Reputation and taste changes in Music

[Pancake]

I bloody love REM, so...

[Pancake]

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[the science eel]

I agree with the comments about mid-60s psychedelia, especially compared with when I was in my youth (late 1980s) and everyone was in to Bam Caruso and those Edsel reissues and whanot. Does anyone give a shit about Syd Barrett any more. Later Floyd seems to be perceived as the superior stuff nowadays whereas I'm sure the Syd era used to be the one that the kids went for.

The Syd stuff has always been regarded as superior by anyone with any fucking clue. 70s PF is yer standard 'classic rock' fare.

[Pancake]

I really like McCartney's song Coming Up but thought it was a little insensitive releasing it the same year Lennon very much went down

[the science eel]

I've tried and tried with McCartney's solo work but barring the odd track it all sounds like fluff to me, and often cloyingly whimsical fluff at that. That genre of polite pop music does nothing for me. The Carpenters are apparently cool now too, but I don't like them either. Nod doubt Daniel O'Donnell will be up for a reappraisal soon.

I did like that one Macca wrote for Rhianna recently.

John Lennon's mid-seventies albums aren't much cop either, but he never had the opportunity for any kind of career renaissance a la Johnny Cash or David Bowie, what with being murdered like that. I don't think the digs at his personality are entirely fair; we only know a lot of his worst characteristics because he was so brutally honest about himself in his lyrics and interviews.

The strange thing about the Lennon vs Macca thing is that the things Mac is criticised for (sentimentality, mainly), Lennon is guilty of to pretty much the same degree. Just listen to Imagine (the album) - heaps of that there. 'Oh Yoko!' - how lightweight is THAT? and the 'tough' stuff always sounds so fake.

And after that album, Lennon didn't really do much of any value anyway, whereas Macca continued to put out pretty good - if erratic - albums. Nobody's doing it commercially (the latest collection is the same old same old), but you could put together a REALLY nice bespoke Macca compilation featuring stuff from, I dunno, 1971 to 1982. You'd have to do the legwork, tho'. Give Wild Life and London Town a listen for starters. You'll be throwing up half the time but there are exquisite moments.

[great_badir]

I only listen to the Syd Barrett Pink Floyd stuff, always have. It's a ramshackle load of nursery rhyme mess, but lovely.
The point when they were all coming into the studio separately to record their parts and overlaying in a mix to pretend they were a band under Gilmour was shit. Money etc is good, cos of the riff, but even he said Syd came and played a bit of guitar over a track that was meant to be overlayed backward, fit on the first take. Fuck you Dave.

Shouldn't it be "fuck you Roger"?  Dave Gilmour only took up the reins (or, rather, was perceived to have taken up the reins - outside of song writing, Floyd was still an equal partnership with Nick Mason and Richard Wright) after Waters quit.  Prior to that, Waters was the general.


Anyway, the opposite is true for me - aside from Saucerful, I only listen to post Syd stuff.  But it's more of a general thing rather than anything specific against Syd - I just find English psychedelia far too twee and poppy

[purlieu]

I enjoy Syd, band[nb]the post-Piper, pre-Meddle wilderness[/nb], Roger and David-led eras of Pink Floyd. I've seen people get so worked up about this topic in the past, it always amuses me.

[popcorn]

Me, I'm waiting for the day The Division Bell is hailed as the dadrock masterpiece it always was.

Phil Collins has been cool again recently, I've noticed. Especially since all the hip hop people are mad on him.

[hewantstolurkatad]

It's a real shame Syd Barrett had a solo carrer, his transition from being the key member of the early singles and first album to only doing Jugband Blues on the second album would've been perfected if he never done a thing again.

[greenman]

The Syd stuff has always been regarded as superior by anyone with any fucking clue. 70s PF is yer standard 'classic rock' fare.

Lets be honest a big issue was that Syd was a good looking acid causality of the 60's where as the rest of the band were dull toffs.

[the science eel]

Lets be honest a big issue was that Syd was a good looking acid causality of the 60's where as the rest of the band were dull toffs.

Has a lot to do with it, yeah. It's in the music, too, tho'. The vocals on all those 70s PF songs are as boring as vocals ever get. It's the reason I can never make it through Dark Side of the Moon.

And to the clown who put down Syd's solo work - remember he did 'Octopus'. And 'Gigolo Aunt'.


And 'No Good Trying'.




And 'Baby Lemonade'.

[Quote]

Phil Collins has been cool again recently, I've noticed. Especially since all the hip hop people are mad on him.

On the train the other day two teen-aged lads opposite me were exchanging music-related chit-chat when one of them excitedly got out his headphones, handed one to his mate and said: "you've gotta listen to this, it's fucking amazing"

I could see from the album cover on his phone screen that it was No Jacket Required. I had to get off at the next stop so never got hear his mates' reaction.

When I was 14 the idea that Phil Collins could be anything other than naff was laughable. I've nothing against him and quite like some of his tunes, but I wouldn't have classed it as the type of music to get the kids jumping.

