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Shit artists you have a weird fascination with

Started by purlieu, July 22, 2022, 04:03:31 PM

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purlieu

From Liking One Song by an Otherwise Rubbish Band
Quote from: purlieu on July 21, 2022, 06:57:34 PMI've always been fond of the weirdly queasy sound of Mr. Writer, although I totally get why it's hated. I just think it's a bloody weird song, especially as the lead single from the follow-up to a fairly safe meat & potatoes indie rock record. It's the start of a run of almost entirely unsuccessful but strange experiments they have had scattered throughout their career since.

Eh, I still stand by Word Gets Around being a great album. Has numerous qualities lacking on almost every album they did afterwards - proper melodies, evocative lyrics, energy - until their very brief almost-return-to-form 15 years later.

I might start a thread called 'shit artists you have a weird fascination with'.

Being a bit of an 'indie' fan as child and teen in the '90s, Stereophonics were simply a band I listened to in the post-Britpop lull near the end of the decade. Admittedly it helped that Word Gets Around really is a decent record, and one that still holds up, with some great melodies and small town life storytelling in the lyrics; I recall finding Performance & Cocktails underwhelming other than four or five songs, particularly disliking the run of bland acoustic tracks in the album's second half. I heard the first play of 'Mr. Writer' on Radio 1 and it immediately suggested their third album was going to be darker and weirder. It was one of the first full albums I downloaded off Napster, and was really taken aback by how horrible the mixture of rootsy blues rock and country was for the most part, with almost nothing resembling their first two albums at all. It's the point where most people would just give up, realise they don't like the band anymore, and move on. But I found something so compelling about the album, about its complete abandonment of their bittersweet Welsh rock sound, the bizarre repetitive melodies, the strange queasy production, the astonishingly ugly artwork, the fact that it's called Just Enough Education to Perform, a bizarrely clunky name with the abbreviation of JEEP that they were stopped from using for the album by Jeep. It was the first time I'd heard a band I like become totally unrecognisable in such a horrible way and it was totally fascinating.

I remember their fourth album leaking, and downloading it immediately with a mixture of hopeful optimism that they'd returned to their roots, and inevitable pessimism that it would be a continuation of the previous record. You Gotta Go There to Come Back surprised me in its eclecticism and mild experimentation - hints of trip hop, sunshine pop, soul and even an orchestral track - which, despite the awfulness of the material, made it even more intriguing. It's an album that's really trying to be bold and unusual, and yet it's constrained by being a '00s Stereophonics record.

Ever since then, they've failed to go completely full-on uninteresting, hooking me back in for another listen with each album, regardless of how terrible they are. 'Dakota' being an excellent callback to their earlier sound, despite the rest of the album being terrible and nothing like it; this pair of truly incomprehensible album cover decisions, hiding within them a move towards a mix of polished boogie-woogie rock and widescreen U2-style epics:



Announcing a trilogy of orchestral-tinged concept albums with a tie-in film, and of those, 2013's Graffiti on the Train being surprisingly good for the most part; an '80s new wave-inspired single being the lead single for 2017's Scream Above the Sounds, probably their most varied record; returning to their '90s logo for an album of mind-blowingly boring acoustic songs in 2019; releasing a 15 track, 70 minute album this year.

There's something about the band's mixture of mostly uninspired meat and potatoes rock with continual attempts to experiment and redefine themselves that I find so enduringly intriguing: at no point before hearing them did I imagine they would make songs that sound like 'I'm Alright', 'Superman', 'Beerbottle', '100mph', 'Violins and Tambourines', 'What's All the Fuss About?' or 'Geronimo', and yet every one of those songs is totally and utterly Stereophonics at the same time.

All this, combined with my genuine appreciation of their debut album, makes them a proper car crash band for me: I really am unable to look away. I should have consigned them to the 'one album and then ignore' pile, and yet I find their bad stuff far more fascinating than some music I actually like.

Does anybody else have an artist like this? Someone who they used to like / don't like at all but have a genuine interest in because some aspect of their music is intriguing in one way or another. Would love to know.

Video Game Fan 2000

#1
Coldplay's success is completely fascinating to me. I can't wait until the future where a big retrospective book comes out to tell me what the fuck it was all about. There must be serious ingenuity going on with the business side of things or they're the Lehman Brothers or Enron of pop culture.

The way they've followed every incongruous trend from Tim Buckley copyism to Radiohead/U2 to singalong anthem rock to almost good neo-prog to YA dystopia to grindset inspo music to EDM and now they're fucking teeny boppers doing teen bopper music for the kiddies, but they all look like Albert Steptoe with a gym subscription? Chris Martin in that BTS video: you durty old man. No band has been current this long. It's like if the Dave Clark Five were not only still successful in the mid-90s, but appearing in Spice Girls and Billy Piper videos. I've seen a meme about how ridiculous it was that boomers made Phil Collins a huge star in the 1980s but his popularity is nothing to Coldplay's, built on a mega success and solid reputation in his previous career, and his megastar status didn't really last a full decade.

