Kurt was definitely influenced by the Beatles...I remember seeing in a doc on him (maybe "Kurt and Courtney"?) his aunt saying that when he was 10-12 he really got into the Beatles.  If you can hear past the grunge delivery, many of his songs sound like they could have been Beatles songs.  I don't think I'd go as far to say that he could write a better pop song than the Beatles could, but he was certainly a very underrated songwriter.

By whom? Cobain has to be one of the most deified musicians of the past 20 years.

Yeah.  Radiohead claimed the horns on National Anthem were inspired mainly by Charles Mingus, if I recall correctly.

Ian'll bitch slap you if he sees these comparisons you just made.

I'm down with it, though.

Mike likes Kokomo...Is it REALLY that much worse than "Get You Back"?  I love Get You Back... but you never see it get trashed like Kokomo does.  Similar cheeziness, etc. just one had Brian Wilson in it so it's now off limits.

First off, yes, I do hate Getcha Back and a lot of the other crap on the 80s discs, Brian-related or not.

But second, while I think Mike is a piece of merda, I also think Brian is just as guilty of revisionist history, capitalist motivations and other self-serving actions. Who isn't? Mike is just more fun to make fun of, probably because he doesn't have a gift so obvious as Brian's. I mean, a couple of catchy lines, or writing indisputably brilliant melodies and harmonies? I know whose side I'll end up taking every time.

You're reducing one of the greatest lead vocalists and lyric writers of rock history to "a couple catchy lines"??
Whatever, dude. Love is no more of an furo do burro than anyone else in the BB world. He's just honest about saying his thoughts in public. For that I respect him more than Brian Wilson, who was and is an furo do burro too. As are you, sometimes, as is me, sometimes.

Yeah, but at least Brian has never referred to himself publicly as "Dr. Love."  And I hope you haven't either.


About Mike's lyrics, I think they're VERY hit-or-miss, and I think the misses have an edge here.  He did write some great lyrics, but he's also written a lot of crap.  And I'm not just talking about his post-70s work.  He certainly had his moments, but I think he was far too inconsistent to be placed as one of the great lyricists.  Although that could probably be said of Brian's other lyricsts as well.

This is absolutely beautiful news.  I can only imagine how amazing this opportunity feels for you.  And as others have said, it's clear that you are the perfect man to be doing the job for them.  It's heartening to know that those in charge of the Beach Boys' archives have a good eye for keeping them in good and caring hands.

I don't know, I don't think there are a lot of Mangum's lines where I just think, "that makes no fucking sense.  He's just spurting out nonsensical images."  There are a few, but I think that, to me anyway, easily 85% of the lyrics on Aeroplane are meaningful.

To me, the opening lines of "Carrot Flowers" are just a different way of saying, "when you were a kid, sometimes you had to take refuge in imagination and fantasy, since the realities of your life were too much for you to bear."  The flowers, rattlesnakes, etc. are just sort examples he's giving of the sorts of illogical images little kids make up when they're imagining things; I don't think they are meant to be taken as individual metaphors on their own.  The rest of the song is a relatively clear-eyed sketch of an abusive family.

For me, Jeff Mangum is second only to Dylan as far as the richness and depth his lyrics provide if you take the time to really look inside them closely.    ...man, where is the barfing smiley.

this...

When you were young
You were the king of carrot flowers
And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees
In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet

...is so overdone and wimpy and flowers and just means nothing and is generally something my three year old would write, compared to The Mountain Goats...

I think it's hilarious how in probably 90% of the times I've heard people criticise NMH's lyrics, they're always too lazy to look past the album's opening lines.  You quote the opening lines of that song, call them wimpy and flowery, and then neglect to mention that the remainder of the song concerns the child's parents physically battling each other, where the mother is an alcoholic and the father is contemplating suicide.  Nothing flowery about that.

Nothing flowery about these either:


"I know they buried her body with others
Her sister and mother and five hundred families."

