Dave Matthews Band : Name Your Reasons Why They Are So Bad & Hated.

uh, I collect my "diversity trinkets" (how obie) if that's what you want to call serious pleasure button pushing from Franco, Baobab, Etoile de Dakar, Baaba Maal, Loketo, Rail Band, etc.

they were failing at the end a long string of successes

no idea what that means

and somehow dmb's boring worthless donkey shit failed to bore millions to the tune of hundreds of millions

My theory is some - many, even - people like being bored.

{==*^*==}

voila

Another popular pioneer of African/American music: Earth Wind and Fire. Maurice White plays the kalimba, the African thumb piano. Ramsey Lewis gave him one in about 1968, long before White even started EWF.

Much of urban, educated black America was on an afrocentric trip through most of the 1970s, and the music of Africa was definitely in the mix. Every funk band had congas from about 1974 to 1980. Yes, I know the conga is technically an Afro-Cuban invention, but in America in the '70s it was presented as a nod to Mama Africa.

The idea that Dave's bogus little musical safaris were earthshattering breakthroughs is completely laughable. Paul Simon had far greater influence and created much more exposure for South African musicans; the notion the DMB were unique American exponents of Afrian music is as wrong as saying Eric Clapton turned America on to reggae.

you know i never really got it until just now - the dude's worldview is so universal/inclusive it's a priori going to turn off (the same way Wyclef's stuff does absent Pras' street-realness and Lauryn's holding it down for the corny indie fux) those who get their musical frissons in part from perceived exclusivity regardless of musical worth. but it's also a double-edged sword - unlike Howard Deanish Wyclef who shamelessly cross-sells in every conceivable direction, his wiser Mark Warneresque method of solicitation dulls the edges, obscuring the substance for the surface-oriented litmus testers. Those Virginians.

xpost: Dave outsold EW&F too. point me to where I said they were earthshattering breakthroughs or created more exposure for South African musicians than Graceland or were unique American exponents of African music. I'm saying that no other artist has so completely integrated it, even at the minimal level dmb does, into their fundamental sound from the very beginning of their career. for everyone else it has been deployed at a particular point in their career, after being well established by other means, and eventually dropped.

Well, what about the Tokens and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"? That seemed to move a fair few copies back in '61.

I know I am being a bit specious here, but I think you are moving the goalposts around too.

Earth Wind and Fire were African-influenced from the get-go and continued to be so for the entire run of the decade they were most popular. And they were huge in the SOuth in the '70s with both whites and blacks. I'm white and I can't remember a trip to the roller skating rink that I don't tie in with EWF, and Kool and the Gang who were influenced by EWF, and the Gap Band, the Dazz Band, Cameo, etc (all likewise.) Black American music was at a hitherto-unknown apex in the '70s, and Afrocentricism was a huge part of that. Maybe the borrowings from African music were not all that obvious, but they were there nonetheless.

Yeah, DMB has outsold a bunch of people, but so what? How many of his fans can even hear or care about his African influences?

i don't know how many, but i'm not claiming that the significance is that he turns on his fanbase to the authentic stuff (maaan), only that the fact that he's incorporated it in his music and sold very very well is a factor in his art that shouldn't go unperceived/appreciated by people who've heard 2 or 3 of the dood's songs and hate him for his mass appeal and because they've met fans who are white-baseball-hat-wearing upper-middle-class neo-meatheads with hot girlfriends.

I gotta hand it to ya that yr Dean/Warner analogy gave me a chuckle.

awww, my extended anser to the "2 or 3 songs" comment got blasticated!

summary-heard WAY more than 2 or 3, unfortunately. and no hating on mass appeal. if he's into making an army of mediocrity lovin fools, then so be it, let the march of blandness continue.
but, the music's still crap. and crap coated in sugar's still crap.
the meatheads would still be available for keg-parties, name calling, and date rapes all the same.
and to call DMB art is the loosest use of the term available, i'd say.

i quite like that song "stay"

"Aerial" is closing in

speak english!

i think he means that the kate bush thread, with approximately 1/2 the posts of this one, is closing in on this one.

yes

well not anymore, now it's pulling away again

oh no it don't!

I respect his letter -- and I'm completely in agreement with him. Like Dave [Matthews] says, I'm not saying Saddam doesn't deserve to be force-fed his own severed scrotum while we shove a bayonette up his ass, but we're going about it in an entirely ass-backwards manner -- completely torching allied relations left and right and further alienating the increasingly volatile "Arab Street" in the process. I don't really buy the notion that Iraq had anything to do with the attacks of September 11, 2001. And in the year and change since that fateful day -- what have we really accomplished? Yes, we've kicked a lot of butt in Afghanistan and dropped a lot of expensive hardware on people -- but the threats we faced on September 10th remain unchanged -- we *DON'T* have Bin Laden, we *HAVEN'T* dismantled Al Qaeda, we have *NO IDEA* where he/they are and we face *THE SAME* threats as before. Right, so we rooted him out of Afghanistan (we think) and we scattered the Taliban like roaches (we think).....what else? NOTHING. If we go into Iraq -- OSAMA WINS! He *WANTS* us to go to war with Iraq. It plays RIGHT into his hands. It will only STRENGTHEN his support in the Arab world -- At this point, he's like fuckin' William "Braveheart" Wallace to the average man west of Athens and south of Gibraltar -- He wants to portray the image that THE WEST is at war with ISLAM. If we go into Iraq, that's exactly the way it's going to look. And if his groundswell of support builds (which it will), that's exactly the way it's going to be. And that's severely fucked up.

