Musical Hot Takes

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Shamelessly copying @RetroRobot - let's hear your hot takes on music. Here's some of mine.

Screamadelica- not very good, is it?

Hawkwind- if they were German they'd be far more respected than they are, they're at least as good (much better, I reckon, but let's not get too hot too early) as eg Can or Amon Duul

Prince was still great in the nineties, just unfocused- see the bootleg The Dawn for what should have been

[buttgammon]

More often than not, the 'singer-songwriter' is just a mediocre poet who's not good enough at music to be an actual singer. Core example: Bob Dylan.

Boards of Canada just aren't very interesting and that's coming from someone who loves 90% of classic Warp stuff.

[DrGreggles]

Screamadelica- not very good, is it?

I love it - probably because it doesn't sound like Primal Scream.

[Darles Chickens]

Faith No More with Chuck on vocals was good.

[Utter Shit]

More often than not, the 'singer-songwriter' is just a mediocre poet who's not good enough at music to be an actual singer. Core example: Bob Dylan.

I wouldn't agree that he is a mediocre poet, but you can find a better cover version of pretty much every big Dylan song IMO. Fantastic songwriter, just let someone else sing them.

[bgmnts]

More often than not, the 'singer-songwriter' is just a mediocre poet. Core example: Bob Dylan.

Genuinely thinking about thinking about writing song lyrics due to this fact.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

More of a technology hot take I suppose but CDs sound better than records most of the time

[Norton Canes]

Screamadelica- not very good, is it?

Produced by Andrew Weatherall, sounds immaculate.

Prince was still great in the nineties, just unfocused- see the bootleg The Dawn for what should have been

He's Prince, he was great in the 90's and every decade since

[jobotic]

early Of Montreal is some of the loveliest music you can hear. Modern Of Montreal is hideous.

[curiousoranges]

Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm is better than the original.

[sutin]

David Bowie was an interesting man who made largely dull music.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Produced by Andrew Weatherall, sounds immaculate.

RIP and all that but I think it's dated horrifically personally

Also Bobby Gillespie is probably the biggest chancer in music besides Tim Burgess

[Kankurette]

Bobby Gillespie, so right-on and radical that his wedding appeared in Cheshire Life.

Equally Cursed and Blessed was a good album, apart from Valerian and Nothing Hurts, and it's a real shame Catatonia disowned it. I get they probably associated it with that period where Cerys was in and out of the tabloids and was hanging out with people like Kate Moss, and they were spending shitloads of money on videos, but I'd still take it over Paper Scissors Stone. Speaking of which, Stone by Stone was a terrible choice for a comeback single. It should have been Immediate Circle or Is Everybody Here on Drugs?

[PlanktonSideburns]

David Bowie was an interesting man who made largely dull music.

Feel the opposite

[sutin]

Feel the opposite

I always liked him in interviews and as a general commentator but when I finally decided to give his music a chance in 2013 (I never heard him growing up besides 3 or 4 hits, my Dad loathes him for some reason), it just sounded like weaker versions of music I already loved.

Something like Jean Jeanie, it's just utterly generic Chuck Berry rock 'n' roll. This is the genius David Bowie?!

There's a fair chance i'd feel different if i'd grown up with him, but I didn't, so I don't.

[itsfredtitmus]

early Of Montreal is some of the loveliest music you can hear. Modern Of Montreal is hideous.

depends, sometimes im a grouty lerch and just want to stick on paralytic stalks and go NINNAAAAAAAAA

[JaDanketies]

Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm is better than the original.

A lot of that nu-metal era really stands up. If you're in the right mindset. Good party music.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

A lot of that nu-metal era really stands up. If you're in the right mindset. Good party music.

I thought I didn't like it at the time, and that The Strokes and The White Stripes were the bestest best bands ever. And while I still think they are both good, in a never-actually-listen-to-them-anymore sort of way, I am legit into a lot of nu-metal and nu-metal adjacent music now. Deftones, Nothingface, Snot, Flapjack, Slipknot, Korn, SoaD, late era Sepultura, Soulfly, Mushroomhead, Mad Capsule Markets, Mudvayne... I can't pretend they're all brilliant bands but they're fun, and the older and fatter I get the more value that has.

Side note: another hot take is that I think early rap-rocky Deftones is better than later art-rocky Deftones. But I like both.

[sutin]

Good post. I'd take a lot of that nu-metal stuff over boring garage revival crap too.

