Livening up the music forum part 2: Pink Floyd

Thank God someone else dislikes the pretentious guff like Pink Floyd. I say this as a former owner who sold his vinyl to idiot friends at school.

I could never understand the interest in this navel focused music when punk/new wave came roaring in.

Please feel free to flame the non-believers

Well CPeter

I'm going to patronise you now by saying, "Well, I can tell you're new around these parts."

I mean, Pink Floyd are crap. Hardly controversial, is it? DSOTM boring. Well... so what? The Floydd are one of those groups you either get or you don't. Critical opinion has always been equivocal when it ccomes to da Floyd, is likely to always be so.

If you wanted to liven up the forum, how about slaughtering a few sacred cows? Those "must have" records that nobody actually really likes? Those absurdly overrated artists?

I have in the past got this forum's more prissy members going by daring to suggest that Van Morrison's a piggy-eyed talentless drongo; that the Pogues make dismal student music, barely up from the Wonder Stuff in the musical evolutionary scale; that Dexy's Midnight Runners are bombastic poseurs; that Paul Weller is a hopeless and bitter mod wannabe; that Springsteen's endless sweaty striving for blue-collar authenticity is the most depressing sound ever created, etc etc.

You get the picture?

What about the fact that REM are the most pretentious, overrated bunch of pricks to emerge in the past couple of decades? That "Everybody Hurts" and "Losing My Religion" are embarrassingly twee examples of overwrought priggishness?

Kevin

(Off to listen to the Floyd's "Ummagumma" - now there's a good acid album...

Hi Kevin,

My turn to be patronising:

There's really no need to get so upset; all in good jest.

To put my post in context: There is a topic in the padded Cell asking what new members thought of this forum, when I answered something along the lines of 'music room could be a bit livelier', I was challenged to liven it up.

It got you going...

Agree on Van Morrison, Paul Weller and worst of all Springsteen. You forgot to mention Steely Dan.

Listening to Sasha - Involver

rgds,
Peter

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kevin-W:
(Off to listen to the Floyd's "Ummagumma" - now there's a good acid album...
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And you could only seriously want to listen to this plodding drivel when you were off your face on hallucinogenics.
Several small public schoolboys gathered together in a room with "Saucerful of Secrets" anyone ?

Then of course there was New Order, how could a group that was 3/4 of Joy Division be so crap?

Led Zeppelin - overblown pretentious guff, not a patch on Queen of course


continued p 94

And the Clash - one guilty public schoolboy + Keef wannabe + pretty boy bassist + smack-addled drummer = overrated plodding punk/reggae fusion combo, not a patch on the Pistols or even those loveable clowns the Damned.

Or Marvin Gaye - sweet-voiced but vapid soul singer peddling an unholy brew of socio-environmental platitudes and coke-fuelled sex.



Kevin

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kevin-W:
[Clash]
overrated plodding punk/reggae fusion combo, not a patch on the Pistols or even those loveable clowns the Damned
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You really are now exiting the orbit of critical reality. Have you just dropped a 'tab' ?

quote:

Originally posted by seagull:
Led Zeppelin - overblown pretentious guff, not a patch on Queen of course

A pox on all of you I say!

Although I have to agree on the Steely Dan suckiness.

Back in the garage with my bullshit detector...

The total crap that is is Morrisey/the Smiths and Oasis.


Howard

quote:

Originally posted by Malky:
______________________________________________-
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kevin-W:
[Clash]
overrated plodding punk/reggae fusion combo, not a patch on the Pistols or even those loveable clowns the Damned
________________________________________________
You really are now exiting the orbit of critical reality. Have you just dropped a 'tab' ?

Certainly not! I take it you disagree then? I think the Clash are OK, but no better than that. And Strummer was a great bloke etc but the music he produced from "Cut The crap' onwards was painful. Like I said, not as good as the Pistols or Damned; better than The Jam and Eater, I grant you, but not even fit to lick Joy Division's boots. Or those of The Slits, Banshees, Gang Of 4, etc etc.

