i was reading the origanal rap sucks post and i think whoever posted that punk is screaming for 2 minutes and takes no talent, your an idiot, screaming matel is screaming and lets see you play guitar or bass orr drums its not easy to be a rock star dumb ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Thanks for the input.
"screaming matel is screaming" uhhhh...... what?
If you're going to make a counter argument about something, it should be intelligible.
As far as I know, I haven't run across any dumbasses here (at least until today).
(raises eyebrow Spock Style)...hmm.
"i was reading the origanal rap sucks post and i think whoever posted that punk is screaming for 2 minutes and takes no talent, your an idiot, screaming matel is screaming and lets see you play guitar or bass orr drums its not easy to be a rock star dumb ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11"
En contraire, awesome. While your argument mounts a spirited and scholarly defense of rock and brilliantly plays on the more classical Rap-denigrating rhetoric of the great early 21st Century thinkers, I detect several hairline cracks in your logic. But before I begin my rejoinder, let me extend my personal thanks for your revival of the now-classic original "rap sucks" post. Such masterpieces of intellectual debate are becoming all too infrequent in our contemporary electronic discourse.
Your argument begins to come apart slightly in the diction of your first, and dare I say your only sentence. Failure to capitalize aside, you begin by stating that you "think whoever posted that punk is screaming for 2 minutes and takes no talent" but then you neglect to tell us what you think! Instead, you divert from your first person account of your thoughts and launch into a direct address of the person in question, informing him that he is an idiot. Your case would have been better served by describing the talents required for Punk, and perhaps pointing out that many of the more important works of Punk last considerably longer than two minutes. Never pass up the opportunity to illuminate an opponent's poor representation of the facts! So said Descartes.
You then digress into a rather irrelevant commentary on Metal as I do not see how, exactly, Metal plays into a discussion of the relative benefits or Rap and Punk. If one wishes to indict the musical art forms, one had best focus his intellectual artillery on one form at a time lest his attack become confused.
You then tread on dangerous ground by challenging your opponent to demonstrate for you the skills you associate with Punk, those skills that he alleges are so mundane. This could backfire in a number of ways. For one, what if he or she is able to rise to your challenge? Your face would certainly be covered with proverbial egg in such a case. Or perhaps the person would reverse the challenge on you, forcing you into what might be a most embarassing performance. And finally, you have failed to counter his inevitable retort: "punk sucks!!!!!!!" Have you considered the countermeasures available against such a broadside?
Finally, while the significance of a full thirty-three exclamation marks is not lost on those of us familiar with the great works of the Greek poet Sappho, your more poorly-schooled contemporaries (and surely one who cannot appreciate Punk is poorly schooled) may not understand the clever allusion. If he did, however, he would certainly pounce on your failure to hold down the space-bar for the final two strikes of the 1/! key on your computer. Such minor lapses in typesmanship can cost you when facing an adversary of such formidable intellect.
Please take these meager criticisms for what they are: the humble attempts of an intellectual and cultural lesser to improve the nearly unimprovable skills of a defender of mankind's beloved Punk.
Bravo, Eirik
Jolly good show sir Eirik! Whithin your dicertation one is haunted by the ghost of cynicism contained whithin Niccolo Machiavelli's masterpiece "the Prince" Bequeath upon this young scoundrel a mighty thrashing for as Icarus flew too close to the sun and melted his wings of wax, so has young awesome's argument melted before the light of your mighty intellect! Apollo salute you!
That's more reading than awesome has probably done is his lifetime.
I'm still trying to figure out where the screaming toys fit in.
Personally, I think screaming Hasbro would be more fun than screaming Mattel.
Excellent work Eirik. I had to read it twice to fully appreciate it. Thanks for the laugh.
LEEEGGGOOOOOOO!!!!!!
And people say spirited, intelligent and informed debates are a thing of the past!
[I think one exclamation point suffices in this instance, I sure hope Sappho won't be dissapointed in me for not achieving my true exclamation point potential...]
I grew up in the 80s listening to punk (black flag, sex pistols, misfits, exploited, descendents) and rock and thrash and hardcore. I payed my dues in a rock and punk band in the 90s playing crap dive bars. I also play piano and like old pop songs. Strauss and Stravinsky. Johnny and Willie. My first album ever was Weird Al. My first tape ever was Van Halen.
I think really good music has soul no matter what the genre. There is no genre that I do not like something from. I'm not a snob about it, some songs are catchy and serve their purpose and then thankfully disappear. The radio has always played 80% crap (I used an algorithm). Today music is more about money and image than ever before. Almost nothing seems original. Rap about money and killin' is so 1989. So is rap about sex and thongs. Run DMC is not crap. Mos Def is not crap. I like what I've heard from the Black Eyed Peas too.
Anything labeled as punk by a major label is silly to begin with. The last really successful punk band was Nirvana and their label never even acknowledged that. This stuff on commercial radio is glorified boy bands. The Go-Go's Greatest Hits album is more punk than Green Mascara Day. Having a mohawk and tats doesn't make pre-teen pop any more punk either. When people say punk sucks, do they even know what punk is? I've been to shows in vacant buildings where a lot of things get broken. I'm not so sure I'm into that either. A little chaos doensn't hurt though.
