100 most intense records ever made

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I meant to ask this question six months ago. It's funny - I saw the link to this and thought "Betty Lavette's 'Let Me Down Easy'" should be on here and then it was! Looking at it make me realise that I love intensity when it comes to soul and hip hop but tend to laugh at it when it's rock (At The Drive In, The Doors). Perhaps this is a kind or racism (Black people are allowed to feel pain, white people should shut up and stop moaning)

Anyway, what do you think of the list? And what's missing?

http://www.rocksb ackpages.com/features/intense

― Nick, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i think the list is a load of shit. most of the songs on this list are tedious old rubbish, and the ones that aren't (Stereolab) don't belong here either. maybe the Joy Division/Suicide ones. i suppose it depends on your reading of the word 'intense', i took it to mean 'visceral' (even if in a slightly camp or cartoonish way). in which case, where are Skinny Puppy?

― gareth, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Keiji Haino's Watashi Dake? = most intense album I have ever hizzeard.

― Kodanshi, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Was that list put together by Dave Marsh?

― dleone, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This is nuts:
‘Sidewalk’ - Built to Spill
And I mostly like BTS!

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Do you think these are the ONLY 100 records these ppl have ever heard? (plus points for Lorraine Ellison, tho...)

― Andrew L, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bit of a cliche, but i was having a relaxing after work drink in a particulary sober London City Pub full of Suits, and The Velvet Underground's Heroin came on the Jukebox, it felt extremely intense /very discomforting.....

― jk, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was in a restaurant in Granada, Spain and heard "Sunday Morning" on the piped-in music. Not nearly as disconcerting as "Heroin," but a surprise nonetheless.

― nickn, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what a dumb theme for a list

― g, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think ANYTHING on that list is intense, and god help anyone who actually THINKS Nirvana or the Prodigy are intense. The Private Psychedelic Reel? Puh-lease. Great song, yes, but not intense. At The Drive In? No wonder you laugh at rockist pain, Nick, if it all sounds like the work of irritatingly whiny cunts like that... far too many omissions to even bother, far too many pointless inclusions too.

― EdwardO, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'll agree with "Sidewalk" being a bit off. Probably a bit of tokenism there -- which is to say, it's relatively intense for a bouncy indierock track, but bouncy indierock tracks aren't exactly the place to start looking for intensity.

Most surprising facet = no metal. If John Darnielle saw this, he would most certainly piss himself and then update Last Plane to Jakarta with a revised list of 300 Scandinavian grindcore tracks.

Most pleasant surprise, which I probably wouldn't have remembered if I were trying to assemble such a list: "Crest." "Crest" is definitive proof of the principle that if a band repeats the same phrase over and over for five minutes, it is going to seem absolutely raging by the end, even if they're not playing it that much more forcefully. It's also the perfect example of Sadier as sloganeer -- the lyric ("If there's been a way to build it, there'll be a way to destroy it; things are not all that out of control") is the sort of thing that bears five minutes of repeating, mainly because you can mentally direct it anything at all you happen not to like and turn it into a pretty reassuring anthem.

― Nitsuh, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"tonal harmony" by to live & shave in LA; "ride a dove" by harry pussy; "four fingers...." by the stretchheads;"thunder perfect mind" by nurse with wound;"zakio" by panasonic; the autechre remix of whatever it is off "dots & loops" by stereolab; "experiment 7.3" by monostadt 3; "earth2" by earth; "bank notes & signatures" by caroliner; "war of the worlds" by jeff wayne; "this last spring" loren m.connors & darin gray; "joya" by will oldham; "chaosphere" by meshuggah; "dark magus" by miles davis; "who's crazy" by ornette coleman; "monoceros" by evan parker; something or the other by fushitsusha and maybe something by the red house painters. hell, i'm just "throwing ideas around"

― bob snoom, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

bleedin 'ell it's "vakio" by panasonic must be be the booze

― bob snoom, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Referring to Richey Manic as "Richie" = dud. And Motorcycle Emptiness is hardly that intense. Faster or even Kevin Carter would be more fitting.

The writer also refers to With A Little Help From My Friends as "one of those nasty little Paul McCartney novelty tunes" - as I recall, this was actually a rare Lennon/McCartney collaboration. And while the Beatles version is light and charming, the Joe Cocker cover is overblown, embarrassingly overfrenetic and godawful. That's just my opinion.

