Shit artists you have a weird fascination with

[Ron Maels Moustache]

No big fan of Guns N Roses particularly, but I am continually obsessed by the awfulness of some of their later performances and the ongoing deterioration of Axl's voice, which really is shocking.

The "Rock In Rio" performance from 2011 is legendary, specifically this clip of Axl and a bunch of ringers stumbling through an excruciating November Rain:

This set from 2017 at the same event is much more professional and rehearsed(Slash and Duff came back for this one which helps), but it's brutally clear Axl cannot hit a single note, his voice is utterly fucked and incapable of doing what it used to. It's horrible to hear.

And to add insult to injury the set is 3 1/2 hours long! Three-and-a-half fucking hours!! Jesus, why? Why drag it out to such a ludicrous extent when the lead singer is so incapable? Absolute torture.

They do a cover of Black Hole Sun, it's about as awful as you'd expect.

[drummersaredeaf]

I was looking for a particularly bad performance of Civil War and it seems the one I recall might be the same show. It's amazing to hear him go from a perfectly fine performance in his lower register to the Micky Mouse we've come to know and love.

[LordMorgan]

I liked Coldplay , though viva la Vida was a cracking record, and I actually quite liked mylo xylato. I thought it was an interesting but not a terrible direction to take, to go full pop for 1 album. A bit like when phoenix released Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. But everything after it has been fuckin horrible.

From then on in, they are definitely still tho a band of this threads title for me.

[popcorn]

A lot of interesting posts in this thread. GOOD WORK EVERYONE.

I find it interesting that Viva La Vida is being discussed here as "the actually good one" because that was the one I liked back in the day too, and then the stuff they did afterwards lost me again completely.

Though the strange thing about Viva La Vida is that I've never heard an album with so many moments that remind me so much of other songs. Cemeteries of London is The House of the Rising Sun, Yes is Alpha Beta Gaga by Air, Violet Hill uses a Pink Floyd riff I can't identify off the top of my head, one of the hidden tracks is My Bloody Valentine, the last bit of Yes is Cuttooth by Radiohead ("you didn't get to heaven but you made it close")...

They must be a business and boardroom driven band. Its the only explanation. And the fact they've become historically successful at that is what fascinates me. There has to be a story about music industry politics in there somewhere and it'd be fascinating to read it some day.

The fact that they have five official members, not four, is interesting, innit? The fifth is Phil Harvey, who started off as their manager but is now their "creative director".

[Memorex MP3]

Johnny Borrell is mine; the combo of his ego the first few years, how their atrocious successful album was actually a massive hit, how rapidly they drifted into complete irrelevance (third album done okay initially but faded quickly, their fourth was rejected by the studio, his solo one sold ~500 copies and last I checked their reunion album didn't even have a Wikipedia page).

I think a lot of it is that every single step along the way you get some Borrell quotes. The guy has a way with words that makes me absolutely relish his failures.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Terence Trent D'arby changing his name to Sananda Maitreya and releasing triple albums that nobody listens to. And that's many years after releasing one of the ultimate "difficult second albums" in Neither Fish Nor Flesh. An interesting character but I'm not sure how much of his music is any cop

[ProvanFan]

Coldplay - Viva la Vida (Live) @ Apple Steve Jobs Memorial

[ProvanFan]

Not an answer to the thread, I was just looking up their silhouette advert to annoy myself and found that instead.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

They must be a business and boardroom driven band. Its the only explanation. And the fact they've become historically successful at that is what fascinates me. There has to be a story about music industry politics in there somewhere and it'd be fascinating to read it some day.

They do feel to me like a band who's entire career trajectory has been mapped out in advance via an elaborate series of spreadsheets that have existed since around 1997, with various points marked out on a graph like "Work with Eno", "Go pop", "EDM", etc.

It's like they took U2's career path and literally turned it into a business model,

[popcorn]

My big one is Republica.