Compared to the last four acts listed, the Clash really do seem like clodhopping farmers' boys, all empty bombast and stencilled slogans wedded to an often pedestrian rock format. Their attempts at non-rock forms (with the honorable exception of "Police & Thieves" and the namedroppy "White Man In Hammersmith Palais") are usually excruciatingly embarrassing.

As for their much-vaunted radicalism, the most radical acts of the era were Throbbing Gristle and, possibly, The Slits (think about it).

And all that outlaw chic really is laughable...



K

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kevin-W: the Clash really do seem like clodhopping farmers' boys, all empty bombast and stencilled slogans wedded to an often pedestrian rock format. Their attempts at non-rock forms (with the honorable exception of "Police & Thieves" and the namedroppy "White Man In Hammersmith Palais") are usually excruciatingly embarrassing.

As for their much-vaunted radicalism, the most radical acts of the era were Throbbing Gristle and, possibly, The Slits (think about it).

And all that outlaw chic really is laughable...
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Agree, to a point. However, appearing at the seminal 'Rock Against Racism' carnival when the nazis were posing a serious threat was more than empty rhetoric. To a lesser degree, how many other bands would release a triple album (whether you like the music or not) and insist a major label retail it for the price of a single album ?
'Cut the Crap', agree, totally iredeemable. Why couldn't they just leave it at Combat rock ?
To get back to the original topic of this thread, give me rocking casbahs, getting lost in supermarkets and white riots anytime over some git whingeing about walls and hanging on in desperation. Does anyone seriously (I mean seriously) think stuff like 'Atom Heart Mother' or 'Obscured by Clouds' is remotely listenable.
Clash, Pistols, Jam etc... Love 'em or hate 'em, they just had to come along and blow all that 'progressive' shite out of the way.

Malky, I really do love Atom Heart Mother & Obscured By Clouds. I never could stand the Clash and the Pistols personally. It was more Goth punk for me like The Damned and Siouxsie & the Banshees at the time, but they just ended up sounding stale eventually and Siouxsie even ended up sounding like prog rock anyway by the time they finished, along the lines of the mainstream that came out of it all like Simple Minds.
Jam? Paul Smeller? What a tosser! You gotta be kidding me. If you like the Jam, then what about The Who?
Go on then...go on then....

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quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
Jam? Paul Smeller? What a tosser! You gotta be kidding me. If you like the Jam, then what about The Who?
Go on then...go on then....

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What about the Who ? I've never been a huge fan but there is certain stuff I like. I've said it before, the 'forget about the Jam, listen to the Who. Forget about the Pistols, listen to the Stooges' line just goes ever further back down the line
i.e. forget about the Who, listen to James Brown,Marvin Gaye, Solomon Burke, Four Tops etc..... all the way back to when some caveman first discovered he liked the sound of hitting a hollow log with a stick.
I think Weller's songwriting with the Jam was more than just pastiche of his musical heroes. He created a music in which you could hear all the best influences of Black American music, English Mod and Beatles and welded it to the vibrancy of punk. Solo career, absolute shite, I would really recommend the Small Faces rather than solo Weller in this case.
Re; Atom Heart Mother and Obscured By Clouds, as that cartoonist guy says to John Lennon in the 'Imagine documentary, it's not for me to forgive you, it's for your psychiatrist.
Malky

I fail to see why anyone would want to critcise the creativity of others.
Perhaps when you have written and performed your own 'music' then perhaps you have the right to say that someone elses work is pretencious guff.

Other than that, a right to express ones opinion should not mean that its ok to denegrate others. Apart from that i doubt if messrs Waters, Gilmore, Mason and Wright are exactly losing any sleep over this inane drivel.

quote:

Originally posted by Malky: it's not for me to forgive you, it's for your psychiatrist.
Malky

Trouble is, it's a long enough session as it is.

quote:

From MarvinTPA I fail to see why anyone would want to critcise the creativity of others.
Perhaps when you have written and performed your own 'music' then perhaps you have the right to say that someone elses work is pretencious guff.

