stuff that's utterly irrelevant now, but was critically lauded 10 years ago

Oy, I'm a moron.

Of course the whole: Spin voted Bandwagonesque album of the year the year Nevermind came out. The horror!
But I actually would keep that Teenage Fanclub album over Nevermind anyday.

Walt Mink
Helmet
Basehead
Buffalo Tom
L7
Arrested Development
Neneh Cherry

How about Urban Dance Squad? Were they critically lauded?

I still listen to Bandwagonesque, and I never much got into Nevermind.

I never understood the buzz over Teenage Fanclub.

The answer is Pearl Jam. Hands down.

S*M*A*S*H* owns this thread.

Are you seriously suggesting, Maria, that Urban Dance Squad are relevant today?

to add to the list:
Bjork

Well, maybe its relevant to you, but I sure don't hear any of today's practitioners of the very sound UDS helped define giving them even the slightest semblance of credit for it.

And don't misinterpret me, goddammit. Never once did I say "UDS SUCKS!" I saw them about five times around the release of Mental Floss... and even own their second album (though I couldn't tell you when the last time I played it was). The question is whether they remain "relevant," and the answer is sadly a resounding "no."

Pearl Jam and Arrested Development = two of the most relevant bands to the music scene today!

Pearl Jam = main inspiration for Creed, The Calling, Nickelback, etc.

Arrested Development = largely responsible for "concious" Hip-Hop falling out of favour with both the Gangsta/Playa Rap mainstream (what with Arrested Development now being a punch-line on the same level as Gospel-Rap as far as mainstream Rap fans are concerned) and critics (exagerated adulation for the Arrested Development album -> fear of praising anything else remotley resembling it)

Remember, kids- relevance != good

And Tom Morello playing Poison covers is where it needs to be at.

Well duh. The BACKLASH against it, however, does not.

Idiots are not made, they're born.

Depends on what you mean by bunch. I think we can agree that it takes more than one person.

You don't see UDS albums being re-mastered and re-appraised, though, do you? You don't see their name cropping up on "Secret Histories of Influential Rock" tomes do you? I'm not saying they don't deserve to, but it seems they've been seemingly forgotten. Maybe it's because they're Dutch.

Gotta go with the De La. 3 Feet High and Falling...

M4N: I still feel a stir from that opening build from Sting's voice to the guitar riff

Dire Straits has so many terrific jams, I love 'em. Even "Money For Nothing," I've never gotten tired of it although I totally get why it's not an acceptable song anymore. But cranking the shit out of the stereo when that huge guitar sound comes in? Mmmmmmmmm, that's good.

The stuff I really like is Sultans of Swing, Romeo & Juliet, the moodier stuff. They don't have an album that's great all the way through, but there are enough deep cuts that a greatest hits set isn't quite enough.

Their pre-BiA live album is a pretty good way to hear them. Not on Spotify for some reason.

Tunnel of Love remains an epic jam

watched the Miami Vice episode with "Brothers in Arms" at the end, what a great song, great scene

I still love "Skateaway."

Down to the Waterline is Sultans of Swing, but without the homophobia or, frankly, the dramatic punch of the arrangement

I think I'm missing the homophobia in Sultans of Swing?

yeah me too

"Money for Nothing" was the homophobic song.

I think it's because these characters are supposed to be gay:

Then a crowd a young boys they're a foolin' around in the corner
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don't give a damn about any trumpet playin' band
It ain't what they call Rock and Roll

There are other homophobic Dire Straits songs: "Les Boys", anyone?

Genius Annotation
2 contributors
This is a rock song about non-rock/pre-rock music. The “young boys”, dressed in the style of the 70s, aren’t paying any attention to the band because it’s not playing rock music.

This is the only place I get my information about the meaning of lyrics from

huh i guess i thought they were supposed to be like tough type kids or something? cuz they don't like "trumpet" playing jazzy shit just real rock n' roll? or just like glam rock fans (platform shoes) who like slade and mott the hoople and shit like that not the sultans more subtle rock n' roll/r&b/creole stuff?

just figuring dire straits would have been playing bars during the glam rock/pre-punk era

I always took it to be Disco fans in platforms, but Glam would make more sense.

I've also heard that the "Sultans" are supposed to be a Pub Rock/Blue-Eyed Soul/Blue Beat combo with a horn section, but that genius annotation doesn't agree.

