GY!BE's album 'Yanqui U.X.O.' is one of the greatest instrumental records of all-time

Its a good job you wrote this in the sandbox, because you'd be really fucking embarrassed to see it revived in two years time.

-- electric sound of jim (esoj@), December 3rd, 2006.

Entire Huge ILX Debates That Should Have Been Killed At Birth (paraphrase) was my worst, as any fule kno...

Also, Matt DC, I supply as a comparison four different if hugely influential, canonical, important, brilliant, generally-venerated composers of instrumental music and you claim that I'd be embarrassed? Elaborate, please.

Okay I'll bite. I know you'll be embarassed by them because *I* said similarly stupid things eight or nine years ago and I'm embarassed by them. Mercifully they weren't archived on the internet for all eternity so yay I win.

Anyway, the reason its silly for you to lump GYBE in with Bach/Mozart/Miles Davis/Orbital is because there's no reason to lump those four together other than the fact they're generally venerated (Orbital possible exception) and they made instrumental music. Although the fact you've included Bach in there at all suggests you don't actually know a huge amount about Bach. Or to a lesser extent Mozart.

So you've put GYBE in such exalted company mostly for instant gravitas, and then asked why they aren't held in the same regard. Whereas the primary criticism levelled at GYBE is that they are all gravitas and no substance. They're all Big Serious Face without the inventiveness or creativity to back it up. Because they make (or made) music specifically aimed at the type of listener to whom all you need are big crescendos and long silences and vague statements about religion and politics and making everything SLOW and SERIOUS for it to equal art. To be worthy of being named in the same breath as Mozart. Which incidentally is completely missing the point of Mozart as well.

And because their music is incredibly easy to make, and requires minimal invention or inspiration, whilst sounding Terribly Important. Unlike everyone else you've mentioned. And because they're quite boring.

Alternatively, Tom E's review of a completely different album still pwns them six years on.

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0052,seward,21008,22.html

I wasn't comparing them to each other, musically at least; I was suggesting that the quality of GY!BE's work compared favourably to the undoubted quality of the mentioned artists.

Right, onto Matt DC's reply, much of which I wish to take him up upon.

Although the fact you've included Bach in there at all suggests you don't actually know a huge amount about Bach. Or to a lesser extent Mozart. Yes, yes, the Cantatas, the Requiem, all of these have choral sections as well as orchestras. There's no denying that both composers created great instrumental work as well, and moreover, the choral sections are mostly included for their harmonic and musical value rather than for the somewhat rote, hymnal words that they are singing, thus IMO making the pieces practically instrumental anyway.

Whereas the primary criticism levelled at GYBE is that they are all gravitas and no substance. They're all Big Serious Face without the inventiveness or creativity to back it up. Your first sentence mentions a 'primary criticism'. Mysteriously, your second sentence slips seamlessly into personal opinion (stated as fact), as if your opinion is identical to that of all GY!BE critics, who are all incontrovertibly correct. This would seem to me to be either a subjective flaw or an admission of one-sidedness, which is fair enough as long as it is acknowledged as just your own opinion and not the generally-held truth amongst the musical cognoscenti.

Because they make (or made) music specifically aimed at the type of listener to whom all you need are big crescendos and long silences and vague statements about religion and politics and making everything SLOW and SERIOUS for it to equal art. I have problems with 'all you need'. I also have problems with 'specifically aimed' and 'making everything SLOW and SERIOUS for it to equal art'. I also have problems with 'long silences', and 'vague statements about religion and politics'. In fact, this entire extract is flawed. I shall explain. GY!BE have probably made music much like other worthy bands have made music: they're trying to plough an original, interesting furrow (sorry, lazy journalistic metaphor but we'll let that slide), and they're probably not making music with anything other than their own ideas in mind. Perhaps, however, their music is more appreciable to (rather than specifically aimed at) the sorts of people who...well, the 'type' of listener who enjoys all of the things you mention? Listeners come in types now, do they? I like to think that listeners appreciate anything musical as long as it is done well within the right context. Big crescendos can be boring or sublime, as can long silences, and as for vague statements about religion and politics, well, remove the 'vague' and you've got yourself a whole load of genius and a whole load of shite out there in the music world. In the context of GY!BE's album Yanqui U.X.O, which has been the subject of my argument throughout, even then your claims are misguided. They read, as Tom's excellent review does, as a criticism more of Lift Your Skinny Fists..., which I myself regard as flawed for much the same reasons as Tom does. There are big crescendos in YUXO, but they are more abruptly-reached, more instantly crushing, and more momentous than those which cropped up every so often in the previous album. There are also no words in the album, hence no statements on religion or politics. You'll have to refer to the cover-art for that (although it's still not specifically about religion or politics, more about the relations between record companies and arms manufacturers, and the destruction that these arms are still creating in the world at large, which is a noble enough cause IMO despite the slightly melodramatic means of presenting it). As for 'making everything SLOW and SERIOUS for it to equal art', jeez, these guys have their own way(s) of displaying their creative talents, and just because theirs involves 'slow' (perhaps) and 'serious' (subjective) instrumentation, does this mean that they automatically make a claim to be of higher artistic worth than, say, a speed-punk group? Nope, it's just your own reaction to the music. Were you to think 'This is slow, this is long, this sounds quite dramatic...' but then continue with '...however, something like The Locust's 'Plague Soundscapes' (20 minutes, 21 tracks of hyper-fast electronic hardcore) is more of a serious attempt to create High Art', that would be no less valuable a statement than yours that long and slow equals pomposity. Everyone has their own ways of working, and it is your conditioning that has caused this unfair conflation.

