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Post by The Curmudgeon on Aug 30, 2016 16:41:28 GMT 2
There are some articles on the likes of Facebook, and Cracked is getting increasingly guilty of this, where the tone and nature of the article is intended to not cause debate, but angry retort. You can read a nicely worded article and shrug and move onto the next thing, but read something deliberately antagonistic and you're going to comment on the thread, that then jumps onto your page which is then seen by everyone on your friends list and, well, you get the idea. That may sound conspiracy theory-esque, but I'm pretty sure that's why a lot of these "everything you like sucks" articles are created. A bit like this one, although, to be fair, it is a fairly well researched article if nothing else. Even though they insult these bands, they do seem to know enough about them. Take a look, anyone you.. Don't agree with? Do agree with? Would add in there yourself? www.joe.co.uk/entertainment/bands-that-started-out-good-and-went-bad/81798 |
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Post by trashcanman on Aug 31, 2016 0:28:56 GMT 2
Jesus Christ. How do you expect me to keep reading after something like that? Hopefully I won't regret this...
....and the next band on the list is Muse. Too late. Trying to be U2? Yeah, because when I hear Reapers, I totally think Bono would do that.
Chilis. Legit complaint, but listing By the Way as their career highlight shows that this listicle was clearly written by a child.
Bloc Party. Who?
Has any band ever had a better first album than The Strokes? Plenty.
Wow. Just........Wow.
Linkin Park and Korn? Sure. Why not. I'd argue that LP was always middle of the road as fuck, but they had some decent tunes. You growing up doesn't mean the band itself went to shit though.
Blink 182 were heartfelt, but didn't take themselves seriously in the slightest. How does that work again?
Coldplay's Yellow is not a stone cold classic. It was a joke then and it is even less than that now.
Bring Me the Horizon. Don't know them.
This motherfucker was clearly not alive in the 90's. Blink never ever approached the inescapability of Dookie. They're bad now though, so I'll give him the pick, even if this list and everything on it was written like absolute shit and filled with outright nontruths from somebody who knows nothing about rock music. I don't know how you got the impression that this article was researched beyond perhaps looking at a list of singles on Wikipedia and having heard maybe a couple radio songs and owned an album or two from a couple of the bands in question, C, but no, no, no.
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Post by The Curmudgeon on Sept 7, 2016 1:31:21 GMT 2
I'm not sure, but I don't think you were overly fond of this article, Trash.
Maybe "researched" is the wrong word, I really meant it was a more.. what IS the word? Detailed? Like, the fact he even knows bands like Bring Me the Horizon is surprising. The article is bullshit, for what its worth, but in the writers defence he's clearly British, so maybe a couple of things didn't really translate. Bloc Party may not be household names, but they are a critical favourite and very popular here (even if I'm not a particular fan). And they may have veered too far to the Pop Sun nowadays, but Coldplay are pretty much an institution in the UK now, so I'll give him the "Yellow" comment. And when it comes to Blink vs Green Day, (even though I bought Dookie and didn't go near Blink) I think Blink 182 made a bigger commercial splash than Green Day did back then. It was only really when American Idiot came out Green Day become a proper stadium rock band, something I found fucking surreal at the time.
But yeah, I'll share a facepalm over the Strokes "literally reinventing indie rock." I love "Is This It", but how does a band who clearly wear their musical influences on their sleeves "reinvent" anything?
Again, like I said, I'm positive these articles are designed to cause jimmies to rustle and for people to comment and share and.. well, exactly what we're doing.
So fuck this article. What bands WOULD you put on this list?
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Post by Ben on Sept 7, 2016 20:18:54 GMT 2
I feel like just about every band that's around long enough goes through the same phases. First they're underground or "local," then they get picked up by a label and put out a popular first few records, then comes the Golden era where they create their best stuff, which is inevitably followed by mainstream success and accusations of "selling out." Warranted or not, the "sell out" label is followed by at least two subpar records that demonstrate the struggles the band is going through. The struggle is followed by rediscovery and a return to form.
Everyone's favorite sell-outs, Metallica, are probably the penultimate example of a band that many people would say "used to be" good, though in their defense I feel like all those thrash bands went through a version of what I highlighted above. Megadeth had the God-awful Risk, Slayer stuck to form but put out a handful of horrendously cheesy (as in, more than usual), derivative records in the early 2000s, and I don't know what the fuck Anthrax was thinking for about 15-20 years there.
Other bands off the top of my head:
Who listens to anything Motley Crue has done since the early 90s?
Ditto for AC/DC.
What is Guns 'N Roses, even?
Def Leppard mixing up with Taylor Swift?
Kreator, Death Angel, and Exodus slept through the 90s before returning even better than before.
Staind had at least one lazy-as-fuck, same-rehashed-shit record in the late 2000s.
Godsmack? Tired of them doing the same exact thing for 10 records in a row.
Ingrid Michaelson sold her soul to modern pop.
KoRn went from putting out some of the most classic nu-metal ever created to... whatever the fuck you want to call them now.
Machine Head gave up the breakdowns for cornrows for a time. Actually happened.
Pantera's albums got progressively more boring and painful as the band aged, and they broke up and Dime was murdered before they could return to form.
Stone Temple Pilots... Yeah.
It'd be harder to come up with a list of 11 bands who've never done wrong.
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Post by trashcanman on Sept 7, 2016 22:09:48 GMT 2
Enema of the State (Blink's biggest album) sold fifteen million albums worlwide, five million at home. Dookie sold twenty and half of those were in America so it looks like Blink's popularity may have been comparable overseas, but at their peak, Green Day was twice as successful in America.
Yeah, Ben, you're exactly right. Anthrax has always been awesome, but they definitely weren't a real thrash band while Bush was fronting them, so I'll let you have it. You die as a rock hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the pop villain.
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Post by The Curmudgeon on Sept 13, 2016 18:37:20 GMT 2
I've been thinking of your formula there, Ben, for bands that I'm into as well and God damn I think you might have something there. There are of course some bands who just continue to plug away with ever diminishing returns to an ever diminishing fanbase who don't see the critical or commercial upswing you mentioned. But a band you may not even have heard of (the Manic Street Preachers) could certainly fit that description.
Great, now I'm going to be sitting thinking of every band I've liked for years and trying to put them into that mould.
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Post by Ben on Sept 13, 2016 20:00:33 GMT 2
There are definitely some bands who don't fit the formula. Alice in Chains has never put out anything but classic material. Darkest Hour doesn't have a bad record, and the argument could be made that they actually took 2-3 albums to really find their sound in the first place. And of course there are a ton of lesser-known bands who release nothing but great stuff and just never make it, which is depressing.
By and large though? I think most popular acts fit the formula if they've been around 15+ years.
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Post by trashcanman on Sept 14, 2016 19:15:29 GMT 2
Iron Maiden is still putting out some of their best material. The Blaze Bayley years were pretty lean, but since Dickinson returned they've put out arguably their best run of albums and still going after 40 years. And they've somehow gotten better every time I've see them live to boot. They might literally be the best band in the world right now.
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