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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Feb 7, 2024 14:43:32 GMT -5
Funny you mention it - having spent most of the weekend continuing to listen to Little Rope I'd been thinking about going back to that post to qualify it a bit. Depends what you consider to be a return to form. I like Path of Wellness just fine as a St Vincent album (ironically not the one produced by St Vincent). I'm not especially keen on The Centre Won't Hold (despite it being the one which actually was produced by St Vincent). This one's like neither of those two; it's the classic rock band Sleater-Kinney always had inside them bursting its way out, leaving a trail of three minute bangers in its wake. Which is fine by me - three minute rock bangers being one of my favourite genres, and some of them (Say It Like You Mean It, Six Mistakes, Dress Yourself, Untidy Creature) really fucking bang. My reservation though is just thinking how much better it would be if they still had Janet Weiss in the band. It's not that the drums are an afterthought - on some tracks they're front and centre - but they never really amount to much more than being A Beat, and don't have that interplay with Corin Tucker's (I think) guitars that was one of the reasons the second half of their first run of albums was so good. (So, so good). Both you and Roy Batty's Pet Dove mention Path of Wellness and I clearly forgot that record existed. I had listened to The Center Won't Hold a couple times and consigned the band to history. (And I stopped listening to St. Vincent albums after Masseduction.) So for me, I'm not super enthusiastic about The Center Won't Hold, but I appreciate that the band is doing something that sounds pretty different from anything that they'd done before, even if it isn't particularly my thing. The Path of Wellness, for me, just feels like the band is a shadow of their former selves (and to be perfectly clear, I'm not upset about this, they have every right to keep recording music, and it's hardly surprising when a thirty year old band aren't as good as they used to be).
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Post by ganews on Feb 7, 2024 16:40:02 GMT -5
Both you and Roy Batty's Pet Dove mention Path of Wellness and I clearly forgot that record existed. I had listened to The Center Won't Hold a couple times and consigned the band to history. (And I stopped listening to St. Vincent albums after Masseduction.) So for me, I'm not super enthusiastic about The Center Won't Hold, but I appreciate that the band is doing something that sounds pretty different from anything that they'd done before, even if it isn't particularly my thing. The Path of Wellness, for me, just feels like the band is a shadow of their former selves (and to be perfectly clear, I'm not upset about this, they have every right to keep recording music, and it's hardly surprising when a thirty year old band aren't as good as they used to be). That is fair. We should understand when artists in particular want to try new things. But that paired with the way Weiss helped the band reunite and then got fired leaves me pretty cold.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Feb 9, 2024 13:59:27 GMT -5
Vox claims that Beyonce's [Grammy] snubs call out a deeper problem. The problem is not, apparently, that the billionaire who has won more Grammys than any other person on the planet is somehow being described as having been snubbed, in yet another example of our culture insisting that its most influential and successful "creatives" are in fact put-upon underdogs; no, apparently, it is that this is proof the Grammys disrespects black women and doesn't give them awards in the "big" categories. This is... a weird claim, given that just this year Best New Artist went to Victoria Monet. (And the year, fwiw, before it went to Samara Joy.) There is a sort of bommer-friendly artist that gets disproportionate love at the Grammys relative to popular culture writ large, of course, but the odds of that artist being Bonnie Raitt are just as high as the odds of that artist being H.E.R., y'know?
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Feb 10, 2024 10:19:26 GMT -5
It feels churlish to be negative after he's given me so much pleasure over the years, but I think I can pinpoint the nadir(s) of Dylan's career. We'll look at one track from the studio albums and one from the live albums.
In the studio, 1986's Knocked Out Loaded includes a cover of They Killed Him, an almost totally worthless Kris Kristofferson song; about halfway through, a children's choir comes in, mercifully only for a couple of lines. 1965 could not be further away. As for the live albums, there's Dylan & The Dead from 1989 to contend with. The whole thing is pretty miserable, but his delivery of I Want You is especially woeful.