[the science eel]

Kids these days aren't discerning. They've got access to everything and everything is cool. If you criticise something then you get called 'hater'. Or: 'don't judge!'.

I miss snobbery.

[Crabwalk]

I remember rap producers eulogising Phil Collins' solo work back in the 90s. Shit ones like Puff Daddy, mind.

[Paaaaul]

Urban Renewal (2001)


"Ray J Prelude" - Ray J
"Another Day in Paradise" - Brandy and Ray J
"Sussudio" - Ol' Dirty Bastard
"Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" - Deborah Cox
"This Must Be Love" - Dane Bowers featuring Kelis
"In the Air Tonite" - Lil' Kim featuring Phil Collins
"Gotta Hold Over Me" - Coko
"I Don't Care Anymore" - Kelis
"Can't Turn Back the Years" - Joe
"Do You Remember?" - Debelah Morgan
"Against All Odds" - Montell Jordan
"One More Night" - Changing Faces
"All of My Life" - TQ
"I Wish It Would Rain Down" - Brian McKnight and Monique S.V.
"Take Me Home" - Malik Pendleton

[greenman]

On the train the other day two teen-aged lads opposite me were exchanging music-related chit-chat when one of them excitedly got out his headphones, handed one to his mate and said: "you've gotta listen to this, it's fucking amazing"

I could see from the album cover on his phone screen that it was No Jacket Required. I had to get off at the next stop so never got hear his mates' reaction.

When I was 14 the idea that Phil Collins could be anything other than naff was laughable. I've nothing against him and quite like some of his tunes, but I wouldn't have classed it as the type of music to get the kids jumping.

It does also rather ignore the period between Syd leaving and Darkside where the band were much less conventional and ended up being one of the key influences on Krautrock...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQH8LcAsEvA

Peel's favourite ever gig was Floyd in that era I believe.

[Dirty Boy]

It's a real shame Syd Barrett had a solo carrer, his transition from being the key member of the early singles and first album to only doing Jugband Blues on the second album would've been perfected if he never done a thing again.

Syd Barrett's solo albums are terrific, particularly The Madcap Laughs.

Daft sod.

And to the clown who put down Syd's solo work - remember he did 'Octopus'. And 'Gigolo Aunt'.


And 'No Good Trying'.




And 'Baby Lemonade'.

and Late Night

and Long Gone

and Dominos

and all the others...

[Dirty Boy]

Also, i know Miles has already been mentioned, but wasn't On The Corner the album that was panned to fuck when it first arrived only to be reappraised as one of his classic records decades later?

[Natnar]

When I worked in a second hand record shop, we couldn't give Fleetwood Mac LPs away. We used to regularly end up putting Tusk, Tango in the Night and Rumours in the £1 bargain boxes. The same record shop now sells out of them as soon as they go in the racks, usually charging around £15. No-one was very arsed about Black Sabbath either.

It's interesting to see how Fleetwood Mac have been critically revalued over the past decade or so from past-it rock dinosaurs to past-pop tunesmiths.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Syd Barrett's solo albums are terrific, particularly The Madcap Laughs.

They're grand, I just like the narrative of:
1. writing just about all the great early singles and debut
2. getting so messed up from drugs so quickly that he barely features on the second album asides from this lovely mess of a jingle at the end, never to do anything of note again [nb]
3. turning up randomly during the wish you were hear sessions like an obese brain-fried Christ
4. running out of harrods after being spotted by his former bandmate, spilling his sweets all over the place in the process
5. ....
6. dying 30 years later[/nb]

[purlieu]

The drugs thing is contested by a lot of people close to him anyway. It was as much the fame and chaos of being in a hugely popular band which is why a year or two later he just left it all together. He wasn't cut out for that lifestyle. The drugs obviously didn't help, of course.

[23 Daves]

Re - mid sixties psychedelia. The question here again is "who is deciding this?" At the moment, if I badly need some spare cash for a holiday or to replace an electronic device that's gone kaput, I dig out some psychedelic vinyl and flog it on eBay for a handsome profit. The prices seem to continue to rise. Also, if I blog about psychedelic obscurities, that's when most of the hits come in. OK, I've probably built up a particular demographic over time, but there's clearly still a lot of enthusiasm out there, often for obscurities which frankly aren't worth the flurry (If we're going to argue that the popularity of British Psychedelia in particular has slumped, one reason could be that the volume of "undiscovered" lost psych classics out there must be nearly nil by now, and a similar drop-off in interest happened with Northern Soul when it reached that point in the early eighties. Both are very much the spheres of crate-diggers and collectors).

I haven't asked "the kids" about Syd Barrett in a long time, but he always seemed to be a marginal, cult figure and not everyone's cup of tea. Bands like Blur may have been heavily influenced by him and may have upped his profile in the nineties, but he's just one of those people who has always had a devoted group of fans but isn't exactly Radio 2 (or even 6Music) fodder. I remember Lauren Leverne even refusing to play anything "too weird" by him on 6Music on the day it was announced he died.

