Artists badmouthing their best known songs

I was reading the liner notes of Nick Lowe's "Labour of Lust" and saw that he never cared for "Cruel To Be Kind," thought it old fashioned and in fact almost never recorded it. Then there's the stories of Nirvana allegedly almost leaving "Smells Like Teen Spirit" off of "Nevermind" because they thought it sounded too much like the Pixies. And of course, there's always the (apocryphal?) quote from Peter Buck dismissing "Driver 8," saying he could write a whole album like that in his sleep.

I'm sure there are lots of other favorite examples of poor instincts, hubris or whatever.

It's not apocryphal--Peter Buck has badmouthed "Driver 8." (I think what he said was more on the lines of "I could write 10 'Driver 8's a day, and so could a lot of other people.)

Here's the missing quotation mark: "

Birthday Party were vocally very anti Release The Bats when it was becoming a fan favourite. They hadn't moved onto the zenith of their final 2 e.ps yet though.
Think they still played it live for a while but introed it with things like 'here's a song you all want to hear, but we don't want to hear'

I was reading the liner notes of Nick Lowe's "Labour of Lust" and saw that he never cared for "Cruel To Be Kind," thought it old fashioned and in fact almost never recorded it.

Which is especially weird since he did it twice, in two completely different styles . . .

radiohead, creep, obv

I'm not sure if the Teen Spirit story is true, but they purposely didn't play it to their largest crowd ever at the show in Rio which upset many audience members.

Nada Surf didn't play "Popular" in their sets for many years, but I think they started again recently.

And of course, there's always the (apocryphal?) quote from Peter Buck dismissing "Driver 8," saying he could write a whole album like that in his sleep.

well it's a great song so hey! they should do a whole album of "driver 8" redux instead of the last 3-4 horrible R.E.M. albums!

accounts vary on exactly how much rachmaninoff grew to resent his prelude in c sharp minor, but at the very least he used to roll his eyes a lot at concerts.

I have a tape of a very drunk Paul McCartney announcing to the Troubadour circa 1972 "Here's a fuckin' piece of shit song you'll probably clap real hard for...because you're so thick...you fucking assholes" and then tearing through a rendition of "Yesterday" that sounds like it was a Meat Puppets II outtake

Famous: Neil Young's dismissal of Harvest in his liner notes for Decade. (Even provided the name for "the Ditch Trilogy.")

In 1987 Pete Townshend called "Won't Get Fooled Again" "the dumbest song I've ever written. It's dumb to deny the political responsibility of the individual."

I don't think Pete places much value on any of his songs other than monetary value.

The lead singer of Flock Of Seagulls owns this thread.

On various VH1 shows, most notably the One Hit Wonder shows, he complains bitterly about how much he hates "I Ran" and how much he hates playing it at shows.

Ms. Native and I both agree that he comes off as a bitter bitch.

Radiohead still play Creep now and then so I doubt they hate it. Maybe they did for a while around the time but i'm sure they're over it.

Even worse than A Flock Of Seagulls: I once heard Sophie Ellis-Bextor slagging off 'Groovejet' (the bits she didn't write anyway i.e. everything but the verses)

PS is that McCartney story real?! Please upload!

Mick Jagger hates "Tumbling Dice."

that best known Rolling Stones song "Tumbling Dice"

crüt feelin scrappy this a.m.

Robert Plant loathes "Starway to Heaven."

"Stairway to Heaven" too.

De La Soul always sneaks "WE HATE THIS SONG!" into the lyrics when they do "Me, Myself And I"

"Creep" is like top 5 Radiohead songs easy, those guys are dumbasses

that best known Rolling Stones song "Tumbling Dice"

Unless I need bifocals the thread title says "best known SONGS"

Randy Newman - short people
from wikipedia:
"...Newman would later grow to dislike the song and its success, eventually calling it a "bad break," a "novelty record like The Chipmunks"...

the thing is all these guys are posing, they don't really hate the song. they're just sick of playing it, and probably sick of people yelling for the hit from the second they step on stage when they're already planning on playing it and know that playing the one everybody wants to hear early on is just not how it's done. xpost except Newman, probably not posing, was probably really bummed to have his low opinion of the public confirmed by having loads of them identify strongly with one of his unlikeable narrators. Newman otm btw.

Saw Flaming Lips on the small stage at a Lollopalooza back in '94 or so, and Wayne Coyne introduced their big song, which is still their best-known (and you know what it is) by saying "here's a song that you love and we hate."

not sure about creep being top 5 but yeah top 10 at least

when i saw the flaming lips (in 2008 or something) they played that song either as a finale or an encore, which like aerosmith says is kinda how you do it.

course by then they'd had other songs in movies.

Madonna said she feels retarded singing "Into the Groove".

Into the Groove is her best song

iirc Madonna hates that song but he hates 'like a virgin' a whole lot more and is very reluctant to play it live.

What Flaming Lips song are we talking about? Jelly?

I read an interview with the Lips where they said unlike other bands, they enjoyed giving their big hit song to their fans, or something.

don't think Maynard/Tool are terribly fond of "Sober" -- when i saw them live c. 2001-02, some guy front row yelled for it the second they came out, and they obliged and got it out of the way, total rote playing, kinda boring... then launched into a VICIOUS 10-minute version of "Flood" that blew everyone away (peak of the show... never got better). still not sure if they planned to do "Sober" as the first tune, or if it was reactionary to that fella, but hey...

Bernard has been known to finish shows by announcing Blue 'fucking' Monday. They hate playing it.