How are they so massively successful at everything they do? The only flop they've had is that return to indie rock a while back and that was still a relative hit. Is Chris Martin a big shareholder for the festivals that book them? It has to be about finance and branding at this point because it at this point the music doesn't even exist.

sutin

Limp Bizkit.

Fred Durst is such an unintentionally hilarious celebrity that only the late '90s/early '00s could have produced. Everything about him cracks me up - his monologue at the start of the Rollin' video ("allllright partner"!), the fact he named an album 'Chocolate Starfish & The Hot Dog Flavoured Water'... The music being so awful makes them all the more interesting to me.

dontpaintyourteeth

Do you remember that concept of the "shreds" video on YouTube, where someone would take a video of a band or artist and add sounds of like, tuning up and discordant instruments and off-key singing over the top? Here's one:


Anyway, this whole concept where someone is singing badly, maybe some other people are harmonising badly too, people are playing instruments but are seemingly playing their own strange song that has no relation to anything else that's going on. Funny idea right? Sure!

So, anyway, there's this band that's inexplicably huge in the states named Phish, and, well, that's what they always sound like to me. Someone's tinkling away on a piano incessantly. Someone else with a very weak voice is singing self-consciously "wacky"lyrics. It's like standing in the entrance of a music shop and listening to several different people trying out instruments at once.

Part of the "jam band" phenomenon that only exists in the USA and nowhere else. My theory is that it's because the weed is stronger there. I can't understand why anyone would find it listenable otherwise.

And yet, and yet. There's something in me that makes me want to understand how this dreadful band sells out vast arenas. If you speak to their fans (who, I have to say, are unfailingly nice online) they will always recommend different live recordings. Every so often I cop some recommendation or other and will try and listen. And it never, ever makes any sense to me. It probably never will. I wish it did. I find them genuinely fascinating.

purlieu

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on July 22, 2022, 04:09:08 PMColdplay's success is completely fascinating to me.
There were three bands of that initial post-Britpop era that I followed: Stereophonics, Coldplay and Travis. The former I've documented above, I lost interest in the latter when they went the opposite direction by just giving up any attempt to vary their sound (other than the bonkers 'The Coral with a massive gothic choir' of 2008's 'J. Smith'), but Coldplay definitely fit the mould. I still rate Parachutes and Viva La Vida as great albums, but everything since 2011 has been really remarkable in terms of how much they're willing to abandon their original sound in favour of becoming a proper pop group. The first time I heard 'Paradise' was a proper wtf moment, 'Adventure of a Lifetime' even moreso, then that Chainsmokers collab was a proper headfuck. I'd finally got used to them by the time the recent full-on pop stuff came out.

I suppose what makes them slightly less interesting than the Stereophonics is that they're actually quite good at it. I can't stand more than two or three songs post-Viva La Vida, but getting Max Martin in to do huge chart-friendly BTS collaborations and stuff, it's all depressingly competent. There's nothing as bafflingly horrible as 'Rainbows and Pots of Gold'.

Video Game Fan 2000

I hate them but I have to admit Viva La Vida is good or at least got Martin very close to realising his ambition of being a serious art rock guy with a message and a bespoke aesthetic.

Which makes it even more inexplicable that they immediately abandoned that stuff to follow pop trends so closely. Chris Martin was infamous for wanting to be taken as seriously as Thom Yorke and grinding his axe about it interviews. He finally got a real shot at doing that, put out a competent art rock record with Eno producing, his detractors start to eat their words and then... Paradise?

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.

purlieu

Yeah, I really thought Viva La Vida was something they were going to build on, rather than completely abandon. Eno said it was good but they could have gone further or something, so it really felt like their potential was soon to be realised and then... pop time.

dontpaintyourteeth

I completely tuned Coldplay out for many, many years (and I don't think I've ever knowingly heard a Chainsmokers song) so it was quite jarring seeing them use a car advert to promote a new song called "Higher Power" which sort of sounded like Lighthouse Family at 1.5 speed. A strange group for sure. I went back and looked at some of their (what I would call recent, but is actually anything post Viva La Vida) videos on YouTube and like, are they even a band anymore? It just seems to be Chris Martin singing over a sort of soft pop backing.

purlieu

That's the thing, I suppose, I can understand Chris Martin doing it, frontmen have very often gone on to have mainstream pop careers after starting in rock music, but what the hell do the rest of the band get out of this? It can't be musically satisfying, surely?

willbo

Aerosmith -they just seem the ultimate fun silly hard rock band, but real, not trying like Steel Panther etc

badaids


Not a band but an album. Second Coming is an album of massive production values covering brilliantly up for a band falling apart and it works for about 50% of it.

I'm totally fascinated by the record.

I've listened to it several hundred times and not because I like it. When is do listen to it, I'm enjoying listening intently to Daybreak, Tears and the other junk to try and work out what the bloody hell they thought they were doing and how the engineers were trying their best to recover it. I'd love to have been there for the recording sessions and the editing and mixing sessions and the decision making - I want to know every detail of how they arrived at the hilarious  vocal mix for the massive first chorus of Tears. How and why did they choose that solution as the point of « this will have to do ».

dontpaintyourteeth

always thought it was funny how Love Spreads is basically just Voodoo Child (Slight Return) in terms of structure. It follows all the same story beats, for want of a better term.

