Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Old People and Music (and Mp3s)

Over here I made some comment about not knowing anything about Spoon.



Apparently I like that one song. Forget the name of it.

UPDATE!

The ratings system:
★★★★★ I always listen to this song when it comes up in the shuffle
★★★★ I sometimes skip past this song but nothing about it bugs me
★★★ I sometimes skip past this song and something about it bugs me
★★ Don't like this much but for some reason I can't let it go
★ Trash at the first available opportunity

39 comments:

Substance McGravitas said...

I always feel the urge to carry luggage after ding[1].

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I like the Jay-Z / Sinatra/ Melvins triptych.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

only 3 stars for Dethklok?

Substance McGravitas said...

Ratings explained above in poor formatting.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Apparently I have a lot of songs that annoy me somehow.


Grunge Couple by that dog up now.

mikey said...

This utterly fascinates me. I listen to music constantly, either an internet stream or a local playlist, and even with that, I've frankly never heard of around 80% of the bands discussed here.

Now, honestly, I find cookie monster metal unpleasant in the extreme, and most bands that make their living doing some kind of atonal gimmick (with the major exception of Flaming Lips) do nothing but make me angry.

I ask three things of my music, and none of them are novelty or exploration of the outer reaches of what constitutes 'music'. They are:

Melodious - A song MUST have a melody that I can hum in my head when somebody is hollering at me, even if the singer has trouble actually reproducing that melody.

Lyrics - The songwriting is the cool part for me, really nothing but profitable poetry, and who wouldn't love that? Many songs/bands I've fallen in love with on the basis of single line, such as the post Refreshments Roger Clyne with the line "his best friend couldn't come around/he died hard and slow down in Mexico" from Honkey Tonk Union.

That RocknRoll thang - you know the one. That buzz, that thing that shifts inside your chest, makes you move involuntarily, mind and mood altering jolt that comes from those special songs...

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

oops. mikey, don't go lissen to what I just posted. I don't want you angry.

Substance McGravitas said...

Melodious - A song MUST have a melody that I can hum in my head when somebody is hollering at me, even if the singer has trouble actually reproducing that melody.

Well, let's take Hooligan's Holiday as an example of what I hear vs. what you hear. Now, most normal people think that's a steaming pile of shit, but you and I can listen to that over and over. What wins me over is pretty much how muscular the song is: the chugging and the harmonic shriek in the lead guitar line and the fucked up scratchiness of Mr. Has-Been's voice. In fact when I think I wanna hear it again I pretty much only think of that CHK CHK CHK and the shrieking and the dynamic change of moderately pretty to heavy assault in the intro.

mikey said...

Yeah, Holiday is a great example. That dood, I can't even remember his name, couldn't sing a lick, except on that song his voice was a perfect fit.

Lyrics.
Everybody wants a piece of the action
Everybody wants a piece of the pie

Nothing else needs to be said.

And I STILL remember the first time I heard that song. It was on this WONDERFUL music service that came with the cable called DMX - it had a set top box and a remote with it's own little LCD display - kicked ASS. But anyway, the first thing I thought when I heard that lead guitar line was that it was this impossible juxtaposition of "Happy/Ominous". I've never heard a piece of music that could come close to that odd emotional sensibility...

Substance McGravitas said...

See, the lyrics kinda embarrass me and I take the lead guitar line as filler before that squeal.

Substance McGravitas said...

That said, there are a bunch of songs on the list above where I'm listening for melody and lyrics.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

The Pooh Sticks! Susan Sleepwalking was a great single.

Substance McGravitas said...

They were shamelessly catchy.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

nothing shameful about catchy songs. I'm listening to my power pop playlist now.

Of course, later I will probably be all off on die kreuzen or something else horrible like that...

tigris said...

ding[1]: I sometimes skip past this song but nothing about it bugs me.

How can you skip a 3 second file? Tom Waits is the only one of those bands I have anything by. I have read that Spoon took their name from the Can song, which is a point in their favor.

Substance McGravitas said...

How can you skip a 3 second file?

You see it coming in the playlist and get rid of it. This is why I am such a productive worker.

mikey said...

For the last few weeks, I have had two thirds of a blog post about the Soundgarden song "Spoon Man".

