Someone is going to need to provide receipts on Pink Floyd being more influential than VU beyond just that they were more popular so more people heard them.
I will take Future Games and Bare Trees over all or nearly all Floyd albums.
It's "thin, wild mercury music" not "thin, wild mercury words."
― removing bookmarks never felt so good (PBKR), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:25 (two years ago) link
good music, good lyrics - idealgood music, bad lyrics - worksbad music, good lyrics - doesn't workbad music, bad lyrics - obv the worst
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:26 (two years ago) link
love Steve but I think he's full of shit wrt Big Blackhe certainly cultivated a pretty distinctive lyrical identity for a band with supposedly tossed off lyrics
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:28 (two years ago) link
Lyrics can also be important for reasons other than literal meaning.
― The sensual shock (Sund4r), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:30 (two years ago) link
xp lol yes for real. few bands were more serious about having a "political or aesthetic battle plan" than big black
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:32 (two years ago) link
I'm just saying lyrics were important to BB What we sing about is none of your business anyway." — Steve AlbiniI don't even know what this means, you made the record and sold it dude
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:33 (two years ago) link
Of course it's bullshit. But it's bullshit in the same way Dylan was bullshitting when he called (calls) himself a "song and dance man." Kidding on the square, I believe, is the expression.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:33 (two years ago) link
xp to Alfred, I get that about Alicia Keys. She sings flat, always, with such consistency, she's always exactly flat by the same amount. I've theorized that she wears her headphones a specific way in the booth, like, one ear half-off, which can cause the pitch in the playback to sound lower than it is, idk. She's always flat.
As for Stevie Wonder, whatever I guess. However you feel about Bruno Mars, that's how I feel about Stevie Wonder. I like corny music, except when I don't, same as anybody else
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:34 (two years ago) link
I kind of agree with M@tt but OTOH "A/B Machines" is one of the best Sleigh Bells songs, the lyrics to which are "Got my A machines on the table / Got my B machines on the floor / *incoherent scream*"
― castanuts (DJP), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:34 (two years ago) link
bad music, good lyrics - doesn't work
It's hard to come up with an example of this, tbh
― jmm, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:35 (two years ago) link
I like the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, the Doors... and Stevie Wonder, I'm quite happy.
― Meet the Irish Queer Archive Poet In Residence (Tom D.), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:35 (two years ago) link
i mean the main reason the doors lyrics falter is bc they have a reputation that doesn't match the reality, that isn't the band's fault. they are also v pretentious, which is. but i think i'm maybe overstating it if i call them "bad," as the occasional isolated line does sound really good to me, and i've been quoting the "peace frog" lyrics in the licorice pizza thread ever since i saw the movie
for the most part the "do lyrics matter" conversation is v dull to me, and has been rehashed here thousands of times. the answer is always: depends on the band
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:35 (two years ago) link
weren't we just talking about Velvet Underground
― castanuts (DJP), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:36 (two years ago) link
That Albini quote always seemed so strange to me, like he was forced against his will to write lyrics for his compositions.
― The sensual shock (Sund4r), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:36 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YveC8laqCs
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:37 (two years ago) link
― jmm, Tuesday, March 1, 2022 1:35 PM (two minutes ago)
would a bad cover of a good song w/lyrics count?
― rob, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:37 (two years ago) link
Pre-electric Dylan actually is my go-to example of good lyrics with music I have trouble enjoying. I usually prefer covers. Leonard Cohen can also be more palatable when covered for me.
― The sensual shock (Sund4r), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:40 (two years ago) link
@ ums I don't really think that's a dichotomy that makes any sense
Something that really stuck with me from school is that it's really hard, as a composer, to set "good poetry" to music. Text that succeeds on the page is harder to marry to music. My teacher advised us, when looking for text to set, to not approach our favourite poems, but to seek out ones that felt unfinished, like they "could use some help" or whatever. Teacher said "this is why people don't set Shakespeare sonnets to music" and "this is why songs with Auden as the text never really work so well"
Since then I've kinda thought that lyrics-to-music is relational. Cohen's music is at times pretty placeholder, if it were any more interesting or rich then it'd weaken the lyric. Destroyer and Silver Jews have the same vibe to me, the music has to be somewhat low-content so that the lyrics remain the focus. It's not "good lyrics, bad music", it's more of a relationship between music and lyrics, a balancing of content and a balancing of importance
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:40 (two years ago) link
Perfect example: Deftones. Their songs could be about literally anything; the way Chino meows them is all that matters.
Hell, sometimes (I'd bet more often than people realize) the non-singing bandmembers don't even care about the lyrics! When I interviewed Eugene Robinson of Oxbow for The Wire, he told me that their bass player not only doesn't care what the lyrics to Oxbow songs are about, he doesn't listen to lyrics at all. "When he listens to music for pleasure, the guy could be singing about eggs, the guy could be singing about shoes. Dan doesn't give a fuck. He's listening for feel or something else."
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:41 (two years ago) link
^ much better thought-out and articulated than what I was saying xp
― The sensual shock (Sund4r), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:41 (two years ago) link
Here's my controversial music opinion: People who dislike prime Stevie Wonder deserve harsh criticism.
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:43 (two years ago) link
Natural splits sunburn jets pride marks smart betsStrikers luck pitch backs heap tips pit slacksDressed pints demon shrinks bread drunk dead drinksStretch clubs models box draw skin black shocks
Money spines paper lung kidney bingos organ fun
Flag stunt rock stone dole axe crash diveBreath thrift take speed double take weekendsSkull row drugs hall colour bars sex callsSparkle finds rented rings pretty things clipped wings
Gold street spy fleet scandal food poor treatFire run club gun rule mob burn someBomb time pop crime stock frame steady climbFresh name donor game fair meat all the same
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:44 (two years ago) link
"This is why Elton John is often awkward" -- yet works much of the time.
