Unpopular Musical Opinions

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I reckon a problem with "supergroups" is that people will often have very high expectations on the output, thinking that the individual sum of the parts will create perfection. But in reality you need to get the balance right.

It can work well, especially in jazz where there is some great work.
 
gehend said:
I reckon a problem with "supergroups" is that people will often have very high expectations on the output, thinking that the individual sum of the parts will create perfection. But in reality you need to get the balance right.

It can work well, especially in jazz where there is some great work.
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Jazz is about the only time it does work.

Cream were extremely successful, albeit for a short space of time (two and a half years).
 
Jazz doesn’t get enough credit for that kind of stuff.

Miles Davis and John Coltrane would regularly contribute to each other’s albums. Lots of players launched careers via being good session musicians and subsequently celebrated artists in their own right. Eg Wayne Shorter.

It’d be like Jimmy Page playing on half of Master of Reality or Tony Ionni playing on half of II.
 
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La Dispute said:
It’d be like Jimmy Page playing on half of Master or Reality or Tony Ionni playing on half of II.
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It just didn't happen that often in rock music. Not in that era anyway. You might get one on an album every once in a while, like Steve Winwood with Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon with Jeff Beck orJohn Lennon and Paul McCartney with the Stones.
 
JackFlash said:
The kind of music we like is actually a pretty reliable reflection of how we think, feel, and our personalities. The younger male music enthusiast hates the Beatles, which is weird, because we wouldn't be having this conversation without their existence? It irks them. Anyone growing up in the past 20 years is quite envious of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s as all the good bands have come and gone, they released an album a year and played all over the world. It just doesn't happen anymore.
So, blame the Beatles! This is done before anyone starts talking about why pop music is worse now than it's ever been? The male music enthusiast of today really wanted to be 15 in 1975? 25 in 1985 and still young enough in the early 90s to like Nirvana, The Pixies, and go to a Big Day Out! What have they got today? A deep bitterness toward the golden age of music.

Some people like the deep and meaningful lyrics, i don't particularly! Dumb rock lyrics are the best!

Then you have the music nerd who likes picking apart the fine details, which is why prog rock fans are so insufferable. I like early Genesis, Tull and the space rock of early Hawkwind. The nerds hated Hawkwind, they preferred the Floyd "man" Then i discovered the Ramones!

It's very difficult for teenagers these days, when i was a kid everything you said, did or liked by age 18 was stuck with you forever, because you were not much younger than those you worshiped as rock gods anyway. It's what makes you..you and not your old man! You can relate to someone singing to you who is only a few years older and fortunately, we mature and they were replaced with a new batch of heroes often. You still have those magnificent memories of that time you saw your favourite band before they were big in some pub somewhere?

When the Beatles hit big in 1964 with Beatlemania and performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in the USA , Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Members of Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith and Billy Joel were all age 14 -17 yrs old, presumably watching it all on TV no matter where they lived?

Like it or not, your musical tastes are locked in early; if this is what you were raised on, it's what you'll keep looking for the rest of your life, anything outside of that narrow range of sounds seems weird or wrong and you don't like it. The smarter ones do of course.
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Good post, respectfully with the exception of your preference to dumb lyrics. 'C'mon feel the noise, blah blah blah' - no thanks!

As my two sons will attest, I'm a big fan of the creative back-stories relating to lyricists and/or production of famous songs, although the boys once genuine curiosity has now evolved into teasing sarcasm. But at least they both now understand my underlying lesson was/is related to ones ability to write anything with competence as a basic tool of nearly all successful careers in anyone's life.

As an avid reader of biographies, some of the biggest hits across many genres have some fascinating and incredible back-stories with how they came to be.

Most younger people, I concede, couldn't care less, that is, until you tell them about royalties and other income related streams that derives from the creation of these songs. But just as they grab a pad and pen, you also you tell them about the teams of writers back in the 50's/60's/70's who wrote literally hundreds of compositions of which only a dozen or so became known commercial hits...

In relation to back-stories here is just a few examples:

When 6yo Julian Lennon came home from school one day he proudly showed his father a colour painting he had produced that day. When John asked what it was about, Julian replied; 'It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds!'. Lucy was Julian's classmate.

The Franklin sisters were sharing a hotel room (very early in Aretha's career) and in the early hours Aretha was on the piano contriving to flip the narrative of a recent Otis Redding song she liked. She then woke up her sisters and together they changed some subtle lyrics and younger sister Carolyn penned new harmonies. A few weeks later Aretha recorded her version of 'Respect'.

When Lindsay Buckingham wrote 'Go Your Own Way', in under an hour, it was basically a 'goodbye see ya later' message for Stevie Nicks, as she was thinking of leaving the band after Fleetwood Mac had produced their forthcoming album, Rumours.

