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same band- different incarnations??


windy1

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Ok...maybe we were "arguing", but not about "Who was better....etc.,etc." Animated debate: it's what makes discussion boards interesting. Sometimes we get worked up about things because we are passionate about music.Or, in my case, because I have a personality disorder.

"Look how verbose and 'intelligent' I can be."
If, as I suspect, this is a personal shot at me... (I'd like to think not, but I can't help suspecting)...perhaps I should explain something: I have a heightened insight into my human frailty and flaws, which can be a blessing and a curse. I am only too aware of those personal traits that render me absurd and deserving of ridicule. Perhaps it has never been sufficiently transparent that what you witness here is an exercise in self-caricature, a hellish concoction of exaggerated conceit and self-loathing; an exorcism, a conscious attempt to be as ridiculous as I know I am.

Throughout my life, there haven't been many places I can express this without being made to sit in the corner, so please.....give me some leeway, eh?

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A matter of honour
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My fault. I oscillate between here and CNN. And the stupidity of what goes on in this world never ceases to cause me to shake my head in the conviction that if we don't change, if something doesn't change, we're all doomed. Seeing photos of women both foreign and over here shattered over the loss of a precious child juxtaposed with something inconsequential like the previous posts causes a momentary blindness. I should stay away from CNN, but I can't.

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My fault. I oscillate between here and CNN. And the stupidity of what goes on in this world never ceases to cause me to shake my head in the conviction that if we don't change, if something doesn't change, we're all doomed. Seeing photos of women both foreign and over here shattered over the loss of a precious child juxtaposed with something inconsequential like the previous posts causes a momentary blindness. I should stay away from CNN, but I can't.

That's interesting - I do the exact same thing sitting on my sofa with the laptop , and an eye on CNN between posts ...However , Ken , to be fair , can you actually expect the content and signifigance or impact of these threads to reach those of CNN ?

The above debate ( arguement if you prefer , for it has elements of that as, well ) is ,infact, really the only one going on in the entire site which claims itself be a forum for discussions about music . While one senses some frustration about the details in this debate from it's participants , it is, on the whole , civil , informed, and enlightening in some respects, to others who know little ( nor care , in many cases ) about what they're talking about , anyway . :laughing:

Carry on , boys ... but let me pop out for another beer !

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I tried to make light of it, but I find this just irritating beyond all belief. Someone says something, others choose to try and one-up the previous post. "Look how verbose and 'intelligent' I can be." There are wars going on, people are dying. Children are being killed. Some other people slept in the cold and rain in a friggin' cardboard box last night. People go to bed hungry. Yet the arguement as to whom was better, the Doors or Echo and the fricking Bunnymen rages on. Music is subjective. Those who like Echo like Echo. Those who like the Doors, like the Doors. You may as well be arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Be done with it.

More importantly, what "kind of music" is playing when the angels dance on the head of a pin?

Ken's point is well taken, I love the fact that Ken likes music I couldn't care less about and visa versa. Makes life more interesting. Right?

I don't like the music my wife and daughter listen to but I will get them any music they like, because music is syrup of the soul! It's sweetens who we are.

And there is a million billion better things to be concerned about that this subject, forsure!!

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To be fair, the only real "argument" in this thread is my fault. I took exception with Bitter Almonds' attitude - the way I perceive it - and I don't know when to be quiet. It had nothing to do with Echo vs. The Doors - I don't care either way about that. My only problem is that I clouded a relevant discussion with nitpicking and attitude of my own.

I love when there's this sort of discussion here - that's what the site is for. Sure, mostly it's trivial compared to the bigger picture. But to me it's also an escape from the bigger picture, where I can talk about something that matters greatly to me. I can't have or obsever these sorts of debates with most everyone else I know. The great Frank Drebin said it best with "The problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in the real world. But this is our hill, and these are our beans!"

Anyway, I'd like to apologize to Bitter Almonds for the argumentative way in which I engaged him, and to anyone else who took exception with the direction in which this thread went.

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Japan is one of the greatest bands that ever lived. It was a band which everyone as a musician, and an artist in general, should aspire to become. They are the embodiment of what Oscar Wilde once said of artists: The best ones never gradually become better (i.e. they have no incline and decline in the quality of their work) - their work is a full circle.

