Quote:
Originally Posted by boo boo
Well the thing is, The Residents did that avant garde stuff but in a much more accessible and entertaining way, in addition to that they were more diverse and knew what an actual melody sounded like.
Also nobody tries to make them out to be these untouchable poetic geniuses, I'm not saying they were either but goddamn they certainly qualify more than Beefheart does.
I just don't see the genius in a guy chanting out (all the while trying to make his voice sound as obnoxious as possible) words with no real meaning over what sounds like a bunch of instruments being stomped on and beaten with mallets.
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Obnoxious? It's a Howlin' Wolf impersonation. Vliet could crack glass with his voice, and The Residents learned melody over time, they started out knowing basically jack ****. Not a bad start, but you have to understand the difference.
Beefheart was declared a prodigy at an early age, an heiress offered to pay his way into one of he biggest art schools in the country. But this when he still just sculpted for hours on end.
The music isn't just noise, he applies free-jazz elements and delta blues on a avant-garde format not very different from Stravinsky and Reich. His "obnoxious" ramblings also seem to reference everything from the Holocaust to the state of gospel music in the south.
It's not mindless, Beefheart wrote every note, and rehearsed with the band over and over again. And he didn't steal ideas from commercials, which seems to be your standard.