It's so cool to have one of the biggest bands in the world be one of the best bands in the world. I can quibble about whether KP's early work is better than his latest or not, but it's cool he really reinvented and reinvigorated what a rock band can be for at least a couple generations of people.
Obviously Lana Del Rey is an an out of touch rich person, but I will admit to agreeing that the style of "x pop star's interrogation of bodies and spaces is the music you need right now" culture writing and debate is totally exhausting (and exhausted).
I've never loved them when they do their acoustic folky thing, but hopefully it will stick with me this time. They've always been a much better singles band than album band for me, but I really do love their singles.
babystrange I'm surprised you don't dig any of Sam's Town or Day and Age — killer singles even if the songwriting on Killers albums is always a bit uneven.
I agree with you bloc that that the Gen Z indie embrace of Sheryl Crow, Avril Lavigne, and Alanis Morrisette as huge influences is a bit mystifying to me. That stuff just isn't nearly as cool as the 80s pop influences that were en vogue for a lot of the last decade me to me. But then again I also don't like the crappy Pavement and Sebadoh retreads you probably really dig (ahem Car Seat Headrest).
Great summation of their appeal for me! Underrated thing about them though is they also write killer pop songs. I heard someone compare them to a millennial Blur (whereas Tame Impala is probably a millennial Gorillaz), which seems right on the money to me. Dismissed as a silly pop band, they ultimately go on to be viewed as one of the biggest and most important bands of their time and equally beloved by music nerds and teenage girls. The question is who might be their Oasis (if such a thing is even possible anymore).
I just pegged what the groove reminds me of — it's totally a nod to Sheryl Crow's "If It Makes You Happy". Also similar delivery on the verses — maybe Phoebe's influence on Matty.
On another note, with everyone talking about them reinventing themselves as a Britpop band, I'm not sure that I hear that? "Me and You Together Song" definitely sounds like "Whatever" by Oasis though.
What would you rate it? The chorus is nice but the melody on the verse is a little wonky as are a few of the lyrics. The synths also aren't as nice as a lot of what was happening on McCartney II.
What a cool rundown on such a random and fascinating bit of pop history! This kind of stuff is why I always love this column — thank you for being one consistently great thing these days, Tom!
Pretty much all of the songs really opened up live for me too. I saw them at a festival for MVOTC which was great but the FOTB show topped it in every way. Also probably helps that I really dig a lot of the classic rock and Dead stuff he's referencing on the album.
I really don't understand people not liking this album. They've always evolved an remaking Contra/MVOTC without Rostam in a very different cultural moment would have cemented them purely as a legacy act.
You're totally right. They maybe channel Strokes in "vibe" a little bit, but the Strokes arrangements, vocals, and songwriting are light years ahead. I really don't get it. It seems a bit like older listeners having nostalgia for something you don't see as much anymore?
I'm obsessed with the Strokes and that first record was...not that great. Open to their new stuff — it does sound like they've decided to rip off the intro to "Last Nite" this time and the Beach Boys influence they trumpeted seems like "light harmonies here and there". This is definitely better mixed and produced than their last record though.
It's a lot to do with the economics of streaming. You don't need any real commitment, but both artists have huge fanbases that can passively listen on loop. They've both made great work in the past and a collab like that is almost too big to fail. And artists aren't really incentivized to spend that much more time crafting songs if a relatively quick process produces big returns.
I respect Tom’s opinion, but I love the “cutesy fussiness” of Hall and Oates’s sound. The chord changes are also very clever and well written that I dig this tune a lot. MGMT cited Hall and Oates as a big influence on their poppier stuff, and I can definitely hear this as a bizarro MGMT song with some more phaser on the vocals. Almost all of the big Hall and Oates songs remind me of what I love about 80s pop. “I Can’t Go For That” still sounds contemporary to me.
"You Know We Can't Go Back," "If I Had a Gun," "What a Life," "Dead in the Water," "Everybody's on the Run," and "Let the Lord Shine a Lot on Me" are all great tunes in my opinion.
Oh yeah for sure. I don't think I ever heard "Rapture" outside of Blondie's greatest hits. "Call Me," "One Way or Another," and "Heart of Glass" get a lot of burn on radio though.
The second album is a little paint by the numbers, but I actually really like As You Were — based on "Doesn't Have to Be That Way," I would kill for an album of Liam collaborating with Kevin Parker.
Agree with everything you said! I've seen Beady Eye, Noel, and Liam and enjoyed all of them — never got a chance to see Oasis. They only played one show near me on the Dig Out Your Soul tour but I first got into them about 6 months after that. Speaking of Britpop legends though, I did see Gorillaz live on the Plastic Beach tour! What are your favorite shows you've seen?
The Masterplan is excellent! As babystrange alludes to, there are also many excellent Standing on the Shoulder of Giants -sides as well and even some Heathen Chemistry era gems like "Idler's Dream".
Completely agree. I wouldn't be opposed to them doing a one off benefit show or something, but there's just no way the collision between the covid-era reality and the glorious image of the past wouldn't be brutal. They were never an especially great live band anyway.
Oh man, they were probably the most important band for me in late middle school into high school, so my love for them runs so deep. I especially love their last two records Don't Believe the Truth and Dig Out You Soul, because they feel fresher and more underexposed than some of the 90s stuff that's been played into the ground. The first half of Dig Out Your Soul is awesome heavy psych rock with deeper grooves than anything else Oasis ever did.
I think it was a bit of punk and a bit of hip hop! Per Mick:
"And also that element of (early rap) was in Shattered... So it's like a kind of punk beat with this guitar riff that Keith does, and me, it's sort of... what I do is a sort of semi-rap thing. You know it's half talking... I was obviously very influenced by (early rap)..."
I love the Las but I haven't listened to it in years — will go back to it! Also I love the Kinks as a singles band and I love so many of their albums but for whatever reason Village Green doesn't hit me as hard as Something Else, Lola, Face to Face, or Arthur.
My favorite mini-genre of Bowie stories is him passing on working with MOR (or "centrist pop" I hear is the new parlance) artists (see also his Chris Martin story).
Put me in the column of massive Oasis fan that doesn't want them to reunite. I remember being one of two kids in middle school in the late 2000s who was obsessed with them and literally no one cared when they broke up. By being gone, they became some massive touchstone and became much more popular and iconic in America. If they come back, and everyone contents with the reality that it's not 1995 anymore, so much of their cool factor would be lost (and the music would be probably meh at best).
I'd also put in a plug for the Stones's "Shattered" as being well ahead of Blondie for a big band nodding towards rap music, although what Blondie does is much more explicit and was of course a bigger hit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IvxpNTNmzshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IvxpNTNmzs
There's also this brutal Arcade Fire album track that was clearly trying to recreate Rapture, and well, Win Butler is no Debbie Harry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dx4IAD1NLo
Maybe this is a hot take but I think McCartney's has definitely aged the best to my ears. With the decline of rockism as a value system for evaluating music, his rep seems to be getting better all the time. McCartney, Ram, Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, and McCartney II are all great albums that you can hear echoes of in modern music. Every single one of his other 70s records has at least 2-3 great songs on it as well. I like George a lot, but a lot of his post-ATMP is really overproduced and anonymous studio rock with ponderous and preachy lyrics. I do love the George Harrison 1979 LP though.
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