Zachary Amaranth said:
No, it's honesty. You can choose to not like it, choose to disagree, but it is not hyperbole.
Well then I guess I disagree entirely with your taste, and we'll have to agree to disagree.
I didn't think one had to be a huge fan of someone to recognise their capabilities. My bad.
Seriously? What I mean, and I clarified with "Never really sought out all of his stuff" is that I haven't heard most of his music. I'm heard "Life on Mars" "Let's Dance" and "Space Oddity" dozens of times, but I haven't listened to any of his albums start to finish, and lack even basic familiarity with any of his other songs. Those really are the only three I can name off the top of my head, and "Space Oddity" I thought of as "Major Tom". Don't get snarky with me about that. I recognise his capabilities NOW THAT I'VE HEARD IT. It's like say, athletes. There's plenty of talented athletes out there, but since I don't like sports, I really can't name many, and it's not a diss or anything if I don't know one. I can't have an opinion on Bowie covers prior to hearing them, or knowing they exist.
As for not being old enough, I somehow doubt that's the case [*Loonyyy: Well booey to you. That's the reason I haven't heard a lot of Bowie. He didn't get so much play in the late 90's, especially where I live. Cut the condescension and assuming of motives]. Though that might explain the JC thing. I'm "old enough" to have listened to Cash for years and years before he died, so Hurt really is nothing new to me. Maybe it's just the novelty to you yung'uns, but it's all been done (woo woo woo).
The "not old enough" thing is in specific reference to Bowie. I never heard him when he was new, and I never heard him when he was novel. To listen to him, I have to actively look for it, and dig it up, and most of his stuff isn't of the genre's I like, so I don't go looking for most of it. If I like it (Grunge, Hardcore Punk, Johnny Cash's voice, etc), I'll look up a bunch of old stuff. But I'm not really much of a fan of the Bowie stuff, and I didn't hear it when it got radio play. Literally my first exposure to it was the theme from the British TV series "Life On Mars", and I love that track. I only found Hurt when I was looking up a bunch of Cash, and yeah, it's nothing new compared to his other tracks, but I reckon it works. I listened to more of Cash because I liked what he did. I listened to less of Bowie because I liked it less. I've got a ton of Bad Religion, because I liked their stuff enough to look it all up.
I lost most of my liner notes in the fire, but I'm pretty sure there's no written by Black Francis note in the Nirvana liners. Besides, thanks for the history lesson, but Cobain really only started being forward about it after people caught on. Prior to that...Well...I know it's fun to worship someone retroactively, but....
I'll make no bones about it-I'm a massive fan of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, and yeah, it's a bit of hero worship. But that's not clear from the outset, and the way you phrase that is just adding to the
dripping condenscension I get from you. Considering you would rather Cyrus to Cobain, that's really terrible taste in my view, but I'm not going after you with condescending, disrespectful tone, so I'd prefer it if you didn't level it at me. We disagree on taste. Deal with it.
I'm not aware that the song was written by Black Francis, and it certainly doesn't gel with anything I read about it (And I did a quick run of "Nirvana cover Pixies" in google. I just did one specifically of "Black Francis Smells like teen spirit" and couldn't find any. If you can enlighten me on where the Pixies decided Kurt had stolen from them, that'd be nice). From what I see, the song resembles the Pixies sound. It's inspired by them. That's not theft, it's inspiration, and admitting inspiration is fair, and unnecessary. Most artists don't admit their inspirations, or bands who influenced them, and they don't get hammered for it, because it's not expected.
And yeah, for me it is retroactive but a song which
-he didn't like performing because people were only coming for it (Hardly the act of someone who rips off artists for popularity)
-he admits his influences bluntly in a Rolling Stones interview
it doesn't seem that deriding his character is an appropriate response, but whatever.
You do realise that most of the times "lesser of two evils" is invoked, it's not actually talking about evils, right?
Yes. I do. I'm trying to demonstrate a bit of perspective (Which we both seem a bit far off, exaggeration wise [Well, I was exaggerating at least]). It's music. No-one is doing anything harmful, and we chose to listen to it.
The worst you can do in music (From the consumer's POV) is make crappy music, and then people can just not listen to you. So I think the bad/worse comparison is flawed. It's meh/better/good. It's that I don't see it as the lesser of two evils, but the greater of two goods. Someone out there likes Miley Cyrus, and I like Nirvana. As much as I despise Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber's music, I'll admit that they're not actually doing anything bad, it's just not my taste, so I'm meh towards it. I'd prefer artists I consider better. I wouldn't say that I consider any one the lesser of two evils, since it's just a case of finding what I like the most.
At least Hannah's fanbase has the excuse of being a demographic that shouldn't know any better. One soulless sham or another? Meh. At least Miley sounds better, which is still the lesser of two evils principle in action and not the endorsement of her as a quality musician.
I entirely disagree that Nirvana is a soulless sham. And if you're coming to that conclusion off one song, which you still haven't really proven your point about, shame on you. There's a fuckload more than that one song to their work. That would be like me saying Bowie is boring because I thought that Let's Dance is a boring ass song. That would be out of line. Justifying anything because the fanbase is more likely to be ignorant is really, really silly. Since I couldn't even find anything on the Pixies themselves being pissed over it, it seems like you're getting outraged over something that was nothing.
Miley sounds better? Subjective opinion I guess, but I generally don't like singers who would co-opt a style they can't sing and then would produce a crappy cover where they, rather than reinventing the song, diluted it. Whether that be people who growl incessantly covers of people with range, or pretty much anyone trying to do Serj Tankian, it's annoying. You should add something, not take away something. I really couldn't care less about disposable bubblegum pop acts, but good alternative acts are rarer, and harder to find. I prefer singers who can scream, and I like Cobain's vocal style far more. Entirely subjective though, so who cares.
But hey, I did start it by saying I'd rather Cyrus dead than Cobain, so I guess most of that's on me.
CloudWolf said:
He was pretending he forgot the song, the cover was meant as a joke ridiculing all the kids on Youtube that claim to know the song. Dave Grohl would never forget the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven, because not only is he a huge Led Zeppelin fan, he even played with Led Zeppelin [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9vdV2L0yG4].
That makes a lot more sense. I was having a hard time thinking of a scenario not involving copious amounts of drugs and alcohol where you didn't know the lyrics to a song you intended to perform. I've got no idea as to the lyrics, I know the song from a comedy cover done by "The Chasers"(Australian comedy guys), and from playing an arrangement with a band (I can't remember what category you'd call the band, it was a bunch of wind and percussion).
