What's Gone Wrong With Rock?

[Jim Alfredson]

Not really rock in the traditional sense, but Peter Gabriel's latest album from 2002, UP, is absolutely incredible.

[clifford_thornton]

I didn't buy the tribute album, but have the Folkways anthologies. Fine for me.

The one time I saw Nick Cave live it was really quite great. His records don't get nearly as much mileage as his stage presence. Still... one of those few people whose early and recent work is equally interesting.

Edit: In response to an Alexander post.

Edit 2: I am hit-or-miss with Lennon and am not that interested in the Beatles' trajectory. Nevertheless, I won't argue with anyone's opinion on him/them here.

Edited June 24, 2008 by clifford_thornton

[clifford_thornton]

rock is a complicated topic - best stuff of the last 30 years, IMHO, was No New York -

Well, no need to have that particular comp when you can buy anthologies of all of those bands' work, including much rare/previously unissued stuff.

Still, that scene produced some music the likes of which the world hasn't seen since.

[AllenLowe]

problem is I inevitably get bored with a cd's worth of James Chance - DNA I like, though same problem eventually -

[sjarrell]

Babyshambles (when they get around to actually recording something)

can't believe i am not the only fan here (guess nobody has figured out my avatar so far)... i am not promising i will still treasure this in 10 years, but don't miss the libertines albums and the libertines demos that are available for download in several places (legally)...

edit: i mean especially the leg ii sesion:

http://djmonstermo.blogspot.com/2005/02/li...ines-demos.html

hope the links work

The Libertines were a great group, if incredibly short lived. They were one of those amazingly gifted bands that flared up and burned out just as quickly. I remember when Babyshambles started releasing material, I was a little skeptical. I honestly didn't expect Doherty to live long enough to record much of anything post-Libertines. I was surprised and delighted that Babyshambles is as good as it is. I still don't expect Doherty to live very long, but maybe he'll turn out to be like Keith Richards (my theory is that Keith actually died back in the late 60s, but that he just kept on showing up to work, so Mick and the boys never got around to telling him). I'm also quite fond of Barât's Dirty Pretty Things.

Here's another artist I forgot to mention: Damon Albarn. Blur may have been a fan fav for some, but they always came off like a poor man's Oasis to me. Albarn's post-Blur career has been something quite else. I enjoyed both Gorillaz albums and Albarn's recent project, The Good, The Bad, and The Queen (produced by Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, who also did the second Gorillaz album). Any album that includes both DM AND Tony Allen (of Fela Kuti fame) is worth hearing!

I can't believe I neglected to mention TGTB&TQ earlier. It might be the best pop record I've ever heard. And every time I hear it it's better than the last, over a year down the road.

PS

Libertines/DPT/Babyshambles?

[sjarrell]

Babyshambles (when they get around to actually recording something)

can't believe i am not the only fan here (guess nobody has figured out my avatar so far)... i am not promising i will still treasure this in 10 years, but don't miss the libertines albums and the libertines demos that are available for download in several places (legally)...

edit: i mean especially the leg ii sesion:

http://djmonstermo.blogspot.com/2005/02/li...ines-demos.html

hope the links work

Thanks for the link! Lazy Sunday? Hell yes!

Close my eyes and drift away...

Edit: The demos and Lazy Sunday are broken, alas. Guess I'll play the Small Faces one.

Edited June 24, 2008 by sjarrell

[Teasing the Korean]

I'm tired of guys with guitars singing to me.

[Shawn]

I'm tired of guys with guitars singing to me.

I'm tired of guys WITHOUT guitars (or instruments at all) singing to me.

[clifford_thornton]

problem is I inevitably get bored with a cd's worth of James Chance - DNA I like, though same problem eventually -

Yeah, not coincidentally a lot of these no wave recs were issued on 7" or 12" EP.

[Alexander]

Babyshambles (when they get around to actually recording something)

can't believe i am not the only fan here (guess nobody has figured out my avatar so far)... i am not promising i will still treasure this in 10 years, but don't miss the libertines albums and the libertines demos that are available for download in several places (legally)...

edit: i mean especially the leg ii sesion:

http://djmonstermo.blogspot.com/2005/02/li...ines-demos.html

hope the links work

Thanks for the link! Lazy Sunday? Hell yes!

Close my eyes and drift away...

Edit: The demos and Lazy Sunday are broken, alas. Guess I'll play the Small Faces one.

Funny, I never made the connection before, but the Libertines really DID have a Small Faces thing going, didn't they? Not so much in terms of sound, but definitely in spirit ("Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" is one of the best psychedelic albums after Love's "Forever Changes" and Pink Floyd's "Piper at the Gates of Dawn").