Most people who dismiss the yelling type of music never seem to be songwriters. It's not easy writing a memorable and catchy and meaningful tune with a handful of chords and no solos. The Ramones made it look easy. A studio full of instruments and degree'd musicians can write good music. But it's like an artist with an unlimited paint selection. Hand him a box of eight crayons and see what he comes up with.
blah blah blah. Anyway, most rap and punk has no staying power. It's easy to crank out something in those styles but very little of both are truly good. How many old rap bands do you go back to? How many old punk bands do you go back to? For me it's not many.
h.p. love you bring up a good point about punk. One thing that always bothered me was this label of "pop-punk" that is used for bands like Green Day or Tsunami Bomb. I do like both those bands (Iam seeing a green day concert in sept) but I always felt it was a contradiction. I never even considerd Green Day to be punk.
Other term I hear is "Punk Revival"(Other term used for Green Day). I never considered punk to be dead, I think it will always be alive in the underground and not the mainstream. It does not need to be revived by mainstream.
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"We Greeks created democracy! You also created homos!"-Ghost World
It is a very good point. The music I hate the most is cookie-cutter commercial crap that is cranked out according to a marketing strategy by a bunch of "stars" who all seem the same to me. This means I hate most music out there today.
Funny, when I didn't like the direction popular music was going in the early 90s, I turned to country for a while. Now it sucks too - a lot of wannabe pop and manipulative drivel.
Everything has turned into pop. It's the same problem we see in the movies. If people are buying a lot of one thing, nobody considers that something different might stand out, and be refreshing. No, they give us more of the same. Sad.
What does it take to get a song that is fun, lively, distinctive and without pretensions?
This is a longer one but I only recently started getting excited about music in general again, and this is sorta how it happened:
I talked a friend into seeing Green Day with me in WI about four years ago. They played a good show. I'm not sure what happened to them. I think they are political schills/poster boys who spend too much time talking and putting on make-up. The music is bland. It happens. I would have walked 500 miles to see Metallica in the Lightening/Puppets era. Now I wouldn't walk a city block. Even when the music isn't as good, some bands keep it real or whatever: Motorhead, Social Distortion, Neil Young (punker than green day - IMO - Prince is too for that matter).
Mojor labels love putting geriatric golden geese on life support as if they can do no wrong: U2. All bands have an expiration date. Only those who really walk the walk get a pass: Rolling Stones.
I like a lot of 80s and even 90s pop. 70s R&B is good too. Some of my favorite discs are compilations.
In the mid 80s I lived in a small town around Springfield, IL. There was a radio station that had a punk/college radio type show. Everything from Replacements to early Suicidal Tendencies. It was great. When I first heard ST's Fascist Pig, it was the greatest thing I ever heard.
Anyway, we used to order punk albums from Toxic Shock records. They used to send all kinds of zines and stickers with every order and we digested them all. It was cool, we were able to keep up with the west coast scene. We also read all liner notes and tried to check out the bands that other artists mentioned. This was a very cool pre-web way to check out bands.
Anyway, I'm trying to be more like that again. I'm not in an urban area, where you can catch up to 6 bands a night at one show. I check out indy label websites that I read about in zines. They usually have mp3's, none of that streaming nonsense. A lot of bands still sell cheap tapes for a few bucks and they'll often burn them for you too.
Go underground. There are more cool netcasts out there now you can download by people who spin some good stuff. I just found a good one called "no one listens to ska anymore". If you feel ambitious, sign up to do reviews for a website or zine, you'll get free cds to listen to. mp3.com used to be great. Cdnow was cool too before amazon ruined it, they used to have great band information. There are also some cool punk blogs aimed at cataloging older forgotten bands and good up and comers.
Anyway, most of anything seems to suck a lot. Keep trying to find the next big thing before it is the next big thing. A lot of good stuff always winds up getting pimped out. And when you do hear something fun, find the early material by that musician. Usually it's rawer and takes more chances.
Since I like in NYC their always a show somewhere. I go to a place called CBGB that have underground rock bands. I just went to a show on Sat. and saw 6 bands for 10 dollars. Their were all pretty good and one band that stood out was Penny Royals. Really good. Some other good ones were Billion Dollar Boys Club and Fixer. Unfortunately the place might close in Aug. due to raiseing rents. Their appealing to the city to put the place as a landmark, Its been their since the 60s and had such bands as a young ACDC and The Ramones. If you want to help keep them open, check out their site:
http://www.cbgb.com/
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"We Greeks created democracy! You also created homos!"-Ghost World
I'm surprised to hear that CBGB is struggling. Never been there but I know it's a mecca.
Lounge axe in chicago bit the dust a while back. It was a tiny place to catch incredible shows while packed in like sardines. I get misty when I see it in High Fidelity.