I've been thinking about this all weekend (not this post specifically but rather your whole point).

I'm still not sure I completely understand you. Is it your point that drug exploration and the accompanying music was groundbreaking in the 60's and therefore interesting, and now drugs have been explored and therefore not new and not interesting?

Or is your point more that we know fully about drugs and consequences now and continuing a tradition of hero worshipping drug addicts is foolish?

The latter makes more sense to me than the former.

I'll reiterate this for probably the third time now. My point was not about general drug use and the relevance of the art and music created under its influence. It was about "heroin-influenced, macho, swaggering rock" which is a very specific style of music ("Stonesy") which, yes, has been thoroughly explored and is mostly a dry well at this point. I know a lot of you would disagree with this. I mean, bands can still make great music in that style, provided that they can contribute something worthwhile of their own, but it really isn't going to live up to that "heroin-influenced" style naturally. Artists can artificially try to immerse themselves in that, which at this point would end up seeming more like a foolish parody than an homage. Of course they can pretend, but that is, as I said originally, "put-on bullshit".

The latter point is true as well. I mean, we all love some music that was produced by self-destructive, drug-addled artists. I'm not suggesting that their work shouldn't be admired or that it won't still be a huge influence on everyone. But heroin was always a drug of decadence, and another part of this is that in today's fractured musical climate, decadent rock stars are no longer relevant. Young people will always idolize that sort of lifestyle because it seems free and rebellious, but I think that most mature adults can see through the illusion of that now, especially given the more calculated business model of the modern music industry.

Basically my point was that "heroin-influenced, macho, swaggering rock" does not exist anymore except as play-acting, and how can that every live up to the real thing of the past?

By your standards, the Stones were more of a "put-on bullshit" band than literally 1000's of bands that came after them since really only one person in the band even did heroin (ok, Charlie did briefly, but that was like 1982) and yet they carried on like they were all at death's door on the needle when that could never have been farther from the truth.

But most of the Stones has always been like 90% concocted stagecraft anyways. They were just better at it than anybody in history.

They still came about it more honestly than any band would now.

Music.

So play-acting isn't legitimate? Artists aren't allowed to create characters? What's dishonest about that? How is Lou Reed idolizing Burroughs different than Casablancas idolizing Lou Reed?

Can you reiterate this to me for a fourth time. I'm sorry I'm troubling you to talk about music.

I just find the results uninspired. Too far removed from the source at this point.

I'll ignore your last comment.

Which source?

Results uninspired...So it's an issue of execution? Because it seems to me you're saying the complete opposite of that - no matter how good the results are, the art fails at the conception.

I forgot Daisies of the Galaxies; definitely in my top 30.

The results are uninspired because of uninspired conception. Bringing too little to the table. Working entirely in the shadow of the past without adding enough the present, other than say, superficial things like production values.

Being too far from the source meaning a copy of a copy (of a copy). For far worse examples, see inbred mondern rock monstrosities like Godsmack.

Eveyone has heroes that they're emulating, but there comes a point where dredging up a certain kind of music is just going to feel like stale revivalism. Who's going to make bebop matter in 2009? Lots of things have comeback fads, and while they can be worthwhile, they invariably pale in comparison to the originals (put every incarnation of ska up next to Desmond Dekker, for instance). How much longer can "heroin-fueled macho rock" (or just decadent cock rock, let's say) be stretched out into the future before everyone loses touch with what it was originally about? You can say there's an element of that that people will always be in touch with, but I think that will gradually change and the way that it will be expressed will gradually change.

You guys have far too much time on your hands. Repeat after me:

Good music = Good music
PPDD = PPDD

Okay then, 40 years after the fact can we please put a moratorium on any band emulating Pet Sounds?