[Van Basten II]

Other names that are worthy to be mentionned

PJ Harvey, The Kills

[ep1str0phy]

Babyshambles (when they get around to actually recording something)

can't believe i am not the only fan here (guess nobody has figured out my avatar so far)... i am not promising i will still treasure this in 10 years, but don't miss the libertines albums and the libertines demos that are available for download in several places (legally)...

edit: i mean especially the leg ii sesion:

http://djmonstermo.blogspot.com/2005/02/li...ines-demos.html

hope the links work

The Libertines were a great group, if incredibly short lived. They were one of those amazingly gifted bands that flared up and burned out just as quickly. I remember when Babyshambles started releasing material, I was a little skeptical. I honestly didn't expect Doherty to live long enough to record much of anything post-Libertines. I was surprised and delighted that Babyshambles is as good as it is. I still don't expect Doherty to live very long, but maybe he'll turn out to be like Keith Richards (my theory is that Keith actually died back in the late 60s, but that he just kept on showing up to work, so Mick and the boys never got around to telling him). I'm also quite fond of Barât's Dirty Pretty Things.

Here's another artist I forgot to mention: Damon Albarn. Blur may have been a fan fav for some, but they always came off like a poor man's Oasis to me. Albarn's post-Blur career has been something quite else. I enjoyed both Gorillaz albums and Albarn's recent project, The Good, The Bad, and The Queen (produced by Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, who also did the second Gorillaz album). Any album that includes both DM AND Tony Allen (of Fela Kuti fame) is worth hearing!

I can't believe I neglected to mention TGTB&TQ earlier. It might be the best pop record I've ever heard. And every time I hear it it's better than the last, over a year down the road.

PS

Libertines/DPT/Babyshambles?

In brief response to earlier discussion--stylistic dominance in rock is so tied to industry organization that I think it's hard to address a topic like this one without hitting on those buttons. So whether the music is good or not is much more difficult to bead--not that I don't appreciate the discussion...

On TGTB&TQ--I was disappointed at first that Allen's drumming isn't really foregrounded in that group, but taken as one of Albarn's projects, it's pretty effective, and different from the Gorillaz stuff (which I also enjoy).

I think it's marvelously unhip to like Radiohead these days, but after my girlfriend got me to sit down with some of their stuff, I'm a fan. I'll give them credit for acknowledging their antecedents, and turn off the fact that a lot of what I really like about their more recent material has been shipped in from other environs. Yorke's solo album is good ambient fun, too.

Muse was a Radiohead-esque indie rock group that had some creative prosperity until some lapses of taste intervened. A lot of it is really good.

The SF/Bay Area has a great experimental/post-no wave rock scene going on--groups like Mute Socialite, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and the Atomic Bomb Audition. It's a pleasure playing and watching in and around this environment because the politics of genre are really slippery here.

[clifford_thornton]

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum KICK ASS!!!

[Niko]

Babyshambles (when they get around to actually recording something)

can't believe i am not the only fan here (guess nobody has figured out my avatar so far)... i am not promising i will still treasure this in 10 years, but don't miss the libertines albums and the libertines demos that are available for download in several places (legally)...

edit: i mean especially the leg ii sesion:

http://djmonstermo.blogspot.com/2005/02/li...ines-demos.html

hope the links work

Thanks for the link! Lazy Sunday? Hell yes!

Close my eyes and drift away...

Edit: The demos and Lazy Sunday are broken, alas. Guess I'll play the Small Faces one.

ok, this link seems to be better, one file containing the leg XI demos (best songs imho are bucketshop and music when the lights go out)

two more great songs from the same era, you're my waterloo and (especially) breck road lover ("and if lust and despair are two bullets in the same gun then we've been playing russian roullette for far too long" poetry? - don't know, but it does work for me) another interesting item are the babyshambles sessions, three cds worth of then new material doherty handed to a complete stranger in new york asking for it to be published online..., the first cd is pretty much an album, the second has a number of nice songs (albion, france, adam green's version of what a waster), the third is more unfinished...) Shaking And Withdrawn Megamix is an acoustic Pete Doherty album which has fine moments...

http://version2.andrewkendall.com/pages/mi...byshambles2.php

the best site for libertines related bootlegs used to be http://www.albionarks.com/ but they are down at the moment...

agree with alexander that babyshambles (have only heard the first album so far) was much better than i had expected...

another favorite new song i discovered recently, stars "the very thing", not the best home-made video but still

another wilco fan here;

sandy dillon is also pretty good in places (or does this already count as jazz?

http://home.scarlet.be/~js002019/sandy/video.htm

try the radio broadcast from antwerp for just a woman and her piano... great stuff...)

there is a guest appearance by Stef Kamil Carlens from the Belgian band dEUS... dEUS was what the hip indie rock fans over here heard seven years ago when i last asked them....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_%28band%29

