Premier Rock Forum

cal wrote:

jet wrote:brian eno

I'd love to know what you think he did to aid in the demise of rock music. I thought he was one of the good ones....

I second that opinion. I think you judgement of Brian Eno is lazy. Obviously you have not heard his 70's albums. Or, if you are refering to his post 70's albums, they are not "rock" in any realm. If your refering to his production, what are you basing it on, U2?

my interpretation of the very open-ended question was this:

"what bands have made the most significant achievement in working (probably unintentionally) towards the creation of the largest quantity of bad 'rock' music".

so whereas many people would agree that Strawberry Alarm Clock did not rock enough to make the "not-crap" category, if this was just about like vs dislike, i would say that VU provided such a massive influence in "rock" music toward a lot of (in my opinion) really shitty, underachieving, jangly-bar-chord-playin slop rockers. and they really didn't rock, like ROCK. they more meandered and dawdled and then occasionally flipped out is how it sounds to me.

i really shoulda fought harder to just keep my mouth shut. like i said, i never win any arguments about this one. just like with my "i'll take barret-era floyd over the VU anyday" and "the real floyd is the barret-era floyd" arguments. i never win with those either.

i'm not saying that no good came of the VU. a lot of great bands have also built from a VU influence. not saying it's all bad. just saying that in terms of making a contribution to rock and roll that was massively influential, widespread, and contrary to what i enjoy listening to, those guys are it. contribution to *rock* that i wish woulda been something other than what it was. i think *rock* as a viable and descriptive identifier has been dead for a long time. probably shortly after it stopped meaning Little Richard or Chuck Berry or whatever it meant when it first meant something. rock as a viable identifier has been dead for a long, long time, i think. would you use the word "rock" to describe Unwound? i wouldn't. steve miller, sure. punk, alternative and indie have more than worn out their usefulness as well, in my opinion. all those labels are more and more useless every day.

dood, my band plays Cockroach Jock Rock. oh really, my band plays Indie-Dub-House-a-dellic... really, what are good descriptors for bands these days? "rock" tells me pretty much nothing. is it queen or queens of the stone age or the melvins or what? i mean, rock means a distorted guitar or two and bass and drums, or is there a keyboard, or do the guitars have to be distorted, etc. geez, is Outkast hip-hop? that new single (which i hate to love) sounds more like a pixies song to me than a hip-hop song. label, schmabels, right? so i was looking back to an era when rock still mostly meant rock, and then it all changed. and who was a big player in that... obviously it's always gonna change over time, but i was looking for significant change, back when rock meant rock, etc.

so i apologize for talking silly and saying VU are the worst band ever, considering scale and influence and era. and i knew i shoulda not said anything. but these guys are the band i love to hate. specifically *because* of their massive influence. if they sold like 500 albums and drifted off into nothingness, i would hold no opinion of them whatsoever.

i might have been way off topic, but really, the question was very open-ended. that's what made it an interesting question, i thought. i may have been reading way too much into it.

sorry to have been part of a trash-talking session like that. who was it that once said "we're too busy singin', to put anybody down"... hrm...

PS - BOWIE! HOW COULD I FORGET BOWIE!?!?!

It was funny. I was in a marketing class today, and the teacher was talking about price-fixing, and saying that record companies got in trouble a few years back for trying to hike up the retail price of a CD.

She used the words "and that's a problem, since there's a very small number of people who control the record industry..." and at that, I laughed out loud. I think it's funny that people put so much weight into the opinion and monetary value of the major labels-- all they put out is shit anyway.

I watched MTV yesterday for the first time in about six months. Afterward, I couldn't help but think "I cannot see what these people see; I cannot understand why anyone would buy this". I think that is where you need to sit. If you completely remove yourself from the surface/the mainstream, you'll see that there's plenty going on down below. And thank God for all these downloading services letting people steal Avril Levigne's money!

capnreverb wrote:If your refering to his production, what are you basing it on, U2?

pretty much. every single one of the people i listed are "producers". maybe they are musicians as well, but if anyone notes the context, it's pretty obvious what i mean.

furthermore, i agree with weatherhead, i don't think that "rock is dead"--i think any literal statement of this type is rediculous. i was assuming that the topic wasn't meant to be totally literal--how could it be, anyway? i don't think there's any real need to analyse it into the ground.

regards,
jet.

hey Andrew "38 years old and still can't clean a toilet properly" Mason,

how do you know? you've never been to england. what a lame dork you are.

regards

Again, I will chirp up and say that listing BRIAN ENO is arguable, to say the least.

for his work with DEVO alone saves his ass from the killing floor.

Didn't Brian Eno prouduce the "No New York" album?

yes he did, though i don't think you could find any "production" on that record (in the best sense possible). the first Devo lp still sounds great.

I believe this may have been decided in 1991. Calvin Johnson killed rock.

id just like to know how you kill something that never was alive to begin with.

-please, not in the face.