Worst Band Ever -

Ok - This could be a big band or local one....please provide some samples...

This band was the worst when I used to live in Boston.

Guitars always out of tune, horrible melodies - but my friends and I were obsessed on how bad it was...

Have a listen..

(they don't exist anymore)

Stimulant!

http://www.empireunderwater.com/stimulant/music/

Be prepared to start to cry!

Good morning, Mr. Byron! And I agree about Shonen Knife. I hate kitsch, and they are a prime example of it.

like maybe the B-52's. Middle-aged Japanese women dressed as schoolgirls doesn't cut it for me.

:yourock:


I was gonna say the White Stripes, or The Strokes, but I don't want to have that argument again, plus now, everyone knows my opinion of GBV.

there's camp, and then there's shit

he's just awful.

to some samples from him...

Man, that's bad! Sounds like a bad rock opera!

persona(e)...manic leaping about while flinging one leg up...
really really really annoying

Andrew WK is the king! Granted his music is not very complex or deep, but he fucking kicks it out as well as anybody.

His music is fun to listen to and great to rock out to.

-C

He's good for a novelty act. He's a joke, you know?

His new album, The Wolf, is a mess - some cheesy metal remnants WITH avant-guard type stuff.

But I think my vote is still with Static-X. Puddle Of Mudd and A*Teens give them a run for their money, though.

Picture some guy taking a huge dump and you have instant Creed vocals!

His lyrics are sooooo deeeeeeep! (nope)

When people think they are in any way edgy or that they in any way "rock", I wonder if those people have ever listened to anything else in their lives.

"The cover of Rolling Stone"


ELP is up there, too. Pretentious wankery rock.

"Horse with no name." End of discussion.

What's wrong with it?

Is so stupid it makes me blush. Plus it reminds me of Neil Young.

n/t

The early 1970s: when rock and roll died (for awhile).

and worst.song.ever.

that sounds makes me nauseous.

n/t

Some of it is good and others...wellll...

My wife is a huge fan, but I get bored of his whiny voice!

Neil Young's best albums are with Crazy Horse.

Oh well, no accounting for taste....

obviously , you don't "get " Neil

obviously , you don't "get " Neil

I find all of them insufferably, miserably icky. Especially J&MC.

There are some great musicians who are so incompetent that they transcend their limitations and come up with something so alien that they are great. I'm talking about outsider music, which I love. SOme of the best of these are Y. Bhekhirst, Geologist, Robert Alberg, The Shaggs,Arcesia, Skip Spence, etc.

check out www.incorrectmusic.com to hear audio files and archived radio shows featuring outsider artists. (I am personally obsessed with this stuff.)

Treading on some thin ice there RKZ. Hope your wearing asbestos.
The professor

Personally, for a good deal of the late 80s and 90s, I thought JMAC was one of the best bands out there.

I mean, we proved this with the famous Dec 1 thread on this subject...One man's genius is another man's shit.

no burn, it seems that you've taken our criticism to heart.

They ARE my favorite band. I mean, if they didn't exist, I'd have to invent them; GbV are EXACTLY what I want to hear, they're the perfect music for my tastes. It's like Pollard went into my head, asked me in a dream what the ideal music would sound like, then made it. I have something of a spiritual connection with them...I've had a personal correspondence with Robert Pollard, and the guy's so likable and unpretentious (apart from the onstage antics, there is not one ounce of phony rock-star bullshit pose in Bob.) And since they're some little indie band with little or no media profile, I was GENUINELY suprised that there was this antipathy towards them from so many people. They seemed so benign to me, y'know?

But you know, hey. It's all good, right? I mean, I respect everybody on this board and you guys are obviously solid dudes yourselves. We'd probably be friends in real life. We just don't agree musically. And yes, I was an asshole in that other thread, I'm sorry.

I wouldn't take anything I say in the lounge too seriously, I often enjoy a good scrap. For the record I don't particularly dislike GBV, they are one of those bands where someone you know gets evangelical about them and forces them on you constantly, so you're predisposed to dislike them (hence the cult comment).
It's very difficult to offend me, y'know. Unless you attack Billy Tay Cyrus, then I will tear you limb from limb. ;-)

I ahve a friend who's totally evangelical about Rufus Wainright, so I have a loathing of that guy right now. If my friend hadn't been such a frothing-at-the-mouth proseltyzer, I mighta give Rufus a chance. But he would push him on me like a Jehovah's Witness, and now I can't listen to him with an open mind. So I know EXACTLY what you're talking about.

