Big influential acts you have no desire to ever listen to

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Have Les Claypool killed.

[chveik]

Have Les Claypool killed.

too late i'm afraid

[idunnosomename]

kiss is a pretty good name for the Big influential acts you have no desire to ever listen to, I'm sure they're fine, but as I'm not 14 and American, I dunno I kinda feel it wouldn't be worth it.


I did quite like that World Without Heroes one, :shifty:

that album was a massive tank, I guess the single did ok, Lou Reed is co-writer of the lyrics after the producer's efforts to try and tart up the floundering project a bit. so Lulu wasn't unprecedented as a terrible hard-rock crossover.

I like Strutter and God of Thunder but the rampant shameless commercialism of them stops me ever giving a bollocks about checking out their albums properly.

[sutin]

I'm enjoying this banter.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

KISS barely even sound like a heavy rock band to me. Most of their classic albums sound like if there needed to be a glam rock song in a broadway musical. The heavy metal Monkees.

Not saying this in a ha ha, they're light and wimpy I wanna listen to Negative Approach way just that it was surprising. It's all well written stuff that was clearly aiming for a devoted adolescent fan base. I imagined them as being to the US what Queen's early records were in the UK. But even with all the studio gimmicks Queen sound fucking massive compared to KISS.

[idunnosomename]

Kiss along with Quiet Riot are a different thing to British glam really. that said, I've never listened to enough Slade, an influential band who I need to listen to more of.

That Chuck Schuldiner's Death covered God of Thunder is their biggest stamp of approval for me

[JesusAndYourBush]

^{Citation required}

Holey sh*t!  There really was one! Well, a Nazi approved jazz group anyway

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hitlers-very-own-hot-jazz-band-98745129/

Oh yes, Charlie And His Orchestra.  The songs are actually quite amusing to listen to.  The band is fairly competent although nothing special, and the first verse is sung straight, and then subsequent verses contain propaganda lyrics.  These would be broadcast on radio with the idea that an unsuspecting English person tuning around the dial might start to listen, and then when he hears the 2nd verse, then what... I dunno... be mildly annoyed maybe?  It seems a pointless idea really, but it's interesting that it exists, and some of the satire is so feeble as to make them amusing.  Out of around 250 songs recorded, around 100 seem to be available which is good going for something what wasn't supposed to have been kept (because much of the satire was topical and one presumes the records were supposed to have been destroyed once they were out of date.)

[Retinend]

My nomination for this would be Prince

Same here. I think that his music is over the top and embarrassing in that way that yesterday's idea of what sexy is, always is - the purring voice (like Marvin Gaye without the soul) the cheesy vibrato, the cheesy synths, the cheesy dynamics changes - "cheesy" is the thrust of what I'm saying.

"Kiss" sounds like some sort of "welcome to the mall" background music.... Rasberry Beret has this annoying "old mcdonald had a farm" melody and mindnumbing electronic drum beat... "Sexy MF" sounds like a "cool" car advert with cringey try-hard "we are sexy men" lyrics. Not my hing.

[Icehaven]

Kate Bush. It's probably not her, it's me, I just don't much like her voice, I find Wuthering Heights mildly funny for some reason and when Running Up That Hill was everywhere last year because of Stranger Things I realised despite knowing of her for decades and how critically acclaimed she is and what a rabid fanbase she has (including friends of mine) those are the only two songs of hers I've ever knowingly heard and I'd happily never hear them again. Oh there's that one with Peter Gabriel but I don't care for that either tbh.

[willbo]

been getting into drone metal but Sunn O)) aren't doing much for me. I prefer some of the lesser known bands, like  Nadja.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

been getting into drone metal but Sunn O)) aren't doing much for me. I prefer some of the lesser known bands, like  Nadja.

Have you heard LIFE METAL? I'm mostly lukewarm on Sunn but that's a terrific record

[JaDanketies]

Sunn o))) and Ulver collab Terrestrials might be my fave

[chip]

I don't get music where it's just one person and they're the product, kind of. Like Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen, where what they're wearing for their "image" is practically as important as the music itself.

I like hearing instrumentation and the interplay of many different types of sound; don't really care for lyrics or the 'message'. One man strumming at his acoustic and singing about something? Those strings had better have the most piercing, chill-inducing 'twang' sound ever and the overall melody had better be fucking interesting or absolutely arsed mate.

[Famous Mortimer]

Like Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen, where what they're wearing for their "image" is practically as important as the music itself.

What?

[kalowski]

What?

I do like his scarf on the cover of Blonde on Blonde.

[centristmelt]

I love Dylan's music, it's just specifically his voice that prevents me from doing a deep dive.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Which one? He's had like five different voices

[chip]

What?