― Justyn Dillingham, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I just don't really understand it. So many of these are just not intense in the least that by the time you make it halfway through you can cut out about thirty of the songs. and why isn't it just called "the 100 most intense songs list" since it isn't really a list of records. and how the fuck is a forgettable song off "melon collie" the most intense smashing pumpkins "record" the compilers could come up with?

― Ian M, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

well, I agree on "Junkyard" at least. it's evil & it makes me laugh. I vote for all the Amphetamine Reptile stuff I used to find around the college radio station: Cows, Hammerhead, Unsane.
I find "Rise Above" funny, and then it occurs to me that I know people who are described as intense, and they're funny too.

― daria gray, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You know, I always thought that "The Sky Lit Up" was one of the lesser tracks on PJH's "Is This Desire?". I think "Civil War Correspondent" would make a better stand in, or better yet "Rub 'til it Bleeds". Nice to see "Only Shallow" get a nod, though.

― Brenya, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Nice to see "Only Shallow" get a nod, though."

If by intense you mean crafted in a studio over two years...

― todd burns, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the MOST INTENSE RECORD EVER in terms of overrated mantovaniesque is fennesz' "endless summer". endless sack of shit more like. truly unbearable record.

― bob snoom, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Very mellow, the stuff I recognise from said list -- is it a joke ?

Intense: I always say Communications #11 by the Jazz Composers Orchestra -- composer Michael Mantler -- soloist Cecil Taylor.

This is intense but also repeatedly rewarding. I've heard lot's of similar stuff, but this is so well organised and exhilerating and after so many years every note remains very important. Buy it.

― George Gosset, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(Where are)

John Coltrane? Ornette Coleman? Black Sabbath? Syd Barrett?

― Phil, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

gabby pahinui?

― bob snoom, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Djivan Gasparyan?

― dave q, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oum Kalthoum?

― DeRayMi, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"If by intense you mean crafted in a studio over two years..."

I guess that's a disagreement...or something.

― Brenya, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

John Cale's "Fear". "Leaving it up to you". "Guts". Somehow, the terrorist Welsh moth's missing. Ike + Tina is classic thunderstorm, but the number 1 spot is obviously arguable. Spector-wise, the Ronettes are cruelly absent. "Born to Run" could have easily been swapped with "Thunder Road". Jeff Buckley I don't like, but understand he can pass as intense... A good piece of "Mark David Chapman" by AYWKUBTTOD would have fitted spot on. As always, you can make a thousand lists like this one.

― Simon, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

How about Jandek's 'Telegraph Melts'? That's ridiculously intense....

― Jamie Morrison, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Company Flow's "Patriotism" (they don't get much more vicious than that).

The Associates' "Nude Spoons".

DMX's "What's My Name".

"Faster" the most intense and best MSP track for sure.

Quiet intensity: Radiohead's "Pyramid Song".

― Robin Carmody, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Where's Slayer's "Angel of Death"? Motorhead? Maiden? Cannibal Corpse? Any of a half-zillion death/black metal groups?

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Saturday, 10 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

jeeezus - i just got round to reading the original article. what the fuck are these guys thinking? ok - granted - you can have intensely sad soppy emotional barbershop quartet c&w tunes from the stage - but who wrote that shit? and why?

― bob snoom, Sunday, 11 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Where is anything from Slayer's reign in Blood? Where is Merzbow? Where are the Frogs? Okay maybe they should be left out Kate Bush ... intense ... me arse! Where are Godflesh? Streetcleaner... now that's intense

― Sonicred, Sunday, 11 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I find felix culpa by poem rocket quite intense, it makes me feel sea sick.

― james, Sunday, 11 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

Ludicrous article... Truly inane.

― Laura N., Monday, 24 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Fishwives" by The Band of Holy Joy, off More Tales from the City, 1987. How could everyone have missed that? :-)

― OleM, Tuesday, 25 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

no country.
loretta lynn - you aint woman enough to tlk my man
The Louvin Brothers
Tammy Wynette - My discarded dreams
i thimk intense does not have to be loud , to be raw and heart sick is more then enough , fuck even me and a gun by amos qualifes

― anthony, Tuesday, 25 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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