Come on now, admit it - who here likes/has liked the Cranberries?

And yes, Brian, do tell. It's such a fun story.

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Or is subject-object disagreement a new facet of haxOr-speak?

at the end of my last post.

http://gygax.pitas.com

Uh? Bong Talk, Omar, bong talk ;)

**I think they lost it. But I also think they had it, or enough of it**

WHY? Pinefox, why??

I liked their first album, but they became annoying awfully fast. It's as if they lost all sense of subtlety and melody after that...

It probably didn't help matters much that Dolores is right up there with Celine Dion in the obnoxious harpie stakes -- which probably wouldn't have been so terrible except she was everywhere in the meedja for awhile.

A few years back, when you could say the words "The Cranberries are on their US arena tour" and not have people laugh, Cracker was the opening act. Members of Cracker were told that they were not to talk to or deal with the Cranberries at all, or any of their support crew or anything like that. David Lowery and company shrugged and thought, "Typical," and went on doing their thing. As time went on during the tour, they got to know a variety of people by sight and figured out what they were there for -- with the exception of two guys who never seemed to do anything. They were fans of Cracker, though, always by the side of the stage whenever they did their opener's set, cheering them on. Finally curiosity got the better of Cracker and some members tracked down these two guys in a quiet moment. After exchanging friendly greetings and all, Lowery or whoever flat out asked them, "So what do you guys *do*, anyway?"

The answer -- Ms. O'Riordan, besides singing, also plays acoustic guitar and piano on stage. Except...that below the stage, these two guys, one with guitar and one with piano, sit and watch the entire show on closed-circuit TV or the like. Basically, their job was to actually play the parts she was supposed to be playing!

Needless to say, I was terribly amused to learn this. Ultimately not surprised anymore, but still.

"Linger" can suck deze nutz, tho.

But God, their lyrics are as embarrassing as music has ever become: check ALL of the 'To The Faithful Departed' album for some real good belly laughs, especially I Just Shot John Lennon. It's the record where D discovers MTV News.

I'm fairly sure I'm not their favourite writer however, so perhaps I shouldn't be commenting.

...at this point I refuse to even think about their more recent records.

Truly, I have caused sorrow here.

"zombie" is one of the most wretched singles of the nineties. I fondly remember everett true/taylor parkes devastatingly funny review of one of their albums in the melody maker. i think i still have a clipping of it somewhere. i could post it here if anyone is interested???

So there.

A REAL TURKEY

Some people like THE CRANBERRIES. EVERETT TRUE and TAYLOR PARKES don’t.

