You can't take criticism, music critic. Give it up.

So, basically, how boring is Sonic Youth? I'm not sure about the gym part, and "happily married" certainly no longer applies, but you know what I mean. Do you enjoy reading about them?

I think you took what I said too literally. I said the '70s and '90s were the most boring decades for music, but I didn't mean that nothing good came out of those years. When I said that I was referring to the pop culture mainstream of those decades. For ever Transformer, Unknown Pleasures, Station to Station, Low, Exile on Mainstreet, American Beauty, Lola Vs. Powerman & The Moneygoround etc. (all incredible albums) there were a hundred Gordon Lightfoots and Billy Joels and Grease soundtracks... I love tons of '70s music. Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, Can... (gotta stop because I will just keep going), but I personally think that the bad music of that decade was Exceptionally bad, and that a lot of that really bad music was also really popular.

Same with the '90s. Sounds like heresy, I'm sure. But again, most of the great music that came out in the '90s is not included on the "Now That's What's I Call Music: 90's Edition!!" compilations, or the "I love the '90s" VH1 specials. For a lot of people, the '90s were about Matchbox Twenty and "Breakdast at Tiffany's" and... God... Collective Soul.. The Friends soundtrack... Britney's first album. Naughty by Nature, Puff Daddy, Oasis and ... I don't know... Fucking Our Lady Peace and Vertical Horizon.

So many of my favorite bands released most of their material in the '90s. I love more music from that decade than probably any other, but I also really hate more music from that decade than from any other.

So don't think I hate the 70s. I just hate so many of the big pop culture bullet points of that decade. I'm not a fan of disco or singer-songwritery solo acoustic light pop, but I do love Maggot Brain and Boys Don't Cry and Taking Tiger Mountain (by strategy)

And as bored as I might be by most of Led Zeppelin's work, I still fucking love "Immigrant Song" and several others. And I certainly don't dislike people because they like Led Zeppelin.

Very crudely: The article in question posits that rock cannot be used to purify, because it is satan-fueled fun times made to ruin your life. The Stones would probably agree. I'm not sure if SY thinks of their music as "purifying" but it wouldn't surprise me if they do. Anyway, I'd say they are closer to "ethos"-driven rock than revelry-fueled rock. Of course they're never boring about it.

As for the lifestyle, if you're asking me if I think Keith Richards has led a more exciting, more r n' r life than the members of SY--however much that excitement was mixed with tragedy--than the answer is yes. Yes I do. And for rock n' roll thrills, yes, Life is more exciting than an SY bio, or Kim's book for that matter. One divorce? Child's play.

so you're trying to "toughen him up" or maybe trying to inspire a creative breakthrough by flogging him like the sadistic band teacher in "whiplash"?



original




ha ha ha yes


fuck, i didn't mean for you to suffer through the whole thing in real time. just scan the transcription below & be done with it.


i worship no rockstars and don't give two fucks about what they do but i personally want to drink from the dionysian cup on a regular basis-- their music is a bridge or a door or a pharmaceutical of sorts and there lies its value for me-- not in musician biographies.


damn. you probably could have used some bon scott-era ac/dc instead.


truth!

i can sleep anywhere, anytime anyplace I want. just snooze. guilt free.

Well, I have to disagree again. I think even the bad music of 70`s is better than the bad music of 2000`s. If I have to choose, I listen Boney M. or Baccara instead of those all terrible, clean, all same sounding hits of 2000. Yes, I know there isn´t a decade when´s not made any badmusic, but I really think the most boring music is made in the 2000`s.

Well 90`s...yes there were also some really bad stuff (one hit that´s sung Einszweipolizei came to my mind) but I think 90`s were better than 80`s, at least sounds were better. There were quite a lots of stuff that I think are respected (for example Oasis, Manic Street Preachers, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins) that I didn´t get into at all. But still I think even 90`s & 80`s were better than 2000 (some of my real favourite albums are made in 90 for example Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Pj Harvey & of course Sonic Youth).

