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...
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 9 August 2023 15:24 (eight months ago) link
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.
― Terrycoth Baphomet (bendy), Wednesday, 9 August 2023 19:14 (eight months ago) link
And too punk for the rockers and not punk enough for the punks.
― nickn, Wednesday, 9 August 2023 20:04 (eight months ago) link
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.
― Josefa, Wednesday, 9 August 2023 20:06 (eight months ago) link
where did they gripe about synthesizers??
― budo jeru, Wednesday, 9 August 2023 20:28 (eight months ago) link
I just quoted it! That line is absolutely intended in a disparaging way
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Wednesday, 9 August 2023 20:30 (eight months ago) link
idk i think that's a stiflingly narrow reading of that passage
― budo jeru, Wednesday, 9 August 2023 20:34 (eight months ago) link
literally two lines after complaining that there are no American bands on the radio, but ok
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Wednesday, 9 August 2023 20:53 (eight months ago) link
and "night school" is not a compliment
bodu jeru – how do you read it?
― Nonhuman biologics enthusiast (morrisp), Wednesday, 9 August 2023 20:58 (eight months ago) link
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
― budo jeru, Thursday, 10 August 2023 01:47 (eight months ago) link
(I saw what you xxxxpost did budo, just didn't want to laugh---friends warehouse their pain.)
― dow, Thursday, 10 August 2023 02:09 (eight months ago) link
haha, yes. and now look what i've gotten myself into
― budo jeru, Thursday, 10 August 2023 02:12 (eight months ago) link
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…
― Nonhuman biologics enthusiast (morrisp), Thursday, 10 August 2023 02:26 (eight months ago) link
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.
― budo jeru, Thursday, 10 August 2023 02:37 (eight months ago) link
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
― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Thursday, 10 August 2023 04:29 (eight months ago) link