"Goldaline my dear, we will fold and freeze together
Far away from here there is sun and spring and green forever
But now we move to feel for ourselves inside some stranger's stomach
Place your body here; let your skin begin to blend itself with mine."

"Your father made fetuses with flesh-licking ladies
While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park."

"The only girl I've ever loved was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive one evening 1945."

"My dreamgirl don't exist
At the age of five she slit her wrists."

"And in my dreams you're alive and you're crying,
As your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet."


Need I go on?

Ugh, I really don't like NMH at all.  I wanted to like them, but I CAN'T STAND their lyrics.  They pretty much ruin the music for me.  The only song I can stomach is the title track.

I like abstract lyrics, but not things like "Dirty bar of soap on a table full of computer flowers biting snakes on a plane in the middle of the paper towel dressing room by my freezer that fell on the floor next to my shoe covered in lemongrass and orange blossoms..."

 

I know other people who feel the same way, which I've never really understood, since I find the lyrics to be the album's strongest feature.  One of the things that I love about the words (and one which no one seems to mention) is how effectively Mangum switches between surrealism and bald-faced realism, until the line between is almost blurred. 

For example, the "Brother see we are one and the same/and you left with your head filled with flames/and we watched as your brains fell out through your teeth" lines initially seem to be just surrealism, until you realize that Mangum is singing about the brother of a friend of his who committed suicide, and that the lines are actually meant as a literal description.  Same with "King of Carrot Flowers": it contains real descriptions of parental fights from a dysfunctional family ("Your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder," etc.), but surrounds them with images from somewhere else.  The album is absolutely full of moments like that.

For me, Jeff Mangum is second only to Dylan as far as the richness and depth his lyrics provide if you take the time to really look inside them closely.

since no one has mentioned the mountain goats as THE major talent not getting noticed today, i'm just going to have to assume that all you people are insane.     

They're not E6, are they? I don't believe so. Thus...we aren't mentioning them here.

His voice does sound strikingly like Mangum's from time to time, though.  And I once heard a recording of the Mountain Goats covering "Two-Headed Boy," so I guess it could be vaguely relavent.

You know, in musicnsurf's defense, I used to have the exact same view of music as him.  I grew up with my parent's record collection, and I was truly disgusted at what was then the current state of music, thinking that it was a solid, provable fact that all music from before I was born was light years better than anything current.  The world was very black-and-white for me, and being closed off to any shades of gray areas in between was handy, because I didn't have to do any thinking that would challenge any of my preconceived opinions about music.  I really used to be exactly like musicnsurf.

Then I turned 16.
 

[Radiohead]

why many people on this board are praising the works of stereolab, radiohead, and coldplay is so far beyond me as to be incredulous. if you ladies and gents think dylan, macca, bw, vdp, or even peter gabriel listen to that stuff albeit occassionally, you'd be very sadly mistaken. miles davis or julian bream yes, in an aeroplane over the sea, no.

Although I fail to see what any of those artists have to do with Neutral Milk Hotel, I'll bite.

From Paul McCartney's own mouth, these are the bands he listed when asked to pick his ultimate festival lineup from artists either living or dead:

"The Beatles, The Who, Rolling Stones, Queen, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Radiohead and Sex Pistols (to name but a few)."

And keep in mind that Paul also had Nigel Godrich, whose best known works are with Radiohead, Beck, and Pavement, produce his last album.  George Martin has also gone on record as saying that such bands as Radiohead and Prodigy write great material and make great records.  U2, who you seem to like, are also very vocal in their admiration of Radiohead and Coldplay, among numerous other modern bands.

And a quote from Peter Gabriel: "Radiohead, for me, are one of the great bands and one of the reasons is that they're always trying to innovate and push back boundaries, both in their musical work and in their video work."




Now, not that any of that really matters to me--I don't really see why it should make that much of a difference to any of us what artists we admire choose to listen to in their spare time--but it seems to make a difference to you, so I dug up the quotes above. 