I thought about including video evidence, but it's preferable to just draw a line and move on.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Feb 10, 2024 11:25:21 GMT -5
It feels churlish to be negative after he's given me so much pleasure over the years, but I think I can pinpoint the nadir(s) of Dylan's career. We'll look at one track from the studio albums and one from the live albums. In the studio, 1986's Knocked Out Loaded includes a cover of They Killed Him, an almost totally worthless Kris Kristofferson song; about halfway through, a children's choir comes in, mercifully only for a couple of lines. 1965 could not be further away. As for the live albums, there's Dylan & The Dead from 1989 to contend with. The whole thing is pretty miserable, but his delivery of I Want You is especially woeful. I thought about including video evidence, but it's preferable to just draw a line and move on. It's not exactly novel to refer to Dylan's career as "mercurial" but I surely have found it to be the case. The album currently in top rotation for me is John Wesley Harding, which I'd never given the time of day but then saw it ranked #3 in a list from our old friend Steven "Dawes" Hyden.
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Post by Dellarigg on Feb 10, 2024 11:35:18 GMT -5
It feels churlish to be negative after he's given me so much pleasure over the years, but I think I can pinpoint the nadir(s) of Dylan's career. We'll look at one track from the studio albums and one from the live albums. In the studio, 1986's Knocked Out Loaded includes a cover of They Killed Him, an almost totally worthless Kris Kristofferson song; about halfway through, a children's choir comes in, mercifully only for a couple of lines. 1965 could not be further away. As for the live albums, there's Dylan & The Dead from 1989 to contend with. The whole thing is pretty miserable, but his delivery of I Want You is especially woeful. I thought about including video evidence, but it's preferable to just draw a line and move on. It's not exactly novel to refer to Dylan's career as "mercurial" but I surely have found it to be the case. The album currently in top rotation for me is John Wesley Harding, which I'd never given the time of day but then saw it ranked #3 in a list from our old friend Steven "Dawes" Hyden. I like it well enough, but top 3? The hell you say. The 'born again' albums were the revelation for me in recent years: I might not have much time for the lyrics, but musically they're all great, a very warm soul-gospel-Muscle Shoals type feel.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Feb 10, 2024 11:41:21 GMT -5
It's not exactly novel to refer to Dylan's career as "mercurial" but I surely have found it to be the case. The album currently in top rotation for me is John Wesley Harding, which I'd never given the time of day but then saw it ranked #3 in a list from our old friend Steven "Dawes" Hyden. I like it well enough, but top 3? The hell you say. The 'born again' albums were the revelation for me in recent years: I might not have much time for the lyrics, but musically they're all great, a very warm soul-gospel-Muscle Shoals type feel. It's maybe because, like Hyden, I have a fondness for country-punk, which he claims Dylan invented on that album 15 years before Mekons or Meat Puppets.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Feb 14, 2024 10:44:30 GMT -5
How did I never know that there was a Canadian version of "We Are The World" with people who should've known better like Joni, Neil, and Geddy?
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on Feb 14, 2024 22:32:06 GMT -5
Is it just me or is Beyoncé’s Texas Hold Em actually good ? also wtf is an “official visualizer”?
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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 15, 2024 19:08:45 GMT -5
Do you think somewhere out there in the world there's "(City Name)'s Only All-Female Papa Roach Cover Band!" called Mama Roach?
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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 16, 2024 1:22:54 GMT -5
Do you think somewhere out there in the world there's "(City Name)'s Only All-Female Papa Roach Cover Band!" called Mama Roach? There is.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Feb 18, 2024 15:33:47 GMT -5
I think it is sad that Papa Roach is the name of a band and not the name of guy who performs ska-tinged educational pop music while dressed up in a giant bug costume.