Which incidentally is completely missing the point of Mozart as well. uh

And because their music is incredibly easy to make, and requires minimal invention or inspiration, whilst sounding Terribly Important. Unlike everyone else you've mentioned. And because they're quite boring. This is all subjective, again. You can't claim to win this argument over me by your divine right as a Music Critic to bestow final judgement. Why, if their music is so easy to make, does nobody else (except a few plagiarists and/or labelmates who share some of their bandmembers) sound anything like them? Fair enough that some of their chords and scales might be simple to conceive of or play, but nobody else has presented them in such a manner as they: the difficulty is in the conception rather than the execution. YUXO is chock-full of little twists and turns, little details only picked up after several listens, that create a simply awesome listening experience, unburdened by thoughts such as 'I could play that arpeggio in my sleep!'. Their having 'minimal invention or inspiration' is what you believe, but it is not what I believe. It is fair enough if you think less of me as a listener (as the 'type' who likes long, slow, boring music) because of this, but you cannot dispute my right to defend it. The sounds, the production, the movements; they might not be as note-stuffed as a good recording of Bach, Mozart or Davies, or a decent Orbital album, but they are IMO brilliantly-conceived as a coherent, thought-provoking whole, whose effect upon me is unlike any other record. We've already established that 'Terribly Important' is your own ad hominem assault upon music that dares to stretch things out a little, and in fact I could well say that Miles Davis' stupid whiny look-at-me-jazz-hands trumpet noise pisses me off just as much (I won't, though). And oh yeah, they're boring. For some.

Let's face it, your reply is mired in the sort of music-journalist cliche and subjective holier-than-thou pronouncement that we really ought to be avoiding on here. Before you snap back, accusing me of being similarly guilty (although liking YUXO isn't exactly a cliche), let me say that all of the parts I labelled as 'subjective' in your post are entirely A-OK by me. Mine are the same. However, you seem to think that yours are the law. I asked this question originally with a view to having an interesting, detailed discussion of the record's pros and cons, of a fair-minded appraisal, but all you have come up with is the party line. And what a (cough) self-important, boring, Big Serious Face party line it is.

see what i did there?

Verdict? Really self-important and boring!

godspeed you! blundering eejit?

[/rising to bait]

What Mozart thing?

Plenty of you, however, are using this as a means to attack me. It's sly, unkind and entirely beside the point.

I like this and agree with it. Though, I couldn't give a toss about the band.

In fact, it isn't my opinion, nor was it intended to be my opinion. It was intended to be a summary of a lot of anti-GYBE criticism as I see it and why in that regard comparing them to Mozart might actually undermine your defence of them. So yes, of course it was a party line. It was meant to be a friendly pointer so seriously, calm down. You won't destroy the pompous critical consensus like that.

My opinion on GYBE - liked them at the time, haven't wanted to listen to them once in 5 years, had more or less lost interest by the time Yanqui UXO came out, suspect I would find them very boring now.

(I'd like to take you up on the astonishing wrongness of your Bach argument but suspect that would hardly be constructive at this point)

First, I think that if Godspeed! You Bl!ack Emperor! would've named themselves something bland and neutral like, say, Montreal Orchestra, and stayed away from political statements and refusing to do interviews and publicity, 95% of the arguments and controversy around them would disappear. It's the name, mainly, I think. It's the the type that grabs your attention immediately, and then either you're sort of intrigued by it or you just think it's fucking stupid and the band has to justify their existence from that point on.

Secondly, I don't agree with the argument that GYBE's music is "easy to make". Stars of the Lid and plenty of other ambient musicians have long sections of music involving only one note, and then fucking around with the reverb and equalizer settings. Autechre has been accused of letting their algorithms do all the work for them in certain songs/albums. But no one would never suggest that what they do is easy. If it was easy to do, they wouldn't be (in my opinion) the leaders in that respective genres.

