OT: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees for 2018
- Thread starter bac2therac
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Googled him to see if I actually knew any of his songs. I've heard "Love Yourself" and nothing else in his top ten hits. Put a couple of screeching guitars behind him and you've got Green Day.
[EDIT: just read you mentioned this explanation above... still.. TS's "shake it off" could easily have been a GoGos tune]
To BAC's point re: RRHOF.. yeah.. GoGos might be thought of as groundbreaking for female groups. Heck, I loved them. AND I like Taylor Swift and "Shake it Off" and I don't care what anyone thinks about that. I think POP is popular for good reasons.. mostly. Pop tunes tend to take musical elements of rhythm and melody seriously and too many groups/artists don't seem to give a damn... or they steal/borrow from past hits to get some musicality into their trendy crap.
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No way.. Built this City sucks even with old Grace's stellar voice... akin to how "Morning Train" sucked even with Sheena Easton's voice.... hell.. Elvis could have sung either of those and the suckeration not be abated.
Elvis had a great voice. Never sang anything but pure schlock for the masses. Too bad.
Two word response:
Suspicious Minds
He died before he could do much of his own thing. But he was the best singing and dancing race car driving life-guarding gambling redneck hillbilly GI boxer ever.
? What about Suspicious Minds? Seems like standard Elvis fare. And even though he only did schlock, I kind of liked him. I can still watch an old Elvis movie!
Elvis as in Presley or Costello? Neither one of them should be lumped in with the artists you just lumped them in with. Almost everyone in rock and roll can be called "derivative" in some way, since the basic R&R "three chords and a cloud of dust" has been around since at least the late 40s.
What Elvis Presley did to change the whole world of rock and roll is not in question - the man was incredibly talented and innovative (and yes, of course, derivative, but who wasn't really?). And if you're talking about Costello, he was one of the most influential artists of the punk "revolution."
And you may be the only one I've ever heard call Green Day bubble gum punk - that label could maybe - maybe - be applied to their later records, but no effing way should that label apply to Kerplunk! or Dookie (or even Insomniac), the records that launched their brand of punk to the world.
They didn't know the masses would eat it up, so to say that they "cashed in" on something when they were basically broke, but had serious credibility in the Bay Area punk/DIY scene is to betray your complete ignorance of them as a band. You're a very smart guy, but you couldn't be more wrong on this. Somebody needs to teach you a rock and roll history lesson. Consider this a start.
I respect your opinion on music, but I am somewhat with @SkilletHead2 here on this one. I am a big fan of Black Flag and Bad Brains, and in my humble opinion, Green Day is a pop band compared to genuine punk bands like Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, The Ramones, etc. It's a tough line to walk being a punk (or a metal) band, because once a band becomes moderately successful, they get labeled a sellout. I have the Dookie album, but I don't think I have played it within 2 years of its release.
These things are always subjective, of course, but keep in mind, me and Skillet are right here. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Anyone that thinks Green Day wasn't punk really has no idea who they are and where them came from. Green Day was the definition of punk during the early 90's and stayed true to that vibe for Dookie. But as people grow-up, so does a band and their music. Saying American Idiot is pop is like saying Metallic Black is pop.....the success of these albums don't taint them in anyway. They are that good, they are that deep, complex, and powerful.
You're both simply wrong on Green Day not being a punk band, at least through Dookie (and Insomnia, IMO). Read up on Green Day's history, if you need to. And if you never saw Green Day, live in a bar before they were huge stars (I did), then you have no idea how punk they were. Sure, they grew/matured/whatever in later years, but that's not uncommon for punk bands who become more popular later on.
You're a youngin' alright, Numb3rs! Elvis always means Presley. And I like Costello, but he's Elvis Costello. Elvis is Elvis. I sort of like both of them. Elvis had a great voice and was fun. But it was all schlock. Even at the time he was a nonentity for anyone really interested in rock and roll. Go back to the time. Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, Frankie Lane, Johnny Cash, all the early MoTown stuff, those were the innovators. Elvis was Pat Boone with actual sex appeal. That's why when you look at the concert tapes, it's all screaming girls. Look at his movies! Just trash! Really fun trash, but he was the essence of ersatz.
As to Green Day, we will have to agree to disagree. Just watched the video for Boulevard of Broken Dreams. How that could appeal to anyone other than an adolescent girl or t2k is beyond me. A cute little boy with mascara repeatedly singing "I walk alone I walk alone" as he walks down a street with two other guys. The depth. It's unbelievable. As popularizers of punk rock, I guess they have a niche, but really, punk rock? It's astrology to the astronomy of rock and roll. Great for a generation that really didn't have a cause to rebel against. (EDIT: As to their not knowing their later releases would be popular doesn't provide any evidence to the argument that they weren't selling out to the masses. The albums themselves provide that evidence.)
Me not know rock and roll? Well maybe. But I was there when it happened.
Picking out one song from AI and judging it as a discrete entity just shows how old and silly you are.
You are old, so your opinion on music doesn't really matter. Perhaps literature and philosophy, but not music.
Citing Boulevard of Broken Dreams, from 2004's American Idiot does not help your argument. That was a great album, but it wasn't a punk album by any stretch and I've never said Green Day remained punk, although I think they've retained some punk energy, at least in their live shows.