And as far as Billy Ray Cyrus is concerned, look just lay off, okay?!?! Billy Ray is a wizard, a true star.

What makes it "good" or "bad" is whether someone likes it, and that "good" or "bad" is entirely the judgement of each individual person.

I tried to explain this to my brother once when he was asking about a piece I published in my zine (David Fair's "How to Play Guitar")(Found a copy of it here:http://www.coolname.com/pipermail/maplepost-mirror/2003-October/017296.html). Fair goes into how the idea of tuning your guitar according to some limited definition is ridiculous. It's YOUR guitar. You can make it sound however you want. My brother just didn't get it, being the clasically trained guitarist that he is. Very talented, but not great at thinking outside the box.

But that's just it. If atonal, grating noise sounds good to you, then it's good. There is no objective definition of what "sounds" good. It depends entirely upon the person doing the listening.

That being said, I come from a "music critic" background myself. As such, I have written about how "bad" or "good" bands were largely because they were "unoriginal" or "original". Of course, "good" bands need a certain minimal level of ability so that they are able to translate their original ideas into music. I was also usually writing towards a target audience that, as a rule, did typically find things like Journey and Billy Ray Cyrus (sorry!) very bad indeed.

Anyhoo, yep, you're right. Although one of the things that always bugged me abou the "originality" argument is that if "originality" or whatever that word means to the listener, is the sole criterion, then we'd be ignoring all sorts of great muisc that happens to be derivative. And frankly, I'd rather hear a musicain ripping off somebody I like than someone who sucks. Really, would you rather hear a guy who sounds like Ray Davies fronting a band who sounds like Television circa 78, or the latest techno/drumnbass/triphop/downtempowhatever naked emperor?

IT'S ALL SUBJECTIVE.

I guess what I was saying is that both technical ability and originality are important (to me). You can be the most technically proficient artist in the world, but if you're doing something very similar to what has been done before (at least that I'VE heard before), then I'm going to find it less interesting. And if you're doing something extremely different, but don't have enough technical ability to translate your thoughts into sound, then I'm probably also going to find it less interesting. But if you're minimally proficient at your playing, and doing something that's completely new, I'd likely find it more interesting than someone who was minimally original, but technically perfect.

I guess in the big picture, lately, I find originality more important in what I'm looking for musically. The technical stuff has been mostly exhausted (you can make your fingers move so fast over a guitar), but the creative side of things is nearly infinite. I guess I can find a lot more that interests me when someone is trying something different.

But again, that's ME, that's what I look for in music. Some people want aural wallpaper. If you're a 16-24 year old male, Creed works great for that.

Oh, I knew you were kidding about Billy Ray. I was kidding with the "apology".

I love raw, undisciplined rock, but I also get the feeling that there's a lot of aspects to what made rock great that are becoming lost art forms, i.e the guitar solo. Whatever happened to guitar solos? The last ten years, the standards for musicianship have backslid considerably, due to the overreliance on ProTools, samplers, etc. cutting out the "legwork" involved in perfecting one's craft.

It seems that there's this aversion to hearing a good player use his/her instrument well in indie rock. There's Doug Martsch, there's Geoff Farina of Karate, and there's a bunch of tight bands, but there's no "cult of the musician" anymore, except in followers of past, specialized forms such as prog.

It's like when the Heartbreakers went over to the UK in 77 to tour with the Pistols and other "year zero" punkers; the audiences were blown away, because here as a band with a background in R&B and old rock 'n' roll the way it used to be played, playing as fast ans aggressively as the Damned, but tightened up and controlled. That grounding in traditional forms is what makes good modern bands into great modern bands.

You don't hear any hint of that in most indie rock or radio metal.

A lot of what made the 60's and 70's such great years for rock 'n' roll as exactly this tradition of learning from copying; the best bands of the period all went through a baptism of working out on Chuck Berry standards and paying their dues before breaking out into the national arena with their own original material. Nowadays, most bands practice at jamming on originl themes in a garage, or maybe a cover or two, but there is no planting of one's feet in the tradition of Rock, nor is there the band ideal at work, because a lot of times, the lead singer/songwriter will prefer working with machines and samplers, because there are no prsonalities besides his on to do battle with.

