As part of my ongoing effort to lift RTH out of the hatred and finger-pointing, I offer Snoop’s latest tribute to the power of Mighty Love. I approve of Snoop’s new attitude!
Nov 292007
Nov 292007
I’m tired of all this talk about blaming bands and hating fans. I just wanna know: is this a good song or not? Yes or no!
Nov 282007
Mention was made in an earlier thread of the critical beating David Bowie took for his ’80s solo releases and Tin Machine. My first thought was, “It was about time!”
To clarify, I’ve long loved a good 30 songs by Bowie while for the longest time refusing to embrace the guy and say, “Bowie is a great artist!” I still stumble over the word “great” if I try to say that today, but I’ve come a long way. Believe me. The reason I snapped back into thinking “It was about time!” was because I felt Bowie was primarily to blame, first,for ruining Iggy Pop, and then for all the music I hated in the post-1983 ’80s: Duran Duran and the assorted New Romantics, Thompson Twins, Berlin, maybe even Paul Weller’s Age of Wussiness… Long before the Internet, in a little Xeroxed fanzine I issued with bandmates, I led the conviction of David Bowie on a Rock Crimes charge for his profoundly negative influence on ’80s music and fashion. I was taken to task for assigning blame to an artist for his possibly unintended influence on later generations of musicians with possibly lesser talent. Perhaps. But I still feel the way I do, just like some of you take “points off” the Velvet Underground for inspiring thousands of lesser bands.
Before you get all high and mighty, answer these questions:
1. Have you ever felt this way about an artist? (Specify.)
2. Is there actually the slightest bit of justification for having felt this way?
I truly hope there’s a good answer to question #2.
Nov 272007
Townsman alexmagic asked:
Which act has the worst fans? Maybe to clarify – since I can think of a few terrible bands with bad or worse fans who would end the discussion early – a useful follow-up question would be: Which band/performer has a fanbase that has kept you from potentially embracing/exploring their work more fully.
I think if we focus on the roadblock issue and how we’ve at least attempted to deal with it, rather than some rash characterizations of, say, the grooming habits of a particular fanbase, we might have some good ground for discussion.
Nov 262007
Don’t Look Back: Unedited
Nov 262007
Before the Pearl Jam concert became my football game commercial flip of choice I was flipping to the classic Dylan documentary I’ve been known to rave about along with many others here, Don’t Look Back. Have any of you watched that thing since aging from 22 to 44? I appreciated how much of a dick Dylan was when I first watched it, and to some extent I still like seeing him in full-on dick mode, but I’m now an adult. Large chunks of the film are nauseating and embarrassing. How ’bout that scene in which he dresses down the blond, tortoise shell glasses-wearing “scientist?” Or the one above, with the guy from Time? On a developmental level, these are necessary stages in the modern notion of adolescence and young adulthood, but really, who’s Dylan think he is, Richard Lloyd? Two other questions emerged from the scenes I’d revisited after all these years:
- Is it any wonder Dylan bypasses this part of his life in Chronicles, Vol. 1?
- Although I’ve long loved Dylan, I’ve never spent any time investigating his crowd of hangers-on. Who’s the guy who looks like a cross between Roger McGuinn and Robert Pollard? Is that Bob Neuwirth? Man, what an ass kisser! Who’s the black dude who’s often sitting quietly in the background, not seeming to engage in any of Dylan’s shenanigans?
The concert scenes are still strong, but I’m thinking we should file this documentary under Watch before you’re grown up.
Nov 252007
My football team, the Philadelphia Eagles, just came up short against the mighty New England Patriots. It was a great effort! During commercial breaks I flipped over to an old VH-1 Storytellers episode featuring Pearl Jam. I don’t know that there’s one Pearl Jam song I like even a little, but they give a great effort! They’ve got all the Classic Rock structures, the private lyrics made public, the stickin’ it to The Man business… Great effort, but not a single song that lives up to those aspirations. Are there any bands or albums you’d award a E for Effort?
