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

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.

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. :-)