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

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