One of the marks of many great artists, I've found, is that they don't shut themselves out to new influences, and they understand that music, like all aspects of culture, is constantly evolving and changing.  And much of that evolution is actually a pretty great thing, if you choose to keep your ears open to it.

Radiohead and Neutral Milk Hotel are two of my favorite bands, just because I find their music incredibly moving and interesting.  But I also adore The Beatles, Beach Boys, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Zeppelin, Zombies, The Who, and most other 60s/70s pop/rock/soul artists you could care to mention.  And I don't see at all why the two things sould have to be in conflict.  I'm a music fan first and foremost; the era in which it was made is irrelevant to me if I think it's good.

If you don't like anything recent, that's fine; you're more than entitled to your own tastes.  But to suggest that anybody who dares to seriously enjoy music from an era you don't like is either kidding you or kidding themselves is something I just can't really agree with. 



And by the way, have you ever actually listened to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea?  Just wondering...

Aeroplane is my favorite album ever, probably.  I think it's the richest, most rewarding emotional experience to be found in popular (and I use that term loosely here) music.  Then again, I know some people who absolutely hate it. 

Then again, I also know some people who might actually love it if they got over the whole 'indie hipster' stigma and gave the record a chance.

Not a guitar, per se, but my favorite instrument in the world is my 1978 Rickenbacker 4001.  It looks just like this one (this isn't mine; it's just a picture I found on the internet):



 

I've been listening quite a bit to Fotheringay's only album a lot since I got last week.  Some of Sandy Denny's most haunting work ever, and I'm a big fan of hers.  I think this album more than holds its own against her Fairport Convention work; I can't for the life of me see why it's so often relegated to mere footnote status.

[painful]

Generally speaking, I'm quite fond of Bob Dylan's voice; I'd take it over Joan's 95% of the time (they meshed together horribly, by the way; the duet version of "With God on Our Side" from No Direction Home is absolutely painful).  But you're right; I don't know exactly when Bob lost his voice, but when he did he lost it COMPLETELY.  His last two albums have great songs on them, but Dylan's absolutely dead croak on them taxes even my sensibilities, and I'm usually very tolerant of, er, not technically "great" singing.  So at this point in 2006, I'd probably agree that Baez is now the better singer.

Exactly.  To ask either what they think of their recent work is totally irrelevant to them and the other person.

So you're not interested in Mike Love's opinion of BWPS then? 

I don't know that the analogy really works.  For one thing, even though some recent work was done on it, SMiLE was not really new work for the most part.  For another, Mike Love's opinion of the original SMiLE is, in many peoples' minds, one of the key areas of contention that led to the album never being completed in '67.  So Mike Love's opinion of that album actually is of some interest.


Maybe if you were to ask Mike's opinion of "Gettin' in Over My Head" or the Christmas album would be more like it.  And no, I don't think most people really give a sh*t about that.

 'Helter Skelter' is dismissed by Ian MacDonald in his great book 'Revolution in he Head' (perhaps it was the Manson connection in both cases he didn't like) but I like that a lot also.  

I think MacDonald just doesn't like heavy music to begin with.  He spends a good deal of the book pontificating about the chasm between 'pop' and 'rock' (with the latter being a profanation of the former in his opinion), and goes out of his way to say that every heavy song the Beatles ever did was an embarrassing disaster.  And so he disses "I Want You (She's so Heavy)" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" just as much (can't remember what he said about "Revolution").  I liked a lot of MacDonald's book, but he certainly seems like he has an axe to grind against hard rock.




In general, though, I don't think The Beatles really HAVE many underrated songs at all.  Their catalogue is so obsessively well-known by so much of the population that I don't think there's much in the way of legitimate obscurities.  But I will say that I rarely hear "Not a Second Time" or "Yes it Is" mentioned anywhere, and those are two of the band's best early tracks in my opinion, so I might call those a bit underappreciated.  But as far as mentioning songs like "In My Life" or "And I Love Her" or "Getting Better," come on.  Those (and several others on these lists) are really well-known songs, and really well-appreciated ones as well.  Hell, didn't some British publication rank "In My Life" as the greatest song ever written a few years ago?