The same holds true with GYBE, I think. True, they stuck with the "quiet sections with crazy street vendor/street preacher rambling on" trick for a bit too long, but, then, a lot of bands have been accused of using the same gimmick for too long. And while people used to express annoyance at Stereolab and Low for not changing their sound enough from album to album, there was never this strange spew of vitriol that always comes out when GYBE is the subject. Perhaps because Stereolab isn't called Stereolab Dawn of Exquisite Light Orchestra w/ La dee Da Da Orchestra?

Incidentally, I only heard Yanqui UXO once, and wasn't all that impressed with it, but I think I've had enough time away from it to give it a good second listen.

Now I'm going to read Tom's review linked to above and regret everything I just said.

That's like comparing Aaron McGruder to Toni Morrison and suggesting you're talking about good writers.

I remember an anniversay issue of Spin magazine where they named the 100 greatest singles of all time. Number one was Rob Base's "It Takes Two" over the Stones and Marvin Gaye and the Kinks and Velvet Undergound and every other song ever released. The obvious point: whatever is the best thing to you right fucking now is the best thing of all fucking time. In sum, enjoy it.

Yep.

louis i think most people's problem with your claim was not that you were comparing GY!BE to bach or mozart or miles or orbital but that you claimed the existence of a single "pantheon" containing all the greats of "instrumental music"--implying that the major division amongst musics for most people is "music with singing" and "music without singing" and that everyone in the second category can be lumped together as though they have more in common with one another than they do with those from their same time who make music from the first category. This is fair. If only that were most people's qualm...although in my defence I have seen threads on 'instrumental music' bandied around before here. Perhaps I should have limited it to instrumental rock music. Music without lyrics is more the issue here than music without singing, incidentally, which takes us onto...

I'd like to take you up on the astonishing wrongness of your Bach argument but suspect that would hardly be constructive at this point. *gulps* Please, don't be too harsh, I just hear the voices and think 'harmony'! I don't know any German! I don't know what they're singing! For me it's just another musical strand to add to the other factions of the orchestra.

As for the rest of your point, Matt, well, even if that isn't your opinion, you yourself have claimed that it's a pretty generally-held opinion on GY!BE. In that case, my words stand, although if I can't take down the critical consensus that way, how on earth could I ever do so?

That's like comparing Aaron McGruder to Toni Morrison and suggesting you're talking about good writers. Sadly, American Studies isn't part of the course I'm on. Although Toni Morrison, she wrote Beloved, didn't she? One of the other classes at school studied that and hated it practically to a man (and woman). So...you're saying that all the artists named are shite? Uh?

Right now, for him, this album is the Greatest Album In The World Not even close. Maybe top 25. ;-)

Greatest Instrumental Album In The World One of. :-D Although we could clarify that again with 'Instrumental Rock'.

even the band thought it was shitly recorded. SEE ALSO: The Beta Band, s/t. Another favourite of mine, despite whatever they thought it could have been. The artist, if not dead, is definitely bound and gagged in the corner by the time his creation reaches my ears. I think it's recorded fantastically.

they're nothing like classical music Never said they were.

Branca who they ripped off heavily Have heard Symphony No. 6 and The Ascension, similarities in guitar tone perhaps, complete disparity in terms of melodic ambition.

deeply uncool SO FUCKING WHAT

OTM, sheesh. That was almost as bad as anything Louis said.

ban louis jagger

;-)

:-D contains no parentheses, btw.

http://www.argaste.com/img/arguing_on_the_internet.jpg

As for that jpg, taking semi-amusing pot-shots over the internet ain't much better!

-- scott seward (skotro...), December 3rd, 2006.

so, scott, was a permanent weed detox the reason for never listening to "skinny fists" again?

whoof. i remember seeing them at the QMU a good few years back and thinking they were the most tedious spectacle imaginable. up until that point i'd really, really liked them; after that i couldn't bear to listen to them again. (same thing happened - perhaps more understandably - with the polyphonic spree.)

that said: they're long overdue an official grimly fiendish re-assessment. and, now i've got my record-player working again, i shall get to it.

It would only be fair to get Ned's keyboard too, then.

The most OTM thing on this thread.

But didn't Albini record Yanqui U.X.O.? And doesn't he normally just record the band pretty much as they normally sound live, sans wild production techniques?

"Paradise"
"Song Of Solomon"
"The Bluest Eye"
&, her best and most recent book: "Love".

damn, i think i actually like "Jazz" more too.

Anyway, that last Scenic album craps all over the entire GYBE output.

Having said that nowhere near as good as 'It takes two'.

Enthusiasm is great.

-- Zachary Scott (ZachRScot...) (webmail), December 4th, 2006 12:02 AM. (Zachary S) (later) (link)

That is normally his intention, but it seems neither party was entirely happy with what they ended up with. I don't think they've spoken since (note that it was Hogan and not Shellac that invited them to Shellac ATP).

it's the enthusiasm of a 19-yr-old (which is great!), but not the frame of reference! i have said this before, but what i really don't get about louis is that the stuff he says these things about is the stuff people my age and a bit older would have eulogised when they were louis' age! i am pretty sure that most 19-yr-olds do not listen to mansun or blur or godspeed whatsit. people who are 25 did, when they were 19.

i fell asleep during spiritualized once! but i don't think that necessarily means they are bad. i like spiritualized.

