What we like, Why we like and Why some things we don't

[Smitty]

If you think lyrics trump melody every time, I'd think you'd be a much bigger fan of hip hop

Lyrics are the main reason I don't listen to much hip-hop.

[beantownbubba]

Give music fans an A or B choice and subjectivity wins every time.

True. But in this context the underlying message of that observation would seem to be that Dylan is good for you, not good. Which I don't get. Dylan is not a poet (cod liver oil), he's a musician, very often but not always a rock musician (bacon). If all one can say about him is the equivalent of "I recognize his greatness but I don't like him" that's pretty much the same as not recognizing his greatness. I do think, though, that the Dylan v. Band question is a pretty close one and I'd miss never hearing the Band again one hell of a lot (though if I got to include Before the Flood and The Basement Tapes in my Dylan package I'd feel a lot better).

[Smitty]

I asked who could you live without: Tom Waits or Van Morrison. I was honestly shocked by people classifying Van as a "pop singer" who "wrote classic love ballads" and lumped him in with Donovan. WTF?

[Kudzu Guillotine]

I asked who could you live without: Tom Waits or Van Morrison. I was honestly shocked by people classifying Van as a "pop singer" who "wrote classic love ballads" and lumped him in with Donovan. WTF?

I blame VH1 and that Jack Nicholson movie. Dug this one up the other day from back when rock n' roll stations still played new music.

[John A Arkansawyer]

One comment that was made was that "I've never gotten the Dylan thing besides the lyrics", ummm what????

Having just discovered Street-Legal (and what's up with the hyphen, Bobby?) doesn't suck and that "Changing of the Guards" is one of Dylan's best songs, I sing along with it, and I am still struggling to hit the timing on some of the vocal entrances accurately, even with Dylan's vocal as a guide.

I'm with you on this TC. The Band was a great band, but only Dylan is Dylan. Besides the lyrics thing I belong amongst those who actually think Dylan can sing. He's demonstrating a great sense of rhythm and feel in the way he is delivering the words. So for me Dylan is very much "musical", not only a poet fronting a band. Dylan is Rock'n'Roll.

Yes, exactly.

[John A Arkansawyer]

is yodeling lyrical or musical?

Not really, but I kinda like it anyways.

[John A Arkansawyer]

I asked who could you live without: Tom Waits or Van Morrison. I was honestly shocked by people classifying Van as a "pop singer" who "wrote classic love ballads" and lumped him in with Donovan. WTF?

I blame VH1 and that Jack Nicholson movie.

The media givethm and the media taketh away. But mostly they taketh any old way.

[beantownbubba]

I asked who could you live without: Tom Waits or Van Morrison. I was honestly shocked by people classifying Van as a "pop singer" who "wrote classic love ballads" and lumped him in with Donovan. WTF?

You hang around in a strange crowd, smitty

[cortez the killer]

I do think, though, that the Dylan v. Band question is a pretty close one and I'd miss never hearing the Band again one hell of a lot (though if I got to include Before the Flood and The Basement Tapes in my Dylan package I'd feel a lot better).

Don't forget Planet Waves.

[beantownbubba]

I do think, though, that the Dylan v. Band question is a pretty close one and I'd miss never hearing the Band again one hell of a lot (though if I got to include Before the Flood and The Basement Tapes in my Dylan package I'd feel a lot better).

Don't forget Planet Waves.

Point. I do tend to forget (or overlook) that one, don't I?

[cortez the killer]

I do think, though, that the Dylan v. Band question is a pretty close one and I'd miss never hearing the Band again one hell of a lot (though if I got to include Before the Flood and The Basement Tapes in my Dylan package I'd feel a lot better).

Don't forget Planet Waves.

Point. I do tend to forget (or overlook) that one, don't I?

Indeed. Borderline criminal (in my universe).

[Iowan]

I came down on the side of The Band in the "which would you take if you only get one" debate, but its such a testament to Dylan that an album that contains "Forever Young" and "Wedding Song" is considered "overlooked" within his catalog.

