TS: Elliott Smith as martyr v. Jeff Buckley as martyr, which is more annoying?

Jeff Buckley, because I don't hang out with anyone who's ever listened to Elliot Smith and admitted it.

who holds these people as martyrs?

up as

I never understood the whole rock n' roll martyrdom thing. It's not as if these guys were CUT DOWN on the BATTLEFIELD OF ROCK while DEFENDING THEIR HONOR or something.

who holds these people as martyrs?

no-one, there's a certain mindset that has the urge to do so however and lacking the drive to go through with it attributes said martyr-belief to straw men

also, some people have a hard time telling the difference between the following expressions:

1) "the death of this person was senseless and tragic"
vs.
2) "this person is a martyr"

I hate them both. At least Jeff Buckley did have one great moment with, yes, Hallelujah. That's more than I can say for Elliot.

I think what he means is more like "post mortem cult following" than "martyrdom" though. See, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, etc. There were kids at my high school who weren't even old enough to remember Nirvana who treated Cobain with weirdly religious reverence. If the dude was still alive that sort of thing probably wouldn't be happening. I think a more constructive thread could be made asking, "why DOES this happen?" even though the answer seems sort of obvious.

elliott smith is at least listenable, which is more than i can say for one bloody second of jeff buckley

The answer being that people get off on mythologizing the dead, have been doing it for thousands of years, etc.

xpost

challops-o-rama

I like Jeff Buckley. not as much as I used to, but I'm glad that I went through a period where I did. and sad as it is to have to say this, I probably never would've bothered with him if not for the whole tragically-cut-down-in-his-prime-and-then-posthumously-mythologized-rock-star thing. there are times in your life where tragedy seems like the most compelling aspect of human existence; hopefully, you grow out of it with no lasting damage except the knowledge that you spent a couple years listening to music/reading books/watching movies that weren't as cool as the stuff you like now.

in other words: we were all 16 once, but some of us just happened to be 16 when the deluxe reissue of Grace came out.

T.S. Eliot

Who cares? Only 14 year-olds revere rock stars.

challops-o-rama

-- electricsound, Sunday, 11 May 2008 12:10 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Buckley was probably more fun to hang out with, but not much...

buckley at least evinced some semblance of a sense of humor. and unless i'm just not looking in the right places (but then, i wouldn't seek such a thing out), buckley doesn't seem to have spawned a crowd of insufferably shameless soundalikes like smith has.

oh yeah, and key distinction: buckley went out for a swim while singing a zeppelin song; smith deliberately plunged a knife into his own heart.

i can only think of one elliott smith soundalike.. the b-side of the second grammatics single (it's quite good too)

electricsound asks the crucial question on this thread: who holds these people up as martyrs? Holy hell I think that's going a bit far, don't you? They died, big deal. People die every day.

Buckley was accidental, yo. Gimme a break. I loved his music very, very much.

He didn't commit suicide. He never knew he was going to die.

Big difference.

TS Jeff Buckley vs. Nellie McKay. *flees*

-- Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, February 23, 2005 11:25 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

Martyrs, really?

Anyway, I will unashamedly confess to having gone through periods of being enamoured of both dudes as an appropriately dreamy teenage girl and I would say that revering Buckley is infinitely more annoying. Guy only made one patchy album and somehow he's a genius? Granted, Smith didn't do much better with a string of imperfect albums but I dunno, his "tormented soul" cult was already fully formed even before he died so it's kind of not surprising his suicide would get a similar reaction.

buckley doesn't seem to have spawned a crowd of insufferably shameless soundalikes like smith has.

guhhhh Muse, Coldplay, even Thom Yorke (I like Thom Yorke though). Who sounds like Elliott Smith? Boys with acoustic guitars singing about their paaaaaain have existed long before Smith and always will probably.

string of imperfect albums

s/t and either/or seem pretty close to perfect in terms of what they are and what they're trying to represent

agreed about not so many people sounding like elliott post-elliott though. i can hear more elliott in the likes of contemporaries like olivia tremor control and much older stuff like big star than i can in much music that i've heard recently.