He also had Spiritualized's 'Pure Phase', bought apparently on a whim, and Mogwai's first 3 albums. I started with them and worked my way inwards; now the 90's are by far my favourite and most comprehensively-owned decade in music! My knowledge of contemporary indie/alternative acts is much more sketchy, I'd say; retrospective discoveries are so much more satisfying than great new releases IMO.

Now, if we could only forget that bit about Bach...

You have no idea how big of a trap this is.

xpost

A trap, eh? Hmm, it was only meant as a statement of personal preference...

the 90s were amazing. i grew up in them after all, they made me! the best things about the 90s:

- commercial pop rave and eurobosh all over the charts
- trip-hop
- angsty female singer-songwriters who were not just angsty but arty and experimental and visionary
- both classic old-skool r&b, and the first stirrings of hyper-modern timbaland-driven r&b
- spice girls and britney spears

notice the LACK OF BLUR IN THAT LIST.

again i recognise the crate-digging for old stuff mentality, that's not so weird, but it normally gets applied to...60s-80s. the 90s is a bit fresh in people's memories.

hang on, louis, what did you like when you were 12/13?

there's one every year!

2006 = Joanna Newsom - WhYs allegedly...

I'd snort but if someone had told me kids would still be wearing Nirvana t-shirts a decade on, and not 2006's version of Rave Pants... :(

When I was 12/13, I was deeply into The Cure (Pornography being my starter, an album I didn't see as dark or unlistenable but tuneful and imaginative) and XTC (NONSUCH), and I also loved early Pink Floyd, King Crimson and The Byrds. I still love all of them, but I have since found things I love yet more (not much in XTC's case, though). The only thing I liked as a child that I have grown to love yet more in my early adulthood is Steve Harley's greatest hits album, an absolutely spectacular compilation of intelligent, grade A+ pop.

My friends listen to very little that I do. Some are into their jazz big-time, some prefer things like The White Stripes and Sublime, others Belle and Sebastian, many are into classical, quite a few are trendy indie-kids who name-drop Clap Your Boy Most Likely To Wolf Steady, others are cooler indie kids who name-drop Les Savy Fav and Throbbing Gristle in the same sentence (these ones tend to have a music-taste most similar to my own, even if the overlap tends only to be in our immediately contemporary taste, and even then not particularly extensive). Quite a few are into shit like Wolfmother, emo, post-punk bollocks like the whole Razorlight thing, bad, commercial R&B, or sissy guitar queef such as Damien Gray. Some are rockists who espouse the overarching brilliance of The Rolling Stones and then declare that BRMC are the only contemporary act they have any time for. Nobody else likes Mansun. Where, I wonder, does this leave me?

P.S. I'd probably love YS, yes, based upon what I've heard. Although it probably could have done with more effects/computerised bleeps... :P

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), December 4th, 2006.

in fairness i should have added:

i was sitting down.

and mega-stoned.

I'd be interested to know if he thinks the recorded version sounds as fuck-awful as I do! And I'm not even the type to get bothered by such things usually but I can barely make it three songs in to Ys (record) without wanting to scream. I should upload that live stuff in the Ys thread really... the difference is like night and day.

haha this is also indicative of my own tastes (by which I mean that I naturally have an affinity for futuristic-sounding blips and bleeps), which is why I listen to techno and house and r&b and hip-hop and pop rather than indie!!!!!

I'm just a bit wtf-ed at ver kids... at least they've kind of broken away with the whole EMO thing lately, or maybe even Nu-Rave, but it's been years coming, the Kurt-T-Shirt thing is a bit passe now I guess.

Of course Lex's kids (on the bus) do none of this but Grime really isn't that big in Hull you know?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand a word of this. Are you trying to explain my 'indie stiffness' by name-dropping a few 'scenes' such as 'the whole EMO thing', and 'Nu-Rave' (whatever the fuck that is), or even the 'Kurt T-Shirt thing'? I have never associated myself with any scene or any specific type of music, I don't care what everyone else my age is into, and I'd be insulted if I were thought to limit my music taste with certain stylistic conventions.

Just trying to grasp at why Blur et al never did a lot for me (probably at root because Britpop felt 1000% times more manufactured & assisted by the media than anything that came before did, and you started getting a LOT of bands with a very fake, arch & constructed-to-fashion feel about them being passed off as GOLD, and I think it seeped into a lot of other stuff, even less commercial stuff right up to today (Franz Ferdinand seem like a '00s version of this).

Anyway, onto my idea of progress in music.

