shifts in popular opinion you have noticed

When I was buying records/cds en masse, probably only like 10% of the time was my shopping targeted to a particular release. The rest of this time it was "oh, here's an album by [artist] that I haven't heard yet! got to feed my completist jones." or "cool cover, and it's only $3. sold!"

the "cool cover! what the heck, i'll take a chance." people are obviously my favorite kind of people. they are a dying breed for sure.

this is anecdotal but i've always found the clash really dull, like this band i know is important i'm supposed to like, and who were genuinely important to people i knew who were in the leftie DIY punk band circuit, but where i really struggled to listen to their records and be like "oh yeah this is great." i've been able to get into parts of london calling but i struggle to listen to it the whole way through, and i ditched the copy of combat rock i excitedly grabbed at a yard sale in college because it just was really blah and samey to me. and that's just me obv, but i wonder if that might be a broader experience in a world where they're not a new band whose records are currently coming out, where people are talking about them and responding to them and they represent a thing/movement/impulse, or even where they'd be getting namechecked a lot by newer but very big crossover bands.

like, i suspect (can't confirm this) that the clash would have had a "press presence" or canonization factor well into the 90s alt-rock era, that they would not be getting now. i can imagine green day talking about the clash in rolling stone (no idea if this ever happened) but who would do so today? (setting aside the whole "people learn about music without needing to read rolling stone today" angle.) you need gateways to artists a lot of times; not as an individual but for it to be something in "popular opinion" there's going to be some kind of vector whereby an act is canonized (or canonized in a particular way, filling a certain slot, esp. with acts that have a long career or varied sound, like what aspects are the obvious important ones when seen at different moments?) or vilified. basically i think the "how" of this thread is as interesting as the "what."

but here's a fairly narrow "what," spawned by the recent Ram thread revival: Ram, not Band on the Run, is the one McCartney 'solo' album to check out if you check out nothing else. although obviously McCartney II has this other 'it's nothing like his stuff, totally crazy!" rep, but just in terms of what's gonna make a countdown of the 70s or whatever.

"temporary secretary" is the best mccartney song, don't @ me

I have so many albums I bought on the strength of the covers/bandname/song titles, what have you. Some of them turned out to be good. Some less so. I bought the first Panda Bear album on CD purely cos I liked the fact the label was called Soccer Star. Shame about the album. It's the brown cover version, and to this day I've never seen the brown cover for sale anywhere so I have no idea what if anything it is worth.

I only recently dug into some Elvis at Sun: holy hell is Blue Moon a monster. Sounds almost psychedelic.

― dinnerboat, Wednesday, April 6, 2016 9:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

blue moon is totally amazing. the original 45 sounds unholy.

― scott seward, Wednesday, April 6, 2016 9:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all sun session elvis is basically untouchable. after that, you are allowed personal opinions.

― ulysses, Wednesday, April 6, 2016 9:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree w/ all this, elvis sun sessions are incredible

man I love the Clash, such a crazy discography. kids are missing out.

feel like Elvie Memphis Sessions are p hard to fuck w/as well

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxpost to alfred:

i know some millenials, even one in a indie "buzz band" who are SUPER into Future Games/Bare Trees Fleetwood Mac, and I think MGMT covered the song "Future Games"

Is the original 45 version of elvis's blue moon the one on the self-titled album?

for me the thing i had with the clash was, uh, the overhype. the whole "the only band that matters" thing. i like gary lucas, and the clash are ok, but i could never see how their music "mattered" more than, say, the dead kennedys. also keep in mind i'm listening to them in like 1995, which doesn't exactly help things. they're not "relevant", which is a problem being as that's the strongest claim people made for them.

My 20yo cousin is in a frat and he loves the clash

i can imagine green day talking about the clash in rolling stone (no idea if this ever happened)

iirc rancid did this in the 90s

the "cool cover! what the heck, i'll take a chance." people are obviously my favorite kind of people. they are a dying breed for sure.

It's too expensive to do this these days, in my geographically limited experience

Discount bins!

people aren't so big on daft punk anymore

Omg, I marked detailed technical presentations by enthusiastic young Daft Punk fans both last term and this one.

Thats daft punks fault. Their most recent album was good but it was so nostalgic - it felt like the end of something not the beginning

they're not "relevant"

idk their pop hybrid approach feels p relevant to me. rock, funk, rap, reggae all mixed up - seems like ppl still gravitate towards these kinds of genre-hybrid acts just in principle...?

granted genres in general are way more fluid/less relevant than they used to be

Listening to the new M83 album has made me appreciate Daft Punk's album more.

problem with the clash was they wound up getting songs on the radio, rather late in their career after they had morphed into a different kind of band. i think the "only band that matters" slogan was supposed to be funny, because at the time they plainly didn't matter to most people. in the same sense that creem magazine was "america's only r'n'r magazine." i mean, the hubris was supposed to be funny.

people aren't so big on daft punk anymore

― Keks + Nuss (contenderizer), Thursday, April 7, 2016 9:24 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that album came out only like 3 years ago

the clash are ok, but i could never see how their music "mattered" more than, say, the dead kennedys.

Well, bands like the Dead Kennedys were inspired by the Clash in the first place. Obviously this doesn't "matter" that much in 1995, let alone now, but that's why punk bands/fans of that generation venerate them so much.

