LIMP BIZ PR: "Fred you are blowing up on Twitter!"
FRED DURST: "Oh hells yeah! What happened?"
LIMP BIZ PR: "Well apparently some reporters were confusing you with ROBERT Durst -- a doddering decrepit scion who seemingly admitted to killing three people in an HBO documentary -- so Associated Press had to send out a clarification."
FRED DURST: "Ow! That is hot stuff. Well we gotta keep this train rolling. How soon can we get the shirts printed?"
Does anyone actually mistake Robert Durst for Fred Durst? I can't believe the best publicity this guy has ever gotten is based on the fact that he is NOT the septuagenarian sociopath with whom he has apparently been confused. That shirt should say "NO LONGER THE WORST DURST."
Yep, I knew about the "Woman In Love" rip -- I actually thought the Gibb Bros. had a songwriting credit on that one. It surprises me to see they do not. I was honestly under the impression that Max and Rami had admitted to lifting that melody, to the extent that "Oops" was something of a reference to the Streisand song.
@tdc: I gotcha. FWIW I don't think you'll get too much insight into any rock band's process because there's so much perceived "credibility" attached to the idea that rock artists are auteurs. But there is this wonderful video of Tove Lo (an actual songwriter and recording artist, not a poseur) talking in detail about how "Talking Body" evolved in the studio with her co-workers. BASED ON MY LIMITED EXPERIENCE, I would say this is a fair representation of what I'm talking about in general. I highly, highly recommend watching it if you're interested in the process.
Haha, no, no! Not major label pop; that was my point. I don't want to parse this too intently because I'm not offering specifics, but I was pointedly not talking about pop music; these were guitar-based rock bands of the indie strain. But I'm definitely not trying to say that's true of EVERY guitar-based rock band of the indie strain. I've had very limited experience in recording studios with bands who are making albums with producers, and in that very limited experience, I was surprised -- not in a bad way -- by the degree to which a producer might influence a song's construction. I had previously thought all the producer did was get the right drum sound and demand vocal take after vocal take and fuck with dials behind the soundboard. And I'm sure for some bands, that is all the producer does. But for other bands, the producer is more like an editor or even a director, taking unformed work and helping to shape it in a really fundamental way.
J/k. Nobody whose name would mean anything, I don't think. I don't want to give the impression that the canon of contemporary rock music was actually written by some shadowy cabal of producers. I was just saying it can be a really collaborative partnership, and songs can evolve a lot in the studio, and it's hard to precisely assign credit. Just ask Robin Thicke!
Oh god, come on. Yeah, I was there, upstairs, right on the railing, with Garrett from Texas Is The Reason and my friend Kevin (who was in a band with Garrett called New Rising Sons). I bet I still have the ticket stub.
Who knows? I don't know anything about his personal life or his state of mind when making this announcement. I kinda remember Ryan Adams quitting music a few years ago and obviously that didn't stick, so this could be temporary, too. But, like, maybe there are nights when he's working on a song when he feels like he should be helping his kids with their homework. Or nights when he's helping his kids with their homework when his mind is preoccupied with a song. Maybe he feels like the song isn't getting the attention it deserves, or the kids aren't getting the attention they deserve. Maybe he feels like he could make records in his spare time, but he doesn't see music as a "spare-time" pursuit. (Those Pinback records in particular sound pretty intensely labored-over.) It's impossible to say without more information. But that line about sacrificing his home studio so his kid can have a bedroom kinda gives some context, at least.
I'm a Radiohead fan and I liked this piece a lot, but I'm commenting specifically on the idea of Radiohead's post-OK Computer albums as "easy listening" (or background music) which I think is valid. I first came across that reaction in Robert Christgau's capsule review of Kid A, and it's kind of affected how I've engaged with all their music since then. Said Xgau:
Radiohead: Kid A [Capitol, 2000]
I guess the fools who ceded these bummed-out Brits U2's world's-greatest-rock-band slot actually did care about what bigger fool Thom Yorke had to say as well as how he made it sound. Why else the controversy over this bag of sonics? Me, I'm so relieved Yorke's doing without lyrics. Presaging too damn much but no more a death knell for song than OK Computer was for organic life, this is an imaginative, imitative variation on a pop staple: sadness made pretty. Alienated masterpiece nothing -- it's dinner music. More claret? A-
http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_album.php?id=5231
The Jimmy Eat World / Kelly Clarkson example was the first thing that jumped to my mind too -- that's a pretty blatant and indefensible ripoff IMO -- but even if they were so inclined, I wonder if Jimmy Eat World have the money to mount a suit, or if the KC song generated (or will generate) enough in royalties to make such a suit worthwhile. If that song went to #1 for six straight weeks or something, though, I bet they'd want a piece, and they'd come after a piece, and they'd deserve a piece.