[beantownbubba]

Indeed. Borderline criminal (in my universe).

Misdemeanor or felony?

[Slipkid42]

I think it's the desert island aspect of the question that would give me pause. If I could only choose one or the other to listen to for the rest of my life, I too would choose the Band. This is not the same as me saying that I think the Band is better than Dylan (which of course, no one in rock is). It's about what I would rather hear if I could only pick one.

Smitty's Waits vs. Morrison challenge is similar. I think Tom Waits is utterly brilliant (more so, even than Van); but if I only could pick one or the other to listen to. it would be Van Morrison.

[LBRod]

I think it's the desert island aspect of the question that would give me pause. If I could only choose one or the other to listen to for the rest of my life, I too would choose the Band. This is not the same as me saying that I think the Band is better than Dylan (which of course, no one in rock is). It's about what I would rather hear if I could only pick one.

Smitty's Waits vs. Morrison challenge is similar. I think Tom Waits is utterly brilliant (more so, even than Van); but if I only could pick one or the other to listen to. it would be Van Morrison.

This. Well said. Both cases.

[John A Arkansawyer]

I think it's the desert island aspect of the question that would give me pause. If I could only choose one or the other to listen to for the rest of my life, I too would choose the Band. This is not the same as me saying that I think the Band is better than Dylan (which of course, no one in rock is). It's about what I would rather hear if I could only pick one.

Smitty's Waits vs. Morrison challenge is similar. I think Tom Waits is utterly brilliant (more so, even than Van); but if I only could pick one or the other to listen to. it would be Van Morrison.

This. Well said. Both cases.

I love Tom Waits, but Van Morrison gets the listener into certain emotional states I don't think Tom Waits can. By the time I'm through with "Cypress Avenue", just for a moment, I, too, feel "young and bold, just fourteen years old". Only briefly, but it's there in me as he sings "baby baby baby baby".

[Tequila Cowboy]

I think it's the desert island aspect of the question that would give me pause. If I could only choose one or the other to listen to for the rest of my life, I too would choose the Band. This is not the same as me saying that I think the Band is better than Dylan (which of course, no one in rock is). It's about what I would rather hear if I could only pick one.

Smitty's Waits vs. Morrison challenge is similar. I think Tom Waits is utterly brilliant (more so, even than Van); but if I only could pick one or the other to listen to. it would be Van Morrison.

I can see that line of thought regarding the Band/Dylan debate but when I looked at the numbers I listen to eleven Dylan records on a regular basis and with The Band it's three and one includes Dylan (Before The Flood). The sheer enormity of his catalog, much like Neil Young and The Rolling Stones, guarantees him (and those others) the winning slot in such debates.

[Slipkid42]

While Dylan does have a vast catalog that includes many many great songs & while I have grown accustomed to his voice; I like The Weight, Stage Fright, It Makes No Difference & Acadian Driftwood better than any Dylan song. That is enough for me to pick the Band over Dylan for my desert island collection (although admittedly I may get tired of the Band's stuff before I would get tired of Dylan's larger catalog).

[John A Arkansawyer]

While Dylan does have a vast catalog that includes many many great songs & while I have grown accustomed to his voice; I like The Weight, Stage Fright, It Makes No Difference & Acadian Driftwood better than any Dylan song. That is enough for me to pick the Band over Dylan for my desert island collection (although admittedly I may get tired of the Band's stuff before I would get tired of Dylan's larger catalog).

I have heard Stage Fright was written about Dylan. Does anyone know the relative truth of that claim?

[Tequila Cowboy]

While Dylan does have a vast catalog that includes many many great songs & while I have grown accustomed to his voice; I like The Weight, Stage Fright, It Makes No Difference & Acadian Driftwood better than any Dylan song. That is enough for me to pick the Band over Dylan for my desert island collection (although admittedly I may get tired of the Band's stuff before I would get tired of Dylan's larger catalog).

