Savages

lolling at the idea that '80s revivalists are somehow these poor maligned underdogs. pretty much everything that pitchfork has liked for the past couple of years sounds completely '80s.

No one is an underdog on Jools Holland.

I don't know if I like this or not yet, but has anyone felt that the vocals sounded somewhat Geddy Lee at times? Kept thinking that, and thinking that it probably wasn't what they were trying for.

it just occurred to me i have no idea what geddy lee sounds like

this is probably still my fave 80's-evocative thing I've heard lately. rudi rockist posted it on ilm a couple of months ago. so cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSWRgx8dATg

but has anyone felt that the vocals sounded somewhat Geddy Lee at times?

definitely

I've just heard two songs but they are both doozies. I get the feeling some people complaining about them would have said the same thing about Wire in 1978, or The Clash in 77.

they would have said that wire and the clash are just a tepid rehash of joy division?

After googling "Savages Geddy Lee" it appears that amazingly I'm not the first person to notice this. Damn.

I've just heard two songs but they are both doozies. I get the feeling some people complaining about them would have said the same thing about Wire in 1978, or The Clash in 77.

― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, May 8, 2013 8:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you know, it's possible to look at reviews from 77/78. i don't recall many digs at wire and the clash that resembled the (very few) digs at savages

anyway most people (who care) seem to like this band to differing degrees, so it's not like they are some kind of lightning rod of controversy

although i'm sure ilx will work hard to make them one

most i just don't want them staring at me

i have realised recently that life is better when you have no idea what a band looks like

unless they are kiss

Someone said something about personality - that's it for me. They lack it. The songs lack it. The whole package is just not interesting. Every song has an inevitable predictabilty. Wire had a weird personality and much better songs -same with The Clash - so its a nope from me on the above comment. I don't think there is any need to denigrate someone who doesn't like this though - there is no accounting for taste after all - I simply don't get the massive amount of hype and consistently wow reviews for what appears to me to be a 6-7/ 10 type of record. Expertly played and pouted though it might be.

let's try to score to the decimal

Ok then - good idea. I'm going with 6.3 - thats without seeing the cover, otherwise I would take it down to 6.15. If I was listening to this in 1982 it would move to 6.85 with the caveat that I am aged 22 (or at least up to 23 and one half)

Cracking up that the jaded miserables are too jaded and miserable to like this album

What if it were self-released and had murkier production. Then it would be untouchably cool...

I am really, really, really curious about what counts as "personality" for the people who are feeling like the songs on this album aren't expressing any.

I'd say character rather than personality, I mean obviously it has character as well but it's not particularly distinctive. I don't get a sense that we're hearing an unmistakable new voice for the first time.

The last new artist/band I heard that made me think "this is an unmistakable new voice" was Ke$ha so I am not seeing why that is an automatic negative.

If I were twenty years old and pissed off I'd think this group and this record were the business. Unfortunately I am neither so I just find it rather dull and predictable. They're not like this live so presumably it's the old story of smartarse producer who thinks they know everything turning them into just another Lamacq-friendly "alternative" band (that is, if they used an outside producer - I don't care enough to want to find out). However, I am aware that this sort of thing is really not aimed at old dodderers like me.

I'm forty years old and pretty much the happiest I've been in my life and I love this album.

This is really making me wonder what it is I look for/get out of music as compared to others because the negative reactions on this thread ("they have no personality" "the songs aren't there" etc) are flat-out incomprehensible to me.

I like "Die Young" and "Diane Young" but am pretty indifferent to this. Don't know what that signifies what I look for in music, but excitement might be part of it.

grammar correction: in sentence 2 add "signifies in terms of what I look for..."

Maybe it's because I spend most of my time in genres (metal, jazz) where there are rules and lineages and being influenced by your predecessors is not only not a bad thing but is half the point, but the foot-stomping "I can pinpoint all this band's influences therefore they are worthless" schtick going on in this thread is pretty fucking bizarre and incomprehensible to me. This is a good record. The songs are well written and compellingly performed. I don't know what else you people want from a record.

As an old man, I can only answer by saying: "something other than what I heard twenty-five years ago." Natural process of ageing innit.

I'd say natural process of chasing rainbows but that seems like an odd metaphor to use in relation to this album

I've reached the point in my life where I'm feeling nostalgic about the music of 2009.

As an old man, I can only answer by saying: "something other than what I heard twenty-five years ago." Natural process of ageing innit.

