I'm going home to eat worms

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Re: recent Aerosmith, Grateful Dead threads: Is there any band in existence that no one on ILM will defend? No good aspects, no silver linings, no "their first album was good"?

Nick A., Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think it would be funny to see someone defend Huey Lewis and the News or that Bruce Willis album. C'mon c'mon.

Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Take you want names throwing out? Right then - let's try:

JJ72
Buffalo G
Herman's Hermits
The Crescent
Haddaway

for starters.

Mr Swygart, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Old Aerosmith (circa _Toys In The Attic_) was pretty good, you know. And I remember back when I was much younger absolutely loving _Sport_.

Bruce Willis has always been a musical cockfarmer.

Dan Perry, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Herman's Hermits: Noone will defend them!!

mark s, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

How 'bout calling this "I Dare You..."

Steve fucking Miller

Dave fucking Matthews

Ani fucking DiFranco

GCannon, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have found joy in Huey Lewis & Herman's Hermits records. There were absolutely NO defenders on the Creed thread, as far as I could tell. That seems too easy.

Keiko, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And I've just realised I don't mind The Crescent that much, actually.

Toploader
Dido
Stereophonics
Gareth Gates

Soft targets all, but still...

Mr Swygart, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll defend Ani Difranco and Steve Miller (barely):
Ani's early stuff was grate, I loved her strumming style, full on attack with every part of the hand. Maybe a bit lyrically intense or too militant in places, but tracks like "4th of July" are funny and fun.
Steve Miller was mostly dreck, but I have fond memories of "Abracadabra", back from when I didn't know any better.

Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Steve Miller hung out with Les Paul. That makes him tolerable, solely because Les Paul is a god. Well, in an abstract way.

Yancey, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

JJ72 has made an amazing song called Desertion. All their other songs are terrible though. And whenever Hunter by Dido is on TV I want to sing along.

Indieholic Anonymous, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tim'll defend Ani?

david h(0wie), Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Watch the behind the music on Huey Lewis and you'll like them too. Herman's Hermits were great! If they'd recorded "sweet pea" they'd be twice as great, but noonetheless they swung and rocked plenty.

Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gareth Gate's latest single is pretty good, as many here will agree.

I think the answer to this question is nope, someone somewhere will come to the defence of the slated and maligned.

jel --, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like JJ72. No-one, however, is gonna defend Hootie rock. Hootie and the Blowfish, Matchbox 20, Dave Matthews Band, etc. That stuff is so naff AND crap, that no-one is even going to pretend to like it to be post-modern and clever. Unless one of you wants to prove me wrong?

weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

table of precocious teenaged kids and their parents sitting behind me at a pizza parlor, upon hearing a cher song: this sucks, this is awful, her voice is so weird, etc

same, on the switch to a matchbox 20 song: ok, now this is a good song

same, on the switch to 70s AOR: 'hey, this one is good', 'dude?', 'well kind of' (the guitars threw them for a loop I think)

Josh, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like The Stereophonics' "Local Boy in the Photograph." "Have a Nice Day" and "Just Looking," also. I will listen to "If You're Gone" by Matchbox Twenty if it comes on.

My name is Kenny, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Most of the bands already mentioned have made at least 1 decent record.

JJ72- October swimmer. Steve Miller- Macho city. Stereophonics-Looks like chaplin. Hermans hermits-My sentimental friend.

But can anyone say anything good about- The outhere brothers, Westlife, Showaddywaddy, Cast, Tin machine, Garth Brooks.

kris england, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Outhere Brothers filled up the Latino house spot vacated by 2 In A Room quite nicely...sanctuary!

, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

As spots to be vacated go, that's a pretty small one though. And not one that I felt needed filling in the first place.

Kris England, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

who will defend leif garret?

jack cole, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I suppose you're ruling the melvins out of bounds

Josh, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"same, on the switch to 70s AOR: 'hey, this one is good', 'dude?', 'well kind of' (the guitars threw them for a loop I think)"

I desperately want a friend who will say "dude" in such a wonderful multi-purpose manner. The only person I know who says "dude" is this girl who uses it to describe guys who she probably wouldn't like but wants to sleep with.

And yes, I will defend Ani.

Tim, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Garth Brooks has a very real sexuality in his recordings. He rocks so much harder than most modern Nashville. He's the only artist mentioned so far I'd say was good, but most I could defend as reasonable - I mean many of my friends are genuinely moved by Hootierock. Could we raise the stakes from "stuff no one will defend" to "stuff everyone must burn"? So far for me that's Showaddy and Bruce Willis and maybe Dido and thank god I haven't heard Tin Machine.

Captain and Tennille?

B-Rad, Tuesday, 23 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"I mean many of my friends are genuinely moved by Hootierock"

Yeah, millions and millions of people love Hootie-rock. But I don't think anyone on ILM will defend it. Also: would any of you defend M People?

weasel diesel (K1l14n), Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would agree totally Kilian. M People have been consistently rubbish over a sustained period. Was it an NME journalist who once described her voice as "Like sick dribbling down broken glass"?

Maybe it's testament to my idyllic childhood but I can't help smiling whenever I hear "Do that to me one more time".

My Mum did used to give me half a valium most days to keep me "Quiet" so maybe thats why.

