Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is another man’s Poison

965 Responses

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  • James Butler, in reply to Scott Chris,

    Sorry, I'm not trolling, I just have exquisitely bad taste in music. I rate ABBA for starters. Seriously.

    ABBA were geniuses. What's not to like?

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Hebe, in reply to Jackie Clark,

    . It's so visceral, our response to music, like all art.

    Yeah, I cannot intellectualise about any artform else I become very prattish. Some people seem to be able to though.

    Christchurch • Since May 2011 • 2899 posts Report Reply

  • TracyMac,

    Count me in as another c &.w hater. And yes, "alt" country is just as whiny. 99% of metal is boring in the utter extreme. I'm just allergic. Whiny "rock" of the Nickelback school, which just sounds like someone is trying to pass a massive turd.

    Morrissey should have been my god when I was 16, but blergh.

    Tom Beard encapsulated the Whitney, Celine, Kenny G axis of evil.

    ....but nothing surpasses AUTOTUNE! I cannot even stay in the room with that effect on. This includes Peter Framptom's effort from the late 70s or whenever it was.

    Guilty pleasure: Fleetwood Mac. I know, I know. But who the hell mentioned Radiohead and Oasis in the same breath? Fie, fie on thee!

    Canberra, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 701 posts Report Reply

  • TracyMac,

    But for the worst song evurrrrr, nothing beats Charlene.

    Canberra, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 701 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to philipmatthews,

    Think it was well-known that Joy Division were Doors fans.

    Not by me, though I was never that in to them. The first time I heard them cold the Morrisonishness was so obvious.
    And I'll have to pass on the baritone theory, because Nick Cave never sounded like Jimbo.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • James Butler, in reply to TracyMac,

    Count me in as another c &.w hater. And yes, "alt" country is just as whiny.

    Johnny ain't whining, he's just telling it like it fucking is:

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Jackie Clark, in reply to TracyMac,

    I don't understand the phrase "guilty pleasure". In my book, if something pleases you, then there is no guilt attached. Ever. At least not as far as music/tv/cinema/art goes.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report Reply

  • Ana Simkiss, in reply to Hebe,

    Try a year of working nights with Van on constant repeat. I think I have PTSV.

    Freemans Bay • Since Nov 2006 • 141 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to TracyMac,

    just sounds like someone is trying to pass a massive turd

    my abiding impression of Kirsten Morrell in this earnest gem:

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Hebe, in reply to Ana Simkiss,

    a year of working nights with Van on constant repeat

    Ick.

    Christchurch • Since May 2011 • 2899 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Jackie Clark,

    I don't understand the phrase "guilty pleasure"

    it's for Catholics..

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Hebe,

    Hate me if you like, my 1980s flatmates did for this. I still like it

    Christchurch • Since May 2011 • 2899 posts Report Reply

  • Irwin Fletcher,

    Yep, the Beach Boys are one of my all time favourite bands. Brian Wilson is well deserving of the Genius tag.

    New Zealand • Since Mar 2012 • 5 posts Report Reply

  • Richard Grevers,

    Are we including music which we'd assume 90% of people will hate, such as the Macarena? Back in the 1995, one of the anti-drug campaigns had a big bike, which 12 people had to pedal cooperatively. I was rigging pyro for classical sparks as it rode out of Hagley Park, playing the Macarena on its sound system. Two hours later it returned, still playing it! And a couple of months later I saw it trundling round Moray place in dunners, playing ... you guessed it! Surely enough to drive people to drugs rather than put them off!

    New Plymouth • Since Jul 2011 • 143 posts Report Reply

  • TracyMac, in reply to Hebe,

    Nup, my ethnicity is as Irish as Paddy's pig, and yet I can't stand bear to be in the same room as the schmalzchiness. Mind you, he's not as bad as Tom Waites, which for some reason I had inflicted on me by the same set of ex-lovers over the same period. And Johnny Cash (see above, re country).