In this context, the question of "originality" is a sidestep, because it presupposes that what is "new" is always good. In fact, there is a lot of amusical junk out there that is original in its intentions. The rock press here is at partial fault, because the best writers unfortunatley were always calling for progress, i.e. Lester Bangs. This put a false front on the face of rock, that in order for a music to be "rock," it has to be new in sound all the time, and made by young people, and that if no "new" thing has come along in five years, it's time to stomp and shout and complain until some new sensation comes along; in truth, the nature of music is cyclical- there are periods of innovation and fallow times when your best bet for enteratinment is to dig up some forgotten relic from the past.

And we're not talking about clothes, either. Too many people confuse changes in fashion with musical progression; but that's another thread...

... you usually have to have a good solid grounding in what has come before. I think it's very valuable for musicians to work thorugh old numbers/covers... to get an education, as it were.

That being said (and we're getting back to the subjectivity of it here), I just don't find guitar solos interesting anymore. I listened to a lot of that in the 70s, and I had my fill. I've never grown into a "re-appreciation" for it. Although I do often, as you suggest is worth doing, "dig up some forgotten relic from the past", or from other countries (I'm very into Hindi music of late... it's original, to me, and the vocals are usually very skilled relative to most U.S. pop singers).

Even if Indie typically is relatively simple, technically, what I find enjoyable is the different use of melodies and instrumentation. Your favorite (and one of mine), Guided By Voices, in whatever incarnation they may have at the moment, are not the most technically proficient band on the planet. But I think Robert Pollard is one of the most original songwriters to come along in a long time. Even though Pollard often lifts pages from the songbooks of the Beatles, etc., he creates very different and listenable melodies (him and Billy Ray).

Amazing! Indeed, there's some great unrecognized world music; the danger of listening to too much of that though is turning into Robert Christgau (shudder!).

True, the focus of the best indie rock is mostly on the distictiveness of the arrangements and the melodies, although many bands get sidetracked by the lure of the easy work-to-profit ratio of ambient or techno and dupe themselves into creating atmospheres instead of music. Unfortunately, there are lots of bands making that step (into nothingness). I see the loss of guitar solos as part and parcel of this wholesale rejection of the rock process.

And indeed, Pollard's use of earlier influences in new and strange contexts is quite original; as it has been said, the guy can create a beautiful melody over ANYTHING. However, what makes him special is his natural gift, that voice. A lot of people can write LIKE Pollard, but they can't SING like him.I mean, were it anyone else doing what he does, it wouldn't have the same impact as hearing THAT VOICE spinning those melodies. In fact a case might be made that he's technically the second best singer in rock music currently. The first, is of course, Billy Ray Cyrus.

Urdu? NO. Been listening to a lot of Punjabi, though, and the more traditional sounding music out of Bollywood (a lot of Bollywood music is fluff... but even that is more interesting than our fluff).

Only because Roky hasn't come out of his house for awhile!


You can see how I'm defining best.

Erickson's the only living dude I can think of who could give Pollard a run for his money in the pipes department.

"I saw the best minds of my parents' generation destoyed by madness...."

I like Mary Chain. Lou Reed/Stooges influenced.

Always have.

I used to make a living as a rock critic, so my asbestos suit is always neatly pressed! I'm used to being smug, holier-than0thou, and ramming my opinions down other people's throats. Flame away, friends....

Ever read what Johnny Rotten has to say about rock critics and the music press?


On a related note, no wonder so much unlistenable indie crap gained credence. From reviewers like you!

I'm strictly an amateur myself. Couldn't you tell?

Very true.

I quit the rockcrit racket cuz I hated having to play ball with the industry, and being told by editors to go easy on artsts getting big promotional pushes from their record companies when I thought they sucked. The rock/muisc press is as corrupt as any other industry; you wouldn't believe some of the payola that goes on in music magazines. Writers are given a party line memo (Just like Faux News) and told to stick with it at all times, which is why you never see a bad review of Radiohead, The Strokes, etc. And since we were all subsisting on ramen noodles, we all had to eat shit like the editors told us to, or we wouldn't get paid.

.. and anybody? There's a reason he's called "rotten".

The Cure thing stuck in my throat. I have always liked them, and the Smiths.

But, like you said, to each his own. Didn't know you were professionally trained to absorb a beating. Rock Critic, huh? Hope you were better than Greg Kot of the Tribune.
The Professor

Him and DeRogatis can kiss my ass. However, DeRogatis DID write the Lester Bangs book, so he does have that to his credit.

