PaulEdwardWagemann
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Posts posted by PaulEdwardWagemann
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Earlier on in the thread you stressed the importance of creativity and innovation, yet of those bands you name.... well I'm pretty familiar with the first three at least and I would contend that none are distinguished by those characteristics. In fact, whilst these bands are vital and exciting in different ways, they are actually quite conservative. Is it a pre-requisite of rockism to achieve that fine balance between the essentially conservative and the progressive?
Name an album and I'll tell you why its on the list. Each one is on for different reasons, but in general they all have either created a foundation or erected a pillar for Rock to evolve so that it continues to be a relevent vehicle of expression...
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Right, anything that keeps the spirit of Rock alive is Rockism. Kings of Leon, the Strokes, White Stripes, Interpol, Arcade Fire, etc are all Rockist bands for example.
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Personally I dont remember 'should I stay or should I go' being in a Levi's commercial (but i dont really watch Tv).
Most Rock Critics that I've read site London Calling as the Clash's masterpiece/most important album. But Combat Rock is the one that reaches Rockists--at least in America. I really cant speak for Rockists in the UK, for I dont know any very well.
All the albums on this list must create, define or advance some tenet of Rockism. Combat Rock was many years ahead of its time in this regard. 1982--when the album was released in the US--was a year that seemed like the music industry was on the verge of something big. Hair Metal was getting big, New Wave was huge, Punk was dead, but Hardcore was at its peak, Rap was starting to happen, meanwhile Trad Rockers were frantically circling the wagons. In the UK, this thing called Post-Punk was going on, which for the most part means little to an American Rockist. Yet Post-Punk did leave its mark on Rockism, and the Clash's Combat Rock illustrates this better than any other album.
The mark it left?
I like to say that combat Rock is post-punk's Sgt Peppers. It Rocks, but at the same time it uses untraditional 'Rock' instruments, everything from jazz saxaphone to drum machines. It also engages all kinds of innovations, like a sample (the toilet bowl clearner commercial in 'Inoculated City') and the idea of a vocal foil--a good example is in 'Red Angel Dragnet' (Foils btw became a big part of Rap--think Favor Flav)...
What this album did was give liscence or at least set a precedent for future American Indie bands. They showed it was possible to sound rough and tough while also sounding accomplished and experimental. I think the influence of Combat Rock can be heard on some of the later Butthole Surfers albums like Electric Larryland and on albums by Beck, the Beastie Boys and the Flaming Lips.
Another point I want to make about this album is the sound and tone of the guitars. Alot of Post-punk guitars sound wimpy to me. ALot of post-punk bands seemed to follow the Talking Heads lead of having the 'thin' sounding guitar which natuarally brought the bass guitar more to the forefront. The Clash didnt do this. They still have plenty of that raunchy guitar sound of their punk days--its just that now its interspersed with all these other instruments and devises.
Last of all, I want to mention the songs. I think every song on this disc is brilliantly written, brilliantly executed and brilliantly produced (except for 'overpowered by funk' which is the token dud that nearly every great album has). Each song is unique, yet they are all held together by some aspect of the Clash's signature sound. It is an album that was somehow accessible to mainstream middle-america thanks to a rather bizarre pop climate at the time. Its influence on Rockism may be so strongly felt because it came at sort of a Middle Ages in Rockism history, and because of that it can bridge some of the gaps between Old School and new School. In otherwords, it is an album that can introduce the old timers to some new direction that Rockism began taking in the 80s and it can also be a touchstone that allows the new schoolers to appreciate some of the exciting things that were happening in the 80s. In this, it is similar to the Talking Heads 'Remain In Light', 'Fear of Music' and 'The Name of this band is Talking Heads' (to be honest it was almost a coin toss as whether to include Combat Rock or The Name of This band Is Talking Heads).
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And nu-Rockism...
So how come you say the Stones followed all the trends like psychedelia and Blues rock, but the Beatles and the Who didn't? I can't say anything about the other bands because while I am familiar with them, I don't think I'm familiar enough.
Admittedly the WHo and the Beatles followed trends, Pete Towsend for instance admitted to being inspired by the Kinks. But the Beatles and Who were also innovative. And they both made great music. The Stones made good music, but there was nothing innovative about them.
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~Hendrix came extremely close to making the list--actually the soundtrack to Woodstock was highly considered.
