Post a controversial music opinion

xp No, everyone I knew bought those (me too)

My point--which you've just proven--is that dude's reputation was based almost entirely on his early work (and, err, Chappelle) until very recently

well, sure, that's the case for most artists

Prince was great from ~81-89. Sign O' the Times is one of the greatest album ever made by anybody. But he lost it in the 90s and 00s. He produced about two CDs' worth of good material in his last three decades of life.

Bowie has no front-to-back great albums. He was at his best from 1977-79, but I could go the rest of my life without ever needing to hear the Berlin-era instrumentals again, except maybe "V-2 Schneider." Blackstar was his first great album in 35 years.

actually agree w all that

Macca also has no front-to-back great albums, with the possible exception of "Ram"

Prince has, idk, three? SOTT, 1999, Purple Rain

Bowie and Prince comparison is obvious, even before their dizzyingly close, sudden deaths. Both are popular and respected across so many demographics and borders of taste, both had imperial phases that neatly fit into the entirety of the 70s and 80s respectively, both known for reinvention and unpredictability and singularity, both icons of androgyny. But again, Bowie wasn't even close to the musician that Prince was. Neither is Joni, who is a brilliant guitarist, but she cannot do what Prince could do seemingly effortlessly on every instrument he picked up and then threw into the air.

This thread's going in a weird direction. We're knocking Mitchell because she chose not to play drums, bass, and synths with Prince's virtuosity? She didn't fucking want to! She wrote Ladies of the Canyon through Hejira, a sequence of albums adored by...Prince.

otm

not knocking her, just making the case that Prince was sui generis and compared to the amount of Bowie tributes & covers & references, Prince has not gotten his due.

Depends where you live. Maybe I have a bias because I participate in those 2016 tributes to Bowie and Prince; with each man the good writers delineated what made each man different.

Macca's a virtuoso on one instrument and we all know which one that is

Trumpet. His own one.

every single dance track that samples kate bush is unforgivably awful and demeans us all every time it is played by anyone anywhere.

Speaking in pop terms Bowie is more iconic in looks than Prince, but Prince’s music has way more pop appeal than Bowie.

I guess Bowie’s catchiest songs are “rebel rebel” and “heroes” but as pop singles they are weak against something like say, “kiss” which has that timeless, immediate pop hit sound.

Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20, Sunflower and Surf's Up are all extremely enjoyable albums with, at worst, one or two subpar tracks that I don't think would seriously ruin anyone's overall enjoyment of them. I'm sure even casual BB fans have listened to and enjoyed other albs that aren't flawless from soup to nuts and besides, weird/creepy is a pretty essential part of the overall BB aesthetic imho.

― Ward Fowler

i agree about weird/creepy being an essential part of the beach boys aesthetic! but i don't agree that it's an aesthetic everyone can be expected to enjoy. even "wild honey", which is a really solid and consistent album, is very much an album out of its time and off-kilter in a much more off-putting way than "magical mystery tour". they're short albums, they come off as unambitious, spookily skeletal, not making A Statement. god knows when i got into the beach boys i was looking for Big Statements like "pet sounds" and "smile". you think i knew what to do with a fucking brilliant song like "i'm so glad", let alone their putting a _cover_ on an lp in '67? hell no. obviously i've come around but immediate appeal is something strikingly lacking from post-"smile" beach boys.

Ilx generally speaking has horrible taste in music

Let's Dance, Space Oddity, Modern Love, China Girl, and Ziggy S. all seem catchier and more like pop hits to me than the somewhat dreary and plodding Heroes (which, in keeping with the spirit of the thread, I have never much liked).

But I simultaneously see your point, and agree with those who contend that they were both significant artists and it's not a contest.

As for multi-instrumentalists with a long streak of success both as a solo artist and as a producer, may I direct your attention to one Quincy muthaflippin Jones?

i actually listened to wild honey in its entirety just now - it's short - and by the time i got to "how she boogalooed it" i was _still_ going "what the fuck is this? what the fuck are you even doing?" which is why i like the beach boys, but not everyone is into that sort of thing.