The only critics working today I have any use for are Byron Coley (Publisher of Forced Exposure), Richard MEltzer, Chuck Eddy ("The mayor of Asshole City", the finest contrarian since Jonathan Swift) and Joe Carducci (Who wrote exactly ONE review in the last three years, and it was fantastic; his book, "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," though, is the best book ever written about rock.)

and as for Radiohead. I'm not even going there with you.

Jesus and Mary Chain were MARVELOUS!! :o:o:o

And here I thought you and I were kindred spirits after the COMPLETELY UNFAIR attacks on GBV...;)

I agree with you on Tori (bl-ECH!!), and the others I can usually take or leave... but dissin' the Reids??!? Well, it's handbags at 20 paces for you, mister! :P

it's like a big bullseye. It's fun to tease zealous fans.

Us sad freaks in the GbV army have to stay united!

Sorry, it's just an opinion; J&MC I see as being responsible for that horrid college rock we used to have to suffer through in the late 80's, stuff like the Mighty Lemon Drops, Flesh for Lulu, Lush, etc. (shudder) My least favorite kind of music.....

But GbV is the (earthquake) glue that unites us against the common enemy: Three Doors Down!

If I go crazy, will you still
call me Superman
If I'm alive and well
will you be there holding my hand
I'll keep you by my side with
my superhuman might
Kryptonite!!!!!!

YEAH!! RAAAAWWWWWKKKK!!!

:scared:

(I got these from AlternativeRockMusicOnline...Ooooh, they're so "underground"...:D)

I suppose since you've outed yourself as a rock critic I can cut you some slack on the JAMC thing...I used to be married to one, so I know all too well how *you people* are. ;)

My ex used to dis my beloved techno as "anti-music"...:grr:

getting those on the radio, and then touring the south. Now that's rock and roll!

The life of a sullen British pop star must be very hard.

I just hate people who whisper when they sing, I admit I have a problem....

in Scotland) I'd prefer death, too!

We should just start our own "Watch ScreamingLordByron, RandomKoolzip and Dolo Amber argue about music!" thread and stop hijacking all the music threads... :D

that these flamebait "worst band ever"-type threads are getting more replies than the actual political discourse on this supposedly political website. Methinks there's a lot of people alienated by the candidate flame wars over in GD, and they all come over here to discuss more civil things, and we're here, telling them their taste in music is complete shite! Oh, the irony! I love DU.....

Hey, anytime you guys wanna start a thread for just the three of us, lemme know, I'd love to argue about this stuff all day....

as you know Boon warrior!

D. Boon, RIP....Now THERE was a motherfucking musician.

Boy, that's a great argument.

a really sucky band, The Hay-zoose and Mary Chain. They invented (weel, stole it from the Velvets and the Archies, maybe) that whole whisper-vocal, wall-of-distortion "shoegazer" thing, for which I cannot forgive them.

n/t

I am pretty poor (I'm workin' two jobs) but I'm happy and clean. Don't pity me just cuz I don't share your taste in music.

The vocalist "sang" through a voice box-type thing that made him sound like he was shouting through a bullhorn. Of course, their cover of Journey's "Separate Ways" was hilarious!

http://home.grandecom.net/~rustgin/ship.htm

Look like a punk band. Their website is so painfully bad, that any beginner in HTML could have made it.

They sound like pretty cool guys, but not into the sound. At all. Actually, I haven't seen their name in the listings in a while. They may have broken up.

"I did it all for the nookie, for the nookie, so you can take that cookie and stick it up your yeah! stick it up yeah!"

Oh that Fred Durst, what a genius!

made a pact with the music biz...talent, he certainly doesn't possess...

Come on, when even Joe Walsh can't make your band cool, you must seriously suck.

loved them....

It makes my eardrums bleed.

Yes, I am a music snob!

...and I just don't wanna hear the fuckin' Eagles!" -Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski

.

Lamest band ever.

If necessary, I will stop my ears in public, if I can't get out of earshot of their abominable 'music'. I have gotten up from a cafe table and I went outside once, to get away from it.

Now, I put Lyn-yard Skyn-yard, and Pure Prairie League in very close competition to them in awfulness, but the eagles win out.

Forgot about those wankers.