The lyrics were inspired by a performance of a Dixieland jazz band playing in the corner of an almost empty pub in Deptford, South London. At the end of their performance, the lead singer announced their name, the Sultans of Swing; Knopfler found the contrast between the group's dowdy appearance and surroundings and their grandiose name amusing.[8]

So that's settled.

Now what is the deal with those platform shoe guys?

...and why are they wearing brown baggies? Did they bring their lunches to the pub?

At the end of their performance, the lead singer announced their name, the Sultans of Swing; Knopfler found the contrast between the group's dowdy appearance and surroundings and their grandiose name amusing.

imagining what peak-era Fagen and Becker would have done after witnessing that moment

Cocaine, probably.

lol

name inspired by the '70s lounge band that exclusively played cop-show funk called the Sultans of S.W.A.T.

So that's settled.

Now what is the deal with those platform shoe guys?

sorry to return to the original thread topic, there was a strain of hipster white boy r&b that has disappeared. autre ne veut, how to dress well, rhye, etc. majical cloudz probably fits in the trend too, tho i think they made the best music of the bunch.

Yeah, President Keyes mentioned Rhye not too long ago, but that's a good call.

i think rhye guy turned out to be a sex pest, so that might explain less attention.... majical cloudz split about a decade ago now, but i don't really feel they were of a similar vibe to the others you listed... their last lp Are You Alone? was beautiful though.

sex pest probably too kind of a description

Sorry gang I think that post just came out garbled. I forget what I was thinking. Yes ordinarily I know the difference between Sultans and Money; my head was just not quite on straight.

Nevertheless Down to the Waterline still reads as a rough draft of Sultans.

ZZ Top’s Eliminator “pre-producer” Linden Hudson was recently interviewed on a podcast and revealed that Knopfler called him a couple times in an attempt to divulge Eliminator’s guitar secrets. Hudson never replied but believes that “Money For Nothing” was Knopfler’s attempt to replicate the sound.

The desert blues guitar folks love Knopfler’s movie soundtracks, especially the ones for Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero and Comfort & Joy

Knopler used to play some of his soundtrack music at Dire Straits shows. It’s kind of amusing imaging drunk rock fans sitting through that.

Rock audiophile guys with tons of money buy $50,000 turntables and play Dire Straits on them. And Supertramp. And Alan Parsons Project. And on Sundays play only Steely Dan and Pink Floyd.

Knopler used to play some of his soundtrack music at Dire Straits shows. It’s kind of amusing imaging drunk rock fans sitting through that.

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes)

well at least he didn't start telling a story about a duck that came to live in the family home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Ho8Bdkbu4

well at least he didn't start telling a story about a duck that came to live in the family home

― Kate (rushomancy),

what I would love this

Strangest rock audiophile guy I ever met loved loved loved David Byrne solo albums and used them to show off his Installation, but "fucking hates Talking Heads" and thought that My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts was "lazy and weird"

Lol I remember reading an interview with (I think) Bombino and the dude asks him about influences and he says Eric Clapton which I'm sure wasn't what the interviewer was hoping for

xp Must've been this guy.

lol!

Boy, I was an irascible jackass in 2003, wasn't I. Apologies, all.

you really saw Urban Dance Squad FIVE times???? were you living in a squat in Rotterdam?

That audiophile youtube sounds great through my shitty laptop speakers

Let's see... I saw UDS play an acoustic gig during the New Music Seminar in Times Square circa 1990?, then again at the old Loeb Student Center (since razed) just of Washington Square Park and then a third time at the old Marquee club on West 21st Street (also since razed). That's three, but I feel like I saw them more than that.

Goat and Melt Yourself Down. Good bands both but appetites for Euro-Afro-rock have dwindled (or moved on from them at any rate).

Goat was still on several EOY lists I saw for ‘23.

Oh fair. Must have missed that as I haven't seen them mentioned in years.

Benji

how about, to varying degrees: Ice Choir, Cooly G, Sleep Over, Classixx, SBTRKT, Purity Ring? Some of these went quiet I guess.

That whole scene centred round Seb Rochford seems a long way away these days.

Sleep Over still very relevant to me! Also that smudgy dreampop sound seems very much in vogue at the moment