Love the music / Loathe the image

REM look like a mixture of complete idiots and boring bastards.

Almost, but not quite, a tautology, ergo brilliantly phrased. Nick ist God.

I hate the music, but I have often wondered how phish get by. They look like bloody biffheads. I would expect to find them working at a Star Wars fan website or somthing. Yet thousand s of cool sexy teens love them. What?

tau·tol·o·gy (tô-tl-j) n. pl. tau·tol·o·gies 1. a. Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy. b. An instance of such repetition.

2. Logic. An empty or vacuous statement composed of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it logically true whether the simpler statements are factually true or false; for example, the statement Either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow.

Just in case anyone ELSE was wondering...

fucking dan the goddamned automator.

To differentiate it from the type of argumentative tautology given in the second definition above, you might also like to consider the term 'pleonasm' when easily removed, redundant words are at issue:

pleonasm (pl-nzm) n. 1. a. The use of more words than are required to express an idea; redundancy. b. An instance of pleonasm.

2. A superfluous word or phrase.

Oooo... fun.

glabrous Function: adjective Etymology: Latin glabr-, glaber smooth, bald -- more at GLAD Date: 1640 : SMOOTH; especially : having a surface without hairs or projections

Mike Mills is rather glabrous in the face, while Stipe is up top.

― Mike Hanley, Tuesday, 29 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dear god, I use one word...

I wanted to make a "What's your favourite 25-Cent word?" question, but decided that it had nothing to do with music or pop.

Ah hell, since this thread is gone anyway, "melifluous" and "prelapsarian".

marylin manson

Antidisestablishmentarianism. Viva.

antiruralprogressivism.

Radiohead? Oh hold on, that's answering the question.

Though "love" is way too strong a word there. Belle And Sebastian?

> "What's your favourite 25-Cent word?"

Nugatory. Demonstrative. Joint and several. Foregoing. Pretermitted. Demurrer. Hereinafter. Heretofore. Tortious interference. Expectancy. Probative. Preemption. Injunctive relief.

I knew that a legal education would be worthwhile someday!

Oh yeah -- love Radiohead and Belle and Sebastian, don't love their run-of-the-mill fans.

> Though "love" is way too strong a word there. Belle And Sebastian?

Are you talking about their clothes and hair, or their image more generally? What is it you dislike?

The record sleeves. No idea what they look like. Also with a night's sleep behind me I'm aware that I like a lot of the "image" (= complex of public non-musical associations) too.

Has anyone else noticed that the majority of the bands being dissed here are really *anti-image* bands? I mean, REM, Radiohead, B&S... all three of whom have this "policy" of avoiding the standard rock pose image-mongering - which most people seem to find more annoying than the rock pose image itself.

isn't anti-image an image?

Precisely.

You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. There's nothing I hate more than the image minus talent of bands like The Strokes (oh god, sorry...) but at the same time, any band who deliberately shuns an image gets pissed on from a great height.

I don't actually think B&S are a very good example of an anti-image band. Belle & Sebastian are anti-music press exposure (or, more specifically, Stuart Murdoch is) , which is a bit different to being anti-image. Love it or loathe it, I actually think they have one of the most distinctive images around. "Oh, that's so Belle & Sebastian" people say of the band's latest exploits and everyone knows what they're getting at.

A good example of an anti-image band is Embrace. I saw the lead singer on TV and he was going on about how they really don't care about what clothes they were cause it's all about the music, man.

But Kate, the Lollies have an image. I've never heard a note of the Lollies' music and I have an idea as to what they might sound like from the name/band photos/song titles - all that stuff is image in the sense of "image" meaning everything extra-musical. Also this idea is pretty much unchanged from the first time I heard about them despite my extra awareness of Kate-the-person.

Eeek! Ignore above posting, Kate! I misread your "any band who shuns an image" as "*my* band who shuns an image"

D'oh! And I was all happy, cause it was the first time someone raised an actually interesting criticism about The Lollies which I could counter with intelligent debate, rather than insults!

Clearly, I think image *is* very important. It should never *replace* content, or talent, or that nature of substance. However, the reaction of people to an "anti-image" stance clearly shows how important it is in the whole "package" of a band, music, fandom, culture, etc.

The two problems people seem to have with image are:

1) as stated before, if the image is used as a *replacement* for content, rather than as a *compliment* to that content.

or

2) if that image is seen as "false". REM, RH, etc. (I believe) are seen as false images, because the perception is that the bands are pretentious. People object to manufactured images, whether that be Milli Vanilli or The Strokes, because it seems un-natural, an act.

(Never mind that the whole idea of being onstage is an act, it is entertainment.)

Sorry, it's sunny and I've lost my train of thought. I like Image, and I'm not ashamed. Clearly, the Lollies have a very specific image, but really - it's an exaggerated, stage-personna version of something already inside us. To me, good image is much like that "other world" quality that we were discussing on another thread. Something that creates a whole gestalt of a band. Oh, there's a £1,000,000 word. Heh.

Hey, I've got one... the House of Love!

I always thought Guy Chadwick looked quite cool. What was it you didn't like about him?

Image is good. Sometimes, though, as in the case of the strokes, ping pong bitches, daft punk, the image is brilliant and people get image and content mixed up. Everyone just wishes they could look so cool!

I thought Guy Chadwick is cool in a creepy way.

embrace: definitely the anti-image band. rather like them as well.

beta band: definitely the anti-image band. hard core? psychedelics? boiler suits? huh? king biscuit?

belle and sebastian: definitely the anti-image band. came out of nowhere with there felt soul band sound.

the tyde: definitely the anti-image band.

Isn't Rico Suave some what of a scaramouch?

scaramouch Variant(s): or scar·a·mouche /'skar-&-"müsh, -"müch, -"mauch/ Function: noun Etymology: French Scaramouche, from Italian Scaramuccia, from scaramuccia skirmish Date: 1662 1 capitalized : a stock character in the Italian commedia dell'arte that burlesques the Spanish don and is characterized by boastfulness and cowardliness 2 a : a cowardly buffoon b : RASCAL, SCAMP

or you could go by my fake internet name, paul.

god, get over it! *massive eyeroll* it's only the internet...not some cia thing!

I don't have a big problem with how Chadwick looks - I just don't think it exactly measures up to the music.

Hmmm... I've never been able to work out if the House of Love looked more awful than they sounded. Guy Chadwick is definitely creepy anyway.

after hearing "hash pipe" and "buddy holly" on the radio today, i might be ready to concede that weezer might be a great band. in which case they'd qualify here.