Badly phrased, I suppose I mean that solo performers whose "look" is iconic enough in its own right - either through their own efforts or not - I don't really care for. But that's mostly just incidental.

Honestly it's singer-songwriters as a whole. Like to me, a band is its own entity; it can symbolise things and be its own intangible force, kind of. Like Metallica was still Metallica after Cliff died. When it all just rests on the one person I just can't enjoy in the same way; it feels so unnecessarily fragile and incomplete.

When I hear Feel by Robbie, for example, perfectly equal segments of my appreciation go to Robbie himself, but also whoever's doing the drums, or that amazing slide guitar. Why aren't those presumed session musicians getting the same level of name recognition in how the song is marketed and published, and thus in how it's remembered by fans? I mean, I think I know the answer, but it's just something that I personally don't like.

I love Robbie's songs, but deep down know that what I mean is that I love the fruits of all these separate people whose names (besides Robbie) I'd have to Google. It just shouldn't be that way!! Robbie should have written his songs, found some musicians he gelled with and then made them equal pillars in the musical enterprise - ie/ form a BAND.

He's not even a good example, because he writes his own songs doesn't he? Acts that are literally just 'a voice' - nah, fuck that. But then when a song is the brainchild of just one artist, who's performing it solo with guitar accompaniment or whatever, it just personally feels a bit empty to me. As I said, unless those vocal and solo instrumental melodies are just fucking amazing and compelling, then it'll rarely hold my interest.

I realise this really isn't the right thread for this, now I've expanded on it. So yeah, call me a rockist arsehole or whatever (please), but there you go, to sum it up better: 'Big, influential' acts who are just a voice = fuck that.

'Big, influential' acts who are still just a voice, but may write their own songs, and require a load of session musicians (flexing their OWN musical skills, not 'the artist's') = less so, but still fuck that kind of. H2H

[willbo]

it is kind of random. I always think, imagine if Bowie's Spiders had been a band from day one, and  "diamond dogs" or "young Americans" was his first solo album - but then imagine of The Smiths had been "Morrissey the solo act" from day one, with Marr as just his guitarist. Then people would be like "well, I saw Bowie live once, but too bad I never got to see the Spiders" but "yeah I've seen Moz live, it wasn't his 80s guitarist but who cares, I saw the same act who did those classic 80s shows". It seems all perception really.

[willbo]

Have you heard LIFE METAL? I'm mostly lukewarm on Sunn but that's a terrific record

on youtube a few times, its ok I suppose

[kalowski]

Badly phrased, I suppose I mean that solo performers whose "look" is iconic enough in its own right - either through their own efforts or not - I don't really care for. But that's mostly just incidental.

Honestly it's singer-songwriters as a whole. Like to me, a band is its own entity; it can symbolise things and be its own intangible force, kind of. Like Metallica was still Metallica after Cliff died. When it all just rests on the one person I just can't enjoy in the same way; it feels so unnecessarily fragile and incomplete.

When I hear Feel by Robbie, for example, perfectly equal segments of my appreciation go to Robbie himself, but also whoever's doing the drums, or that amazing slide guitar. Why aren't those presumed session musicians getting the same level of name recognition in how the song is marketed and published, and thus in how it's remembered by fans? I mean, I think I know the answer, but it's just something that I personally don't like.

I love Robbie's songs, but deep down know that what I mean is that I love the fruits of all these separate people whose names (besides Robbie) I'd have to Google. It just shouldn't be that way!! Robbie should have written his songs, found some musicians he gelled with and then made them equal pillars in the musical enterprise - ie/ form a BAND.

He's not even a good example, because he writes his own songs doesn't he? Acts that are literally just 'a voice' - nah, fuck that. But then when a song is the brainchild of just one artist, who's performing it solo with guitar accompaniment or whatever, it just personally feels a bit empty to me. As I said, unless those vocal and solo instrumental melodies are just fucking amazing and compelling, then it'll rarely hold my interest.

I realise this really isn't the right thread for this, now I've expanded on it. So yeah, call me a rockist arsehole or whatever (please), but there you go, to sum it up better: 'Big, influential' acts who are just a voice = fuck that.

'Big, influential' acts who are still just a voice, but may write their own songs, and require a load of session musicians (flexing their OWN musical skills, not 'the artist's') = less so, but still fuck that kind of. H2H

TBH the only thing I can get from this is that you don't want to listen to Dylan/Cohen but do listen to Robbie Williams.

[kalowski]

Whilst I've struggled with Sunn a bit the collaboration with Scott Walker is magnificent.

