X

The rockism in that song though. Even back then it made me wince.

Yep

can you explain what you mean?

"glitter disco synthesizer night school
all this noble savage drum drum drum"

would be my guess, also "b-e-e-t-s not b-e-a-t-s"

(I love this song, to be clear, Exene went on a rant about rock star "whores of Babylon" when I saw them do this live a few years back)

those are definitely lyrics from the song. to me they don't seem to be saying "rock is the best kind of music"

my take is that it's more about the simmering resentment they have re: the new Brit bands, it's low key but def there

my take is that it's more about the simmering resentment they have re: the new Brit bands, it's low key but def there

"Will the last American band to get played on the radio please bring the flag" — yeah, pretty low key, easy to overlook...

There's certainly a thread of complaint though the career of X (and to some extent the Ramones) of "why aren't we one of the biggest bands?" I do recall the press push working the "discovered by Ray Manzarek, they are the new Doors" angle hard. That message got to me, even as a kid who just listened to AOR at that point, not really interested any anything outside of Beatles/Who/AC-DC/Cars etc. But to my kid ears, they were impossibly uncanny looking on TV - not skinny tie cool, not rough and tumble hard rock, and not young for a new band! Billy Zoom shoulda hid behind sunglasses like Ocasek. And they did not sound like The Doors at all. I could sense the were talking about older person things, so wordy. "Lunatic Fringe": now there's a haircut you can set your watch to. I resented stuff like X even being pushed on me. I was still trying to distinguish Billy Squire from Led Zeppelin.

Of course, I loved 'em after I got into punk. But even that took a little while. I've long thought that in their peak era, the problem was that they read as too old for the young and too new for the old.

And too punk for the rockers and not punk enough for the punks.

And right after they gripe about synthesizers, their next album leads with a single - "Burning House of Love" - that has conspicuous synthesizer on it. (It probably would've been better without.) This move did get them on AOR radio for a minute, though still no big hit. The Ramones did the same thing just before on their Too Tough to Die album - also no hit. I was rooting for both those bands, but I agree both of them projected a certain chippiness.

where did they gripe about synthesizers??

I just quoted it! That line is absolutely intended in a disparaging way

idk i think that's a stiflingly narrow reading of that passage

literally two lines after complaining that there are no American bands on the radio, but ok

and "night school" is not a compliment

bodu jeru – how do you read it?

i wouldn't say i have a reading necessarily. i'm not really a lyrics person, but i do bristle when people make bold proclamations about what lyrics must mean. in this instance, it just seems plausible to me that they're being ironic, or that the narrator is a character or a semi-real avatar of the band and they are venting their "bad thoughts," you know? i just wouldn't take it as a given that the official band line is that synthesizer music is somehow not as important or real as punk rock

(I saw what you xxxxpost did budo, just didn't want to laugh---friends warehouse their pain.)

haha, yes. and now look what i've gotten myself into

I mean it could be “in character” (there’s a pretty famous example of the same band doing that, but the distancing is made somewhat clear in that case), but then it’s the character’s rockism making folks wince…

one of many possible readings, but yeah -- i guess at the end of the day, if that's what you and others here, i won't argue about it.

hear*

Possible hot take: I was let down when I heard the studio version of "Nausea" the first time because I was introduced to the track through Decline of Western Civilization and that live crunch - but more importantly, the lack of Ray Manzarek's insufferable key bleats - was way more potent to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2xehSjrzVs