Most Preposterous Musical Claim ever

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I find it difficult to top Pete Waterman's assertion that he invented disco, but is it possible?

― Mr Swygart, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Paul Whiteman - King of Jazz.

― J Blount, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"The Only Band That Matters"

― Keiko, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

KRS One--is hip hop

― Mary, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Run DMC--King of Rock

― Mary, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"We Invented the Remix"

― Keiko, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

At the time Run DMC made that claim I'd say it was pretty valid - there's three of them just like the Beatles!

― J Blount, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

But they made that claim in conjunction with twat-features out of Third Eye Blind. I still remember that video - him fannying about with this cane thing, all the while one of the members of Run DMC trying really, really hard not to smash his face in... graaahrse.

Also - Asian Dub Foundation 'inventing bass', "You don't wanna mess with Limp Bizkit", PJ & Duncan "got so many rhymes (they were) afraid to use them", "Jan Wayne's Gonna Move Ya!"

― Mr Swygart, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Heres a few...

Elvis Presley - "King of Rock 'n' Roll" (not a claim made by Elvis, but one embraced by him)

Oasis - "The best band in the fucking world" (Liam Gallagher)

Boy George "Mr Showbusiness" (or somehting along those lines)

Elvis Presley - "The King" (Kingship of what not specified)

― Colin Cooper, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

B-but Elvis is the King!

― Mary, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Ooooh, pretty much everything Eminem's ever said ever.

― Dom Passantino, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and the Beasties' belief that MixMaster Mike will "send you off on a naked rampage" seems to be ill-founded, as well.

― Dom Passantino, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Little Richard: "I'm the real king of rock n' roll. Woooooooooooooooo". That delivery. Preposterous as in hell yes.

― The Actual Mr. Jones, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I gotta come back to Mos Def's "Rock & Roll" again, it's baiting me.

― Matt Riedl (veal), Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

How about Mingus in Beneath The Underdog saying he did it with 23 women in one nite!?!?

― brg30, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"reggae is just another genre of hip hop" - krs-one

― cybele, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

KRS-One owns this thread.

― J Blount, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"We are greater than the beatles or your Elvis; We are greater writers than your Bob Dylan." or word to that effect came out of the mouth of one of the guys in Milli Vanilli

― Lord Custos IV, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"We invented Disco because the dance steps of Funk and Soul are too sophisticated for White People to dance to." - Gloria Gaynor.

― Lord Custos IV, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Speaking of Milli Vanilli; Inside the CD they refer to themselves as the, "Brothers of Soul". Did I mention it was my friends' CD.

― rat, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Your friend's cooler than you are.

― J Blount, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

A.R. Kane started Trip-Hop, and Aerosmith is the best American Band.

― A Nairn, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

John Lennon - "bigger than Jesus"

― A Nairn, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"Bigger than John Lennon" - some irrelevant Christian Contemporary singer/songwriter who is obscure even in his own tiny little genre.

― Lord Custos III, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"The Hives are law, you are crime." (Goofy shit like this only makes me love them more.)

― Nate Patrin, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"I Am The Lizard King. I Can Do ANYTHING."

― JM, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Jon Landau's "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Meal Ticket." Read the essay it's from: it's gross.

― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

The Most Preposterous Musical Clam Ever.

― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

santana : 'i see the guitar as my empty canvas and each note is the stroke of the brush'. i've read this one at least three times. give it a rest, brother...

― angelo, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Chubby Checker: "I am often called the wheel that Rock rolls on as long as people are dancing apart to the beat of the music they enjoy. Before "Alexander Graham Bell" … no Telephone. Before "Thomas Edison" … no Electric light. Before "Dr. George Washington Carver" … no Oil from seed or cloning of plants. Before "Henry Ford" … no V-8 Engine. Before "Walt Disney" … no Animated cartoons. Before Chubby Checker … no "Dancing Apart to the Beat." What is "Dancing Apart to the Beat?" Dancing Apart to the Beat is the dance that we do when we dance apart to the beat of anybody's music and before "Chubby Checker" it could not be found!

― Arthur, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

the Edge is a good guitar player.

― Manny Parsons, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

the one wherein terrence trent d'arby swears he'll be bigger than the beatles.

― mike (ro)bott, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"His name was Bach. Johann...Sebastian...Bach" - Yngwie Malmsteen, who eveidently learned the 'secret of association' in marketing class

― dave q, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Richard Patrick's claim that the new Filter album is the best album ever.

― Damian, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Dave Pirner: "It's tough being the biggest band to ever come out of Minneapolis."

― Dave225, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Embrace - "We're the best band in the world!"

The world - "No you're not."

― Nick Southall, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

'the best album of all time'- ocean rain. my arse. and this was on the *poster*

― piscesboy, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Surely Michael Jackson unsolicitedly crowning himself as "the King of Pop" (and desperately attempting to maintain said status) is the most preposterous.

A.R.Kane just may well have invented Trip-Hop, actually.

― Alex in NYC, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Ad for Linkin Park remix album - "THE BEST JUST GOT BETTER!"