I gotta say, I mean, I don't know what it's like to play the same big hit every show for 20 years, but I do know a little about playing a song or two that you play more or less every time, and if I ever start to feel a little lol JADED about it mid-song I just open my damn eyes and see people having a good time and boppin around and I think wow you have to be a pretty big asshole to indulge your jadedness about playing the hit. like yeah you may have to work a lot harder to get into it, it may actually involve Jedi-style mind maneuvering to get into the "I still love this" zone. Guess what asshole these people paid to get in, so do whatever mental backflips you gotta do to play the jam. If you wanna be mad at some of 'em be mad at the hardcore fans who hate on the people who love the hit and wish you were more interested in "educating" those people than in showing them a good time

yeah I'm breaking own rule abt work talk I know. to be clear I am talking about "Lord of the Thighs" which was really big for us on the '74 tour, I blame it for all the drugs tbh

idk, if you're invested enough in an artist to buy tickets to see him/her live, i'd assume you're invested enough to know more of their songs than just "the hit"

man that is so not the case!

but tickets for acts established enough to have "a hit" are expensive!

I would say though benching the big hit/hits til the encore is fair enough and a crowd that's pissed about that is unsporting

like if i was a radiohead fan, i don't know how much tickets to their shows cost but it must be at least £40 right? i can't imagine spending £40 on a band if i only knew "creep".

Simple Minds, anyone?

I'm a big fan of getting the hit over with. AC/DC has a deep bench, but when I saw them a couple of times on their "Stiff Upper Lip" tour, they *opened* with "You Shook Me All Night Long." How many bands would have the (big) balls to do something so brazen?

but tickets for acts established enough to have "a hit" are expensive!

I would be willing to bet money, not that I think this could be demonstrated one way or the other, that a not-insignificant number of people in attendance at shows which cost 20+ US dollars to get into (not the top of the chain I know - talking about 1200 seat venues here) know only the major catalogue numbers. as in Radiohead, I would guess that the number of people who go to see them who couldn't tell you the name of one post-OK Computer song is higher than you'd think.

I'd go even further and suggest the more expensive a ticket, the less likely a ticket-buyer is to know more than that act's biggest hits.

All the arena shows I've seen, when the act goes deep, the beer lines go deeper.

i don't understand why you'd spend that much money on a ticket if you don't like it when the band plays non-hits from their back catalogue

I hate it when bands and artists slam their own popular work. When Woody Allen disparages his "earlier, funnier" movies, it seems like he thinks I'm stupid to prefer Sleeper to Shadows & Fog; when R.E.M. makes fun of "Shiny Happy People" it makes those of us who love it feel disowned. One other related annoyance: meeting friends who have just performed in a play after the curtain and them saying "Oh, you should have been here last night" or "tonight was awful." Well, thanks for the news, but until that moment I had been delighted. With good reason (artists are very often poor judges of their own abilities/virtues).

I'd be delighted if they played Shiny Happy People, but I'd go for a pee if they played E-Bow The Letter.

i totally understand artists not liking their earlier work because they feel they've improved; i also totally understand artists getting frustrated if people are more interested in that work than in the work the artist is prouder of; it only makes sense that robert plant is even sicker of "stairway to heaven" than i am; i don't mind at all when people slag off their own work in interviews. but yeah when you're playing a show a whole bunch of people are PAYING YOU to play something YOU MADE THAT THEY LOVE and privileging your frustration over them seems like solipsism of an order so high it needs lovecraft anti-adjectives.

It seems curmudgeonly not to play the hits that are part of the reason you still have a career decades later.

Right. John Fogerty plays them and he doesn't even own them anymore.

(btw thom yorke's going-on-15-year-long insistence that making another album after whatever huge well-budgeted well-selling un-interfered-with critically beloved joy-spreading album he just made that allowed t. yorke to continue in his permanent and post-label-contract literally singular career of doing exactly what he wants to do all the time would "do [his] head in" or "literally kill [him]" or "just completely fuck [him]" puts him well down on the lower half of the list of living humans sorted by likability)

i totally understand artists not liking their earlier work because they feel they've improved

i don't know about *not liking* their earlier work, but yeah i recall hearing steven tyler talk about how he feels the band's recent work and his lyrics in particular are better than the '70s hits.

though i wonder how many bands *don't* think this? i mean, does r.e.m. think of their career as ever-improving? they don't *have* to be better -- i'm sure they still have something to contribute -- but it has to be discouraging if you think your best work is behind you.

idk i think i take almost the exact opposite viewpoint - artists can do whatever the fuck they want to, really. and disown whatever work they've done if they want. and shouldn't be beholden to their fans. if, as a consumer, i don't like their approach to live shows or their new direction, i'm free not to give them money for it.

really really h8 the kind of entitled fans who seem to think that their chosen pop star owes them everything from tv appearances to exact types of song.

(xp)

artists can do whatever the fuck they want to, really. and disown whatever work they've done if they want. and shouldn't be beholden to their fans.

i'm not saying that they should be shot or arrested or financially required to play stairway to heaven but like if you can sit up there in front of a zillion people who will be overwhelmed by joy if you play a three-minute song you wrote and you don't do it you probably need to check your head a little

(realize that stairway to heaven is longer than three minutes but maybe they could cut some verses, not that one about the bustle in the hedgerow though that one's hilarious)

agree with enrique, but ppl who complain that a band didn't play their hits or the hit are the worst. ime when you pay money buy a ticket to a show you are just paying to see them do whatever they want to do in that time any expectations abt them playing the hits or cuts from the album you love will just increase likelihood of u whining about something dumb & not enjoying it. like, even if those songs are great their time is passed, if u don't like the new material get over it, feel like its kind of gross and cruel to want a musician to ossify & forever stay the band you fell in love with. would be compelled to hate my fans who felt this way if i were famous

idk maybe i'm just used to shows by the type of artist (eg pj harvey, tori amos) who get louder cheers for random b-sides than for their chart hits - ime most amos audiences couldn't care less about "cornflake girl", for instance

ime when you pay money buy a ticket to a show you are just paying to see them do whatever they want to do in that time...feel like its kind of gross and cruel to want a musician to ossify & forever stay the band you fell in love with

pow! otm

Your favorite artist is not a jukebox. Or an iPod for that matter.

