Your Musical Hot-Takes/Unpopular Opinions

Another Rush take that is a bit of a stretch.... but still great to see as those are excellent songs that rarely get their due. Absolutely superb deep cuts!

 

A lot has improved.

 

They are that sort of band. Such a wide breadth of material, a fan would have to have incredibly wide taste to enjoy it all.

Personally, I'm not all that keen on their music before Signals, though I could make myself a very decent compilation, and there have been a few records since that haven't hit home. However, occasionally, I'll give an album I didn't rate another listen and I'll suddenly get it. Most recently, Hold Your Fire has revealed some hitherto unheard charms, so there's hope for Clockwork Angels yet.

 

Well, you might be right, and I even forgot that the amazing Moving Pictures was released in '81 , one of my very favourite albums along with Signals. Totally agree with you: those couple songs are absolutely fu**ing superb deep cuts! And my faves off Signals.

 

Some people prefer short stories and some prefer novels.

 

He's certainly coasting on his 60s reputation. Most of his solo output is the sort of safe rock that suburban housewives pull out when they tire of Coldplay. He is also the counterexample to my note about great guitarists that aren't technically gifted but have an interesting tone or feel.

 

An album that is not a one big aural painting like The Wall usually gets to my nerves pretty quickly: the same voice, the same instruments, boring. Some artists manage to offer better variety than others, making it almost as a compilation, I like that. I like compilations, here. I like variety. Unless it is something like Blade Runner soundtrack, lately I've been listening to it when going to bed, it calms me. But I remove the track 11 ("End Titles") from the playlist, it breaks the mood.

 

The Wall is a novel. Please, Please Me is a bunch of short stories, but is considered an album. Go figure.

 

I think this one comes down to what you are considering the art, and therefor who the artist really is. For a band or performer that writes the songs, it’s easy, because they’re doing all of it. If someone is a singer who does none of the writing, are you in it for the singing as an art, or for the songwriting as an art? I understand it can be both, but I think that’s the disconnect people have when they don’t respect a performer as an artist if somebody else does all of the songwriting.

Putting it in another context, if I listen to an audiobook, am I appreciating the person who is reading the audiobook, or am I appreciating the author? It’s not the same thing, but I think it illustrates why some people consider songwriting more of an art than performing (they’re wrong, IMO).

I blame the Beatles, really...

 

And others like me I'm sure prefer neither. I usually rarely care to get and follow the "concept" behind a conceptual rock album when listening to its music. Maybe that's the reason why I really love so very few of them.

 

Please Please Me is held together by the band's style and approach. Not all albums need to be held together by a Big Concept.

 

Spirits can be lifted in many different ways. Art would be dispiriting if it only served to make one feel good. What a trite, boring world that would be.

 

I don't agree but I don't disagree either.

 

Skip James said he wanted his music to " deaden the souL "
I know what he meant.

 

Yeah, this is what bores me. The good thing is that the songs are short. The whole album is about 32 minutes. Good old times when albums were half-an-hour long and movies were an hour and a half tops.

 

Are they really doing all of it if the band or performer isn’t producing the sessions themselves, or if they’re utilizing session musicians? There were many instances where George Martin’s contributions were just as vital to the finished product as anything Lennon or McCartney brought to the table, but the Beatles get no criticism for having an outside producer (nor should they).

That’s more or less the point I’m trying to make; why is the arbitrary line oftentimes drawn at writing but nowhere else? There are so many factors that go into a piece of music, and I don’t see how getting outside assistance in one area is any more or less respectable than getting help in another. I just judge it all on the final product.

 

Weezer did all their best work post Matt Sharp.

 

I agree. It’s the only song off the album that I would include in my top 10 Beatles songs (second only to A Day In the Life and Strawberry Fields Forever). Maybe even top 15. I absolutely love it.

 

I think of filler as stuff used to pad out an album regardless if its good or bad. Rubber Soul has 2 songs not written for the album brought up to fill out the album with one of the two What Goes On being over 5 years old.

 

Bruce Springsteen’s best album is “The Wild, the Innocent and the E. Street Shuffle”. The band was better with David Sancious than with Roy Bittan. The music was better when produced by Mike Appel than by Jon Landau.

The Beatles were great during the latter half of 1965 through the middle of 1967. Brian Wilson was greater.

Jim Morrison was the Door’s weakest link.

The best album produced by a New Jersey Act during the last half of the 70’s was “Hearts of Stone” by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.

“Fool in the Rain” is the best Led Zepplin song.

“Roadrunner” is arguably the greatest R&R song.

 

Steely Dan was more "punk" than any 70s punk band.

 

This is a trite, boring world. Where have you been?

 

Correct.

 

My takes are scorching.

 

This is the album I was thinking of, Big Joe Turner The Boss of the Blues, lots of piano and horns but no guitar solos and no harmonica or B3 at all.