Steve Harley's huge hit 'Come up and See Me' was originally a blues type song he penned, full of bitter and vindictive lyrics as a message to his recently departed former band members. His producer then wisely convinced Harley to change the composition into something more upbeat, discarded some lyrics and with his new band they produced the track we know today.

When Elvis became the 3rd recording artist of 'Hound Dog' his version with some tweaked lyrics adopted from the 2nd recorded version had very little resemblance to the original recorded by Big Mama Thorton, as the original composition (written by two Jewish lads) was not it anyway related to an actual dog? In Thorton's original, 'Hound Dog' was simply a derogatory/slang reference of the time to man seeking casual sex, while always promising, but never delivering on anything more...
 
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deanc said:
When Stevie Nicks wrote 'Go Your Own Way', in under an hour, it was originally intended as a desperate letter to Lindsay Buckingham telling him she'd simply had enough and would be leaving the band after Fleetwood Mac had produced their forthcoming album, Rumours.
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I'm always fascinated by the stories of how some of the best songs were written, however..

I'm fairly sure 'Go Your Own Way' is Buckinghams song.
 
deanc said:
Good post, respectfully with the exception of your preference to dumb lyrics. 'C'mon feel the noise, blah blah blah' - no thanks!

As my two sons will attest, I'm a big fan of the creative back-stories relating to lyricists and/or production of famous songs, although the boys once genuine curiosity has now evolved into teasing sarcasm. But at least they both now understand my underlying lesson was/is related to ones ability to write anything with competence as a basic tool of nearly all successful careers in anyone's life.

As an avid reader of biographies, some of the biggest hits across many genres have some fascinating and incredible back-stories with how they came to be.

Most younger people, I concede, couldn't care less, that is, until you tell them about royalties and other income related streams that derives from the creation of these songs. But just as they grab a pad and pen, you also you tell them about the teams of writers back in the 50's/60's/70's who wrote literally hundreds of compositions of which only a dozen or so became known commercial hits...

In relation to back-stories here is just a few examples:

When 6yo Julian Lennon came home from school one day he proudly showed his father a colour painting he had produced that day. When John asked what it was about, Julian replied; 'It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds!'. Lucy was Julian's classmate.

The Franklin sisters were sharing a hotel room (very early in Aretha's career) and in the early hours Aretha was on the piano contriving to flip the narrative of a recent Otis Redding song she liked. She then woke up her sisters and together they changed some subtle lyrics and younger sister Carolyn penned new harmonies. A few weeks later Aretha recorded her version of 'Respect'.

When Stevie Nicks wrote 'Go Your Own Way', in under an hour, it was originally intended as a desperate letter to Lindsay Buckingham telling him she'd simply had enough and would be leaving the band after Fleetwood Mac had produced their forthcoming album, Rumours.

Steve Harley's huge hit 'Come up and See Me' was originally a blues type song he penned, full of bitter and vindictive lyrics as a message to his recently departed former band members. His producer then wisely convinced Harley to change the composition into something more upbeat, discarded some lyrics and with his new band they produced the track we know today.

When Elvis became the 3rd recording artist of 'Hound Dog' his version with some tweaked lyrics adopted from the 2nd recorded version had very little resemblance to the original recorded by Big Mama Thorton, as the original composition (written by two Jewish lads) was not it anyway related to an actual dog? In Thorton's original, 'Hound Dog' was simply a derogatory/slang reference of the time to man seeking casual sex, while always promising, but never delivering on anything more...
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I guess the lyrics don't move me as much as the music itself. Some rock stars had trouble spelling too "Cum On Feel the Noize" is one of many. After all, in rock or pop music of the 70s and 80s, if a tune is catchy enough you won't even put a second thought into the weird and disturbing things you're singing along with? We all like to try to decipher the meaning behind our favorite song lyrics. But sometimes there is no deep meaning, and the words mean exactly what they say. Most of the time though we are horribly wrong. Hawkwind's "Silver Machine " is not about a super sleek interstellar space machine. It's about a bicycle! Aerosmith liked the film Young Frankenstein so much they wrote a song after the Marty Feldman gag "Walk This Way"! " I drive a Rolls Royce 'cause it's good for my voice" didn't fool anybody, it was much better for his bank account, but what a great riff!
 
revo333 said:
I'm always fascinated by the stories of how some of the best songs were written, however..

I'm fairly sure 'Go Your Own Way' is Buckinghams song.
Click to expand...

Whoops, I was thinking of Don't Stop, but Chrissy McVie wrote that anyway - of course Buckingham wrote Go Your Own Way as a 'p**s off message to Nicks, he also wrote The Chain, but actually I don't think he wrote much else...
Anyway, I'll amend my post accordingly.
 
