Search and Destroy: Travis

Destroy: Travis.

Sorry. I just can't abide them. Did they do that song All I Wanna Do Is Rock? Then search that if it was them and not some other awful generic britrock group, because that one amuses me. Their cover of Baby One More Time is enough to condemn them to be shot.

So Destroy that. I don't care what you search - Kate's cover of a Travis track, why not that? Can't be any worse than the original.

Destroy: Everything else I've heard, I think. Especially 'Driftwood', 'Why Does It Always Rain On Me' and especially especially 'Turn'

I love _The Man Who_. I will freely admit it. If you all can admit to being Abba and Britney fans in public, I can admit to loving Travis, now fuck off you musical snobs.

Their lyrics are inane at best, and their melodies often derivative, but they make lovely moods and lovely textures. (The new album is even more texturally lovely, despite the damned banjos)

Mock me if you like, but Travis are the musical equivalent of Pot Noodle. They sound kinda like other bands, like Pot Noodles taste kinda like the foods the emulate. They're not cool, they're not hip, they're possibly bad for you, but you know what? When you're down and depressed and hung over and miserable, they sort you out like a great big hug.

So there.

All I Wanna Do Is Rock / U16 Girls / More Than Us / Writing To Reach You / Driftwood / Why Does It Always Rain On Me? / Turn / Side / The Last Laugh Of The Laughter (?)

Destroy:  Their covers. (I couldn't believe Fran Healy when he went off on a tangent re: "Baby One More Time" when it really is a subterrainian-level POS "song". Especially wretched [to me] is knowing who originally performed it. Ugh.)

I will love Travis till the day I die. They are the group that made me have faith in new music again. Before they hit it big with "Why Does it Always Rain on Me?", I was in a musical funk because everything I was hearing in terms of new acts was, to my ears, pure, unadulterated shit, and I just wanted to kill MTV for being a festering pustule on the big back of Music. Then, when I caught the single on either MTV or VH1, I was finally elated about something from someone new. Since then, I've gotten into Turin Brakes and some other musical artists from Britain (where the best new music is coming from, IMHO -- some things never change) and have gone online and have picked up some new music tips and suggestions from various people. Now, I'm excited about what's happening now.

So. There. ;)

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/

Just thought I'd put something in... hate me if you will, but you can't hate me any more than I hate my own nation's musical scene. The general opinion between my friends and me is that the US made the musical ingredients for it's own doom because it couldn't stop the malevolence of sex and violence (go go, FCC!), whereas the UK took some of better ingredients and blended them with it's classic, depressed sensibility... :) Most of the bands that break out of the UK onto our radio are much calmer/depressed/musical than our international darlings.

Hmm.

Listening to a lot of Travis for the first time ever as background music while meeting a work deadline this month. Definitely works as pretty without being distracting. After seeing what Coldplay turned into, it's refreshing that they stuck to their particular sound.

Anyway, turns out they put out a nice song with Susanna Hoffs last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OL2zAQMNak

Boy people really hated their "Baby One More Time" cover back in the early aughts, huh?
For me, that was the exact moment when I "got" Max Martin, because their simplified arrangement really highlighted how all the moving parts fit together.