[lazyhour]

@chip

Morrissey has had more or less the same
band with him for about 30 years,  co-writing all the music too. His hardcore fans know the names of all the band-members and can appreciate the drumming, lead guitar etc on Moz records.

He's far from the only act to have a permanent or semi-permanent band. In fact, I'd suggest it's probably more common than not with solo artists. Would you always prefer a band whose name stays the same but whose members change (The Fall, for example)?

[curiousoranges]

Most of the aincent blues and country recordings. I know you wouldn't have X without Y,  but I don't care. I also don't want to listen to Elvis.

[chip]

@chip

Morrissey has had more or less the same
band with him for about 30 years,  co-writing all the music too. His hardcore fans know the names of all the band-members and can appreciate the drumming, lead guitar etc on Moz records.

He's far from the only act to have a permanent or semi-permanent band. In fact, I'd suggest it's probably more common than not with solo artists. Would you always prefer a band whose name stays the same but whose members change (The Fall, for example)?

Great point, and you're right about how common it is. That's partly what I don't like; how a Morrissey show has evolved to just be, broadly speaking, a showcase for the one performer, when he's got a consistent band who (I assume?) are responsible for at least three-quarters of the music being played. In fact - so Morrissey co-writes his songs does he? Like I don't mean the lyrics, which I suppose are obviously him, but does he turn up to his practices with chords and a plinky-plonk keyboard riff that grows into Spent the Day in Bed? Fucking doubt it.

To pick that as an example, I love Spent the Day in Bed, instrumentally. The lyrics are fine, typical Morrissey. But it's a great little tune, tight and crisp and played well. It just feels madly inauthentic to THEN say 'I love this MORRISSEY track. This song really deepens my love for MORRISSEY. Damn what will MORRISSEY come up with next'. The song's instrumental co-writers should get their due - I don't mean financially, because of course there's no getting around that, but just like... it shouldn't be called a 'Morrissey' song. It shouldn't be called an any 'one-person' song. Unless Stephen Patrick Morrissey wrote every last little instrumental fragment and lick, then as far as I'm concerned it's by [unnamed Morrissey-fronted musical project], and should be referred to as much in common musical parlance.

I suppose I love pretty much all of my favoured music for its instrumentality, as opposed to the lyrics. That's probably an overall tidier way of getting across what I'm trying to say. Again, probably not the thread.

... but to try and wrangle it back around to a shred of relevance: no I don't have much desire to listen to any big, influential act that is presented and named as being just one person - UNLESS they do everything, Mike Oldfield-style. Which I'm aware sounds insane. ... and I mean, if I like the song, I'll still have a desire to listen to it of course, regardless of who wrote or performed it.

It just irks me when on the face of it, music is presented as 'This song is BY Morrissey/Aretha Franklin/Nick Cave/literally any solo artist'. It is actually by several talented musicians working in unison. Damn, if only we had a name for a type of musical setup like that.

[willbo]

There's also the practise of bands hiring new members but not letting them appear full members, like that Darryl guy who's been playing bass for the Stones since the early 90s but doesn't appear in photos, interviews, album covers etc. Actually, it comes to mind just now they did the same thing to Ian Stewart from day one, but Darryl is cool.

Great point, and you're right about how common it is. That's partly what I don't like...

What about jazz though? John Coltrane and Miles Davis' most famous album have some serious legends on  them, most of them with huge solo careers themselves, yet the band leader is the one directing the album and getting credit.

Piano players McCoy Tyner on "A Love Supreme" and Bill Evans on "Kind of Blue" come up with some serious magic - stuff that fuelled big careers for them both - yet they're not band albums but solo albums - they're following the leader's ideas

and then there's the whole can of worms of pop producers and songwriters getting credit, since, you know, Charli XCX and Billie Eilish aren't really single handedly responsible for some of their most famous tunes. Heck rap producers too. How many rappers hits are more down to the producer?

[grainger]

"I don't like X. They are bad."

"No, they are good. I like them."

"You must be joking, it's a fact that they are bad."

"You must be joking, it's a fact that they are good. In fact they are the best band ever. No other band comes close."

I've taken part in plenty of threads like these over the years, extrmely enthusiastically, but this evening, that's what this type of discussion seems like to me. for whatever reason.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

oh no

[Vodkafone]

Do you know, I've never knowingly heard anything by The Residents. Perhaps I'd think they were amazing. Or shit. Dunno, and likely never will because I simply cannot be arsed for some reason.

[willbo]

There was Nick Cave's decision to co-credit (long time music/writing partner) Warren Ellis on his last album... it was "their" album with Ellis' name on the front cover too...