… In snowballs or chain letters, I guess. I’m (fashionably, of course) late responding to this chain music survey oyster threw at me for a few reasons. First, I’m a lazy sonofabitch who takes forever to do anything. Second, the survey pisses me off to no end because: (a) Three of the questions serve mostly to demonstrate just how much of the last five years worth of conspicuous consumption I have not participated in. Or, to put it another way, they make clear exactly how fucking broke I am. I shall elaborate on this below. (b) My standard answer to anyone who inquires about my taste in music is I hate everything. Pop culture is so full of bloated decadent nonsense that it’s hard to defend any of it while maintaining any semblance of dignity. Why even bother? What I like I like mostly for what it’s not instead of for what it is. Or at least that’s what I tell myself to keep from feeling like a total tool for wasting my time with any of this crap in the first place. Actually, looking at my answers, you might get the idea that my taste is fairly conventional. And fuck you very much for saying so.
Total Size of Music Files on My Computer: Zero. Look, it’s like this. Someday I might be financially secure enough to pay my rent on time each month much less subscribe to cable TV or high speed internet service. Until then, it’s a crappy dial-up connection and no interest in wasting all my time downloading music files over the telephone.
The Last CD I Bought Was: Hmmm. I guess it was GBV’s Half Smiles of the Decomposed and that was over six months ago! Remember, kids, the key here is lack of disposable income. Each pay day I have to make a tough choice between one luxury item (a CD, a new shirt, a bag of Cheetoes) or one mildly disappointing night of boozing. The booze usually wins. And it wins big too quite often eating into the grocery budget. The upside here is that I’ve learned to survive for weeks at a time on peanut butter and water.
Song Playing Right Now on my iFruit: On my what? iFruit, iPod, blackberry, cybercherry, iartichoke give me a break, people, I don’t even own a cell phone. And, quite frankly, even if I could afford one of your stupid yuppie toys I don’t really see the point. Half of my record collection is on cassette for chissakes! Besides, recorded music belongs in three places: in the car where it drowns out the sound of a squealing belt, at home where it drowns out the sound of the neighbors having sex, and at the bar where, if I’m lucky enough to monopolize the jukebox, I can drown out the sound of innumerable assholes trying to tell me why what I played sucks. I suppose a portable digital music player might be good for jogging, but I thought that’s what talk radio was for.
Five Songs That Mean a Lot to Me (1 per artist): You know what? Fuck this question. Here, instead, are the five greatest rock albums of my lifetime and that will have to do.
1) Guided By Voices: Alien Lanes. Greatest band ever. This fuzzy, underproduced, sneaky-big pop rock record came along at a time when I was beginning to think no one knew how to do this anymore. Robert Pollard, the ultimate rock geek, has an unparalleled capacity for drawing upon elements of British Invasion, punk, prog, arena rock, metal, and psychedelic rock to create an essentially cathartic sound that puts everything else on the planet to shame. This is what rock is supposed to do. It evokes disappointment but never defeat. It is heroic without being pompous. And if that doesn’t get you then the whole GBV mythology ought to. What’s not to like about a middle aged beer guzzling fourth grade math teacher finally getting his garage band noticed and going on to a second life as a rock god? At first listen, Alien Lanes sounds like an unfinished garage project. Hastily recorded hooks that could have been spun out into glossy pop rock songs are tossed away as soon as they’re introduced and then it’s on to the next one. This get in and out ethic became a trademark of early GBV. Here the pop mini-gems seem to run into one another over a unifying lo-fi hiss. The effect is something like a hazy dream about changing radio stations. Perfectly sequenced, Alien Lanes announces itself with a battle anthem when the first strains of A Salty Salute fade in above the fuzz, crescends to the winsome, heroic Motor Away and coasts out with the transcendental Alright. Did I mention I really like this record?
2) REM: Murmur. REM during the 80’s: Abstruse but earnest. Clean, jangly but dark.. in a sweet way. REM during the 90’s: Pretentious and bloated. Would the world have been all that worse off if we had somehow managed to get Michael Stipe and Bono to go down on the same plane in the spring of 1990? I’m just saying.
3) Radiohead: OK Computer. Hardcore Radiohead fans tend to see this record as a departure which announced the coming of their better work. Personally, I think they peaked with this one. The later stuff is a little too devoid of melody for my taste. Plus, there are just too many great songs here to ignore. I think Electioneering is a bit of a throwaway. Otherwise, this is close to a perfect record.
4) Nirvana: Nevermind. Fuck You. I know, I know. Don’t even start with your shit. This is a great record. If you can’t deal with that, fuck you.
5) Yo La Tengo: Electr-O-Pura. Consistently good band that has put out a really diverse body of work. Electr-O-Pura is probably their most cohesive album. Plus, it has Blue Line Swinger which is one of my all time favorite songs.
Fuck the rest of this survey. Here are some questions I threw in because I felt like it.
So the Pixies are Pretty Much the Most Overrated Band Ever. Whose Fault Was That? And I’m not trying to burst anyone’s bubble here. I like the Pixies. But I don’t get all these people who see them as some revolutionary influence on early nineties rock.. I mean what did they do that was so different? They played loud and usually had a hook. ‘Kay. Plus, I don’t think they put together a single album that wasn’t flawed somehow. Bossanova is probably the most consistent album, but only because the lows are not much at variance with the highs. (Also the linked reviewer disagrees with me.) What usually happens on a Pixies record, is we find playful punkish rhythms overlain with catchy hooks and a signature whiny guitar. All of which works fine until, at some point, it devolves into episodes of hipper-than-thou posing and stupid UFO fantasies. Also something is definitely wrong when some of your best songs are actually just well executed Jesus and Mary Chain and Neil Young covers. So whose fault was this? Kim Deal and Frank Black have each gone on to similarly inconsistent post-Pixies careers so it’s difficult to judge. Her best effort was probably Last Splash (although I kind of thought that Amps record has its moments) while his was Teenager of the Year (which is actually a pretty good record that could have been pared down a bit). What we can say for sure, judging from photos of their recent reunion tour, is that neither one of them has aged particularly gracefully. And that may be the saddest fact of all of this.
Beatles or Stones? I know, not particularly original, but still essential for this reason. Most fans will tell you that good rock music should be mostly about one of the following three things.
1) Exhalation of the human spirit or whatever the hell Beethoven was talking about.
2) Telling the world at large to fuck off.
3) Sex and drugs.
I don’t know what this says about me but my tastes have always run towards the first two items on this list while I find number three a bit tired, all said. I think this puts me on the Beatles end of the spectrum. I realize this is not a precise measuring tool.
Place the Following in Proper Order: The Dead Milkmen, Ween, Wesley Willis.
Okay.
Who Is the Next to Suffer this Bullshit?
Daisy, because I had to do it.
Rudolph, because she doesn’t post anymore anyway.
Caroline, (can answer in comments) because I missed her when she visited NO and I feel just bad enough about that to inflict this on her.
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