Article Response: Old Gold Dreams

I never saw the Adams/respect thing further than the 3 or 4 shite beggars banquet type rip offs on Gold. However I still liked reading that.

What I liked more, Tom, was the piece about Lambchop on NYLPM this week, I haven't seen their music described as well anywhere else. Particularly the part where you mentioned their alt country influence seeming to be a distant memory or however it went.

I think there's an extra difference that gets sort of mentioned then forgotten at the end. Yes both Steps and Ryan Adams are conservative acts looking to the past and slotting into long-established modes. I can live with this very easily when what we get is bouncy pop with no notion of persuading us of its artistic worth; when it's earnest stuff that wants to be considered as serious art, I avoid it. I also think Steps are trying to recycle old methods in a relatively modern way, rather than looking to the past of some golden age of serious worth. There's nothing I've liked less in recent years than these horribly old-fashioned rock acts who believe that their dated schtick is unquestionably morally and artistically superior to pop or anything using technology invented in the last 40 years.

Well I agree sort of but I didn't mention it because I wanted the piece to be more about Steps than about rock vs pop. What I've started to wonder though Martin is whether this appearance of reaching for artistic worth is a necessary part of the rock act, part of the package like dance routines might be for Steps - whether Ryan Adams without this earnestness just wouldn't feel right.

It used to really annoy me too but these days I think it's basically harmless and it can add a texture to the music that wouldn't otherwise be there. Playing right now is Simple Minds' New Gold Dream where Jim Kerr's hot air inflates the music like a balloon and - hey metaphor time - makes it float.

What I'm groping at, I realise as I press submit, is that the things that piss me and you off about rock are also the things that can turn it into fantastic, instant pop.

I do not have a preference for pop over rock. I love lots of serious music. But the deeply conservative idea that a couple of guitars and a drummer is intrinsically more serious than music made by one person operating machinery is inane. Then there is the attitude to lyrics. Many of Bob Dylan's serious and political songs are certainly among the best lyrics I've ever heard; but Mr Writer by the Stereophonics is among the worst. There is nothing more unpleasant than something failing its overt intentions so miserably, so weakly.

I don't think such self-conscious striving for earnest worthiness is necessary to rock. I'm pleased when someone has something interesting to say and says it in a strong and appealing way, as Dylan did; but I mostly look to literature for literary content. Rock needs energy and excitement, mostly. Few people can sing a political song in the Stereophonics manner without driving me away, but loads and loads of rock acts can make me feel like jumping about. The one area where pop is certainly superior to rock is that it is infinitely less prone to get up its own arse.

But given your positive words about Simple Minds, I have a feeling we're unlikely to completely agree here. This is less easy than finding fifty dog songs I like...

Still, though, I like Steps' Gold and - far as I know - I don't like Ryan's Gold.
You shouldn't have made that confession Tom. You are slagging off Ryan Adams and you don't even know him. Listen to the bonus disc of Gold which continues in the songwriter vein of the brilliant Heartbreaker. And even Gold is a very solid album. Not one bad song and it is more than 60 minutes long. The ingredients are not new but the cooking gives it a very fresh taste. As Ronan said before I appreciated your short piece on Lambchop much more. Sad thing is that I don't know the Steps and after what you have written I don't really want to know them (as you don't make the effort to dig deeper into Ryan Adams). I still prefer a Bruce Springsteen clone (which Ryan isn't anyway) to an Abba clone. It is as simple. We come from different planets I guess.

I don't want to sound pompous or anything but you don't seem to know anything about Ryan Adams. Sorry. Everyone is judging him on Gold. You're only as good as your last work etc. Ryan Adams' Gold vs Steps' Gold is a fair comparison within the thread you're pursuing but not Ryan Adams vs Steps. But, well, that's all I'll say just now.

"Sad thing is that I don't know the Steps and after what you have written I don't really want to know them (as you don't make the effort to dig deeper into Ryan Adams)."

Is Tom supposed to apologise and repent at this point?

Good article of course, but Tom where was URGENT and KEY discussion of the maintenance of Line-Dancing Tradition?

I hate the thought of me saying "oh don't judge him on Gold" all the time because it's exactly the kind of whining that would annoy me from fans of insert shit band name here. I'd say "well a good artist would never make an album that fucking chronic anyway".

I just think RA is not quite as traditionalist as the article makes out, but I'm not really as empassioned nor do I even disagree as much as Alex or Powertone.

The article's about Steps, not RA - I've hardly heard any RA because he works in a style I generally don't like much any more and I feel I own enough records in. The RA comparison is in there because thinking about my knee-jerk dislike of RA (and I admit it's knee-jerk) made me realise what's unsatisfying to me about Steps.

Martin: Solo Dylan = "One person operating machinery", no? Guthrie even sez of his guitar "this *MACHINE* kills fascists".

Easy to be snarky about the "borrowed" nature of Stepsmusic, but they were (are?) inspirational too. The secretary of the office I worked in before the one I work in now, 21, knowledgeable and opinionated about chart-pop but a bit of a slacker (could have got a much better job but was content to temp and then go down the pub every night) was Steps' #1 fan and started taking singing lessons as a direct result of that fandom. I hope she keeps it up and makes it big too.

Tom's new passion for footnotes reminds me - I trust Westlife will feature in DUEL 2002 at some point. All this rock/indie is getting very boring.

Pop and dance get covered in a separate cup, and the two merge at some point.