some thoughts Regarding rock 'n' roll:
I thought I had created a helpful definition category for a brand of rock music that I call "sleaze rock." It seems people have been using this term already, and even on the internets. Wikipedia uses Guns N Roses as a prime example. Here's where I may be able to weigh in. I feel, personally, that GNR teeters far too close to the edge of suck-rock and certainly corporate rock to really help illustrate the true sleaze factor.
I was led to believe I was onto something after some serious consumption of T-Rex, specifically Electric Warrior. The album is not across the board sleazy but when they get into a sleaze-groove it is positively exemplary. Lou Reed and Iggy Pop seem to have aided the creation of this category not only musically but in their presentation of their art and themselves.
Arguably there are sleazy aspects to rock from its uncertain inception but I feel that some time in the early 70s rock began to embrace its sleaze. This awareness I think makes the sleaze something valid, authentic and almost beautiful. Of course it never really wishes to be beauty in the standard conception but rather the beauty of torn dresses and faces a mess, or pretty faces going to hell as the face may be.
Maybe the sleaziest rock song is "Stray Cat Blues", or at least it can be pointed to as a prototype for the genre. But here I am relying on lyrical content and Marc Bolan rarely treads in this territory. The sound is the same type of slow-burn, dirty-simple, guitar heavy strut but the imagery is pretty removed from the predatory swagger of Mick. Well the ideas are not entirely worked out.
For discussion sake I will begin a list of top rock albums. I have given this some thought and really wish to represent a variety of sounds I'm into. I will begtin with the albums of my own lifetime, because its really important for us to all be working out what our generation's rock legacy might be.
In Utero - Nirvana
Relationship of Command - At the Drive In
XO - Elliott Smith
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One - Yo La Tengo
Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Elephant - the White Stripes
Fever to Tell - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes - Propagandhi
Stankonia - Outkast (alright maybe just our time's popular music)
so also
Black on Both Sides - Mos Def
Evil Empire - Rage Against the Machine
Funeral - the Arcade Fire
13 Songs - Fugazi (a little early but I'll count it)
Wowee Zowee - Pavement
Ok Computer - Radiohead
Keep it Like a Secret - Built to Spill
I think the list is incomplete and looking at it now, pretty conservative. It is a start. Its strangely so important to me to begin quantifying all my experience. I realized that I've been paying close attention to popular music for over a decade now. I feel a little old at times like this but I generally hate when people say things like this. Everybody is so anxious to start feeling old. Its just that one loses track of a decade in its passing if not for marking it In Utero to Is This It to the Runners Four. Looking at my life this way it does seem like a long time but thankfully it also seems fleeting and transient and provides a possible glimpse of the vast inconsequence of existence. ROCK n ROLL!
I guess I'm done for now.
I thought I had created a helpful definition category for a brand of rock music that I call "sleaze rock." It seems people have been using this term already, and even on the internets. Wikipedia uses Guns N Roses as a prime example. Here's where I may be able to weigh in. I feel, personally, that GNR teeters far too close to the edge of suck-rock and certainly corporate rock to really help illustrate the true sleaze factor.
I was led to believe I was onto something after some serious consumption of T-Rex, specifically Electric Warrior. The album is not across the board sleazy but when they get into a sleaze-groove it is positively exemplary. Lou Reed and Iggy Pop seem to have aided the creation of this category not only musically but in their presentation of their art and themselves.
Arguably there are sleazy aspects to rock from its uncertain inception but I feel that some time in the early 70s rock began to embrace its sleaze. This awareness I think makes the sleaze something valid, authentic and almost beautiful. Of course it never really wishes to be beauty in the standard conception but rather the beauty of torn dresses and faces a mess, or pretty faces going to hell as the face may be.
Maybe the sleaziest rock song is "Stray Cat Blues", or at least it can be pointed to as a prototype for the genre. But here I am relying on lyrical content and Marc Bolan rarely treads in this territory. The sound is the same type of slow-burn, dirty-simple, guitar heavy strut but the imagery is pretty removed from the predatory swagger of Mick. Well the ideas are not entirely worked out.
For discussion sake I will begin a list of top rock albums. I have given this some thought and really wish to represent a variety of sounds I'm into. I will begtin with the albums of my own lifetime, because its really important for us to all be working out what our generation's rock legacy might be.
In Utero - Nirvana
Relationship of Command - At the Drive In
XO - Elliott Smith
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One - Yo La Tengo
Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Elephant - the White Stripes
Fever to Tell - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes - Propagandhi
Stankonia - Outkast (alright maybe just our time's popular music)
so also
Black on Both Sides - Mos Def
Evil Empire - Rage Against the Machine
Funeral - the Arcade Fire
13 Songs - Fugazi (a little early but I'll count it)
Wowee Zowee - Pavement
Ok Computer - Radiohead
Keep it Like a Secret - Built to Spill
I think the list is incomplete and looking at it now, pretty conservative. It is a start. Its strangely so important to me to begin quantifying all my experience. I realized that I've been paying close attention to popular music for over a decade now. I feel a little old at times like this but I generally hate when people say things like this. Everybody is so anxious to start feeling old. Its just that one loses track of a decade in its passing if not for marking it In Utero to Is This It to the Runners Four. Looking at my life this way it does seem like a long time but thankfully it also seems fleeting and transient and provides a possible glimpse of the vast inconsequence of existence. ROCK n ROLL!
I guess I'm done for now.
posted by vw at 9:48 AM
1 Comments:
here's a few more:
public enemy-fear of a black planet
sonic youth-washing machine
chemical brothers-dig your own hole
the hives-veni vidi vicious
and on some days
black star-black star
bold musical statement:
the list already includes in utero but bleach should also be on the list for many reasons. not the least of which is that it contains "school," nirvana's best song ever which happens to contain one of the best all-time guitar solos ever.
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