I agree and have posted similar previously but it dosn't stop the sniping.

This time I thought I might as well join in.

I don't really give a toss if people don't like my music. Like views on other makes of CDPs etc the views have no constructive critisism just the "they are dogshit" or something equally informative.
I don't like Opera but it's not crap I just don't like it (same goes for Morrissey/Smiths/Oasis) AFAIAC.

Howard

Sorry Marvin and bigH, but this really is self-righteous nonsense. If an artist creates a piece of work and places it in the public domain, it is perfectly legitimate to criticise the work and even slag it off. I happen to think that PF is rank mediocrity masquerading as
profound commentary on alienation and is musically unimaginative, you may disagree but I won't desist from this view for reasons of politeness. Whether I have created art to match is completely irrelevant. Have a look at the title topic of this thread.

Malky,

You certainly have the "right" to criticise or slag off or whatever.

Can you offer a quote from one of the Floyds describing their music as "profound commentary"? It is certianly commentary. Do you believe that the the writing is insincere? The point of view phony? If so, can you offer examples? From The Wall? Animals? Wish You Were Here? Others?

You refer to the band's output as "musically unimaginative". What does this mean? What constitutes imaginative music? Why?

If livening up the forum means pissing on this band or that band "just because", the "discussions" are going to be pretty short.

Maybe irrelevant.

DCT

The brill thing about pop music is, it's that it is recognised as essentially democratic; what I mean is, your environment and taste determine what is cool for you or not.

There's no bad music, only bad people!

...only kidding. one thing I do is try always to have an open mind about new music; although I have my standards, I'm desperate to find new music to love. To me, much decent new pop seems a re-tread of old stuff I've liked (Jet); original new pop often seems like it's straining to be different/weird for the sake of being different/weird (Scissor Sisters).

Roger Waters said something years ago that changed the way I judged music; I really took this to heart. He said "The only thing that matters [with pop music] is: does it move you, or not?" After this, I no longer forced myself to try and like music the critics insisted I should like: Velvet Underground, Nirvana, the Stooges, REM, rap, techno, whatever. I revel in my white, suburban, grey-haired Boomer taste in music: the Beatles (always #1 in my book), Procol Harum, XTC, the Kinks, the Who, ELP, Moody Blues, ELO, etc. ...

...oh, and Pink Floyd!

As another grey-haired (well, what's left of it is going that way) individual I think that with relatively few exceptions the music you love when you're growing up will always touch you more than any other. For that reason I can see why those of other generations won't have the passion for the likes of DSOTM as those of us (not from a public school I might add) who have memories from when the stuff was released. For all the great music currently on offer (can't stop playing the Killers at the moment for example) none of it will likely etch itself onto my soul ...

Let's not forget that PF did more to popularise our hi-fi hobby than any other band. Punk hardly encouraged you to upgrade your system did it.

quote:

Wanker music and then some; don’t like it, never liked it. DSOTM most be the most boring album ever, well after The Wall that is. Didn’t you just hate your schoolmates who were into PF? The so-called ‘better music’ lovers.

Discuss

A pointless and negative post.

Are PF lovers expected to experience an epiphany, and think - "Hey he's right - their music is crap"

I don't like quiche - shall I start a thread on the subject?

John.

Have to admit that I don't mind the DSOTM for sentimental reasons. ( old fart alert! )

I used to have their records up to 'Wish you were here' and stopped. I can't get on anything they've done after that.

Going back to vinyl recently, somehow, I am not compelled to add their records (yet again!) to my collection.

quote:

Listening to Sasha - Involver

Peter,

An excellent choice.
did you get the special edition Involver LP?