Posted on 11/20/2022 3:11:41 PM PST by nickcarraway
Just to be clear: I’m not a fan of Elvis Costello, but Bob Dylan IS in my mind a good lyricist. I don’t see what he sees in Costello.
Music taste is subjective——lets just say I strongly disagree that Costello is drivel. Get Happy! album is in my top 5 best releases ever——You obviously never heard it before.
Painted By Memory with Burt Bacharach is excellent as well——I personally did not like his country albums, whatever.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion—but to say Costello is drivel is laughable-———shows your music IQ clearly. Crystal clear.
Sure. You saw the interview but chose to ignore it. The reasons why you want to justify your worship of a devil worshiper is between you and your god. Be sure to explain those reasons to God on judgement day.
In the immortal words of Kickboy Face “there’s no such thing as new wave, it’s just a label for bands that aren’t boring old rock and roll but don’t want to get kicked out of the club for being punk.”
Best case scenario new wave is punk made with a budget and high expected sales.
You are clueless——
First off, since I was referring to lyrics when I said “drivel,” so I don’t know why you write about my “music IQ.” But since you went there, Elvis Costello’s most popular songs (I can’t say I’ve listened to every one of his albums) are miserably conventional pop ditties.
Seriously: The chord progression for “Peace in Our Time,” for instance (using what his fans rate as his best song) is I-IV-ii-ii7-V for the verses and I-IV-VI-ii-V for the refrain. Holy crap, the Ramones are more sophisticated! “Peace Love and Understanding” is equally simple. “Shipbuilding” is more complex, but Clive Langer wrote the music, but the words are beyond stupid (and frankly, I don’t like Langer’s chord progression at all, but that IS a matter of taste, I suppose). Then there’s Man Out of Time: I-V-I-V-I-ii, but oooh! There’s a couple sus4s thrown in there!!!
If he didn’t sound like Barney the Dinosaur, dress like Where’s Waldo, and check off all the political checkboxes, no-one would give this crap the time of day at an open-mike bar in the suburbs.
And look, to be fair, we all have our crap-on-a-stick guilty-pleasure songs. I’ll admit to liking Duran Duran. I’m just irritated at Bob Dylan and all the hipsters treating Elvis like he’s Beethoven, when his songs are more like Barney the Dinosaur running a socialist indoctrination camp at the old Twitter.
I think it’s fair to say that new wave evolved from punk. But I think it’s also fair to say that much of new wave eventually lost some of the defining characteristics of punk. When Kickboy Face refered to “we,” I doubt he was meaning to include some of the bands most immediately identified with New Wave: Duran Duran, Blondie, the Police, Tears for Fears, Depeche Mode, New Order, the Human League, the Cars, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys...
Punk was, in my opinion, largely a reaction against the pretentiously sophisticated sounds of disco and progressive rock. (I don’t mean to say I regard progressive rock to be pretentious, only that punk was reacting against what punk rockers saw as pretentious.) It was noisy, musically simple, visceral and typically played with your basic guitar, drums and bass. New Wave was more musically complex, often used synthesized keys and electric drums, and while I wouldn’t quite say there’s no shouting (Tears For Fears’s biggest hit is literally, “Shout!”), the voices and instruments are clearer and cleaner. “Anarchy in the UK” makes you want to kick a drumset over; at worst, “Mother’s Talk” makes you want to write an angry letter to the Washington Post.
Ditto. THE BEST!
I have always called him a man as ugly as his voice.
I agreed with Claude, RIP.
Read his mag every month.
His band sucked, vanity project.
I like the Talking Heads when I am in a certain mood. Pretty cool stuff.
New wave was the first big step towards the expansion of punk, what punk basically is at this point is the attitude, there’s basically a punk version of every genre out there, including jazz and prog rock.
At its root punk is really the child of outlaw country. It is, as Mike Ness said when explaining why he always put some outlaw country in his set list, music for the downtrodden. Outsider music for outsider people. And there was definitely a reaction to prog and other “nicenings” of rock and roll (strings, everything must have strings, One-Trick Pony explains the rise of punk better than anything even though it’s completely not about punk), wanting to get back to lean mean DIY rock and roll. New wave to me was bringing back some of the melodic without losing the punk edge. Making a bit more room for guys that can really play.
Where things get weird with new wave is it became (years after Claude was interviewed for Decline) a sound palette. Bands that pioneered that sound while still having solid punk roots, like Blondie and The Police (keeping in mind they were both from the 70s and would change a lot), wound up giving way to bands building on their sound with no punk in their lyrics. This is always the challenge of categorizing music. Very few bands really set out to be this genre or that genre. Even if they’re deliberately building on something, they’re still usually trying to put their own mark on it. Personally I don’t consider late new wave to be new wave, to me it’s just pop music, yes it uses the sounds, but they were never a part of it. It wasn’t new by the time they showed up, and they didn’t care about outsiders.
Oh... Catholic Discipline... yeah. Not good stuff. But I’ve got a lot of respect for Claude. He was one of those hard working grinders that contributed a lot to the whole scene.
He doesn't. This is for publicity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.