Pet Peeves

[Emphyrio]

Discouraged Ones benefits from being the first album I heard by Katatonia so it gets a pass, but ya, a perfect example of dull, plodding drums.

[Scáthach]

That Uncle Ben rice ad, with the two cunts and their 'eether either' shite, and the little singalong they have at the end. Baseball bats or a hammerfight for ye pricks.

THIS! Christ on bicycle, who calls it a fucking Po-tah-to? Cunts!

[Eoin McLove]

The butchery of Everybody Wants to Rule the World on the ad for Red Rock.  It sounds like your one has had half her teeth extracted and is singing through a haze of painkillers with her mouth still numb from anaesthetic. She even fucks up the kick ass melody completely. Dire.

[astfgyl]

and it was a grand song if they left it alone

Edit: that whole album is great actually and thanks for putting me on to what I'm listening to next. Is the ad worth having then if that is the result?

[Ducky]

The butchery of Everybody Wants to Rule the World on the ad for Red Rock.  It sounds like your one has had half her teeth extracted and is singing through a haze of painkillers with her mouth still numb from anaesthetic. She even fucks up the kick ass melody completely. Dire.

Jesus Christ that is one of the worst covers I've ever heard.

And what you say at the end really highlights why I see blood red with a lot of these - they somehow miss the point of the song and neuter the melody/hook. See also that utterly cack version of Chaka Kahn's "Ain't Nobody" - one of the biggest hooks in 80s pop left in a state of total impotence.

[Ducky]

The first three Tears for Fears albums are really good, "The Hurting" in particular. It's also dark as fuck.

[Eoin McLove]

Been meaning to grab their stuff for years but never have.  Must rectify that. 

[Pedrito]

Weezer did a version of Everybody Wants to Rule the World recently with the a couple of the Tears for Fears singers which was excellent.

The wispy voice stuff is simply a sign of the times. Young, privileged little twats with nothing to sing about, so they do what everyone else is doing because it has a semblance of cool. Dried up oul fanny music, a sign of the homogeneity of pop culture, they've completely run out of ideas, they've drained black and gay culture for every bit of inspiration they can find, there'll be nothing left soon.


God be with the days where lads had to struggle a bit and the music was an expression of that passion and inner fire they carried around with them. Imagine a lad like Jimmy Sommerville growing up on some dodgy Glasgow council estate, a tiny wee gay fella who liked to shave his head, wear doc martin boots and stick his arse out. Imagine the target he had on his back. He was singing from a deep well that lad, it took some balls for him to be him back in the 80's. The likes of Morrisey, all that pent up shit that was going on within him, the confusion, the lack of clarity he was getting at school, in the media, in society..it had to have an outlet and look at what it produced..absolute class. The examples are countless, but all that's fallen away now and, literally, these modern lot have absolutely nothing to rage about. They invent some shite, but nobody really cares in pop music anyway.

I can't remember the last time I heard a pop song that sounded like singer wasn't trying their damndest to be anything but themselves when singing. Dishonest, corporate, lickspittling and completely disposable.

[Eoin McLove]

Yeah true. I don't know if the model has changed much as there has always been that corporate stronghold on pop music,  but it seemed to be so much more diverse and interesting until,  maybe,  the 90s or 00s. Is it just easy to blame X Factor and that sort of set up for creating such a rigid mold that they pour their future one hit wonders into,  or is that the problem? I don't know, really. The irony is that the asthmatic trend that is so pervasive at the minute was started by someone who had some originality of thinking and style and it has become a massive,  irritating cliche ever since.  Don't ask me who the originator was,  but I'm assuming there is one originator out there.  It's amazing to see someone original like Hozier manage to make real music that really didn't fit that model and for him to become so massive.  There is still hope for good pop music I think,  I just don't know where the majority of it is being made.  Wouldn't it be funny if there existed an underground pop scene that was completely elitist towards the plastic shite that dominates mainstream culture.  There probably is,  actually, but then again if they don't sound like Burzum I'm unlikely to ever hear them!

[Caomhaoin]

I find Hozier to be derivative as fuck but there you go.

My favourite comedian is Risteard Cooper and his entire career is based on imitating soccer pundits.

[Pedrito]

That whole Pastoral Blues, my daddy was a preacherman thing Hozier goes on with, yeah, no thanks. It all smacks of a lad trying too hard. More power to him, he's successful, but that says all you need to know about modern music. Give me Jimmy Sommerville anyday 

[Eoin McLove]

I think Hozier's first album was great.  I haven't heard the second one yet.  My point was more to do with something that has originality and musical merit that wasn't just assembled on the pop music assembly line breaking through.  I know there's something slightly jarring about a white guy from Bray playing that kind of blues or whatever but I don't know his credentials or what he grew up listening to and don't really care about that.  The fact that it's still possible for real music to break through to the mainstream is positive.

[Pedrito]

Just a taste thing, he's certainly far from the worst thing I've heard.

[ldj]

The discussion on the 'authenticity' of modern pop music can be interesting because I can imagine, most of us on here are well outside of that 'scene' or demographic.

If you see the likes of Ariana Grande or something doing all of the late night media, you'd assume she's just a manufactured pop star (and she probably is), and yet her music is acclaimed by critics, I know music reviews are bullshit really but they're still relevant.

Whereas someone like Hozier who you'd assume is more authentic is considered run of the mill at best - I remember reading a review of his latest album on Pitchfork and there was a quote "The man who brought us to church, tries to take us back to the same church, six years later".

It's possible we don't connect with any of these modern pop singers because we juts don't know what they're singing about. It might seem very cold and vain to us, but that might connect to a kid who grew up in the age of the Internet.

[Ducky]

I think the pervasiveness of "reality" culture has emphasized how manufactured a lot of pop music is, but it's always been that way.

There's certainly a lot less artistry as it's become more and more homogenised, but it still exists. Take or leave her music, but look at someone like Grimes; her success has come entirely off the back of her own work, her own sounds, she even does her own artwork.