:P

(sorry, SW is one of my favorite bands ever)

I can't stand them. Geddy Lee's voice is a torture device denounced more than once by Amnesty International. Technical proficiency with your instruments means nothing if your songs suck as badly as "Tom Sawyer." To love them is to live in your parents' basement and obsess about how many damage points you have left.

The singing is vulgar and painful. The musianship is too technical and boring. I never saw any appeal.

I wonder if he sings like an ordinary guy?'

EOM

You're my fact-checking cuz.

The man looked like rat.

Also, Neal Peart should have been shot. Overplaying his drumkit - I just felt bad for the drumkit as it looked like it was about to cry because even it wasn't designed for rubbish.

God I hate that wanker.

-C

I only remember that song 'Satellite' when he sounded like someone singing with their tongue rolled up in their mouth.

Yeah, me neither.

-C

I never have understood what anyone sees in either of these "musical" acts.

Never miss his act when it comes into town ;)

What bands do you like?

Been getting into minimalist rock lately, too (like Mogwai and Sigur Ros).

I'm a tried-and-true indie loser.

-C

... when I taught at our local university, I'd kind of giggle when the students would get all excited about Dave Matthews coming to town. They'd say things about how he "REALLY ROCKED!" and how cutting edge he was. Meanwhile I was listening to things like Guided by Voices and Superchunk as I graded their papers. I was often tempted to put "-10pts for bad musical taste" on some of them.

If Dave Matthews rocks, these people must have spent their childhood in Afghanistan. I'm reminded of similar thought Janene Garofolo (a big Superchunk fan, BTW) once expressed on Mr. Matthews:
"If you think Dave Matthews 'rocks', then I'm guessing you do not, as a rule, get out much."

or something and grew up on Reba MacIntire and Elvis, Dave Matthews might seem like an avant-garde genius. But even then, it's a stretch.

Why doesn't that guy ever open his mouth when he sings?

Oh, and Superchunk..."I'm working, but I'm not working for you!" I used to sing Slack Motherfucker at the top of my lungs when I got home from a bad day at work. Great band.

GbV rules!

and actually he has some rather good sax and horns players

you know i like punk and all that, but even i don't think DMB is the WORST ever...

Doobie Brothers - Michael McDonald version
John Cougar -- in his early phase, he'd probably agree with me on this
Journey
Genesis -- after Peter Gabriel left the band

I'm just getting started, but they're making me do some work at my job.
Horrors.

Phil Collins - that name alone should crack glass.

Horrific noise!

And I liked ABACAB, for some reason.

The most over-rated singer in history. Embarrasingly mediocre music and sickeningly pretentious lyrics.

The man's music sounds like a horrible Richard Kern musical as sung by Rev. Jim Ignitowski from "Taxi." Everything he's written is a cliche.

"Janey we gotta get out of this town cuz my chevy is going ninety on the interstae and there's a trooper and we were leaving this suicide rap and they closed the steel mills and Spanish Eddie was on the corner lookking so hard and little Gypsy went down to Greasy lake and under my hood there's an engine and we're riding to the mansions of Glory and the streets are hot and wet at night, oh yeah, I forgot it's night and the stars shine down on the boardwlk Janey and you and me are gonna ride my car on the highway all =nightlong in Jungleland and the BAckstreets streets cars night Little early birdy came by in his curtly wurly night streets rainy streets backstreets cars night"

But if that's true, it's true for 99.99999 percent of the music made in the U.S. in the 20th century.

Sorry, Bruce rocks!

A agree. I just can't listen to his stuff.

I enjoy Bruce (common-man intensity in vocals and music,) The Eagles (successfully merged Southern rock and country), Dave Matthews (not a fave,) Nirvana, Phil Collins (ballads done in an earnest way IMO), and more.. as said, this is all subjective when it comes to taste.

Actually, I'd go after Phil, too, but he's far more palatable.

"The Dude" was right!

Sorry, but the Eagles are allowed in my player. ;-)

-The Dude

:)

does not hear them the same way I do.

The Eagles are even better on a rough night. :-)

They friggin sucked....

Please.

Now that's a funny statement.

The Vaselines, Mudhoney and Killing Joke

Every band is an amalgam of the past. Some are outright copies. Nirvana took its influences and found a sound that no one had done. A sound of its own. And it had some of the best songwriting in rock history. Those songs work as punk blasts, rock anthems and acoustic ballads. Sorry, but they surpassed their influences by far.

What the heck does that mean?

A few fit in that category, but not most. Not by a longshot.

