Premier Rock Forum

that damned fly wrote:balls to slint's range. they play no rock songs. none fast enough to rock.

plus, just a buncha punk ass kids.

If you can put up with "Then Comes Dudley," you can put up with Slint. And Tweez gets as fast as fast TJL. Have you heard this song "Charlotte?" It is not on Spiderland, nor is it a fast song, but you might like it.

The limitation of The Jesus Lizard was that they played only rock songs. That's not a problem, since they were a rock band. But if you tread the same narrow ground forever, you are certain to write an unremarkable tune like "South Mouth" now and then.

An album of six "for dinner..." type songs would have been revolutionary, as would an album of six "Breadcrumb trails." But every song on Spiderland has a different method. With that much innovation, it's not surprising that Papa M and The For Carnation were so good.

And the album itself is out of left field. Goat is plausible after Head. I was wearing out a Kriss Kross tape when Spiderland came out, so I don't know how fans received it at the time, but what on earth does it have to do with Tweez? It is hard for me to believe that a band got together, put out these two albums, and then broke up.

Spiderland makes more sense to me if you consider BM was listening to On the Beach on repeat.

If you took the jazzy, messy Big Black-esque songs from Tweez and stretched them into loose grooves in the manner of Neil Young, you might end up with something like Spiderland. And that's essentially what happened.

I voted for Spiderland.

tommydski wrote:Spiderland makes more sense to me if you consider BM was listening to On the Beach on repeat.

I'd forgotten this little fact.

I think that this is a great example of someone trying to capture a particular mood that a work of art brought out in him, and maybe trying to capture some of its style, but creating something utterly different due to his methods being far removed from those of his inspiration. I like this idea a lot; the other example that jumps to mind is Curzio Malaparte's Kaputt. He wanted to write like Proust, but ended up writing something unique.

I think you're onto something there.

Spiderland doesn't sound like Neil Young but it sounds a bit like what would happen if the band who made Tweez tried to play that kind of music with what they had at their disposal.

TLJ over Slint.

Goat, but both are amazing.

Nice to see the PRF finally came to it's fucking senses, Slint...give me a fucking break.

I hereby declare Aluminum Beard dead as a genre. Pitchfork, you may now start using it.

I think TJL sound superficially more impressive today because there are no straight ahead rock and roll bands of equal quality. Slint's aesthetic has been so extensively raped that it's probably rather harder to understand their staggering uniqueness retrospectively.

Still, Spiderland for me, easily.

This is really an apples vs. oranges argument. Apples taste better. No oranges do... And so on. tJL is the best tasting apple. Slint is the best tasting orange. Whether or not this best tasting orange is better than this best tasting apple is an argument that just cannot be won. I voted Goat because I prefer apples. But I also love me some oranges.