shifts in popular opinion you have noticed

a band of brothers making terrible music together forever.

reading this as a boot stamping/human face variation

ok, they're a huge thing, for nine year olds. but i don't have to hear about it anymore because we have the internet. (unless they buy youtube ad space in the near future for "KILL AMORIKKA VOLUME 3' the new album from the green day boys)

my ten year old did go to bed at night listening to a green day album for months. i didn't hate it. then he switched to fountains of wayne.

i specifically remember green day buying a huge amount of ad space in their prime. like they were really pushing it. pushing every one of my buttons. but i never have to see their dumb faces so exposed again.... that's what i mean.

they're still huge, but music tv doesn't exist anymore.

is that their prince cover? people used to love prince.

lol no

actually lots of Sandinista! seems p modern to my ears, that is a really strange album

You know, w/r/t REM, I sometimes wonder if, if their legacy was more songs like this, they might be a more durable influence. They definitely seem like a band done in by what made them popular. I sometimes like to think about a world where all they ever put out was their non-album stuff, Chronic Town, and Fables of the Reconstruction. As with Hall & Oates, it seems like your legacy is sometimes (not always) defined by what sold the best.

― dlp9001, Thursday, April 7, 2016 1:47 PM (2 hours ago)

Stylistically, I think they're too esoteric, complex, and subtle to be influential at this point. By subtle, I mean that everyone can identify that there's some kind of post-punk element to their early music, some kind of '60s element, but that doesn't really encapsulate it. Been a huge fan since Reckoning, but I never realized until recently how much power pop there is in their early music, too. I think it's an esoteric mix.

This is my favorite REM song. I even bought the cassette single. If they had sounded like this all the time I'd probably still be listening to them today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd5M17e7Wek

i swear to god i'm not trolling when i say that clash song up above doesn't sound modern to me and also it sounds kinda...terrible. sorry, clash fans! they just sound clunky to me a lot of the time.

if the clash and r.e.m. sounded like this song i would be buying their albums. bruno mars could totally sing over this and make it a number one smash:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR2IjhDs2FM

it only came out two years after sandinista too.

haircut 100 is the shit

love bands with the H_____ # naming scheme

with singles on arista

Hink 182

Horange 9mm

Not to change the subject exactly, but what the hell happened to Nick Heyward? He was turning into Paul McCartney and then he just vanished.

I didn't *fully* understand "hello"'s genius until stitches turned it into a camp drug dealers remorse

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

camp drug dealers remorse *anthem*

a future bill clinton speechwriter to me in some dorm room: "jeff, the clash just put out a three record set! and it sucks!!!"

I've toyed with the idea of starting a "Musical Dead Ends" thread -- the idea being acts that were both popular in their day and critically well regarded, yet don't seem to have been very "influential" outside of their immediate heyday. The Clash and REM both strike me as possible candidates. Not 100% sure if the concept works or not though -- thoughts?

one of my favorite bands, the new york dolls, sort of falls in that category. they were influential slightly past their heyday, through the punk and hair metal eras. but their stock has gone way down -- compared to, say, the stooges -- despite (i insist) a less likely and more fruitful reunion.

the clash were influential outside their heyday though. all those street punk rancid bands.

Hey i didnt say lets go crazy was good (cuz lol it is not) just that it seemed relevant to modern music

Xp

The tropical vibez, jumbled vocals etc

it's no ay ay ay ay moosey.

i kinda wish more stuff sounded like ay ay ay ay moosey these days. vampire weekend suck at that kinda thing.

i sort of enjoy the homespun globalist clash era. guy stevens would never in a million years have made them sound as groovalicious as that haircut 100 track. maybe the bands whose influence persists are the ones you can dance to, when you come down to it.

though guy stevens didn't produce sandinista. but he might as well have.