This is based around the FACT that I have never heard an album which honestly moves from start to finish in a perfect manner. Perfect, for me, is displaying an ability to consider any sound, any musical progression, to go to any lengths to create the most delightful listening experience, and yet remain coherent, memorable, and astounding. I know that artists will, MUST, continue to approach this creative peak, however.

The reason I know this is that when listening to any album of mine I have thought of innumerable ways in which they could be improved, new progressions, new flourishes, new ideas which would completely blown me out of the water. The only album for whom I can't really think of much is Mansun's Six, and that was slaughtered in its tracks by the record company. Music's possibilities are vast, but those exploring the boundaries are only really exploring in one direction. When different directions are combined into one ambitious, all-encompassing, endlessly rewarding package, only then will the stakes be raised to the limit. Hopefully after that someone will come along and come up with an even better combination of soundwaves (for that is what an album essentially is) for our aural and intellectual delectation. Which takes us onto 'possible sounds', which was discussed at length on old-ILX, so I'll shut up now.

Anyway this is getting a bit off-topic, it's still hard to explain what I mean about British pop just being a bit more natural & less studied pre-1993/4, occurring as a result of genuine movements & trends instead of simply reacting far too much to top-down crap thought up by the NME and magazines afterwards.

x post or y know not

Blur's stylistic shift in 'Blur', and yet more so in '13', was surely a reaction against your accusation that they found something and played it for all it was worth? Similarly, Mansun's shift from the ambitious glam-pop of AOTGL to the freakout splendour of Six was another attempt to break free from the 'top-down crap' to which you refer?

Besides, music that conforms to 'movements' or 'trends' can be just as stifling as 'studied' rock/pop. Blur were innovators, and, eventually, they were above either practice (and well beyond being dictated to by any music magazine).

do you like chavez? you should check them out. that's what i'm listening to right now.

Chavez? Never heard of. This is the joy of ILM! *potters off to Allmusic*

hang on, matt, just checking 'em now...

if nu-metal was the movie "dazed and confused" they would've been randall "pink" floyd.

btw, T/S: GOMEZ VS. CHAVEZ ;-)

http://www.matadorrecords.com/mpeg/chavez/chavez_guard_unreal.mp3

He always seems to have wanted to be treated like a serious artist, which in fact he is, by just writing a lot of quite good pop songs, but I think he wants to be recognised in the same way as someone like Kevin Shields is... Just my opinion.

Also, the Britpop thing clearly was 1000% manufactured, but it doesn't mean the bands involved were. There's nothing 'manufactured' about Franz Ferdinand for sure. Not that matters one way or the other.

I liked Mansun's ambition and it did stand out at the time, in terms of ambition... Problem for me was that they just didn't actually cut it.

I think it's right that stuff (for a while, and in that particular field) before 1993/94 was a bit less studied, but that's largely, I think, because it was basically less popular.

Besides hip-hop, GYBE was the only music me and my stoner surfer brother-in-law could definitively agree on.

matt 43l93507, this had better live up to your declarations! ;-)

eliane radigue - trilogie de la mort

jean-francois laporte - mantra

henry jacobs vortex = electronic kabuki mambo

todd dockstader - electronic pieces

stuart dempster - in the great abbey of clement vi

tom dissevelt & kid baltan - popular electronics

sven vath 5 hour set at kristal club, bucharest, feb 2006

mort garson - plantasia

elian radique - e=a=b=a+b

When I worked the rock section in a suburban record store, I used to suggest the Deftones and Tool to people looking for, say, Limp Bizkit, my rationale being that it might incrementally improve their music taste, whereas they'd probably just sell back something like Marquee Moon or Fun House or etc.

Deftones were without question the best of that set of bands.

GYBE do nothing to me. They're one of those bands like Tortoise who seem to have introduced a lot of my friends to instrumental music, including jazz, but I've never thought they brought much to the table in and of themselves.

Well, yeah there clearly wasn't that much mileage IN it after all and good on them for returning to just being a good pop-not-BRITpop band (as they were anyway pre "Modern Life...") it sits a lot easier with me that stuff. "He always seems to have wanted to be treated like a serious artist, which in fact he is, by just writing a lot of quite good pop songs" is OTM. They're not the '90s fucking Beatles some people make them out to be but I DON'T MIND Blur.

Similarly, Mansun's shift from the ambitious glam-pop of AOTGL to the freakout splendour of Six was another attempt to break free from the 'top-down crap' to which you refer?

Mansun just took the piss from the very start I think, acting like one type of band to some people (a cheap "baggy" knock off) and something completely different to others. They didn't really straighten out to play nice with Britpop, which is admirable.

Besides, music that conforms to 'movements' or 'trends' can be just as stifling as 'studied' rock/pop.

