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You know that introductory part of music, that part before they get to the actual song? Every time I hear Coldplay, I swear that all they ever perform is the intro, never ever getting to the actual song, then stop playing before they ever actually get to the meat of the song.
Coldplay’s best work is the minute where the grocery store music is faint enough that I think they’re playing Kraftwerk before I recognize it and drive to another grocery store.
highly entertaining, all; thanks for the #GenX flashbacks/chuckles
Ahem…
“Flame suit on”
HAIR METAL WILL NEVER DIIIIIIIIIIE!!!!
Driving home tonight, listening to the radio (yeah, my cars are that old), and Rainbow in the Dark comes on. Made my whole day.
I still love the whole Britpop/Shoegaze era. Charlatans are one of my all time faves. Had crushes on Bilinda Butcher, Miki Berenyi, Toni Halliday…
Good times.
I thought I had seen My Bloody Valentine live, but I just checked my ticket stub archive (actually my Gmail) and saw that it was The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The Prids, and The Courtneys. And it was only $19.
Cool story, I know.
The most amazing part of David’s comparison of Coldplay to The Beatles, is when he was calling Coldplay’s songs “bangers.” I mean, even if you like slow whiney downtrodden music to overdose on heroin to, even if that is your thing … no Coldplay song could ever be labeled a “banger.”
I mean, how much molly would you have to be rolling, to start headbanging to Coldplay? Enough that you won’t survive, that’s how much.
Coldplay’s music was once described to me as music computers would create to make fun of humans.
BWAHAHAHA!
YES!!!
Oh, and Don Henley was an asshole.
Asshole or nowadays Misunderstood Genius! That won’t be a deal-breaker for me, I’ll still crank Get Over It
I heard that, too. But his voice is gold and he not only knows how to write a hit song, he knows how to recognize a hit song. Examples: Boys of Summer was a Mike Campbell demo rejected by Petty; he flew to Nashville to put backing vocals on Walkaway Joe by Tricia Yearwood before she was anybody. He might be a grumpy genius.
I have finally come up with a a new perfect name for Coldplay: Anodyne
As much as I love David and Adrian, both of them have very warped perspectives on the Beatles.
Jesus David! There NEVER was any Coldplaymania or Tribute Shows. Frankly, it’s just a weird take. We get that you
likedloved them and that they were a bit popular, but there is just no comparison whatsoever. They will fade into history as a footnote at best.Adrian’s take is also strange in that it completely ignores ALL of their later work. It’s as if they just stopped making music in 1966 and that was it. Sure they were crackers, but they were aware of it and tried to grow. I’ve mentioned Helter Skelter before as the prime example of that growth. Adrian, can you please just forgive them for their early pop work? They quite understandably wanted a modicum of success and thus played to their audience. I mean, they were listening to Chuck Berry, not Pat Boone for Christ’s sake. Again, it was by choice and circumstance. Swinging back to Helter Skelter, McCartney wrote it, and then just over a decade later wrote the pop crime ‘Coming Up’ (I still have the 45 I bought way back when). I can’t think of a bigger artistic contrast than that. These guys knew what they were doing and you should probably give them some credit for that. In 1969 George was recording Out of the Blue. Maybe listen?
Comparing Coldplay to the Beatles should probably be a felony, or at a minimum a misdemeanor. I too am a white guy who owns a guitar but I’m not comparing myself to the Beatles.
I also don’t accept any of the Beatles slander, but hating The Beatles has been cool to do for quite some time now. I can sort of understand it, Boomers relentlessly stuffed The Beatles down a lot of subsequent generations throats, and most people tend to hate that. Edit: Now that I think of it, Adrian probably hates The Beatles for a lot of the same reasons he hates the Beetle.
I’m like the Beatles in that I’m judged for my hair before I open my mouth.
I’d never heard “Out of the Blue,” but to me the back half just sounds like George covering the Stones’ “Monkey Man.” My dad and wife are Beatles fans but neither go in much for what they did after, so I know diddly squat about George right up through the Traveling Wilburys and that one Top 40 song he did in like ’88 that I dare not think too hard to name lest it get stuck in my head again. But I’m sure he knew what he was doing, in any rate.
And Beatles music is definitely all over the place from a genre standpoint (after, as you point out, their early phase), so I’ve never doubted their merit; like, they made a lot of music, but little of it sounded same-y the way all the Stones sounds like the Stones, or AC/DC, or Abba, or any number of acts. Kinda like Ween and They Might Be Giants, maybe (I’m sure those bands would appreciate the comparison).
End of the Line probably. Good tune IMO.
The boys each did some good work on their own. It’s probably worth the effort, again, IMO.
You make a great point about Out of the Blue. It made me realize George probably should have joined the Stones. Although that might have meant no Ronnie Wood which would be a serious shame.
Everyone has their own taste, and thank goodness for that.
The LCD Soundsystem guy has all the vocal savvy and appeal of a small dog being kicked.
I often find myself drawn to bands with objectively shitty vocalists.
But I’ve also been going through a Phish-based midlife crisis so clearly I have a Keith Richards-level tolerance for unappealing vocals.
I am a Dead Head. Objectively shitty vocals have been an integral part of my life since about oh, 1980-something. I loved Jerry, but his voice really suffered from those cigarettes and needles.
I’ve said it elsewhere but I’m convinced that everybody who extolls the virtues of LCDS does so because they saw them live at the perfect moment for them and it CHANGED THEIR LIFE. Like at the old AV Club they talked about that group so often that I accidentally learned James Murphy’s name. Personally I don’t get it, but I tell myself it’s like Ministry for people who don’t like guitars. (I know early Ministry is Ministry for people who don’t like guitars, but for me the sun rises and sets with Psalm 69, and compositionally and vocally that ain’t far off what LCDS I’ve heard.)