THE CRANBERRIES
TO THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED

Reasons to hate The Cranberries.
1) Dolores O’Riordan. Her arrogance. Her petty small-mindedness. Her redneck worldview. Her incessant preaching. The fact you can actually see the mean-spiritedness of her thoughts imprinted on her pinched little face. Those American flag jumpsuits. Her cold love of money. The way she’s Sinead O’Connor for people who can’t confront even elementary contradictions. Her anti-abortion stance. Her absolute lack of self-irony. The way she makes even the most fundamental and wonderful emotions sound trite. The way America loves her cliched, stereotypical take on Ireland. Her reduction of serious political issues to 10-second sound-nibbles. Her dress sense. The obscene way she made legions of students slow-dance to the most crushingly banal political lyric (“And their tanks and their bombs and their tanks and their guns…”) since Paul McCartney’s “Give Ireland Back To The Irish”. That wedding.
2) Dolores O’Riordan. Her smug conceit masquerading as concern for all mankind.
3) Dolores O’Riordan. Her lyrics. The fact that no one in her obviously highly technological camp has bothered to buy her anything more than a Second Year rhyming dictionary. The fact that she sees fit to write a song about John Lennon – a bigoted, misogynistic, self-loathing, tantrum-prone asshole who also happened to write some great songs – 15 years after the event, and gloss over all his faults. The fact that she does so by writing the infantile lines, “It was a fearful night of December 8th/He was returning home from the studio late/He had perceptively known that it wouldn’t be nice/Because in 1980 he paid the price…With a Smith & Wesson 38/John Lennon’s life was no longer a debate.” The fact that every person in her camp is clearly so in awe of her (temper? Power? Capacity for retribution? Fragile ego?) that they didn’t take her gently to one side and go, “Er, Dolores, perhaps it’d be better if someone else wrote the lyrics…”
4) Dolores O’Riordan. Her videos. You know how much Dolores hates to be typecast as a “thick Paddy”? Has she actually watched any of her own videos? The way they reinforce received notions of Ireland as a backwards country populated entirely by broken-toothed, bowl-headed, crying schoolkids in grey V-neck jumpers dancing around streets lit by the occasional Armalite flare? And the odd horse – y’know.
5) Dolores O’Riordan. Her lyrics. Guess whose only contact with “real life” has been MTV news and the occasional venture onto the street outside the Four Seasons? Check “War Child”: “I spent last winter in New York and came upon a man/He was sleeping in the streets and homeless, he said ‘I fought in Vietnam’…” You fucking patronising, prematurely middle-aged cow.
6) Dolores O’Riordan. Her music. The opening song here (“Hollywood”) starts like Stiltskin. Only not as good. Then we’re onto Foreigner territory. With the odd mandolin thrown in, for “local” colour.
7) Dolores O’Riordan. Her lyrics. Check “I’m Still Remembering”: “They say the cream will always rise to the top/They say that good people are always the first to drop/What of Kurt Cobain, will his presence still remain?/Remember JFK, ever saintly in a way….” (Yeah, and an adulterous ego-maniac who started the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War, in another way.) Check: “Bosnia” (no, seriously, folks) – “Bosnia was so unkind, Sarajevo changed my mind…Rummmpatitum, rummmpatitum/Traboo, traboo, traboo…” (We’re quoting from the official lyric sheet.) The theremin and musical box used (spookily!) to spice up the music have the unfortunate effect of making the song sound like something from “The Twilight Zone”.
The situation in the former Yugoslavia seems to have particularly troubled Dolores while she was writing the songs for this album (what’s wrong, dearie? Nothing better on TV?). After all, as she helpfully points out in the heady, emotive (all right: we’re lying) “Free To Decide”, “You must have nothing more with your time to do/There’s a war in Russia and Sarajevo too.” This is, incidentally, the most perceptive insight she offers throughout. (Who are the people who take this woman seriously? Where do they live? Where do they go to at night? Please don’t invite us.)
8) Dolores O’Riordan. Her voice. The way she turned what was a dazzling, intoxicating gift into an atonal cornkrake skree by infusing it with her personality. Now it emparts no emotion of any kind, save for pettiness, bitterness, self-righteousness. She tries to suggest such broad sweeps of emotion with her songs but, somehow, they always end up sounding so fucking small.
Not that we’d want to belittle her.

Originally printed in the Melody Maker, April 27, 1996

aint that just the way

ugh seriously
that's awful

u_u

i always sort of lumped them in with 10,000 maniacs (even though they had been around for longer)

Seriously? Oh, you mean even though 10,000 Maniacs had been around longer.

I thought of them, initially, as sort of like the Sundays, but not as good or as tasteful. Because by the follow-u[ album I thought of the Cranberries the same way I thought of Live.

Mentioned before, by my fave weird bill was seeing the Cranberries open up for Frank Black opening up for The The in 1993.

Unconfirmed reports of deliberate Fentanyl o.d. coming in.

I gave the first two albums another spin today and still like 'em, and still stand by my opinion that 'Zombie' paved the way for a direction they weren't very good at. They were much better at the delicate numbers, and the production still holds up on the first two albums. What sunk their third record - and subsequently their career - was a combination of silly lyrics, inappropriate production and moving away from what people actually liked about them.

yes. well, clearly some people liked the direction they went in or they wouldn't have continued to put out six or seven albums that go in that direction.

All bands have their hardcore followers, and they're generally the wrong people to look at when assessing the popularity of a band.

Pretty much agree with Turrican. Loved these two records growing up and still do.

o'riordan's voice, specifically in the first album, sounds amazing in how it fades in and out during the bridge or whatever you want to call it

definitely reminiscent of elizabeth fraser at some parts

their lyrics have always been a bit crap, I never knew what any of them were in the first record then when I eventually looked them up I felt "oh." Lots of 'walking out through the door' etc

Nah ode to my family and linger have great lyrics

yes. well, clearly some people liked the direction they went in or they wouldn't have continued to put out six or seven albums that go in that direction.