Oh sure, you can always flip things around, it's exactly what a lot of the press said at the time about "shoegazing" you know all these bloody bands "sounding the same" and conforming, not dressing funny or being gobshites... what we really need is unique personalities, big riffs, frontmen who know what good rock/pop is SUPPOSED to be about... etc. Obviously some of the Madchester bands *did* have good frontmen (Ian Brown, Shaun Ryder) but their success always seemed less to do with the WOT THE NME SEZ GOES and more to do with being able to catch some of the real spirit of the times (dance and E culture exploding all over Britain).

Britpop was basically a conservative backlash against that AND any kind of musical/sexual/cultural experimentation. Pathetic. And no most bands weren't manufactured but it was a pretty obvious route to "success" and most bands just did exactly as required (to become rich & creamy in 1996).

Anyway Louis likes some Britpop more than I do, but less than Geir. Or something.

puzzles me, because so many moody chamber post-rock groups were suckage on record. If it were easy, you would think that one of Do Make Say Think, Explosions in the Sky, A Silver Mt. Zion, or (yes) Dirty Three would have succeeded at making an interesting record (yeah, I know ASMZ was Godspeed members...)

But comparing these bands live is more telling than debating their recorded output. Explosions in the Sky made me nod off on my feet. Sigur Ros, while OK on record, was one of the most boring shows I've ever seen, a kitten playing on a harpsichord would have been more interesting.

But Godspeed, both times I saw them, blew their opening act off the stage. Labradford, for instance, came across as bubblegum postrock, not because they lacked portentiousness, but because they couldn't do anything anywhere near as interesting without structure as Godspeed could do sawing through charts.

(Elvis Telecom, I seem to recall hearing that the progression of the charts they used was semi-random, as were the transition times, so you'd sometimes get quiet charts one after another. Not random enough for you?.)

Anyway, GYBE will always get credit from me for that creepy "towers are falling" number they recorded...in 2000.

The NME/Uncut-sponsored, man-on-the-street, blurvsoasisvssuede culture of Britpop may have been a little like that, but plenty of the bands regularly lumped in with that 'movement' (which I myself do not endorse as a movement per se) were NOT conservative (including both Blur and Suede), they were actually pretty vibrant, forward-thinking and interesting. I could name some more but I've already done so plenty of times here and gotten shot to pieces. You could say that a higher percentage of my music-taste falls within the mid-90's British spectrum (I prefer early and late 90's to be honest though) than most other ILXors, but I don't think of it as Britpop.

And when on earth have Mansun sounded 'baggy'? The last three minutes of Taxloss aside, that is. I love the fact that what I regard as the most complete musical statement of modern times is thought of by plenty others to be a piss-take... :-D

Or vice versa.

Labradford, for instance, came across as bubblegum postrock

!

Yeah cause all I hear in Labradford is Max Martin.

plenty of the bands regularly lumped in with that 'movement' (which I myself do not endorse as a movement per se) were NOT conservative (including both Blur and Suede), they were actually pretty vibrant, forward-thinking and interesting.

This, my friend, is where you and I are going to have to disagree!

Blur sensing the winds of change away from Baggy and suddenly going all Mod (if not quite as drab musically as the Paul Weller Scene years to come) and then all "Gor Blimey! Love a Duck London is SWINGING now eh?" and then obviously changing tack to ensure the didn't look like flaming idiots and still had a career afterwards...

Suede man "controversially" slapping his arse, mincing a bit, whilst his guitarist did out his best (admittedly not bad) Mick Ronson impression. And the predictable played out/smacked out/drugged out/classic rock'n'roll council estate mythologising of it all. They made some decent records but they were always deeply retro and never truly great because of that. They're no more of their time for throwing in the odd lyric about ecstasy pills than the Arctic f*cking Monkeys for singing about sending an e-mail.

Blur & Suede vibrant, forward-thinking and interesting? Compared to My Bloody Valentine? Aphex Twin? Trip Hop? DO me a favour.

I used to be like this. Watch the telly and saw some gymnasts and blurt out: "THAT IS SO EASY!" I kinda outgrew it. I mean,seriously, what does it matter if something's easy/difficult to make.

It's not that hard to knock out some decent tunes on a guitar/bass/drums and express yourself instead of regurgitating somebody elses ideas barely digested is it? You'd think so. Anyway my favourite "bands" as I've said before, from this sucktastic period (94-97?) were probably Kenickie, Pulp and dEUS whatever that says....

YA RLY. Ramones? FUCK THAT SHIT! DREAM THEATER!!!!

Blur & Suede vibrant, forward-thinking and interesting? Compared to My Bloody Valentine? Aphex Twin? Trip Hop? DO me a favour.

grr

have heard all of the artists mentioned. just because MBV and AT were finding new ways to create sound patterns and create brilliant, original art through the use of feedback layers and advanced programming (and TH through the twin uses of PHAT BEATZ and Beth Gibbons), does this exclude those using more conventional instrumentation/methods from being vibrant, forward-thinking or interesting?