Also, mostly I could agree with what you're saying, in that copies are never as vibrant as the originals, but that's not the whole story. Take your example of Desmond Dekker, for instance - personally I find the Specials and, hell, even 3rd wave bands like the Pietasters have pushed that sound much further than Dekker ever did. So some copies aren't mere copies, then. Like, "Stonesy" doesn't necessarily mean "let's be the Stones" (although there could be worse goals, ref. paragraph above), it could mean "let's use the fundamentals of the Stones template as a launching pad" - which just translates that, no matter the genre, there's still good bands and bad.

And it's ALL been done before, so let's just take that notion off the table.

This is true. Also, Dekker just wasn't that great to begin with. He's got a small handful of great songs but even his best of comps are mostly filler.

I guess my problem or where I'm still trying to understand you, Drinking is over a band like Deerhunter (which I like). However, it seems they're completely making music from the Velvet Underground playbook minus the drugs as a subject matter. So while I understand the copy of a copy, and I agree with it to a degree, it seems that's not really your problem (I don't mean this as an insult). So I guess my question is how do you not see Deerhunter as original under your own criteria? In my opinion they are Black Angel Death Song to the Strokes's Sweet Jane.

I think drugs are still a part of Deerhunter's music, actually, just not as overtly.

The difference between Deerhunter and The Strokes for me is partly a style/image thing, and partly a songwriting thing. The Strokes have just always seemed sort of empty to me. They're pleasant enough, and I like them well enough to enjoy listening to them. Deerhunter has a little more mystery and little more actual edge. They're a little darker and a little weirder. Just enough to make it work for me.

It's true that they're pretty unoriginal - originality not really being the big thing that I'm hung up on here - and they may be one of the last bands that can really get away with pulling so heavily from the VU playbook (plus a whole lot of other indie rock and pot punk trends from the past 20 years). I guess I just don't feel like what they're doing has been driven into the ground yet, and I feel like it has a little more of an interesting personality worked into than The Strokes ever did.

You may just "win" this argument by virtue of endurance, though. I can't answer every single thing that's been leveled at me here. I can't give you the rationality behind everything I like and don't like because there really isn't one, just as there isn't one with anyone else, either. Yeah, I attacked a specific kind of music because I find the current practitioners to be pretty boring, and maybe I never really adored the originals that much anyway. Mostly I was just reacting to barrage of hot air that Mick had been spewing all over this place last week, but maybe I've just matched it in my own way.

New edits in bold.


Fallen off the list:
Van Lear Rose loretta lynn 2004
the real new fall lp the fall 2003

To clarify my original point, I wasn't describing the sound of any particular genre-specific music when i used the term "heroin-fueled masculinity" (not machismo, which I consider exaggerated masculinity), I was alluding to the feeling, the motives and the sort of place, artistically, that the music is coming from. It's that incalculable combination of swagger, sex, sadness and beauty.

And lot of good bands getting around can get some of these things going on, but they can't quite touch the face of God.

To use some aforementioned examples, The Strokes can only get the swagger and the sex, while Deerhunter can only manage the sadness and beauty.

I can get with that to an extent. There aren't really any "whole package" bands anymore. At least not in the same way.

You could say that Sonic Youth have encapsulated all those things from time to time. I would say that The Flaming Lips had it in the early-to-mid '90s. Possibly Nirvana or the Pixies. But a lot of bands now do play more into one small niche or another.

Apparently not as fine as you think



haha...this is as much proof as you could want that it really just all comes down to personal taste.

So the fact that you have a differing opinion means that everything just comes down to personal taste?

Of course it does to an extent, but what's your point? No one should make any kind of generalizations about what's good and what's bad? In that case, your and your boys need to go back and edit some posts.

And this has been fun, but I don't see most of you being tirelessly taken to task by 3 or 4 different people for every offhanded comment you make.

I wasn't trying to take you to task, Drink. I wanted to understand your point of view. But as they say, whatever.

I don't know how to explain it any further. I was talking about a fairly specific thing, not an all-encompassing concept for how to define what's good and bad in music.