Obvious A > B influences that're still worthy of respect.

[alan nagsworth]

I'm talking about a modern day band or artist that was so directly influenced by a previous generation's band or artist, but you don't dislike the modern day equivalent or accuse them of ripping the oldies off because they still carry a charm all their own and you love them for who they are.

Today I was giving the ol' "154" by Wire a listen - fuck me, that's a good album innit? - and of course it's pretty bloody sharp and ahead of its time in many ways, but by gum, I'd say roughly half the songs on this album are a direct blueprint for the band Iceage, whom I also very much enjoy and respect. The sluggish, almost goth via post punk swagger of Iceage, particularly their more recent work, is totally half-inched from "154". A couple of the songs sound exactly like Iceage, in fact!

Iceage are fucking ace, though. With their gnarly scum-crusted punk noise that evolved through country music influence on "Ploughing Into the Field of Love" and into the snarling great post-punk bastard of their latest and best album "Beyondless". Even if their singer is a posturing tit, who by all rights would have respectfully fit right in to that scene in the '80s, they are very talented.

Deerhunter and The Dandy Warhols deffo deserve a mention in here as well, but I'll leave them for later.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Ska > 2 tone.

[Johnny Textface]

The couple of tunes released thus far by the band 'Animal Husbandry' sound alot like really great Radiohead songs. I'm tentatively looking forward to an album from them.

[sevendaughters]

I remember the writer Chris Ott suggesting that, as a young band, you'd be better off - if stuck for inspiration - to try and make a xerox of your favourite bands. Wholeheartedly commit to writing 'a song like (x)'.

Because, he reasoned, your frailties and idiosyncrasies as an ensemble will actually push you away from the path and make you realise what it is you're good at and actually make you sound nearer to yourself than if you deluded yourself that you're original and superior. It's an interesting thought!

TV Ghost were pretty much channelling the mid-point between Cramps and Pere Ubu and I thought they did it with considerable style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2uM4qMxMQ ('Bastille' off Cold Fish)

[hummingofevil]

How it took nearly 30 years to really bed in but the influence of house music over modern pop music to point it's almost indistinguishable. Arguably you could say it's a continuum from pop to disco to house and back to pop but it's bizarre to think of a world pre 1970 where the 4 to the floor beat and offbeat open hats wasn't the natural staple of popular music.

[jamiefairlie]

I think that dance ubiquity in modern pop has drained it of diversity and vitality compared to say the 65-68 or 79-81 periods.

Back to Wire for a moment, I always felt there was a clear line from Syd era Pink Floyd to the Wire of Outdoor Miner, compare it to Arnold Layne for instance

[fucking ponderous]

all recorded sound from mid 60's - late 80's > lcd soundsystem

[phantom_power]

In this thread does > denote progression or comparison?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Sir Mix A Lot > Nicki Minaj.
Sweet Home Alabama > That Kid Rock Song

Not really, both of those are wank.

[Satchmo Distel]

Kinks > Jam

Kinks > Blur (less explicitly but Ray Davies > Albarn seems nailed on)

'Progression' is hard to define or measure. You can't 'progress' from Motown or peak Beatles/Beach Boys/Dylan because it's already as close to perfection as popular music can be.

[alan nagsworth]

Another sort of post-punk related one is Young Marble Giants making one album and two EPs of really minimalist pop ditties at the start of the 1980s that massively paved the way for Stereolab, definitely Broadcast, and to a further extent even bands like The xx.

What's especially great is that even though Stereolab and Broadcast both have far broader careers, expanding the style in as many wondrous ways, YMG's "Colossal Youth" stands tall alongside it at all times. It's so fucking tight and groovy and the barebones structure of it just makes it even more exciting, the restraint of it, like. Disco music had happened, and then no wave stuff came about, and YMG feels like some sort of response to that. As intense as both of those scenes were, what the band did here was take those sounds and turn them into some sort of muscle relaxing bubble bath. You've been up for three days straight on cheap speed and coke and this is the bit where you finally get into bed (before the horrid comedown when you wake up). You can still hear bits of the previous nights in your head, but only as distant fragments.

[Bently Sheds]

Kinks > Blur (less explicitly but Ray Davies > Albarn seems nailed on)

Kinks > XTC > Blur

or, more unkindly;

Jilted John > Leisure/Modern Life is Rubbish era Damon Albarn

[Brundle-Fly]

Beefheart > Tom Waits

[poodlefaker]

Howlin'  Wolf > Beefheart > Tom Waits

[checkoutgirl]

Wire are a great band.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Fats Domino > Pat Boone

[boki]

We Are The Physics¹ were always upfront about being heavily indebted to Devo, but they had enough presence of their own to carry it off.


¹most of whom are now back as Slime City

[phantom_power]

I know it will be an unpopular on here but I can't get enough of bands that slavishly copy that Motorik German style, such as Public Service Broadcasting and Fujiya and Miyagi. It seems almost impossible to fuck it up, to my ears at least

[alan nagsworth]

I know it will be an unpopular on here but I can't get enough of bands that slavishly copy that Motorik German style, such as Public Service Broadcasting and Fujiya and Miyagi. It seems almost impossible to fuck it up, to my ears at least

I only say this because you're prepared to be received unpopularly, but Public Service Broadcast fuck it up so much I don't think they have ever successfully fucked it down.

[greenman]

Wire are a great band.

Giving Iceage a listen them seem like Wire with all character successfully removed.

[Brundle-Fly]

Howlin'  Wolf > Beefheart > Tom Waits

I'd also stick Dr John and Kurt Weill in there somewhere.

[the science eel]

I remember the writer Chris Ott suggesting that, as a young band, you'd be better off - if stuck for inspiration - to try and make a xerox of your favourite bands. Wholeheartedly commit to writing 'a song like (x)'.

Because, he reasoned, your frailties and idiosyncrasies as an ensemble will actually push you away from the path and make you realise what it is you're good at and actually make you sound nearer to yourself than if you deluded yourself that you're original and superior. It's an interesting thought!

It is. It's how Can ended up as they did (after attempting to sound like 'I Am The Walrus'). There are other examples. U2, I think.

[chveik]

I know it will be an unpopular on here but I can't get enough of bands that slavishly copy that Motorik German style, such as Public Service Broadcasting and Fujiya and Miyagi. It seems almost impossible to fuck it up, to my ears at least

Public Service Broadcasting's first album is very nice.

[phantom_power]

I only say this because you're prepared to be received unpopularly, but Public Service Broadcast fuck it up so much I don't think they have ever successfully fucked it down.

Ath exthpected

[Howj Begg]

Kinks > XTC > Blur

or, more unkindly;

Jilted John > Leisure/Modern Life is Rubbish era Damon Albarn

Also Barrett-era Floyd > Blur 1990 -94

[The Culture Bunker]

It is. It's how Can ended up as they did (after attempting to sound like 'I Am The Walrus'). There are other examples. U2, I think.

U2 trying to copy either/both Joy Division and PiL, presumably?

[DrGreggles]

Public Service Broadcasting's first album is very nice.

Their 2nd is even better IMHO.

[Sebastian Cobb]

All those black Americans that made funk > Average White Band.

[the science eel]

U2 trying to copy either/both Joy Division and PiL, presumably?

Yes. Bongo's always on about it. They were inept

[The Culture Bunker]

Yes. Bongo's always on about it. They were inept

I have wondered how Hannett put up with Bongo especially (and I doubt he was too impressed by the drummer), but perhaps he was getting a big pay day out of it and decided to play nice.