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Post by Jimmy James on Feb 18, 2024 19:30:03 GMT -5
I think it is sad that Papa Roach is the name of a band and not the name of guy who performs ska-tinged educational pop music while dressed up in a giant bug costume. I was thinking he'd do a parody of "Big Poppa" while styling himself as the Notorious B.U.G.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Feb 18, 2024 21:08:31 GMT -5
I think it is sad that Papa Roach is the name of a band and not the name of guy who performs ska-tinged educational pop music while dressed up in a giant bug costume. I was thinking he'd do a parody of "Big Poppa" while styling himself as the Notorious B.U.G. One of my friends was apparently a gadabout in NYC's competitive karaoke scene circa 2009, where there was a night dedicated to performing songs by "late, great" artists. One of the (white) regulars came out, dressed in a ninja costume, and did a cover of "Ready to Die" where he changed the lyrics slightly so that... well, you know where this is going.
He did not win!
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Post by The Sensational She-Hulk on Feb 22, 2024 14:26:42 GMT -5
Chappell Roan is who the Gaylors think Taylor Swift is. She is genuinely my favorite musical find in quite a while.
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Post by Frohman on Feb 27, 2024 0:00:31 GMT -5
I didn't realize that the new The Smile album came out fucking last month.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 27, 2024 4:11:28 GMT -5
I was watching Broadway performances on YouTube while I was working some OT tonight. I just let it autoplay. Then this one came up.
Ugh, Sondheim was such a brilliant Broadway composer. And MY GOD, Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters crushed this number. This is them doing it in 2010 for the Sondheim 80th birthday concert. The audience starts applauding when she walks on stage because they immediately know which number this will be. This is one of Sondheim's all-time best songs. This show has some of the best lyrics I've ever heard at describing artistic creation.
Edited to add: Wow, and thanks YouTube for showing me a performance I hadn't yet seen. This is from 2022 at MCC Theater's "Miscast" benefit, where they perform gender-flipped versions of Broadway numbers.
I'd like to petition, please, to put Raúl Esparza in all the shows. Or maybe a one-man show version of "Tick Tick...Boom!"? (Yeah yeah he's too old now, whatever.) Tony voters, I haven't forgiven you for robbing him of a Tony award in 2006
Edited one more time: Holy hell, Esparza, that is FUCKING GREAT. OMG, his vocal technique is so great. Wow, Jonathan Larson would have LOVED this.
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Feb 27, 2024 15:56:09 GMT -5
Listened to AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted today for the first time in probably several decades and y'know, this Ice Cube character may not have the most enlightened of views on women
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Post by ganews on Feb 27, 2024 16:29:05 GMT -5
Looking forward to listening to this podcast with Cheryl Waters of KEXP
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Post by moimoi on Feb 27, 2024 20:44:16 GMT -5
Listened to AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted today for the first time in probably several decades and y'know, this Ice Cube character may not have the most enlightened of views on women I have begrudged Dr. Dre's entire career following his well-documented cases of battery and physical abuse of women.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Feb 27, 2024 21:43:21 GMT -5
Listened to AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted today for the first time in probably several decades and y'know, this Ice Cube character may not have the most enlightened of views on women I have it on CD somewhere and, yes, I don't think I've listened to it in 20+ years. I'm hardly the largest fan of the G-Funk sound but Cube only works over those beats. As a Public Enemy obsessive, I really tried to like The Bomb Squad's production but it just didn't cohere.