― akm, Tuesday, January 16, 2018 1:20 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they didn’t though. bury the hatchet was v much a scaling back from to the faithful departed

their singles are generally solid throughout (even “salvation” which i think has a v charming velocity) except “time is ticking out”

there are the cranberry saw us demos on youtube from cassettes they released pretty good stuff

'Salvation' is a very good performance and topline, but I can never get past how awful the lyric is.

Zombie is fine. as with many female musicians/celebrities many had a decent go at her when she had issues a few years back. it's pretty sad overall. idk. Dreams and Linger are better than a lot of the songs that probably inspired them. I always think of Chungking Express when I think of Dreams, even though it's a Faye Wong cover (extremely faithful to the original and therefore sublime.)

'Daffodil Lament' is probably the best song they ever did.

I adore NNTA, really like EEIDISWCW, never heard the rest. I am going to admit right here and now that I played NNTA more often than anything else in my dorm room in 1995

I came up with a dozen goodies.

10. Just My Imagination

that's a good one but i think i prefer "you and me" as a single from that record

Zombie being a huge hit was definitely a problem, the third record even has a terrible remake of it (Hollywood) and the whole thing feels like a mess with that edgier, rockier sound and the political posturing that feels awkward. They were really good at evoking nostalgia in ballad mode, which is why the best cut in there by a long shot is “when you’re gone”.

Alfred you forgot “Wanted”

listening back to the first album today I was struck by how much I used to love Waltzing Back. I don't think I've heard that song since probably 1994. Her Irish yelping really works on that.

Oh, interesting: "Zombie" is what everyone hates? That's the only one of the hits I ever really liked tbh and it still seems iconic of that time to me. Sad that she was so young.

waltzing back is fucking great

I don’t hate Zombie... I hate what it did to them on the following album.

last five or so songs on no need to argue are all wonderful

What really matters mystifies me is how the songwriting quality basically collapses for the entire stretch between “Ode To My Family” and that final remarkable home stretch.

Actually Everyone... seems really notable for its consistency given the band immediately became so inconsistent (though still capable of greatness) thereafter.

Alfred you forgot “Wanted”

I was listening to "Everybody Else Is Doing It" last night for the first time since the 90s. Very strong album, so dreamy and nostalgia-inducing. I really like "pretty" and "put me down"

RIP Dolores.

Dreams is an all-time favourite for me. The first album reminds me of moving to London in '93 and drinking with lots of Irish people.

I think Zombie was where a lot of people got off the bus. I remember they took some stick for releasing an anti-IRA protest song only a couple of weeks after the IRA ceasefire - like they could put the peace process at risk.

I remember they took some stick for releasing an anti-IRA protest song only a couple of weeks after the IRA ceasefire - like they could put the peace process at risk.

LOL

What really matters mystifies me is how the songwriting quality basically collapses for the entire stretch between “Ode To My Family” and that final remarkable home stretch.

Don't be daft - 'I Can't Be With You', 'Twenty One' and 'Empty' are three of the best tracks on there!

The first two LP's are near equal in consistency, and would be equal if 'Zombie' wasn't on there.

Yeah Sunday is a brilliant, giddy thing, i always thought it was called Sunday because it's their most obvious homage to The Sundays.

never pursued their albums but i had MTV for the mid 90s when they broke. i remember "Zombie" and "Linger" on constant rotation and i loved those songs.

last night i looked up the video to "Salvation" and holy crap yes there is the killer evil clown creeping at the window that haunted my dreams when i was a teen! i hadn't seen this video in 20 years, tbh im glad i didn't imagine it! really insane video. btw it's actually a pretty cool song

She looks seriously fucking ill in the video to 'Free to Decide' ...

This is nice, despite the sort of creepy and/or on-the-nose overtones of a lyric about a hotel in London.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=229&v=AG1LGI0Gf_Y

Four tracks into the new (and final) Cranberries album and admittedly I'm enjoying it a lot. For me, this is easily a better record than Roses... it might turn out to be their best since No Need to Argue, actually.