The main people for whom support seems to have ebbed away, so far as I can see, are the "other" grunge bands who aren't Nirvana, Hole or Smashing Pumpkins. So Pearl Jam and er, all the rest of them. Good riddance.

Commercially speaking it's worth mentioning that Dido made two of the biggest selling albums (in Britain) of all time, and these days probably couldn't even get a quick-fire Q&A interview in the Metro even if she asked nicely. She's of interest, so far as I can see, to nobody and I can't think of many whose stock has fallen so sharply commercially. Artists who command those kinds of levels of sales tend to hang on to plenty of fans in the longer-term and sustain their careers through the blind faith of the devoted (as Oasis did).

Unless I'm imagining it, Fleet Foxes seem to have gone from being one of the "best bands of all-time" to being of very little interest to anyone in rapid-fire time. Not helping themselves by their slow work rate, possibly (and the fact that "Helplessness Blues" did seem ridiculously over-rated).

The revival in ELO's fortunes has been heartening, obviously.

[the science eel]

Commercially speaking it's worth mentioning that Dido made two of the biggest selling albums (in Britain) of all time, and these days probably couldn't even get a quick-fire Q&A interview in the Metro even if she asked nicely. She's of interest, so far as I can see, to nobody and I can't think of many whose stock has fallen so sharply commercially.

True, but she just stopped putting out albums, and so fans looked elsewhere (Adele, presumably). It's not so much that her 'stock' fell. We're not talking about someone who ever HAD respect.

And the same thing could well happen to Adele in five years (altho' I suppose critics have a wee bit more time for her).

[hewantstolurkatad]

The main people for whom support seems to have ebbed away, so far as I can see, are the "other" grunge bands who aren't Nirvana, Hole or Smashing Pumpkins. So Pearl Jam and er, all the rest of them. Good riddance.

Unless I'm imagining it, Fleet Foxes seem to have gone from being one of the "best bands of all-time" to being of very little interest to anyone in rapid-fire time. Not helping themselves by their slow work rate, possibly (and the fact that "Helplessness Blues" did seem ridiculously over-rated).

Pearl Jam are fairly huge still, the kind of people who love the Foo Fighters would fork out big money to see them.

Fleet Foxes split up, didn't they? They never seemed that comfortable of a fit with their huge audience either so it wasn't gonna be sustainable.

[Gavin M]

I haven't asked "the kids" about Syd Barrett in a long time, but he always seemed to be a marginal, cult figure and not everyone's cup of tea. Bands like Blur may have been heavily influenced by him and may have upped his profile in the nineties, but he's just one of those people who has always had a devoted group of fans but isn't exactly Radio 2 (or even 6Music) fodder. I remember Lauren Leverne even refusing to play anything "too weird" by him on 6Music on the day it was announced he died.

I'm not 100% sure but I think she was still on XFM at this time, so it becomes a little more understandable with their thoroughly conservative playlists.

[NoSleep]

Also, i know Miles has already been mentioned, but wasn't On The Corner the album that was panned to fuck when it first arrived only to be reappraised as one of his classic records decades later?

I think you've confused general consensus on the album with Lester Bangs' personal reappraisal. I remember it had positive reviews where anyone had even noticed it; there was general indifference to Miles Davis outside of of the comparatively small jazz circles of the time.

[23 Daves]

True, but she just stopped putting out albums, and so fans looked elsewhere (Adele, presumably). It's not so much that her 'stock' fell. We're not talking about someone who ever HAD respect.

There was a five year gap between "Life For Rent" and "Safe Trip Home", which isn't far off Adele's four year gap between albums. The key difference I would say is that Adele clearly has talent, whether you like what she does or not, whereas Dido was always a hack. God, Dido's sales always mystified me and seemed to prove that with the right marketing you can flog any old nonsense.

Fleet Foxes split up, didn't they? They never seemed that comfortable of a fit with their huge audience either so it wasn't gonna be sustainable.

I don't think they officially have split up, though, they've just gone very quiet. It's been five years since "Helplessness Blues", far longer than I thought, and there's been no announcement about a new album anywhere, so it doesn't bode well. I suspect something is up. But nobody seems to be asking any questions. If a band of that stature disappears, ordinarily at least one or two music journalists would be sending out search parties, but there's been nothing.

[hewantstolurkatad]

I don't think they officially have split up, though, they've just gone very quiet. It's been five years since "Helplessness Blues", far longer than I thought, and there's been no announcement about a new album anywhere, so it doesn't bode well. I suspect something is up. But nobody seems to be asking any questions. If a band of that stature disappears, ordinarily at least one or two music journalists would be sending out search parties, but there's been nothing.

The frontman apparently opted to extend their break so he could go to college back in 2014. The drummer has been doing his father john misty shtick. The others have all probably been standing about in some woods or another wearing beards.

[greenman]

Inguns scapled em

[the science eel]

All you need is 'Mykonos' anyway. The rest is tune-dodging shit for studes.