Post a controversial music opinion

you're probably right

but it's the wheedling way he sings it too

the strings are great, the beat is great, the guitar solo is ALL TIME but i skip it every time it comes on. sorry marc

love Cosmic Dancer
without the strings it is very repetitive, to the point that it sounds unfinished, like the germ of an amazing song.
the string arrangement is a little corny and has its moments for sure but there are some obvious moves.
there is some miraculous alchemy going on with the two together

every T Rex lyric is like a tropical outer space glitter utopia where everybody stays 22 years old forever

idk the strings are SO SQUARE and the song is SO GROOVY, it shouldn't work, why does it work?

xxxxpost by the early 80s Rush was pretty in thrall to the Police and you can hear a lot of Stewart Copeland creeping in to his playing

i liken it to a balloon

damn i live cosmic dancer and i'm still unsure if he was dancing out of a womb or a room seems likely both really

lol love not "live." don't want that life

I'm your cosmic dancer
Dancer for money

I think the song is about contemplating reincarnation and inspired a deeper emotional reaction in the listener after Bolan’s death

Drummer Bill is killing it. Visconti unstoppable in ‘71. Great song

Peart is very underrated and a groove drummer

some real truth here. when I saw them on the Clockwork Angels tour I realized that yeah in the 70s everybody was blown away by his power & the giant kit but a lot of the time he's just rolling along back there, guiding things forward, you would almost call it mellow if there weren't so much goin on

I saw Rush twice, in 2011 and again in 2013, and there was a big change in his drumming in between those two tours. In 2011 his groove was amazing on the actual songs, but his big solo featured some truly horrifying attempts to swing (like, imagine your worst nightmare of a teenaged, priapic Buddy Rich), while in 2013 he had become a much more supple player and was interacting not only with his bandmates but with an eight-piece string section in a way that was breathtaking. And I remember reading an interview with him somewhere in between where he talked about just how hard he had to study, and how much he had to un-learn, in order to actually get a grip on jazz rhythm. This might be it.

Did Peart ever say something about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrMBIH2TBpU

no, because that way lies endlessly being asked about it, but I'll bet 10,000 people he knew casually fwd'd him the link to the clip from the moment it became available until the day he died

he didn't have to say anything, because his work speaks for itself xp

the krupa the dude plays at the end is truly smokin though it can't be denied

Whenever people criticize Bolan’s lyrics, i want to say “you don’t really understand the way lyrics work, do you”

go ahead i can take it

i was just teasing with the lyrics, they’re fine

trying to put my finger on it… unusually for t rex it’s not a shuffly blues vamp, it’s one of bolan’s fantasias and to my mind this sort of song needs a bit more melody to it, some structure to give it wings, but it just kind of drones on, the only real release or turnaround when he says “out, out out out” which is fine but it could have been so much more imo. and his singing, which i usually love, waspish and menacing and seductive, just sounds insipid to me here

huh i kinda dig on his mesmerized drony spacey flotation mode as well as his uh waspy menace i don’t need seduction. all the time.

I think the singing is great, especially the way his voice breaks a little on the “is it wrong?” lines. It sounds vulnerable and really sells what could otherwise be a goofy lyric.

i personally would draw a large distinction between the ideas of "good lyrics" and "good lyrics for a T Rex song"

"Cosmic Dancer" is probably not the former but definitely the latter

controversial opinion: bolan's are the only good lyrics, everyone else shd just shut up

without the strings it is very repetitive, to the point that it sounds unfinished, like the germ of an amazing song.

Simple repetitive verse-chorus-verse-chorus songs were what Marc Bolan was all about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0cf1DRmhcY

the best lyrics are ones that, in a certain mood and from a certain angle, will seem bad. you have to risk embarrassment to write poetry. this doesn't mean bad poetry is good. it does not mean that. it just means that good poetry will always seem bad to some people all the time, and all people some of the time.

i personally would draw a large distinction between the ideas of "good lyrics" and "good lyrics for a T Rex song"

"Cosmic Dancer" is probably not the former but definitely the latter

fucking loathe jane's addiction and every single thing they ever did

*especially* 'jane says'

'perry farrell' is a pretty good stage name tho

... I just now got it...

sub custos chili peppers at best

wait what is the pun with Perry Farrell?

...it's a terrible pun, you can only see it out the side of your vision...

xpost I like that, I like T Rex in general, I just think most things about T Rex have a certain magic that that makes them feel like T Rex and not necessarily something that would work outside of that context, it's not a diss

haha oh God thanks slowsquatch

xpost ums that makes sense, i was mostly being cheeky tbh.

"build me up buttercup" sucks. "apples, peaches, pumpkin pie" also sucks. also "drift away" by dobie gray. also, stupid david essex and his stupid "rock on". i wish i could officially retire them from every oldies roster on AM and FM radio. some of those chestnuts gotta go. its enough already.

“build me up buttercup” is awful, the music makes me think of xenobites in hellraiser who can’t distinguish between pleasure and pain

worst of all

otm re drift away, i feel like i'll get called before HUAC by saying this but i hate it.

I better not hear any "Don't Pull Your Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds hate itt

"Drift Away" sucks.

used to hate it due to some terrible omnipresent cover that leaked all over Bay Area radio in the 90s, became more fond when I heard the Stonea cover.

Stones

for me a road trip to hell would feature a soundtrack of life is a highway, fly away, and drift away.

the best thing about "don't pull your love" is the b-side on the 45!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJFr1blKj88

I like this David Essex disco-y song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WycrrTeYp94

Sorry for 3 posts in a row

xpost - wow "Funk-n-Wagnal" is hott stuff I need to investigate the Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds cinematic universe further

Bill Withers's "daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" over and over always annoyed the hell out of me

Despite having a few great songs, Here Comes The Warm Jets (album) is pretty skip-friendly, the weakest of the 1970s "vocal" albums.

It's my least favorite too (the others are A or A+'s).