~The Stones werent included because I dont find them to be very creative and they did not create any albums that define Rockism. They simply globbed onto the latest fad and copied it, whether it was blues rock, psychedelia, country, or even disco. By the 80s they had settled into actually copying themselves--or rather the 'idea' of themselves. Terribly pathetic IMO. And although I admit there are examples where they did pretty good copycat material, it cannot be considered good enough to be definitive in terms of Rockism.
Maybe if there was a list made in 1984, then would have been on it, but by today's nu-Rockims standards they're pretty stale.
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The doobie brothers as SOul???
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Well how many white artists do you think would be on a list of 13 essential Soul albums or 13 essential Rap albums...
If Chuck Berry would have ever made a good album he would have been on the list...Hendrix came close, and Love (Arthur Lee) probablly came the closest...but I explain why none of these artists albums made the list on my blog.
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if you want to consider yoruself a Rockist, then
heres the list of the 13 essential albums you need know, frontward sidways and back:
Beatles ~ Sgt Pepper
Beatles ~ Abbey Road
Bob Dylan ~ The FreeWheelin Bob Dylan
Neil Young ~ Decade
The Clash ~ Combat Rock
Pink Floyd ~ Pipers at the gates of Dawn
Liz Phair ~ Exile in Guyville
Black Sabbath ~ Paranoid
led Zeppelin ~ I
REM ~ ChronicTown
Nirvana ~ Nevermind
Velvet Underground ~ VU
The Who ~ Who's Next
These are the bare minimum. Chronologically they run from 1962 to 1993. (Yes, that means that I dont think there has been a significant Rockism album made in the last 12 plus years--but I'm open for debate). There are only two female band members here; Liz Phair and Mo Tucker, No blacks, no hispanics, no asians, no arabs. 7 of the 13 albums are from British acts, and one is from a Canadian. 7 albums are from the 60s, 2 from the 90s, 2 from the 80s and just two from the 70s (even though the 70s were in fact the greatest Rock decade of all!). There are a several other albums that came very close to making the list; Pavements Slanted and Enchanted, the Talking Head Remain in Light, and Stereolabs Space Age Batchelor Pad Music, Love's Forever Changes, the Replacements Pleased to Meet Me, etc.
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21 years after Live Aid, I'm still a bit cynical about it. I was getting into the Indie/Underground scene at the time; Replacements, Butthole Surfers, Camper van Beethoven, Pixies, etc. These were bands that were making great music and that's what I was interested in and listening to. These huge pop stars with their hairdos and make-up just seemed so substance-less. It made me wonder how much they really cared about the situation--or were they just involved in it becasue it was the trendy thing to do. Ofcourse I'mnot talking about the authenic artists like Neil Young or Bob Dylan. It's all those other bands whose names I cant even think of right now--maybe michael jackson and wham were among them--I cant even remember right now.
But the point is that, sure Live Aid did help bring attention and some real help to the starving kids in Africa. But jeez, any music fan who actually needed all that shotty music in order to gain awareness of the issue and be called upon to do something about it, is kind of an idiot anyway--and I wonder how quickly they forgot about the issue after they made their token 20$ donation?
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Look, I had adults telling what a dufus I was when I was 15, so now as an adult myself it is my right--nay, my DUTY to tell 15 year olds of today what dufuses they are. Who knows, maybe it will help them grow up and learn a bit...or maybe it wont. But if they are gonna act like twerps, then its my right to point it out to them that they are acting like twerps...is it not?
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Then there was Live 8 where they put on a million dollar concert to "raise awareness" when they could have charged a dollar for admission and raised millions of dollars for charity.
My God, you are such a dumbass. Teenagers get sad about measly things like breaking up with their girlfriends because they don't have the experience of, oh I don't know, starvation. Their feelings are relative to their personal experiences. And I don't know any teenagers who actually think their problems are on par with the problems of starving children in Africa.
I think you are the one who lives in a bubble. People like you think that teenage depression doesn't exist. Unfortunately, many adults are like that, and adults are the only ones who can solve the problem. Either adults need to get out of their "everything is perfect as long as you aren't starving" bubble, or we need more teenage psycholigists and scientists to cure depression.
And I think it's interesting that you say you "have no use for them." What do you usually "use" teenagers for?
And another question; what have you done recently to make the world a better place?
Oh man, that last one is way too long to answer--and way too personal for a message board. If you want to know that kind of stuff about me, go to my MySpace message board and ask it of me there.
