Week 6: 50 Albums that Changed Music

[Swish]

This selection this week is Patti Smith - Horses (1975).

Who would have thought punk rock was, in part, kickstarted by a girl? Poet, misfit, and New York ligger, Patti channelled the spirts of Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, and Rimbaud into female form, and onto an album whose febrile energy and Dionysian spirit helped light the touchpaper for New York punk. The Robert Mapplethorpe-shot cover, in which a hungry, mannish Patti stares down the viewer, defiantly broke with the music industry's treatment of women artists (sex or girl-next-door) and still startles today. Without this there would be no REM, PJ Harvey, Razorlight. And no "powerful" female pop icons like Madonna.

Good ahead and have at it.

Swish

[3-LockBox]

First off, Madonna woulda happened Patti Smith or not. But anyway...

I remember being on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach (at night) and walking past lots of bars and cafes trying to get in, but the bars with the hair metal bands (and thus, the girls) were packed, and the only bars with a place to sit were the bars with the one person bands, usually some dude with a guitar and some effects pedals. And it was the usual suspects as far as material covered; Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Harry Chapin, Patti Smith.

One bar we settled on had a young woman come out and all we could come up with is that she was trying to sound like Bob Dylan, but an older squid, er... sailor, told us that that was a Patti Smith song, then added "I have that tape". Later on that week, I borrowed the tape (I forget which one) and I felt that the girl I saw earlier that week pretty much nailed her.

To be honest, I tried a few latter-day Patti Smith albums and she just never grabbed me. Talk about someone completely enamoured with the sound of her own voice. Is she really the mother of punk? Given that people seemed to like her despite not having a good singing voice, I'm sure she was an inspiration to anyone with less than adequate pipes.

Musically speaking, she was definately as lyrical as any of her contemporaries. The musicianship on her early releases was pretty competant, so I don't get the punk connection, except for her dissonant lyrics and beatnik-ish delivery.

[MindGoneHaywire]

I don't get why it is that people seem to think that punk and musical competency are supposed to be musically exclusive.

[nobody]

She's probably at the top of my list of artists I think are OK, but have never understood the big hoo ha over.

I guess she pushed some boundries lyrically, but musically, I can't see that she really brought anythng new to the table. A few good songs here and there, but never really did much for me. Reminds me more of a Morrison type than anything...the whole "serious poet" as rock star trip. But, withouth a killer back up band. Maybe if I were female I'd be digging on her female empowerment or something.

Redondo Beach is a great song though...so I give her a break now and then. And Rock 'n' Roll Niger off Easter is a great song just because I love anything that makes people afraid to even put the needle down.

But, her body of work as a whole never stood out much to me.

[audiobill]

"...febrile energy and Dionysian spirit helped light the touchpaper for New York punk," F'n eh, Swish; F'n eh!!

Cheers,

audiobill

[3-LockBox]

I don't get why it is that people seem to think that punk and musical competency are supposed to be musically exclusive.

Meant as a jab to fans of punk who place it on a pedestal...

Not that I hate punk mind you, I just filed it away in my musical conciousness the same way I did hairy metal and grunge. It served a purpose one time in my life.

[3-LockBox]

[QUOTE=nobody] Reminds me more of a Morrison type than anything...the whole "serious poet" as rock star trip. QUOTE]

With a touch of Silvester the cat

[Swish]

"...febrile energy and Dionysian spirit helped light the touchpaper for New York punk," F'n eh, Swish; F'n eh!!

Cheers,

audiobill

...I guess you missed the whole set up for this when you were over in the mother land. Anyway, while I would like to take credit for those words, they're not mine, and after tipping a few beers with me in Toronto, you should know that's not my style. Ha, ha! The deal is this; when I was in London, the Sunday paper had a special section in which a bunch of music critics chose what they thought were the 50 most influential albums of all time, but not necessarily the best of all time. I promised to post one per week for 50 weeks to create some interest on the board since it's been so blah lately. The first week was volatile with the choice of VU with Nico. What a wild thread that started, with a couple newcomers really popping off and getting into it. Sgt. Pepper's in the second week also drew lots of attention, but, alas, it already seems to be dying out just a little. I think some of the later choices will garner some attention, but some of these are too obvious in my opinion.

Anyway, I am just copying their article word for word, so no need for such accolades.

Regards,
Swish

[audiobill]

...I guess you missed the whole set up for this when you were over in the mother land. Anyway, while I would like to take credit for those words, they're not mine, and after tipping a few beers with me in Toronto, you should know that's not my style. Ha, ha! The deal is this; when I was in London, the Sunday paper had a special section in which a bunch of music critics chose what they thought were the 50 most influential albums of all time, but not necessarily the best of all time. I promised to post one per week for 50 weeks to create some interest on the board since it's been so blah lately. The first week was volatile with the choice of VU with Nico. What a wild thread that started, with a couple newcomers really popping off and getting into it. Sgt. Pepper's in the second week also drew lots of attention, but, alas, it already seems to be dying out just a little. I think some of the later choices will garner some attention, but some of these are too obvious in my opinion.

Anyway, I am just copying their article word for word, so no need for such accolades.

Regards,
Swish


So... this is what you brought back from across the Pond, eh?? Cool. I've got some fine grade Ouzo with your name on it... for sipping, of course.

[Dusty Chalk]

I don't get why it is that people seem to think that punk and musical competency are supposed to be musically exclusive.We've had this conversation before, and I've explained it to you before, you just refuse to remember: it's because punk was spawned out of a DIY ethic in response to technical virtuosity and high budget production (and probably somewhat of the good-old-boy record label network), and so those things were deliberately played down in punk rock.

[Swish]

So... this is what you brought back from across the Pond, eh?? Cool. I've got some fine grade Ouzo with your name on it... for sipping, of course.

I guess I'm the typical American tourist, eh Billy boy? I never cared much for Ouzo, but if it's "fine grade" I suppose I could give it a try. Perhaps the stuff I've had in the past just wasn't very good? Maybe you could bring it to the Bimmer Fest in VT next year? I'd like to make that one for sure! And I'll bring a bottle of Casa Noble tequila and we can really get crazy.

Regards,
Swish

[MindGoneHaywire]

>punk was spawned out of a DIY ethic in response to technical virtuosity

As I've said before, this is something of an overstatement, and I'll drag out the names if anyone insists, though I'd prefer this thread stayed on topic. The sexiest sound bites allude to this consistently, and it's certainly true to an extent. But the Patti Smith Group was never about taking pride in not being able to play one's instrument competently. And the producer of Horses was classically trained (Aaron Copland helped bring him to the USA to pursue his studies, such were his abilities), so this doesn't hold up in spite of how many interviews were given extolling the virtues of not being able to play that well...which were swallowed hook, line, and sinker by those who don't know exactly how much skill it took to actually play even this relatively simple music with any level of competency.

[Davey]

I love Patti Smith, and that album was quite an opening statement....

<i>Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine</i>

I like Easter even more. Gone Again is pretty great too, especially 20 some odd years down the road. You should hear her ode to Kurt Cobain in the amazing "About a Boy", with those dreamy guitars snaking throughout, and mixed with the loss of her own husband. Great stuff. And the song before it called "Beneath The Southern Cross" even features more of Tom Verlaine and The Velvet Underground's John Cale on guitars, as well as Jeff Buckley on backing vocals. What a band!

Still put Polly Harvey's first two right up there with Patti's first two, but no argument about who came first.

[MasterCylinder]

Not that I hate punk mind you, I just filed it away in my musical conciousness the same way I did hairy metal and grunge. It served a purpose one time in my life.
================================================

It served no purpose for me.

Patti Smith ?
Changed music?

meh !

[Troy]

I'm with Mastercylinder on this one.

Maybe Patti's folk-tinged punk changed the direction of some music back in the 70s and 80s, but today that influence is mighty diluted and inconsequential.

I saw her at Winterland back in the late 70s and the gig was really boring. The music ugly, coarse and uninvolving, her voice ragged and sloppy, her poetry laughable angst-ridden juvenilia. A punk Stevie Nicks. BFD. I didn't buy into the mystique one bit.

Maybe some punk didn't play to the DIY ethos already mentioned in this thread, but based on what I saw that night, Patti sure did, cuz it really looked like amateur hour up there.

Meh is right.

[MasterCylinder]

......................based on what I saw that night, Patti sure did, cuz it really looked like amateur hour up there.
==========================================

Troy......that sums it all up right there..........

With most punk (to me) you don't know whether you are receiving something revolutionary or some bullshyt marketing ploy.........a fine line.

When you see or hear Porky Tree (one example), you don't question the abilities.

[nobody]

With most prog I question the ability to make music I like.

People talk like prog musicians could play any other style, but being able to play a complex style doesn not necessarily mean they would sound good playing something simpler. I've heard plenty of more refined musicians tank when trying to really play something different...lack of energy...vibe all wrong...timing off, etc...

[audiobill]

I guess I'm the typical American tourist, eh Billy boy? I never cared much for Ouzo, but if it's "fine grade" I suppose I could give it a try. Perhaps the stuff I've had in the past just wasn't very good? Maybe you could bring it to the Bimmer Fest in VT next year? I'd like to make that one for sure! And I'll bring a bottle of Casa Noble tequila and we can really get crazy.

Regards,
Swish

Yeah that sounds like a blast. The thing about Ouzo is that most people have had shots of it sometime in their younger days; in fact, that was my first intro to it. Not a good intro. The way to drink it is to add some ice and about the same amount of cold water, as is ouzo in the glass. The whole concoction turns milky and all the aromas and flavours are released and then locked in by the ice. Also, Ouzo needs the requisite "mezedes" -- nibblies i.e., tomatoes, cheese chunks, sausage bites, breads et al.

[nobody]

Ouzo was the first thing I ever got really drunk on.

My buddy in junior high had a dad who was greek and ran a restaurant and every year he would go back to Greece and bring back a few cases of Ouzo. So, of course, we had to go to the basement and snatch a bottle one night. Didn't know any better than to split the whole thing, of course. Damn....that was a long time ago.

[MindGoneHaywire]

I'm with Mastercylinder on this one.

Maybe Patti's folk-tinged punk changed the direction of some music back in the 70s and 80s, but today that influence is mighty diluted and inconsequential.

I saw her at Winterland back in the late 70s and the gig was really boring. The music ugly, coarse and uninvolving, her voice ragged and sloppy, her poetry laughable angst-ridden juvenilia. A punk Stevie Nicks. BFD. I didn't buy into the mystique one bit.

Maybe some punk didn't play to the DIY ethos already mentioned in this thread, but based on what I saw that night, Patti sure did, cuz it really looked like amateur hour up there.

Meh is right.


She sure had an influence on that one great Jim Carroll record...how many acts like the Pretenders did you see prior to 1975? I think the name PJ Harvey has already been mentioned. Then there's Alanis Morrissette and Liz Phair...these three are not from the 70s or 80s last time I looked, and if you're denying them their due, that's another matter entirely. Unless you want to say that Horses had no influence on these people, I'm not sure why you'd say it didn't change music.

The amateurs who made this record were apparently good enough to be selected by folks ranging from Ray Manzarek to Blue Oyster Cult to Charlie Daniels to the Church to Noel Redding to Paul McCartney to work on their projects. So apparently those artists disagreed with yr assessment of the musical abilities of the Patti Smith Group.

Then there's stuff like the Roches...Suzanne Vega...the Indigo Girls...all of whom brought Horses alumni on board for their early work. Coincidence? I think not.

Considering the easily drawn links between these people and the Lilith Fair, are you still going to deny influence here? I won't bother with Mastercylinder, it's not worth it. And I'm not a big Patti fan, either, let alone the Liliths. But this is just ridiculous.

Birdland is my favorite song on the rec, it's the essence of what she did best to my ears. She could rock, sure, but so could a lot of other people, at least as well as the PSG. What she did with poetry on this tune was unique and stands out. That's not to deny her version of Gloria, however...but Piss Factory should've been on this record.

[Swish]

Yeah that sounds like a blast. The thing about Ouzo is that most people have had shots of it sometime in their younger days; in fact, that was my first intro to it. Not a good intro. The way to drink it is to add some ice and about the same amount of cold water, as is ouzo in the glass. The whole concoction turns milky and all the aromas and flavours are released and then locked in by the ice. Also, Ouzo needs the requisite "mezedes" -- nibblies i.e., tomatoes, cheese chunks, sausage bites, breads et al.