Here's a contemporary song with a marked REM influence. Heron Oblivion aren't really youngsters, though. Heavy psych bands could probably find a lot more to mine from early REM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Lqke-XA_4

all my beardo facebook friends can't stop raving about that heron oblivion album. never would have thought of r.e.m. listening to it. the stuff i heard reminded me of Trees. the old britfolkpsych Trees.

a "Musical Dead Ends" thread -- acts popular and critically well regarded in their heyday, but not "influential" beyond

first 'dead end' that comes to mind is The Cars, though r. ocasek did not slack as a producer (plus the strokes, the first album at least, bit The Cars hard)

man alive, that's interesting. so like Least influential big bands but the bands are allowed to have been momentarily influential? seems tricky, like it'd sorta just be every big band that's never had a "revival" attached to them. or a "popular scenes/sounds/eras that haven't ever been revived" which also seems interesting, have we done that?

re: cars, see also "stacy's mom"

man alive, that's interesting. so like Least influential big bands but the bands are allowed to have been momentarily influential? seems tricky, like it'd sorta just be every big band that's never had a "revival" attached to them. or a "popular scenes/sounds/eras that haven't ever been revived" which also seems interesting, have we done that?

― never ending bath infusion (Doctor Casino), Thursday, April 7, 2016 8:48 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, maybe it's too similar to that thread actually, forgot about that. But yeah I was just thinking the concept would not include bands that inspired immediate term copycats and tagalongs, because popular bands usually do.

i would say U2? maybe? they spawned groups like The Alarm early on but i can't think of people who sound like them now. even though bands like Coldplay and Creed kinda emulate their pomposity.

Queen too kinda. there were bands in the 70's that tried really hard to sound like Queen. i can't imagine anyone today pulling off epic operatic gay sex prog metal AND have humongous top ten radio pop hits as well. people would be crazy to try. though i guess Gaga comes close.

xp U2 was the next band I was gonna mention!

i was about to say gaga! also the smashing pumpkins and such, though obviously that's a melange of influences and probably more styx as far as classic rock bands go. but maybe we should keep it to that thread since this one is already covering about eight million topics!

It's easier to deal with the Dead now that they are not around, and you can just focus on the music instead of the whole cultural thing.
late-blooming dead fan here :)

Queen is much more a thing now with the kids than even in the early nineties.

I feel like any modern band that tries to go "theatrical" is often in some way indebted to Queen, or at least Freddy Mercury.

They're not so well known these days, but back in the 90s The Nightblooms came up with some pretty great ideas about how to use the Queen influence without sounding overly nostalgic, so it can be done.

That's the only Heron O cut that has anything REMish about it. The rest is Fairport Comets on Fire. Likely album of the year for me. But then I decided to grow back a beard around the time it came out.

i remember when i was a teen and i was so excited to go see The Adolescents. this is 1986. i NEVER thought i would get to hear those songs live. just figured it was one more thing that had passed me by. i wasn't going to hardcore shows in 1981. the place was full - anthrax in CT - and another band was playing that night and i swear to god i was the ONLY person there excited to see The Adolescents. everyone else in the place just stood there with their arms folded until whoever they came to see played. dag nasty or youth of today or whoever. i had never felt so old in my life. washed up at 17. this is 5 years after The Adolescents debut and in hardcore years that might as well have been a century. they played great too.

don't know if anyone else here has had an experience like that.

Queen is much more a thing now with the kids than even in the early nineties.

Really???!!! Granted I don't know anyone under the age of 20 these days, but I was one of those adolescents who got into Queen due to Wayne's World. How the heck are the youth of today getting into Queen?

I saw the adolescents open for weezer and red hot chili peppers for the las vegas bicentennial? this was in like 2005. anyway, no one in the crowd gave a shit, but john frusciante was losing his mind just to the right of the stage

I think there has been a bit of a shift away from that smart underachiever white dude indie aesthetic of Pavement and Weezer, although I see a warped version of it in Mac DeMarco.

freddie mercury is a major idol to 'post-gender' 'queer' youth of today

xpost

queen is timeless and awesome. they are not germane to the discussion.

I think there has been a bit of a shift away from that smart underachiever white dude indie aesthetic of Pavement and Weezer, although I see a warped version of it in Mac DeMarco.

― human life won't become a cat (man alive), Thursday, April 7, 2016 11:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if by "warped version" you mean "smart underachiever white dude indie aesthetic," then yes, Mac DeMarco counts

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