The Weight is my favorite song of all time. The thing is, I'm an album guy. I rarely put on specific songs or even put on records for specific songs and when I do I feel guilty. Hell if I want to hear track six on an album I usually listen to tracks one through five out of deference to the album and the artist. That odd predilection defines my music listening and than manifests itself in a variety of ways when I'm picking favorites etc.

[beantownbubba]

I have heard Stage Fright was written about Dylan. Does anyone know the relative truth of that claim?

I'm pretty sure that's true. It's one of those things that one "just hears around" but I think I've also read it in reasonably definitive sources, perhaps a Band bio or a Robbie R interview or something like that.

[John A Arkansawyer]

I have heard Stage Fright was written about Dylan. Does anyone know the relative truth of that claim?

I'm pretty sure that's true. It's one of those things that one "just hears around" but I think I've also read it in reasonably definitive sources, perhaps a Band bio or a Robbie R interview or something like that.

It's my thought that Drifter's Escape is also about stage fright, which is probably at least part of why Jimi covered it.

[StormandStatic]

34 years ago today, this was the scene as Van Halen took the stage at Carter Stadium (now Carter-Finley) in Raleigh as part of Summer Jam '79, a bill that also included Poco, Boston and the Outlaws. During the show, lots of folks starting stacking red plastic NCSU cups together and tossing them into the air. At one point, a stack of these cups made their way to the stage where they smacked David Lee Roth upside the head. At that point he stopped the show and said, "I'm gonna whup the next motherfucker's ass that throws a cup up here". He also threatened to bring the entire concert to a halt if people continued to throw cups at the stage. At the time, I really didn't think too much about it but all these years later, this has to be the most talked about concert in my area that I ever attended. Festivals of this sort were the norm back then and I'm not the least bit ashamed of the fact that I attended such a concert or that I'm still a fan of Van Halen to this day. However, a friend of mine recently said, "...some things never change over time. The fact that I would have never gone to this show is one of them." While I admire the honesty, I also find such comments to be insulting, no matter how well intentioned they may be. I've never understood people that think their shit doesn't stink, especially when it comes to music.

Not long ago, the Slicing Up Eyeballs site (which is devoted to the "college rock" 80's era) asked people to post photos of their cassette collections. One person posted a photo of their collection, which included some tapes by Phil Collins. For this, they caught a rash of shit from some other people who attacked the person for their lack of good taste in music. However, another person stood up and said they admired the people that posted tape collections such as that one as it was more of an accurate representation of their musical tastes. I imagine lots of the tape collections were finely picked over so that only stuff that was considered cool like R.E.M., the Cure, the Replacements, etc. were included. I know if you were to look through my music collection you would find albums by Boston, Foreigner, .38 Special, Kansas, Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot, Loverboy, the Johnny Van Zant Band, etc. All artists that the so called rock n' roll intelligentsia would find fault with. They may not have been my favorite bands then or now but they are all a part of who I am as a music fan. I can definitely relate more to that than those that stare down their nose at you and claim to have impeccable taste in music. I can only imagine they keep the music they're ashamed of very well hidden because, surely their music collection isn't as perfect as they'd like others to believe. Everyone has liked some artist another person would consider to be shit at some time in their lives.