First album I ever bought. I was 10. I loved Ready to Go. There were a couple of other songs I liked on the album too, but I remember it quickly fell by the wayside as I discovered the bigger world of art rock. Then Republica became one of the 90s briptop casualties, difficult second album, dropped by their label, vanished, gone.

From time to time the album would be something I'd find in a drawer in my parents' house and I really did cringe, like - everyone else's first album always seems to be something by the Beatles or Public Enemy or something prestigious, why was this mine?

Then 20 years passed or so without me hearing them, during which my relationship with music changed and evolved in many ways. I heard Ready to Go and thought - hang on, this is sort of great. It's naff and dated, yes, but it's funny how it sort of rocks but it's still got one foot in the 90s uk dance-rave scene so it's very tame and it's got all the programmed drum sounds. But I think it's structurally really effective and the chorus, with the harmonised vocals, is a fucking blinder!

I watched loads of old live footage of them when they were brand new and possibly not even signed, and actually I was really impressed by some of the performances, particularly Saffron's.

I feel she deserves to have been a big star. Great look, great attitude, great energy - actually I think a great vocalist and performer. But she also was victim to that 90s thing of having a sexy female vocalist and then your band is a load of schlubby blokes on keyboards and guitar. It just looks fucking shit.

Here's what they sound like these days:

It's one of those things where it's actually mystifyingly bad. I can't work out what went wrong. The guitar is out of tune from the start, the strummed chords sound horrible. But then he seems to play the riff and sing an entire half-step down? I love the BIMM lad on drums there too, doing his industry placement.

[Famous Mortimer]

I was just thinking about Aerosmith. They were massive but you hardly hear anybody eulogise about them like The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Metallica or even Motely Crue. Maybe I've missed something.

Good point. Perhaps because they went on so long no one generation saw them as their thing? I doubt many fans of "Toys In The Attic" would care much for whatever album "Crazy" and that sort of stuff was on.

[Ray Travez]

Terence Trent D'arby changing his name to Sananda Maitreya and releasing triple albums that nobody listens to. And that's many years after releasing one of the ultimate "difficult second albums" in Neither Fish Nor Flesh. An interesting character but I'm not sure how much of his music is any cop

Went through a phase of liking TTD. The second album might be the best one, not sure why it got so panned... maybe like Costello sang, 'It just seems to be his turn'. This Side of Love is lightly fried psychedelic rock; Billy Don't Fall is the sort of wonky, funk-tinged pop that Prince was doing at the time, with lyrics that attack homophobia- all good stuff. I think his singing's underrated, he's technically accomplished, with a good range.

I liked Vibrator as well. It's really got something that album, though it's a while since I listened to any of, except (Read My Lips) I dig Your Scene.

Haven't heard any of his stuff since he changed his name... he's following the Prince model I guess.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I used to have the second album on tape, and to be honest most of the better songs are on the second side. The two opening songs are preposterous. Probably didn't help.

[SpiderChrist]

Terence Trent D'arby changing his name to Sananda Maitreya and releasing triple albums that nobody listens to. And that's many years after releasing one of the ultimate "difficult second albums" in Neither Fish Nor Flesh. An interesting character but I'm not sure how much of his music is any cop

I love 'Neither Fish Nor Flesh'. It's dated an awful lot better than the Martyn Ware produced debut album with all the hits on.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

The fact that they have five official members, not four, is interesting, innit? The fifth is Phil Harvey, who started off as their manager but is now their "creative director".

Another case of this is Pink whose visuals and videos are all done with a collaborater and she is very successful despite being despairingly horrible and bad on every level. Every part of her career has been guided by exploitation: she started as close to blackface as any millenial pop performer could plausibly get, then went Prozac Nation, then War On Terror-era burlesque hedonist hard partying, suicidegirls dot com, she's singing about "stupid girls" then she's a feminist and now she's #Resistance and queersploitation, with a bit of cottagecore in there now the initial Trump moment is passing. 