And still the main point is that I think you got the wrong picture of seventies. You seem to forgot that Rolling Stones, Bowie & the Kinks were mainstream music in the seventies. And I can continue almost endless: Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, The Who, Zeppelin, Santana, Hawkwind, Purple, ZZ Top, Skynyrd, Free, Mike Oldfield, Allman Brothers Band, Canned Heat, Kate Bush, Black Sabbath, the Band, the Faces, Funkadelic, Sly And the Family Stone, Marc Bolan, Marvin Gaye...and so many 76-77punkers & postpunkers.

reviews of yr favorite music is fine to me, but the cult of personally really burns in the hip hop café. sometimes it's mostly steamy hot doo doo. my knee jerk reaction makes me think of networking music reviewing companies or whatever like pitchfork and knee jerking for a 14 yr old boy obsessed 90's real classic rock fan comment. i'll try it out but im not going straight up lame. there's a vagueness about my comments i only understand. like some autistic kid. not sarcasm or irony. maybe i stupid but im definitely proud of it. totally pretentious.

The 90's is where music went to die.

the 90's was just a decade between the 80's and 2000's. just waiting for something to happen reading spin mag.

but there was great music that you could count in a handful and the excitement for the undiscovered past and upcoming future was unique.

now you have all the shit eating pleasures you wanted but didn't expect and find them boring and to actually taste like shit. don't it taste good?

the good thing about the upcoming generation is that they might grow up quicker and jaded and be even more boring than our grandparents. it's apparent in their not caring about nothing. nothing. jaking off to nasty ass porn at 13. drugs, industry candy 3-d music that fucks with their senses. they're already old. dying. dilapidated.

im just as guilty as any. it's like when the culture's 'swingers club' collided with two generations in the late 60's, 70's.

together we eat and defecate networking shit. brewing more shit for a better tomorrow.

What else do you think was great in the eighties except Sonic Youth, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tom Waits, Nomeansno & Metallica (and Tom started already in seventies, but become great in the eighties)? In the 90`s there was lot more great artists and there was grunge as a movement. But you´re partly right, the end of the nineties pop/rock music started to die.

^ I could tear this to shreds, but I'll assume you woke today realizing for yourself how dumb this is.

No, that´s the way I am thinking of it. I really hated eighties plastic drums and sounds and empty hits like Bad Boys Blue & Modern Talking "great tunes" (that kind of music people listens in my home village). I remember to like a little bit of Kajagoogoo & Duran Duran, but just a little bit. Only album I really want to listen from the eighties that I haven´t heard is Eurythmics Sweet Dreams. Mostly I listened then sixties and seventies music. When Metallica & speed metal came, it was kind of rescue to me, because then I also could join into youth movement. Little bit earlier I started to listen also Iron Maiden. I thought most speed metal bands were quite boring, but there were some good. Voivod has been one of the only ones with Metallica I still listen.

RHCP & Fishbone are of course great eighties artists, I started listen RHCP in the late eighties, Fishbone in the beginning of nineties.

I think this sums well the ugliness of eighties comparing to the seventies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y1t5tayNS8

This is dumb. "PJ Harvey is better than Duran Duran, therefore the 90s were better than the 80s."

Okay. Minutemen were better than Squirrel Nut Zippers. So the 80s were better than the 90s. Actually, Minutemen were better than Pat Boone, so the 80s were better than the 50s. Minutemen were better than Herman and the Hermits, so the 80s were better than the 60s. etc....

this is why we can't have nice things

Am I being too mean? I didn't say "retarded."

it's not about degree, it's how the direction goes from talking about music with someone one disagrees with to getting personal with a heretic.

i don't see eye to eye with antonio das mortes but i believe he's sincere in his opinions and not trolling, so there's a chance for him to tell me something i don't know and for me to do the same in return. maybe it works, maybe it comes to nothing, but still, worth the try.

i was watching neil degrasse tyson on charlie rose yesterday and he was talking about how you could place a spaceship next to an asteroid and use its gravity ever so slightly so it wouldn't hit the earth. just a little gravity to give it a tug and the orbit changes-- no need to use nukes.

but see, a little gravity could also deviate a perfectly innocent asteroid to hit the earth. and then, flames & flames.

He used a cheap trick, which I think is fair play.

But okay.


Take 2:

Morte, may I recommend a book called Our Band Could Be Your Life, which I think does good job of capturing the excitement that occurred in the 80s, albeit under the mainstream radar?

Also, may I suggest listening to Peel's Festive 50s from the 80s? I believe you'll come across tons of great stuff.