...and I'll bring my thirst and appetite. Fair enough? You're right about the shots as that is the only way I've ever had it, and it didn't do much for me. I'm a a beer/scotch/vodka guy, and I also drink a lot of wine, some tequila, whiskey, gin. Gee, I guess I drink almost everything with alcohol.

Swish

[Troy]

She sure had an influence on that one great Jim Carroll record...how many acts like the Pretenders did you see prior to 1975? I think the name PJ Harvey has already been mentioned. Then there's Alanis Morrissette and Liz Phair...these three are not from the 70s or 80s last time I looked, and if you're denying them their due, that's another matter entirely. Unless you want to say that Horses had no influence on these people, I'm not sure why you'd say it didn't change music.

The amateurs who made this record were apparently good enough to be selected by folks ranging from Ray Manzarek to Blue Oyster Cult to Charlie Daniels to the Church to Noel Redding to Paul McCartney to work on their projects. So apparently those artists disagreed with yr assessment of the musical abilities of the Patti Smith Group.

Then there's stuff like the Roches...Suzanne Vega...the Indigo Girls...all of whom brought Horses alumni on board for their early work. Coincidence? I think not.

Considering the easily drawn links between these people and the Lilith Fair, are you still going to deny influence here? I won't bother with Mastercylinder, it's not worth it. And I'm not a big Patti fan, either, let alone the Liliths. But this is just ridiculous.

Birdland is my favorite song on the rec, it's the essence of what she did best to my ears. She could rock, sure, but so could a lot of other people, at least as well as the PSG. What she did with poetry on this tune was unique and stands out. That's not to deny her version of Gloria, however...but Piss Factory should've been on this record.

Always a pleaseure seeing you get some excercise there, J.

Yes, she influenced all those artists you mentioned, and BFD. You even said yourself that the Lilith Faire thing was a dead end at best and joke at worst.

This is supposed to be the SIXTH MOST INFLUENTIAL ALBUM OF ALL TIME!! You telling me that PJ Harvey is THAT important in the history of rock music? The Roches? The freekin ROCHES!?! Who gives a crap? It's utterly ridiculous.

I'll take the Pretenders over Patti Smith any day, but neither was IMPORTANT in any way WRT the grand scheme of all things rock.

The sixth most influential album of all time? That list was compiled by a woman with an agenda.

[MasterCylinder]

The sixth most influential album of all time?
That list was compiled by a woman with an agenda.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LOL, Troy.
I've had a lot of chicks invite me over for a good shag whilst spinning a Robert Johnson album..........................LMAO.

[BradH]

This is supposed to be the SIXTH MOST INFLUENTIAL ALBUM OF ALL TIME!!

Are you sure about that? I thought the list was not in any particular order. I'd say Jonathan Richman was more influential on the early NY punk scene than Patti Smith.


People talk like prog musicians could play any other style, but being able to play a complex style doesn not necessarily mean they would sound good playing something simpler.

I've got a recording of Mike Keneally covering a Stevie Ray Vaughan tune that is...well...let's be kind and say it's unsuccesful. The reason I'm being kind is because Keneally is no fool. It's impossible for me to believe Keneally thinks he can play the blues. He does lots of cover songs because he has a positive attitude about music in general along with a sense of humor. But this attempt at playing SRV is as hopeless as SRV playing Keneally. So, as always, I question the idea that so called "simple music" is all that simple.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Troy, you're doing the same thing the other guy did in the first thread. I don't think this is the sixth most influential album of all time, but I read the piece on the day it was published (the day before that Sunday paper hit the stands, actually, it was on the web on the Saturday & linked on another board I was looking at), and that's not exactly what they're saying, although if you want to perceive it that way due to the rankings, fine. I'm with you, it's not the sixth most influential album of all time. But it's a list that was compiled by several people, not 'a woman with an agenda,' and I daresay they don't know Jack about jazz if they think they're going to get anyone who does know anything about it to agree with their poor choices in that genre, which is so unbelievably underrepresented on the list it's beyond description. Considering it came from a country where the leading music magazine's reader's poll resulted in naming the Smiths the most influential band of all time, this is far from a terrible list if you consider it in its context, and certainly worthy of discussion.

10 years ago, or ever since Liz Phair & PJ Harvey hit, that whole 'women in rock' thing WAS quite important, whether you like it or I like it or not. This is the same crap we had in the first thread. 'I don't like it, therefore it was unimportant.' Play games if you must, but if you're denying that this record had a significant influence on music, you're just spouting crap. It'd be like me questioning the influence or importance of Yes, King Crimson, ELP, or Genesis. I couldn't care less about their influence, importance, or whatever it was they were passing off as music, but I don't deny its influence or importance.

And yes, the Pretenders were important, and so were the Roches. I guess it's easy to forget how significant it was to have a musical guest slot on Saturday Night Live in the mid- and late 70s. Patti Smith played the first season, and, in fact, sang 'Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine,' the opening line to her version of Gloria, a few minutes after the midnight hour on an Easter Sunday; 15 years before Sinead O'Connor's tantrum. And I well remember the Roches on that program, and if you think it didn't help them sell more records than any buzz from five similarly obscure artists combined in any given week on a Leno or Letterman show, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for ya. Their performance had a quality to it that the Lilith collection of walking estrogen couldn't come close to. However, before it became that watered-down, I was reminded of that Roches shot when I saw Suzanne Vega perform the night after her first album was released.

Without Patti Smith, the influence of Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and people like that would certainly have stood on its own, but Horses offered artistic counterbalance to records like Court & Spark that led to the whole 'women in rock' thing. Which was significant whether you'd like to believe it or not. That it even spawned a Lollapalooza-like festival that went on for a few years is enough evidence of the significance of the movement, even if I'm not any more interested in arty, acoustic-guitar-strumming alternachix with attitudes as repulsive to men as menstrual period blood, any more than you are.

To deny that Phair, Harvey, & Morrissette had a significant impact on music is as feckless as insisting that Roxy Music was as meaningless as that other joker was claiming. But since I know you realize that, well, that's not the reason I ain't emailed ya yet. My bad. Soon.

[Troy]

Which MK song was that, Brad? Give me a link if you got one.

Was there ever a punk SRV? Someone respected as a player like he was? I'm sure a few will turn up, but I think they won't exactly be major artists and they are probably crossing over into other sub-genres of rock. The punk thing just wasn't about "Have you seen that guitar player? He really makes it sing." Emotional responses to punk rock consist of "Yawwwwww!!" and then you sucker-punch the guy next to you. Punk was about the visceral agressive, in-the-moment angst of feeling oppressed and furious at the world. You know, teenage stuff. There's so much more to life that I want to see reflected in music.

This whole argument about having chops is better than not having them is moot anyway. There are excellent artists at either end of the spectrum, it's a case by case situation with every band. It's a stupid argument that one genre is better than another. It's like arguing over whether Hefenweizen is good beer or not. There's no correct answer.

Why did Patti only influence women artists? (No one's mentioned Allanis Morrisette yet) What woman influenced Patti? Joan Baez? Joni Mitchell? Suzi Quatro? Or was she more influenced by male artists? If that's the case, then there were about 1000 artists closer to the trunk of the tree than her. No, she's on the list specifically because she's a woman.

All I keep seeing in my minds eye is Gilda Radner doing her infamous Patti Smith sketch from the late 70s. It was terribly insulting, but a spot on representation of what she was like when I saw her. Wendy O. Williams was a lot more fun.

As to whether the list is random or not is news to me. I guess I am the only one that never looked at the whole list . . .

[3-LockBox]

This is supposed to be the SIXTH MOST INFLUENTIAL ALBUM OF ALL TIME!!

I was kinda thinking this list was in no particular order.

I don't know what the gender of the person/s responsible for this list, but it smacks of someone lauding their own personal collection.

[MindGoneHaywire]

>No one's mentioned Allanis Morrisette yet

You responded to a post of mine that you obviously didn't read. Hmm?

>Was there ever a punk SRV? Someone respected as a player like he was?

Close. Wayne Kramer, Robert Quine, Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine, Billy Zoom, Mick Jones, Chris Spedding...I can go on, if you wish. Obviously not as popular, and probably not quite as respected, but certainly close. But so what? It's a genre that wasn't necessarily about playing. Which seems to translate somehow to it being a genre that was about not being able to play well, which is nonsense unless you're looking to read into a Steve Jones remark as being the basis for a movement that existed when he was still playing Chuck Berry riffs in a musical environment whose most daring figures were doing glam, glitter, and pub rock.

>The punk thing just wasn't about "Have you seen that guitar player? He really makes it sing."

It was to some people, actually. Are you that unaware of the mystique that Johnny Thunders embodied? He was the contradiction in terms suggested by the phrase 'punk rock star.' And players far technically superior to him admired him greatly. But then he made it sing, and they couldn't.

>Emotional responses to punk rock consist of "Yawwwwww!!" and then you sucker-punch the guy next to you.

Nonsense on stilts. In more than 20 years of listening to the stuff & attending the shows, I've never seen nor heard of what you're describing.

>Punk was about the visceral agressive, in-the-moment angst of feeling oppressed and furious at the world. You know, teenage stuff.

Patti, Television, Richard Hell, X, and the Clash were singing about teenage stuff? Gee, that's interesting. Patti Smith was 28 when this record came out. Richard Hell was the same age when his first record was released, and his guitar player was 35. When the first Television album came out, Tom Verlaine was 28, Richard Lloyd 26. Debbie Harry was over 30 by this time, Chris Stein 26 when the first Blondie rec came out. Just because the Ramones & the Dictators sung about teenage stuff doesn't mean that's 'what punk rock was about.' Do you not even know what the lyrics these people wrote were about?

>There's so much more to life that I want to see reflected in music.

Yeah, it's not like art, poetry & jazz had anything to do with what these people were doing. All teenage stuff. I see.

>It's a stupid argument that one genre is better than another.

Agreed. But if you read the thread again, you'll see where the connection between this record and 'punk rock' was questioned, on the basis of the competent musicianship. Then you'll see where I did bring up Alanis Morrissette. What you won't see is me arguing 'better.'

>Why did Patti only influence women artists?

Who said that? A focus on her influence in that respect has to exclude her influence on non-females? I guess you REALLY didn't read my post. Hell, the first record I mentioned as showing a significant Horses influence was the Jim Carroll record.

Pay attention, would ya?

>she's on the list specifically because she's a woman.

So what? So she shouldn't be there, because she's a woman? It's easier to be lazy & only point to female artists or female-fronted rock bands that she influenced, but that doesn't make it impossible to look elsewhere. There WAS a 'women in rock' movement, even if it was only created by the press, again, whether you like it or not. Why are you looking to deny it? There was a hair metal movement 20 years ago, whether I like it or not. I don't deny it.

>Gilda Radner doing her infamous Patti Smith sketch from the late 70s. It was terribly insulting, but a spot on representation of what she was like when I saw her.

I didn't think it insulting at all. Do you think Patti Smith found Candy Slice insulting? Maybe she did, but that was done at the same time Patti's most successful song was done, the Bruce Springsteen cover. I've always thought Patti Smith was kind of uptight & lacking in a sense of humor, someone who takes things waaayyyy too seriously, but I don't think she's not smart enough to get bent out of shape over a parody.

3lock...

>I was kinda thinking this list was in no particular order.

No, it is numbered, but there's no particular rationale presented anywhere as to WHY the numbered order is to be taken as, say, 'the MOST influential record' vs. 'the FIFTIETH most influential record.'

>it smacks of someone lauding their own personal collection.

Well, of course. True, but kinda obvious. It's possible a music writer would write a piece about 'important' or 'best' or 'influential' albums while looking towards records they DON'T own, but kind of unlikely. Do keep in mind that they more than likely have grown up reading a lot of what's written about pop music, which means they've read a lot about many of these records. I have no problem with challenging the selections, but if that's what we're going to do, a little logic & reason wouldn't hurt, ya think? A dismissal of Horses with a flippant 'meh' doesn't stand up so far as I'm concerned, even if you factor in a pro-punk/anti-prog bias (which isn't as visible here as some might wish it to be...so they can b*tch about it). I'll do my best to find better reasons to dismiss choices when we start getting to the overload of Britpop, even if it's there because this piece came from a British paper.

That said, the selection I think that has the potential to be as controversial as any on the list has a placement I will vigorously defend when the time comes.

[Troy]

Jeepers J, you gotta not take this so seriously. So I missed your Alanis comment. There's a LOT of words in this thread, OK? Sheesh.

I just don't buy Johnny Thunder being considered a "guitar rock star" Taking solos like a SRV would be booed off the stage at a real punk show.

All the punk shows I went to back in the day were excuses for brawls and lurid public drunkeness. Perhaps it's calmed down in the interveneing years, but then that kinda goes against what the whole punk thing was originally about, don't it?

Rock music is 90% teenage music. Kids stuff. Get over it. Punk bands manifested it differently, but yes, it was ultimately just a way for kids to piss off their parents and look cool to their peers. Anytime rock tries to move beyond that, that music is roundly shouted down by the cogniscenti rock press as being "pretentious" when the reality is that precious stuff like Patti and Television were just as pretentious in thier own way.

Wow, Jim Carroll. That's the only male you could come up with? LOL.

Look, clearly I didn't catch that these are not in any order. My bad (I guess, I mean, I never saw any rules so the obvious assumption is that they ARE in order).

My major gripe was that Patti is given far too much importance being placed 6th. But it sounds like you woulda seen it as BS too.

I can't deny that she influenced all those artists, but that was never the point of my argument.

Frankly, she doesn't deserve this much typing!

[3-LockBox]

3LB said: it smacks of someone lauding their own personal collection.

Well, of course. True, but kinda obvious. It's possible a music writer would write a piece about 'important' or 'best' or 'influential' albums while looking towards records they DON'T own, but kind of unlikely.

Well, I would hope that a writer (or group of writers) would try to have a broader veiw of such a list than just their own personal tastes (of course, you can't twist their arm, and they did get paid where as we, well...) It isn't the "50 albums that changed music for me" list, but the writer certainly seems to concentrate of his/herself. A "50 albums that changed music for 3LB" list is going to be vastly different from yours, just as your list will vary drastically to someone else, so on and so forth, you get the picture. But this rag is making a pretty bold comment by stating that this list is the "50 albums...". Its their rag and they have a right to their opinion. Certainly, Patti Smith was influencial on someone, I've heard other female artists say as much. For me, its the "that changed music" part that I question. The term "changed music" implies a lasting, indelible and obvious mark was left on the face of music. The Village People can lay more claim to that than a third of this articles picks.

Myself, I'd like to think I could come up with a similar list that was more comprehensive, and objective, but then again, that'd prolly be impossible, and boring. (don't worry, I'm not even going to try) I think that in the coming months, this weeks installment is gonna seem way more intelligent compared to what's coming down the pike.

[BradH]

Which MK song was that, Brad? Give me a link if you got one.

I got it in a trade a couple of years ago. I'll just send the whole show. The sound quality is good enough for official release. MK has quite a few boots of that caliber. This blues is at the end where some crappy girl singer w/ the club joins in for another train wreck like the Zappanale Festival in Germany. MK's solo is a passable rock solo. "Pathetic" is probably too strong a word. But it's hardly SRV caliber. My point is this: if the blues are so freaking simple and stupid then MK should be able to pull off a scorcher but it's just not in him.


Was there ever a punk SRV?

No.


Someone respected as a player like he was?

Yes.


I'm sure a few will turn up, but I think they won't exactly be major artists and they are probably crossing over into other sub-genres of rock.

No, no, let me guess. Punk is garbage but the stuff that's good is (drum roll, please)...New Wave. It's a phony distinction cooked up by the post-disco music industry after the press decided the Sex Pistols were ground zero for punk.


The punk thing just wasn't about "Have you seen that guitar player? He really makes it sing."

It certainly was in Tom Verlaine's case. But I guess what Television was doing in 1975 was post-punk New Wave because it didn't sound like what Generation X was doing in 1979. (Or Green Day in 2006.)


Punk was about the visceral agressive, in-the-moment angst of feeling oppressed and furious at the world. You know, teenage stuff.

Sounds like the L.A. version to me. Which I never liked. I'm not a Patti Smith fan but when you mention her name, "mosh pit" is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind.


Why did Patti only influence women artists?

What about Michael Stipe? Oh wait, never mind. Actually, I'm not sure what this has to with anything. Horses was influential. Do I like it? No. I don't give a rat's @ss about her intellectual, angst filled vision of New York. I prefer the Ramones' vision or Television or Talking Heads. But Jay's right, this is like the VU thread where the counter-argument regarding influence consists of holding your fingers in your ears, jumping up and down and saying, "It sucks, it sucks, it sucks..."

[3-LockBox]

But Jay's right, this is like the VU thread where the counter-argument regarding influence consists of holding your fingers in your ears, jumping up and down and saying, "It sucks, it sucks, it sucks..."

No, I don't think anyone said it sucked. I don't question whether she ever influenced anyone or if the album itself was influential. I question whether it 'changed music'.

Yes, Patti Smith (and perhaps this album) was influencial to a number of acts. But did this album change music? I don't think so. This album wasn't exactly innovative or different to my ears. She seemed very influenced by VU, in fact, that's how I'd sum Smith up; she's a female version of Lou Reed, only with armpit hair and less make-up.

[MasterCylinder]

Yes, Patti Smith (and perhaps this album) was influencial to a number of acts. But did this album change music? I don't think so. This album wasn't exactly innovative or different to my ears. She seemed very influenced by VU, in fact, that's how I'd sum Smith up; she's a female version of Lou Reed, only with armpit hair and less make-up.
__________________


Agreed.
Didn't change music, armpit hair and less make-up......same tits though.

[skewiff]

Is this the 6th most influencial album? Don't know, but I do know this is a hughly influencial album.

Jay has it correct, you can hear the PSG in all of the artists he mentions, I personally think Patti Smith is iconic. Before her we basically had the singer/songwriter female artist(no need to list them) and after Horses....... I think U2 need to be included in the list of influenced.

I love Horses, Easter and most of her later work.

Tony

[Resident Loser]

...Maurice either...it's that other guy...you know the other joker...Hey Troy, welcome to the club!

Seems as though MGH has a problem with folks dismissing his personal faves, eh? Well, whadya' expect from a card-carrying Manhattanite...

Even if I scratch my head real hard, the only PS song I can come up with is her "collaboration" with Springsteen on Because The Night...

Like the old ad used to say "...When you say Bud, you've said it all..." I concur with Troy's BFD on this one...

As an aside, if you eliminate Sinatra and Davis from the list, it leaves you pretty much with rock/pop in it's broadest sense...so, if the compilers have stated re: The Velvet Bathrobe and Necco Wafer

"...has since become arguably the most influential rock album of all time..."

...and they go on to place it in the number one spot, why is it not a fair estimation that there is a specific pecking order and that the Horsey offering from P(m)S is indeed their choice of sixth-most influential album?

jimHJJ(..."neigh" say I...BTW given the choices, I also think the list is about 40 or so albums too long...)

[MindGoneHaywire]

Troy...

>Jeepers J, you gotta not take this so seriously.

Like I've got anything better to do. Why'd you think I haven't emailed you back, anyway?

>I just don't buy Johnny Thunder being considered a "guitar rock star"

Well, that's not what I said. I stand by "punk rock star." If you disagree, you'll have to back that up with something.

>Taking solos like a SRV would be booed off the stage at a real punk show.

Maybe you can let us all know what a 'real' punk rock show is, then. I've seen plenty of jamming at what I always thought were, but you're now letting us know weren't, punk rock shows. Geez, I thought you might've actually heard Marquee Moon. That song & Another World from the first Voidoids album are both 10 minutes long, or longer. There are long songs on Patti Smith records, also. Thunders traded off extended solos with Walter Lure regularly. And most punk rock bands did have guitar solos, the Ramones were an exception. Is the smoke you're blowing at least capable of intoxication? Don't Bogart that red herring.

Remember, Johnny Thunders was the guy whose band Sid Vicious worked with after the Sex Pistols broke up. Are you now going to tell us that wasn't real punk, either?

>All the punk shows I went to back in the day were excuses for brawls and lurid public drunkeness.

Brad's right, that was a California thing. In these parts it was usually, if not always, about the music. We all know about riots at Black Flag shows. Ever hear of that happening at CBGB's?

>Perhaps it's calmed down in the interveneing years, but then that kinda goes against what the whole punk thing was originally about, don't it?

You're apparently more of an authority than I ever realized. But I don't know what you're talking about.

>Rock music is 90% teenage music.

This coming from the guy who's into Zappa, XTC, Wall Of Voodoo, and prog. I think this hasn't been true for about 4 decades now.

>Anytime rock tries to move beyond that, that music is roundly shouted down by the cogniscenti rock press as being "pretentious" when the reality is that precious stuff like Patti and Television were just as pretentious in thier own way.

Go back to the week 1 thread & see what I replied to you about artsy-fartsy/pretentious. That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, or not worth listening to. I like plenty of stuff that I'd agree is considered pretentious. It can be annoying, for sure, but it's not the end-all and be-all kiss of death. Patti Smith's obsession with poetry, love of Mapplethorpe & his ideas, and fixation on the mistresses of artists she admired aren't what I like about her music, but it wouldn't exist in the form it does if not for those things, so I accept that it's artsy-fartsy.

I also accept that she was something of a female Iggy on stage, she didn't break her neck mid-performance in 1978 skipping rope, ya know. She was also known to have diddled herself while onstage. If you're going to bring Wendy O. into this, you're going to have to accept that she was a female GG Allin to Patti's Iggy.

>Wow, Jim Carroll. That's the only male you could come up with?

Oh, brother. One, it was off the top of my head, two, I tend not to point to names I'm not huge fans of if I'm talking about influence in these terms, three, it is easier to focus on the 'women in rock' thing you're so eager to dismiss. Okay. REM? Sonic Youth? There are three males in X, too. Talking Heads, perhaps? Violent Femmes? Beck?

>My major gripe was that Patti is given far too much importance being placed 6th. But it sounds like you woulda seen it as BS too.

Yeah, something like that.

>Frankly, she doesn't deserve this much typing!

She does when the discussion involves the stuff you're typing.


3lock...

>this rag is making a pretty bold comment by stating that this list is the "50 albums...".

Maybe, but the article is titled 50 albums that changed music, not THE 50...

>Its their rag and they have a right to their opinion.

It's a Sunday newspaper, and it is an opinion piece in an arts section.

>For me, its the "that changed music" part that I question. The term "changed music" implies a lasting, indelible and obvious mark was left on the face of music. The Village People can lay more claim to that than a third of this articles picks.

I'd disagree with that. It's not 'sold a lot of records' or 'captured the mass imagination.' The Village People may have advanced gay disco music, but it already existed and their impact was felt through singles, not albums--and to this day it's pretty clear that a lot of people don't even get that their songs are gay anthems.

>I don't think anyone said it sucked.

I think Brad was referring to the use of the term 'Meh.' I took it to mean something similar.

>did this album change music? I don't think so. This album wasn't exactly innovative or different to my ears.

In 1975? Really? Perhaps you could name a few albums you'd heard to that point that make this sound neither innovative nor different. The closest similarity would be to 2 of the 4 VU albums, so far as I can tell; Leonard Cohen didn't have a lot in the way of her version of Gloria, I don't think, and musically I hear a world of difference between her & other singer-songwriters such as Dylan (for whom I feel a direct comparison with Patti Smith is osmething of an insult, frankly).


mastercylinder...

>Agreed.
Didn't change music

If she, along with Joni Mitchell, wasn't the prime influence on 'women in rock,' please tell me who was.


genius...

>Seems as though MGH has a problem with folks dismissing his personal faves, eh?

This record is not a personal fave of mine, and, outside of 'Birdland,' I haven't listened to it in years. I have a problem with people denying influence because it's not one of THEIR personal faves.

>Even if I scratch my head real hard, the only PS song I can come up with is her "collaboration" with Springsteen on Because The Night...

What honesty. Provides us with a strong frame of reference for yr credibility in discussing the influence of the record.

>I concur with Troy's BFD on this one...

Then by all means please tell us who influenced the artists I listed: the Pretenders, X, Suzanne Vega, Alanis Morrissette, Liz Phair, the Liliths, hell, how about Sinead O'Connor or maybe even Sheryl Crow...PJ Harvey? And please, if you could keep it to some artists you can point to who were influential on these people, rather than telling us how this listing consists of worthless nonentities who never did anything, that'd be real swell.

>why is it not a fair estimation that there is a specific pecking order and that the Horsey offering from P(m)S is indeed their choice of sixth-most influential album?

I seem to remember seeing this point mentioned before, and agreeing with it. To a point. Either you feel the record was influential, or not, as a "BFD" would indicate not. I'd never call this the 6th most influential record of all time, but I'm not taking the numerical order as seriously as you apparently are. And I did notice the word 'arguably' in yr own quote.

>"neigh" say I

Fair enough. Outside of the profound "BFD," perhaps you could let us know why.

[SlumpBuster]

I just don't buy Johnny Thunder being considered a "guitar rock star" Taking solos like a SRV would be booed off the stage at a real punk show.

All the punk shows I went to back in the day were excuses for brawls and lurid public drunkeness. Perhaps it's calmed down in the interveneing years, but then that kinda goes against what the whole punk thing was originally about, don't it?


Okay, I've been resisting the urge to jump to the defense of punk. It is my fave genre, so I'm biased. Besides, MGH been doing a fine job. However...

First, Patty is a great choice. She was one of the first women to swagger out on stage with her d!ck pulled out. And, if you weren't careful you might get slapped in the face with it too. When she sang "Rock & Roll N------" it meant something. Imagine that volitilty of that song being released today. Someone suggested Wendy O. Williams. While I love Wendy, she is too tragic of a figure. Patty and Wendy are two separate breeds.

Second, I've seen SRV quality guitar solos at punk shows. Social D has some incindeary playing. Anti-flag has some similarly massive guitar shredding, IMO.

Finally, the problem with Troy's analysis (and subsequent bagging on punk) is the assumption that punk can be defined as something. That there is a difference between real punk and fake punk. I think punk is to slippery to be confined to a definition. In the documentary, "Another State of Mind" there is a scene where Minor Threat is playing some dive, but they don't have a PA for the singer. They play anyway and the crowd supplies the vocals. Its a great scene that captures a real punk moment. Doesn't sound like a bunch of drunk kids beating on eachother.

As far as I'm concerned, punk has room enough for all. Even crap like Good Charlotte. One Good Charlotte record may lead a 12 year old girl to Sum 41 then to Dookie, then the Ramones, then Joan Jett, then on down the line until one day you hear "Kick out the Jams" and "I just wanna be your dog" blasting from her dorm room freshman year. Now that's punk rock.

[nobody]

Actually the idea that punk mellowed later is really oppsite of the truth. Punk started out really diverse and inclusive. It didn't get regimented until later days. Admittidly, there was a lot of the violent stuff around though. I was young and angry around 80-83/4...good times with all that stuff. But there was so much more.

And, ya know, it doesn't have to be all prog vs. punk anyway. Pat Smear of the Germs was a huge Yes fan after all. And if you want endless jamming, check out the all instrumetal Black Flag Process of Weeding Out album...nothing but ten minute jam sessions.

And, if you want a single great musician, I'll nominate George Hurley of the Minutemen as a drummer that could play with ANYBODY. Check him out sometime...we're not talking straight up 4/4 rocking hard either. He was powerful, but could play a lot of intricate rythms and was much more than just a backbeat to the band.

[MindGoneHaywire]

The main problem with Troy's attempts to define punk is that it wasn't around very long before the sorts of generalizations he's putting forth sounded kinda foolish. Between Detroit, NYC, London, and L.A., it became too broad within 3 years to be able to apply any particular generalization accurately.

The other problem is that he's just plain wrong, because relatively long-form guitar lead work was commonplace among bands like Television, and the Heartbreakers, as I've mentioned, did plenty of jamming as well. To say that such stuff at 'real' punk shows would've inspired booing is simply uninformed, and I'd love to see the argument that says that either of those bands, both of which were co-founded by Richard Hell, were somehow not 'real' punk. Since Thunders' posing, outfits, and 'rock star' attitude were apparently so antithetical to what some people think this was supposed to be all about, I have to wonder why Sid Vicious chose to have him in his band.

[SlumpBuster]

Since Thunders' posing, outfits, and 'rock star' attitude were apparently so antithetical to what some people think this was supposed to be all about, I have to wonder why Sid Vicious chose to have him in his band.

Agreed, except for the Sid Vicious part. He's not really a paragon of good judgment.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Of course, but keep in mind that he did some good things musically. Like lifting the part from the Jam's In The City to create the riff for Holidays In The Sun, doing a great vocal on the Eddie Cochrane covers, an interesting take on My Way, and...working with Thunders.

Violently attacking Patti Smith's brother, apparently without provocation, was not a particularly bright or laudable move. But the point is that prior to the aspect of punk that was anti-rock star becoming a talking point for people who thought it was defined by that far more than it ever actually was, plenty of punk bands were not defined by this at all. The last show the Patti Smith Group played was for something like 75,000 people in Italy, and in their last year or two the Ramones played for audiences of similar sizes in South America. If guys like Thunders who weren't shy about soloing somehow weren't real punk, then why, and why would Sid have wanted to work with him?

[Dusty Chalk]

I hope it's obvious that what I stated was a generality, in explanation of Jay's general aphorism. Just as Jay's statement was an overgenerality, so was mine.

Hey, Troy, you're a Bill Nelson fan, where does he fit in?

[MindGoneHaywire]

That's fine, Dusty. But I didn't refuse to remember anything.

If more people knew exactly what is involved in playing even three chords properly, we wouldn't waste much time with this nonsense because someone has a mistaken impression about something; and if others knew the slightest detail about the musical qualifications of people they seem to think possessed none, then nobody would care about how seriously I take any of this, either.

[Resident Loser]

genius...

>Seems as though MGH has a problem with folks dismissing his personal faves, eh?

This record is not a personal fave of mine, and, outside of 'Birdland,' I haven't listened to it in years. I have a problem with people denying influence because it's not one of THEIR personal faves.

>Even if I scratch my head real hard, the only PS song I can come up with is her "collaboration" with Springsteen on Because The Night...

What honesty. Provides us with a strong frame of reference for yr credibility in discussing the influence of the record.

>I concur with Troy's BFD on this one...

Then by all means please tell us who influenced the artists I listed: the Pretenders, X, Suzanne Vega, Alanis Morrissette, Liz Phair, the Liliths, hell, how about Sinead O'Connor or maybe even Sheryl Crow...PJ Harvey? And please, if you could keep it to some artists you can point to who were influential on these people, rather than telling us how this listing consists of worthless nonentities who never did anything, that'd be real swell.

>why is it not a fair estimation that there is a specific pecking order and that the Horsey offering from P(m)S is indeed their choice of sixth-most influential album?

I seem to remember seeing this point mentioned before, and agreeing with it. To a point. Either you feel the record was influential, or not, as a "BFD" would indicate not. I'd never call this the 6th most influential record of all time, but I'm not taking the numerical order as seriously as you apparently are. And I did notice the word 'arguably' in yr own quote.

>"neigh" say I

Fair enough. Outside of the profound "BFD," perhaps you could let us know why.

...and pretty much still have none...It was your vague reference to 'the other guy" and "other joker" in your response to Troy that caught my attention...

Duh? Neigh...Horsey...cheez Louise...

Other than the Springsteen ref, she leaves no particular musical memories...I barely recall Radner's SNL spoof...

jimHJJ(...like I said, about 40 or so albums too long...)

[MindGoneHaywire]

No offense intended. My references were based on previous postings.

>I concur with Troy's BFD on this one...

>"neigh" say I...

>I had no opinion...
...and pretty much still have none...

People with 'no opinion' by definition do not concur with those of others, and they abstain from votes. People with no musical memories of the rec in question merely appear foolish offering 'neigh' when they can present no evidence to back up their 'neigh's. I do not say this to be hostile, and I'm much more interested in the why of yr 'neigh' than I am in the backpeddle of the denial of a stated position. Given no knowledge of the subject in question, which you have acknowledged, there must be a reason why you offered anything at all, and it speaks directly to my references to you in this thread on the basis of the other one.

I mean, come on. Be a devil's advocate; surely you're up to the task. Tell us about a couple of people I already mentioned, like Joni Mitchell or Laura Nyro, or a couple I didn't, like the Runaways or Janis Ian, to make the point that Horses wasn't influential. You'd be wrong, but I'm used to that, and at least it'd add something to the discussion beyond inexplicably stating you have no opinion on a subject you just offered one on.

[BradH]

If more people knew exactly what is involved in playing even three chords properly, we wouldn't waste much time with this nonsense because someone has a mistaken impression about something...

I wouldn't be so sure of that. I've heard some musicians say some incredibly stupid things. I'm sure you have too.


And, ya know, it doesn't have to be all prog vs. punk anyway.

That was mostly a British thing that got picked up over here as the hip thing to say. In the U.K. it was all wrapped up in class hatred and socialist politics. Liking Hawkwind might've been okay with Lydon because they were from the communes of Portobello Rd. but the decadent, high end artsiness of Roxy Music was right out. But the lion's share of that was posturing anyway. Looking aggressive and angry was the goal much like looking cool/heavy/groovy was in the 60's. A diary for an XTC roadie in the early days has quotes like "Great show. Colin looked very aggressive", etc. It was mostly image and they knew it. In London the whole thing got very codified. When the Stranglers started out they were criticized because they were older, took acid and used synthesizers. Speed was in, downers were out. Every spiteful mention of Pink Floyd included a sneer at downers. How could these old hippies make society better if they were crawling into their headphones, etc. But the Stranglers had the last laugh because eventually acid came in and so did synthesizers in a big way. Ironically, Roxy Music became the godfathers after all. (Imo, the synth pop movement killed the whole thing in '82.) Oh and everyone got older. Surprise! So, a lot of this posturing was very superficial surface noise that looked hip in the clubs. What was not superficial was the hatred of prog in some quarters. Look how often they mentioned the dreaded Polytech student who blighted the earth with his introspection. How dare they be introspective? It's true that a lot of prog bands lived on the British college circuit in the early 70's thanks to the network of social directors at the time. But that just made it the underground alternative of its day. If college students wanted to listen to stoned out, introspective and, at times, quite beautiful music, then I don't see that as any more illegitimate than the formula the punks lived by in London which went like this: 1)stay on the dole. 2)spend the money to look outrageous so that 3) you're guaranteed not to get hired because you had to prove you applied for a job if you wanted to 4) stay on the dole. That's a looooong way from CBGB's, folks. But, again, this London social club-going process turned out some fantastic music at the time. And there was plenty of rebellion within the ranks against the strict Sex Pistols view of the world. Don't forget, The Police were in those clubs. And I'll put The Jam's Sound Affects in my all time top 10 list of lp's of any genre, anytime.

[BradH]

There's something about the violence that took place that I mentioned to Jay in an e-mail years ago but I've never seen it mentioned here. When those London bands started touring places like Manchester, Birmingham or Newcastle, they found the violence there was worse than London. They were shocked that this was happening and were basically told by the local punks, "See, we're radical, too." Those punks were acting out what they had seen on the news reports and the results were even worse than London. It was a "me too" copycat phenomenon. While this was going on, there were musicians quoted in the press saying this could never happen in L.A. (Jackson Browne comes to mind). But by 1981 it was worse in L.A. than it had been anywhere. In retrospect, that shouldn't have surprised anyone because L.A. is a town where image can become reality fairly rapidly.

[Troy]

I wasn't gonna post in this thread because I just don't give a damn about Patti Smith. But I just can't control myself.

J, I never said she didn't have influence on other artists. (tho I think Talking Heads, Beck or REM are a REAL stretch, but I don't wish to belabor the point).

The BFD is in reference to my opinion that the artists she influenced were small potatoes. I think most Lillith faire artists were inspired by Baez, Joni Mitchell and even Stevie Nicks as much as Patti.

I see punk as more of an attitude than a specific musical type. Again, maybe it's a CA thing, but punk was WAY ugly out here.

I'll be the first to admit that much of Zappa, XTC, Wall Of Voodoo, and prog (ohh, LOTS of prog) is teenage music. Rock music is music for kids. The best rock music is made by people under the age of 25 or 30. It's a youth culture item. That's why most people our age don't pay much attention to music. I'll be the first to admit my own arrested development . . . will you? It's the kiss of death and a slide down the slippery slope into pretension if you take rock too seriously.

