Friday, June 15, 2007

Eliminate The Negative

In yesterday's Guardian there was an article under the headline - Sgt Pepper must die! It went on to say "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? It's meant to be a classic album, but all you can hear is a load of boring tripe ... we've all felt that way. And so have the musicians we asked to nominate the supposedly great records they'd gladly never hear again." The article then went on to dish such albums as Nirvana, Nevermind, The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds, The Beatles, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abba, Arrival and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.

The artists doing the dishing are mostly from newer bands. One of the put down sis by Tjinder Singh of Cornershop, who says about Dark Side of The Moon, "This album is a sort of lab experiment, put together by scarf-wearing university types. There's a certain irony in a song like Money that takes pot-shots at greedy corporations, when this album made so much money. There's also irony in these super-wealthy elite prog musicians positing themselves against The Man, having a go at the machine."

Why do newspapers & magazines feel a need to do this? Is it because they've done all the greatest albums, best singles, best songs that never made No.1, most underrated album etc etc. Are we in for a spate of worst ofs from here on in? It's got the potential to be so boring.

With so much good stuff to talk and write about why not eliminate the negative?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen. I've been intrigued by some of the newer music magazines' lists of the best albums of all time, not only by what is included, but by what is left off.
I suppose when some of these newer bands that are doing the ranking have been around for forty years, like the Beatles, The Stones, or even pop bands like Abba, then their opinions will matter. Truth to tell, they are all flashes in the pan.
Anyone who does not think Sgt. Pepper is a classic album is proving their ignorance of music history.

Ian russell said...

they build them up and then they cut them down, that is a critic's work. I've had enough of music press, it's not representative of my own taste, it's just someone else's biased opinion.

but that's the thing with taste - of course Sgt. Pepper is a classic but I would never own it nor request it - I'm not a fan of Nick Hornby either but there was a perfectly sound opinion of his, I paraphrase; it's okay to be bored in the presence of genius.

Anonymous said...

Excellent point, Ian.