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Sucker Mix: Stylistic Descriptions You No Longer Trust
I don't think I'm alone in having experienced this: a pattern of falling for a certain stylistic description in record reviews and recommendations from friends emerges, one that includes a mix two or more artists I already love. The description may be easily believable - or so unbelievable that you find yourself falling for it hook, line, and sinker:
"The band sounds like Revolver-era Beatles as played by Captain Beefheart!"
After buying 5, maybe even 10 records that fail to fit this ideal description, you finally come to the conclusion that you've fallen victim to a Sucker Mix. The recommendation from that favorite reviewer or trusted music friend is sincere, but once you've sniffed out a Sucker Mix, there's no going back. Just the other day I recommended that an old friend check out a band that I described as a mix of "Talking Heads and Pink Floyd." I truly thought I was doing him a favor. I immediately had visions of how I would spend my "turn-on points." Instead he waved me off, saying, "No man, I'm not falling for that one again!" He'd been suckered one too many times by a description of what, for him, was once a dream pairing.
Have you ever fallen victim to a Sucker Mix? How many albums fitting this description did you buy before you finally realized it was an impossible dream?
12 comments
Hearing about influences is one thing, but have you never been led to buy records based on a certain set of influences that appeals to you? Is there such an influence that a reviewer or friend cites to get you to buy a new record and then you find that you're almost always letdown by the record?
For me, for instance, I long ago gave up on buying records that "sound like Elvis Costello." It often means nothing when I hear the record, largely because I don't hear "The Attractions" backing this artist up. Too often, the same goes for "sounds like XTC." Too often those bands sound like what XTC must sound like for people who don't like XTC.
Then you've got your combo descriptions that never live up to expectations. For me, I might have been prone to run out and buy a record that "sounds like Lou Reed fronting The Stooges."
Townspeople, tell me you've had such a disappointing series of experiences at one time or another.
"Bolan/T. Rex" is another that I've developed antibodies to.
I don't remember what suckered me into My Morning Jakcet's Z album. It sounds like a wannabe Flaming Lips album to me. People said I'd love them, like they said I would with XTC, but XTC bit me good with that Apples and Oranges album (or whatever it's called. Yuck.)
"Stonesy" has definitely proven to be a suspect recommendation. Typically, it means little more than the band uses chord clusters that involve double-note hammer-ons.
Almost anything compared to Nuggets bands is a bummer too. That stuff was already 2nd-rate Stones and Yardbirds. Who needs a 3rd- or 4th-rate version?
Then again, the question isn't about what descriptions you don't like; it's what descriptions have suckered you in, that you've wanted to like, and have given up on.
For me it's Prince. Maybe back in the heyday of The Time, something could be described as Prince-like, but no more. Not that that's a popular referential touchstone anymore, but it was.
I'm probably as guilty of these things as anyone -- we all get sloppy on deadline -- but I do try really hard when making comparisons to mention exactly which aspects of those artists I'm talking about. Like, I reviewed an album a few weeks ago where one of the key things I kept noticing was that the guy's voice, especially in his upper register, sounded startlingly like Glenn Tilbrook's. But I didn't just compare them to Squeeze.
especially as it applies to billy bragg
There's yet to be one, of course. On the other hand, there are more than a few that sobriquet has been applied to that I've enjoyed a great deal - Loudon Wainwright, Ian Hunter, Dan Bern and others.
From the beginning, though, I can't say I was ever suckered into anyone believing that they might actually BE a new Dylan. But it is a shorthand that should be outlawed.
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