How can there possibly be a better topic for songs than capital punishment? Ultimate God/State interface!
― dave q, Saturday, 8 March 2003 14:51 (twenty-three years ago)
Also, predict who'll be the first really famous artiste to get the needle
― dave, Saturday, 8 March 2003 14:52 (twenty-three years ago)
If the stress gets any deeper around here I'm gonna get the needle, I know that much. Oh wait that's not what you meant.
― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Saturday, 8 March 2003 15:15 (twenty-three years ago)
(Metallica wins by the way even though I am a huge Nick Cave fan, but "the Mercy Seat" is the exact moment in Nick Cave's career at which he realizes "hey, a lazy line/verse here and there isn't going to damage me at all, nobody even cares, everybody's just interested in the
vibe" whereas prior to that his lyrics had been magnificently wrought curliques of thought & image that took hours & hours to fully unpack -- meaning no disrespect to "The Mercy Seat," a good song and a
great live number, but the structure of it is pretty "eh." "Ride the Lightning" on the other hand is the exact moment in Metallica's career when they're realizing "oh hey wait we don't just kick ass: we
rule," and they did, and should have all been shot. Even though I do think that the later stuff, as hard-rock chart-pop, isn't actually that horrible, as long as you don't EVER EVER listen to their ritual sacrifice of Thin Lizzy's "Whiskey in the Jar")
― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Saturday, 8 March 2003 15:19 (twenty-three years ago)
I love
RIDE THE LIGHTNING, but Cave approaches the subject on a much more thoughtful, realistic level compared to Metallica's rather comic booky perspective.
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 8 March 2003 20:45 (twenty-three years ago)
Yeah, just the title is silly. "Ride the Lightning! At Six Flags! It RAWKS!"
"The Mercy Seat" is leagues and fathoms better.
― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Saturday, 8 March 2003 20:48 (twenty-three years ago)
So, what most of you are saying (or maybe it's just Alex?) is:
Metallica : Stan Lee :: Nick Cave : Alan Moore?
― David R. (popshots75`), Saturday, 8 March 2003 21:29 (twenty-three years ago)
Metallica's mindset & vocabulary is probably much, much closer to that of the actual convict about-to-fry than Cave's romanticized poet from somewhere down below the Mason-Dixon line, though - Cave's convict more satisfying to us lit. students but really silly in a lot of ways ('those sinister dinner deals'? o please Nick, or 'those filthy five [i.e. his fingers], they did nothing to challenge or resist' -- this is Nick in love with his own press kit). And again, I'll take a song from Metallica approaching the height of their powers over one from Cave about to fall from dizzying heights any day.
― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Saturday, 8 March 2003 23:12 (twenty-three years ago)
'Metallica's mindset & vocabulary is probably much, much closer to that of the actual convict about-to-fry'
OTM - I imagine most c.a.2.f's enjoy(ed) a lifestyle of beer, cheap powders and 'Hustler', not heroin and Faulkner
― dave q, Sunday, 9 March 2003 12:23 (twenty-three years ago)