[Kankurette]

I also prefer early Deftones. Not that White Pony is crap, but I haven't bought anything they've released since and 7 Words is honestly one of the best things they'll ever do.

And I'm another one who preferred nu-metal to garage. Toxicity came out around the time garage got big and it was the album that I think really got me into nu-metal (after dipping a toe in the water with Kittie), though I was late to the party as always.

[JaDanketies]

I thought I didn't like it at the time, and that The Strokes and The White Stripes were the bestest best bands ever.

Wet Leg just came on the stereo, and it made me think that part of the reason why I don't hate them the way other aficionados do is that I might have never really thought the music that came on the radio ever had much authenticity to begin with - such as The Strokes and White Stripes - so Wet Leg don't stand out as glaringly inauthentic.

But now maybe I think that The Strokes and The White Stripes actually did have something going for them

Wet Leg as authentic as Blur iirc regardless

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Poptimism was the middle class celebration of narrowing participation in the arts and a lot of the attitudes to culture/arts we associate with austerity began there. Who needs live venues when you have a computer and bandcamp! corollary: a lot of the 'pop' people like is just rebadged indie, because indie was going that way anyway.

Loving Screamadelica is probably more of a hot take than hating it these days, I like it a lot and always have.

The only good Elephant Six record is Cubist Castle, OTC singles disk at a stretch. In An Aeroplane Over The Sea is horrible, creepy lyrics, bad voice and moribund sound.

GYBE are the most boring thing I've seen live.

JPOP > KPOP (don't much about either and like both though - but I reckon Korean culture is promoted for largely political reasons)

Dee Dee Ramone and Shaun Ryder wrote fantastic lyrics, unlike the fucking Manics

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Agree about GYBE, saw them in 2010 and it just went on and on. Shame as it was incredible at the start, that huge drone bit they kick off with followed by what was then being called "Albanian"

[Video Game Fan 2000]

On The Corner is the best electric Miles album

[kngen]

Faith No More with Chuck on vocals was good.

Yep, Introduce Yourself is still a great album. It's got that weird, Cali-gothic-art-funk-punk-rock sound that they, Jane's Addiction and a couple of others whose names escape me managed to pull off successfully. They definitely lost that with the start of the Patton era. A real shame.

[mrpupkin]

Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm is better than the original.

Music's a funny thing isn't it. I can't comprehend the idea of a functioning human brain honestly thinking that.

[The Mollusk]

Early Deftones is absolutely the best. Got to count White Pony in that though, a pivotal and seminal moment for the alt-metal genre. Adrenaline however is one of the best albums I've ever heard and Around The Fur isn't far behind.

The thing with Deftones is that the ethereal and nocturnal vibe that sounds like being pissed up and horny and angry in the back of a taxi at 2am with the windows open has been there from the very start. It was just a lot more violent and jagged edges to begin with before they really leaned into their adoration for stuff like Depeche Mode. They're still largely excellent and Koi No Yokan is among their best work but they were definitely a better band before they matured and polished their sound up. The raw edge which was starting to smooth out by White Pony was one of their greatest strengths. On Adrenaline they are almost as much a hip hop/hardcore band and it's fucking thrilling. Abe Cunningham's drumming was astonishingly developed back then too. Fierce and beautiful music.

[Joe Qunt]

Poptimism was the middle class celebration of narrowing participation in the arts and a lot of the attitudes to culture/arts we associate with austerity began there. Who needs live venues when you have a computer and bandcamp! corollary: a lot of the 'pop' people like is just rebadged indie, because indie was going that way anyway.

Couldn't agree more. Modern music is far too middle-class and it needs a working-class revolution to make it interesting again.

Dee Dee Ramone and Shaun Ryder wrote fantastic lyrics, unlike the fucking Manics

That can get to fuck though.

[The Mollusk]

Faith No More with Chuck on vocals was good.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Prince was still great in the nineties, just unfocused- see the bootleg The Dawn for what should have been

Prince's vault probably contains the best pop album since the Beatles and we're going to hear it piecemeal over the next twenty years in bonus tracks and youtube edits.

You can't even say he was bad at curating his own material since the proposed tracklists for some of the unreleased stuff are fantastic. Its just a mystery, my guess is that his weird religious beliefs made him terrified at his own talent and Midas touch. Or he sensed that a lot of his projects were too genderbent to be released without him being demonised. Imagine if he had actually released Camille as intended.