feel like its kind of gross and cruel to want a musician to ossify & forever stay the band you fell in love with.

this is a reductio ad absurdum of "gosh it'd be fun to dance to into the groove"

it's not "beholden," but given that the audience is already showing love by showing up & paying to get in, I feel the artist should show love too. that doesn't mean "just play the hits," I think that's bullshit, artists should always be pushing themselves & challenging themselves & don't owe the audience any sort of crowdsourced exactly-what-you-already-like thing. but a coupla hits? be a sport, put 'em in the encore. if it's too much, I'm quite sure there's a lovely job washing dishes someplace where nobody will bring you down by telling you to wash that dish that looked so great last time you washed it.

in the end the audience will decide. if people are turned off by an artist's rep for not playing a crowd-pleasing set then they won't go, so the choice of material is entirely the artist's imo.

if it's too much, I'm quite sure there's a lovely job washing dishes someplace where nobody will bring you down by telling you to wash that dish that looked so great last time you washed it.

well this is it isn't it, if no one buys your tickets because you don't play your hits then you should maybe rethink, but if they continue to come to see you even though they know they might not get the hits then it's license to carry on doing what you do basically

I mean we've discussed this, the flipside/mirror image is people shouting requests for songs that exactly nobody gives a fuck about, but are obscure. cool points! yeah, we'll play that one, that'll show these assholes who like "dream on"! balls to that attitude imo

or maybe set-lists shd be better advertised in advance and then the customer can decide. you don't usually turn up to a classical gig wondering what they're gonna play.

there's no way jelly is the most well known lips song today, 'do you realize' was in all kinds of commercials

xxxxxxp

that doesn't mean "just play the hits," I think that's bullshit, artists should always be pushing themselves & challenging themselves & don't owe the audience any sort of crowdsourced exactly-what-you-already-like thing. but a coupla hits? be a sport, put 'em in the encore.

yes. this is all i am saying.

this is a reductio ad absurdum of "gosh it'd be fun to dance to into the groove"

if i went to see madonna live and she played "into the groove" i would love it, but if she didn't i don't think i'd even notice because she has a few other songs i'd have just as much fun dancing to

naw telegraphed setlists ruin everything imo

if i went to see madonna live and she played "into the groove" i would love it, but if she didn't i don't think i'd even notice because she has a few other songs i'd have just as much fun dancing to

better hope she plays them instead of the entire tracklisting of hard candy as is her prerogative as an uncompromising artist

the flipside isn't really people shouting out for obscure tracks, which is usually some sad show-offery agreed. the flipside is going to watch an artist and shutting up and listening because you are interested in their work including the decisions they make as to what to play, how to play it etc

yeah I wasn't seriously saying there should be an advertised set-list but maybe just a footnote on the poster saying "No we are not gonna play facking 'Stonehenge'" or something

What if Madonna doesn't play 'Vogue' or 'Hung Up' or 'Like A Prayer' either though? What if she concentrated on the non-singles off Bedtime Stories instead, maybe heavily remix it & throw in some new material to keep the crowd guessing?

Oh, you already said that.

like, look, obviously the ideal, when going to see someone play, is some kind of pleasurable combination of "i am interested in where this person is going and in the artistic decisions he/she is making lately and in spending an evening in something resembling their company" and "there are some songs by this person i love so much that other people love too and i want to dance to them and lose myself in communal joy" and since it is totally easy, like trivially easy, for an artist to satisfy both desires by playing whatever he wants for a while and then bringing in a hit or two, how stingy and curled into yourself do you have to be to only satisfy one of them? like why is the choice here between I AM A GROWING MUSICIAN WITH AN ORGANIC RELATIONSHIP TO MY ART and I AM A MISERABLE JUKEBOX when actually this is not the choice at all?

better hope she plays them instead of the entire tracklisting of hard candy as is her prerogative as an uncompromising artist

lol, i actually went to that tour. went to the bar during the uh flamenco section of the performance. i think my favourite moment was "dress you up"!

What if she concentrated on the non-singles off Bedtime Stories instead, maybe heavily remix it & throw in some new material to keep the crowd guessing?

i would fucking love this and wish she would do it!

how stingy and curled into yourself do you have to be to only satisfy one of them

tbh bottom line for me is, i don't particularly want to see an artist going through the motions by playing any song they're not feeling that night, cuz the likelihood is it won't actually be that good if that's the case

Sure there are different aspects of a gig and different parts of the audience have different expectations. I just don't think it automatically makes somebody "stingy and curled" because they really have nothing to bring to some material they got sick of 10 years ago. It's their call.

oops yeah exactly

this is a reductio ad absurdum of "gosh it'd be fun to dance to into the groove"

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, March 13, 2011 3:24 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

ah whatever, obv your position is reasonable & thats why it's what most bands do but i think u saying thom yorke is a more bad person for saying he doesn't want to rewrite ok computer & making it seem like artists have some obligation to please casual fans is a bit dickish & unececessarily rigid

see, ok, that i understand. so i guess i'd just say that i hope that they can have that moment aerosmith mentioned and swallow their weariness with the crowd's help, though as the decades pass i understand that'd get harder.

xp re: "not feeling it"

i also get way more of a thrill when i see an artist play a relatively obscure personal favourite - when pj harvey started playing "the sky lit up" the other week i think i actually made a squeak of excitement out loud

What if Madonna doesn't play 'Vogue' or 'Hung Up' or 'Like A Prayer' either though? What if she concentrated on the non-singles off Bedtime Stories instead, maybe heavily remix it & throw in some new material to keep the crowd guessing?

