dime in the gutter wrote:little fuel for the fire.....
how long did the stones have to record exile? living and recording in the south of france....diddling in smack, coke and models.
how long did zep take to record pg? in a castle...diddling in black magic and sorcery.
how long did bruce have to record born to run? 3 months for 1 track?
what kind of label support did the "rock and roll greats" have at the time of their classic runs?
who handled booking, band management, promotion, professional services for these all time greats?
how does dbt's, kamikaze, guerilla warfare, diy process factor into the question of greatest bands? if at all?
who was feeding the families of the all time greats when they were recording their mount rushmore albums?
Exile? Took several months and wasn't finished until they went to LA, recorded a few more tracks and mixed the thing.
PG? Hell, I don't know. Couldn't have taken all that long since bands in those days put out an album every nine months with a tour in between.
Bruce? Weird approach. Records and mixes 30 plus songs and either picks twelve of them or goes back in the studio and records another 30 songs.
Label support? In the sixties and seventies labels paid mob guys to bribe deejays and program directors to put an album on the station's playlist. Still, the album had to be good.
Who handled booking, etc... for the all-time greats. Check the liner notes. Usually it is all there.
DBT's guerrilla warfare, kamikaze, diy process? They make a decent living which puts them in the 1% of musicians who can make that claim without playing weddings.
Who was feeding the families when the greats were recording their Mt. Rushmore albums? Most of them were single and didn't have to worry about feeding anyone but their own selves.
questions were mainly rhetorical.
points being that other than ny, most of the rushmore artists had unparalleled support from others to produce these masterpieces. plenty of cash. lots of drugs. scores of women. mafia guys (i guess). jet airplanes. drivers. fluffers. dealers. accountants. lawyers. bad ass managers. friendly radio stations. support from the labels. unlimited studio access and time.....ass kissers everywhere.
no real worries other than creating great music.
do the circumstances under which gb or sro were recorded "add" to the brilliance of these albums? does context factor in when evaluating these type things?
do the circumstances under which gb or sro were recorded "add" to the brilliance of these albums? does context factor in when evaluating these type things?
I think that they do factor greatly. I would imagine that you'd find that the hungrier artists are more creative (which to me points even more to the Stones brilliance. To be able to do that while tangled up in debauchery is pretty remarkable.
A thousand clusterfucks will not kill my tiny light
"Back in the day" radio stations had a lot more freedom to play what they wanted, mob bosses aside, but with so many of today's radio stations being owned by one or two groups, it is hard for most "rock" groups to get a hit these days. Most radio stations either play pop, pop country, or classic rock with some 90's alternative thrown in. At least thats the way it is around here. In other words, DBT is releasing great songs that don't get much radio play.
do the circumstances under which gb or sro were recorded "add" to the brilliance of these albums? does context factor in when evaluating these type things?
I think that they do factor greatly. I would imagine that you'd find that the hungrier artists are more creative (which to me points even more to the Stones brilliance. To be able to do that while tangled up in debauchery is pretty remarkable.
No. Absolutely not. Hell no!!! That's virtually a non sequitur to me. The albums are the albums, the music is the music.
The diy/"other circumstances" may go to the issue that rev matt has been banging on for pages here - that DBT's "greatness" is ascertainable w/out regard to album sales, popularity or radio play, but it has nothing to do w/ the quality of the music itself.
And as long as i'm posting, to zip's point a few thousand words ago about DBT not appealing to the college girl demographic, i think that's a true fact but it kind of comes at the issue sideways. To tie it in w/ the more recent convo above, DBT does not write/perform songs that appeal to college girls. They write/perform songs about real people living real lives, most of whom have not heard of Khalil Gibran.
What used to be is gone and what ought to be ought not to be so hard
btb - The music is the music, no doubt. All i was saying is that artists who are hungrier, in general, tend to be more creative. Bands who've made it have more distractions and might not feel the need to prove themselves every record. I do agree with damn near everything that revmatt has been saying here ('cept that Little Feat was under the radar). DBT cranks out record after record of beautiful music. In their case, it is because they are extremely creative, and I'm sure they've done their share of partying. To me, the fact that the Stones were able to keep up their level of creativity, even after making it big; speaks volumes about how talented they truly are. No slam on the Truckers at all, as I feel as though they bring it with the best of them (Stones included). Very few bands keep bringing it till the end of their run. Most of them have just an album or 2 of good stuff. They wrote songs (while they were hungry) that caught a labels attention. They get signed to a contract, and then are unable to match their earlier work, because either the well ran dry or the pressure of a deadline forced them to put filler in the album (with maybe 1 or 2 good songs. The bands who are being bandied about on this thread, don't fall under this general rule.