I'm not.

Kurt Cobain definitely had a gift. There's a certain sadness and genuine pain in his voice, like John Lennon had. And Dave Grohl was a KILLER drummer, one of the best since Bonham.

Not much of a fan of either, though, but the Foo Fighters sure can write a tune.

I hear it. Now there is a very moving song.... and Grohl's work with Queens of the Stone Age is mindblowingly hot.

I think the problem is that Nirvana were relatively great compared to everything that as mainstream at the time (remember Skid Row? How about Trixter?!), and as the first decent rock band to get a shot at the big time from their record company, they were the first decent rock band a lot of young people ever heard, got praised all out of purportion to their actual worth. If they hadn't got such a big promotional push from Geffen, they woulda been stuck in the bargain bins like all the other "alternative" major label abortions from that period. But that doesn't mean they were terrible, just luckier than other worthies.

so we were pissed off by the whiny Seattlites.

backstage at Bogart's in Cinci when they played there and I worked there. I say *met* because it wasn't so much "Shaun, meet Diane...Diane, Shaun", it was more like "Hey you, wherethefugisbez?" over and over again. I couldn't make him understand that Bez hadn't been allowed into the country due to not being able to obtain a visa because of drug issues. He finally gave up and started bugging my friend Dave (who worked production) to get him some chicken wings. :D

Loved the Mondays. And the Roses. :)

Great band, dreadful bunch of junkies.

Although I still call it "The best Dinosaur Jr. song Dave Grohl ever wrote". ;)

Sacrilege.

The only Foo Fighter's album I can even listen to anymore is the first one.

Grohl a great drummer, and very talented, but not in Cobain's league IMHO.

On a side note -- thanks to all of those DU'ers who gave me advice on my favorite new band, Guided By Voices. I've since picked up many of their albums and absolutely love them.

That's great! Now you'll have to see 'em live; beware though: Beer is to GbV as Acid is to the Grateful Dead- you WILL get dosed.

Whoever the opening band was (I forget) had a massive amount of Rolling Rock they didn't want (and who would...FOUL, it is)....so apparently they gave it to GBV. EVEN THEY didn't want it, so as the show progressed and Robert got more and more *lubricated*, he started chucking full bottles into the audience. Unsurprisingly, no one minded a bit. :D

Apparently when bOb goes back to Dayton, GbV shows mtate into adventures in puke. I have a bootleg of a show they did in 96 in Dayton, and it's obvious Bob was drunk LONG before he took the stage...by the tenth song, he'd given up on singing entirely. The rest of the show, various members of the audience took over mic duties (not too well, either!).

I saw one of the "Cobra Verde" tour shows in 97 where the rest of the band didn't seem too pleased with Bob's drinking...Swanson kept making faces at Pollard. that's probaly why they didn't last past that tour....

Seriously, though, the guy would put on a better show if he weren't so drunk ALL the time; at his age, it's starting to get a little scary watching him get so sloppy drunk at every show.

I mostly listen to "Bleach" just to listen to Channing's drumming. He had the speed and sound of Grohl, but his work was more RAW. It sounded human, not artificial. Channing was an extremely talented drummer who would be in a club or bar, Grohl was meant to play in the recording studio.

I don't think they were completely unoriginal, though. I think they made some damn fine, and pretty original, rock music. Sure, perhaps they weren't as deserving of the massive success and sales they acheived as perhaps some of the bands you mentioned, and many others from the time. In that sense, i'm mystified by their success as well. Why wasn't it the Pixies, or Husker Du, or Sonic Youth?

But hey, that's the music biz. Justin Timberlake sells millions.

Nirvana simply had better songs than those bands, all of which are great. Cobain knew how to write music like few ever could, and that was the difference.

I don't know why so many people believe Cobain was such a visionary. He seemed more like a miserable whiner that couldn't play the guitar...

He created some very good music, and wrote some amazing songs.

eom

The Fugs

Awful music, one of the first shock groups that I can remember from the 60's. Their most memorable song had a line about a great big green donkey dick wrapped in Saran wrap. Where do you go from there?

Oh I don't think they were trying to be "good" in the ordinary sense, so it's not fair to say they're bad.
& they've got that great song, that is highly apropos today-- "Kill for Peace"

god did I hate that band...and there's an ugly rumor now of a reunion tour. Ugh....

"The reflex?" "Seven and the Ragged Tiger?" What kind of cocaine dementia are YOU living in, guy?

