His singing? Lyrics? Voice?
Yes on all three counts. His supposedly endearing awkwardness rubs me the wrong way – there's no edge to it. I still like 'Roadrunner', though.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 8 September 2018 20:28 (five years ago) link
plenty of great bands that put out one album - or no albums! a good band is lightning in a bottle and most of them don't last. but feel free to piss on the united states of america if it'll make you happy
― milkshake duck george bernard shaw (rushomancy), Saturday, 8 September 2018 20:41 (five years ago) link
xp He was a young guy in the ‘70s who still loved the ‘50s, he still loved the Old World
― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Saturday, 8 September 2018 21:11 (five years ago) link
The Modern Lovers are terrific rock ‘n rollsongs sung by a guy who sounds like a normal person (instead of a rock star) and who had real personality and an interesting p.o.v. I’m super thankful, they existed and inspired what they inspired...
― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Saturday, 8 September 2018 21:21 (five years ago) link
I can see why people wouldn't like him though.
― Scottish Country Tweerking (Tom D.), Saturday, 8 September 2018 21:25 (five years ago) link
morrisp otm
― raise my chicken finger (Willl), Saturday, 8 September 2018 21:27 (five years ago) link
I've been quoting "Pablo Picasso" all week
― brimstead, Saturday, 8 September 2018 21:57 (five years ago) link
All of Tom Scholz's solos sound the fucking same
― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Saturday, 8 September 2018 22:54 (five years ago) link
The modern lovers totally had an “edge” but it doesn’t seem like one you all would like.
“Hospital” is an extremely creepy ballad of a man obsessed—passively aggressively putting down a drug addicted young women for her unhealthy decisions and setting himself up as a kind of savior... but it’s obvious he only cares about her insofar as he wants to be with her. “Nice guy syndrome to the max.”
Similar types of bitterness run throughout the album. Even “pablo picasso” is kind of like a complaint that all the cool guys get to harass women and he can’t. His pining for the “old world” can easily be seen in this vein as well—a kind of prefigure of the current MRA fetishization of a world before feminism. He doesn’t lay it out but looking at the album as a whole he definitely sees himself as a kind of doeky guy who doesn’t really cut it in the “new world” of sexual liberation.
― Trϵϵship, Saturday, 8 September 2018 23:14 (five years ago) link
More musicians should shit on their fans
― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Saturday, 8 September 2018 23:15 (five years ago) link
I don’t think the presence of these uncomfortable themes make the album “bad” as I don’t need my music to align with my morality (to a point—there is still a line). It’s actually weirdly psychologically convincing—the catcher in the rye of proto punk or whatever genre it is.
― Trϵϵship, Saturday, 8 September 2018 23:17 (five years ago) link
Self xp
He’s not complaining that he doesn’t get to harass women; he’s trying to teach a lesson to creeps who do:
Oh well be not schmuck, be not obnoxiousBe not bellbottom bummer or assholeRemember the story of Pablo Picasso
― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Saturday, 8 September 2018 23:48 (five years ago) link
I also don’t read “Hospital” at all the way you do
― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Saturday, 8 September 2018 23:51 (five years ago) link
When you get out of the hospitalLet me back into your life
idk man
― Trϵϵship, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:09 (five years ago) link
it's not the time to be making romantic overtures
― Trϵϵship, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:10 (five years ago) link
And when you get out of the dating barI'll be here to get back into your life
this is a song told from the perspective of a stalker.
I can't stand what you doI'm in love with your eyesOh, I can't stand what you doSometimes I can't stand you
― Trϵϵship, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:11 (five years ago) link
also the "story of pablo picasso" is that he could get away with trawling for girls, "not like you"
i'm not saying this is a horrible, evil album. i'm just saying the narrator of these songs isn't as much of a forrest gump type as he likes to think he is.
― Trϵϵship, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:16 (five years ago) link
yes the ambiguity around the narrator's right-on-ness or lack of it is what gives those songs their depth of meaning iirc
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:16 (five years ago) link
yeah i think so. i don't think the album would have really broken through with the cool kids of the late 70s if there wasn't more to it than the kind of boppy nostalgia quality you get from the surface
― Trϵϵship, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:17 (five years ago) link
modern lovers a persanolity band if there ever was one. anyways the guys a total gentleman, treeship calling him an mra is very impressive trolling tho
― flopson, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:19 (five years ago) link
no way. this is yet another case of me being correct.
― Trϵϵship, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:20 (five years ago) link
I think it’s the perspective of a young guy being hella emo (xxp)
― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:20 (five years ago) link
sure but hella emo guys with obsessive tendencies and many insecurities can often behave in damaging ways while still viewing themselves as the innocent party. i said this was the "catcher in the rye" of proto-punk albums, not the "american psycho"
― Trϵϵship, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:22 (five years ago) link
in his best songs j richman is both scribbling "fuck you" and crossing it out at the same time which makes his music more interesting than either of those books
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:37 (five years ago) link
rock songs should never be written from an interesting, complex perspective
― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:45 (five years ago) link
John Cage wrote music that is highly listenable.
― aworks, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:49 (five years ago) link
well put
― the late great, Sunday, 9 September 2018 00:49 (five years ago) link
xp to tracer
Thing is modern lovers guy overdoes the autism shtick
― F# A# (∞), Sunday, 9 September 2018 01:59 (five years ago) link
I don't know how I didn't realize that John Cale wasn't the writer of that song until just now; I thought the ML covered it. Oops.
― akm, Sunday, 9 September 2018 02:07 (five years ago) link
Ian Paice is a better drummer than Bill Ward
― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 9 September 2018 02:22 (five years ago) link
New Order were/are terrible musicians
― crüt, Monday, 17 September 2018 23:37 (five years ago) link
Fuego
― flappy bird, Monday, 17 September 2018 23:40 (five years ago) link
Shits fuego yo 🔥
― F# A# (∞), Monday, 17 September 2018 23:52 (five years ago) link
― crüt, Monday, September 17, 2018 7:37 PM
Description, not criticism.
― The Silky Veils of Alfred (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 September 2018 23:53 (five years ago) link
Let It Be (album) > Abbey Road
― J. Sam, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 02:17 (five years ago) link
Hospital was my favorite ML song for awhile.
― Yerac, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 03:21 (five years ago) link
I think I can get behind that. I don't really love Abbey Road outside of a few songs. There's a pleasant simplicity to the tunes on Let It Be that I enjoy much more.
xp
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 03:21 (five years ago) link
hard agree on Let It Be being better than Abbey Road, the worst Beatles album by a mile
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 04:02 (five years ago) link
Post an outright insane musical opinion
― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 04:28 (five years ago) link
not really when you realize the beatles hardly had any good songs
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 04:32 (five years ago) link
Got to admit thread's not gettin better
― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 05:17 (five years ago) link
Marc Baron has made two of the best noise albums of the last decade. Both of 'em are on the Potlatch label.
― braunld (Lowell N. Behold'n), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 05:21 (five years ago) link
no 1 asked u
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 05:36 (five years ago) link
U r sleepingbag
― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 05:49 (five years ago) link
ud luv that wldnt u
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 06:12 (five years ago) link
"Post a non-controversial musical opinion" is a more difficult exercise than this thread.
― Nabozo, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 09:38 (five years ago) link
'Ali Farka Touré is pretty cool.'
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 09:41 (five years ago) link
David Bowie's cover of God Only Knows on Tonight is pretty good and much better than the Beach Boys' original.
― Valentijn, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 10:51 (five years ago) link