But she's SO BAD at it. All of it. Everything is a cardboard facsimile of what it wants to be. The visuals of her videos and the little skits in them are indistinguishable from how a 4chan poster would portray the same themes as she does - Girl Boss, Orange Man Bad, gender roles subversion meaning a literal tough man in a dress, big banker monsters that are identical to the Two Ronnies giant rabbi puppet in one of her recent ones...she's even ripped off Radiohead's anti-Tony Blair posters with the scarybears and crumbling buildings.

I don't know who any of this appeals to. Its so openly phony and crass that it can't appeal to young people who actually care about these issues. But its got no camp values as exploitation either, there's no irony or fun. When it comes to race and gender she's been outright offensive. Usually I hate sneering at "issues" pop culture to do with gender or sexuality because it often appeals to people who don't have easy exposure to anything else that speaks to them about the same ideas, but Pink is crass beyond crass and too obviously old and millenial to be appealing to adolescents. At least I'd hope so. There is loads of yer actual pop music covering the same territory and its fun and sexy for teens in spontaneous, genuine way. And if its not for them then its for their parents and no one should want to be the Carol King of aging radlibs. And that really shouldn't translate into millions of record sales and streams.

I feel she deserves to have been a big star. Great look, great attitude, great energy - actually I think a great vocalist and performer. But she also was victim to that 90s thing of having a sexy female vocalist and then your band is a load of schlubby blokes on keyboards and guitar. It just looks fucking shit.[

I remember thinking this about Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who were awful as side from the two bangers Y Control and Maps, total shit otherwise.

But she had a good pop voice and was markedly different from the stereotyped indie and alt girls at the time. It seemed like her boring band were just a disposible launch pad to pop success but it never happened. It seemed like this from the very first EP, which seems designed to make a splash with hipsters before going on to other things. They'd get played a lot at a local bar and it was always notable that we'd think, what's this dogshit williamsburg sludge with an incongruously decent Debbie Harry imitator singing? Oh its them again.

[Sebastian Cobb]

A lot of this will have been covered in the TOTP thread but absolutely amazed at the dividing line between pre and post Astley SAW.

[The Mollusk]

The guy has a way with words that makes me absolutely relish his failures.

This is a wonderful sentence.

[jobotic]

What was it that Axl Rose's voice could do before it went wrong?

Make it sound like he was squeezing out a rock solid Guinness shit that was double the diameter that his bum hole would stretch?

He's always been fucking awful, like his band.

[dissolute ocelot]

There's a woman from South Yorkshire called Lauren Tate who sings in an average metal band called Hands Off Gretel and a very shouty rap/metal/pop side-project Delilah Bon. But she seems to have an incredibly rich mother who subsidises her to do all these music projects and own all the clothes in the universe, and she generally carries on like she's here to save all the women and the LGBTQ+ people and defeat all the haters who try to tell her what to wear. She is very active on social media. I think part of it is I can't work out if she's a cynical fake or an underappreciated cross between Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and P!nk. But she also has very nice clothes.

[George White]

Irish showbands and Irish country music acts.


Also, to a lesser extent, Joe Longthorne, though having listened to some of his stuff, he did have a great singing voice, but came around fifteen years too late for that kind of thing to be taken seriously beyond clubland/the blue rinse circuit.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

What was it that Axl Rose's voice could do before it went wrong?

Make it sound like he was squeezing out a rock solid Guinness shit that was double the diameter that his bum hole would stretch?

He's always been fucking awful, like his band.

To damn Axl Rose with the feintest praise, way back in the ancient mists of time he was once able to adequately perform the function of a mediocre rock vocalist, even if the music was mostly shit. The deterioration from that point to now is plainly obvious, you just have to listen to the strangulated squeak that comes out when he tries to go for the high bits now.

[Memorex MP3]

I don't think he's declined that much at all tbh, his voice on those first few albums is absolutely miles off live recordings from the era.