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JackFlash said:
Some rock stars had trouble spelling too "Cum On Feel the Noize" is one of many.
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I think in Slade's case, it was most definitely tongue in cheek. They used that style of dumbed down incorrect spelling on quite a few of their songs.
 

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Hoos said:
I think in Slade's case, it was most definitely tongue in cheek. They used that style of dumbed down incorrect spelling on quite a few of their songs.
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They were great at it! Slade were the bovver boys, Bolan was the cosmic punk whose lyrics were impossible to decipher (it didn't matter)
 
JackFlash said:
I guess the lyrics don't move me as much as the music itself. Some rock stars had trouble spelling too "Cum On Feel the Noize" is one of many. After all, in rock or pop music of the 70s and 80s, if a tune is catchy enough you won't even put a second thought into the weird and disturbing things you're singing along with? We all like to try to decipher the meaning behind our favorite song lyrics. But sometimes there is no deep meaning, and the words mean exactly what they say. Most of the time though we are horribly wrong. Hawkwind's "Silver Machine " is not about a super sleek interstellar space machine. It's about a bicycle! Aerosmith liked the film Young Frankenstein so much they wrote a song after the Marty Feldman gag "Walk This Way"! " I drive a Rolls Royce 'cause it's good for my voice" didn't fool anybody, it was much better for his bank account, but what a great riff!
Click to expand...

True regarding most 'catchy tunes' and most of us still don't know what the hell James Reyne was actually singing about, i.e. what is a 'Tittybong'...?

Some interesting references - also note while most people can produce 'music', some better than others, comparatively very few can actually write commercially successful songs. I also know of hundreds of failed bands or artists, but there are very few failed singer/songwriters - most claim Ed Sheeran would still be busking if he couldn't write...

To stick with the threads theme; the music industry, with a few exceptions, has generally evolved into a lazy/crude representation of what it once was..!
I also suggest the turning point in the industry was when some bloke started talking fast to rhyming prose, often full of obscenities', to music most kids can produce using Garage Band and this somehow created a following, which became known as Rap...!
To quote Don Maclean - this is the day the music died..?
 
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deanc said:
To stick with the threads theme; the music industry, with a few exceptions, has generally evolved into a lazy/crude representation of what it once was..!
I also suggest the turning point in the industry was when some bloke started talking fast to rhyming prose, often full of obscenities', to music he produced using Garage Band on his Macbook and this somehow created a following, which soon became known as Rap...!
Click to expand...
Modern music is rubbish! The whole industry has lost its way!

Also:

FB_IMG_1628870884343.jpg
 
deanc said:
True regarding most 'catchy tunes' and most of us still don't know what the hell James Reyne was actually singing about, i.e. what is a 'Tittybong'...?

Some interesting references - also note while most people can produce 'music', some better than others, comparatively very few can actually write commercially successful songs. I also know of hundreds of failed bands or artists, but there are very few failed singer/songwriters - most claim Ed Sheeran would still be busking if he couldn't write...

To stick with the threads theme; the music industry, with a few exceptions, has generally evolved into a lazy/crude representation of what it once was..!
I also suggest the turning point in the industry was when some bloke started talking fast to rhyming prose, often full of obscenities', to music most kids can produce using Garage Band and this somehow created a following, which became known as Rap...!
Click to expand...
James Reyne always required a musical interpreter! Fall of Rome misheard lyrics or did he really sing them?
In the morning, when I wet my bed
I'll be yarning as I scratch my head. ?
I can't comment on RAP as i have zero knowledge and interest in it.
 
JackFlash said:
James Reyne always required a musical interpreter! Fall of Rome misheard lyrics or did he really sing them?
In the morning, when I wet my bed
I'll be yarning as I scratch my head. ?
I can't comment on RAP as i have zero knowledge and interest in it.
Click to expand...

James Reyne actually wrote this for the Chantoozies and then released his version later. The song is allegedly about his junkie girlfriend, but it's difficult to ascertain given his usual mouth full of marbles performance...!!!
As some in the comments section stated; 'sounds like a great tune, is there an English version of this?'

FYI, Hammerhead (backing vocals by Olivia Newton-John BTW) is his best mumbling/lazy diction effort, that most people have been trying to decode for over 30 years..!

 
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JackFlash said:
They were great at it! Slade were the bovver boys, Bolan was the cosmic punk whose lyrics were impossible to decipher (it didn't matter)
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Slade had some absolute classics and not just the ones that some people still remember. And their live album Slade Alive! is an absolute beast of a record.
 
I don't take notice of lyrics as much as I use too.

I have been disappointed too many times checking song lyrics to find out I've been singing the wrong lyric to myself for years and now the lyric of that song is not as good to me.
 
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