Just watch this clip for "Welcome to Paradise" from Kerplunk (which was rereleased on Dookie) and if you don't think this is punk, well I don't know what to tell you. I was most assuredly there for Green Day and a pretty nice sampling of bands that were punk (while most would still consider them punk), including, the Clash, the Replacements, Sonic Youth, the Dickies, Husker Du, Minor Threat, Rancid, The Ramones, the Buzzcocks and in later years, the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Titus Andronicus, Cloud Nothings, and the Screaming Females and countless punk bands that nobody ever heard of because they never made it. And by the way, Rolling Stone has Dookie at #17 in their top 40 list of punk albums, all-time, while Pitchfork had Dookie and Kerplunk in their top 15 of all time. Mic drop.
http://www.albumoftheyear.org/genre/27-punk-rock/all/pitchfork/
Big Patsy Cline fan. "Crazy" is one of the best songs ever! Also very fond of Edith Piaf.
Old man is cranky today, stick to Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and the musicians of your youth.
Numb3rs, I never said they weren't punk. My argument is that they aren't worth listening to, in whatever genre they played. Maybe Boulevard is a bad choice for some reason, but it's one of their biggest hits. Now, even Mick Jagger and David Bowie once made an excrutiatingly (sp?) awful video, so I guess everybody gets one big miss, but you have to admit that that was hilariously bad.
As to the video you linked, it kind of proves my point. Tedious music punctuated with fried adolescent boys jumping off the stage into an audience exclusively made up of other fried adolescent boys. I'm an educator. I see enough of that already.
I can believe that you caught all of punk. Why you would have wanted to is what I don't understand. What I was saying was that I was there for rock and roll.
So Dookie is the 17th best punk album?! Wow! That's like being the 17th best eyebrow threading parlor. Who cares? And btw, you dropped your mic.
You've admitted on this thread that Green Day is your favorite band. There's really no coming back from that. You are now Green Day Boy.
Not a big Benny Goodman fan. Liked Duke Ellington, but liked other of the big bands more.
Of course, how could any of them compare to a band consisting of two mediocre guitarists who can't sing and a drummer named Tre' Cool? Beyond pathetic.
Green Day Boy. Gotta get that mascara just right or else it won't go with the rhinestone belt.
Yes, you essentially said they weren't punk, by calling them "bubblegum," which is as far as punk as one can get, and by comparing them to KC and the Sunshine Band, among others, as well as calling them phony. I have zero issue with you saying you don't like the music - lots of people don't like punk or other kinds of music or artists - but you simply can't say Green Day weren't authentic punk rockers through at least Dookie.
And if you've ever read my music posts, you would know I'm fairly well-versed in regular old rock and roll, too, owning a few thousand albums worth of music and having seen tons of major acts from the mid-70s onward, including the Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Yes, Genesis, Marvin Gaye, the Kinks, and Van Halen, just to name a few. I love classic rock, Motown, Soul, R&B and some rap, metal and hip-hop, too - lots of great stuff under the umbrella of rock and roll.
But my favorite genre is probably the punk/alternative music from the late 70s through the early 90s. I have no idea why you don't like that genre of music, but your snide, poorly reasoned dismissals of music you clearly don't know very well nor understand just make you sound small-minded, not well-educated - which is not something I've ever thought or said about any other topic you've posted on.
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Actually, I said they were the confluence of bubble gum and punk. I think that's a fair assessment of them as a band overall. Here is what John Lydon once said about them: "So there we are fending off all that and it pisses me off that years later a wank outfit like Green Day hop in and nick all that and attach it to themselves. They didn't earn their wings to do that and if they were true punk they wouldn't look anything like they do."
But I've been trying to give Green Day another chance. Just watched the first ten minutes of their Woodstock performance in 94. Also watching some Ramones clips. It's not working for me. (Especially Green Day.) So here's the deal. Send me to some youtube stuff that is what you really like. I'm serious. I will give it a serious shot. One of the things I write about in aesthetics is the need to overcome biases and give art you don't like a real shot. And sorry to have been snooty. Whenever I get in a ragging battle with t2k, I tend to go overboard and some of it landed on you. Bad move on my part. I apologize. You're one of the board's best contributors. (But I do know a lot about rock and stand by my assessments; I'm just from a slightly different era. Saw lots of the greats in the late 60's early 70's including some incredibly good groups that never got much recognition.)
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Look at the video on Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and tell me about what your idol is wearing, and his eye makeup. Or maybe better, don't.
Sun Records Elvis was great. It went downhill from 1960 on after he joined the army.
He went from stuff like "Money Honey," "Baby Let's Play House," and "That's all Right Mama" to "Clambake," "Queenie Wahine's Papaya," and who could forget his rendition of "Old McDonald had a Farm" in 1967's Double Trouble. That was 1967! One of the greatest years for music and he was singing that. Sad. Colonel Parker did him no favors.
He went from stuff like "Money Honey," "Baby Let's Play House," and "That's all Right Mama" to "Clambake," "Queenie Wahine's Papaya," and who could forget his rendition of "Old McDonald had a Farm" in 1967's Double Trouble. That was 1967! One of the greatest years for music and he was singing that. Sad. Colonel Parker did him no favors.
They just reissued all of his Sun Records recordings, ALL OF THEM, even the stuff that never been issued before.
The box set is called Elvis Presley, A Boy From Tupelo, The Complete 1953–55 Recordings
