ANOTHER list - worst musicians of all time

Bob-Dubery

I predict a wailing, a gnashing of teeth and general outrage
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/the-123-worst-musicians-of-all-time

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote: I predict a wailing, a gnashing of teeth and general outrage
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/the-123-worst-musicians-of-all-time

Possibly a tongue or two lurking in a corner of the cheek.

Chocklit_Thunda

I saw this the other day ? I must say I actually agree with some of the posts....
I think a lot of these artists we hold in high regard and put on a pedestal are not even that great.... Especially in terms of musical talent. Like the Beatles.... They could play fine but dear lord those voices of theirs were borderline terrible ??? Even more so with Bob Dylan....

I admit a few of the posts on the list were just to stir but a good few of them are kinda true

Bob-Dubery

Chocklit_Thunda wrote: I saw this the other day ? I must say I actually agree with some of the posts....
I think a lot of these artists we hold in high regard and put on a pedestal are not even that great.... Especially in terms of musical talent. Like the Beatles.... They could play fine but dear lord those voices of theirs were borderline terrible ??? Even more so with Bob Dylan....

I admit a few of the posts on the list were just to stir but a good few of them are kinda true

People too often make the same mistake with the Beatles - slagging them off for songs like "I Want To Hold Your Hand".
a) At that time they were, in the context of the times, a very exciting pop band.
b) Everything moved fast back then and the Beatles faster and farther than most. They moved way beyond those early pop songs and cut some truly great music.

And I don't get the criticism of their voices. Seriously.

Dylan's an easier target, and has been churning out product rather than great albums for years (but then you could say the same about Paul McCartney). But how many times can you change the landscape of popular music? He hasn't made a great album in decades now, but at least he made some.

deebee

Hey Chokey, if you'd been around in the sixties, and said 'wot you just said now, well????? No other band on earth has ever generated the hysteria that they did, not even the Stones. Without the Beatles, music would more than likely still have been ''swinging'' between Pat Boon and Bill Haley. Bob Dylan, the greatest songwriter to ever live - enuff' said.
THE BEATLES RULE ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
So does Bob ? ?

Gearhead

What I find amazing is the fact that someone took the time to listen to well over 123 bands, even though he hated their music; then did a writeup on it and took the time to publish on the net. You must be really out of your mind to spend this much time on something you don't even like... My guess is Scott Grove?

studmissile

"Beach Boys?" Brian Wilson is the only real genius that's been in popular music. The Article's a SCAM!

PeteM

? ? ? I'm not even going to look at it!!!!
What a waste of time. ? ? ?

AlanRatcliffe

Don't take it too seriously. The site/staff make way too much noise about it not being satire for it to be anything but (see the intro and the tags).

doc-phil

If it weren't so tongue and cheek, and it was a serious list, I'd say the only musician deserving to be there is Kanye West. Add Yoko 'Oh No' (didn't spot her, maybe I missed her on the list) and Fred Durst and you're starting to form a legitimate list.

Mixerboy

The only ones I don't fully agree with (as they had SOME decent stuff) were:

The Doors
Queen
Rage Against The Machine

The rest......

PeteM

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Don't take it too seriously. The site/staff make way too much noise about it not being satire for it to be anything but (see the intro and the tags).

Still a waste of my time... I haven't got much of it left, so I better use it on more positive things. ?

Keira-WitherKay

the problem with satire and even black humour is often the person reading/ hearing it takes it seriously and "misses" the satire completely ...

however it is not untrue that often very mediocre musicians can be in hugely popular/successful bands .... ?

studmissile

However that depends how you define a "good" musician, someone who plays and instrument proficiently or brilliantly, or some who’s able create something unique or popular?

Bob-Dubery

Keira WitherKay wrote: the problem with satire and even black humour is often the person reading/ hearing it takes it seriously and "misses" the satire completely ...

however it is not untrue that often very mediocre musicians can be in hugely popular/successful bands .... ?

