Post a controversial music opinion

The second Specials album is better than the first and the third one kicks major ass

The first part of this statement at least isn’t controversial at all, according to this thread:
”The Specials" Vs. "More Specials"

This Marcello Carlin quote (from 2006) about sums it up:

Essentially what we're saying is that The Specials was their Dissensus album and More Specials their ILM album.

Sugar >> Hüsker Dü

Bob Mould's first solo albums>>>>>>>Sugar

His film scores and ambient records are very much "music to study to" type of stuff, but once in a while I like putting one on while I vacuum

Workbook > Sugar > most Husker > rest of Bob solo

There are classics and duds in each of these phases but I am comfortable with that overall order

There is something appealing about Pomplamoose.

Do tell.

The Ant Rap is actually a punk song

If by being punk you mean being obnoxious and subversive just because you can, then yes absolutely.

Maybe more silly than controversial BUT—

If there's such a thing as "dadrock" then surely there's also such a thing as "dadsoul."

Determining who qualifies is where the controversy arises.

I think you mean “unclesoul”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69ptYXvUo7M

Scat singing: never good, always entertaining.

I think I first saw this on ilm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY7LHziBDcI

Two of my favorites!

I normally resist the urge to post “canonical thing actually sucks” in this thread, but:

While it’s always still great to hear the Ronettes etc., the least great thing about it these days is the Spector sound. That wall o’ sound is not really standing strong… in fact, the production can sound like muddy shit. Maybe it was made very specifically for transistor radio speakers, I dunno.

"Wall of Sound" sounds great in mono on an old boombox with the treble cranked. Otherwise, I just kind of accept it as a "technology of the time" fidelity issue like I would early jazz or folk music. Maybe it would have aged better if something something recording technology . . . ?

But yeah: big agree here. I grew tired of it years ago and haven't sought out listening to any of that stuff for even longer.

Might be a better way of phrasing it is that, say, Shadow Morton is underrated in comparison to Spector.

wow, i just wiki'd scatman john. what an inspirational guy. it's so sad that he passed so young

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scatman_John

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01w-9pUsy18

seriously grateful that my childhood coincided with "the Scatman song"

what a great live rendition

yeah that was great

You're all being ironic right, right ?

we don't do irony on ILX

Highly recommend the Scatman John episode of Todd in the Shadows. Even if you've already seen it, watch it again; it's one of his best episodes.

Honkin' on Bobo is the best album title of all time.

It will never be topped. All hail Aerosmith.

kurt elling went to my alma mater, and the school wouldn't shut up about it, i became convinced people only know who he is because this college talks about him all the time

I like him.

It will never be topped. All hail Aerosmith.

lmao @ HOBB

"Baltimore" is often-cited as an example of Prince being "bad at political songs" but I think it's really good

otm

Radio Song is an excellent opener, the KRS-One part is good

Now that's a controversial opinion

Have you heard Too Much Joy's Good Kill?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ewcun8LL4g

Also really like "Radio Song", but enjoy it more as a novelty.

*campy novelty

I also kind of like the q-tip one on around the sun but that might be going too far

Nope, legitimate like on that one from me. One of the only good songs on that album.

add bowie to my list of good grifters. cool image ≠ cool music.

(berlin trilogy + outliers excepted. that stuff is great.)

I'm not his biggest fan, but his music was both undeniably cool _and_ good. Looking back on his career, one can see how he reads as a bandwagon jumper, but he was always early enough to do so that it didn't come off as just some rich pop star glomming onto cool scenes after the fact. The bottom line is that he backed it with good-to-great songs that still resonate. I also feel like on any Serious Music Fan board, the controversial take would be that the Berlin trilogy was his least interesting work.

The guy could write and sing hooks.

I’ve never been a fan, both his music and “presentation” have always left me cold... I know I’m in the minority there, among rock music fans. I’m into Phillip Jeffries, of course.

I can't separate David Bowie from the story Debbie Harry tells about him in her (very readable) autobiography. I hope that will fade with time.

I’ve never been a fan, both his music and “presentation” have always left me cold...

Sometimes even intentionally.

His body leaves me cold

I used to have this awful "History of rock n roll" book that i bought for $3 at the supermarket, it had a section called "legends" which profiled several artists including Bowie. It said he had no talent and couldn't sing, attributed his success to a "well timed revelation that he was gay" and even took a cheap shot at his sax playing. But it went on to say that none of this mattered because "he had an indefinable something else". Basically they made him out to be the archetype of a rock star whose music is not as important as "the other stuff", this slightly pathetic figure who had the right look and attitude but couldn't write a song to back it up and that's a hypothesis looking for evidence if they can't find a better fit than Bowie.

Bowie had a lot of good ideas, decent taste in collaborators, and a great eye for things worth stealing, but he botched the execution about eight and a half times out of ten. There's a whole great album spread across Low, Heroes and Lodger, and the two live albums from that era are astonishing, but Blackstar was his first great record in 35 years; anybody who reps harder than "yeah, OK, I guess" for anything he did between Let's Dance and Blackstar is delusional.

decent taste in collaborators,

anybody who reps harder than "yeah, OK, I guess" for anything he did between Let's Dance and Blackstar is delusional.

I quite like Reeves Gabrels, Outside and Earthling