My homie L hooked me up with two CDs full of metal mp3s and, while doing the grocery runs this morning, I got to listen to Black Label Society in the car. BLS, the band Ozzie's guitarist started in the late 90s, is perfect metal. Wailing guitars, hulking viking of a lead singer/guitarist, lyrics about death and drugs and all-purpose pathos, it's all there.
There's something to this. When bands are great not because they're doing anything particularly new, it's just that they're exemplary at their genre. For instance:
- The Hives: late 90s pop-punk.
- Minor Threat: early 80s hardcore punk.
- Ladytron: spooky synthpop.
- Motley Crue: dirty 80s hair metal.**
- Adam and the Ants circa their first album, Dirk Wears White Sox: new wave.
- Toots and the Maytals: late 60s skinhead reggae.
- The Specials: two-tone ska.
- Bush: 90s radio pop that makes you want to kill yourself because it's so bad.
- Death From Above 1979: whatever it was that genre was.
* This does not stop me from hating The Beatles, of course. I think it's the insincerity of the love songs that bothers me - I'm fine with love songs, but I want there to be some verisimilitude.
** There are a lot of contenders for dirty 80s hair metal exemplars, but for my money, The Crue are where it's at.
5 comments:
Gary Numan: more new wave
The Sisters of Mercy: that particular brand of goth rock with lots of references to harsh stimulants
Devo: Devo
TMBG: WTF
I'll stop here, lest my own small intestine reach up to throttle my brain in a desperate bid to save the Interwebs...
you know, growing up in the immediate aftermath of the Beatles was kind of fun. I feel like I got to witness the last throes of Beatle-hood as they grew out of adolescence and into adulthood (mainly through Wings and John Lennon's solo career).
A certain history professor would say that the insecurity one sees today in Beatles' songs was a product of the early 1960s and 1950s, when they first came together. I mean, I don't think at any point any of them "rocked", and never would, but I always got the feeling that within their context and genre, they were just barely more complex and awesome than what they were up against.
Of course, now that I have written this out, I am realizing that this is kinda what you said.
Apologies.
I should add that my "hatred" of The Beatles is about halfway inspired and sustained by just being contrary. This will be surprising to precisely no one.
Pulp - 90's brit pop
I'm pretty sure the Pixies belong on that list somewhere...
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