I don't think the SOT's surpassed this box.  This box has the stack-o-vocals!!
It also has the brilliant stereo mix and the session highlights.  The SOT's have
about 15 minutes of just rehearing the "You Still Believe in Me" intro. 

This is the best box set based on a single album I've ever heard..  and it
never stops being fascinating.

Er, how many box sets based on single albums are there (amongst official releases I mean)?  Pet Sounds is the only one that comes to my mind - and it's a great tribute to the status of the album that there should be such a thing.  But I'd be interested to know if there are others.

There are several in jazz, particularly for Miles Davis.  There are multiple-disc boxes of all the sessions for Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, and Tribute to Jack Johnson, as well as others I can't remember now. 

Also, a few years ago there was an expansive box of The Stooges' Fun House, where every take of every song from the sessions was included.

After Pet Sounds, this was my first Beach Boys purchase, and I'm really glad it was.  I wasn't tremendously interested in the standard 'fun in the sun'-types of comps, and this one seemed to be a lot heavier in emphasis on Brian's artistry, which sometimes overlapped with the big hits (I Get Around, California Girls, Good Vibrations) and sometimes didn't (Surf's Up, Wonderful, Til I Die).   "Surf's Up" was the song that absolutely hooked me on the band, and to this day remains my favorite of theirs.  And if I had started with most of the other comps (and with a band whose catalogue is as huge as the Beach Boys, starting with a comp seems a wise move to me) I wouldn't have heard it.  So yeah, it's sort of a superflous release, but I think the Beach Boys need a comp like this that focuses more on Brian's esoteric side than it does on "Barbara Ann," you know?

And he's one of the most underrated songwriters, producers and performers of all time.
I really didn't appreciate the Chappele thing, as it made Rick a punchline for all time in the eyes of the public.
Rick was the man.

Oh, I think with all Rick's own cocaine/woman abuse/prison escapades, plus the sample on MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This," Rick James was already not taken very seriously by most of the public anyway; the Chappele sketch merely provided a concrete verbal line people could say.  I don't think it was that damaging; it lifted James back into prominence just before he died, and from my experience, when people actually say "I'm Rick James, bitch," it's usually meant as like "hey, I'm the ultimate pimp," not as an insult to James himself.  Hell, the sketch probably did more to introduce kids to Rick's music than it did to hurt his legacy. 

Maybe I'm just rationalizing because I like Chappele, though.  The sketch where they played basketball against Prince was way finnier anyway.

Neil Young.  I have the majority of his albums, plus several bootlegs. 

Not surprisingly, Radiohead is second for me.  They've only released 6 albums, but I also have all their EPs and b-sides, as well as a hell of a lot of live shows and unreleased stuff.  I'm pretty fanatical about them.

NMH's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea may be my favorite album ever, but it sounds exactly nothing like anything else on E6 I've heard.  Of the more representative 60s pop-influenced bands, I like Olivia Tremor Control a lot.

Radiohead's "The Tourist," where it builds up to this great, emotional climax, then everything gets stripped away, before the song (and album) abruptly ends with the sound of a tiny bell.

I also really love the end of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," where the Moog noise just gets louder and louder until the song suddenly gets the plug pulled on it altogether.  I'm a sucker for sudden surprise endings like that.

"Touch Me, Feel Me..." is the connection I draw between the Who's masterwork and your friend's butt

I've been thinking for quite some time that "Who's Next" would be a great subject for the Hayseed Dixie treatment.

Not that this has anything to do with the actual thread topic, but the cover of the most recent Hayseed Dixie album is actually my friend Julie's ass.  Really.