― Mr Swygart, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Any over-the-hill band (pick one) who claims their obviously-shite new album is "the best thing we've ever done."

― mike, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

An agonisingly pretentious Bryan Ferry inviting comparisons with Marcel Duchamp by referring to songs he covered as "readymades". Duchamp turned everyday objects like urinals ("readymades") into art by placing them in a particular context. Ferry achieved the opposite, turning classic songs like "Smoke Get's In Your Eyes" or "A Hard Rains Gonna Fall" into something only fit to be pissed on.

― ArfArf, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, except ferry is inadvertently exactly correct (i assume he got the idea from richard hamilton, w/o actually "getting" it), and it's the art galleries which are wrong re duchamp: all pop (good or bad) = duchampian readymades, because you the listener turn it into "art" (= value to you) in yr own context

― mark s, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

mark s my skull has just cracked and its all your fault.

― Ray M, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

(actually the claim may or may not be correct, but it's standard-issue Pop Art theory, so strictly speaking he's inviting comparison w. his old art-skool tutor Hamilton rather than Duchamps)

(it's still a dumb thing to say: and i wuv "These Foolish Thing" *and* pretension...)

― mark s, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry abt yr skull ray, but CAVEAT EMPTOR = the law of pop

― mark s, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I believe I've found the living end in terminal expanding-head syndrome...'In the liner notes for ...Nothing Like the Sun, Sting wrote, "...'Lazarus Heart' was a vivid nightmare that I wrote down and then fashioned into a song. A learned friend of mine informs me that it is the archetypical dream of the fisher king...can't I do anything original?"' No, and stop 'fishing' for compliments, jerkoff

― dave q, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmm. I don't agree that Ferry is inadvertently correct. He's a preposterously vain man but not an idiot and I think he understood the principle well enough. Ferry's belief is that it's the intervention of the artist that transmutes the mundane into art. If you start off with The Flamingos version of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" - ie with something that is already art - something quite different is happening. I don't think Ferry misunderstood the principle he just bent it to suit his vanity and his prejudices about high art and wanting to be on the same plane as Duchamp and not a local rock cover band.

To argue that all pop (and by extension presumably all art, and indeed the perceived universe) is "readymade" because value and meaning arise at the point of perception is to use the term quite differently. It doesn't seem a useful use of the word to me - if everything is readymade then there is no distinction between readymade and not readymade and the term is bleached of meaning. Also if you are going to go that far in your degree of subjectivism why stop there - there is no evidence to support the existence of an objective universe so we may as well believe with Hume et al that it is constantly created at the point of perception. In which case nothing is readymade.

― ArfArf, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"I want it" -- The Who, Magic Bus.

They didn't really want it that much.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Also in the context the reference was to Duchamp. Remember Ferry entitled an album "The Bride Stripped Bare".

― ArfArf, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

readymade = made by quasi-industrial processes, like urinals and pop but not the mona lisa or the matterhorn (not just the vinyl or whatever, but any number of elements structuring the music)

where do the phrases "and by extension" and "perception" come in? i didn't say em => i'm talking about use (which is i guess "subjectivist" if by that you mean social and historical and concrete and all that nice stuff)

can't see why ="the intervention of the artist" is any less prey to the same straw-man anything-goes spiral you keep wanting me to worry about: in pop art theory, the artist (lichtenstein, say) has also very recently been the punter (buying and perusing comic-books): "intervention of the artist" = "use"

― mark s, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

for the duchampian transformation to occur, all it needs is the punter to say "i too am an artist and i say this is ART":
possible (straw-man spiral) result, everything becomes art and the word becomes meaningless
ACTUAL result, an argt abt what you want from art, what it is, what we mean by it, what we need it for, what we use it for, where we find it

― mark s, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I simply assumed you were saying what you meant, ie

"all pop (good or bad) = duchampian readymades, BECAUSE [my emphasis] you the listener turn it into "art" (= value to you) in yr own context"

Definition of readymade therefore = anything potentially turned into "art" by the listener (or more generally, perceiver). Including, it seemed reasonable to assume, The Matterhorn. If you meant something completely different you should have said so.

― ArfArf, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

(yr probably right abt ferry, that he meant it the way you said it => thing is, duchamp DIDN'T, and even if he did, the pop artists took him not to mean it that way, which makes ferry a D minus art student in ref. his actual social milieu)

― mark s, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

ie duchampian => "you the listener etc etc"
readymade = "made in a factory etc etc"

― mark s, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

so i WAS saying what i meant, but you the reader were reading it the way YOU thought it worked, then we had an argument (which is what happens when maker-meaning and listener-meaning are taken not to coincide, and the non- coincidence is taken to matter) (and out of the argument comes either further elucidation or not)

― mark s, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Also Jackson rilly WAS the king of pop, as crowned by record sales and media outlets (i.e. the measures of pop).

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, but he's been dethroned by scheming courtiers. If you believe him.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

The communication difficulty is in your definition:

readymade = "made in a factory etc etc"

That is not how Duchamp explained or understood the concept. He defined readymades as items "chosen" but not "made" by the artist. Any "found object" is potentially a readymade. All it requires is for an artist to choose it.