I'll qualify my position on Suede. I only have, and have only heard, the album Dog Man Star of theirs. It is a brilliant, tuneful record, with some wonderfully inventive (yes, inventive) guitar work, especially on the songs Daddy's Speeding and The Asphalt World (my two favourite tracks). I gather that the album as a whole was by far their most ambitious, far-reaching, and in all probability best. I've never been tempted to get anything else by them.

As for Blur, I'm not even starting on Blur and 13, two of the most creative albums of the late-90's (the latter up there with Six and O* C******r, standing IMO alongside anything MBV or RDJames ever put out) and as for the dreaded 'trilogy', a good half of the songs on MLIR are still sonically interesting, unexpected detours from the 'For Tomorrow' pattern, Parklife has curveballs 'This Is A Low' and 'Trouble In The Message Centre' alongside some diamond pop songs, and The Great Escape is actually quite a dark, dissonant album, as revealed by multiple returns.

omg the 90's a&tj, i might puke

It's a metaphor, Ned!

And "bubblegum" has a pre-Britney history, as you well know.

If Tortoise is the Cream of post-rock, and Godspeed are the Pink Floyd, then Labradford were, at least at the time of that performance, the 1910 Fruitgum Company.

This I can agree with.

Godspeed are the Yes, and all their offshoot bands are post-GFTO Yes. :-D

No! I just don't get it from Blur or Suede is all, sorry.

Dog Man Star is /was pretty good yes, I'm not sure the guitar work is "inventive" but it's certainly highly impressive (I did say he's good upthread didn't I?) the only thing that bothered me about it is how conceptually crappy and half-formed a lot of the songs were (even if the album smoothed the flaws out a bit, maybe not for my ears today). Still they got even worse later on so I shouldn't complain.

And I don't think any album with "I Spy" on it can be 100% commercially compromised but I think they navigated the sewage filled waters of Britpop reasonably well considering. His'N'Hers did mostly have stronger tunes tho'

For what it's worth, inventiveness aside, I think Bernard Butler was a great guitarist and Graham Coxon has always just sounded like a classically-trained guitarist trying to sound like the people he likes... He lacked some sort of spark that made it sound different. Suede's b-sides up until when Bernard Butler left were the best records they made, in my opinion.

The problem to me, over Blur's 'curve balls' is that they're, as far as I can see, someone else's curve balls, just done again. The skill they have is in making that sound good, which a lot of great people do, but it's really not the same thing as say MBV/RDJ do, which is not to do it down in any way.

the thing with Pulp, is that to obtain my favourite songs of theirs, one must operate this simple procedure:

-collect every song they did over 5:30 in length

-get rid of 'Gloria' (and possibly 'FEELINGCALLEDLOVE' if there isn't enough room)

-add 'Dishes' and 'Lipgloss'

...and there you have what I'd honestly call the best of Pulp.

TH is that well-known mid-90's act Trip Hop, featuring Roberto Del Naja, Adrian Utley and Ronny Sighs.

----------------------------------------------------------------

ok, well whose curveballs were 13's, then?

I hadn't heard a lot of Wire, and some Stranglers (they're public domain via the radio) but I totally agree regarding Elastica, and everything you describe about Blur...

Where Radiohead do do escape this problem (which a lot of people accuse them of also, second hand ideas polished to a 'newness' by great/good production) is just the songwriting I guess. It communicates something, where Elastica, Blur, Suede are just a bit vacant emotionally really.

Have you heard the album 'Blur', btw? If not, get hold of 'Essex Dogs'. It's utterly out-there, and by a whisker my favourite Blur song ahead of 13's '1992', 'Battle' and 'Caramel'.

Mind you, was that the one that M.O.R. on it?.. Which was pretty much exactly the same as David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging".

For all that, I can't think of anything that Yuko and Hiro was obviously ripped off of... That's a great tune, despite the album being pretty shite.

I'm afraid as far as Radiohead are concerned I can't follow! I think it's a bunch of whinging dull pish! Sorry.

Radiohead's main problem is that they have never truly succumbed to the twin temptations of NOIZE and EPIC, i.e. they have no 8-minute freakouts.

I'll pay attention to the Bugman tune should I chance upon it...

erm, i'm just saying that to hear the radiohead formula stretched out and loosened a bit would be interesting and I think great to listen to!

http://papercutsrekindled.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_papercutsrekindled_archive.html

A bit down the page under: Keith’s University of Rock, part 2: How Punk is Suede’s Stay Together?

I like the second comment, where some random punter says "lay off the Ozrics you bastard".

