Bulldog

4 pretty decent songs there, particularly the Sting one. Given some of the other stuff I listen to quite a bit, it's almost inevitable I'll check some of his stuff out in the not-very-distant future. Really liked that Frogman Henry one too - another one I've never heard of before. As you say, it's 50s jukebox fluff, but still a great little number - I've got a few compilations of that kinda stuff lying, and they're always good to whip out when you don't really know what you particularly feel like listening to.

TheBig3

I've been looking for this one forever. 2 live crew and Prince are Puritans comapraed to this group. I think its proof saying what you're going to do is never as filthy as using horrible metaphors. For this to come out in the 1930's is ridiculous.

If I made a song saying literally what these guys say figurativly I'd be arrested and shot. Hilarious, vile, aweome. Listen and love it.

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TheBig3

I'd like to do this series because I think that people would like a band more if they weren't subjected to the horrible **** that comes on the radio constantly. I also think its good to let people know, from time to time, that their opinions make them arrogant ****s.

First of all, if you don't like the Counting Crows there is likely one of two elements at play:

1. You aren't American

2. You're a douche.

The first is acceptible, the second is not. To my foreign friends, I get not liking them. I don't like the Stone Roses for probably the same reason. But if you're stateside there is no excuse. I say this because its antagonistic and also because its probably fair. But you were likely all things terrible well before you hated Counting Crows.

I've heard tons of reasons from friends. "I hate Adam Durtiz hair", "They sound like pussies", "Friends sucked." I'll give you two of those, but the band is immesly talented and I think it would be unfair to let them die witha front man who made some bad fashion choices. (God knows we haven't penalized Bowie for similar).

What you've probably heard:
Mr. Jones
Hanging Around
Around Here

Theres nothing particularly wrong with these songs but the can (and often) do pitch the bands sound in a direction that doesn't represent them terrible well. They've been accused of godfathering the lighter emo sound into popular culture being covered live by Dashboard Confessional and (i think) Brand New. And unless you were alive and awake in 1996 you probably haven't head "long december" but thats guilty too.

But the band has a strong folk element that isn't displayed in most of the radio-friendly work that I think give the Crows an advantage over the traditional pat-rote garbage that was a peer in the 90's (Live, Stroke 9, Goo Goo Dolls).

What you should try:
Omaha
Ms. Potters Lullabye
Colorblind
Rain King
Holiday in Spain
Anna Begins*

If I haven't convinced you to try their music, then take a half a step toward them with these covers....

Friend of the Devil (The Greatful Dead)
Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
The Ghost in You (Psychedelic Furs)

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Astronomer

Colorblind is one song which can completely move me emotively. I love that song so much; cannot get enough of it. I like Counting Crows, but to be honest I haven't really heard a whole lot of their stuff other than This Desert Life. Now I'm tempted to finally check out more.

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TheBig3

So you heard "Ms. Potters Lullabye" then, yes? What did you think of it. If not their best song, its easily in the top 3.

Personally I think its a crowning achievement, but I really like those long, rambling (musically), songs with vague subject matter.

I feel like Bright Eye's "Cassadega" & Neil Youngs "I'm the ocean" is like that too.

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TheBig3

When you claim to like "roots music", to me it says you've decided on sound over style. That your acts would do better, if they want your money, to record their songs ona front porch with acoustic instruments. That the power going out in the middle of the show is irrelevent.

But too often, "roots" is in the same boat as this stupid retro-trend that has overtaken the hispter population. Dressing up like a pin-up girl, or some turn of the century yokel - its bad enough when it doesn't effect the music I love.

Too often losing msic from the 20's means attempting to sound just like them. Somehow, I think they lost the message.

I know guys who play guitar without a pick because it sounds more authetic. While I think thats a little extream, it does illustrate the unspoken benefit of the front porch concert - its fairly honest. The sounds aren't perfect, the voices don't auto-tune, and musicians learn to adapt to mistakes, failures, and "what song is this again?"

I tend to blame any guy who has a crush on zooey deschanel. its not an accurate system, but its a nice way of cutting through a large amount of frauds in one shot. To me its comprable to Applebee's. Lets not bother creating an atual atmosphere and character to each restaurant nation wide, lets just put a bunch of rusty sleds and tricycles on the wall and call ourselves rustic.

