Listen to an album you've never heard by an artist you never listen to and then tell us about it!

I feel allergic to Joan Baez's voice. I've never been able to get through an album.

I can barely get through a song.

God I love Moon Pix. The sudden delay on the vocal when she sings “American Flag…” and then her guitar slips out of time from the drum loop. Magical.

Community is nice but I don’t love the guitar sound. You Are Free suffers from not-great recording to my ears. She’s great tho, love her to bits

Can’t listen to anything new today but I will do so tomorrow. Great thread. Thanks for that Leckey tip Nick!

Interesting to me ITT how the "slackness" of indie for some signifies privilege, whereas for me it always seemed to read as an expression of a everyperson's rejection of the ideals of mainstream pop music. Slackness as the opposite of slickness. To some folks this sounds like not trying or not caring, but to me it sounds like an evolutionary variant of punk. In the case of Pavement, AFAIK those guys were into hardcore punk early on and that lineage is spiritually there even if they don't sound anything like Bad Brains. I feel like in the 00s "indie" strayed from its punk roots and became more professional, more middle-class, and that stuff (Death Cab, later period Modest Mouse, Vampire Weekend) does bore me to tears.

anyway, carry on, this is a cool thread, fgti please listen to Midnight Marauders

nice thievery corp. rundown! i have the 2xlp here at the store maybe i'll put it on. i know i've never heard it. the orig. vinyl is pricey. though nobody has bought it yet...

xxp fabulous post, 100% cosign

"I feel allergic to Joan Baez's voice. I've never been able to get through an album."

"I can barely get through a song."

i don't listen to any of those trad folk revival people. bob gibson? glenn yarbrough? cisco houston? i don't even listen to odetta and she was rad.

i will listen to judy collins cuz her choice in covers was amazing and ivo taught me to love "my father" and she does a version of my fave alice cooper song.

Does Sandy Denny count as one of those? Cuz Sandy Denny rules and no one should sleep on her

xp Same, Scott, and I kind of wish it weren't so because that music runs in my family and I inherited records of it. I can't even really listen to Pete Seeger.

xp she does not count <3

Burl Ives ftw

Does Sandy Denny count as one of those?

Absolutely, categorically NO!

Brit folk is a different animal and I love Sandy Denny

I don't know any of those American folk artists, never been interested in them, it's all a bit too Pete Seeger.

Most of the folk music I don't like is from the "folk revival" school, where there was this fairly deliberate and didactic effort to stitch together an "American folk music" with political undertones. Most of that music is unfortunately boring and dreary.

In honor of unperson...

Dio - Holy Diver (2022 Remaster)

First track has pretty good riffs! And ridiculous vox! ("You've got the Pow-AH! You are the Fiy-AH!"). The driving pace and lack of dynamics are wearying on my ears...

Track 2 (the title track) is cooler... more Sabbath-like(?) The vocals are also easier to take; more in the realm of what I think of as standard hard-rock vocals of the era, whatever that is (note: I don't know exactly when this album was first released, I didn't look it up before listening). The drum fills are kinda funny... hard not to picture Spinal Tap in my mind's eye. Nice solo! "Ride the tiger / You can see his sweat, but you know he's clean" is a good couplet.

Track 3 ("Gypsy") is kinda G'NR like? The vox remind me more of AC/DC this time around. I like the slightly heavier "bottom" on this number (big bottom, my gal's got 'em)... The solo is somewhat dirtier, I dig that too.

"Caught in the Middle" – best groove yet! It actually swings. I like the verse melody, too... anthemic, with a clean vocal. I dig the whole approach (guess it's "poppier" than the others?). I turned up the volume on this song.

"Don't Talk to Strangers" – LOL at the opening whisper. This mid-tempo power ballad is clearly a sensitive warning to us a––oh shit, it's kicking into gear! Yeah, throw the horns up!

"Straight Through the Heart" – another big bottom. I like the "space" in the arrangement when everything drops out but the drums. Nice riffage in the chorus.

The rest was ok, I kind of lost interest...

when post punk, hardcore and college rock evolved towards what came to be known as "indie rock," it was an activity that scions of fancy upper crust families could by the mid 80s pursue, and I don't think that occurred in any american musical idiom beforehand, although somebody please gimme some examples other than Tina Weymouth if I am in error. Any american popular music, or semi-popular music, or experimental or underground shit of any consequence was produced by working class people before the 1980s, and it's still overwhelmingly so that musical artists/musicians outside of indie rock are composed of people without fancy family money since then.

Unperson is on point when he suggests that many indie rock big shots have the benefit of a safety net: many of the rigid ethics born of indie labels of the 80s and which many of those guys continue to hew to are afforded by the fact that they don't have to make decisions or compromise or make sacrifices that a metal guy or a hip-hop guy or a pop artist may feel like they have to.

He is also on point re: the laggardly drumming on Pavement records: Steve West far moreso than Gary Young, who isn't nearly Bill Bruford-esque as he should be. I don't think the haphazard, not trying hard quality of Pavement and many other indie acts of the time are born from that same "I don't have to try because I'm rich" quality; more out of "80s rock was so careerist, and I/we want to avoid that."

Scott if you’re looking for a 20th c sheet music masterpiece, look no further than Ives Concord Sonata. I rate it as highly as any film or novel or sculpture you could name, it’s the best thing.

My favourite performance of it is actually on YouTube, one sec:

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

I don't think the haphazard, not trying hard quality of Pavement and many other indie acts of the time are born from that same "I don't have to try because I'm rich" quality; more out of "80s rock was so careerist, and I/we want to avoid that."

yep this

"Does Sandy Denny count as one of those? Cuz Sandy Denny rules and no one should sleep on her"

oh no no she is goddess. we should all have tattoos of her close to our hearts.

otm

i like the country versions though. i love listening to tennessee ernie ford and johnny horton doing folk songs. they were great! and trad.

