What the Hell is Wrong With Me?
>>>Now, I consider myself to be a man of delicate tastes and sensibilities. But why is it that I just can’t stand certain musicians generally considered to be works of genius? For instance:
Bob Dylan: Never liked the guy. Never thought he was interesting, hated his songs, found his voice annoying. Don’t like most Dylan covers. I listen to Hendrix do All Along the Watchtower, I think to myself that he should have covered the Sonic’s Strychnine instead—after all, he was a Seattle boy. What the hell is the mystique from this guy? Songs like The Times They Are a Changing (Changin’?) and Joey Joey make me want to barf, and I like a lot of 60’s music. What’s wrong with me? Is it because my parents weren’t hippies? That can’t be it. I’ve tried to like Bob Dylan, lord knows I’ve tried. I’ve actually gotten angry at myself that I don’t like his stuff. I’ve even pretended to like his stuff when my friends get all drunkenly serious and play some Dylan song for me. Sheesh!
Gang of Four: I have that Entertainment! album and I think it sort of sucks. I feel like I should be taking the short bus to the special school in the morning because I don’t like this band! Help! If I can’t bring myself to like a band of post-punk Communists playing neutered funk, maybe I need a tetnus booster or something.
Cream: First of all, Eric Clapton should jerk off alone, like the rest of us. Second of all, ever see the movie “Bring it on”? It was originally called “The Eric Clapton story. The other two guys in Cream can go to hell, too. I liked the Yardbirds a lot, though.
Neil Young: Sounds like a child trapped in at the bottom of a well.
>>>On the other hand, I do like several REALLY questionable musical acts. I make fun of them here, but I can assure you, gentle reader, that I listen to them without a trace of irony.
Public Image Limited: I don’t just like the second album, the one that all you hipsters own, I have EVERYTHING THEY EVER PUT OUT. On vinyl! Even that awful, late-eighties AOR shit that sounded like the Soup Dragons fronted by a castrated vicar. I’ve paid out my fucking ear for these terrible albums, too, that’s the worst part.
DGeneration: Thirty something old men playing glammed-out Hanoi Rocks-ish sounding NYC streetpunk in the mid-nineties. Their second album, No Lunch, is a fucking cornball classic. I’ve listened to it at least once a month for . . . I guess almost a decade now. The singer has the fucking funniest rhymes. For instance, he creates the word “ginamony” to rhyme with “phony.” Hot shit.
Sisters of Mercy: Someday I’ll dress all in black leather and drive a pink hearse through LA at night, and when I do I’ll be glad I have two CDs of cheesy goth metal from these guys. I mean, they had a vision. Their vision was to make music that would be at home in an 80s horror movie about an android cop who goes to battle against of coven of scantily clad witches. And they committed that vision to CD, and it’s great. Bring on the smoke machines and mirrored aviator shades.
August 19th, 2005 at 8:40 am
Neil Young’s an interesting one. Once again Rick, you’ve taken aim at some of my most favorite sacred cows. I’ll try to explain my Neil Young obsession. Yes–his caterwauling can be likened to doomed, well-fallen children, and I can honestly say that his lyrics have never really done anything for me. BUT there is something absolutely timeless and intangible about his best songs. Maybe it’s just nostalgia for hearing “Old Man” on Sunday drives up to my grandparents’ house in New Hampshire, growing up. But it’s real, tough, and uncompromising. “On the Beach” just got issued on CD for the first time a couple years ago, and it’s pretty special.
I’ve been on a Dylan kick a little bit lately, though I’ve never been an obsessive fan. I can definitely sympathize with not liking albums like “Times They Are-a-Changing”, though there are some good songs on there. I always have to go song by song with Dylan. I can’t think of one album that I’m really enamored with of his start to finish.
Cream, on the other hand, can definitely go to hell. I went through a mean Eric Clapton phase in high school, and my high school band covered “White Room” and “Crossroads” with regularity. Or was it just “Crossroads”. Anyhow, it sucked. Oh yeah, not “White Room” but “Sunshine of Your Love”—even fucking worse.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:02 am
Yeah, I thought I was kind getting a little negative vis-a-vis singer-songwriters (if you read my blog, I kind of sound like Andy Rooney), so I offer up fodder like Sisters of Mercy. I mean, have you ever listened to that crap? As a grown-ass man, I have no excuse!