But....at the end of the day, DMB's music still bores me to absolute tears.

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), February 12th, 2003.

_________________________________________________________

Totally OTM and prescient. And this didn't even take into account the purposefully overhyped WMD canard and the hamfisted way this Administration would mismanage the war. He's right about DMB, too.

This will likely be the last time I dig up this thread for quite some time. But I had meant for awhile to continue on from the small DMB phase I got on about a month ago because I thought "well if I've pulled out the first two albums then eventually I'm going to have to reevaluate 'Crash'" which is the project I have found myself undertaking today. And it really is where the rot set in isn't it this album?

But before I talk about the album specifically, I want to share a memory I have of Dave Matthews and his entourage coming into this restaurant I worked in...it was after he had been on David Letterman for the first time, but I do believe it was well before Crash had come out. Anyway, at the time this happened, it was like he's just made it. He was a star now. And him and his group of people stayed later at the restaurant than anyone and I began to really resent him because I wanted to go home for the night, and we couldn't because of his table and I figured he had this huge swollen ego now that he'd made it. So when he finally decided to leave, we all stood up and greeted them, just as we would have any customers as they left and in a narrow hallway I stood, saying thank you and making eye contact with everyone in that whole entourage except him, whom I refused to look at or speak to.

This was before I really got into his music, though, so it does look very different to me in hindsight. Although maybe he did have a big head then? Who am I to say?

Anyway, first of all "Crash" the song is a fucking tradgedy. The riff is divine, the tune is divine, it could have been the best thing they ever did but he fucking ruins it with those lyrics. And it's because it's like he's too lazy to try some interesting poetry to describe sex and love, he has to have it literal and stupid. And I think I said before it just ends up sounding like an invitation to groupies, how egotistical. Just so idiotic and stupid. But the song itself, like I said, the tune is fucking gorgeous from beginning to end. As for the rest of the album "So Much To Say" isn't quite as good as it promises to be, "Two Step" is not too bad, but nothing to write home about, and "Too Much"/"#41"/"Say Goodbye" is really not worth mentioning, most of it goes in one ear and out the other. "Drive In Drive Out" is also rather repulsive, but then comes "Let You Down" something delightful happens and the album suddenly takes a turn for the better. "Lie In Our Graves" is delicious English/Celtic folky stuff to my ears. "Cry Freedom" is staggering and single-handedly justifies the entire album. "Tripping Billies" has been sanitized and overproduced here, losing all the vitality of the live version on the first album. And it all ends suitably beautifully, with a very nice mellow track called "Proudest Monkey".

Never again would I find their music interesting.

Your favourite thread is the 1st you see when loading nu-ilm!

*applause*

Thankyouvermuch

I can't believe how quickly this thread loaded. Don't suppose it will last.

aw hey there dave matthews thread, i forgot all about you!

How can anyone forget about it!

copious drug use?

this thread and PS's Bare Naked Ladies picture thread are reasons for living.

hands-down my favorite thread ever.

This thread was once much longer.

I do like the fact it can readily load, though.

If you're not with the thread you love, love the thread you're with?

Skipping 2363 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Ah, OK. It's hard to see.

If you're not with the thread you love, love the thread you're with?

Hahahahahha

Ah, OK. It's hard to see.

I know. Please write your Senator, like the rest of us.

grassroots success propelled by an open taping policy and word of mouth. exceptional musicians, love to play together and are good to their fans. all band members paid equally, contributes millions to schools, charities, and causes like Vote for Change. Dave is odd and funny and gracious and his insight to the world has been very comforting to me through various life crisis over the years and things like the Bush administration. He makes millions but still drives a 96 Subaru, and helps strangers move couches, and always has time to chat it up and take pictures with a fan.

none of this means you have to like Dave or their music. haters have always been there, especially among the vinyl-collecting (I think it's a rule). it's ok. I just listen because it makes me feel good, and that's all it comes down to.

missed this thread!

can you see if Dave can lend a hand moving my vinyl collection?

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/16/122736.php

"And, despite the brilliance of recent gigs, I've never really walked out of one and needed to see the performer again immediately."

wait until he brings the Band...

It took all of two seconds to load this thread from new.

DAMN!!

This thread can serve as the lithium test of all nu-ILXes in teh future.

Try "Glasgow" more!

That took 2 seconds as well!

Respec!

ALSO HE PLAYS A MORAN ON TV SOMETIMES

I enjoyed it!

"but my leg's not a piano..."

Reasons why they are so HAD and BAITED...

One of the best House episodes I've seen in a long time. Is Dave Matthews trying to be an actor now, or was it just some one-off thing? Not that I particularly care.