David Lee Roth or Ozzy Osbourne ?

David Lee Roth or Ozzy Osbourne ? Feb 25, 2018 14:07:33 GMT

Quote

Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 25, 2018 14:07:33 GMT

Feb 25, 2018 4:06:26 GMT Eva Yojimbo said:

Feb 25, 2018 3:28:57 GMT Terrapin Station said:

In my view, whether something is influential has nothing at all to do with whether it's any good. And the subsequent stuff can easily surpass the influencer.

I like enough punk and indie. I just don't think the Pixies were very good songwriters/arrangers. They're usually boring to my ear, stuff is underdeveloped, often formulaic where the formula does nothing for me and it's sometimes annoying to me instead. It's hard for me to believe that they're not primarily respected simply because Kurt Cobain talked about liking them.

I feel the same way about the Replacements by the way.

I agree stuff can surpass the influencer, but I do think influence is one legitimate way of measuring goodness/greatness, since influence is one of the biggest factors that shape how art evolves. Also, Cobain was hardly their only admirer: Radiohead and Bowie both lavished praise on them; Bowie was the one that made The Beatles comparison.

I can understand Pixies being boring from a certain perspective. They share the same raw, simplistic approach to songwriting as punk that I've typically found boring because it was just a few dull ideas repeated ad nauseam; but I love their sensibility when it comes to melody and hooks, their off-kilter sense of humor, their occasional inclusion of surf music and other older genres (something like Here Comes Your Man sounds like it could've been released in the 50s), and their ability to find a lot of tonal variations and textures within a rather limited technical palette. They were pretty un-formulaic given the time period: who else was doing what they were doing when they were doing it? As for being underdeveloped... well, yeah, but isn't a lack of development a staple of punk music? The idea is just to paste a few simple ideas together and hope it makes an impact. It's polar opposite approach of prog where developing ideas is the name of the game.

Influence just has nothing to do with whether anything is any good.

I didn't say anything at all resembling Cobain being the only one to plug the Pixies.

Re the formula comment I wasn't talking about what anyone else was doing. I was talking about the Pixies. They had a formula.

I wasn't saying that I dislike simple stuff, punk, formulas etc. categorically.