This line of thinking always bothers me. Obviously, being a snob and judging people based on their musical tastes is pointless and gets you nowhere. But to say that bands like Creed, Nickelback, or even (especially) nu-metal like Limp Bizkit shouldn't be insulted because people like them is an unthinking, reflexive response, in the same way as the behavior it's supposedly opposing. Like beantownbubba pointed out, there's a lot more to music than just notes, no matter what we think we're being objective about. Not that it's my favorite era of music, but are bands like Live and Bush demonstrably worse than Nirvana or Pearl Jam? In an objective sense, no, all four were professional. But in every other sense, absolutely, as the former were ruthlessly derivative of the latter, making boring, thoughtless music calculated to sell to millions of kids between PJ and Nirvana records. Should those kids get judged harshly? No. Does that make those bands good, because someone likes them? Absolutely not.
Nu-Metal, I think, is a perfect example, because for a 3 or 4 year period, it dominated radio, and its biggest bands (Limp Bizkit, Korn, etc) sold millions of albums and played to huge stadiums. It is, almost inarguably, the worst trash I have ever heard. And it's not just the terrible, terrible music that goes with it, all cornball 'chugga' riffs and awful, awful lyrics, that makes the genre worth trashing; it's the fanbase, the ultra-macho attitude that made Woodstock 99 turn into a rape-prone mass of testosterone and makes hardcore shows generally impossible to go to. Did everyone that liked those bands act that way? Of course not. But all of that is contained within the music.
Obviously, everyone has listened to music they don't like, and they've reflexively denied themselves the ability to like music based on its connotations. But here we're talking about Rush, Van Halen (a band I'm not fond of), etc, bands that have demonstrated that their fame wasn't fleeting, that it at least had legs. Sure, they engender strong opinions, but they're actually worth arguing about. So much else, like what I've mentioned before, isn't even close to the same category.
And sorry for dragging this thread off-topic; Dylan is in another category from the Band, no matter how much I love them.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

You're not off-topic at all. For me, I guess it's the duality of the music fan thing. My encounters with a lot of the Buffett fanbase find me to be an elitist and condescending in my musical tastes because I'm outspoken about how I don't care for mainstream country like Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, Sugarland, etc. or the Zac Brown Band, the American Idol singers like Carrie Underwood, etc. all of whom are huge with the Buffett crowd. Same thing with the "Trop Rock" off-shoots that mold themselves after the more kitschy aspects of Buffett's sound and appearance. That shit just doesn't trip my trigger, at all. I've had very similar encounters with Skynyrd and Zeppelin fans or people my own age who think there hasn't been any decent music made since the 70's. On the other hand, I know folks like my friend who I referenced above, who finds my taste in bands like Van Halen and Rush to be shit. Since hitting 50 last year (and even a little before that), I started revisiting a lot of the music of my youth such as Kiss. More recently, I openly admitted to cranking up "More Than A Feeling" on the radio after not hearing it after many years. I guess that can be chalked up to nostalgia. I guess the thing is, I miss the innocence of when I had no preconceptions about what was considered "cool" or "uncool" and I have a record collection that reflects it.

[Smitty]

Artists perform for their audience. I'm not programmed to like a band like Nickelback, but I'm not supposed to, so I'm not gonna talk shit about them. They might as well not exist to me. I do however have friends who feel as strongly for a sappy ass song like Nickelback's "Photograph" as I do about "Heathens" - I'm not gonna begrudge them for that.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Here's sort of a twist on the topic of this thread. I think the first such tribute record I remember was If I Was A Carpenter, the Carpenters tribute album that came out in '94. That said, I don't think it really helped to change my opinion of the Carpenters.

John Denver tribute album asks us to revere music once considered lame
Edgy current artists redo the pop star's '70s songs on 'The Music Is You'; meanwhile, bad bands like Journey
and America are also getting newfound respect


John Denver's treacly songs received no critical respect in their time, but now they've been
remade in a tribute CD, 'The Music Is You.'

[Tequila Cowboy]

Nice find KG. This is a good un:



No one should have ever started believing: shrieking Journey front man Steve Perry.

[John A Arkansawyer]

My late friend, the Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen used to say, "Music shouldn't be held responsible for the people who listen to it."

[StormandStatic]

Yeah, but music and bands and individuals absolutely can and do condition or influence responses in their audiences; the aforementioned torching of Woodstock 99 while LB played 'Break Stuff,' for example.

[Smitty]

I think any energy you spend insulting a pop artist (Nickelback qualify) could be better spent promoting <insert great band who's not popular here>.