Got me into Kate Bush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o712mgqVZXI

xp The songs on Wild Honey are fairly straightforward, though? Maybe just a bit "off," in certain ways?

hey rushomancy -- I'd love just once to see you... in the nuuuuuude

ilxors who almost make u wanna go homo

noel gallagher plays guigsys bass parts and boneheads rhythm parts on the albums fyis just sayin

Years ago I had a listen to the Purple Rain deluxe and then it struck me why I'd never cared much for Prince's music when I was growing up in the '80s (the only album I have and like very much is Lovesexy) and later on as well: all his music and lyrics seem to be about "me, me, me". Nothing in his music seems applicable to my own modest life. And his lyrics are way trivial. Even if Bowie or Simon Le Bon are spouting nonsense, that nonsense could be romanticised and applied to a higher plain. Not so with Prince (that I've heard).

personally, I identify with drinking banana daquiris til I'm blind every xmas

Macca also has no front-to-back great albums, with the possible exception of "Ram"

Prince has, idk, three? SOTT, 1999, Purple Rain

I'd add Dirty Mind to that list.

You don't think "Band on the Run" is front-to-back great? I guess I can see seeing "Picasso's Last Words" as the weak point there.

ooh yeah not a bad track on Dirty Mind, fair enough

Back to Beach Boys -- just revisited Friends (after revisiting Wild Honey) last night)... gawd, this string of albums is so excellent. Warm, creative, unexpected, great tunes, lyrics only these guys could write, etc.

(Tried listening to Pet Sounds but quickly got bored, lol)

Halfway thru 20/20 now... it's even better than I remember!

Zig Zag Walk is my favorite Foghat album.

Ambient music is the only worthwhile music

Ha I've been feeling that

In my late teens when I was first confronted with ambient music I thought "there is nothing going on. Boring!" When confronted with Stockhausen I thought "this is a collection of sounds. Boring!" I don't know whether it's aural exhaustion, or the fact that "music-with-content is now occupational", but ambient music and electroacoustic music is pretty much my go-to for pleasure-listening. Stockhausen et al. is extremely pleasant to listen to while preparing dinner, the sound of chopping veg. and frying oil fits right in with the music itself.

extremely pleasant to listen to while preparing dinner, the sound of chopping veg

Nah, I prefer https://youtu.be/WR6y71x3tSY

I don't like you if you have over a hundred 5.0 ratings on RYM

― He said captain, I said wot (FlopsyDuck), Thursday, September 20, 2018 1:58 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm going to raise the number to two hundred

I often prefer the clean radio versions of '90s hip-hop singles/hits to the album versions. Specific examples that have occurred to me just this past week: Mystikal's "Shake It Fast," Juvenile's "Back That Thang Up," the clean version of Dre's "Next Episode," the clean version of Jay-Z's "Can I Get a ... " etc.

Yeah, I will always enjoy (prefer?) the Wu's 'swords slashing' sounds on the edited versions I heard first

Ambient music is the only worthwhile music

I'll put this here: Everyone Says I Love You, Woody Allen's musical comedy starring Edward Norton, Drew Barrymore, Alan Alda and Julia Roberts, is underrated

skip spence's "oar" -- over-romanticized obscurist sham

Totally agree with that one.

Yes, a few of us were just saying this on the dedicated Oar thread

Not so controversial after all!

Ambient music is the only worthwhile music

― groovemaaan, Thursday, September 27, 2018 3:55 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

been feeling this a lot lately too lol

Lingua Ignota's All Bitches Die is an infinitely more moving and important feminist statement than anything Beyoncé has ever done.

the standard for controversy: “i don’t like beyoncé”

So it appears.

I'd be happy if it were no longer controversial.

I keep wanting to say something about preferring Destiny's Child but I'd need to actually listen to a solo Beyoncé album to form that opinion, at which point the mental terrorists would have already won.

"I Gotta Feeling" is a classic track that will still get people moving at parties thirty years from now with uncomplicated joy

(Controversial on ILX? Not sure. Came #12 in 2009 tracks poll but was loudly clowned in thread and nobody owned to voting for it)

OK well there was this

on the "obnoxious" pop song, i definitely find that songs that seem unbearable during their initial go-round sometimes strike me more favorably a year or two or five later -- when they've faded from ubiquity and i realize (usually reluctantly) that even while consciously hating them i was unconsciously absorbing them through massive exposure and now they light up my neural pathways even if i don't want them to. it almost seems like a biological response to me, but the net result is that i end up "liking" something that i used to "hate."

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Monday, February 1, 2010 11:50 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(that may eventually prove true of "i gotta feeling," but it's too soon to say. i'm still in resistance mode.)

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Monday, February 1, 2010 11:51 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink