Montag, 4. Mai 2009, 19:46
Yes, I thought I'd have a go at this as well. Why do all the artists I listen to most actually suck? Why is none of them more than a guilty pleasure or a snobby badge of intellectualism?
Ah, yes. The folk "duo" that got immortalized by making just one good album. "Duo" because it's really just Paul Simon who decided to give his background singer an equal role. Well, officially. In a duet with Joan Baez he actually says "way better than Artie". But that's not because Baez is good, just that Garfunkel is unbelievably bland. And that's basically what Simon & Garfunkel boils down to. Sound of Silence? Heck, compared to that song silence is a rollercoaster ride. John Cage writes more catchy tunes. Bridge over Troubled water is vaguely obscene, but that's about it. Singing a song slower doesn't make it better, it just makes you zone out.
19) Moxy Früvous
Seriously? Moxy Früvous. They think that just because they're Canadian anything they do is funny. Oh haha we make a song about a video store. Hilarious! Let's make it the Album title! And singing about superheroes is not tongue in cheek, it just shows you don't have any ideas of your own. And I really don't care how you came to live in Canada after being royalty in Spain. But I imagine the Spaniards got bored of your so called off-beat goofyness.
18) Randy Newman
Randy Newman has written two songs: the sensitive ballad with the "the world sucks" lyrics, and the humpty dumpty swinging song with the "I am a jackass" lyrics. Well guess what Randy: I'm not sure if the world sucks, but you sure are a jackass.
17) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
First of all: what's with the "and the Bad Seeds"? Who do those guys think they are? The Mothers of Invention? The Wailers? I've been to a Nick Cave show actually, and I don't recall a moment where I noticed those Bad Seeds doing anything special.
Nick Cave has a deep voice, which makes you think his lyrics are deep. Well, I'll give him that they are unusual, but unusual doesn't make deep. If you accept that the topic will be the paranoid doubt of love, life and sanity, the lyrics are as vapidly direct as Britney Spears lyrics. "People just ain't no good" isn't deep, it's just pathetic. "Where the wild roses grow" isn't deep, just creepy. You get the idea.
16) Jacques Brel
Ah, here we come to the first real snobby badge. Well, first of all, Brels renditions are way over the top. He just tries too hard. And all the violins mask any authenticity, if it ever was there. Because are you really telling me this Belgian guy who actually preferred to act wrote all those classically covered songs? Come on, he obviously had a ghostwriter. Who should have given the songs to Dutch and German artists right away.
15) Creedence Clearwater Revival
It's a sad state of affairs when a list with multiple comic artists features a non-comic artist with the most ridiculous name. I'm sure there's some sort of hilarious story behind it, but I don't care. It sounds like a wedding band.
Creedence can play, make no mistake about that. But they seem to carry too much baggage of the sixties without really making full use of it. Somewhat psychedelic lyrics, but not really. Somewhat politically involved, but not really. And the most mysterious songs are about "rain". Well guess what, Bob Dylan already made a meaninglessly mysterious song about rain.
Composer has a son, who isn't just an able musician, but also writes symphonies as a toddler. Seriously? Did anybody buy this hoax? "Amadeus" didn't paint too negative a picture of Mozart, but much too positive. I don't believe he ever wrote as much as a piano sonata, he was just a "boy composer" of the eighteenth century.
13) James Taylor
OK, this is genuinely embarrassing. No, there's no area between folk and country where one can pass as a "singer-songwriter". The only difference between folk and country is that the latter is too slick and vapid. And Taylor is not folk, not by a long shot.
12) Johnny Cash
Well, if folk is good then Cash must be good right? Wrong. Cash is the original gangster rapper. 2Pac and Ice-T got the public outcry Cash deserved. Did he stick up for them? I don't think so.
11) Leonard Cohen
See Nick Cave.
What's that? Cohen's lyrics are better? No, they're just more complicated. "Nobody has told us yet what boogie street is for", what does that mean? Well, as Homer Simpson said "It doesn't mean anything! It's like 'ramalamadingdong' or 'give peace a chance'!"
10) Hans Teeuwen
Doing weird voices does not equal humor. Pretending to be a complete moron is humor, but really grade school humor at best.
9) Eels
"Oh my life has been so hard, because my father was a brilliant scientist." Well, guess what: your father's theory is "controversial", in other words complete bogus. And how could you think that "Eels" is sorted after "E"? Obviously weirdly working minds are hereditary. And we get it, you have a glockenspiel. Ha. Ha. Ha.
8) Dan Bern
Ok, singing about superheroes, as lame as it is, goes way beyond singing about celebrities. "I wish I was Tiger Woods"? Yeah Dan, I also wish you were Tiger Woods. Because then you would be an awesome golf player instead of a lousy singer.
7) Tom Waits
Someone else commented that Tom Waits's voice is too horrible to listen to, that we just get used to it. It's actually much worse than that: his voice masks the fact that his compositions are cornier than Green Day's.
6) Donovan
Well, at least I mostly listen to the psychedelic Donovan, not the earlier folksy one. Just too bad that nobody ever actually called Donovan "mellow yellow". Seriously, not once.
5) Bob Dylan
One thing one has to give Bob Dylan credit for: the way he gives credit to those who inspired him. The question is, by now, why do we still listen to him and not the geniuses who inspired this pop-idol?
4) Dire Straits
For 500 euros: tell me a member of the Dire Straits whose name does not begin with "Mark Knopfle". Yeah the piano solo on Telegraph Road is pretty cool, but who did it? Who cares? And making songs fifteen minutes long doesn't mean they're good, it just means you think long solos are better than short solos.
Apparently something is funny about these sketches, because the guys themselves keep cracking up while doing them. Maybe they just smoked a lot of pot each time they recorded them (or during?). Anyway, whatever comic effect there might have been is lost in that sloppy delivery.
2) The Beatles
In twenty years, do you really think people will be listening to the Backstreet Boys? Then why are we listening to the Beatles now?
1) Tom Lehrer
Most of his songs are based on Gilbert & Sullivan. He doesn't seem to understand the first rule of parody: don't parody comedy, ever. Nor the second rule of parody: parody is the lowest form of wit.