("Deus displays a bewildering array of influences, including Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Big Star, Sonic Youth, Sun Ra and Mingus-style jazz, Leonard Cohen and the Velvet Underground.")

never really checked them out but this sounds like i should; (as i just see Carlens started his own band Zita Swoon in the late 90s have one of their albums and like it quite a bit...)

one more songwriter album i played a lot in the last few years was

The Mysterious Production of Eggs by Andrew Bird

can't check the link at work but allegedly (where did i learn this word ) you can stream it here

http://www.righteousbabe.com/artists/andre...tmpoe/index.asp

and if you thought the cure were only good at gloomy songs try this

(hot hot hot - the other video where they make fun of choreographies "why can't i be you" is also fun to watch)

Edited June 24, 2008 by Niko

[porcy62]

So, at the end we discovered that nothing gone wrong with rock, we should rename the thread: "What's gone wrong with some Organissimo's members about rock?"

[Niko]

So, at the end we discovered that nothing gone wrong with rock, we should rename the thread: "What's gone wrong with some Organissimo's members about rock?"

after all it seems one doesn't need to be jimi hendrix (or particularly innovative) to record a great rock album (or charlie parker to play fine jazz) (and being still awake (alive) is not necessary but enormously helpful for writing songs that matter to people)

btw, has anyone else here experienced this enormous frustration of thinking you have written a great rock/pop song and afterwards people ask you (a little worried) whether it was jazz... (will never forget that bitter look from some moderator after we had started playing; he thought i had made fun of him when i told him to announce us as pop music...) (and later that night a 15 year old kid from one of the other, much younger, bands came up to us and said the music had reminded him of the velvets and that helped a bit)

Edited June 24, 2008 by Niko

[Jazzjet]

So, at the end we discovered that nothing gone wrong with rock, we should rename the thread: "What's gone wrong with some Organissimo's members about rock?"

Having started the thread, I guess you may be right. Interesting to see the level of enthusiasm for a number of bands like Babyshambles - and bizarrely encouraging. The fact that I really don't see their value is of course irrelevant - it only matters to those to whom it matters. One noticeable thing in modern rock compared to say pre-1975 is the sheer multiplicity of sub-genres. Back in the day if you talked about rock people had a fairly universal understanding of what you meant. Now, it can - and does - mean just about anything, from alt.folk to grunge to emo etc etc. Maybe there just isn't a rock culture any more?

[Shawn]

Maybe there just isn't a rock culture any more?

There are rock sub-cultures. It's a fragmented art form (jazz is the same way), too many different types of music being lumped together by a single word to try and describe it all. But adding sub-genre tags just makes the water muddier. My view is listen to whatever you like and ignore what you don't.

[king ubu]

I'm clueless as far as rock music's concerned, but I liked the recent Grinderman album quite some.

And the new Portishead, but that's not rock, really...

[Morganized]

What's Gone Wrong With Rock?

50 years.......

Seriously, I think it is the natural progression of things. It took about that long before Miles declared "Jazz is dead". Any art form suffers the same fate. As good as it is, it can only be extended, twisted, turned, minimalized, colored, distorted, repeated etc. etc. before it all becomes a little tiring. Pop music is ready for a paradignm shift IMHO. It will happen. Someone(s) will come along with something totally new to the masses. That is not to say it will necessarily be free from all musical roots, but it will be new and unique with a completely new sound and culture and it will capture the imagination us all...that is art. I think people are ready to embrace the "new thing" but don't know what it is yet. When it happens, the music industry will not have to worry so much about illegal downloads.

my 2 cents

[felser]

So, at the end we discovered that nothing gone wrong with rock, we should rename the thread: "What's gone wrong with some Organissimo's members about rock?"

Well, I guess that's one take on it - certainly not mine. It's deader than a doornail and has been for at least 20 years if not 30. When I see someone like Nick Cave being offered up as proof that rock is alive and vital, all I can do is cover my ears and think "huh?". I think I agree with the 50 years answer, and with the one that says something truly new and innovative needs to come along, and that it may or may not be called "rock".

[AllenLowe]

PJ Harvey lately sounds like a parody of herself -

[AllenLowe]

and Chauncey, you mentioned in one of your posts that you had lost both hands in Korea, and were now using voice-recognition software - so how do you do the handjobs?

[7/4]

and Chauncey, you mentioned in one of your posts that you had lost both hands in Korea, and were now using voice-recognition software - so how do you do the handjobs?

[Werf]

Artists Who Rock My World:

Robert Pollard

Takeovers

Psycho and the Birds

SM and the Jicks

Destroyer

SPOON

Black Mountain

The New Pornographers

My Morning Jacket

Sonic Youth

Yo La Tengo

Mission of Burma

P.J. Harvey

The Wrens

Broken Social Scene

The Decemberists

Sleater-Kinney

Silver Jews

Dinosaur Jr