Certainly industrial artefacts seem to be what mainly interested Duchamp. But that is not implicit in the concept and other artists quickly (simultaneously?) applied the concept to non-industrial artefacts.

Of course Duchamp's intention was to ridicule the pretentions of high art. So there is a nice irony in Ferry's borrowing the idea to give "the work" (his term, repeated ad nauseam) the prestige of high art.

― ArfArf, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Re Landau on Springsteen: thanks for the link - it's the first time I'd ever read that infamous piece. I didn't think it was "gross", though: it just sounded like the guy went to a show and was blown away. I've experienced that. Granted, it's only rarely that I've gone on make a mint managing the career of the artist at issue...

― briania, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Arf, just because all pop is DR doesn't mean that the definition of a readymade has anything to do with pop in the first place.

― Clarke B., Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmm I'm not aware of having suggested that.

― ArfArf, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I like the story of Jerry Lee Lewis getting drunk and shooting at Graceland from outside the gates shouting "Who's the King of Rock 'n' Roll NOW!?"

Haha I just put on the Stephen Hawking lecture on BBC4 and thought there was a big sign above Hawking saying "goth" but it actually says "60th" since it is his 60th birthday. This is connected to the subject of the thread in ways far too complex for your puny brains, and not just something I just noticed and wanted to mention.

― Martin Skidmore, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Why would anyone willingly claim responsability for "trip hop" ?

― Mary, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"I'm serious as cancer, When I say 'Rhythm is a Dancer'"

― Chewshabadoo, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Arf, you said: "Definition of readymade therefore = anything potentially turned into "art" by the listener (or more generally, perceiver)". In other words, "if it's a readymade, then it's something potentially turned into 'art' by the listener."

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 6 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"THE AXEMEN - THE ONLY BAND IN THE WORLD"

― unknown or illegal user, Tuesday, 6 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Sigur Ros - "we are gonna change music forever."

― Damian, Tuesday, 6 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Peter Buck - "I am REM"

― Jacob, Tuesday, 6 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

five months pass...

whatever's on the cover of whatever Brit mag this week

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:57 (twenty-two years ago)

"I doubt Shania even enjoys music to begin with"

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Richard D James => "I never go to sleep, me, not ever, like."

Richard D James => "I'm dead weird me, I write all my music in my sleep"

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

haha mark beat me to the punch!!

― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

mark- is that a musical claim tho'?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

"Courteney Love is the greatest fuck in the world."
Billy Corgan. Or Kurt Cobain. Or someone.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Two more bands who have claimed to be the greatest band in the world/country: Black Flag (in concert), the Zero Boys (on the first track of their first album, which I've forgotten the name of).

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

"We invented hip hop! And you know, we invented d'n'b too!"

- Joe Zawinul (ex Weather Report), told me this with his very own mouth in an interview in 1994

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 23 January 2003 05:07 (twenty-two years ago)

KISS: "You wanted the best, you got the best".

― tom (other), Thursday, 23 January 2003 05:12 (twenty-two years ago)

That ad copy for Echo And The Bunnymen's Ocean Rain... THE GREATEST ALBUM EVER MADE!

― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Thursday, 23 January 2003 05:14 (twenty-two years ago)

"You wanted the best, you got the best".

Utah Saints, of course, were OTM when they suggested this.

― Charlie (Charlie), Thursday, 23 January 2003 05:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Nick, have you fucked her?

my nominee: "We are the new Bob Dylan"--Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli, to Time magazine, 1990

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 23 January 2003 06:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought Avril Lavigne was!

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 23 January 2003 06:53 (twenty-two years ago)

- Joe Zawinul (ex Weather Report), told me this with his very own mouth in an interview in 1994

Did you call him on this? Or at least laugh?

― original bgm, Thursday, 23 January 2003 06:56 (twenty-two years ago)

JBR is right: Avril Lavigne is the best fuck in the world.

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:04 (twenty-two years ago)

But is Bob Dylan?

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 23 January 2003 07:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Bob Dylan + Avril Lavigne = best fuck in the world. Now to find the photos....

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 23 January 2003 08:53 (twenty-two years ago)

http://southsidecallbox.com/images/avrilbob.jpg

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 23 January 2003 09:17 (twenty-two years ago)

HAH

Ok, I admit it, she is pretty cute.

Still can't stand 'Sk8er Boi' tho

― geeta (geeta), Thursday, 23 January 2003 09:19 (twenty-two years ago)

daddino that was great!

― zemko (bob), Thursday, 23 January 2003 09:36 (twenty-two years ago)

my nominee: "We are the new Bob Dylan"--Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli, to Time magazine, 1990
Actually, Matos...what they said was even more preposterous than that. It was something along the lines of "We are better than your Beatles or Bob Dylan" and then they complained about what the deficencies of those two acts were. Or at least the recorded speech they were lipsynching to said it was better than the Beatles/Dylan.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Thursday, 23 January 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

has anyone said "ROCK IS BACK!" yet?

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, Rolling Stone, this summer. (sorry)

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:15 (twenty-two years ago)

badunkadunkdunk

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

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