Kris England., Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

mmm downer rock!

re: ani de franco , tons of punters that have otherwise pretty good (my standards, they aren't *that* outlandish tho) taste seem to like her. like on artofthemix.org for inst there'll be a comp i'm checking out & going, mmm, mmm, this looks good, yeah, mmm...WAIT JUST A DAMN MINUTE! yeah really, lots & lots of em.

unknown or illegal user, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't see many INXS diehards on here

dave q, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But can anyone say anything good about- The outhere brothers

How could I NOT love a group that put out a song called "I Wanna Fuck You In The Ass"????

Dan Perry, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Rubettes
Northern Uproar
Jimmy Somerville's solo stuff
Terris
Vonda Shepard (ripped off Sleeper)
The New Radicals
3T

Tons o' the basties.

Mr Swygart, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You get what you give and another song by New Radicals are great.

Indieholic Anonymous, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Someday we'll know" is the other one.

Indieholic Anonymous, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll defend Terris!

My Stylus review of their album...

"Terris Learning To Let Go Blanco Y Negro 2001 {5.3} Reviewed by: Nick Southall

The British music press has got a lot to answer for. At the tail-end of 1999 Terris released their debut EP, a four-song electric-shock called The Time Is Now. The press loved it, immediately labelling them The Best New Band Ever. Terris themselves obliged with the kind of rent-a-quote "everything else is shit" soundbites that nascent careers are made of. Sure enough, NME stuck them on the cover at the start of 2000 just as they embarked on a tour of the UK that saw them blast joint headliners Coldplay offstage every night. Since then, however, the two bands’ fortunes could not have been more different, because while Coldplay quickly released a debut album that the post- Travis soft-rock loving public lapped up like ambrosia, Terris quietly self-destructed.

Live they were awesome, a furious, psychedelic explosion low on tunes but high on volume, a mystical punk maelstrom somewhere between early Verve and even earlier Manic Street Preachers. The drummer was a smacked-out Animal from the Muppets, the bassist a fat man pumping irresistible rhythm lines from an analogue synth, the guitarist the most miserable man ever to take to the stage. As for the singer… Gavin Goodwin twisted around the stage, eyes closed and hands flapping like burning angel’s wings, chanting and yelping his prophecies and bitterness like he was exorcising demons from his fragile frame. Teenage girls transfixed by his intensity, sweat rolled from his face till the stage was sodden with his own perspiration.

Terris disappeared for the best part of 12 months after this initial flurry of activity, seeking to get away from the crushing weight of hype and expectation that the press were frantic to lumber them with. Britain was overloaded with bloated rock bands desperate to fill stadiums and have people wave lighters at them, and Terris were going to be the antidote to this, were going to smash the old guard down like The Sex Pistols had all those years ago. But Terris didn’t have a Malcolm McLaren or a Johnny Rotten, they weren’t London scene- makers with the nous and wired charm and luck to ensure their place in history. Terris were provincial Welsh kids from council estates rife with violence, drugs and petty crime, a hopeless wasteland bordering on the underclass. Compared with early tour-mates Coldplay, middle-class fey indie kids with Oxbridge degrees and encouraging parents, they didn’t stand a chance.

Pixies producer Gil Norton was brought in to make sense of Terris’ noise and anger, to try and lend them some degree of character beyond the inverse negatives that constructed them and their songs. And while Learning To Let Go sounds big and intense and angry as hell it’s also hollow and unsubtle, as much because of the songs as the production. Too many times Terris sound like a heavy metal band who’ve heard Happy Mondays and want to be funky, too often their protestations of smashing things old to make things new sounds like the whining of indie kids keen to mark themselves as eclectic and vivacious by sticking loathsome funky-drumming on top of everything. "Shapeshifter" and "Vegetable Days" are half-hearted stabs at electric ballads but they fall far short of their ambitions. The storm of guitars is never fully realised on record as it live, when pummelling volume and colour can overwhelm the senses with deceptive ease. Away from the stage, Gavin Goodwin is just a wordy, shouty and coarse singer who sounds far too close to a young Jon Bon Jovi, spitting over-complicated lyrics, pseudo-profound and faux- intellectual, the frustrated poetry of a lost child with a thesaurus. "Fabricated Lunacy", "Beneath The Belt" and ridiculously overblown album-closer "Deliverance" are the best moments, respectively tuneful, maniacal and fraught, but still too gauche, too clumsy and too misjudged to really make the grade. "Lost October" is the only survivor from the debut EP, mysteriously chosen over the far better "I Am A Bomb", and its messy, characterless sprawl sees it fade into an unmemorable blur along with most of the other songs. This is not the work of new messiahs come to save us.

Needless to say, Learning To Let Go (dreadful title, worse sleeve) sank without trace when it was released early in 2001, and less than a year later Terris split up. No one cared. The official line is, of course, musical differences, the drummer gone off to make electronic music, the other three still working together, forever planning escape somewhere in a dusty Welsh practice room. But looking at the lyrics in the record sleeve, with their recurrent references to spoons and needles and veins, remembering the drummer’s sunken eyes and tallow skin, I wonder if maybe Terris were simply unable to free themselves fully from the heroin-drenched towerblocks where they grew up."

Nick Southall, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually, that's not really defending tem, is it? They were great live though, in a kind of "point at the monkeys wanking at the zoo" way.

Nick Southall, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Buffalo G are better than every record you've ever loved.

Graham, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i'll defend jj72.

piscesboy, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, of course, the Melvins are completely off limits! Because they do not suck. Haven't sucked yet (far as I'm concerned). Sometimes they're not AS great as they can be, but the idea of literally not knowing what you're in for when you put the new Melvins on is as day- brightening as a new Sun City Girls disc in your hand on a sunny morning.

Matt Riedl (veal), Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)


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