated" as if there was actually some sort of official system somewhere overseen by Steve lamacq and one of the blokes from behind the counter at Rough Trade East. That carefully moves bands up and down like on those card football league ladders you use to get. Also curiously really famous bands like U2 and Depeche Mode seem to escape this rating system, their sales and fame seem move them beyond the pail of the "rating" system.
But anyway your list just seems to be the top of the "indie" sales chart versus the bottom oh and Bonnie Prince Billy worries me.
Chris
has the backlash against the backlash started already? I can't keep up :-)
Besnard Lakes and Animal Collective
I like both. The last album by Animal Collective is their high watermark although I saw them live in 2005 around the time of the 'Feels' album which was a memorable experience.
What really gets me is the obsession with pigeonholing a decade. We all know it makes no sense but still we do it. Then again, I don't believe in the 'x was a good year for music and y was a bad year'. Just as nonsensical.
Listening versus brands and genres and marketing etc
I've been doing a lot of thinking about the end-of-noughties lists, partly because I do a local radio show, on which I started off meaning to play stuff that was offbeat, off the beaten track - but that begs lots of questions, like which track and where, doesn't it? What I am more and more conscious of is the tyranny of classification by genre. There's no doubt that a Songlines best-of is going to be different to an NME best-of, and much of that is because the chosen artistes are deemed to fit into specific genres. But that's not how I actually listen to music. I might get up on a Saturday and want to listen to Wayne Hancock - not because it's kind of western swingy but because it's got the groove I want at that moment. And I might want to listen to Jim White late at night. Or I might want to choose music from Africa with similar grooves/atmosphere to Wayne Hancock/Jim White. Or some Scandinavian jazz... and so on. But organs of the media in a commercial world need to identify an audience and establish a brand and the music press is a prime example.
Andy Gill's list of his year's albums is a great example of how listeners like all kinds of stuff: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/andy-gill...
See also: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/you-call-...
I'm no greater a fan of the Word's best-ofs than of Uncut's or Mojo's. Though I think maybe Mojo's, this year, comes closer to reflecting my own choices.
Some further comments: stuff by bands like the Strokes and Arcade Fire - and Wilco - does just pass me by. I don't hear anything fresh and original in it - or maybe not enough at the first time of hearing. Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes really impressed me, and I still rate Bon Iver. Seeing Fleet Foxes, however, at End of the Road, made me want to never hear white boys singing pretty harmonies ever again. Give me a bit of manic stuff like Quack Quack any day. But the originality thing is a bit misleading also. Johnny Cash's great final albums were covers - and Easy Star All Stars, apart from being a cracking live band, made 3 cover versions of albums in the noughties that I'm sure I will still want to play for pure and simple listening pleasure for many years to come
Re New Pornographers
Hell, yeah.
Also, A.C. Newman's two solo outings to date, both rather wonderful, at least if you're me.
Kid A, Arcade Fire and The Strokes
Not overrated. Very good. Just not the untouchable genius that is RT, Dylan or The Beatles (delete as applicable).
I think Kid A was superb. Made me think twice about the endless possibilities of music anyway.
And cms, you are not alone. I love "Mass Romantic" and "The Slow Wonder", and "Twin Cinema" has some great tracks if a little patchy.
Here are two
Here's a couple that can be directly compared:
Overrated: The Raconteurs
Underrated: Brendan Benson
I'd agree on the Raconteurs
But I do absolutely love Steady As She Goes.
Agreed
So do I and trotted off top see them live before the first album on the strength of it. How could it not be all as good as that with Brendan Benson on board? Well they proved that they could mess it up.
Arcade Fire vs Football
At my Footy club here in Barcelona,RCD Espanyol. They've been playing Arcade Fire over the PA when we score. Bit more original then Tom Hark
so you've only heard it 3 times this season then!
(I'm sorry if you keep knocking 'em up we'll keep hitting 'em.)
I think this should cover it.
OVERRATED
Bands that are rather popular, "everyone" seems to like them except me
UNDERRATED
Bands that nobody else seems to like except me.
Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst
He's a strange one ol' Conor. On the one hand he is feted and rated. Yet...only very occasionally have I seen his masterpiece 'I'm Wide Awake It's Morning' included in best of noughties lists. That album is as good as it gets in its genre.
Even in Word, he doesn't have the depth and volume of coverage I feel he deserves.
Overrated: Elbow, Lily
Overrated: Elbow, Lily Allen, Fleet Foxes and various other dull hairy men in lumberjack shirts...
Underrated: Graham Day (The Gaolers, Solarflares etc), Ten Benson, Apples In Stereo, Hamell On Trial, Shack amongst others.
Very happy to see some fans of New Pornographers on here too - excellent band!
Since when
was Lily Allen a dull hairy man in a lumberjack shirt?
Well, you know
it's amazing what you can do on a photoshoot with good lighting and post production application of Photoshop.
She's got a
dull hairy Dad.
me simple
Me
i think Radiohead and Wilco are two trually great bands. ilove some of the albums more than others.arcade fire . i think 'funeral ' is a great album that i will listen to it for many years to come.neon bible- not bothered.animal collective/the strokes/bon ivor etc all ok.
okkervill - i like. perhaps i should not read these links.over analysis...over kill, blurs, and muddies the waters. surely ?
Totally agree: New
Totally agree: New Pornographers - a hugely enjoyable band, and that, for me, trumps originality every time. They make me want to dance around my ffront room, and that's good enough for me.
....thank god I no longer have to like Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire - the Dire Straits of the 00s - discuss... oh lets not bother..
Underrated 00s bands and tunes to check out - Franz Ferdinand (Walk Away), Bloc Party (Banquet), Madness (The Liberty of Norton Folgate), Last Shadow Puppets (The Age of the Understatement), Portishead (The Rip), Keane (Atlantic - even if you hate everything else they've done - please try this), The Streets (Blinded by the Lights), Graham Coxon (Bittersweet Bundle of Misery), The Libertines (Time for Heroes)
Overrated 00s bands and redeeming tunes - Elbow (Grounds for Divorce), Fleet Foxes (White Winter Hymnal), Flaming Lips (Flight Test), Arcade Fire (Intervention), Kings of Leon (The Bucket)