Dusty, Bill Nelson was not punk. He was a glam/progrock holdover from the early 70s who made some genre defining new wave albums in the late 70s and then drifted into ambient music thru the 80s.

[3-LockBox]

The Village People may have advanced gay disco music, but it already existed and their impact was felt through singles, not albums--and to this day it's pretty clear that a lot of people don't even get that their songs are gay anthems.


Wait...the Village People were gay? :eek6:

BTW: your statement is the same argument I made that you're now refuting, i.e. the music already existed. Joni Mitchell? Sure, I get how she 'changed music' as far as women being given credence as serious rock artists (writer/performer) are concerned. But as far as women of serious RnR substance; I can think of Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, and Stevie Nicks (but of course I know Nicks can't count cuz she made too damn much money). But speaking of Nicks, do you think she needed Patti Smith to exist in order to branch out as a solo artist? I think Nicks woulda happened as a solo artist on her own. The Pretenders woulda happened on their own, but maybe they woulda sounded different.


meh... A term of indifference. Smith definately had a major influence on some artists. But I don't agree that she changed music.

"their impact was felt through singles-not albums"
I thought we came to the conclusion weeks ago that it didn't matter whether we're talking albums or records anyway. Besides, isn't it redundant to say 'gay disco'? :)

[BradH]

I see punk as more of an attitude than a specific musical type. Again, maybe it's a CA thing, but punk was WAY ugly out here.

So what? It was third gen by the time it hit L.A. Why does that have to define punk? Did you honestly think that's what was happening at CBGB's? More importantly, does it sound that way to you?



I'll be the first to admit that much of Zappa, XTC, Wall Of Voodoo, and prog (ohh, LOTS of prog) is teenage music.

Yeah, I'll give ya Zappa's lyrics but the best rock music has been done for the college age crowd over the decades so there was always a level of seriousness there. All that hip underground cool sh!t is what college age kids wanted to hear no matter what era. That's where the innovation has come from for 40 years. And you can throw XTC, Wall Of Voodoo and prog in that mix, too. That's bullsh!t about it being teenage music, sorry. Maybe in the 50's and early 60's but a pattern developed in the late 60's. These bands hit the college audience in their prime and then eventually work their way down to the high schools where the big money lies. I watched everybody from Zeppelin to R.E.M. do that.


It's the kiss of death and a slide down the slippery slope into pretension if you take rock too seriously.

If it weren't for a certain amount of pretention there wouldn't be any rock 'n' roll. Art may not be real but it doesn't have to be shallow.

[MindGoneHaywire]

I don't have enough time to respond properly right this moment but I did just want to get across that the point I was making about Troy liking XTC, Zappa, etc. was that the examples I listed (sans Zappa's more juvenile lyrics, of course) were not what I would consider to be teenage music.

More to follow.

Okay...

Brad...

>I've heard some musicians say some incredibly stupid things. I'm sure you have too.

Never.

>Liking Hawkwind might've been okay with Lydon because they were from the communes of Portobello Rd. but the decadent, high end artsiness of Roxy Music was right out.

Ever read the book "The Boy Looked At Johnny"? It was written by two younguns who were writing for Melody Maker or NME around 1976. They slammed everything. Hippies, New Wave, Glam, commerical Rock, and every punk band they could name. The Beatles, Stones, Who, et al. It was obvious that some of it was tongue-in-cheek, but it was difficult to tell how much it was a matter of putting down hipsters, and how much it was that they genuinely did not like rock music. The only artists that they praised at all were X-Ray Spex's Poly Styrene, and Roxy Music, whose first two albums they praised as containing the only worthwhile rock music ever recorded, or something to that effect. Years later, of course, they admitted that their point of view was manufactured to no small extent by amphetamine abuse.

>When the Stranglers started out they were criticized because they were older, took acid and used synthesizers.

I wonder if going with A&M Records after the incident with the Sex Pistols made them enemies among the contingent of know-nothings who might've considered them to be traitors to the scene, or something like that.

>Roxy Music became the godfathers after all. (Imo, the synth pop movement killed the whole thing in '82.

The demise of Joy Division probably plays a role here, especially given the prominence of New Order in that synth movement, even if they weren't as poppy as, say, Human League.

>If college students wanted to listen to stoned out, introspective and, at times, quite beautiful music, then I don't see that as any more illegitimate than the formula the punks lived by in London

I don't disagree. It ain't my thing, but live & let live. I've long been as tired of gratuitous prog-bashing as I've always been by the nonsensical suggestions that none of those punk losers could play their instruments. That said, once ya start getting into Topographic Oceans territory, my tolerance level for the rhetoric in this oh-so-meaningful conflict shrinks to the point where I'd be willing to say GG Allin was a more accomplished instrumentalist than Keith Emerson just to piss someone off while letting them know exactly what side of the fence I'm on.

>stay on the dole. That's a looooong way from CBGB's

In the context of this discussion, absolutely. But I'm not sure how many people on this board know that CB's is closing at the end of September. The homeless advocacy organization that owns the building has had conflicts with CB's for years, and while they didn't refuse to grant a new lease, they insisted on a rent figure that was apparently well beyond what the market would bear, or that CB's could reasonably afford. In other words, get out. So for the next month there'll be a series of farewell gigs, while everyone will wax philosophically about the NYC punk scene, which I personally have heard enough about at this point in time...and they'll all go on about how friggin' great the place was/is. Like it's not a disgusting sh!thole, in spite of a great PA, and one of the least comfortable venues in the city. It lived off a legendary 3 year run for more than 25 years...I might've played there as many times as I actually paid money to go see a r'n'r band. Well, good for Las Vegas. I wonder if all the merchandise will make its way into suburban shopping malls, as happened around here, to be worn by teenagers who don't even know what the place is.

>by 1981 it was worse in L.A. than it had been anywhere. In retrospect, that shouldn't have surprised anyone because L.A. is a town where image can become reality fairly rapidly.

Well, Southern California did have issues with police brutality, and some might trace that back a long ways...I've seen it suggested that allegedly violent police officers might've been kids who grew up in families where frustrated parents who'd been driven from the Dust Bowl may have tended to abuse their children as a means of alleviating their frustrations over their poverty situations. I don't know how much validity could be assigned to this, but regardless of cause, there were tensions between police & So Cal adolescent punk rockers at the time. That just wasn't the case here, or any other places that I've heard about, and Troy's take on a punk rock show doesn't sound like anything I'd want to be at.

[audiobill]

Ouzo was the first thing I ever got really drunk on. Damn....that was a long time ago.

Cool.

[Troy]

Brad re:CBGB's. Was Television really punk? Blondie? Talking Heads? I personally just don't see it. Those bands were just not GG Allin, Sex Pistols, Plasmatics enough. What you and J see as punk I just see as rock crossing into New Wave.

"The Tide is High" and "For Artists Only" are so NOT punk it's ridiculous.

WRT Teenage vs College age music. You are splitting hairs. Buddy of mine's daughter is starting college this week. She's 17, almost 18. Smack in the middle of being a teenager. For me college age IS teenage even tho it may extend ito one's 20s. It's the same thing.

If you went to a Zappa concert back in his 70s heyday, or Wall of Voodoo, or XTC etc, you'd find an audience filled with college aged people and younger. When I go to concerts today I am generally the oldest coot by a considerable margin.

You and J can bluster all you want about rock NOT being a pure youth market (or middle-aged boomers trying desperately to hang on to their youth) item, but I don't see how you can really realistically argue the point. With only a few exceptions, rock has always been made by kids, for kids. And generally, those exceptions are pretty embarrassing . . .

Patti and Television were pretentious as hell because they took themselves VERY seriously. Nice to hear that pretention is not relegated only to prog, tho Brad, I'd expect that from you. Others tho, I'm not so sure. I just never understood how the rock press could call Yes pretentious and not call Patti or Lou Reed pretentious. Maybe it's a different KIND of pretentiousness . . .

[MindGoneHaywire]

Troy...

>I think Talking Heads, Beck or REM are a REAL stretch

With the Heads, forget about the polyrhythmic world music influence & listen to '77, then come back & say that. Beck's lyrics are straight out of Van Dyke Parks, except his music is better, or at least more accessible; if you miss the connection between that sort of poetry combined with Beck's more traditional rock and pop, and the way poetry and rock were combined on Horses, then you need a new pair of glasses for that avatar you've got there. As for REM, they alluded to Patti's influence on them for years in interviews, and they brought her in to sing on one of their records.

>The BFD is in reference to my opinion that the artists she influenced were small potatoes.

Go back & read the thread from week 1. It's irrelevant to the discussion. Either the record was influential, or it wasn't. That dealt with, what's small potatoes to you doesn't mean the rec didn't necessarily 'change music.' Given its influence on the whole 90s 'women in rock' thing, I can't see how you could dismiss that whole movement. Are you arguing it wasn't a significant musical movement? In Troy-land, Alanis Morrissette didn't make a musical dent? I don't like her music or give a rat's butt myself, but to deny the impact is simply asinine. If you listen to Gloria & then tell me Morrissette's breakthrough wasn't Patti Smith version 2.0, yer bonkers.

>I think most Lillith faire artists were inspired by Baez, Joni Mitchell and even Stevie Nicks as much as Patti.

Somebody else might characterize that comment as arguable; I say it's dubious. However, I won't argue the point, and I dragged as many pre-Horses female performers into this thread as anyone else. But, point one: the Lilith Fair stuff had just a tad more attitude, if not anger, than anything you could reasonably point to as being the product of listening to those three. People like Lisa Loeb may not have exactly been channeling a Lenny Kaye guitar-rock sensibility, but I think that's way more of a presence there than the sort of stuff that was a comfortable fit for instrumentalists like Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny. Baez was usually far more social/political than personal, and Stevie Nicks is far more reknown for songs she sang that she didn't write, let alone how relatively pop she was.

>I see punk as more of an attitude than a specific musical type.

Who's saying it has to be a specific type? Blondie & Television, the Exploited and Suicidal Tendencies. The attitudes are as disparate as the musical types. By 1979, there was the NYC sensibility, the London sensibility, AND the L.A. sensibility. But I've always felt that seeing it as something that should be considered attitude-first was a result of not really understanding the music. Which isn't surprising, considering that the way it was presented, you're supposed to believe it's all about the Sex Pistols & their attitude, instead of considering the sorts of things that Patti & Television did. Wrong wrong wrong. Sorry, as heavily as attitude weighed into it, it was musical attitude; the music aspect came first. That sounds as arrogant a pronouncement as everything you've been saying about 'true punk' and a 'real punk show,' but I can say with some confidence that if not for the attitude, the music would've still existed, but without the music, the attitude wouldn't have counted for much at all. It's not like it's all one & not the other, but not all of it had attitude, but all of it was music, made by people who took the time to learn instruments and create.

>I'll be the first to admit that much of Zappa, XTC, Wall Of Voodoo, and prog (ohh, LOTS of prog) is teenage music.

I don't see why anyone would put you in a position to admit that, my point was that a lot of the stuff these people put out is not the sort of adolescent stuff that we tend to view 'rock' as when we identify it as something best done by young'uns. I agree with the idea that rock is a young man's game, but it doesn't always stand up to scrutiny. The NYC punk stuff is a prime example of what I'm getting at.

>The best rock music is made by people under the age of 25 or 30.

I used to agree with that more than I do now; it's still basically true as far as the energy goes, but I think we're entering an age where maturity isn't an artistic death knell for people making rock music past that age. Also, I think a person in their late 20s in 1975 was probably closer in terms of certain personal and societal sensibilities to a 40-year-old today, than a person in their late 20s now. Again, Robert Quine was 35 when the first Voidoids record came out, Debbie Harry over 30 as well on the debut Blondie platter. I realize you're not the type to consider Richard Hell or NYC punk in general representative of 'the best rock music' in any way, shape, or form, but then those are some mighty fine rocks you've got in yr cranium.

>That's why most people our age don't pay much attention to music.

Disagree. What we music geeks never really realized is that most people never really paid much attention to music, period, for a long time. When I started college I was struck by some research we did to try to figure out what acts would be a good bet to book for concerts on campus. Most people just didn't care. Music was something they listened to in their cars, when a guy's in a bar trying to pick up a chick...when you grow up listening to music on a regular basis, actively buying records, caring about this stuff, you take it for granted, since enough media attention is paid to it, that everyone feels the same. But it wasn't true then, and probably long before that, and the point is that this is nothing new.

