![\"\"](\"http:\/\/bp2.blogger.com\/_1Zc5mil-_qk\/R1mkeURCk0I\/AAAAAAAAABM\/zb7YV_gY9yE\/s320\/MrBrianWilson.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Reading another anti-Band<\/b> treatise on RTH reminds me of this idea for a thread I’ve been nursing for a while.<\/p>\n
Alleged sacred cows like The Band and Pet Sounds<\/i><\/b> get subjected to routine scourgings, here and elsewhere. After a while, do (or can) these totems (re)gain underdog status?<\/b><\/p>\n
Some food for thought:<\/p>\n
1) In the non-rock-nerd world, isn’t The Band treated as borderline footnotes, what with the measly three songs of theirs that make it onto Classic Rock-radio playlists? (At least, that’s what I remember from the late ’80s-early ’90s.)<\/p>\n
2) A few weeks ago, waiting for The Wrestler<\/i> to start, I heard the song “Pet Sounds,” over the theater’s sound system. And it sounded great!<\/p>\n
3) Sometimes I wonder if expectations are too high for these titans. And then I wonder how these expectations got so high. How much of it is hype, and how much of it is how people process hype? Lately, I find the 24-hour-news industry especially deplorable, with their junkie-like need to construct an instant narrative for a news event that actually needs time to play out. I think sometimes there’s an analogous need to devise an instant narrative when an artist releases something that is somehow wanting. <\/p>\n
4) Then I get to thinking of an old comment from Mr. Mod that I should’ve countered back when the thread was active:<\/p>\n
As someone who was never much of a fan of Westerberg’s music (I hate to keep prefacing my comments like that [not really]), one of the things I find fascinating in this discussion is the notion that Westerberg had much room to grow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m not sure “room to grow” has anything to do with anything. I like it when artists make good music, and when they don’t repeat themselves. I don’t think that’s the same as “growing.” Every musician has their limits. Isn’t making good music in some ways a matter of simply avoiding or obfuscating one’s deficiencies, even for the great ones?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reading another anti-Band treatise on RTH reminds me of this idea for a thread I’ve been nursing for a while. Alleged sacred cows like The Band and Pet Sounds get subjected to routine scourgings, here and elsewhere. After a while, do (or can) these totems (re)gain underdog status? Some food for thought: 1) In the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}