I just got very hard.

btw Thom Yorke deserves any flak he got upthread.

once i saw the magnetic fields and they out-of-nowhere played an improved version of this song i totally love called "shipwrecked", from the soundtrack "the gothic archies" made for lemony snicket's a series of unfortunate events audiobooks, which more than redeemed a show i otherwise didn't have all that great a time at and which i still wish someone had been recording, so it's not like i don't love that stuff too.

Last time I was at the barber he was telling the customer before me about a disappointing Ian Brown gig he'd been to: "he was wanting to play his solo stuff and talk about Iraq. We were all like 'Cut it out mate - play Roses'."

Anybody who goes to see Ian Brown deserves whatever they get.

disappointing Ian Brown gig

weighing this as new username, has real potential

When I saw Gloria Estefan in 1988 she played "Conga" and "Rhythm is Gonna Get You" FIRST as if to say HERE ARE THE BIG HITS BITCHES, whereupon she launched into her contribution to the Top Gun soundtrack.

only thing i rly object to is the characterization of the artist who doesn't play the hits as curmudgeonly & overly serious lol u think u make art. they still have to play those songs every night for years, i think some don't mind it or put up with it bc they feel an obligation, or in the case of madonna or w/e do nutso choreographies to keep it interesting, and some don't feel obliged (which imo they shouldn't) and so don't

realize amount of flak ilx dreams of giving thom yorke is only attainable in yalls wildest fantasies but the sentiment of what dlh quoted is not worthy of flak--maybe the rest of the interview was corny but imo that is a legitimate thing to express; interested in what anyone who knows y not has to say

He sounds like a fool, or at least someone sufficiently myopic to misunderstand the privileged position in which he finds himself.

hi yalls

as difficult listening hour points out u can have it both ways - what I think is bullshit is "I'm not playing the songs that by becoming successful & drawing a crowd have enabled me to pursue my art further, period, as an artist I am responsible only to myself" - 'cause if that's an artist's take, they're welcome to stay home and play their new shit to the cats; the notion that you're only responsible to your muse & not to the audience is a myopic & auteurist view of what happens in the matter of performance. performance = artist + audience. both have responsibilities, both to themselves & to one another. the artist should strike a balance between satisfying "needs"/desires & carving out new space/pursuing his vision. the audience gives back by being present. the two are obligated to one another imo. it is fuckin rad. artists whose position is "I don't owe these people anything save what I think they should get" are dicks in my opinion

("being present" doesn't mean "just showing up" obv I mean present in an active way.)

out of curiosity, are there any bands still selling out venues that DON'T play their hits? I would think that, well, market forces being what they are in 2011 this intractability represents something of a long term failure to understand fiscal realities.

i mentioned pj harvey and tori amos, afaik it's true of them, and they're not playing venues any smaller than they ever did

i typed a response to the yorke question earlier but when it was all there it didn't seem very important so i trashed it, but general outline was that it has been abundantly demonstrated that yorke is not required to "rewrite ok computer", that he can do essentially anything and people will line up for it w/ joy & curiosity, that he in fact enjoys a position almost literally unique in rock&roll and possibly even in art in that his band has demonstrated itself popular and entrenched enough to totally bypass the usual dreary and oppressive mechanics of capitalism, and that he can basically do whatever he wants including nothing at all, and repeatedly claiming that this miraculous situation is always one screw-turn away from driving him insane with misery is just not all that good a look. not saying he SHOULD behave differently or that someone should MAKE him behave differently or shaking my fist at him or anything, just explaining why he comes across as kind of a graceless doof.

Also, collapse in sales & attendant copyright cows to milk presumably means tours are where one earns one's money now and hence renewed concentration on, y'know, entertaining people

Amos sure, but can you say PJ Harvey's actually scored hits? Her biggest single peaked at #27.

the notion that you're only responsible to your muse & not to the audience is a myopic & auteurist view of what happens in the matter of performance.

i once read that someone or other who i'm gonna say was tennessee williams said that "putting on plays is so much trouble, i wish i could just write them and put them in a drawer", and i like the quote a lot because the subtext is well obviously tennessee you totally can, but you don't want to and feel that in some sense you "can't" because without the audience the play is unfertilized.

(now naturally i can't find this quote anywhere online but the sentiment stands)

Amos sure, but can you say PJ Harvey's actually scored hits? Her biggest single peaked at #27.

this is what i'd have thought too, but when i posted her last setlist in the let england shake thread, there were a few "bah she doesn't play the hits" responses

it's a nice thing that, if you do it, will make some people happy, but y turn that into an obligation & why define the success of a concert/career ito how well you balance this partic thing? seems to me there are more interesting ways to keep an audience consistently engaged. youre framing it as something that only necessarily dickish people don't do, that the artist is being dismissive (in any case don't see anything wrong w being dismissive of boring criticisms) whereas more neutrally u could just say "i want to play my new music that i love for my fans and am uninterested in and bored by the prospect of playing old songs." i think i p much reject this assumption that every artist has to be attuned to the needs and desires of their fans or else they're dicks. in my imagination they are nice people happy to do their own thing

there are always scathing reviews in the paper the day after bob dylan plays here abt how he played mr tambourine man for like 12 seconds but w and undiscernible melody and it was all ramshackle and jammy, you'd think they would just stop showing up if they're not into it?

