whatever happened to COOL rockstars?

dunno wogan man. did they ever exist? i mean like, really? cool is mostly relative to the time it exists in.

i think j.mascis was, and still is, very very cool, but who on this vicious planet would agree with me???

compare:

http://www.ballade.no/nmi.nsf/pic/specials/$file/specials.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/images/artists/maximo_park/promo05_420.jpg

http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/artd/amg/music/bio/482704_ramones_200x200.jpg vs http://icarito.tercera.cl/verano/2002/musica/img/blink.gif

http://www.strangereaction.com/images/clash.jpg http://www.allgigs.co.uk/Reviews/DavidAdair/therakes.jpg

http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~djohnso6/poo.gif vs http://images.radcity.net/5893/1164687.jpg

guess i'm being a bit unfair on fly-covered-dog-shit there.

i love it how the arctic monkey who looks the stupidest is the only one to know that they're all going to get covered in cartoon doo-doo.

i hear what you're saying now wogan, makes a lot of sense.

arctic monkeys wouldn't done a cool if they landed in a frozen lake full of frozen vegetables and fish fingers or something.

everything from the past always looks cool though. even the totally gaylord 80's are making a return. what the fuck man?!?!?!

that is true. i guess even the ramones didn't look as cool to people in 1984 as they did in '77.

i like how you managed to destroy the entire output of every artist who ever released anything in the 80s in one fell swoop.

yeah many people take issue with my hatred of the 80's. i will hold my hands up and say that with age i have mellowed on the subject. the cure were alright. dinosaur jr. talking heads. and so on.

but on the whole, lets take a look at it. the decade that spawned U2, simple minds, gay men wearing crazy clothes and make up, tears for fears, and general whack MOR shit. where was the fucking rock man, where were the fucking testicles???

and fucking crowded house for fucks sake!!!! what the mother-fuck!!!! did people go deaf or something???

well by that reckoning, it's even worse now really, although i don't agree with you entirely. you can extract sucky/ridiculous stuff out of any decade.

Great albums of the 80s:

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Cocteau Twins - Treasure
Manowar - Battle Hymns
The Smiths - Meat Is Murder
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Stone Roses - Stone Roses

Plus you had loads of electro, hip-hop, the start of rave culture - loads of hardcore and artpunk. Hell, eighties is da shizzle brah!

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/articles/publicenemy2004.jpg vs http://www.halliday.k12.nd.us/David/g-unit.jpg

http://img.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/020614/172611__tom_l.jpg vs http://www.sptimes.com/2005/02/03/images/medium/WK_0_wk03eyes2_206027_0203.jpg

i'm not saying that the 80's didn't have good, or even great albums. for sure meat is murder, and in my opinion the queen is dead, are both great albums.

however, any decade where the stone roses can be considered to have made a great album is suggestive of the fact that the decade was shit. they have to be one of the most overrated bands of all time, and would be considered much less great if there whack pile of drivel had been released at a better time in musical history. only the 80's allows them to be remembered with any respect. and as for the second coming, well that just says it all really.

i guess i look at 80's music being shit on the whole. there were good things. US hardcore i adore, early hip hop was amazing, but these were underground, and are only sort of famous now, never at the time.

thank god we've got coldplay and the killers now eh?

yeah thank fuck. music right now is excelling beyond all known realms. here is one thing we can't fail to agree on!!!

its a shame, but music does go round in cycles. we're in a shit one at the moment, maybe even the worst ever. everything thats even remotely good seems to be underground. i reckon we'll almost certainly look back on this decade as worse than the 80's. but then who knows. maybe in a few years SONY will get there act together and give lightning bolt a 10 album deal, and the push they truly deserve!!! now thats a scary thought!

hmmm... i dunno. oftentimes the charts are 90% rubbish but i reckon there's generally a vague thread of decentness going through them pretty much all the time. I'd even venture that the best times for chart music were 1982 and 1990. Still, more recently there's been all sorts of electro, rock, dancehall, hiphop in the charts that is pretty good. and for us rockists, the charts always look better in retrospect.

also: Belle and Sebastian are number 13 in the charts atm.

plus also and - do you really wanna see lightning bolt in the charts?

probably not. although i'd love to see them on top of the pops, and cd:uk and watch them make mincemeat out of teenage ears. now that would be like a recurring dream i have!!!

i know what you mean though, the charts have always been shit. its just that right now, and through most of the 80's, they are really really shit. you put it best with the killers/coldplay comment. even the supposedly 'good' rock music in the charts is actually whack, and belle and sebastian make a pleasant change, but even they couldn't do top 10.

it doesn't bother me anyway. sometimes i feel a bit guilty about the fact i haven't listened to the radio since well before peely died, but i have teh internets and an 8Mb line, a big hard drive and a reasonable amount of free expenditure to blow on music each month so i don't really need the radio.

i don't actually believe that current commercial pop is worse/better than any other time. sometimes certain tracks that we hate through association because it's a singer we hate or the song's just too damn overplayed often makes more sense a few years later once it's passed. i used to hate garage when it was popular as it's all i heard being played in uni halls and clubs, but i heard oxide and neutrino the other day (can you believe they were six years ago(!)) and it sounded totally bwad bwoy!

yeah i agree man, pop music has always been shit, its just that there's always been more good stuff littered with all the rubbish stuff. now there is literally nothing good in there at all, with the exception of a very small number of bands (queens of the stone age, the go team).

and there's no reason to feel guilty about not listening to the radio. i do from time to time, and it is shit!!! absolute pure drippy wet shit!!!

i have more bile for those shitty boring "indie" bands that get peddled out as the next big thing by mags like the NME than any commercial pop right now.

dylan and cole i whant your msn plez my msn is kendel_95@hotmail.com

you talking to us or something?