>I'll be the first to admit my own arrested development . . . will you?

I'm the one writing the longest posts, aren't I?

>It's the kiss of death and a slide down the slippery slope into pretension if you take rock too seriously.

Then I fail to see how I could be any more pretentious. But it's not rock I take seriously, it's any & all of the genres of music I listen to. What can I say. It's in my blood, I was playing instruments since I could crawl, and I find music far more worthy an area to take seriously than just about anything else beyond basic human needs. People have been telling me I take music too seriously for a long time. And while I'm sure it'll happen at some point, I've long found it telling that nobody who's ever expressed that to me was an instrumentalist themselves. At least to my knowledge.

[MindGoneHaywire]

3lock...

>Wait...the Village People were gay?

Nah, just ahead of their time. T.A.T.U., anyone? Seriously, if anyone believes that the folks making hand signs at Yankee games when the groundskeepers are doing their thing after the 5th inning all know that the Village People were playing for, shall we say, the other team, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for ya. It's just an odd spectacle to witness when you see whole families, young children included, doing these dances.

>BTW: your statement is the same argument I made that you're now refuting, i.e. the music already existed.

No way. Joni Mitchell? A few similarities, way more differences. If you can point me to a Joni Mitchell record that in any way evokes Piss Factory or Gloria, I'd LOVE to hear it.

>Joni Mitchell? Sure, I get how she 'changed music' as far as women being given credence as serious rock artists (writer/performer) are concerned.

She was also considered to be a far more formidable instrumentalist than someone like, say, Joan Baez.

>as far as women of serious RnR substance; I can think of Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, and Stevie Nicks

Grace Slick & Stevie Nicks fit more the role of attractive female fronting rock and roll band, which is not to say they weren't taken seriously or shouldn't have been, but Patti Smith is another matter entirely. Janis Joplin was arguably as much a blues artist as a rock one, but that aside, she wasn't a singer-songwriter. I won't denigrate the accomplishments of these three by suggesting they're not worthwhile on the basis that their main contributions were vocals, but it's for this reason that Joni Mitchell & Patti Smith are examined differently.

>But speaking of Nicks, do you think she needed Patti Smith to exist in order to branch out as a solo artist?

No, but she was a rock star. Who wrote one song for herself that achieved significant success that I know of, and got some mileage out of a Tom Petty song, too, IIRC. But Patti Smith's legacy didn't hurt Suzanne Vega or Sinead O'Connor, did it? Do you think that they owe anything to Stevie Nicks?

>The Pretenders woulda happened on their own, but maybe they woulda sounded different.

Keep in mind that Chrissie Hynde was living in the UK & was a rock critic when punk broke--and she formed that band. That speaks to a spirit that I think Patti Smith can be reasonably viewed as having pioneered.

>meh... A term of indifference.

If you say so, I didn't read it that way & apparently Brad didn't either, but, hey, whatever. No biggie.

>Smith definately had a major influence on some artists. But I don't agree that she changed music.

That's probably closer to a contradiction than you realized. At least the way I read it.

>I thought we came to the conclusion weeks ago that it didn't matter whether we're talking albums or records anyway.

In a discussion of an artist who didn't record albums. Come on, now. This isn't one-size-fits-all. The Village People recorded albums, Robert Johnson didn't. In the context of this discussion, I gather you're not looking to deny the difference?

>Besides, isn't it redundant to say 'gay disco'?
>Besides, isn't it redundant to say 'gay disco'?

No, but it's gay if...wait a minute...

[MindGoneHaywire]

Troy...

>re:CBGB's. Was Television really punk? Blondie? Talking Heads? I personally just don't see it.

If you're going to spout about this stuff, you should read Please Kill Me. It'd put some things in perspective for you. The term was coined to characterize the music these bands (not the Talking Heads as much) were making in 1975. Or, you could go to Wikipedia or someplace like that & do a quick read on Punk Magazine, Legs McNeil, John Holmstrom...the two arguably most important figures in the book are Patti Smith and Richard Hell.

>Those bands were just not GG Allin, Sex Pistols, Plasmatics enough.

This is like asking if Louis Armstrong should really be considered jazz--because his work just isn't "Monk" enough, or Gillespie-ish, or something. It's like saying that Black Sabbath can't be heavy metal because it doesn't sound enough like Slayer. Try again.

>What you and J see as punk I just see as rock crossing into New Wave.

That's a neat trick, considering that there was a "punk" scene 2-3 years before anyone was using the term "New Wave." Bands like the Dictators & the Ramones had records out well ahead of Devo, the Talking Heads, the Cars, or any of the rest of them.

>"The Tide is High" and "For Artists Only" are so NOT punk it's ridiculous.

Which is like saying "Eleanor Rigby" is so NOT a rock and roll record. Blondie wasn't considered punk for very long, but that doesn't mean they didn't come out of that scene. I know you're old enough to remember this stuff. They went from X Offender & Rip Her To Shreds, then managed to be considered New Wave by throwing disco into the mix by 1979. Bob Dylan wasn't folk anymore by 1965, either, but that doesn't erase that the folk scene is where he initially emerged from, or that his earlier work could be and is considered to be folk. Capiche?

>You and J can bluster all you want about rock NOT being a pure youth market

I didn't say anything about the market. My point was about the age of the musicians in question that I mentioned in this thread, and the topics they chose for lyrical content. And outside of the Ramones and Dictators, the NYC punk scene in the mid- to late-70s revolved around relatively sophisticated music that's not immune to the accusation of being pretentious, but was far from greasy kid's stuff that the music industry thought was going to move singles that teenyboppers would flock to the mall to buy. Unless you think that songs like 'I Fell Into The Arms of Venus de Milo' or 'Love Comes In Spurts' were somehow about the 'youth market.' Of course, you've uttered nuttier musings.

>With only a few exceptions, rock has always been made by kids, for kids. And generally, those exceptions are pretty embarrassing . . .

One, as I said before, things have changed a lot, and it's less that way now than ever before. What's made by kids for kids is now a LOT less 'rock' and a LOT more other pop genres. Meanwhile, the prime examples of these exceptions, so far as I can tell, are punk and prog. Not being a prog fan doesn't mean I characterize it all as something that should be considered embarrassing (Topographic Oceans/Tormato-style musical crazyglue notwithstanding). You're so into making a point here that you're exposing yr flanks to yr nemesis...logic. It'll get you every time.

>Patti and Television were pretentious as hell because they took themselves VERY seriously.

You're not going to get me to disagree, but I'm not sure what good this does you. It's funny, I've seen so many documentaries about rock music in the 70s, they all talk about how punk rock was a reaction to pretentious prog rock. They leave out the arty, pretentious origins of Patti & Television, yes. But that doesn't mean they were necessarily anywhere near as pretentious as bloated rock operas & egomaniacal attempts to create the perfect artistic statement in the guise of a concept album. But just because you want to pounce on the hipster press/media being somewhat disingenuous doesn't mean that the general point that punk was a reaction to pretentious rock music, especially prog, doesn't ring true to a significant extent. It's like viewing punk as that stuff that you didn't have to know how to play well to actually do. Instead of viewing it as music that didn't necessarily emphasize playing ability. Boy, what a few self-important writers with agendas can do to murder nuance...

>I just never understood how the rock press could call Yes pretentious and not call Patti or Lou Reed pretentious. Maybe it's a different KIND of pretentiousness . . .

Ya think? But Lester Bangs wasn't afraid to call Reed on some of his BS. Neither was Reed, actually, he wasn't afraid to talk about how crappy he thought his most successful record at the time (Sally Can't Dance) was. But he was one of the only ones getting press. Brad & Dusty once complained about prog getting all the negative press? Granted, but punk got almost NO press. Well, there was Creem & Trouser Press, but I've met the only guy who actually ever read those rags, and he still drools uncontrollably; Jann Wenner had no use for punk rock, and, outside of an occasional Random Note or review thrown as a bone to someone like Charles M. Young, he made sure to keep his pals like the Eagles, Jackson Browne, & Boz Scaggs on his covers, while those outside the commercial mainstream need not have applied (it wasn't like he wanted to actually give the Sex Pistols a cover, but remember, he spiked a Public Enemy cover some 15 years ago in favor of a Hunter Thompson piece that was appropos of nothing in particular that week). And prog never had the President of the U.S. actually complaining to record company execs to steer clear, either. All in all, that's a hollow charge, though, to be honest, only if you apply it to those times & not the mountains of gush issued in the years since about how great punk was & how awful everything else was, especially prog. I'll call a spade a spade, pal, but you've got to realize how silly it sounds to say that you don't think Television is punk because they weren't GG Allin enuff.


Mastercylinder...

>Didn't change music

I know I said this wasn't worth it, but I've just got to ask...Troy, as we all know, is...uhh...I think the word is eccentric, or at least that's the nice way of saying he's got some bats in his friggin' belfry. So, when he puts his brand of relatively ignorant poopy out there, rolling with it is at least never dull, so far as verbal gymnastics & argument porn.

What's yr excuse?

[Resident Loser]

No offense intended. My references were based on previous postings.

>I concur with Troy's BFD on this one...

>"neigh" say I...

>I had no opinion...
...and pretty much still have none...

People with 'no opinion' by definition do not concur with those of others, and they abstain from votes. People with no musical memories of the rec in question merely appear foolish offering 'neigh' when they can present no evidence to back up their 'neigh's. I do not say this to be hostile, and I'm much more interested in the why of yr 'neigh' than I am in the backpeddle of the denial of a stated position. Given no knowledge of the subject in question, which you have acknowledged, there must be a reason why you offered anything at all, and it speaks directly to my references to you in this thread on the basis of the other one.

I mean, come on. Be a devil's advocate; surely you're up to the task. Tell us about a couple of people I already mentioned, like Joni Mitchell or Laura Nyro, or a couple I didn't, like the Runaways or Janis Ian, to make the point that Horses wasn't influential. You'd be wrong, but I'm used to that, and at least it'd add something to the discussion beyond inexplicably stating you have no opinion on a subject you just offered one on.

...we'll go bass-ackwards on this one...I do have an opinion on the subject, but I have no opinion on this album in particular...it's not backpedaling nor any sort of dichotomy...

I may be mistaken, but weren't Mitchell and Ian folkies who went off in other directions...I fail to see any relevance to PS at all...but then again, who cares...

Pardon my pun...Horses...neigh...ha-ha...Spelling it correctly N-A-Y would be indicative of an easily misconstrued and distinct negative re: the album itself, something I thought I had avoided by the joke...Imagine my surprise...

And again, my participation in this particular thread was a direct result in your oblique reference to my contributions to the first thread of the series...remember? when you compared Troy to the other jo...oh, never mind...

As stated earlier I don't give a r@t$ @$$ about the album in question, it's inclusion in this "list" renders said list more suspect as time goes by...and it's not because of the album, it's the inclusion of anything Patti Smith in toto...

You chose to compare Troy's sentiments to my "thread one" comments; that is why his name was mentioned...given the comments from 3-LB and MC, I could have easily supported their positions (and do FWIW) on PS and all those(?) supposedly influenced(?) by her, with a hearty BFD...

jimHJJ(...and for the record, I heartily concur with Troy's statements re: pretentiousness...)

[3-LockBox]

Me said: >BTW: your statement is the same argument I made that you're now refuting, i.e. the music already existed<

No way. Joni Mitchell? A few similarities, way more differences. If you can point me to a Joni Mitchell record that in any way evokes Piss Factory or Gloria, I'd LOVE to hear it.

What I meant by, "it already existed", I was referring to The Doors, VU, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop et el. not so much Mitchell.

[Dusty Chalk]

If more people knew exactly what is involved in playing even three chords properly, we wouldn't waste much time with this nonsense because someone has a mistaken impression about something; and if others knew the slightest detail about the musical qualifications of people they seem to think possessed none, then nobody would care about how seriously I take any of this, either.So anyone who can play is talented? I think you're overstating your terms. I agree it's hard to play (I've tried), but there still needs to be a differentiation between more talented and less talented musicians.