Dylan's an unusual case though: he really can't play the hits in the same way because his voice has gone to hell and it hurts to play guitar. He's an example (of whom there are many in all genres) of someone who found a new style by mistake.

"Honor thy error as thy hidden intention" or whatever

Dylan's supposed to play one-show-in-a-dozen straight down the line though? That's like the worst of all worlds, having to keep going to all these horrible Wonka Bars in the hope of getting a golden ticket.

Just to clarify: There is a big difference between opting out of playing hits and explicitly ridiculing your own work. I love obscurities and surprises at concerts (I wish the last Stones show I saw was nothing but Between the Buttons, and I wish the next Prince show I see is a tribute to Jimi Hendrix and James Brown), but when artists outright insult things they have made that you are fond of it is irritating and disappointing. (And, again, they often have quite poor taste in their own work: Woody Allen is most proud of Stardust Memories, for God's sake, and -- see above -- Jagger can't be bothered about Tumbling Dice.)

xp
Neil Young's wild and wacky Greendale tour seemed to give enough notice that it wasn't going to be a typical Crazy Horse show, but at Red Rocks there were many, many fans who were unforgiving that the show wasn't Weld II.

xps- o lol i hadn't heard that, thats actually brilliant. sneaky mixed strategy

nice sunday afternoon thread imo

Amos sure, but can you say PJ Harvey's actually scored hits? Her biggest single peaked at #27.

"hits" here kinda just means "the ones that are the most popular songs by a given artist" to me

when artists outright insult things they have made that you are fond of it is irritating and disappointing.

but I mean this is actually where I side more with the "artists should be themselves" thing. what if that's how they feel about it - they'll play it, they'll put 100% into it, but they wish they didn't have to 'cause now they hate it? I don't begrudge an artist his own opinions about his work. birthday party a great case in point here, there's that one live record (maybe a bootleg I forget) where Nick says "This is the song you love the most, and we hate the most" and then they rip through the song like they felt every note of it. I mean if Mick Jagger says "I'm gonna zone out now and sing 'Satisfaction,' see if you can pinpoint the moment when I am literally reciting the alphabet backwards in my mind" I don't care as long as he sings it well. (He won't, because he ruins all his songs live, but that's a different question.)

kind of weird to think of jagger picking on 'tumbling dice'. it has most of the hallmarks that make a stones song great.

i typed a response to the yorke question earlier but when it was all there it didn't seem very important so i trashed it, but general outline was that it has been abundantly demonstrated that yorke is not required to "rewrite ok computer", that he can do essentially anything and people will line up for it w/ joy & curiosity, that he in fact enjoys a position almost literally unique in rock&roll and possibly even in art in that his band has demonstrated itself popular and entrenched enough to totally bypass the usual dreary and oppressive mechanics of capitalism, and that he can basically do whatever he wants including nothing at all, and repeatedly claiming that this miraculous situation is always one screw-turn away from driving him insane with misery is just not all that good a look. not saying he SHOULD behave differently or that someone should MAKE him behave differently or shaking my fist at him or anything, just explaining why he comes across as kind of a graceless doof.

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, March 13, 2011 3:12 PM

But he hasn't been saying that since he came into that position? Since they freed themselves of EMI Thom's "it would have killed me" blah blah rhetoric has definitely lessened to the point of being basically non-existent, and he is always quick to acknowledge how privileged he is as an artist. But I mean, Thom Yorke is straight-up depressive/mentally ill and I kind of think you're confusing being frank about depression with gracelessness or ungratefulness. And I don't know that any degree of artistic freedom or wealth really could cure someone of their mental health issues.

Also, not a response to you, but I can't think that anyone going to see Radiohead these days is there to see Creep.

really meditating hard on "disappointing Ian Brown gig (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned)," seems high quality

i mentioned pj harvey and tori amos, afaik it's true of them, and they're not playing venues any smaller than they ever did

― lex pretend, Sunday, March 13, 2011 4:09 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

I think this is mostly true, tho I do recall a stretch in the late-90s when Tori was at arena status.

Pillbox I <3 u & hate your u/n with an abiding passion just fyi

actually taking a lot of this to its logical conclusion - there's kate bush and her refusal to play live AT ALL even though, you know, zillions of her fans, who are the reason she's in the position she is, would be completely rapturous with joy if she ever did - DLH would you say she's somehow curmudgeonly or stingy for her no-touring stance?

i actually kinda hate when i see people say "oh i wish she'd reconsider" - i mean sure if she did i'd be first in line, but in the meantime i really respect her decision not to play by those particular rules of the game.

too lazy to look for the book now but IIRC the Aerosmith bio by Stephen Davis (sic) quotes the band saying they hated playing "Dream On" even in the 70s, considered it a fluke & unrepresentative etc. one of the guys' wives, maybe then-Mrs. Joe Perry, sneeringly said she went to the john during Dream On every night on tour.

Guess what asshole these people paid to get in, so do whatever mental backflips you gotta do to play the jam.

says it all, really

A friend told me about hearing this Neil Young fan near the front of the house on one of those "Greendale" dates, chanting "normal concert! normal concert!"

Pretty sure when Lindsey Buckingham toured "Out of the Cradle" with his "guitar army" he refused to play the single, "Countdown." When Wire reunited a few years back, their sets were almost entirely new material, though if I understand correctly most of them were still re-learning guitars after such a long break.

Similarly, speaking of REM, some songs they had stopped doing because they no longer how to do them, due to alternate tunings and whatnot, and only started adding them back into setlists after making a concerted effort to re-learn them. Likewise, didn't Sonic Youth lay off a bunch of old stuff after their equipment got stolen, because so many guitars were uniquely set up?