The point is honesty in total, and we're being fed, partially by corporate cahs-ins (but thats to be expected) and the other portion is by a rebellious angry sect of the population who wants to take a shot at modern, capitalistic America. A drive to return to a simpler time, a way to physically express that "things were better then." But this in your face prophetering is as obnoxious as it is wrong. As evident as they'd like their opinions to be, its even more evident that their hollow shells of people with short-sighted reactionary theory.

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Astronomer

I do love "Mrs. Potter's Lullabye" in fact that is probably my second favourite to Colorblind... I just love really haunting, sad songs. You're right, rambling is a good way to describe Mrs. Potter's Lullabye. I love the driving piano in that song too... and the lyrics. Good band. I need to get more albums I think.

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Exeggcute :3

The strips are beast, Elephant is an excellent album. I don't really know why the question "Are the White Stripes metal" even needs to be asked to be honest, I don't think I've seen one single element of any song that has made me think that they could be metal. That said, I haven't listened to their earlier stuff or their later stuff, just Elephant and White Blood Cells.

They are quite quirky, though. Song like "This Protector," "In the Cold Cold Night," "I think I smell a Rat," as examples are all very different, and I'd be tempted to place them in the Alternative genre rather than the Rock genre based on those songs alone. Very interesting band, at least

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TheBig3

I’ve been told that my musical taste is eclectic bordering on indiscriminate. In seemingly unrelated news, I’ve also been told I’m very hard to watch movies, television shows, or listen to the radio with. The inference in tone and fits proximity to my own statements suggest its because I’m highly critical of most everything to do with art. I refute nothing.

Having said that it might be slightly vexing to know that I not only listen to pop music, but enjoy it to a large degree and will often prefer it to music I generally own. This audience isn’t something I’ve procured through romantic entanglement or occupational hazard.

I’d once known a man who claimed that Xanax was like a “reset button” for life. Similarly, I find pop music a sort of respite for a critical mind, which is no disparaging commentary but rather a compliment to its clear philosophical vision; The veritable post-wine cracker at the tasting. Where many make the mistake of seeing compliment become insult is in believing that there is no virtue in striving for simple goals (which much of pop most certainly does) and that without risk, music can’t simply be worth the listen.

While a good deal of the flack is given for the genres fan base, this is more of a lesson in psychology and sociology which no one has neither the time to listen, nor the patience to put up with my lecturing. While its certainly a large and valid topic, for the purposes of explaining myself, lets suffice with the idea that any disgruntled attitude toward anyone who listens to the music has no bearing on, nor should be calculated into the worth of the genre.

But just as in life where we cannot all be chemical engineers, neither, too, can all music push the very bounds of what is collective commonplace in the world of Western Popular Music. The tiny gears of the world are as vital to the machine as the engine or the fuel, and any value found in one or the other is nothing more than rationalization created to suit ones own vision of the economy of things.

At this point it might be hard to discern how this is a favorable comment (or how it was intended to be) at all. It has to do with, I suppose, my own vision of how things ought to be. Do we view music as a finished masterpiece to be reviewed plainly without the assumption changes were possible? A sort of divined and unwavering truth that was born in tact? Or do we conclude what I believe most would have found themselves bereft of the linguitical baggage that would come with this topic and conversation, that music is an ever-flowing muse, created to inspire rather than to be evaluated? The suppression fire that allows advancement; the felled tree that fertilizes the fallow earth?

President Kennedy once said, “Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.” I find pop music to occupy that same position. Just a simple machine, whose operations learned in youth allow the complications of the adult world to be dismissed to the subconscious where all brilliance springs from, while the conscious mind unravels and heals from all the vexing bulwarks of a life with responsibilities.
In short: without simplicity now and again, there is no hope for the complexity that would satisfy our more critical thirst.

This position and its logic are obviously not airtight. Room for interpretation is till to soil. But the alternatives should always be presented if only to strengthen the opposition through the questioning that comes with debate. While many who relish the higher register complexities of progressive pieces might begrudgingly give pop its place, those willing to move in new directions will always be ready to start back at the bottom. Even if it means relearning those lessons of youth, as basic as they are, as frustrating as it might be to have to learn them again.

To take a line from Caddyshack: “The world always needs ditch-diggers too.”

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Freebase Dali

Great writeup. Is that from your blog?