Post a controversial music opinion

Haha, I didn't know about that. I knew it from Cream's Strange Brew best-of comp in Grade 8 or so.

Little Walter is a guy I recently got hip to and man he's raw as hell, Boss Blues Harmonica comp

First time I heard "Born Under A Bad Sign" was also the Cream Strange Brew record. Second time was Albert King, third was Homer, and fourth through one millionth was G.E. Smith who played it going into every goddamn commercial break on SNL.

The comparatively recent take on rock history where Black Sabbath was heavy metal but all of their contemporaries (including all the bands they played with or shared members with) were hard rock or progressive rock because Black Sabbath was completely sui generis and solely responsible for an entire genre is extremely goofy and revisionist.

"strawberry alarm clock Homer...no..."

that Albert Collins Born Under a Bad Sign alb with the Stax horns on it is great stuff!

xpost

I'll take it more controversial - despite the fact I really don't like them much - Cream is ultimately the most important band in the formation of heavy rock/metal and neither Zep nor Sabbath would exist without them

cream are cool

feel Iike everybody would like that one Junior Wells album with Buddy Guy

HOODOO MAN BLUES

It's weird. I love electric blues. I hate lots of blues rock

I mean, kudos, that make you the anti-Joe Bonnamassa

I still haven't heard a note he's played, just know he's a meme.

ha lucky you, yeah he’s just talked about in an interview or two how he’s really into British blues rock but actual blues makes him squirm like a bored schoolboy

Urge to kill... rising

I find it 92% impossible to hear Chess-style electric blues with fresh ears, it permeates so many cultural cliches from the 60s through 90s.

Garage-y psych was the first music off the beaten path I that I searched out, in that I'd hear songs like "Break on Through", "Tales of Brave Ulysses", "She's a Rainbow" and "White Rabbit" on the radio and seek out the albums. Thirteen-year-old me would inevitably be bored by the 12 bar blues songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Fm-7N694o

I liked the Bo Diddly ripoffs, or songs where Chess was the template, gloppped up with wah-wah, British folk or acid lyrics. Shortly afterwards, I heard B.B. King's "Thrill is Gone" and thought it was great, much better than the Brit invasion takes on the same. But now I can't hear it.

Blues has a pretty broad spectrum of feels and textures, and I can listen to Louis Armstrong or Charlie Patton or Junior Kimbrough or Ike Turner without prejudice. But it's interesting to me to try to feel what those suburban kids in the early 60s felt that made that subset of sounds so worthy of worship. I know it was bold to them, but they thinned the broth so much with imitation I cannot taste a thing.

feel Iike everybody would like that one Junior Wells album with Buddy Guy

― brimstead, Sunday, November 15, 2020 1:30 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

HOODOO MAN BLUES

― brimstead, Sunday, November 15, 2020 1:30 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

absolutely this, one of the best.

I’d also recommend luther allison to interested parties, and second the albert king and howlin wolf love from upthread

the other kings have lots worth hearing too, but i don’t want to just list canonical blues legends

Bendy, it sounds like you could use some Magic Sam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OlA_JVbQl8

Last electric blues song I listened to was Elmore James - Dust My Blues which still fucking kills fyi

Dust My Broom you mean? If so, the second most imitated lick in all of bluesdom

Elmore's version is called Dust My Blues and its as zingy as standing on a rake

Think Elmore recorded a number of Dust My Broom variants - see also Blues Before Sunrise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2dbLQ9tqu4

there are multiple versions under both titles fwiw

I think a major difference between those blues guys and their imitators is that some of those guys could really sing and in unique and characterful ways. Listen to that Elmore James song or to Smokestack Lightning or John Lee Hooker singing 'I Cover The Waterfront' or whatever - amazing lived-in voices that no amount of copyism is ever going to touch or ruin for me {sorry for rockistness}

I think a major difference between those blues guys and their imitators is that some of those guys could really sing and in unique and characterful ways.

100%. Howlin' Wolf is not a "style"; Howlin' Wolf was one man, and you can take things he did and attempt to do them in your own way, combining them with other things along the way, and if you're a genius yourself, you wind up being Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits. But trying to imitate someone like Howlin' Wolf or John Lee Hooker is a fool's errand.

Re the general weakness/wackness of British blues: one of the worst examples I can think of is Dr. Feelgood's version of John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom," which Wilko Johnson sings. Wilko is an amazing guitar player, but he should never have been allowed to sing this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ZxIZq1i48

But trying to imitate someone like Howlin' Wolf or John Lee Hooker is a fool's errand

i take it you're not much of a tom waits fan

I take it you didn't read the sentence right before that one.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

it's a fair cop

It's funny though, I had heard so much about how "scary" and "wild" Howlin' Wolf was; when I finally listened to closely to the records, I heard a lot of wit and warmth under the rough surface.

Realized today that I don’t really like Motown. Almost every big Motown hit is like a 3 ring circus to me; there’s just so much going on and it’s all in your face at once—the “big” production style, the hard-to-follow chord progressions, it’s just too much for me to handle.

I guess I mean “songs that have the Motown sound” rather than literally every release on the label

Shady's feat. on "Calm Down" might be his best verse ever

I'm not big into Motown either – but I've always erred on the side of assuming that it is due to overfamiliarity (hearing those hits 1000s of times growing up, on soundtracks, commercials, etc.).

that makes me sad, I suck all of that up, some of my fav music

the “big” production style, the hard-to-follow chord progressions

oh gosh, do i in fact like motown

the sound of young prog america

Considering how much I love '60s female pop/soul/etc., I almost feel guilty when the Supremes (all of group) come on and leave me cold.

Huh. Is it Diana's voice? The songs themselves?

The “big” production style and hard-to-follow chord progressions.

For me, I guess both - I admit I don't love her voice.

I should delve into some deeper cuts tho; maybe I'll do that now.

I didn't really "get" the hype about Motown until the Complete Motown Singles CD sets started being released. I convinced my mom to get them for my dad, and then would steal them for myself for a few months. Hearing the breadth of how much was being recorded and how the sound was developed allowed me to really understand why certain artists were more popular that others, even if those more popular artists were never my faves.

Our Time In Eden is the equal of Heaven or Las Vegas

i don't understand "hard to follow chord progressions," surely this doesn't apply to songs like "my girl" or "tracks of my tears"?

Of course Motown’s production was big: they wanted as many high-charting hits as possible. For a record label, “small” or understated production as a long-term vision just isn’t gonna deliver the hits, especially not in the US chart scene of the ‘60s (to say nothing of the competition among the Motown producers and composers). Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy said you have to grip the listener within the first few seconds; that’s why so many Motown hits have the same drum-pickup-intro, and the same big production.

I’m certainly not trying to say I’m right to dislike Motown! This is a failing of mine, no doubt. The particular song that exemplifies what I’m thinking of most is Reach Out I'll Be There—listening to it gives me vertigo or something! It’s like what I imagine sky diving is like in the moments before you pull the chute

And now that I look it up, of course, there’s nothing complicated about the chords in that song at all. So why does it feel so “difficult” to me?

The chord progression IS pretty tricky imo!

The verse is a ii-V over and over that doesn't resolve to I until they sing "reach out" and then after two bars it modulates to the relative minor for the chorus via a chromatic mediant - and then (in this key) you get the major I before you get the i chord.