Yeah I think either/or is his best, and the self-titled is the only one I haven't listened to. but all the rest have at least a couple of duds on them.

yep. duds are particularly apparent on the post-humous from a basement on the hill and to a lesser extent figure 8

buckley's death was a tragic accident, smith's was due to an idiotic stunt, making the latter more 'annoying as a martyr'. altho i prefer his music.

Nick Drake

Um, climbing in the Mississippi with your boots on while listening to Led Zep on a ghetto blaster in order to show-off in front of a studio-hand probably qualifies as an "idiotic stunt" too.

i didn't realise he had his boots on! that changes everything

http://images.art.com/images/products/large/10128000/10128581.jpg

Jeff Buckley struck me as a nice bloke.

Elliot Smith, dunno.

Trying hard to care, here. Not about them dying, but those that canonise dem.

I got one ES CD, played once, couldn't see it.

Got two JB ones, the Live at Sin'e I enjoyed. The Grace one, I could sort of see the fuss, but still it struck me as an 'introducing' style album, some covers, some origs, fine. Stupid decision leaving the best track off it.

Until someone offers tangible evidence of "martyrdom" here I'm going for the correct answer, which is Eva Cassidy.

Zavaroni surely

Tough crowd. The thread-starter's question is entirely sensible. There IS a perceptive phenomenon (that sells records) that certain rock stars died FOR rock and roll — that they leapt onto the soul-pyre or whatever the fuck. Hence "martyrdom." Obv. it is an "annoying" phenomenon.

Neither of these guys do it for me...but that Gary Lucas/Jeff Buckley record isn't bad.

There IS a perceptive phenomenon (that sells records) that certain rock stars died FOR rock and roll

do people really say this w/r/t jeff buckley and elliott smith though? just wondering

i tend to find elliott rather underappreciated on ilx

xpost I don't know if they actually "say" it but I think you can infer as much from the iconography...

Amended: notion that they died for rock and roll or BY rock and roll, FOR their listeners. Same perceived martyrdom.

Um, climbing in the Mississippi with your boots on while listening to Led Zep on a ghetto blaster in order to show-off in front of a studio-hand probably qualifies as an "idiotic stunt" too.

Whereas if it had been TLC on a Walkman it would have been fine.

well, if he'd been playing "don't go chasing waterfalls" it might have saved him!

Lennie Peters died so that David A Stewart might live.

Actual quote from 20-something dude, proudly spoken: "I'm gonna go home and listen to Elliott Smith!" WorstBest name-drop ever.

Has there ever been a rock martyr in true sense of the word, i.e. someone who has actually died for rock? Like electrocuted on stage, devoured by greedy fans, or something like that?

GG Allin?

How'd he die?

Richard "wanker" Ashcroft "died" onstage in the US in about 1993 or something, I believe. Too many drugs, too much heat, not enough water. His heart stopped. I think.

And of course Mark Sandman, frontman of Morphine, properly died onstage age 46 of a heart-attack.

Everyone stopped believing in him, and he died in an inverse Tinkerbell situation.

(xpost to Tuomas)

Yeah, but did they stop believing in him because he was rock, or for some other non-rock-related reason?

Has there ever been a rock martyr in true sense of the word, i.e. someone who has actually died for rock? Like electrocuted on stage, devoured by greedy fans, or something like that?

Dimebag Darrell? Shot and killed during a concert.

electrocuted on stage = Les Harvey (of Stone the Crows, brother of Alex)

I wonder why there's no Tupac vs Biggie lol martyr thread.

i wonder if you're really wondering

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i really don't like that buckley album at all and i dig some e. smith

is there actually a genuine LOL VOTE?

i heard from e.s.'s smack dealer he's gay

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