Duran Duran is the best facsimile of Japan. This is not a bad thing per se. After all, the catch-phrase "New Romantic" came from Duran Duran's 1981 single, "Planet Earth." But Japan crafted and perfected the New Romantic sub-genre with 1979's Quiet Life and 1980's Gentlemen Take Polaroids before there was a coin phrase for it. They are choice albums if you want to hear what the early 80s were truly about.

Can "new" and "improved" really co-exist?

Japan were indeed a band worthy of your pulchritudinous prose in their praise and admiration. :bow: :thumbsup: It's so dreadfully vexing that their name should have to be uttered in the same breath as...that other band you mentioned. I realise that as contemporaries in the so-called "New Romantic movement" and sharing similar Roxy/Bowie influences, there is a certain inevitability in their being bracketed together. Personally, I would suggest that the two outfits' differences were more significant than their superficial similarities: Japan's David Sylvian was gifted both as a vocalist and a poet, a writer of genuine sensitivity and artistry; unlike his porcine peer. This underlines a huge difference between the bands: one concerned with the aesthetic and transcendental quality of their music without too much regard for the machinations of the pop-market, the other brash and brazen, not possessed of subtlety or class and with a greedy eye on their market-share, (not to mention the drugs and dancing-girls)

Sure, there were some areas of musical "overlap", largely attributable to their shared influences, but I suggest their costumes had more in common than their modus operandi.

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Yes. Japan shares more in common with Roxy Music and David Bowie than Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet share in common with Japan. Japan went through the whole circle of Hell and back, musicwise. They had humble beginnings as a Glam Rock band, which strangely resembled a proto-Guns 'N Roses. Two albums later, they got Giorgio Moroder to produce their musak and they cut some Disco(!). Hahaha. I think it was David Sylvian who shouted at an audience at a concert, "And now, here's one of the worst singles in music history!" And then he sang "Life In Tokyo" or "European Son," one of those two. With the album Quiet Life, though, it might not have been apparent at the time it was released, but they struck pay-dirt with it. I cannot, for the life of me, name a "New Romantic" album that sounds like Quiet Life that came before it. Sure, The Human League and OMD were in the scene as well, so was Ultravox!. But their sound and look was still in the works (heck, with Ultravox!, it was completely re-arranged). I don't know where I read this, but before Duran Duran was about to form and record songs, Japan's management was asked if they would take the reins to get D2 launched. They declined, of course. By 1982, Japan had achieved all it could artistically and, combined with inner-conflicts, they disbanded. The unfortunate thing is that, while being the pioneers of the genre, they never got the recognition they deserved (you never hear them getting any airplay in "flashback hours" in any public radio stations nowadays and very few North American 80s compilations include a song by them).

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Me and my Dad Think the Mighty Mighty Bosstones are this genertaion's Chicago. If you havent heard them, take a listen to "The Impression That I Get". 1997. If Chicago actulally adopted a New, Modern sound in the 90's It'd be this!

*Note; I picked a basically unknown band beacuse It;s not gonna lead into a big argument. (Though I'd like it To! :D)

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Oh my gosh, here we go bitter almonds. You do know you're arguining 2 against 1! My dad Thinks so, too. Anyway, what I meant was If Chicago WANTED to make ska, this is what it would sound like.

P.S. Use this :happybanana: and this :jack: if you've never heard of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones

PPS your post will look like this: :happybanana: :jack:

PPPS BitterAlmonds, Did you ever hear of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones before, or did you have to wiki them?

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Who hasn't heard The Mighty Mighty Bosstones? "The Impression That I Get" was on heavy rotation on the radio and on eMpTyV during a Ska revival along crap such as No Doubt and Save Ferris. This might also have been a time when retro-Swing was attempting to make a weird comeback after about...hmmm... 60 years. Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca" sort of reminded me of the music from "The Impression That I Get" and both make me shudder in revulsion, but not more than music by No Doubt and Sublime.

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I've never seen anybody use this :jack:, so, why not use that?

Oh, what I meant by 'modern' was, using the same instruments, create a 'Modern' sounding song.

PS: Here's the video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gik_qXgDMZs (Notice it says MTV2 in the top corner, MTV still PLAYED videos in '97?

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Believe it or not, they played crap in 1997 - evidenced by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt, Sublime, and Save Ferris. They also had this long-running crapfest called "TRL," where teenyboppers could vote for their favourite crappy videos by crappy bands. Do they still have TRL? I know carson daly was the major figurehead from that show.

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