A friend told me about hearing this Neil Young fan near the front of the house on one of those "Greendale" dates, chanting "normal concert! normal concert!"

lol this sort of seems consonant in spirit with "outside chicken, not house"

there's kate bush and her refusal to play live AT ALL even though, you know, zillions of her fans, who are the reason she's in the position she is, would be completely rapturous with joy if she ever did - DLH would you say she's somehow curmudgeonly or stingy for her no-touring stance?

this (and latter-day beatles) seems fine to me; it's when you're sitting on stage looking (paying) people in the face, and can see their love for you and their potential glee and still decide that your boredom outweighs that, that i become confused about your priorities.

kind of think this topic's been exhausted tho, i vote for more funny stories about neil young

he once confused my dick for a joint and tried to smoke it.

you once gave me a recipe involving cannabis sativa and a kind of caramelization process that i believe you attributed to neil young; i am assuming this is the same encounter

Neil: "Anyway, we're in this hotel room (harmonica), we're trying some honey-slides, you know....You know what a honey-slide is? (voice from audience: Yes!) Honey-slide, mmmmmmn!

You know, poor grade marijuana (he's playing soft guitar all through this... Motion Pictures intro), worse than you get on the street, and you take it and you get your old lady, you know, if you got one, to cook it up on the stove, you know, put that stuff in the grinder, get it real fine, in a frying pan, put it on the stove, turn the heat up a little, wait till the grass just starts to smoke, just a little bit, take it off the heat, don't want to burn it too much (laughter and a few guitar bars), then you take the honey, you know, get a half a glass of honey about this big - I hope you ladies are listening to the recipies tonight - (audience laughter and a few words missing) just heat that honey up until it's slippery, you know, and mix that grass with it, you know the fine grass that you've cooked up just until it started to smoke and you took it off, mix those together and you get a spoon you know (voices from the audience and laughter).

I think you should eat it after that. Just eat a little of it, you know, maybe a spoonful or two, you'll be surprised, it just makes you feel fine... (laughter) That cheap grass is great. You know, in these times, you have to think about prices and things like that (laughter).

And you know what? It works.

neil young otm

that "heat on the stove just until it smokes a little" part will seriously make your kitchen smell like humboldt county tho

nah you just gotta burn something else worse afterwards

start cooking a frozen pizza and totally space out or w/e

yeah that one. i can also testify to its efficacy.

total thread drail, but thc is fat soluble. honey has a negligible amount of fat. does anyone know why this works?

p sure the honey is just a sugary matrix for the weed, doesn't need to be fat soluble i don't think

as diff listening hour hinted, I tried this a few years ago. Not unpleasant, but I overcooked it slightly. I thought Neil Young was full of shit until half an hour later it hit -- and man! We were immobilized.

i must be misremembering but i always thought he said to put a lil butter or oil in the pan and like sautee it or w/e?

nb I have not heard the recording in question but remember reading the relevant quote years ago on internets

new REM title "mine smell like honey" deciphered

hey guys get your "old lady" to whip up that buzz concoction - if you've got one presumably she's in the kitchen already, barefoot

I'm not offended, it's a marvelous anecdote, but LOL @ what sexists those '60s hippies were

a man needs a maid

i don't understand why you'd spend that much money on a ticket if you don't like it when the band plays non-hits from their back catalogue

I actually wish that more artists would perform album tracks while on tour. I'm tired of so many just sticking to singles material because the singles material gets so old after the billionth time.

Blur and "Country House". Sure it can be argued whether it is actually their best known song, but it was their best seller nevertheless, its chart performance much better than those of "Girls and Boys" or "Parklife". (And "Song 2" is only their best known song across the Atlantic where none of them are really known at all)

The whole of Pulp really hate Mis-shapes which is why it doesn't appear on their hits collection. Obviously it wasn't their most well known song but it was their second biggest hit following Common People.

I'm not totally sure but I have a feeling Bjork might have disowned It's Oh So Quiet, it doesn't appear on her greatest hits album and she doesn't play it live. I seem to remember her fans had a big say in the track listing of the hits album, maybe it's more that they have disowned it. I don't exactly need to ever hear it ever again.

How about Mark Hollis? He hates the first Talk Talk album which had a couple of their biggest hits. I wouldn't be surprised if he hates It's My Life too which is probably their most well known song.

All of Suede hate Stay Together for various reasons which is their biggest selling single.

"It's My Life" is a a considerably more sophisticated album than the debut in terms of key changes and arrangements.

so

phisticated

yo griff

The Mission loathed performing "Wasteland"

xp
See, there is another example of an artist making me feel bad: Bjork doesn't like "It's Oh So Quiet," which I love, thanks especially to the Spike Jonze video: choreography, shushing, mailbox, crane shot, seeming joy in Bjork's performance, etc. Rats.

start cooking a frozen pizza and totally space out or w/e

forget about pizza, house fills with black clouds, become convinced Satan has returned to earth

not that I would know just sayin

De La Soul always sneaks

Demonstrably untrue.

*opened* with "You Shook Me All Night Long." How many bands would have the (big) balls to do something so brazen?

AC/DC are all about spectacle and entertainment live right? It probably wouldn’t even occur to them NOT to blow punters away with a classic jam right out of the box.

I'm not totally sure but I have a feeling Bjork might have disowned It's Oh So Quiet, it doesn't appear on her greatest hits album and she doesn't play it live.