Let's look at cooking -- there are people who can't cook, and there are people who can. The "people who can" range from "I'm only eating it to be polite" to "master chef", right? A master chef would die trying to be a fast order grill jockey, because he doesn't have the stamina, patience, etc., but that doesn't make the fast order grill jockey comparable to a master chef.

And my point was not that they possessed no talent, but that they marketed their image as being young punks with little or no musical training, specifically so that their audience could relate, and could say, "I could do that".

[Dusty Chalk]

It's the kiss of death and a slide down the slippery slope into pretension if you take rock too seriously.So you hate:

Pink Floyd/Roger Waters
Yes (have you ever read Jon Anderson's lyrics?)
Flower Kings
Porcupine Tree (maybe not so much)
Spock's Beard
early Rush
all goth (goths aren't even allowed to crack a smile, except for Voltaire)

...?

(I'm not expecting you to like all these things, but my point is that I suspect you do like some extremely pretentious things. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I disagree that pretension is a bad thing. Some of my favourite music is pretentious as L. Doesn't in itself make it good -- it has to have other qualities -- and doesn't mean I can't occasionally laugh at it, but my favourite musical moments come out of melodrama, which is inherently linked to pretension, and taking one's self very seriously.

In fact, one of the things I love so much about classic rock is a certain oblivion (probably engendred by drugs and naïveté) to things that were later perceived as pretentious.

And don't get me wrong -- I love good music with a sense of humour as well (have you seen that Can performance of Can-Can?), but it's not a requirement. Not by a long shot.

[3-LockBox]

Patti and Television were pretentious as hell because they took themselves VERY seriously. Nice to hear that pretention is not relegated only to prog, tho Brad, I'd expect that from you. Others tho, I'm not so sure. I just never understood how the rock press could call Yes pretentious and not call Patti or Lou Reed pretentious. Maybe it's a different KIND of pretentiousness . . .

Yeah, if only Jon Anderson woulda smeared sh!t all over himself, he be a poet laureate of rock as well.

Gee, I thought punk was born of an aversion to glam rock and disco...Sex Pistols - now thats what I think of when I hear the term punk, not so much Television, Patti Smith, or Lou Reed, but I do see the connection. Punk acts were good for a few laughs. Most punk rock, for me anyway, was a sort of novelty, whether its the mohawks and safety pins in the face brand of punk, or The Rocky Horror Picture Show brand of performance art punk. But how is it that an act like The Sex Pistols was given so much credence over so much prog - at least The Monkeys learned how to play their instruments.

[BradH]

Jay...

>Ever read the book "The Boy Looked At Johnny"?

Missed that one. The point about Lydon and Roxy was regarding that stupid t-shirt McLaren sold. It's like that line in South Pacific: I know what you're against but what are you for? Most of those British punk bands hated each other anyway.

> Re: Stranglers: I wonder if going with A&M Records after the incident with the Sex Pistols made them enemies among the contingent of know-nothings who might've considered them to be traitors to the scene, or something like that.

Oh hell, they could've thrown a rock and hit a reason to be angry. The Police were too old, The Jam didn't dress like real punks, on and on.

>The demise of Joy Division probably plays a role here, especially given the prominence of New Order in that synth movement, even if they weren't as poppy as, say, Human League.

I just didn't like any of that British synth stuff. A few decent bands were still going in '82 like Gang Of Four, Killing Joke or XTC but it seemed like the whole thing was dying with bands either breaking up or releasing weak albums like the Jam's The Gift. Great time for ska, though.

> I've long been as tired of gratuitous prog-bashing as I've always been by the nonsensical suggestions that none of those punk losers could play their instruments.

As a bass player I couldn't tell that much difference in difficulty. If you can play 20 minutes of XTC you can damn well play 20 minutes of Yes. At least I could. Years later I read somewhere that punk/new wave placed the bass in a more prominent role. Compared to traditional rock that's true but after all that prog I hardly noticed.

>Re: CBGB's: I wonder if all the merchandise will make its way into suburban shopping malls, as happened around here, to be worn by teenagers who don't even know what the place is.

No, to sell a t-shirt I think you actually have to kill somebody like Manson or Che did.

> Re: SoCal: I've seen it suggested that allegedly violent police officers might've been kids who grew up in families where frustrated parents who'd been driven from the Dust Bowl may have tended to abuse their children as a means of alleviating their frustrations over their poverty situations.

Academic wankery. Translation: "We're peace loving Californians. It's those damned Okies causing all the trouble." But I can top that. There was a study indicating the soccer riots in England were triggered by p1ss pheremones caused by the lack of toilet facilities. Uh-huh. Yeah. Root cause.

Troy...

>The best rock music is made by people under the age of 25 or 30.

That's because they take artistic chances that older folks don't. (That also applies to other areas of life.)

> Was Television really punk? Blondie? Talking Heads? I personally just don't see it. Those bands were just not GG Allin, Sex Pistols, Plasmatics enough. What you and J see as punk I just see as rock crossing into New Wave.

What the hell do you think they were calling Television and Blondie and Talking Heads? They had to call it something. What were they supposed to say? "We can't call this punk because in a few years punks will wear mohawks and safety pins." Not.

>"The Tide is High" and "For Artists Only" are so NOT punk it's ridiculous.

"The Tide Is High" was just radio fodder. That's what Blondie wanted to sell so they're irrelevant at that point, imo. But "For Artists Only" isn't that different compared to the Heads in '75. This whole punk/post-punk distinction is bs. The so called post-punk bands like Talking Heads and XTC were not post-punk, they were there at the beginning, doing their own thing. It's the music industry that caught up to them after the bottom fell out of the disco market. The press and record companies needed a friendly label other than punk so "new wave" was born. Yeah, Television didn't sound like the Dead Kennedys but so what? If somebody thinks Black Sabbath defines rock then they're not going to call Rubber Soul rock are they? And how often have we heard similar arguements? "The Beatles didn't rock enough", etc.

>WRT Teenage vs College age music. You are splitting hairs. Buddy of mine's daughter is starting college this week. She's 17, almost 18. Smack in the middle of being a teenager. For me college age IS teenage even tho it may extend ito one's 20s. It's the same thing.

No, it's not the same thing and here's why. There's a long tradition of kids going to college and tapping into a new world of music. Maybe it happens the first year, maybe the second. The critical thing they're looking for is something other than the concerns of high school.

>If you went to a Zappa concert back in his 70s heyday, or Wall of Voodoo, or XTC etc, you'd find an audience filled with college aged people and younger.

But the 70's covered ten years. In the early 70's, the high school kids (mostly males) were into, say, Alice Cooper. It was the college crowd that were into Zeppelin, Yes, Tull, Zappa etc. Sure there were a few exceptions like you and me but not enough kids to fill a venue much less sustain a career. By the mid to late 70's that all changed as those bands tapped into the high school market. Then you had all those punk and new-wave or whatever the hell you want to call them bands. Those were pumped out by college radio stations and only made inroads into the high schools with the advent of MTV in the early 80's. I saw R.E.M. in '84 with college students years before the high schoolers picked up on Document in '87. U2 went through the same thing. There are tons of examples but if you just look at the ones I've mentioned off the top of my head - Zep, Yes, Tull, Zappa, R.E.M., U2 - there's a distinct lack of "crusing for hamburgers with my girlfriend" or "getting high before gym class" element in all this. That's what Aerosmith and Van Halen were for, distinctly marketed for high schoolers. So there is a difference regardless of the fact that you can enter college at 17.

>When I go to concerts today I am generally the oldest coot by a considerable margin.

You shoulda seen Yes w/ Wakeman in '04. You could just feel the Geritol.

>You and J can bluster all you want about rock NOT being a pure youth market (or middle-aged boomers trying desperately to hang on to their youth) item, but I don't see how you can really realistically argue the point. With only a few exceptions, rock has always been made by kids, for kids. And generally, those exceptions are pretty embarrassing . . .

Frankly, I see a lot of cynicism in that statement. It's not a pure youth market if older people are buying it. Hell, I've seen middle aged advertising execs listen to Midnight Oil in the 90's. It's awfully presumptious of you to claim they're "trying desparately to hang on to their youth". My guess is deforestation in North Australia or water rights for indigenous tribes wasn't a big topic of conversation in their high school smoking allies.

>I just never understood how the rock press could call Yes pretentious and not call Patti or Lou Reed pretentious. Maybe it's a different KIND of pretentiousness . . .

BINGO, my man. It's a different kind of pretention. It's art deco replacing art nouveau. It happened in classical, it happened in jazz.

[Troy]

Wow.

Dusty-
Not a fan of Waters solo. The longer Pink Floyd went on the more obnoxiously self important they became. The Wall is a trainwreck AFAIC.

Flower Kings sure sound great musically, but lyrically they are unintentionally hilarious, especially when they get serious. Not even the slightest trace of irony. Ditto Yes. So much of what Jon Anderson wrote lyrically was silly at best and stridently preachy at worst (Don't Kill the Whale)

I always picked out a streak of humor in Spocks Beard similar to the one in the band SB copied; Ambrosia (but maybe that's just me).

I've never been a big fan of Goth. It makes me roll my eyes involuntarily.

Still, I get your point. I like a lot of music that many people would call pretentious. I think what you are missing is that I never said pretention is a bad thing in and of itself. I don't care if music is pretentious or not. Just be fair and call it pretentious, even if it's in your pet genre. (royal you)

Why did you ask me about Bill Nelson? What's the connection?

MGH-
Jeez man, you trying to drown me in a sea of words?

Clearly your view of what punk is is much broader than mine. I see similar arguments constanly about progrock on prog based boards. Everyone's idea of what fits in a genre is different. Talking Heads was not punk to me. Perhaps really early Blondie was, but not the Blondie that most people are familiar with.

Elanor Rigby is most definitely NOT a rock and roll song. Chamber pop. Perhaps if the arrangement used guitar bass and drums it would be a rock and roll song, but not the origianl orchestral version.

Only a teenager (or someone with the mentality of one) would enjoy a song called "Love Comes in Spurts." Most people would grow out of it by the age of 25 tho. No one over the age of 25 ever got a Guns and Roses tattoo. Teenagers obssess about bands and songs. By the time they get older tho, they obsess about other, "more important" things like paying the rent and putting their own teenagers thru college.

It's a common conceit that as people get older they suddenly believe that older people like them can perfom at a young person's level. From one old geezer to another, sorry to disillusion you, buddy. 40 should be mandatory live performance retirement for rock stars. Listen and create as long as you can, but live performance? Hang it up before you break a hip.

Yes, Bangs called out Reed for sure. Just like you to mention the only real exception. Lester was one drop in a veritable ocean of press that didn't call it like it was.

Whatever Patti's preceived (by you) influence on REM or the Talking Heads was, it was small in comparison to other influences on these bands. So small that the comparison is incosequential. I'll give you the influence on girly poet-rock and some Lilith Faire junk as being right on the mark, but that's about it.

And why the hell can't I say BFD becuase I PERSONALLY think the genre she spawned is unimportant in the scheme of rock history? (Cuz we all know how many people are going to be listening to their Alannis M albums in 10 years, right?)

[3-LockBox]

And why the hell can't I say BFD becuase I PERSONALLY think the genre she spawned is unimportant in the scheme of rock history? (Cuz we all know how many people are going to be listening to their Alannis M albums in 10 years, right?)

Alanis Morrisette doesn't count because her first main influences were Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, not Patti Smith. She's as prefab as The Monkeys or The Sex Pistols.

[Resident Loser]

...punk was born as the antithesis of progressive, yet for all of it's railing against the machine (so to speak), it isn't so different...

After being subjected to the Court Of The Crimson King for the umpteenth time, the first person, group or whatever who picked up a guitar, banged out the three chords and commited it to vinyl was the real deal...everything after it was pretense and product...

It was either POd rank amatuers who could barely finger first position chords or accomplished musicians applying reductionist theory towards an end...If the first, it's legit...if the second, it's contrivance and posturing, pure and simple...

jimHJJ(...and so say I...)

P.S. And punk isn't alone...

[BradH]

Yes, that was pure and simple.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Yeah...the likes of the Minutemen, Black Flag, the Cramps, Husker Du, X, and the Misfits, reduced to 'contrivance and posturing.' Who knew?