I've already been thinking about it for 4 years. I've even got some song fragments worked out. It'll be a long time before I'm ready to unleash anything, though! I need to learn a instrument properly first. :-(

e@mail, fair enough, so am I! It's been a good barney regardless...who were you on teh old ILX, btw?

bullshit! do it with effects/computerised bleeps.

exit music would have been an amazing 8-minute song.

I'm listening to my neglected copy of Blur right now because of you and rather enjoying it, so it's all good.

*puts Yuko And Hiro on*

oh, the power of suggestion

-- electric sound of jim (esoj@), December 3rd, 2006.

qft

the Rev's first two albums are up in my top 20 of the decade, and a conglomerate best-of would have made top-3.

just think...

1) MOARK
2) Chasing A Bee
3) Syringe Mouth
4) Downs Are Feminine Balloons
5) Trickle Down
6) Black And Blue
7) Something For Joey
8) Snorry Mouth
9) Hi-Speed Boats
10) Frittering
11) one of the drunks/thunder interludes
12) Very Sleepy Rivers

as i said, i'm buying chavez' entirety. looking forward immensely to it.

death of a party and how soon is now share a bit where the guitar plays a high note and then slides down about a semitone, but that aside i can't see the similarity.

I also own like 3 CDs each of The Mars Volta, GYBE and Yes but don't get too excited.

My favorite Rev bit is actually the flutey outro of Empire State.

Of course, if your Yes albums are 'Drama', '90125' and 'Tormato' my vigour shall be somewhat deflated...

See You On The Other Side is a shameful omission from my collection. I've heard it a couple of times, and it's pretty good, but for it to click I need to buy a copy.

SYOTOS is the first Rev album I owned as a kid, that's probably why it's my favorite. I actually wanted Boces since I had only heard "Car Wash Hair", "Bronx Cheer" and "Young Man's Stride" and liked BC the best but SYOTOS was all they had at the shop, it had just come out. "Bronx Cheer" is still my favorite of their short, poppy singles stuff.

oh to have been a kid in the early-90's...

Uh, yes, yes, that really does prove your point.

xpost

Yes, obviously those are the only two things Radiohead do because it's so easy to say... *burp* scratch... can't be bothered anymore. You say subjective I say potato.

I don't actually like Blur very much at all but I find the ballads accentuate the things I hate about them more than the others. Bearing in mind I've listened to Blur more than pretty much any other band I dislike.

x-post.

anyway for "emotional resonance" Coffee and TV >>>>>>>>>> To The End, Beetlebum and This Is A Low. NOT THAT THEY AREN'T ALSO QUITE NICE SONGS, And I totally hate The Universal too.

What was that lead single off "Think Tank" btw? If that wasn't Blur-doing-Radiohead (pretty damn well) I don't know what was.

Thom Yorke for all his faults (hell I was saying they rely on the same kind of song far too often myself before) annoys me a million times less that Damon Albarn, who pushes my "fuck off twat" button nearly every time he opens his mouth.

HAHA! This coming from you Lex is... is.. I dunno. I know you weren't being mean here but being baffled by Louis's taste baffles me since (as far as I'm concerned) your taste is more in line with that of a 14 year old girl than a 20 something bloke. ;-)

my final pronouncement on blur: the universal is a slightly sappy song with a GREAT lyrical theme, to the end is I agree one of their worst (musically uninteresting), this is a low is brilliant, as is beetlebum.

my best of blur, representative of what I like about them: 1) beetlebum 2) bugman 3) slow down 4) blue jeans 5) 1992 6) ambulance 7) he thought of cars 8) on your own 9) caravan 10) trouble in the message centre 11) battle 12) caramel 13) this is a low 14) resigned 15) essex dogs 16) yuko & hiro

i like optigan one!

yeah, after you and lex turned this into some fucking teen magazine profile feature piece wankfest about how a british virgin -- SHOCKAH -- acquired unusual taste in music, yeah, it got a lot more "damn enjoyable."

what a fucking shockah! now let's all gush like lex over how fantastic this is.

Which explains why I'm posting here a lot. Er.

furthermore, my taste REALLY isn't that unusual. in the context of ILM it's actually quite mainstream! :-)

emjoy: the joy of em

you'll never get any with that attitude

*wuss

I remember it being named in a "songs with great verses, awful chorus" thread. OTM. String city!

Yeah, I thought that too. When real ILX is back you can read the hideous story of how it did happen, replete with vomit.

-- Da Mystery of Sandboxin' (...), December 7th, 2006.

Which? I have 'Clara' and 'Cue' off the latest one (Clara is incredible, brilliant etc), and I have recently bought 'Tilt', although I'm finding that kinda tough to get into (The Cockfighter is great though!). It'll come!

Also, a little bird, possibly known as Matt DC, may have warned me in person earlier this evening that if Dan Perry were to find this thread, my Bach and Mozart claims would be rinsed, dried and stone-baked within fifteen milliseconds. Dan, if you're reading this, you win. :-)