"Bitter Sweet Symphony" is the most egregious example of this that I can recall. The Verve had actually worked out a license in advance of the song's release but Allen Klein decided after the fact -- well after the song had become an international hit -- that their usage of the sample exceeded the agreed-upon terms. The Verve couldn't even fight the suit because the Stones would have bankrupted them simply by tying them up in court for so long, so they settled by handing over ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the song's royalties plus they lost control of their own song's licensing to Klein, which is why it wound up in a Nike ad, for example. It honestly reads like a horror story IMO.
http://www.thevervelive.com/2005/05/bitter-sweet-symphony-controversy-and.html
I knew a lot of people who felt the same way re: Black Album. I still loved it though! Also agree re: Slipknot to an extent. And re: this month's column: Yeah, I would say honestly this is the strongest collection of songs we've ever put together. Glad you enjoyed them too!
That record is fucking INCREDIBLE. I feel personally like I gave it short shrift this month because I got it within days of the new Tribulation, which is maybe one of the 10 best metal albums I've heard in the last five years, but I absolutely give Elder an unequivocal, 100% endorsement. The guitars on that thing are like peak Corgan-level godhead.
Re: Metallica, though: I'll actually even ride for Load a little bit -- that record has some jams! Plus, as I recall, Lars was really stoked on and inspired by Oasis at the time, and I can't blame him for that -- I was a huge Oasis fan, too. Re-Load is pretty indefensible though and St. Anger is maybe even worse. Death Magnetic is totally serviceable and LULU is one of the genuinely strangest records in the history of rock. I don't have high expectations for the new one but I can't wait to hear it.
Yeah but hair metal was more like the other half of a binary in the late '80s: You had "real" metal bands like Metallica and Slayer, and you had the poseur stuff like Poison and Cinderella. I feel like that ecosystem was really healthy for the genre (up to a point) because it encouraged bands on the "real" side to be more adventurous and extreme, and it sort of gave an identity to a whole community of fans. Like, it wasn't depressing to see garbage like Warrant or Pretty Boy Floyd on MTV -- it was fun to clown on them knowing we had stuff like Kreator and Carnivore to back us up. Also, some latter-day hair metal bands were actually good (Love/Hate, Skid Row), some became good when they became something else (Alice In Chains, Pantera), and one of them was a contender for The Best Band In The World (Guns N' Roses). Nu-metal was like a pallor over the entire genre, IMO. And honestly, I would much rather listen to fucking Motley Crue than Staind. But I am gonna stop talking about this topic! There are a lot of people who have positive associations with nu-metal, and I'm not here to make people feel bad about the music they like.
Yeah I agree to an extent but I feel like the Black Album deserves a more nuanced appraisal. Cliff Burton was still a presence on Justice, so Black Album is really the first Metallica album without him in any capacity. And the band basically admitted they didn't want to continue writing faster, longer, more intricate songs, because they had taken that path to its endpoint with Justice. I dunno, Black Album never felt like a betrayal to me; I loved it when it came out, and even though it hasn't aged well, I think it's better than its reputation. After that things got weird, but remember, it was five years between Black Album and Load. I guess I think it's unfair to put the health of the entire genre on Metallica's shoulders, but I also don't entirely disagree with the notion that they deserve some of the blame.
Hey Cody! You're right, the idea that nu-metal "ruined" metal is incorrect. Obviously it did not: Metal today is healthier than it's been since the early '90s. It stained (Staind?) metal pretty bad though IMO. Like I said, I have a longwinded, detailed, probably hysterical and specious argument that I haven't taken the time to explicate, and until I do so, I should probably just shut up about it. But in a way you are kinda proving my point: There is a whole generation of people who grew up with Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot as their youth-defining metal bands. This was after DECADES of evolution from Black Sabbath to Judas Priest to Iron Maiden to Metallica to Slayer to Voivod to Bathory to Celtic Frost to Faith No More to Death to Morbid Angel to whatever, I could name a thousand bands in between and around those. And then, all of a sudden, metal was Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot. For me, as a metal fan, it was embarrassing to be associated with that stuff. But the real crime is, like, I think YOU got ROBBED. You deserved better! And maybe it's generational but I don't think people who grew up on Black Sabbath looked at my generation and said, "Metallica? Slayer? What happened to metal?" But hey, you survived, I survived, metal survived, we're here talking about this stuff. That's what matters.
When I was at Invisible Oranges we published the only positive review of LULU that I've ever read. (I personally thought it was unlistenable but I think the guy who wrote the piece, Alee, made a strong argument.)
http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2011/11/loutallica-lulu/
Yes, it wasn't just that Jethro Tull won -- which was obviously laughable enough -- but they beat Metallica's "One," probably the best heavy metal song ever nominated for this award. Fortunately, Metallica have won a bunch of questionable Grammys since then, righting that wrong several times over via numerous subsequent wrongs.
Just so we're clear, I strongly encouraged Ryan to include Bryan Le Croix & The Loonie Bin's banger "Ottawanna Go To Bed" in this column, and Ryan did not include it, for which I will never forgive him. I don't think he even watched it actually. Don't make the same mistake.
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