A thousand clusterfucks will not kill my tiny light
Slipkid42 wrote:btb - The music is the music, no doubt. All i was saying is that artists who are hungrier, in general, tend to be more creative. Bands who've made it have more distractions and might not feel the need to prove themselves every record. I do agree with damn near everything that revmatt has been saying here ('cept that Little Feat was under the radar). DBT cranks out record after record of beautiful music. In their case, it is because they are extremely creative, and I'm sure they've done their share of partying. To me, the fact that the Stones were able to keep up their level of creativity, even after making it big; speaks volumes about how talented they truly are. No slam on the Truckers at all, as I feel as though they bring it with the best of them (Stones included). Very few bands keep bringing it till the end of their run. Most of them have just an album or 2 of good stuff. They wrote songs (while they were hungry) that caught a labels attention. They get signed to a contract, and then are unable to match their earlier work, because either the well ran dry or the pressure of a deadline forced them to put filler in the album (with maybe 1 or 2 good songs. The bands who are being bandied about on this thread, don't fall under this general rule.
If I understand them correctly, I was responding more to dime's question than to your answer. DBT's consistency is remarkable under any circumstances, debauched or not, and the same for the Stones and others. That consistenct excellence is part of what we're talking about here for sure so to that extent i have no issues w/ what you're saying. But whether the circumstances are debauched excess, going thru personal turmoil, making a diy album on a home 2 track or whatever, the music is still the music, and I think the music has to stand on its own. The circumstances of an album's making might well inform one's understanding of, or color one's reaction to, that album (Richard & Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights comes immediately to mind in that regard, as does Exile and Tonight's the Night, among many others) but as i understood it, that was not the original question. But i could be wrong.
What used to be is gone and what ought to be ought not to be so hard
Ya know btb, I guess I was so happy i boxed a quote; that i misunderstood dime's question. If we're just evaluating the relative merit of an album (or artist); the circumstances under which it was produced should not come into play.
A thousand clusterfucks will not kill my tiny light
Slipkid42 wrote:Ya know btb, I guess I was so happy i boxed a quote; that i misunderstood dime's question. If we're just evaluating the relative merit of an album (or artist); the circumstances under which it was produced should not come into play.
I think that the context or circumstances under which a record is made should definitely be "in play" when evaluating it. It can add to the whole mood or feeling of the music. I remember a long time ago taking shit for giving SRO additional points essentially for "degree of difficulty" in a thread about which DBT record was best. There are a lot of records where the recording sessions were tense for one reason or another an I think that tension frequently shows in, and adds to, the overall sound of the record. Examples are SRO, Springsteen's Born to Run and Darkness, Exile. It could be romantic tension (Rumors by Fleetwood Mac) Or if the sessions are really loose it can show in the music (Traveling Willburies). And those factors can't be ignored in evaluating the music. IMO of course.
Slipkid42 wrote:Ya know btb, I guess I was so happy i boxed a quote; that i misunderstood dime's question. If we're just evaluating the relative merit of an album (or artist); the circumstances under which it was produced should not come into play.
I think it depends. One good example is John Lennon's first solo album. He was undergoing "primal screem" therapy at the time. Yes, it was gimmicky sixties hogwash. But it affected both the style and the content of the songs. I think it is the best of any former Beatles solo album. He wrote about all his resentments and screamed out the lyrics. "Mother don't go........... Daddy come home!!!!"
Another example is Warren Zevon's last album. He was dying. He wrote about the experience. "There's a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done... Keep me in your hearts for a while."
The Cowboy Junkies The Trinity Session was recorded with just one microphone in a church. It is an album of quiet, understated beauty.
In 1983 Ian McCulloch decided that he would sing better if the band recorded an album in Paris. So Echo and The Bunnymen arrived in Paris with ten new songs and a score for a complete orchestra. They go to this ancient analogue studio and hire musicians who couldn't even speak English. The result: Ocean Rain, a totally unique sounding album recorded in an era when everyone else was going high tech with synthesizers, samplers, electronic drums and the like.
I have nowhere else to go. There is no demand in the priesthood for elderly drug addicts
What the hell, I'll try one more time: For sure, understanding the circumstances in which an album is made helps to understand the songs and the album's "gestalt." The examples i gave above are, i think, very appropriate and Rumours is another classic example.
But the JUDGMENT that Trinity Sessions is an album of "quiet, understated beauty" does not depend at all on how many tracks it was recorded on or where it was recorded. Those facts may explain HOW they did it, but it doesn't change WHAT they did.
As I understand it, none of those "extrinsic factors" is relevant to how one evaluates the ultimate QUALITY of the album in relation to other albums, or dare i say it, history. If, for argument's sake, a band overcame huge adversity in making an album, e.g. one of the members had a life threatening illness and recovered, a tornado blew down the recording studio, somebody else's dog died and another member was going thru a bitter divorce, it might be a miracle that the album got made. But if the songs suck, they suck, and if they're great, they're great. And if a song on the album is a metaphor for the band member's illness and recovery, than knowing about the illness will help one understand the song. But I don't think the song gains or loses "points" because of the subject or because of how difficult it was to write and record. If that wasn't the question, than i apologize for the thread hijacking, but that's what i thought dime was asking.
What used to be is gone and what ought to be ought not to be so hard