    Morrison/Waites/Cash - all so different, but so emblematic of a certain period and the tastes of certain of my girfriends. Who I still loved all the same. Walkmen and headphones so I could blat out my DnB/electronica to my heart's content were the inventions of the gods.

    Canberra, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 701 posts Report Reply

  • TracyMac, in reply to James Butler,

    Lol, I did my Cash rant before I saw you post that clip. 'nuff said. :-)

    Canberra, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 701 posts Report Reply

  • TracyMac, in reply to Sacha,

    I think you might have it there, Sacha. I don't really feel guilt about much at all (other than stuff affecting other people I might have cocked up), but the fandamily were Irish Catholic and some things are kind of stuck in the cultural inheritance...

    Canberra, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 701 posts Report Reply

  • Scott Chris, in reply to TracyMac,

    Count me in as another c &.w hater. And yes, “alt” country is just as whiny.

    Yeah maybe, but there are always exceptions to the rule. Are you familiar with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy? (Sorry no video but the music compensates)

    Auckland • Since Feb 2012 • 167 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg, in reply to Sacha,

    my abiding impression of Kirsten Morrell in this earnest gem:

    My god that's awful. All of it. The sad irony is that original is used so movingly in the last scene of this.

    Moroder

    On Facebook a few moments back: "Christ died for our synths."

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Hebe, in reply to TracyMac,

    Waites/Cash

    Dislike their work intensely, especially Tom Waites.

    Christchurch • Since May 2011 • 2899 posts Report Reply

  • Hebe, in reply to Sacha,

    just sounds like someone is trying to pass a massive turd

    Kurt Cobain quite often seems to me to be bellowing "sore tummy, sore tummy", but I like some Nirvana very much.

    Christchurch • Since May 2011 • 2899 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg, in reply to Richard Grevers,

    Are we including music which we'd assume 90% of people will hate, such as the Macarena?

    I was backstage on a UK TV pop show in 1996 with OMC and these guys were also on the show.

    There were waiting staff wandering here and there and Pauly wanted a drink - so he walked up to one of the waiters and ordered one.

    It was the one of the guys from this bunch. He sneered and then stomped off to his dressing room.

    They really do look like waiters....

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Chris Waugh,

    I hated How Bizarre when it first came out. Then when I was living in Taiyuan, the only Kiwi in the city (trust me. The expat population was tiny. Friends would tell me, "Hey, I met an Aussie. Want me to introduce you?"). I walked into my favourite little pirated CD store*, a place where as soon as they saw a new face, they'd ask, "So you like punk**?. I found OMC's album, instantly bought it, loved it, just for that sweet nostalgia for a far away home.

    I think music is largely about context. Even ABBA can sound good in the right time and place.

    *Actually, many of their CDs and cassettes were the spiked variety. Excess stock that the US companies would either ram a spike through or cut a slit in to make them 'unuseable' then dump. They found their way to China, where many people relied on them for anything and everything beyond the bubblegum Mandopop and similarly bland Western pop. At most, if a CD had a slit cut in, the slit only went far enough into the CD that you lost the last track of the album, but the rest was fine. If it was spiked, the spike was run through the centre, but the cracks radiating out from the hole very rarely made the CD unplayable. Spiked cassettes were unplayable, but what people did was unscrew the cassette, take out the tape, unscrew an intact blank or Mandopop cassette, put the tape from the spiked cassette inside, screw the cassette back together. Good as gold.

    **For them there, 'punk' meant anything that wasn't Mandopop, Cantopop, Kenny G, Celine Dion, Richard Marx, or the Carpenters. It included some unfortunate methods of making recording companies money like Metallica. Nevermind, I still got me lots of good music.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    I hated How Bizarre when it first came out.

    Maybe this is an improvement...

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to TracyMac,

    Count me in as another c &.w hater. And yes, “alt” country is just as whiny. 99% of metal is boring in the utter extreme. I’m just allergic. Whiny “rock” of the Nickelback school, which just sounds like someone is trying to pass a massive turd.

    If anyone knows how to do angry, it’s Johnny Rotten. Shame about the butter advert though.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

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