Music Banter - View Single Post - Trout Mask Replica vs. The Velvet Underground & Nico
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Old 02-19-2012, 05:24 PM   #18 (permalink)
TockTockTock
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Well, I went ahead and voted for Trout Mask Replica. While both are veritably important albums to me and have both garnered about the same amount of listens, I am more inclined to favor TMR due to its innovation and uniqueness. There's so much crammed into the album, and I am always surprised with each listen.

I mean... it's so many different things... It's a sound collage of Beefheart's crazy ideas and his various experiences. It's a record of traditional American music. It features an almost completely unique and different way of composing music. I mean... even the poetry (yes, poetry) behind the album is complex and well thought-out. What other album can boast the lyrical influence of Dadaism, Surrealism, and that of Langston Hughes' use of traditional blues idioms?

Another characteristic of the album that intrigues me is what Fred Frith had said in the 70s... it managed to harness the spontaneity and idiosyncratic aesthetic of free improvisation and convert it into something that was entirely composed and repeatable (aside from Beefheart and his cousin's use of saxophones, musettes, bass clarinets, etc).

I adore The Velvet Underground's debut album, and anyone who knows me knows I do. This was a very difficult choice to make, but Trout Mask Replica wins by a hair... (I would describe my love for The Velvet Underground & Nico, but I feel I have ranted and raved about it enough to where you could find a few throughout the site)



Quote:
Originally Posted by thevelvetunderground3866 View Post
why?
You're asking a person who is relatively obsessed with music to name his favorite artist in the history of music. There are so many genres and so many variations of those genres that it's rather impossible to answer, haha.
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