Yeah - Looking back, I would say that anything with 'Tiger' in it as a lyric is poor. But when you are 11 - it is the best!

Remember Glass Tiger?

"My head is full of chopstick, I don't like it." Some non-hit offa Ragged Tiger.

I would suspect it's true...

They played in London not that long ago.

I liked them when I was about 11.

My girlfriend bought that cd when they had that cathedrals song a few years ago - THEY SUCKED!

think of that Don Henley falsetto in 'One of these Nights'

Then think of the sound of cocaine up the nose...

I think there is a connection there somewhere!

The guitarist refused to play anything but diminished chords.

I was trying to channel Keith Emerson on a Lowrey spinet.

There was no bass player.

The drummer would lose half a beat everytime he went for the toms.

hands down

Sure, they weren't the Beatles, but they definitely got that raw, open-sore sound Lennon was aiming for.

John's is the single best thing any Beatle did after Revolver, and Yoko's is even better.

.

It was a single from before the Beatles Break-up, late 69. Later found its way onto Shaved Fish, the greatest hits comp. Sorry to have to split hairs here. Still, it is a fantastic mothagrabbin' song in its own right.

is one of the greatest songs ever written.

"keep you doped with religion, sex and TV"

Plastic Ono Band never get mentioned in the "birth of punk" threads, but a case could be made.

There was no precedent for music that naked and nerve-stabbing when "Plastic Ono Band" first came out. A lot of people hated that album, because they were used to these lush, overproduced records from the Beatles...then John's first solo record is this howl of pain, unadorned by strings or sweet harmonies. Very daring move, and the songwriting holds up so well. I mean, Working Class Hero...there's never been a more honest song ever written.

produced by Phil Spector, if I'm remembering correctly.

There's also the live Plastic Ono in Toronto with Clapton on guitar and great version of Yer Blues and Cold Turkey....

Just kidding. Yes, they sucked wildly.

'Uh if we like have some hot chick sprawled over a car in the vid, maybe no-one will notice how lame the song is, dude'

Gary Puckett & the Union Gap...."Woooman, o o o woo-ooo-man... have u got cheating on yor mi-i-i-ind?"

Not only was their name ridiculous, but they had shit songs as well.

I mean the name NIGHT RANGER is awful. When I was little, I thought the name was so cool, but there lies the problem. Only little boys think it's a cool name....

Why no one else cottened on to this, no one knows.

S A T U R D A Y Hey!

just in case no-one can tell by our Dunderhead Edinburgh accents.

I haven't offended anyone yet?

talk about the whole being less than the sum of its parts---
Palmer is a great drummer despite being in ELP
Howe is a great guitarist
& John Wetton leaves the RED version of King Crimson to play in the crap that was Asia?

What were they thinking?

(sounds of puking in the toilets)

by the process of elimination, based on all your posts in this thread, I've been able to ascertain that you are a Tiny Tim fan - that being the only act in history you haven't mentioned. hehe

I agree with the rest, though.

Like nails on a chalkboard, that's what they are.

Like I said in an earlier post - a Junior High kid could have written that crap they call 'classic.'

A high school kid could've written their songs? What a revelation!! That's THE WHOLE POINT-- to SOUND that way. Actually they were quite clever. Plus they did hilarious cover versions of sixties rock songs!
Long Live the Ramones!

I never could get into the Ramones, it just seemed like they were resposible for making rock music "stupid," and that's not a good thing.

As for the Pistols, man, they were a fantastic BAND. No matter what the spectacle surrounding them, the Jones-Cook rythym section was a monster, and the power of those performances still makes me jump up and down in delight today. There as a lot of bullshit about them not being able to "play their instuments," but THey had a wonderful command of their abilities, and chose to streamline the Faces/Humble Pie school of rock boogie, amp it up, and make it jump. After you strip away all the hype and the McLaren bullshit, what you are left with is a great rowdy uptempo rock 'n' roll band.

I guess you're thinking about the greatest band ever thread.

There seemed to be a raft of whispery-singing, non-rocking English "rock" bands getting hyped for their wiffery cicra 89-90, and damned if I could tell any of them apart. That "madchester" shit was awful. Every song had the same beat! That mid-tempo "Sympathy for the Devil" beat I'm sure we're all so tired of by now. And they all had the most drab, colorless vocalists, all singing in that "i'm so high on drugs I have to whisper sexily" voice. It's rock and roll, pal, project that voice!