The 80's were rubbish, apart from those crystal shining from the shitpile that was music in the 80's.

Things are getting better, but slowly, and that sucks just as much !

nah, i recokn music's always been good apart from in maybe 1993 and 1996. Placebo, Garbage and that lot and the majority of third-wave shoegaze music can go sit. Notable exceptions to the 93/96 rule are the Boo Radley's "Giant Steps" and Belle and Sebastibitch "If You're Feeling Sinister". Then again I've been listening to Abba a lot recently so my quality monitor might be out of wack.

It's all about the Bach if you ask 'teve. Get on the good foot!

finally someone with some sense about the 80's. i thought there'd never be some rational thought going on.

and yes wogan, with exception of dancing queen, listening to abba does suggest the possibiliity of a wayward quality monitor. and even listening to dancing queen is only permitted if your in a shit club, off you face, and trying to pull some rank bird who doesn't actually look that bad thanks to substantial beer goggles.

there was a lot of shit music in 1993 and 1996. i'm glad i wasn't alone in finding those years frustrating. in 96 there was lots of wank indie calling itself britpop trying really hard to ride a wave that was already mostly shit at its height. thats when i started listening to warp records A LOT!!!!!

DANCING QUEEN IS A SHIT SHIT SHIT SONG. GET THE VISITORS ALBUM - THE MOST HEARTBREAKINGLY HONEST AND OPEN OUTPOURING OF ANGST EVER COMMMITED TO VINYL.

Britpop pre-1996 = grebt
Britpop post-1996 = turgid bollocks like menswear and placebo

FUCKING DANCING QUEEN. Ruined Abba for me for years. FUCK THAT FUCKING SONG AND ANY RUGBY PRICK OR BREEZER SLAG WHO EVER DANCED AROUND TO IT. FUCK IT.

GRRRR.

i didn't know you were a big warp fan clocko? they have gone a bit to piddle of late haven't they? ps i will need a copy of maximo park since you recommended it. i never really gave them a chance.

as for Abba, if anything, just listen to these songs:

Under Attack
Happy New Year
One Of Us
Name Of The Game
The Visitors (Cracking Up)
The Winner Takes It All

If you don't get something out of those, you have no soul. That said, it helps if you know that they were all married to each other and then got divorced but made most of the above songs after they done all that shit and so the women are singing songs written by their estranged husbands.

obviously they weren't all married to each other, that would have been very strange (although you never can tell with Swedes). The dudes wrote and played the songs and their wifes sang them.

hmmm.....touched a wee little 'abba' sized nerve there did i wogan? think you might have missed my attempt at insulting dancing queen, by pointing out why its so shit?!?!?!?

my mate jen made me listen to abba, including that album. its rubbish, its all rubbish, that album, any album. sure they're all heartbroken. fair enough. makes little to know difference to the quality of the music, which is dire. there are literally millions of better heartbreak albums out there, too many to name.

i don't really think i'm soulless for not liking those songs. lyrically they're ok. musically, and especially vocally, they make me want to pull my hair out. one at a time. till i'm bald.

plus my comment about brit pop was in agreement with you - not otherwise.

there was shit brit pop in 1993 as well. look no further than the mighty dodgy. i remember buying that album on tape!

i can see why people don't like them. i used to hate them with all my might but that was because of d*ncing queen and all those cheesy eurodisco things. i genuinely think the songwriting on visitors and most of super trouper are a-class though.

dodgy were semi ok.

and yeah, i had a warp spell for a couple of years. it was generally a time where i couldn't listen to pop, or tunes, just noise in general. was a bit silly really! eye opening though.

you're right about warp though. since that dude died they haven't really seemed to be doing much, and the new signings are kinda odd. still love maximo park though, and the most recent james liddell album.

I never realised you two were gay, nice one for "coming out" guys!

Abba are ok but I prefere The Village People, being a straight male and all...

The Black & White Minstrels are also fucking HARD-CORE!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah man, i tried abba, i'll try anything really. just wasn't for me.

defo not sure about dodgy though. there was a strong smell of the cheese about them! i suppose they knew how to write a simple pop song. but an album that does not make!

fuck off steven. my dad told me about how he was at this club one night and you tried to chat him up. gay-bo!!!

So what Ike?! That was when I was gay.

Speaking of which, is your old man still bent?

shuddup stefan, the only cd you own is the best of j.geils band and that's it.

dicko, do you like ectric light orchestra and/or beach boys?

ps - i have the dodgy album called "homegrown". it's not great. they were more of a singles band. "in a room" was good plus "so let me go far" which was an unsung 90s classic by a fairly pedestrian band.