Also Into Dust is the best Mazzy Star make out track and Toni Halliday is on my Future Wives list.
The best make out track of the 90’s was Secret Smile by Semisonic.
I may be biased – whenever I hear that song it brings back vividly detailed memories of a specific time and place, back when life felt much simpler. I tend to cherish that, since I’ve lost most of my clear memories from then at this remove of years. Music has that superpower.
I liked the dual take Beetle articles, it should be repeated. I have no skin in the game regarding Beetles. I’m late Gen-X, they were still seen on the roads in my childhood, but not everyday common. Your could hear them from a mile away, that distinctive engine note is burned into my brain. At the same time, I’ve never driven or even ridden in one. All of us in high school had clapped out ’80s domestic product or ’70s land barges. J-cars ruled the day. In college I was introduced to ’80s Japanese cars (superior in all but rustproofing). Truth is, the Beetle was a curious anachronism for most of my life. I do want to drive one at some point and can see the appeal.
You and I must be contemporaries, my guy. Note my 70’s land barge HS ride in the picture.
I rode in a beetle once, someone I went to high school had one for a short period. The one real memory I have of it was that it smelled like hot grease and dirt, just like an old tractor.
I’ve always wondered what Adrian thinks of French-connected stuff like Portishead or Stereolab (which just put out a new album after like a decade, and yet sounds exactly the same)…
I’m going to guess he’s either neutral or somewhat good with both. Personally I love Portishead.
Portishead is the other Gen X make out band. So yes of course I love them.
Massive Attack?
Massive Attack is what you play on your way to breakfast the next morning.
Mezzanine, especially Angel or Teardrop for when you are sealing the deal.
Objectively correct.
Portishead rules.
Britpop in general is pretty trash.
OK Computer is a generational masterpiece.
25% of Elton John’s career is GOAT. The rest is embarrassing.
I’ll be here all week AMA
That High Fidelity reference has got me wondering if Adrian and Cusack’s character aren’t the same person.
I like to think I’m more the Jack Black asshole.
The inclusion of Losing my Edge is the most relevant thing ever to this conversation. I like to listen to it whenever I feel like my taste in music is superior to that of my friends. It somehow manages to both put me in my place, and remind me that I’m still cooler than them because I listen to LCD Soundsystem.
But I’m losing my edge to better looking people with better ideas and more talent. And they’re actually really really nice.
Love that line!
Props to Adrian for that Diamanda Galas shoutout. I was never big on shoegaze unless Lush or Ladytron count, or the Charlatans… Anyways, lemme know when you guys go on an 80s metal/90s alternative rant. I’ll have more to contribute then 😉
I have a feeling that’s a loooooong dance card.
My tastes pretty much begin with Killing Joke and Iron Maiden and end with Faith No More and Mr Bungle.
Add some 90s punk to that mix and the comment section will get realllllly long.
Lush and Ladytron are not shoegaze my god are you drunk or high.
I neither imbibe nor partake and have always considered Lush alternative and Ladytron electronic but I have heard folks list both of those bands when talking about shoegaze. Even the Wikipedia article on shoegaze mentions them but neither of them sing whiny bed wetter music.
Those folks are idiots.
That we can agree on
Oh, man… when Suede was posted in The Morning Dump, we had a bit of a comment conversation about how they were done dirty with the video choice. That first studio album was my goddamned jam when I was sixteen. (I was a record store nerd for a long while… maybe 21-28 years old?) I mean, there are excellent music references on this site in places. Another Morning Dump was about versions of Mack the Knife, and I had to that day order a vinyl copy of September Songs.
I just love the Brit Awards performance because they’re so out of place, but we could definitely have more Suede around here.
Lol. Radiohead is awesome… and if you want your mind blown, listen to Creep, then listen to The Air That I Breathe by The Hollies. They ripped it off accidentally at first, but decided to lean into it.
I’m the oldest guy in my band, so I get made fun of a lot for my musical taste. I was genuinely shocked when I showed them the bass line to Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer and half of them hadn’t even heard of it.
Don’t even mention King Crimson!
All new riffs are old riffs. Not an instrumentalist but I hear it all the time.
Nah, I get why people say that but it just means they’re not listening to enough stuff. Bands like Deathspell Omega or Ephel Duath have written riffs unlike other riffs before them.
Love to Love from UFO’s Lights Out album might be a blast from the past too. We’re the other side of “there’s no good music anymore”. Brother Where You Bound should replace Hail to the Chief nowadays
Holy crap you guys just made my Friday with all this (and all the videos)! At least DT knows the Don Henley version instead of the 2003 version (“Black Flag sticker”).
Also, not to diminish the effect of OK Computer, but The Bends is my favorite Radiohead album. But it came out freshman year of college, so I admit it’s difficult to judge objectively.
My claim to cool is that when The Bends came out, I saw Radiohead live at a tiny venue called Sailor’s Union of the Pacific. Before such a thing became rapidly impossible.
That is very cool and also yes, basically impossible now.
I saw Radiohead after a number of attempts, finally in 2008 at All Points West in Jersey City. I had been released from a 5 day stint in the hospital recovering from mono, two days prior. I looked like a pale corpse standing in a treeless field on a sunny, 90 degree day.
It basically killed me but I was only 20 and it was so worth it.
“pale corpse standing in a treeless field on a sunny, 90 degree day”
That’s very Radiohead.
Ha, can’t argue with that.