Most of the folk music I don't like is from the "folk revival" school, where there was this fairly deliberate and didactic effort to stitch together an "American folk music" with political undertones. Most of that music is unfortunately boring and dreary.

Phil Ochs rules though

I don't think the haphazard, not trying hard quality of Pavement and many other indie acts of the time are born from that same "I don't have to try because I'm rich" quality; more out of "80s rock was so careerist, and I/we want to avoid that."

I often (not always) interpreted it as an ironic pose, sometimes (but by no means always) covering up for a lack of talent or creativity.

hell i'll listen to a frankie laine folk ballad album too. i love him. i think he made some. or connie francis!

i like the country versions though. i love listening to tennessee ernie ford and johnny horton doing folk songs. they were great! and trad

Yes, the songs are great, the execution not so much. What about Jean Ritchie? Never heard her and I get her mixed up with Jean Redpath, who is a different thing I suppose.

jean ritchie was good. her voice was cool.

but, in general, folk done by country people just kinda slays that seeger/baez school. just listen to a Stoneman family album and you are fine.

"Scott if you’re looking for a 20th c sheet music masterpiece, look no further than Ives Concord Sonata."

i was going to bring some ives home with me tonight! i dig him. he's from my neck of the woods. along with slacker thurston moore and folk icons youth of today.

What I can tell you about Pavement is that I went to see them when they first came to the UK (1992?), having read about how indebted they were to Faust and thus expecting something at least a little challenging, only to be confronted by what looked like a bunch of floppy-fringed rich kids churning out the most plodding and smug and unadventurous shite I'd ever had the misfortune to hear. I didn't like it.

Anyway I know they're widely worshipped but I've held that night against them ever since. They also had a 'wacky' co-drummer. I don't like wacky drummers either. This was the era when the last vestiges of the jangly Byrds influence was being excised from indie rock in favour of Lou Reed-isms, which had been there before obviously but it all started to drag and plod and I felt weary just hearing it.

Maybe I should give them a re-listen?

tbf they could be really shit live back then. when they reformed I skipped the first round of reunion gigs and took a lot of persuading to see them 2 years ago. I saw them 3 times in the 90s and they were pretty terrible 2 out of 3 of them - and the 3rd time was just before they split and seemed to be having a miserable time even if musically they were a bit more together

i never saw them. i just like the records.

the worst hyped band i ever saw was the strokes. before the first album came out. they sounded like a madchester band not like television. i had no idea what people were raving about.

They're rich kids!! (j/k)

One of the many bands I Never Got.

more like The Jokes, rite

so much indie rock that gets pushed these days is an NPR slurry, i miss Camper Van Beethoven types, or maybe something like HOT SNAKES.

i liked the Strokes' first album well enough but it got old vv fast and i'd be cool never hearing it again.

I never understood the Strokes at all, the music felt like it had all the blood drained out of it

Any american popular music, or semi-popular music, or experimental or underground shit of any consequence was produced by working class people before the 1980s

this is a ridiculous statement. Miles Davis, for ex.

The Modern Age EP sounded great when it came out, then when Is This It came out I instantly lost interest, it all sounded flat and tinny and bloodless, yup. EP still good though.

xp or Mayo Thompson, one of the most "consequential" experimental/underground rock figures of the '60s (...I think he had a fairly well-off upbringing, for whatever it matters).

Beyond that, I don't even follow the argument... what happened in the '80s where suddenly only "rich kids" (whoever those are, no one is named) had the luxury of being experimental, and suddenly it became bad? What was Black Flag's "fallback plan"? The whole point of the indie circuit was that you could work your butt off and tour and release albums that sounded like what you wanted them to sound like, not trying to be Bon Jovi or somebody, and there was a label/club infrastructure for that.

This concert ad just popped up on my FB. I’ve never heard *of* him let alone heard one of his 25 (!) albums, so I’m taking it as an omen and will choose one tonight, when I’m in the proper frame of mind. He’s apparently smooth jazz.

Over the course of crafting a 25-album catalog and architecting nearly 40 Billboard No. 1 singles as a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer, Brian Culbertson has charted a groundbreaking course in music.

Lou Reed's dad ran an accounting firm

haha and half of The Misfits went back to work at their dad's company to pay off the band debts

Black Flag had no backup plan aside from Ginn who was comfortable upper-middle-class

Roy Acuff's grandfather was a senator

"The whole point of the indie circuit was that you could work your butt off and tour and release albums that sounded like what you wanted them to sound like, not trying to be Bon Jovi or somebody, and there was a label/club infrastructure for that."

not to mention that hardly any of these people thought they would be doing it forever! or as a career! sometimes it happened. but mostly it didn't.

a lot of college dropouts just saying fuggit i'll go on tour and have some fun in the 80s. little did they know the 21st century reunion industrial complex would have them getting their flabby 50-year-old butts off the couch and off to summer euro shed tours for friggin' ever.

as if death metal bands in the 80s thought if they worked hard enough they could make a living as metal gods and they wouldn't have to go back to the potash mines. nobody thought that far ahead. they were just happy to be shredding in front of people.

why is this now another ilm chat opinions thread, more reportage please, oh boy someone doesn’t get the strokes

The Modern Age EP sounded great when it came out, then when Is This It came out I instantly lost interest, it all sounded flat and tinny and bloodless, yup. EP still good though.