I WAS a teenager once, and I realize that the bologna that I was worried about then, is totally insignificant compared to the stuff I have to worry about now. I have to worry about how I'm going to keep a roof over my family's head, how I'm going to feed and cloth them. But you dont hear me on the radio singing songs and complaining about it, do you? No! Cuz what good is complaining about it gonna do? You have to go out and DO something about it.
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So you are saying that teenagers cant handle reality???
Look, what I'm saying is that if they want to live in their tiny little suburban bubbles where a pimple on their ass is tantamount to poverty and starvation then I have no use for them. I live in the real world. Its a harsh world at times, but you have to deal with it and do your best to tray and make it a better place...
Didn't you people ever see the Live Aid video???
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Oh I get sad, but not because some girl wont notice me or because I was overcharged for a haircut...it just seems this ScrEmO crap is a pathetic attempt for attention--"Woa is me" bllsheet. I mean, are the teenagers of western civilization today so out of touch with reality and so overly self-involved that they think that their latest pimple is so much more of a tragedy than the fact that there are kids starving in Africa everyday???
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So all these teenage kids who are making this sad new school Emo music must be like living in Africa, starving and living in poverty, and being forced into wars by evil dictators, Right? I mean compared to that what does a spoiled teenage brat living in suburbia have to be sad about?
I mean come on people--this is f%$#ing America. We have everything handed to us on a silver f#%&ing platter! And what are we going to do with this blessing? Sing about how f%$#ing sad we are?
Seriously, can someone explain this to me, and why I shouldnt beat the livin snot out of the next whiney Emo I see?
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Does anyone know what a Spambot is?
I tried clicking onto this guy's messageboard (on MySpace) today and suddenly I had a hundred different Spams popping up all over my screen.
What the HELL is that all about?
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Cornell has the great voice, but I thinkit was Vedder's voice that all those crappy Grunge-Pop singers of the mid/late 90s tried to copy (Creed being the best/worst example)...
Also alot of singers tried to impersonate Cobain--Bush, Marcy Playground, etc...
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For the record, I don't really make fun of emo any more. It's a really easy target, so easy, it's no fun to make fun of it any more.
Who is emo so popular with?
British teenagers?
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Personally, there's maybe a half dozen post-Barrett Pink Floyd songs that I like, while I pretty much like everything Barret did. And as far as 'lolly~pop jamboree' music, if that's what you think Barrett's solo carreer was (or his influence would have been) then you really need to give it another listen.
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PaulEd, do you write obituaries for a living?
Just my own...
Were you a fan of Barretts?
There are a lot of wierd syncronicity type of things between happenings in my life and syd barrett music (maybe I just look for these things0. The most recent happened about a week ago when I couldnt get my 6 month old baby to stop crying. For the life of me, I tried everything--he wasnt hungy, he wasnt sleepy, didnt have to burp, didnt have to poop, but for some reason he was just irritable as all hell. I tried picking him up, putting him down, breaking out all his favorit toys, his chew toy, everything. Finally I just held him in my arms and very softly started singing, "I wast to tell you a story, about a little man...if I can...a gnome named grimble grumble, and little gnomes stay in their homes..." and the kid just gave me the most inquisitive look and then a big smile. Every day since then that has been the song I sing to him right before nap time...
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One of the most influential musical artists of the 20th century died this week. Many people might associate Syd Barrett with the flower power mod happenings of the summer of Love. Or as the founder of Pink Floyd and leading contributor to Psychedelic Rock, but I've always I placed him in that small cardre of slightly (or perhaps not so slightly) demented yet undeniably creative dark geniuses right alongside Edgar Allan Poe and Modigiliani. It was his solo career recordings where this becomes most evident. And although his solo stuff isn't "psychadelic" like his stuff with Pink Floyd was, the songwriting is no less unique. Many of his solo tracks seem simple (some are accompanied by nothing but guitar), but they become more complicated on repeated listening. And his lyrics can at times seem childlike (similar to those from Pipers at the Gates of Dawn and his other work with Pink Floyd) but accompanied by his urgently haunted voice and versatile melodies, these child-like lyrics convey a gammit of images, emotions, and ideas. But even beyond that, there was something that seperated Barrett's music from anything else I can think of it, and that was its ability to invites you into the dark corridors and inner sanctum of his tormentedly creative mind--which sometimes makes listening to him rather a challenge. Oftentimes you can hear the germ of an amazing song in a Barrett composition--but then as the listener you must take that frightful and unknwingly