This is a thing that interests me: How much proficiency do you need to be able to make "good" music. Firstly, of course, it depends on what your idea of "good" is.

A good example would be Dylan. Or R.E.M. Not monster musicians but did they make music that was worthwhile?

Keira-WitherKay

X-rated Bob wrote:
Keira WitherKay wrote: the problem with satire and even black humour is often the person reading/ hearing it takes it seriously and "misses" the satire completely ...

however it is not untrue that often very mediocre musicians can be in hugely popular/successful bands .... ?
This is a thing that interests me: How much proficiency do you need to be able to make "good" music. Firstly, of course, it depends on what your idea of "good" is.

A good example would be Dylan. Or R.E.M. Not monster musicians but did they make music that was worthwhile?

virtuosity HAS NEVER been a requirement for good music or even hit music....nor musical success in the industry . or the charts would be filled with tunes from mike stern, steve vai, govan guthrie ....and so on......

so yes defining what "good" music is is totally in the ears of the listener..... it's art ....so whatever floats your boat ....is what you consider good music..... and i may consider the same choice differently....... and if a few people love the work ...and buy the work ......then of course it's worthwhile.....

we even see less mainstream artists create an underground scene ,and some have huge cult following but NEVER have a commercial hit ....which proves there's scope for all and any genre in music .....

so like any art .... some gets commercial success, some not ... but no one can judge and say it's not good music....

however all one can do is judge if it's a commercial success of not ...that is why we get lists of best selling artists.... which can be accurate....

Bob-Dubery

I prefer the attitude of Joe Boyd: That anybody who insists that the aesthetic and the pragmatic are incompatible is wrong. That doesn't mean that the one is always the other, but they don't have to be mutually exclusive, nor even have an inverse relationship.

I think the music industry has got more and more towards sacrificing the aesthetic for the pragmatic, but I think that's not sudden but slow. I remember in the 80s you could hear productions that were clearly aping something else that had been a hit on the basis of trying to replicate the sounds on the hit. An egregious example was a Santana single that's most notable feature was that somebody had managed to persuade Carlos Santana to sound like Mark Knopfler.

In the 60s nobody knew what was pragmatic and how things became a hit, so you got an incredible range of music that was "popular". Even then there were formulas - notably Phil Spector and his wall of sound (an inspiration to Abba).

Malkav

This list does not have Henry Kaiser on it, therefore it lacks all potential credibility.

Chabenda

X-rated Bob wrote:
Keira WitherKay wrote: the problem with satire and even black humour is often the person reading/ hearing it takes it seriously and "misses" the satire completely ...

however it is not untrue that often very mediocre musicians can be in hugely popular/successful bands .... ?
This is a thing that interests me: How much proficiency do you need to be able to make "good" music. Firstly, of course, it depends on what your idea of "good" is.

A good example would be Dylan. Or R.E.M. Not monster musicians but did they make music that was worthwhile?

Bob, is there not, perhaps, a difference here between Musician and Entertainer? Are clever or meaningful lyrics music or entertainment? Too much splitting of hairs and tying of knots here.
???

By the way Chocklit - the Beatles were phenomenal, especially if you consider their back grounds and then listen to the complexity of some of their songs. Their early albums consisted of one hit after another, their later albums were ground breaking for their day. I don't listen to them much these days, having been force fed them 24/7 as a kid, but listening to them these days I am amazed by their creativity. Face it, you're just jealous because you didn't get to play sitar with them ?

Bob-Dubery

I second Chabenda's remarks about the Beatles. Listen to Revolver. Ok... John's form is variable, presumably because of his burgeoning drug use, but Paul is in superb form with "Eleanor Rigby", the time-shifting intro to "Good Day Sunshine" and the lyric to "For No One". Their craftsmanship was remarkable even though there's an argument to be made that they never had a virtuoso player.

It might be too easy now to overlook their influence and how they raised the bar, but if you can try to figure out what was happening in '63, '64 etc and then note
A) how fast things moved
B) who the pacemakers were.

The Beatles were monumental.