Am I the only person who really digs this cover and this band? I think they've got potential to be the Gen Z MGMT. Love their cover of "Congratulations" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sbRRx9hvKw
You're not wrong about Lennon and you shouldn't be downvoted by acknowledging that, but it feels like a cliché to acknowledge that at this point, so much so that the Onion wrote an article about it 4 years ago. https://local.theonion.com/man-always-gets-little-rush-out-of-telling-people-john-1819578998
If that's a dealbreaker for you and you can't separate the art from the artist, I respect that, but I really don't think it's a case of people just not knowing. Everybody in the world knows what Michael Jackson did, but his music is still huge even among people who weren't even alive then.
You can look at the Beatles Spotify streaming numbers — over 50 years after breaking up, they are one of the top 100 most popular artists of the world. I'm not saying that's a direct correlation with quality, but denying that they have tons of young fans seems odd. Here's her older brother Finneas (22 years old) listening "everything by the Beatles" on a list of albums that changed his life, so I'm not sure why you think she'd be lying here. https://twitter.com/finneas/status/1116074275306213376?lang=en
I guess I should clarify "band of their generation," so 60s band. I like the Clash a lot, but the Stones have made way more classic albums, wrote better pop singles, and have a much larger body of work.
This inspired me to check out Hollywood's Bleeding, and while I can appreciate his talent, his aesthetic is still not really for me other than a few classic singles like "Sunflower" and "Rockstar". I'm definitely not a hater and hope he makes cool stuff going forward.
Yeah they're such the archetypal rock and roll band that gives you almost everything you could possibly want out of rock and roll music that pretty much every band that followed in that vein is an inferior version IMO.
Noted young person Billie Eilish loves Beatles deep cuts and the Stones do massive numbers on Spotify, so I'd strongly disagree that it's just a #okboomer debate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X5S4JogfMk
No worries! I love both bands — I think the Stones 78-81 run run is almost as good as the 68-72 run and their resilience over whole new generations of music coming up behind them is also a point in their column.
The best case for the Stones I've ever seen, as argued by the writer Bill Wyman (no relation to the Stones bassist) in Slate, which I think I agree with (I deeply love grooves and art pop, so I've got a foot in both camps):
"As a pure rock (not folk or pop) songwriter, I think [Keith Richards] is not just without peer. I think he is unrivaled in depth and growth, from “As Tears Go By” to “Satisfaction” to “Jumping Jack Flash” to, I don’t know, “Gimme Shelter. ” “Monkey Man.” “Street Fighting Man.” The primal feel of the chording. The musicality of the intros and breaks. The innovation of the recording—cruder, no doubt, but I will argue far more emotionally powerful than the Beatles’. The winding, intermixed guitars he almost desperately loved. Without him, what would I have been? Peter Noone? It is hard to use a word like integrity about a band as compromised, as self-bloodied, as we were. But for some years, unlike any other group, the Beatles included, we declared war on that silly, hypocritical, repressive, and arbitrary society in which we lived. The only ammunition we had were Keith’s songs. The lyrics, I confess now, may have been in their defiance just épater la bourgeoisie and in their poesy derivatively Zimmerman-esque. Even when they weren’t, no one would have paid attention if the chords weren’t arresting, irrefutable. The songs spoke primarily through their music, not their words. Keith’s doting fans nattering on about the ultimate avatar of rock ’n’ roll authenticity irritate me, it’s true; but he may to this day be underappreciated."
I could see dismissing the blues rock side of the Stones, but there's no question the Stones better assimilated R&B, disco, country, gospel, samba, and funk into their sound, all of which are major influences on pop today. Maybe "Brown Sugar" has less prestige over time, but "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Beast of Burden" still sound very much in conversation with modern music.
"Ruby Tuesday," "Moonlight Mile, "Worried About You," "No Expectations," "She Smiled Sweetly," "Tops," "Waiting on a Friend," "Almost Hear You Sigh," "Slipping Away," "Thru and Thru,"...the Stones have never stopped writing great ballads.
I would disagree that the Stones didn't branch out. They're not on the level of Revolver, but Satanic Majesties and especially Between the Buttons are wonderful exercises in English psychedelia. Also the Stones assimilated disco, punk, country, reggae, funk, and new wave better than any other classic rock band.
I'm aware this is a hot take, but I sincerely love parts of Dirty Work, and despite its brutal 80s production in places, there are lots of moments in there as great as anything the Stones ever did. Keith Richards's Talk is Cheap is also an incredible record. Here's a great appreciation by Alfred Soto: http://stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/rolling-stones-dirty-work.html
Is Taylor Swift a socialist? Since when has she been against chasing a dollar? I'm not even knocking her for her opportunism, but its interesting to hear someone with $360 million criticize finance and even weirder to hear her tie it to Covid-19 somehow. I don't see how those things are related at all.
To quote my leftist friend I sent this story to: "Love to see high net worth individual capital and corporate capital clash".
