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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Jim Briggs

  • You’re Perfect, I Love You, Now DON’T Change

    rem

    I’m wondering if I’m the only music geek who feels this way……

    My all-time favorite band is R.E.M. I’ve followed them since their first E.P. way back in 1980, I have all of their CD’s, I have a huge collection of their 7″ singles from their days on the I.R.S. label (most are duplicates: the commercial single, and the promo only “white label” version). Just listening to their older songs puts me at ease & no other music means as much to me.

    The problem? I HATE just about every album they’ve put out over the past 10 years (with the exception of “Accelerate”, and I even hated the live record they released a couple of years ago). This makes me feel mighty guilty. When I see them in concert, I always say “well, the new songs don’t sound TOO bad”…then I go home & play them & I think they STILL suck. I yearn for them to just stop releasing new albums, and go on long tours where they play three hour sets of their greatest hits. It’s a selfish thing to think, but I really do think that they ran out of ideas a LONG time ago. Bill Berry definitely picked a good jumping off point! I realize that Michael Stipe, Peter Buck & Mike Mills think they’re coming up with great new ideas when they drop a new album every few years, but I honestly don’t think they are. I dutifully go out every Tuesday that a new R.E.M. CD comes out, buy it, and go home & am ultimately disappointed. It’s SO frustrating. Why can’t my fave band just STAY THE WAY THEY WERE???

    Am I being childish? Selfish? Stupid? Does anyone out there relate to this?

  • When is music not music?

    Ever since I got into “alternative music” (right after college, a LONG time ago!-ed. note, it really WAS a long time ago-), I was fascinated by, well, noise. I think it started off with James White & The Blacks, Suicide, and other NYC “noise bands” who blended “skronk” in with their songs to create a unique hybrid that sure as heck wasn’t going to get played on any commercial radio station. From there, I veered off into SPK, and I found heaven. Their first album (out of print now, I believe) used tapes of mental patients rambling, played over what sounded like people banging on giant metal springs. I loved it! Their sound started to soften with “Auto De Fe”, and they soon morphed into a dance band (?) that got signed to Elektra.

    I continued to pursue the sound of noise, getting into Merzbow, Muslim Gauze & others. I recently got a CD by Whitehouse, a noise outfit from the U.K. that tours rather irregularly. What is it about these bands that I like? Mostly, it’s that they stretch the boundries of what we call “music” to the breaking point. If there are no musical instruments being played (except maybe drums), is it music? Should it be sold in a “music store” (whatever THAT is in 2009…)? My love of music that’s NOT mainstream opened my mind to lots of great music, and the noise genre is among my favorites. I’m not always in the mood to listen to my Sonic Youth/Merzbow CD, but when I am, nothing else will do……

  • Grinding My Gears: More on the ACM Awards

    WTF is up with Taylor Swift? The girl CANNOT sing. Period. Not even close. I saw her on “Saturday Night Live” and she was so bad that it was truly embarrassing. Yet I like her records. Just shows the magic that Autotune can do for a mediocre singer.

    Rascal Flatts once again annoyed me. They won Best Vocal Group for the seventh straight year, beating the record set by Alabama. Lead singer Gary LeVox mused “gee, now I think I know what Brooks & Dunn feel like”. Uh, Gary, you will NEVER be Kix Brooks OR Ronnie Dunn. Brooks & Dunn have had 40 singles on the Billboard charts, 20 of which reached #1. Rascall Flatts have had 23 singles chart, with nine hitting #1. Rascall Flatts are a smarmy, cheesy brand of country that just irritates the hell out of me. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, maybe it’s because I like a lot of “old time” country, but I’d rather hear George Strait than Sugarland. I’d rather hear Alabama than Rascall Flatts. I think there are artists (like Kenny Chesney) who started out writing great, heartfelt songs (“There Goes My Life”, “The Good Stuff”) and have caved to the “weekend warrior” country fans & started writing “let’s go to the bar & get drunk” songs (“Have Another Beer In Mexico”, or any of the last few Kenny singles). Artists like Brad Paisley straddle the line (I think he’s great, but that “Ticks” song, well, it just ticked me off…). While I realize that Keith Urban draws more people to his shows than Alan Jackson, how country is Keith? He’s a good looking guy, with an enormous (mostly female) following, but his songs could fit just as well on pop radio. (I’d love to see David Allan Coe open for Keith, just to see the looks on those ladies faces……)

    With the music business in the current state that it’s in, I should be happy that Keith & Rascall Flatts are selling as many records as they do. I just like my country…with a little bit more country in it.