I'm younger than you, I think, but not by much (41). I have no problem hearing bands work in old styles. And I suspect you don't either, depending on the style. So why are this band so exceptionally offensive?

It doesn't really help that they're working in a style that already had a revival, and was done to death, only a few years ago. They're better than most of that stuff but my general feeling is "ANOTHER post-punk revival?"

x-post

As an old man, I can only answer by saying: "something other than what I heard twenty-five years ago."

Yeah, part of what excited me about this general sound initially (early 80s if not a little bit earlier) was that it sounded new to me at the time. I do think unperson (and others) have a point though. The truth is I just don't particularly like post-punk at this point (even most of the old stuff), so when I say I heard this already in the 80s, the real issue behind that may simply be that the sound has lost its appeal for me.

Wasn't going to listen to the album, but I am playing it now, and it does seem pretty good. I can certainly understand the appeal. I'd still take that Selma Oxor song over this.

I had to laugh that when I loaded ILM I thought to myself: I wonder how that Savages thread is doing. And there it was, at the top of the page. As amateurist said:

so it's not like they are some kind of lightning rod of controversy

although i'm sure ilx will work hard to make them one

I'm not exceptionally offended by the album - just bored, that's all. Sense of tradition in jazz/blues doesn't really cross over to rock because so much of rock's fabric has been about destruction and whenever anyone cries "in the tradition" then it's time for another "punk."

a lot of people's manner of showing how immune they are to music media and the hype it creates seems to be to go on and on and fucking on about it

This album reminds me that I've spent too long underrating Siouxsie.

(fwiw I don't really see any posts in this thread as examples of such)

except that punk was just reheated rockabilly...

Savages must be getting a completely different treatment in the UK than they are here because I heard about them via this thread; I don't really consider ILM to be an endless hype machine.

I thought it was streamlined pub rock? xpost

same thing.

DJP otm throughout, wtf ILX.

Sense of tradition in jazz/blues doesn't really cross over to rock because so much of rock's fabric has been about destruction and whenever anyone cries "in the tradition" then it's time for another "punk."

This is utter bullshit, and the most pernicious/unkillable myth in music. Rock's "fabric" has never been about destruction, GG Allin possibly excepted, and even he had someone making sure the promoter paid up at the end of the night. Rock is entertainment, and as such is dependent on reflexive and easily remembered gestures. "Punk" is a set of simple gestures, just like "metal" or "folk-rock" or whatever else. Sure, there are a few adventurers about at any given time, but they're only recognizable because of the endless sameness of everything that surrounds them, and their records don't sell very well, because most people want comfort food, even when it's disguised as something "shocking" or "path-breaking."

This is utter bullshit, and the most pernicious/unkillable myth in music.

this cannot really be restated enough times

when i think of the vast futuristic universes created by disco, funk, jazz, and prog/psych in the 70's and punk - the most conservative and retro movement outside of dixieland - gets labeled "revolutionary" i just laugh in that way i have of laughing. i mean i like punk cuz i like rock but it was about as revolutionary as my granny's chamber pot. fashionwise, it was a kick, i'll give you that. POST punk, on the other hand, is another thing all together. cuz then all the secret prog fans made records and we were off to the cosmos again.

All music is entertainment. Might as well not listen to any of it in that case. The thing about rock is its implicit motor of overthrowing (if not destroying) whatever boring bilge came before it. Otherwise "we" "should" "just" "put" "everything" "in" "inverted" "commas" "to" "spell" "out" "the" "analogy" "or" "selling" "point." Or accept that people just want gaudy colours and funny noises for a few seconds at a time and that whatever else happened in the last sixty years was a moderately engaging aberration, or red herring.

Phrases like "vast futuristic universes" make me think that perhaps humanity should just start all over again.

All music is entertainment. Might as well not listen to any of it in that case.

See, the first sentence doesn't lead to the second, for me.

i'm a sci-fi fan. and a futurist! and an honorary member of the Paris-based Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle.

Sure, there are a few adventurers about at any given time, but they're only recognizable because of the endless sameness of everything that surrounds them, and their records don't sell very well, because most people want comfort food, even when it's disguised as something "shocking" or "path-breaking."

Fly-fishing, then.

i'm a sci-fi fan. and a futurist! and an honorary member of the Paris-based Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle.

― scott seward, Thursday, 9 May 2013 15:53 (19 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No medals here, sir. Local maps only.