[Dusty Chalk]

I think what you are missing is that I never said pretention is a bad thing in and of itself. I don't care if music is pretentious or not. Just be fair and call it pretentious, even if it's in your pet genre. (royal you)Okay, yeah, I missed that. That "slippery slope" comment made me think you thought it was a negative thing. BTW, I agree completely -- I am fully on board with telling people that much of what I listen to is pretentious and takes itself very (sometimes too) seriously.
Why did you ask me about Bill Nelson? What's the connection?I just thought he might qualify as a "punk rock guitar god" because of his new wave era. There are quite a few people who think very highly of his guitar work, including his Quit Dreaming.../Vistamix era stuff (including me).

[MindGoneHaywire]

3lock...

>What I meant by, "it already existed", I was referring to The Doors, VU, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop et el. not so much Mitchell.

There are plenty of similarities, but what Patti Smith did was fairly unique in spite of these inspirations, enough so where the praise for this record, in that regard at least, is understandable, even if somewhat overblown. The sensibilities of poetry and aggressive rock hadn't been put together as she did by that time.

>Yeah, if only Jon Anderson woulda smeared sh!t all over himself, he be a poet laureate of rock as well.

In a thread about Patti Smith, I'm not sure why this incredibly overwrought remark is necessary. It's sorta like saying, if David Brenner had done Andrew Dice Clay's nursery rhymes, he could've been Mr. Television.

>Gee, I thought punk was born of an aversion to glam rock and disco...

Not accurate. The New York Dolls were considered glam rock, and Blondie had no problem crossing over to disco, did they? There are elements of this, but this perception of how the stuff started (as opposed to what it was or is, considering how difficult it is to define, as we see from Troy) doesn't jibe with what I hear or have seen. Besides, punk was born well before disco was more than a blip on the radar. I think it was more of an aversion to something like ELP than to 'Do The Hustle.'

>Sex Pistols - now thats what I think of when I hear the term punk, not so much Television, Patti Smith, or Lou Reed, but I do see the connection

Well, that's what I'm talking about. I wouldn't say thinking of the Sex Pistols is incorrect, but omitting Television & Patti Smith sure is. That kind of widens what the music actually encompasses, especially since the idea of no talent being required comes more from the Sex Pistols than anyone else.

>Punk acts were good for a few laughs.

The Ramones had a sense of humor, but the other NYC bands were mostly quite serious. Where are the laughs on Horses?

>Most punk rock, for me anyway, was a sort of novelty, whether its the mohawks and safety pins in the face brand of punk, or The Rocky Horror Picture Show brand of performance art punk.

Exactly my point. I could make a similar statement about just about any major genre of rock music, and it'd seem just as inaccurate & even insulting to anyone else who's a fan who sees these sentiments that relate to maybe 1/4 or less of the genre being applied to the whole thing. Sort of like, 'Most heavy metal to me is a novelty, whether it's the hair band brand of metal, or the cool artwork on the album cover brand of heavy metal. That leaves out a lot, wouldn't you say?

>But how is it that an act like The Sex Pistols was given so much credence over so much prog - at least The Monkeys learned how to play their instruments.

Credence? Where? Yeah, I remember that avalanche of tour support they got, all the television appearances & guest shots, the massive amounts of records they sold. No. I remember the smirks on the faces of newscasters who covered the fact that this mohawk-wearing, fight-starting, safety-pin-in-cheek-pierced, disgusting punk act had hit America's shores, though. Which of course followed all that attention the NYC scene had inspired in the previous two years.

Prog sold boatloads of records. So if you want to complain that hipster critics didn't like it as much, take some solace in the fact that the bands actually sold records & were able to tour in far larger venues than any punk band played in these parts for, with the exception of the Clash, 20 years. Meanwhile, again, Rolling Stone may not have cared for prog, but they weren't fans of punk, either. Critics didn't spend as much ink on punk as it may seem now, given the nostalgia that grew for the stuff, but it's not like they stopped writing about other commercial rock, including prog, either. All the credence you're talking about couldn't help sell a record, Jimmy Carter did reportedly send a very specific message to the record industry, and the scene collapsed pretty quickly. The popularity of the Clash was the only manifestation of anyone caring about the stuff until Nirvana & Green Day. Meanwhile, name a prog act from the same time frame who toured in the 70s, 80s, or 90s who had to play in venues the size of CBGB's?

Meanwhile, the Monkees weren't allowed to play their instruments on their first two or three records, and Davy Jones did not learn how to play an instrument for quite some time after that. Look at the footage. He shakes a mean maraca, though.


Dusty...

>So anyone who can play is talented? I think you're overstating your terms. I agree it's hard to play (I've tried), but there still needs to be a differentiation between more talented and less talented musicians.

Yes, it takes talent to play. No, you're assigning absolutes I didn't say anything about. I said nothing about no differentiation between evaluating talent levels. What I was referring to was the idea that this type of music required no talent, period, which is something some people seemed, and seem, to believe. That's the overreaction, not my position. And it's not based on knowing anything about what they're talking about, but an out-of-context sentiment expressed in interviews by people who have ultimately been quite misunderstood for 30 years now. Anyone who listens to Robert Quine's guitar playing knows that you can't do that without talent; but all they remember is that the music was characterized as not requiring talent. Those sentiments were expressed by people whose meaning was that they were interested in proving that one didn't need to be extremely or prodigiously talented to play rock music. At the time a lot of rock music had become quite complicated. That doesn't mean it takes no talent to play three chords anymore than it does that one can't differentiate between levels of talent. It's pretty obvious that Johnny Ramone wouldn't have been able to do what Yngwie Malmsteen did, but nobody ever considers that the opposite is probably true as well.

>And my point was not that they possessed no talent, but that they marketed their image as being young punks with little or no musical training, specifically so that their audience could relate, and could say, "I could do that".

Yeah, except the Patti Smith Group & the other NYC bands weren't that young, some of them actually did have musical training, and, like I've said, they didn't, with the exception of the Ramones, talk about how they couldn't really play, and how cool that was. And I don't know of the Ramones doing that until after the British people started doing that, either. It was around for awhile before anyone started reveling in how they couldn't play, which isn't true anyway. And Patti Smith & almost all of the other NYC acts were never about celebrating their lack of talent. The stuff on that rec, Television, Richard Hell et al is not stuff where anyone was likely thinking, hey, this is great, simple three-chord rock and roll, anyone could do this, I can do this...

>I disagree that pretension is a bad thing. Some of my favourite music is pretentious as L. Doesn't in itself make it good -- it has to have other qualities -- and doesn't mean I can't occasionally laugh at it, but my favourite musical moments come out of melodrama, which is inherently linked to pretension, and taking one's self very seriously.

I agree, except for my own favorite stuff not really being melodramatic. Some, but very little, it's something I think is rarely done well. But, I agree with the overall point & I don't believe I've ever said otherwise. Generally, I will say, I prefer short songs. And I think it's a lot easier to get away with 'pretense,' as the term is used in a derisive fashion, in shorter bursts, than longer ones. But then this is pop music we're talking about, and, generally, I do think that the best ideas are the ones that aren't overblown or too repetitive or too lengthy to fit well within the context of pop music. Which is not to say there aren't plenty of exceptions I like, but they are the exception & not the rule.


Troy...

>Clearly your view of what punk is is much broader than mine.

Well, I base it on including the stuff that was called punk rock before any of the stuff you mention existed. The best yardsticks that I can see include looking at what was covered by the aptly-titled Punk Magazine, which you say isn't punk, and the book Please Kill Me, ditto. I have my own views on what I consider punk rock & what I consider not punk rock, but if I wasn't sure, I think going on what the people wrote who were there at the time & came up with the term thought it was, rather than the guy who says none of that matters because it isn't GG Allin enuf. No offense...

>Elanor Rigby is most definitely NOT a rock and roll song.

I didn't say it was. But it was a rock and roll RECORD--Revolver. It had the structure of a rock and roll song, not a symphony, in terms of parts. The difference is the instrumentation. But let's say it was chamber pop. Revolver wasn't a chamber pop record, and Eleanor Rigby wasn't a single. It was sold in the rock/pop section of the record store, not in with the chamber music.

>Only a teenager (or someone with the mentality of one) would enjoy a song called "Love Comes in Spurts." Most people would grow out of it by the age of 25 tho.

Interesting. You're familiar with the lyrics, then? I don't know, most teenagers who enjoy abstract poetry are a mighty thin majority, in my experience. You are definitely the first person I've ever seen characterize that song as being juvenile in any way, shape, or form. Something tells me you aren't actually familiar with it.

>Teenagers obssess about bands and songs. By the time they get older tho, they obsess about other, "more important" things like paying the rent and putting their own teenagers thru college.

Yet they still manage to fill the sold-out arenas where dinosaur rock bands do reunion tours.

>40 should be mandatory live performance retirement for rock stars. Listen and create as long as you can, but live performance? Hang it up before you break a hip.

Couldn't disagree more. The live performance isn't the problem, I see no issue with nostalgia. It's when they continue to try to create that causes the problem. For one thing, the live performance compensates them probably more than they ever were from the sales of their records decades ago ever did. For another, if a 'rock star' manages to keep a fruitful career going, it's usually because they shift gears away from 'rock star' music. They do singer-songwriter, they do roots, they do country, they do reggae. They don't, with few exceptions of any note or success, try to make the same record they did when they were in their teens or 20s, or something like it.

>Yes, Bangs called out Reed for sure. Just like you to mention the only real exception. Lester was one drop in a veritable ocean of press that didn't call it like it was.

Ocean of press? Come on, you've got to be kidding. If it actually had been an ocean of press, then that it's one of the few exceptions would actually mean something. Get a hold of some old RS back issues from the mid/late 70s & you tell me how much coverage there is on this stuff. It was way weighted towards California rock, then other commercial strains like Stones/Who supergroups & yes, prog, and very little in the way of punk. Like I said, a Random Note here, a review there, that was about it. And don't think their choice to not cover the stuff much wasn't a factor in so few of these bands being signed--and quite a few (Ramones, Richard Hell, Dead Boys, and, yes, Talking Heads) that were had so few choices that they ended up with Sire, which was a nonentity as far as being a commercial force and was significantly hampered by being aligned with ABC as their distributor. The Ramones, like the VU and of course many other non-punk examples prior, found out what can happen when yr label can't get yr product into the stores.

>Whatever Patti's preceived (by you) influence on REM or the Talking Heads was, it was small in comparison to other influences on these bands.

Yeah. I held a gun to the heads of REM & told them to talk up the Patti Smith influence because I felt it more than they did. Are you kidding?

>And why the hell can't I say BFD becuase I PERSONALLY think the genre she spawned is unimportant in the scheme of rock history?

Then express that opinion in its context, not as a retread of the week 1 thread where it wasn't the influence, or lack thereof, that was discussed, only the merits of those were influenced. Does that seem unreasonable?

[Dusty Chalk]

It's pretty obvious that Johnny Ramone wouldn't have been able to do what Yngwie Malmsteen did, but nobody ever considers that the opposite is probably true as well.That's because it probably isn't.

[3-LockBox]

Credence? Where? Yeah, I remember that avalanche of tour support they got, all the television appearances & guest shots, the massive amounts of records they sold. No. I remember the smirks on the faces of newscasters who covered the fact that this mohawk-wearing, fight-starting, safety-pin-in-cheek-pierced, disgusting punk act had hit America's shores, though. Which of course followed all that attention the NYC scene had inspired in the previous two years.


I was referring more to the revisionism that's gone on over the last ten years or so. When punk first began hitting the national consciousness, the media treated it as the novelty that it was.

Let's face it, music is a novelty anyway. There are some very talented people who get out on that stage, then there are those who rely on theatrics to make up for a lack of either playing or writing ability; and then there are those who rely antics to make up for a general lack of talent. That smearing sh!t comment was more or less about Iggy Pop than Smith or anyone else. I'm not saying that this is limited to punk. Heavy Metal is certainly just as guilty of over the top theatrics and antics (Alice Cooper, Kiss, Motely Crue, etc, etc.). Prog too, I guess (I've never seen a prog act). And, if in the course of the next decade, some critics starts heaping unwarrented praise and importance on the heavy metal scene, I'll debunk that as well. But you're right, if print media decides to place prog on that pedestal, I'll prolly let it ride.

[nobody]

What album was this thread about anyway?

[3-LockBox]

What album was this thread about anyway?

The Beatles - Pet Sounds