Well, at least I got someone to disagree with one of my selections.

Cheers!

Wham gets this one.

Hands down: The Archies: Sugar Sugar is the worst song ever sung.

I mean, there are so many shit bands, and so little time, but every single fucking thing about Journey makes me :puke: ... the high-pitched whiny voice, like nails on a chalkboard, the "power pop" that had been done to death, the sophomoric, repetitive lyrics, the incredible sameness from song to song...Journey is the undisputed king of schlock in my mind.

No other band will make me change stations as quickly. I will leave any establishment that starts playing one of their "songs" immediately. It's a reflexive, visceral revulsion.

into the midnight sun (wow deeeep!)

Wheels go round and round, you're on my mind....

Why is every song about a relationship? I gets boring after a while...

Then the horrid 'Don't stop believing' - sounds like some schmuck on prozac!

.. I mean, am I mistaken?

I thought Damn Yankees, Whitesnake, Poison, and about 50 of those bands from the 80s were all the same band. I thought it was like Menudo, or Blue Man Group, where they could plug in different "hair metal" guys and tour endlessly!

Talentless music... with meaningless lyrics.

Comparing Nirvana to Bush? Hmm. "One of these things does not belong with the other."

:)

Female vocals, kinda Cranberry-ish. At least for the time, they were more original.

I saw them in concert. That's ninety minutes of my life I'll never get back.

There were times in the 1980's where I would punch my radio with frustration; many of them involved Chicago. (I don't include their groovy early 70's stuff.)

I also deeply loathed Night Ranger, and that scene in "Boogie Nights" (Night Ranger PLUS cocaine PLUS Chinese firecrackers) is like fingernails on a blackboard.

Two more festering cocoons from Hell: Genesis, which spawned Phil Collins, and the Commodores, which spawned Lionel Richie.

....until I convince everyone.

"Abracadabra" is the worst piece of fetid, dreckish effluent ever recorded. Anything since 1979 by Steve has been mind-numbingly horrible.

"..abra, abra-cadabra, I wanna reach out and grab ya..."

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

But in comparison to the sickening decibel waste the Eagles put out, I have say that SM isn't QUITE as bad.

However: "Time keeps slipping into the future"... Gee, what the hell did they think it would do, slip into the past???? :eyes:

Another horrid name for the past.

I remember how lame their videos were!

They suck donkey balls. And they sold out to Disney, MTV, ClearChannel, the RIAA, etc. right from the very beginning. A lot of bands you see that have sold out, and you say, "You know, I remember when they weren't sell-outs." But not Smash Mouth. It was marketing from the very beginning.

And also, their actual music sucks horribly too.

worst famous band EVER.

WTF?

HE had a few good songs a long time ago, but he's such a DICK!

All the poser glam bands of the 80's were horrible. Just about everyone from the 90's sucked too. All that whiny, boo-hoo, nobody loves me bullshit that Nirvana started. Rage Against the Machine and Red hot Chili Peppers are also 2 bands that really suck bad in spite of their populartity. Then there are the boy bands........

Critics darlings that really, really sucked!

I tend to disagree on this one.

This is either really awesome or really sad.

Okay, their rythym section sucked. Period. Even with Nostanovich on percussion, they still couldn't kick out a groove for shit. Pioneered that "I'm so bored" vocal style that infected too many lead singers for the next decade. Lifted ideas almost verbatim from the Fall. Fostered that boring-ass midtempo leadnoodle beat. Were called lo-fi, but all their records sounded pretty produced to me-except "Slay Tracks, maybe." Malkmus tended to meander as a songwriter-not too many catchy tunes before and after "Slanted."

Having said that, I really dig some Pavement, esp. "wowee Zowee" and "Slanted and Enchanted." "Stereo" was a great song. Malkmus could come up with some fantastic lyrics, even if they didn't make much sense. And "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" is a classic.

But, yes, I've always felt they were kind of overrated. The REAL Pavement was Guided by Voices-they were who Pavement wished they were.

Everything revolves around Guided By Voices. Guided By Voices are the Centre of the Universe.

I'm just sayin that Pavement was half-assed about their aesthetic, while GbV were full-measure.

If you wanna talk reggae or dub, or soul or funk, or pre-thirties blues, I promise I won't mention GbV. But since we WERE discussing a band very similar to GbV....

;-)