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Feb 28, 2024 9:36:04 GMT -5
Listened to AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted today for the first time in probably several decades and y'know, this Ice Cube character may not have the most enlightened of views on women I have begrudged Dr. Dre's entire career following his well-documented cases of battery and physical abuse of women. Yeah I definitely have to hold my nose quite a bit to continue enjoying a lot of these guys – although I feel less conflicted about Dre since I was never much of a fan to begin with (somehow The Chronic completely passed me by at the time and I don't even recall any of my more hip hop-oriented friends listening to it until years later). The Dee Barnes thing is awful and sadly it seems to be just one part of a larger pattern for him. Cube's a tough listen for me now though because even when he's saying some pretty vile shit he can still come across as a charming rapscallion and I can't help think about how this was probably not great for my suburban friends and I (and yeah, I know every generation has their scary entertainers corrupting the youth, and I don't think rap lyrics are to blame for anyone's bad actions but that pervasive casual misogyny most likely didn't help our idiotic developing teenage minds)
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Feb 28, 2024 9:44:01 GMT -5
Listened to AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted today for the first time in probably several decades and y'know, this Ice Cube character may not have the most enlightened of views on women I have it on CD somewhere and, yes, I don't think I've listened to it in 20+ years. I'm hardly the largest fan of the G-Funk sound but Cube only works over those beats. As a Public Enemy obsessive, I really tried to like The Bomb Squad's production but it just didn't cohere. I actually kind of like the combo of Ice Cube over Bomb Squad beats, but I have to admit when Chuck D shows up on "Endangered Species" I'm like "oh fuck yeah, THAT'S what it's supposed to sound like"
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Post by Dellarigg on Mar 4, 2024 7:09:50 GMT -5
After mentioning Dylan's nadir the other week, it's now time for The Rolling Stones to quail under the force of my opinion. It might come as no surprise that, as with Dylan, we head directly to the 80s (though we'll just stick with the studio this time).
1983's Undercover is a fairly decent album, but slap bang in the middle (last track side 1 and first track side 2) we're confronted by Mick trying to ape current trends on two numbers: Feel On Baby followed by Too Much Blood. The former is a shapeless dance thing, sounding like a 12" remix of a lame track that never existed, and is just about the worst of the two because it's dull. The latter features, not exactly an attempt to rap, but some spoken word stuff about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ('orrible, wasn't it?). Both tracks have shitty drum sounds, and no one bar Mick sounds in the least bit engaged. They take up 11 minutes of a 45 minute album. As I've said before, Miss You was great, but should've been taken as a fluky one-off; it hobbled Jagger's writing for the best part of a decade.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Mar 4, 2024 10:59:34 GMT -5
After mentioning Dylan's nadir the other week, it's now time for The Rolling Stones to quail under the force of my opinion. It might come as no surprise that, as with Dylan, we head directly to the 80s (though we'll just stick with the studio this time). 1983's Undercover is a fairly decent album, but slap bang in the middle (last track side 1 and first track side 2) we're confronted by Mick trying to ape current trends on two numbers: Feel On Baby followed by Too Much Blood. The former is a shapeless dance thing, sounding like a 12" remix of a lame track that never existed, and is just about the worst of the two because it's dull. The latter features, not exactly an attempt to rap, but some spoken word stuff about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ( 'orrible, wasn't it?). Both tracks have shitty drum sounds, and no one bar Mick sounds in the least bit engaged. They take up 11 minutes of a 45 minute album. As I've said before, Miss You was great, but should've been taken as a fluky one-off; it hobbled Jagger's writing for the best part of a decade. I can't help but wonder if the Rolling Stones had broken up in the 80s, like it sounds like they came very close to doing, if they would be remembered much, much better in retrospect. They'd probably be a lot less rich, admittedly, but Beatles vs. Rolling Stones used to be considered an actual debate, back in the day.
