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Post by Reactionary Rage on Jan 26, 2019 15:32:39 GMT
5 of my very favourite records. Pick 2....and maybe tell me why
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Post by driftin on Jan 26, 2019 16:30:51 GMT
The Ronettes and 13th Floor Elevators.
The former is quite simply one of the all-time greats and the latter really surprised me. It's much stranger and more experimental with its sound design / production than I was expecting.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 17:16:40 GMT
rundgren is a huge chink in your armour.
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Post by Playground LEVINE on Jan 26, 2019 18:10:17 GMT
The Ronettes and 13th Floor Elevators. Yep. Easily. |
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Post by DarknessFish on Jan 26, 2019 22:01:33 GMT
Bo and 13th Floor Elevators for me. This list is getting pretty far away from my comfort zone, and Tood Rundgren was a step too far into torture.
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Post by Charlie O. on Jan 26, 2019 22:03:46 GMT
If I can't vote for all five, I'm not voting.
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Post by jeffk on Jan 26, 2019 22:08:22 GMT
Bo and the 13th Floor Elevators.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 1:18:12 GMT
rundgren is a huge chink in your armour. He loves Todd. Bo and the Elevators, just because I'm in that kinda mood. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 10:57:50 GMT
Bo and 13th floor....
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Post by Playground LEVINE on Jan 27, 2019 12:28:33 GMT
I like Bo a lot as an artist - fun, innovative, ballsy - but some of his most famous songs are really nothing much at all. With bells on. And I guess it's the bells that people go for. Because otherwise I can't really see why 'Pretty Thing' is getting so many votes.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Jan 27, 2019 17:12:06 GMT
I like Bo a lot as an artist - fun, innovative, ballsy - but some of his most famous songs are really nothing much at all. With bells on. And I guess it's the bells that people go for. Because otherwise I can't really see why 'Pretty Thing' is getting so many votes. You're dead to me |
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Post by Playground LEVINE on Jan 27, 2019 17:21:56 GMT
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Jan 29, 2019 10:11:22 GMT
Daddy? What is rock ‘n’ roll?
It’s all just bells!
That riff. I think you could play this riff on a loop, for, like a day, or a week and possibly even a whole month and I would still respond in the same childlike, giddy way to its sinewy, arse shaking magnificence. Bo had that quality in spades. The ability to deliver something so profoundly direct, no nonsense and sexual that it instantly settles on your hips. And your groin too if we are being brutally honest. You can’t really escape this indubitable fact. Bo famously sang, “I’m a Man, spelled M-A-N” and after listening to Pretty Thing you’d never doubt for a second that he was more man than you and pretty much every other limp husk of a fella you’ve met in your dreary life. It captures something so simple and pure and elemental that it makes a lot of what followed seem overly prissy and needlessly complicated by comparison. You could use words like quintessence here but you know what I mean. It’s incredibly sexually charged too but it touches on the sacred as well which is where the songs power comes from. I guess it’s that old combination of faith and flesh, the sacred and the profane, rooted in gospel and the blues that certainly captures the unescapable allure of the latter but which ultimately comes down on the side of the former. It’s at once a lustful come one and a sweetly devotional hymn to a marriage and commitment. The sentiments grow ever more moving for me as the years trundle by. The final lyric in particular almost brings a tear to my eye:
Pretty thing,
Let me dedicate my life,
You will always be my wife,
Oh you pretty thing.
The way he emphasises “always” doesn’t come across as chauvinistic or possessive to me although some might interpret it that way from a modern perspective. There’s something touchingly sacred about it. A atavistic submission and lifelong commitment to an institution, something greater than oneself. The calm assurance that this thing will last until the very end kills me.
Similarly lines like:
Let me kiss you gentle,
Squeeze and hold you tight,
Let me give all my love,
The rest of my life.
These are magnificent sentiments that possess a simple, bullshit free candour that is both elegant and profound. How can one not be moved (and also, of course, shake ones fucking arse)? How can anyone who has ever gazed at a partner and thought, “you’re The One” not recognise this humbling moment in the grooves of this magnificent record? Listen to the instrumental break where the combination of harmonica, drums and guitar bleed together to form something transcendent and overwhelming that captures not just the (ephemeral) power of a sexual union but also a spiritual one too.
Some fucking bells mate.
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