Even bands like Crass who used to constantly bash the Clash for selling out were actually huge fans of their music, at least the early stuff anyway.

"the blues" is treated more or less like classical music and in the rare cases where it's a point of reference for modern artists, 90% of the time, it's through a nth generation prism that does little more than peer in the masters' general direction
what was the last charting honest to god remake of a solid blues standard i wonder? Or hell, a 60's R&B track? Instant nostalgia doesn't seem to go back further than the late 80's these days.

I don't even like the Clash that much, but they seem an early example of the (now endlessly repeated) cycles of an underground band a) fusing aspects of different scenes and b) pushing through to the mainstream. I feel like every buzz indie band (rock/punk or not) that gets hyped today is subjected to the same unspoken expectation of repeating the success of the Clash. They used to call it selling out, because there didn't used to be an expectation of essentially "non-commercial" bands becoming "commercial".

Thats daft punks fault. Their most recent album was good but it was so nostalgic - it felt like the end of something not the beginning

yeah despite the fact that the album was a huge deal and scored maybe their biggest single yet I do wonder how their next disc(whenever they bother to make one) is going to do. they have such a weird career arc, back when their "classic" albums came out it seemed like they were still some kind of niche. people love "One More Time" now but when it was released a lot of people thought it was one of those songs you weren't supposed to admit you liked. then they released Human After All and a lot of their fans turned on them, saying "oh well, at least we have Discovery" or w/e. then all the sudden the French house sound becomes huge and DP look like harbingers, suddenly everyone I know is into them and has a copy of Alive 2007 (which rules). which happened to be the same crowd that didn't like RAM so much. it's weird.

Daft Punk is the only current artist that I've overheard my students this semester talk about, although it was in the to-me alarming context of one of them enthusiastically proclaiming that Discovery blew his mind when it came out "when I was in third grade." They also had a gigantic, inescapable hit song a few summers ago so if popular opinion has shifted it would probably only be in a seasonal kind of way where last year's flavor isn't hot right now.

problem with the clash was they wound up getting songs on the radio, rather late in their career after they had morphed into a different kind of band

Was this a "problem" really? I came on board when "Rock the Casbah" leapt out of American Top 40, which I listened to every week when I was 11 or 12. I borrowed Combat Rock from my local library on cassette, then saved up my money to buy London Calling; by the time my family went on our annual two-week trip to the Jersey Shore that summer, that was all I was listening to. And it wasn't about "Ooh, look out, Mom, I'm a punk now!" - they were just great fucking songs.

I don't even like the Clash that much, but they seem an early example of the (now endlessly repeated) cycles of an underground band a) fusing aspects of different scenes and b) pushing through to the mainstream. I feel like every buzz indie band (rock/punk or not) that gets hyped today is subjected to the same unspoken expectation of repeating the success of the Clash

so so v otm. what is more relevant than this? it's like they wrote the ur-text for the "narrative arc" that every little band looking to break big is supposed to follow.

Or hell, a 60's R&B track? Instant nostalgia doesn't seem to go back further than the late 80's these days.

― ulysses, Thursday, April 7, 2016 12:45 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol what about the leon bridges dude? no idea if he charted at all but he had a lot of critical buzz around him, though did seem like mostly older critics

"Is the original 45 version of elvis's blue moon the one on the self-titled album?"

the original Sun and RCA 45s are the same recordings. they both sound amazing. that's alright/blue moon of kentucky. the RCA came out like a year later.

never heard the 78 of it though. maybe that's the best of all...

Grew up in Clash town, Joe Strummer is virtually the patron saint, seemed like all the most boring and unimaginative members of the 'alternative' scene there were into them. So, you have to react against that... and listen to Throbbing Gristle or something.

the OTHER blue moon is also one of the greatest singles ever made. treat yourself to a clean original pressing sometime. just magic. you can hear the air in the room. not so much on this youtube clip though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2LgHZuEMf8

Part of me wishes that Charles Bradley's cover of Changes would chart, but that seems unlikely.

that local radio station i linked to above is very much into the nu-soul nostalgia trip. new stuff that kinda sounds like motown but isn't. for the white peoples. they still play amy winehouse a lot. the only time i ever hear HER on the radio. remember her?

I hear her a lot at parties and in coffeeshops, but idk how representative my town is.

u.k. and u.s. is gonna be a big difference with winehouse in the wild i'm guessing...

yah winehouse super huge in dear ol' blighty

This is a US college town, but a lot of my friends are Anglophile lesbians, so

the new amy winehouse documentary has gotten quite a bit of attention

Her impact was so huge and underrated at the time, I feel like she was this multivalent icon in the sense of having also impacted style and such in a way that has probably only recently been replaced by Lana Del Rey

there's always a lane for fake-motown. i'm thinking of ceelo, but his big hits were a while ago i guess.

winehouse seems the exception that proves the rule imo
i kinda forgot about leon bridges and i think anyone under 40 has too but maybe i'm wrong?

Is Sharon Jones very popular? Of course I know not Winehouse levels.

everything about Winehouse's career is sad and pathetic, including her music but also her whole living-out-a-cliche-with-tragic-results thing

there's always a lane for fake-motown

isn't this Adele's lane

everyone loves it when British ladies do Motown, personally I find it incredibly boring but I feel like there's always been at least one of these at any given time over the last few decades

Did Duffy ever reach the US?

Billy Duffy, guitarist from the Cult?