There’s no way it would fit in a set of the way she plays these days; gently intoning the words while dude plays with the Reactable? Leaving it off the GH could have as much to do with keeping the lyric split on the publishing clear as with distaste for the song.

you "Creep in top 10 of Radiohead songs of all time" people are nuts, it's easily towards the middle or bottom. and I still 'like' it I guess

Ice Cube has disowned (or at least he used to) most of The Predator album, and made many comments criticizing how he was following the sound of the moment that seems to disown "Wicked" and probably "Today was a Good Day".

Trash did sell more than Stay Together in the end

Also, surely Disco 2000 is Pulp's 2nd biggest hit, chart positions bedamned

Trash did sell more than Stay Together in the end

it's also a much better song

my boring opinion on "creep": don't like it much but the KUH-CHUNK's pretty cool

beavis agrees

xpost Maybe Disco 2000 has become a more well known song over the years bus Mis-shapes and it's video were quite big at the time and it's the opening song on their most well known album. It's not my favourite song on A Different Class by a long way but I was really surprised to find out it was the song they all hated.

I always thought Stay Together was Suede's biggest hit but I guess it came out very early in the year when singles don't sell as much. Trash came out in the summer and was only kept off number one by some really big singles (Spice Girls and Robbie Williams first single) I'm glad Trash sold more as at that time they had a lot to prove but they are so wrong about Stay Together, it's a great song.

Glenn Tilbrook on "Black Coffee in Bed" - "It's far too ponderous. It could never be a fast song, but it certainly had the opportunity to be slightly perkier. My vocal is mannered and not very good at all, and I can't stand to listen to it now. It was influenced by what Paul Carrack had brought to the table [on "Tempted"] but without Paul's voice it didn't sound right. We recorded a great demo with Gus Dudgeon but we really fucked it up on the record, which was entirely down to me. This is one of the few Squeeze songs I'd happily re-record because I think I could do a better version."

They do play it noticeably faster in concert.

And when they re-recorded it for Spot The Difference it's the same tempo and not nearly as good. There's a really fast version on Around And A Bout and it's terrible - nothing wrong with the original in my opinion.

Did they do anything interesting on Spot the Difference or is it really the aural equivalent of Gus Van Zant's remake of Psycho?

if it is, I can presume I'll play it, then take the disc out of the changer 20 minutes in and never look back

xpost No and yes, to an extent. Any hardened listener of their greatest hits with adequate hearing can hear the obvious differences right away. 'Take Me I'm Yours' is the most impressive reproduction, though elsewhere you can tell a mile off. For a start, Loving You Tonight is sung by Glenn Tilbrook, who takes some vocal deviations on another couple of songs, Black Coffee and Some Fantastic Place from memory. There's a bonus live disc with the UK version that's worth purchasing for the inclusion of some great rarely played live tracks, namely Hope Fell Down (from Difford & Tilbrook, now stripped of 80s gloss), It's So Dirty, If It's Love and When The Hangover Strikes. It could have been far more comprehensive of last year's setlist though.

you "Creep in top 10 of Radiohead songs of all time" people are nuts, it's easily towards the middle or bottom. and I still 'like' it I guess

It is the very, very, very obvious highlight of the "Pablo Honey" album and may even be in my Radiohead top 10 (which otherwise consists largely of "OK Computer" songs and the occasional "The Bends" song)

Isn't "Stop Whispering" on Pablo Honey? Much better song than "Creep"

u forgot KUH-CHUNK

Miley Cyrus -- whose hit song, "Party in the U.S.A." includes a line about her nodding her head to one of the rapper's tracks -- says she doesn't know which of his songs inspired the lyrics.

"I've never heard a Jay-Z song," the singer, 16, said in an interview before her Halloween concert -- in which she was dressed as Pocahontas -- in Louisville, Kentucky this past Saturday. "I don't listen to pop music."

Then how did it get in her song -- which was recently No. 1 on the Top 40 charts?

"I don't know, I didn't write the song, so I have no idea," she said of the tune, which was written by a songwriting team of Dr. Luke, Claude Kelly and Jessica Cornish. "Honestly, I picked that song because I needed something to go with my clothing line. I didn't write it and ... I didn't expect it to be popular, originally. It was just something that I wanted to do, and I needed some songs and it turned out for the best."

Although she said "Party in the U.S.A." is "not even my style of music," she is thankful for its success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy_3sbeSH5w

Honeyslider instructions start at about 3:00. Does he say starts to smoke or starts to smell? Important distinction

I think a club gig, where people are fans of the band, and presumably know all the b-sides, is different to a festival one. I was quite aggrieved when I saw Supergrass at some festival in Ireland where they played all mediocre new stuff, no hits.

Hmm, maybe Miley Cyrus needs to record an album where she casts out the Miley Cyrus persona and, um.....

Re Bjork, the one time I saw her live, she did "It's oh so quiet" with plenty gusto and some improvised lyrics at the end "something like "oh yeah, so many fuckin boyfriends, it's unbelievable..."

Not on Greatest Hits, presumably because it's a cover version and she doesn't feel attached to it any more.

I suppose she could have done it like Slade do inasmuch as "put it right at the end so you don't need to hear it if you are sick of it" with "Merry Christmas Everybody"

I love "It's Oh So Quiet", but it is rather atypical of Björk. Almost like a conventional pop song (or more like, conventional standard/evergreen)

Thomas Dolby seems to think "She Blinded Me With Science" is pretty stupid and doesn't really represent him, but is thankful for the success.

Gary Numan doesn't seem to really be a big fan of "Cars" (he's much more partial to his other hit, "Are Friends Electric?"), admitting that it was written to be a 'hit song' and that it doesn't capture his style as well as something like "Down in the Park"...I don't even know if his live set these days include it anymore.

he definitely still plays it and also saw him do live vocals on it with nine inch nails a year or two back

Thomas Dolby seems to think "She Blinded Me With Science" is pretty stupid and doesn't really represent him, but is thankful for the success.