leap into your own imagination and fill out the flesh on these skeletal socnic sketches. Its comparable to Modigliani leaving off detail on the hands of his subject matters in his paintings. He leaves that to you. The effect this has on Barrett's music is abandonment--but in the best possible sense of the word. Inside his own mind he has heard these incredbile song, only he just hasnt figured out how to materialize them. For some reason he just never follows through--his concentration is off to the next tangent before he can finish the laborioius chore of capturing that song verbatim as it sounds inside his head. This leaves the listener the liscense to finish Syd's 'abandoned' work in your own head or by humming, singing, or making various noises. A process that somehow makes for an incredibly enjoyable listening experience--(possibly even more enjoyable than if he really would have followed through and completed the songs). Barrett's dark genius often was misunderstood and to many he wil be remembered as the posterboy for the term ''Acid Casualty'. This in part is due to the fact that Barrett turned his back on recording music in the early 70s. Maybe I'm just biased, but I really havent heard anything so bizzare about his behavior that is any worse than what hundreds of other rock stars throughout history have done. Barrett liked to tinker about in his garden and he lived with his mother. So what? It sounds to me that he just lost interest in going through the "process" of recording music... Who knows, maybe he created masterpieces that no one will ever hear every night while tinkering around in his living room with an accoustic guitar...or maybe he had a million masterpieces floating through his mind as he weeded the garden each morning. Whatever the case, I'm eternally thankful that he at least shared a glimpse of his brilliance with the rest of the world and that we will always be able to listen to it whenever the mood suits us.
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Dylan and Young are at the very top. Lou Reed is up there as well...
...with voices like those, you better right good songs...
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Did you just insult us? Because if we are not all that you think we should be, nobody's holding a gun to your head to be here. God forbid the stench of our BS should taint any of your pontificating, Mr. Wagemann.
No, sorry if it appeared that way. I was saying that most message boards on MySpace delve in that BS--so when I mentioned MySpace I thought it might sour some people on my message board.
Like I say I just started it today, so theres not alot of people there yet...hopefully BF will join--are you reading this BF?
And maybe Walter Mitty (since he stalks me everywhere else i go)...and hopefully a couple of you folks will come join...I've got some good ideas for the board--things that I couldnt do here. Like the Album of the Week thread, etc...
Anyway, if you wanna give it a try, then heres a link:
http://groups.myspace.com/httpwwwmyspacecompaulewagemann
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Myspace is loads better than a magazine, because you can't listen to a magazine. All the new bands are posting songs on myspace for free (and legal too), and tour dates. Plus having a conversation with an indie band on myspace is a better way to connect with fans than doing some stupid interview in Teen Beat magazine. Myspace has been partially responsible, in my opinion, for the booming popularity of indie. And booming popularity of indie can only mean one thing...more creativity and artistic freedom in modern music. And that can only be a good thing.
BTW, your myspace group is hilarious, because there aren't any members. You're talking to yourself, buddy!
I just started inviting people to join today. I have about 60 friends on MySpace and I invited about half of them. Plus a few other ringers from other boards. I want it to be a rather small group, but the cream of the crop. No whos dating who BS or 'top ten' this or that BS. But, batman, I feel youre a pretty sharp cookie, so I'd be more than glad to have you as a member. Like I say, I jsut sent out the invites today, so it may take a day or two before the debates heat up...
Here's that link again:
http://groups.myspace.com/httpwwwmyspacecompaulewagemann
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http://groups.myspace.com/httpwwwmyspacecompaulewagemann
13 essential Rockism albums:
in Music Discussion
Posted
Its really not a matter of 'trying' to keep the spirit of Rock alive--in fact if they were intentionally trying to do that, they would probablly fail. But it is a matter of putting a new twist on Rock, or expanding the boundaries of Rock, or even fusing Rock with something else (maybe fusing it with rap, or maybe fusing it with film/video, etc.) Piper and Pepper both have alot in common, and it might now seem very wise to have two albums on the list that were recorded at the same time (1967), in the same place (abbey road studios) and in a similar genre (psychedelic rock), for that reeks of giving too much importance to that particular scene/genre/style or what have you.
Sgt Peppers has to be on the lsit because of the impact it had on society, the music industry, art, culture, etc.
But Piper is on the list because its just that damn good and original. Plus even though its impact was not felt as immediatley as Pepper, it has been an influence not only on Prog ROck, but on post-Punk, Art Rock and 80s/90s indie rock. Also, whereas Pepper shifted the focus of Rock from a singles-based music to an album oriented one, Piper basically said to Rock Acts, "Hey, lets forget about singles altogether and just make good music--good albums."