Which writer/artist/philosopher etc. is responsible for the most crap music?

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Inspired by what Kerry said re Jung on the 'Eccentric Billionaires' ILE thread. Every cliched, overblown, pompous (and sometimes quasi-fascist) fingerpainter from Styx to Sting to (sorry) 'Star Wars' has (consciously or not) found validation in this comfortably mythic pablum. (As soon as somebody is detected showing signs of believing themselves to BE an 'archetype' they deserve shooting in the name of our precious children's minds.)(Not that I dislike Styx, but, "To the Lords of the Ring/The magic and mystery they bring", you know.) So who else's existence has been wheeled out as an excuse for mediocrity? Warhol? Burroughs?

― dave q, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like jung but the worst music has come from misunderstandings of neitche (sp).
The VU and its spin offs all got great shit from andy. Andy can do no wrong.

And who did Burroughs inspire

― anthony, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ayn Rand. Because she inspired Rush.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Anthony: Burroughs was supposedly a major inspiration for Patti Smith's "Horses". Also David Bowie's experiments with cut-ups. And probably numerous other NY art-punks.

― scott, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Of course. Tonight must be my night for stupidity.

― anthony, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pythagoras.

― Josh, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey, piano tuners need to make a living too.

― dave q, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Definitive toe-curlingly embarrassing eighties moment: Laurie Anderson in full-on "JJ from Doonesbury" performance artist mode singing "language is a virus from outer space" as if it was a profound truth rather than one of the sillier things Bill Burroughs ever wrote (and let's face it, he was a sucker for stupid pseudo- science of any sort so he wrote an awful lot of silly things).

― Andrew Norman, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

there's also the claim that burroughs/gynsin through their cut-ups were forefathers of sampling and loops... i still think the bible and jesus have been responsible for the worst shit though.

― Geoff, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tolkien has already been referenced...but let's mention him again! Poor guy. And with the movies now it's going to get even worse. I did always like how Marillion had to change their name from Silmarillion.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Hobbit Motherfuckers" is a lot better than anything William Burroughs inspired.

― Kris, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, now this is true.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Surprisingly, it's NOT John Betjeman (cos of 'Everyday [sic] Is Like Sunday', 'Joseph Cornell').

― the pinefox, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dr. Spock.

― Kerry, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If q was 'responsible for worst rock criticism' I would say beats and single out Burroughs, no q. What is biggest current excuse? Irony. And who is philosophical king of irony, postmodernism etc? You could blame Derrida, McLuhan, any of those guys ...

― maryann, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

freakin jim morrison. music is decent but he had to ruin it with his crap lyrics

― brock k, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Billy Burroughs created the most barren and lonley westrens ever. Carson Mcullers is vommitting with jelosly.

― anthony, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Maryann - what about Hunter S. Thompson?

― dave q, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

junger,rimbaud,

― francesco, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

fk you dave q i was going to write that but couldn t be bothered to mention his name but i'm a little under the weather so garbvle etc

― maryann, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sorry for the unnecessary 'fk'! I'm even almost pretending to myself to be more 'x' than I am. Jeepers, wouldn't you like to be my pal. Fking John Cage. My enemy, though I don't want to give him the credit ... Bruce Russell of the 'Dead C' credits Wittgenstein of the renounced Tractatus!!!! Without irony! Am I being obtuse? Then lets go to Denmark - at the school of business there we can get credits for papers in grunting performance art at the pub

― maryann, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But I don't understand how irony [or come to that "postmodernism" which btw doesn't exist don't ask or you shal HEAR grrr] is same as YOU THE AUDIENCE ARE KING& QUEEN of yr own EARS. Which = Cage's line.

Tractatus = rubbish. Phil.Inv = much better. Look and listen for yrself. If this is PoMo, then PoMo = hurrah (but PoMo = non- existent, so as ye were...): don't follow leaders fk the parking meeders, more PomO ono

― mark s, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I do want to say re John Cage - all I don't like about 'him' is that he is the representative of purified experimentalism, which to me is anti-communicative ... that's as advanced as MY ideas are right now. I don't have a problem with his conceptualism, conceptual art might be a good thing, I don't know - it's just the modernist elitism (although I don't know how highly regarded he is canonically anyway). It's a new thought for me that purity is disgusting - that purifying and distilling the experimental/original element of music is profoundly anti-social.

― maryann, Saturday, 25 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

then again, some of the experimental things he did sound pretty funny. (I've only heard the earlier stuff - obviously you really need to see certain things performed, so I only know about the idea of the 'mid period' experiments.) Sorry that I don't know anything.

― maryann, Saturday, 25 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(For some reason maryanne I have a freaky hair-trigger abt J.Cage)

― mark s, Saturday, 25 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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