Video Game Fan 2000

I don't really get Chris Martin doing it. He seemed like he'd eat a cowpat on camera if it made him credible. I had him down as a guy who'd do anything for credibility. He was so mopey critics didn't give him Radiohead or Floyd cred for X&Y. And then he got it and threw it away in less than a year!

wrec

Quote from: badaids on July 22, 2022, 05:07:21 PMI'd love to have been there for the recording sessions and the editing and mixing sessions and the decision making - I want to know every detail of how they arrived at the hilarious  vocal mix for the massive first chorus of Tears. How and why did they choose that solution as the point of « this will have to do ».

Hadn't heard that for years so had a listen. Actually shocked at how uninspired it is, just the most basic bits of All Along the Watchtower and Stairway to Heaven. And the solo is a struggle to fill up bars with the most cliched, rudimentary pentatonic licks. And Brown mumbling off-key about "the tracks of your tears"!

A real Be Here Now vibe to it but the cracks were probably papered over a bit more on that. I find it fascinating when bands have a limitless budget to make something that's guaranteed to sell millions yet struggle to throw together something passable.

My favourite YouTube comment:
QuoteImagine if a band like this came along with this much gold one after the other. The music world would think it's a revolution.

That's probably someone who's hearing them decades after the fact, but of all the bands to say that about. I remember Select did an infographic of the gap between the first two albums, and The Smiths' entire career and most of the Beatles' fit in there.

Laughed out loud when I was reminded of the album and track lengths. The scourge of the 90s.


dontpaintyourteeth

mind that hidden track on there as well hahaha. Fucking hell.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: willbo on July 22, 2022, 04:58:39 PMAerosmith -they just seem the ultimate fun silly hard rock band, but real, not trying like Steel Panther etc

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.


Bennett Brauer

Aerosmith's a crap name too. At least Wispaforger and Crunchiemonger knew when to call it a day.

Video Game Fan 2000

Be Here Now is as compelling as an accidental mass poisoning

the whole time you're wondering how the adults in the room let it happen

dontpaintyourteeth

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on July 22, 2022, 07:55:33 PMBe Here Now is as compelling as an accidental mass poisoning

the whole time you're wondering how the adults in the room let it happen

It was hilarious when they announced they were releasing the demos on the reissue and people thought they were going to be more subtle and less coke-bloated but when it came out they were all just as long and almost as overblown as the finished tracks

willbo

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on July 22, 2022, 07:35:42 PMI 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.

I think they're just too cheesy, too hard/metal at times, too poppy at other times, spent too long crap/with obscure line ups, their comeback was too late before grunge, too simple/cartoony, too many film soundtracks, too racist (taste of India), not high quality, virtuoso or rootsy enough to get away with the cheesy stuff the Stones, Led Zep or GnR would, too Bon Jovi? I dunno

willbo

come to think of it Be Here Now reminds me a bit of second coming, like the new big hard rock sound for both

Video Game Fan 2000

Be Here Now makes Second Coming sound like Kick Out The Jams

Egyptian Feast

Quote from: The Mollusk on July 22, 2022, 07:07:14 PMMark E. Smith

This reminded me of a bit from this awkward interview with MES where his own weird fascination with a shit artist was mentioned.

Quote from: Andrew MuellerSmith was off, a sudden gust of anecdote culminating in the verbatim recitation of a recent, ill-advised appearance by Jason Donovan on Dame Edna Everage's chat show. He confessed to the habit of videotaping the hapless Neighbours star's television appearances: clearly, there was at least one Australian who amused him.

Kankurette

Some great albums are produced by bands off their tits on coke. Be Here Now is not one of them.

As for Coldplay, I saw them way back in 1999 when they were supporting Gomez and while I liked them, I was amazed at how massive they became. (I have a soft spot for some of their stuff though, especially Clocks.)

the science eel

The Fall were rarely shit but Mark E didn't DO a whole lot, did he?

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Quote from: purlieu on July 22, 2022, 04:52:16 PMThat's the thing, I suppose, I can understand Chris Martin doing it, frontmen have very often gone on to have mainstream pop careers after starting in rock music, but what the hell do the rest of the band get out of this? It can't be musically satisfying, surely?

Lots of money. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the band do a 4 way split with their royalties (which has helped them stay together for a long time) so you get to be the bass player in Coldplay with a few million in the bank, yet nobody in the street will recognise you, and you don't have to deal with any of the fame shit.

dontpaintyourteeth

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on July 22, 2022, 08:25:43 PMLots of money. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the band do a 4 way split with their royalties (which has helped them stay together for a long time) so you get to be the bass player in Coldplay with a few million in the bank, yet nobody in the street will recognise you, and you don't have to deal with any of the fame shit.

I'm pretty sure U2 and R.E.M. did that too. Must be conducive to keeping a band going for years and years, innit

pigamus

Janis Ian.

Between The Lines is sort of objectively dreadful but as a monument to maudlin self-pity it's a kind of masterpiece.