If anyone ever wrote a 'hit single' that should have been aware that it might well "define" him... This one.

Jamie - when I saw him he didn't play it, plus I have a modern-era live album that doesn't have it; that said I'm sure he still does at any "high-profile" event

If anyone ever wrote a 'hit single' that should have been aware that it might well "define" him... This one.

I always wondered if that song derailed his career; a number of songs on the Wireless album could have easily became huge - "Europa", "Windpower", or "Airwaves" to name a few. Once he got away from the techno-boffin image I would imagine the record companies weren't really interested in him to the same degree.

Yeah, but those came before "Science".

Whereas "Hyperactive" (which is the one I think of first when I think of TDolby), was after and pretty big.

It seems that a lot of the time, the track that 'defines' you gets defined (itself) after the event(s).

e.g. during Peter Andre's initial run of hits, you will find "Mysterious Girl" is not the biggest, but it's the only one anyone can remember from those days.

Surely this thread is "Artists badmouthing their best known songs" not "Artists who refuse to play the_hit live"? They're not the same thing.

I mean, I completely see why bands who become known for one song to the extent that no one ever wants to hear them play anything else would grow to hate that song. So that might have been true of Creep when Radiohead were touring The Bends just after it came out, considerably less so now. Most bands with a lengthy career and sizeable fanbase get past that stage though.

37 Radiohead Creep (re-emergence) Single Jun 2008 Notes

That doesn't mean anything.

No, it's just the retitling "Creep (re-emergence)" made me laff slightly.

well worth posting then

I have a tape of a very drunk Paul McCartney announcing to the Troubadour circa 1972 "Here's a fuckin' piece of shit song you'll probably clap real hard for...because you're so thick...you fucking assholes" and then tearing through a rendition of "Yesterday" that sounds like it was a Meat Puppets II outtake

wait this is a joke right

But I mean, Thom Yorke is straight-up depressive/mentally ill

uh... seems a bit out of place on this thread. is there "proof" of this, or are you just talkin out yer ass?

It is teh balls, yes (xpost)

Pillbox I <3 u & hate your u/n with an abiding passion just fyi

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, March 13, 2011 4:40 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

I had to think on this for a minute, but it all makes such perfect sense now..

no disrespect, kind sir!

uh... seems a bit out of place on this thread. is there "proof" of this, or are you just talkin out yer ass?

― thank you ilxor for starting this much needed thread (ilxor), Monday, March 14, 2011 10:59 AM

He has talked openly about his depression (which is mental illness, though I know people don't always refer to it as such because of stigma) and anxiety and periods of hypomania. And I don't see how it's out of place given that what I was responding to was him getting flak in this thread for talking about being miserable.

If Thom Yorke is so depressed he should consider making happier music. Problem=solved.

oh okay; guess i havent read enough thom yorke interviews! xp

I have a tape of a very drunk Paul McCartney announcing to the Troubadour circa 1972 "Here's a fuckin' piece of shit song you'll probably clap real hard for...because you're so thick...you fucking assholes" and then tearing through a rendition of "Yesterday" that sounds like it was a Meat Puppets II outtake

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, March 12, 2011 11:23 PM Bookmark

I would like Paul McCartney a lot more if he would unleash his contempt like this a little more. Really a hate-filled McCartney solo record could be a beautiful thing.

I'm a big fan of getting the hit over with. AC/DC has a deep bench, but when I saw them a couple of times on their "Stiff Upper Lip" tour, they *opened* with "You Shook Me All Night Long." How many bands would have the (big) balls to do something so brazen?

I remember The Charlatans opening with "The Only One I Know"

when you have as many hits as AC/DC i think it'd be dumb NOT to open with one of them, even if it's arguably the biggest one they've still got plenty in the chamber for the encores

The Church used to have a pretty strained relationship with "Under The Milky Way" - Kilbey thought it was nothing special and was going to put it on The Slow Crack until Richard Ploog insisted that he play it for the rest of the band (who were also pretty "meh" about it). For years, UTMW was always the "bathroom break" song for me and not really all that exciting - I remember one tour the band didn't even play it, instead using a bizarre electro-dance cover version of it as their intro music.

It's been fun seeing them since come to terms with it and realize that, OK yeah there's something about it that people like and they seemed to have discovered it. It was one of the highlights of the tour this year.

Read this paragraph at the Onion AV Club's SXSW Day One recap and reminded me instantly of this thread:

The night proceeded in that sort of a one-for-you, one-for-us pattern of well-worn versus breaking-in (as Le Bon reminded everyone, the set was a dress rehearsal for a world tour), and there was a noted emphasis on sticking to fan-favorite deeper cuts like “The Chauffeur” and “Ordinary World” and ignoring the shouted pleas of the larger crowd—particularly one dude whose cries of “Rio!” turned hilariously mournful as the night wore on.

“I didn’t write it at all,” Rebecca Black said, clearing up a major misconception. “I sang it as they wrote it.”

^ lol

xxp so "Ordinary World" is now an fan-favorite deep cut? *sigh* i'm old...

Yeah, seeing that juxtaposed with "The Chauffeur" is weird enough, but . . . it's not even a deep cut! It was the first single off its album, and it was a top ten hit in the US, UK, Canada and pretty much everywhere in Europe!

"Ordinary World" was probably the first Duran Duran song that most kids born in the early 80s or late 70s were familiar with.

That seems unlikely, at least for kids born in the UK.

It was the first single since "Careless Memories" where I felt they got it mostley right (for me).