Well. In the sense that a "History of Clowns" post is about Bozo. It's actually a historical post about...me. But that's a digression, and not a terribly meaningful one. Allow me to refresh this cocktail.

....

....

There. Ok. Oh yeah, Spoon Man. Anyway, there was this moment on this bus that had "Santa Clara County Corrections" painted on it's side, not a particularly flattering paint job in my opinion, but to be perfectly honest, it wasn't my bus, so who am I to start in with the value judgments?

Anyway, it was one of those moments when you examine your life and begin to reach some important conclusions, such as "Everyone Hates Me" and "Goddam it, one of these days I'm gonna get even with you ALL!!"

Ahem.

So. Sitting in a bus, hands and ankles shackled, riding to a court hearing, looking out the window at all the people doing all those people things in the place I was doing similar people things except maybe not so similar just a day or two before. And that song comes on the bus's radio.

What? Spoon Man. Have you been paying any attention whatsoever? Christ, it's like playing shoots and latters with my nephews kids, fer gawds sake.

Anyway, I'm gonna finish that blog post one day, then you'll see.

Um. In the meantime, carry on...

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

This is why I am such a productive worker.

And here I thought (all along) it was because you had enough time on your hands to invent a ghost gif gravytar.
~

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

mikey has a blog?

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Well, let's take Hooligan's Holiday as an example of what I hear vs. what you hear.

Do we have to? Because normally i respect you two, and for your sake I gave it a good listen, and to me, I'd rather listen to the Mekons early stuff, which is known to kill bacteria and sterilize bats.

Substance McGravitas said...

If you want I can delete those last two - and this one - and we can pretend you're awesome.

mikey said...

Can we pretend I'm awesome?

Substance McGravitas said...

Mikey, we know you're awesome, although Spoon Man as a life-changer is a little suspect.

I saw Soundgarden clear a club of hair-metal enthusiasts early in their career. They were a fine band then.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

no, no, I am trying painful reality as a lifestyle this week.

We CAN pretend mikey's awesome though.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

spoonman, although no ding[1], is a pretty good song, and if I was on a prison bus I am sure it would at least hearten me, if not inspire.

mikey said...

It would be really fun to get one of those "Flip" HD cameras and shoot a short version of "A History of Violence" as "A History of Clowns" where a nice, neighborly cafe owner gets exposed as an ex clown, with contacts going all the way to the top!

Yeah, that would be funny....

Substance McGravitas said...

You should be hanging around with theatre folks.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

zombie clowns?

Cuz it seems to me we could get that green-lighted.

Substance McGravitas said...

The shaving cream would drip out of the pie before the zombie clown got it to someone's face.

mikey said...

My mom was VERY suspicious of "Theater Folk". Them and Japanese people.

If zombies put clown makeup on, they'd be in disguise. I'm not certain, but that might make them Dead enemy combatants and not legitimate zombies...

Substance McGravitas said...

My mom was VERY suspicious of "Theater Folk".

That's actually reasonable, but you have a thing for dialogue and the unfolding of a scene.

J— said...

I first encountered "Spoon Man" watching Beavis and Butthead. Beavis got excited.

Smut Clyde said...

John Safran on his "Music Jamboree" series had a segment on "clowns in music", but it is not available on the Intertuba due to malice and harassment and squirmy business from lawyers.

Is there such a thing as a Clown Lawyer? That would freak me out.

The shaving cream would drip out of the pie
That's not shaving cream.

ckc (not kc) said...

Is there such a thing as a Clown Lawyer?

...not counting Orly Taitz?

M. Bouffant said...

Having heard of Spoon, I am assuming it's not the same outfit that played around L. A. in the mid-80s, whom I might've seen once, but didn't really hear.

Rusty Shackleblart said...

Is there such a thing as a Clown Lawyer?

In my experience, there is no other kind (of lawyer).

Brando said...

Insane Zombie Clown Posse?

For me, I have always been a music first, lyrics second guy, which probably explains how I can love Rush as much as I do.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Insane Zombie Clown Posse?

nah. I KNOW how fuckin magnets work.

Substance McGravitas said...

Asking for a friend.