What's the least talented band you love?

To each his own. I thought that Jones was a solid rhythm player but nothing spectacular until later. He certainly improved. Cook could bash the hell out of his drums but, again, it was the whole not the sum of its parts.

 

50 years on and folk are still shocked at Punks wearing a swastika? Must've worked then.

 

VU

 

not sure about that one--John Cale was classically trained! Both Lou and Sterling were better than adequate on the guitar. Doug Yule was an excellent bass player. Mo is really the only non-musician in the group. Nico wasn't really a member, so probably doesn't count, but its true she was also a non-musician...

 

The Seeds.
Through 4 original albums and a handful of singles they recycled the same 2 or 3 chords, (sometimes 4 ) and even lyrical phrases
("Every night and day...").
But I own 'em all.

 

I don't define talent as being able to play an instrument. I define talent as being creative and then being able to realise it sufficiently well musically. Playing an instrument well does not get my attention in itself. Making interesting music does.

 

good one--they really did recycle a lot of stuff and its extremely simple, but for some reason it really works with them! even though its classic 60s punk, they had that great slightly mad, off-kilter kind of vibe. i guess largely the result of Sky Saxon...

 

The only reason John Cale was in the US at all was because he was invited there to study with Aaron Copland so, yes, I think it's fair to say he had some musical talent.

 

Bob Dylan is the greatest example of this--extremely limited musical ability, yet the author of probably 200 stone cold classic songs.

 

YES!

 

Absolutely. You're not about to tell me this guy wasn't talented:

Transposing pianos were never common, and few still exist. Irving Berlin had two such instruments. In 1972 he donated one piano (built in 1940 by Weser Bros. Company in New York City, NY)[1] to the Smithsonian Institution. It is now on display in the National Museum of American Jewish History.[2] Berlin never learned to read music, playing his songs entirely by ear in the key of F-sharp (keeping all five notes of the pentatonic scale on the “black keys”), employing his “trick piano” to do the work as necessary.[3]

 

Bob Dylan does not have 'extremely limited musical ability'. His guitar playing is not limited in the least and his piano playing is more than adequate. Aside for that though, writing songs requires musical talent.

 

Mo was a non-musician? Oh really. Is this an insult about Mo or drummers in general? I don't get it.

Doug Yule may or may not have been an excellent bass player but frankly I don't care for his musical ideas. I think he was adequate in his role as bassist in the VU.

Re. Nico and Mo. What the hell is a non-musician? Someone who wrote, played and sang The Marble Index? Someone who was the most interesting and original drummer in the most interesting rock group of the time? Then give me non-musicians every day of the week. Please.

 

Somebody else thought so too:
David Crosby: The Doors “basically sucked”

 

David Crosby has an opinion on everything, it's best to sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

you're right--maybe it's his lead guitar stylings that are somewhat "limited". i can't really rate his piano playing, does he play a lot of piano on his records? i know he's been playing a lot of piano live in the last few years....

 

Well I'm no Dylan expert but he's been playing piano about as long as he's been playing guitar! He's no Oscar Peterson but he doesn't need to be.

 

Ok don't get your drawers in a knot--i've been listening to the Velvet Underground since i was 14 in 1974. The name of this thread is "What's the least talented band that you love?". You put forth the Velvets as your vote for the "least talented".

I pointed out that three of the musicians Lou, Sterling and Cale were all, by any measure, talented musicians. In other words, unlike you i don't believe that they lacked musical talent. Pretty simple.

 

My choice as well. Glorious hacks, they were!

 

Yeah, that’s a tough one. I don’t think Lou and John and Sterling and Doug had no talent.

But, hang on! The thread title is least talented band you love. I certainly can’t contest your assertion at all, it being true for you.

Apologies surrendered...if not complete agreement.

 

It didn’t work then, at all.

 

Martin Rushent, that's how. The producer that Susan Sulley brilliantly said something like "what do you know about what young people like?!" to after producing their (still) biggest album. It's not a surprise they fell into oblivion after he was gone and are basically a sad 80s nostalgia act now.

 

Nikki Sudden. Dude has a voice like a pig in a mulcher, plays simple T. Rex/Keith Richards riffs on electric and acoustic guitar, and generally has a pretty narrow lyrical focus. But damn if it doesn't hook me right in! There's so much personality in that snot-caked croak that it makes the should-be blandness of everything else seem profound. It's magical in some messed-up way.

The Replacements made themselves out to be very untalented, but in actuality they were very embarrassed by how talented they really were, so they just boozed themselves into talentlessness night after night. Listen to live recordings where they figure out the riffs to songs they've never tried playing before in a matter of seconds, then spin around and fall on their asses as soon as they play them once. I can't call 'em untalented - but I think they'd like to be called untalented, so I may as well.

Oh, and as for the Doors - Manzarek was one of the best keyboardists out there, and Krieger was a flamenco guitarist. Not sure if any of y'all have ever tried flamenco guitar or playing two different songs on two different keyboards at the same time. Jim Morrison had a great voice to fit that weird classical/jazz/flamenco swirl they had going on, even though his lyrics are pretty laughable. The instrumental talent of the Doors was one of the best of the '60s, but nobody knows because it's just The Jim Morrison Show and it's easy to make fun of his "poetry". He's one of the few Tragic Rock Figures™ that people allow themselves to bash instead of fawning over. But the rest of the band? The music was strange, but the instrumentalists were virtuosos, and past the corniness (for the record, I used to obsess over the Doors and now I find them incredibly corny) they really did write some pretty incredible music, melodies, captured great moods, and had some of the best production values of the '60s. A lot of people seem to have a hard time noticing that.

 

See post 22!

 

Billy Childish and his various incarnations ……….Thee Headcoates , Thee Milkshakes and many more , my particular fave is 'The Buff Medways' and the song 'Medway Wheelers' a paen to a forties cycling club and the only song that sings the praises of the' Hobbs Supreme' Bicycle .
Billy seldom ventures out of 3 chord territory and if he was more successful would certainly be sued by Ray Davies and Pete Townsend for plagiarism .