Do we live in a Golden Age of Rock?

well it figures that SOMEONE likes that shit...'cause i never met anyone that did. i dunno, i think the 'rock" stuff that's around now is about the worst music ever. i like listening to pop radio but all the gtr-bass-drums-band music on there is rank.

i sent away for doo rag's 'chunked and muddled' when i was 18. now look at me! (what topic?)

i think 'rank' is going too far. i mean white stripes/strokes/hives/andrew wk are all making perfectly competent music of a type that isn't exactly offensive (as opposed to the offensiveness of say, System of a Down). that's the problem though - it's so competent, so right, so knowing. since when - i mean - what's that to do with rock?

though i think andrew wk is better. he makes spelling mistakes, and is overconstructed. he's not perfect. his music is too high pitched. i kind of hate him, everybody probably does, but it's great that he arouses that kind of emotion. unless there's good reason to hate him, i suppose.

"he makes spelling mistakes" = he is SLADE!

maryann i wasn't talking about the white stripes or the strokes, i never heard those groups on ZM or The Edge...you know?

yeah but i DID see those bands on the chart shows on tv.

oh, i didn't notice that Sundar said he like nu-metal. I would like to know whether he means System of a Down. I keep having this anticipatory feeling that if I made up a song, it would sound like System of a Down.

do it! 'cause you know "if you want to defeat yr enemy sing his song" & shit

Sundar: what do you like about these songs?

Well, we all knew that somebody had to be buying all these nu-metal records.

And yep, it's all pretty stinko.

Duane's first post is OTM. It's like Green Day/Rage Against The Machine/Red Hot Chilli Peppers have suddenly become the most 'important' (erm...'influential') groups of all time ever. Which I guess makes a change from the usual VU/Stooges/Sabbath rock pantheon...but it doesn't make for good listenin'.

The Strokes are good pop tho' - like Blondie. And the Detroit Cobras have the best female rock singer since Joan Jett or Suzi Q!

2002 = golden age of rock cuz 14 yrs ago was 1988

oh go back to yr stupid furry planet

Do we NEED a Golden Age of Rock?

Well, since Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88" was released fifty-one years ago, I would say that Rock had it's golden age last year.

I certainly won't be giving my parents nu-metal on their anniversary, though.

note to self: do not read ilm any more when suffering from hangover.

"In Too Deep", "In the Middle", "In the End"

"In One Ear and Out the Other"...

I've finally alienated everyone. Wicked.

OK, the thread subject was facetious. You know, FT, Golden Age of Pop, cheesy rock cliches, all that. I don't really think we need a Golden Age of Rock and if we did, this still might not be it.

I haven't got to the point of buying CDs or anything yet (unless Lateralus counts). (I rarely pay new-CD prices for pop music anyway, which is a major reason why I have so many rock records from the 70s and 80s.) But I've actually been having fun most of the time when I listen to rock radio, which hasn't really happened in a while. I've actually been putting on new rock radio sometimes.

It's like Green Day/Rage Against The Machine/Red Hot Chilli Peppers have suddenly become the most 'important' (erm...'influential') groups of all time ever. Which I guess makes a change from the usual VU/Stooges/Sabbath rock pantheon...but it doesn't make for good listenin'.

I'm pretty sure that VU/Stooges/Sabbath was never the primary influence base for the mainstream of rock radio that I've been exposed to. All the same I do find it somewhat refreshing that a lot of the new rock isn't so indebted to classic rock or classic alt/postpunk icons (of whose work I already own plenty), that they're happy to make energetic, catchy, childish pop music influenced by the trash of the immediate past (rather than the trash of twenty or thirty years ago), and bringing in elements of rap and electronic music, always debased and compromised enough to fit the needs of commercial adolescent adrenaline music. P. O. D.'s "Youth Of the Nation" sounds like an appropriate rallying cry for contemporary American teenagers because it sounds so young and contemporary. It fulfils the same crass needs as rock rallying cries of the past, appealing to the same beautiful delusions, but it's the only one that feels relevant at the moment. It's drawn from the sounds that surrounded its audience when it grew up. And it puts them to the service of an anthem: Can he rap? Hell no, but he can declaim. While you wait for the chorus. Similarly, Linkin Park's "In the End" is an appropriately youthful-sounding petulant pout.

As for the rest, Sum 41's "In Too Deep" and Jimmy Eat World's "In the Middle" reminded me of what pop-punk can actually be good for. The Sum 41 chorus is obscenely catchy, the whole thing spits with bratty ennui and joy at the same time. The Strokes' "Last Nite" (which made Top 10 on Ottawa rock radio) is a totally fresh-sounding jauntiness. There's a lot of good stuff on French radio too. I heard a French nu- metal song on the radio some time ago that incorporated post-hc/old- emo-style pungent dissonance into a radio metal tune.

I don't know System Of a Down very well. My friend played me a bit once. It sounded good.

a totally fresh-sounding jauntiness

It is? I mean, that's the only song of theirs that I think rises above mediocre dullness, and even then it just sounds like revamped Motown/ Smiths shuffles.

Well, sounding like Motown and the Smiths at the same time would have to be somewhat fresh, wouldn't it?

Go Sundar!

Tonight, I learned that the world doesn't need a new _Nevermind_. The world needs a new _Pyromania_! Thanks, VH1!

Well, sounding like Motown and the Smiths at the same time would have to be somewhat fresh, wouldn't it?

Not really, no.

There seems to be a lot of rock around which is lame and useless and some which is neither, or is at least lame and useful to its audience in the teen-rebel-yell thing Sundar's talking about (I wouldn't know since I wasted my teenage years). I don't currently trust most critics to sort the good stuff from the bad stuff because they like rock, the idea of rock, too much to have a committment to it as a novelty-driven pop medium. I don't trust the consumers to sort it out either but at least they'll buy both and give me a chance to hear it. (My opinion is completely irrelevant though since I'm not buying it and I've almost no interest in the cultures that produce and consume it.)

dave, you say that as if it was WRONG.

All the songs I know that Sundar lists are fantastic pop tunes performed horribly.

(This knowledge derived from hearing my cockney thug housemate whistling more than one of them in the shower)

graham - yeah . lots of those fucking things stick in my head. but i hate em 'cause they're pop tunes dressed up ugly & "tuff" for teenage boys who are too "tuff" to like pop tunes.