I don't know, I listen to Leonard Cohen for the music and singing, the lyrics are there and they're good but if they weren't good it wouldn't make much difference to me.
― Meet the Irish Queer Archive Poet In Residence (Tom D.), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:45 (two years ago) link
Yeah this is pretty otm
I argue that lyrics always matter (because a lyric that doesn't work will ruin any song always), but that lyric-quality has its own metric that is unrelated to poetry or any other text. i.e. one of the best lyrics of all time is Devo's "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeah" in "Uncontrollable Urge"
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:47 (two years ago) link
I remember being excoriated once for saying I dared to dislike "Lovely Day" because of its interminable outro, despite being an enormous fan of Bill Withers, otherwise. You can harshly criticize me all you want. Stevie Wonder's music is still corny and unlistenable
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:49 (two years ago) link
fgti - good post, buy I would argue that I think the examples you cite are all good music! particularly because they allow the lyrics to breathethough as w those examples that takes a pretty high level above merely good lyrics to pull off
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:53 (two years ago) link
I suppose there's no way you can post without being an asshat.― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, March 1, 2022 8:52 AM
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, March 1, 2022 8:52 AM
???????
not sure if you're intentionally trying to provoke or what — i was chuckling at brad's near dismissal of the most prominent (very much problematic and imo indefensible) aspect of the band. if it works for brad, great! but as someone who can't stand jim morrison, i'm not allowed to find humor in that? literally nothing more to my comment.
The Doors are far more enjoyable to listen to than Pink Floyd― joygoat, Tuesday, March 1, 2022 9:51 AM
― joygoat, Tuesday, March 1, 2022 9:51 AM
doing the controp thread correctly right there.
finally: lyrics in pop/rock are stupid for the most part and i would do just fine without them or with wordless vocals in their place. that said, sometimes they're are good. not very often though.
― get shrunk by this funk. (Austin), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:54 (two years ago) link
they're are = they're very
― get shrunk by this funk. (Austin), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:55 (two years ago) link
lyric-quality has its own metric that is unrelated to poetry or any other text.
I remember Simon Frith's "Why Do Songs Have Words?" being p good. (And again, I'm usually a Fred guy all the way myself.)
― The sensual shock (Sund4r), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 18:56 (two years ago) link
I'm not mad at ya FGTI. Just bemused.
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:00 (two years ago) link
I agree with Brad re: The Doors, except that I still cannot find myself enjoying to listen to them, me
I always thought it really interesting/weird that Nico (Paffgen) adored Jim Morrison so much, like thought of him as the greatest of all time, like she could hear something about his lyrics that I can't/don't.
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:02 (two years ago) link
At least one guy who writes about Great American Songbook stuff and lyricists in particular, seems to often discuss the relationship of those lyrics to light verse as opposed to poetry proper. http://vintagebandstand.blogspot.com/2013/01/interview-with-philip-furia-author-of.html. Dylan at his best or most typical does a kind of Baudelaire meets Maverick Stanzas Mashup which works great for him when it works, for others not quite so much.
― Gary Gets His Tonsure Out (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:04 (two years ago) link
Maybe Rimbaud more that Baudelaire, but I, um, took some poetic license because I liked the way the latter scanned better.
― Gary Gets His Tonsure Out (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:05 (two years ago) link
lyrics in pop/rock are stupid for the most part and i would do just fine without them or with wordless vocals in their place. that said, sometimes they're are good. not very often though
Agree with this. Well, I don't know if they're stupid or not really, I rarely hear them.
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:09 (two years ago) link
See also: Do Words Belong in Music?
― Gary Gets His Tonsure Out (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:10 (two years ago) link
It's fine. I feel like "disliking Stevie Wonder's music" is so weird to people. I think it's so weird that people like him so much, if even at all. But I get the response and I'm not that surprised. I was dating somebody who told me in passing that they didn't like Prince, and I kinda blinked and realized that the relationship wasn't working
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:10 (two years ago) link
I was going to strongly rebut FGTI's comment about Shakespeare until I realized all the things I liked were really settings from plays rather than sonnets
― castanuts (DJP), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:17 (two years ago) link
its ok that people dont like prince it just means they arent cool, sexy or horny.
― kurt schwitterz, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:18 (two years ago) link
I gave up long ago the idea that my partner would (or should) generally like the same music/movies as I do. In fact, I'd rather keep my tastes to myself thanks.
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:20 (two years ago) link
idk if that's controversial, but def otm to me
it makes the moments where tastes converge more special
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:21 (two years ago) link
nah overlap is good
― imago, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:24 (two years ago) link
So long as my boyfriend has tastes
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:24 (two years ago) link
Where it becomes potentially controversial is where I say it's possible to get married to a guy that likes contemporary pop country.
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:24 (two years ago) link
I don't care if he dismisses Edith Wharton or Jazmine Sullivan, but I wouldn't date a guy who doesn't know them, nor would I bother with a guy whose curiosity is thimble-wide.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:25 (two years ago) link
idk what the perfect amount of overlap is but it is significantly higher than 0%
― imago, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:25 (two years ago) link
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Tuesday, March 1, 2022 2:24 PM (
I'd marry you even if you had no taste for Miranda Lambert.
The joy of sharing a life with someone where your common ground is yacht rock, Motown and pre-fusion jazz.
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:27 (two years ago) link
Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an Art Tatum.
i like being with someone who has a more normal/healthy relationship with music than i do, it encourages me to try different things, think about different things
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 19:31 (two years ago) link