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Post by billy on Mar 7, 2024 14:11:18 GMT -5
It feels churlish to be negative after he's given me so much pleasure over the years, but I think I can pinpoint the nadir(s) of Dylan's career. We'll look at one track from the studio albums and one from the live albums. In the studio, 1986's Knocked Out Loaded includes a cover of They Killed Him, an almost totally worthless Kris Kristofferson song; about halfway through, a children's choir comes in, mercifully only for a couple of lines. 1965 could not be further away. As for the live albums, there's Dylan & The Dead from 1989 to contend with. The whole thing is pretty miserable, but his delivery of I Want You is especially woeful. I thought about including video evidence, but it's preferable to just draw a line and move on. O man They Killed Him sucks. I think I've only listened to the full album once. Brownsville Girl is great, but in the playlist age I don't have to suffer through the other crap. I actually don't mind the version of I Want You from Dylan and the Dead, tho I've seen a live video on youtube from that tour that's better. I never liked the Blonde on Blonde version much, but this soundboard recording of the 1981 New Orleans concert slaps ass (don't watch the stupid overly literal video though): www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECmRqLkRYEw
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Post by Dellarigg on Mar 7, 2024 15:32:35 GMT -5
It feels churlish to be negative after he's given me so much pleasure over the years, but I think I can pinpoint the nadir(s) of Dylan's career. We'll look at one track from the studio albums and one from the live albums. In the studio, 1986's Knocked Out Loaded includes a cover of They Killed Him, an almost totally worthless Kris Kristofferson song; about halfway through, a children's choir comes in, mercifully only for a couple of lines. 1965 could not be further away. As for the live albums, there's Dylan & The Dead from 1989 to contend with. The whole thing is pretty miserable, but his delivery of I Want You is especially woeful. I thought about including video evidence, but it's preferable to just draw a line and move on. O man They Killed Him sucks. I think I've only listened to the full album once. Brownsville Girl is great, but in the playlist age I don't have to suffer through the other crap. I actually don't mind the version of I Want You from Dylan and the Dead, tho I've seen a live video on youtube from that tour that's better. I never liked the Blonde on Blonde version much, but this soundboard recording of the 1981 New Orleans concert slaps ass (don't watch the stupid overly literal video though): www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECmRqLkRYEwOne day I’ll use the Bootleg Series to reconfigure those 80s albums the way they should’ve been. It’s not just Blind Willie McTell and Foot Of Pride that should’ve been included - there’s Lord Protect My Child, Angelina, Caribbean Wind, Need A Woman, Straight A’s In Love, Tell Me, Too Late, The Price Of Love, and loads more I can’t think of at the minute. It could’ve been a solid decade for him, if only he’d let Mark Knopfler run the show. That version of I Want You is good, really takes off. I like the original version, even if Blonde On Blonde isn’t one of my all timers from him.
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Post by Dellarigg on Mar 8, 2024 7:41:01 GMT -5
All right, I'll throw Dylan a crumb by giving my opinion on the best of The Bootleg Series.
We'll look at two categories: 1) the best music, and 2) the most revelatory in terms of showing a period in a new light.
Musically, I have to go for The Cutting Edge, which covers the mid-60s electric explosion of Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde. Few artists have been as concentratedly brilliant as this, and the collection shows the steps along the way to it were just as great. There aren't many previously unheard new-new songs, which is usually my favourite part of the series, but still - this is undeniable. Honourable mention to the complete release of The Basement Tapes. It won't be for everyone in its ill-recorded scrappiness, but I've always thought there was something magical about it, and it's great to have it all.
As for the revelation, we'll have Springtime In New York, which covers the above decried 80s period. The tracks left off Shot Of Love, Infidels, and Empire Burlesque (and which could've been used to shore up Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove) are quite something. Honourable mention to Another Self Portrait, which again takes a misfiring album and shows that there was some good stuff going on there somewhere.
(The weakest one is probably Travellin' Thru, which includes recordings made with Johnny Cash. They're barely of a releasable standard.)
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Post by ganews on Mar 9, 2024 11:35:28 GMT -5
I enjoyed the heck out of this debut album by Rahill, "Flowers at Your Feet". Of course I followed the link because Beck was on one song, and I'm glad I did.
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Post by Dellarigg on Mar 10, 2024 7:02:16 GMT -5
Liam Gallagher & John Squire, the album is out now (and may be no. 1 with a bullet as I type). Obviously, for us northern male Gen Xers, this throws us back to a time when the only music that mattered was melodic guitar rock, and that's what we get here. I've listened a few times, and while, despite Liam's trumpeting, it's not quite as good as Revolver, it's very decent. For all Liam's many demerits, I don't think anyone suggests he can't sing, and Squire reins in his occasional rock excesses to deliver a tight 10 tracks in under 40 mins. It's psychedelic in places, bluesy in others, and the lyrics are poor - just what you expect, really.
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