The issue is more that he's seemingly never learned to pace himself better in live shows or find a manner to do a bunch of those songs that isn't asking way too much of someone in a 2+ hour performance.

[The Mollusk]

They actually are one of the worst bands in existence aren't they? In terms of how much they're lauded and how utterly and unequivocally shit their music is. I've never heard a single redeeming quality in anything they've ever done, and I used to have a mate who was hair metal obsessed so I heard my fair share of their output hanging out in his bedroom waiting for him to get his barnet just right before we could leave the house.

[George White]

PJ Proby.
His Elvis-via-Bassey vocals, his incredibly twisted history, the fact he looks like Graham Stark...

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I had a minor obsession with Chinese Democracy when it came out, fascinating that Axl spent that much time, used all that money and all those people, to come up with that album.

[idunnosomename]

Good point. Perhaps because they went on so long no one generation saw them as their thing? I doubt many fans of "Toys In The Attic" would care much for whatever album "Crazy" and that sort of stuff was on.

lest we forget Don't Wanna Miss A Thing. Which they only ended up doing because Steven's daughter was in the film.

Dont want to disparage Diane Warren who I think has a very good career as a songwriter otherwise but the song is dreary load of sappy dogshit that Aerosmith bring out all the worst of by shoving your face right into it so the dogshit goes up your nose and that

[Video Game Fan 2000]

There are other tracks from Appetite for Destruction where I almost get the appeal and Slash* is pretty inventive but

Sweet Child O' Mine: first thirty seconds of this song are comically bad. fucking stupid new wave fairground bollocks with oooohh wooaahh ooooahh singing, how on earth is this canonically brilliant rock music. Then a serious bit where it gets all scary and heavy. Oooohhh gritty. Knock Knock Knocking On Heavens door is ridiculous too.

*looking for reasons to like his band since he told the Guardian that Zola's Germinal was his shit. anyone who tells the Guardian that is aesthetically valid on at least some level, I'm surprised they didn't respond by accusing him of being antisemite populist antifeminist or other boo words you'd say to a brown guy in the papers if you're a graun hack.

[the science eel]

They actually are one of the worst bands in existence aren't they? In terms of how much they're lauded and how utterly and unequivocally shit their music is. I've never heard a single redeeming quality in anything they've ever done, and I used to have a mate who was hair metal obsessed so I heard my fair share of their output hanging out in his bedroom waiting for him to get his barnet just right before we could leave the house.

Yes they're absolute fucking pigswill, you couldn't even nightmare a worse band.

[Rolf Lundgren]

Another case of this is Pink whose visuals and videos are all done with a collaborater and she is very successful despite being despairingly horrible and bad on every level. Every part of her career has been guided by exploitation: she started as close to blackface as any millenial pop performer could plausibly get, then went Prozac Nation, then War On Terror-era burlesque hedonist hard partying, suicidegirls dot com, she's singing about "stupid girls" then she's a feminist and now she's #Resistance and queersploitation, with a bit of cottagecore in there now the initial Trump moment is passing. 

I occasionally go back and watch that acceptance speech she did a few years ago which is dressed up as inspirational advice for her daughter but in truth is a massive humblebrag explaining how beautiful and successful she is.

[confettiinmyhair]

Matt Skiba from Alkaline Trio. They were very much the nearlymen of pop punk, like a Championship football team, they knocked on the door, but could never make it to the premier League. But then Skiba joined Blink 182 to play the greatest hits. Which brings me to Blink 182. Tom Delonge goes off the rails and becomes a conspiracy theorist, and Travis Barker joins the Kardashians. I found myself then looking up luminaries of pop punk, many of whom I suspect are behind the pop punk renaissance that's going through American pop at the moment. I remember many years back that Tim Armstrong from Rancid was connected in some way to Ozzy Osbournes daughter Kelly. That was like a foreshadowing to Olivia Rodrigo, Willow Smith and Machine Gun Kelly.