I'm always baffled by "does the world need new music from x?". If you don't like it, no one is making you listen to it and if there were zero interest, then the artist wouldn't be able to release it in the first place.
If we're talking about Everything Now apropos of nothing, I just noticed the opening lick of this T. Rex song is a dead ringer for the beginning of Everything Now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkGNU1089HQ
Yeah he clearly has great taste in classic power pop, but his hook skills have faded and he continues to try to update Green Day's sound with terrible "modern rock" production techniques that just emphasize how past their prime these guys are.
I think either Rick Rubin or Danger Mouse would be good choices for them to work with to try to switch things up. I'd love to hear them make a record with like Mark Ronson or something to emphasize grooves and texture a little more in their records. A Josh Homme produced record could even be cool to hear them go heavier and darker. My favorite Green Day related project is still that incredible Foxboro Hot Tubs album.
I'm in the same boat. I really prefer her lusher Tidal era stuff — I guess I just like pop songs? I think the album is very good, but I definitely appreciate it more than enjoy it at times.
I don't think that's the problem necessarily. I'm pretty tired of 90s alt/indie retreads even though that trend is a little newer. I really don't want to hear a bunch of bands try to write Sheryl Crow, Liz Phair, or Cake songs without the killer hooks.
I like the riff and production, but I've realized that I just can't get past his voice and vocal persona. Also hard to get past using "Hollywood makes me want to puke" on a chorus and thinking that's clever. Good for him though for highlighting sexual abuse that hasn't gone away despite MeToo.
I find myself admiring McCartney's singing more than being emotionally moved by it. Then again, I've just heard his most moving songs ("Hey Jude," "Let It Be") so many times that they don't really hit me in the same way.
Great post babystrange. I've never been able to decide if I'm fundamentally a Lennon or McCartney person, but "Mind Games" and "Instant Karma" just destroy me every time they're played. When Lennon really sings, holy shit.
I was 16 when this came out and it had a similar impact on me. I was getting into buying records at my local record store and checking out things like Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Smiley Smile, Ram, etc. (all three of which are still some of my favorite records) and to hear a modern band mine those sounds in a way that felt fresh was mind blowing and felt like it was speaking specifically to me.
What MGMT did — mastering both perfect pop songs and restless experimentation — is the high water mark of what any great band can ever achieve and has basically been my model for what I want from bands ever since.
One of the Daft Punk guys commented that the Strokes and MGMT are some of the few modern bands to really stand shoulder to shoulder with the best bands of the classic rock era, and I'm pretty inclined to agree.
Yes! And it's doubly ironic/interesting depending on your point of view that MGMT was slated to open for Tame Impala in Mexico City on their latest tour. The student becomes the master or something like that (I love both bands but slightly prefer MGMT).
"I’m positive of this: “Congratulations” is going to go down as this overlooked, death-knell-of-rock-’n’-roll masterwork. You heard it here first." - Dan Bejar, 2015
He was right! It really does feel like the end of an era of an underground indie band becoming major label rock stars then blowing it up to pursue their muse Syd Barrett style. Legendary — and hard to believe something like that is possible anymore (I guess if Kevin Parker made a hard left turn on his next record).
Lol that's hilarious and brutal. I will say though that compared to their peers like Jack White, the Strokes fanbase is quite young, possibly because there weren't any bands in the past 10 years who really filled the "classic rock cool" niche the way the Strokes did.
As of listen number 2, I really like all of the songs with the exception of "Why Are Sunday's So Depressing" which didn't quite seem to cohere in spite of a lot of cool parts. I really liked Comedown Machine (which apparently is a consensus good Strokes album now?) and Angles (which is also "strangely underrated"), but this has a great energy to it. I think they really delivered. If you don't like this one, I'm just not sure what you want from this band at this point, and it might have more to do with how you've changed as a person/listener than the band.
Yep. Julian's voice has never been so up front that it didn't sound like it was part of the band. The rest of the instruments also all sound super separated and less cohesive too.
If you look at their Spotify top 10 most played, it's a pretty wide mix of songs from across their career. I don't think younger fans don't fall into the camp of liking the first two albums and nothing else. The Voidz have a very young audience as well.
I'd also slightly disagree with your characterization of their latter day work. Sure, the albums as a whole may be "inessential," but their singles have never really fallen off at all. I'm not sure what an "essential" album would really mean in this context anyway. You either dig it or you don't.
I really liked that Voidz album a lot, but Julian has this instinct to sabotage great pop songs that is closer to self-destructive than subversive at times. "Wink" is definitely one of those moments.
I love the "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "Glory Days" quotes. I will say that something about the mixing on all three of these new singles makes this feel less like "a bunch of guys playing in a room" than anything else they've put out. I can't quite describe it but you can really hear the tracking IMO.
I've witnessed the same thing with Angles. I think the songs from Comedown Machine would be better known and loved if they had decided to do any promo at all for that album. Angles had multiple late night appearances, a proper tour, and tons of music videos.
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