Any review that writes this
“Meaningless machine-age pop that could have been and probably was written by someone’s laptop while they were getting a tattoo of a skull on their calf. …could have been written by HP.
Worth a read.
Musings on the byways of popular culture
Any review that writes this
“Meaningless machine-age pop that could have been and probably was written by someone’s laptop while they were getting a tattoo of a skull on their calf. …could have been written by HP.
Worth a read.
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Johnny Concheroo says
“The Oedipal conjunctive, and some gangsta malarkey. Girls shakin’ their booties and homies gettin’ down. I guess rap causes me to suffer cognitive dissonance. I bet for someone who understands it this is the last word in cool”
No Freebird, Layla or Bohemian Rhapsody this year then, I guess?
Junior Wells says
I had a listen to them all and apart from the first one #10 I didn’t like any of them. I concluded it was the sound, the mix, the production.
Junior Wells says
Should have added that Steve Kilbey of The Church fame would not be likely to just be pining for a few classic rock toons.
H.P. Saucecraft says
YOU COULD ALSO HAVE ADD – oops – just noticed capslock – ed that The Church are possibly, no, probably, the best band ever. Blindingly great.
Junior Wells says
knew it would lure you in HP
garyjohn says
And possibly your age JW.
Junior Wells says
Yes I get that tho I like Tane Impala. My age contributes to my not liking a sound that is probably created for MP3 s
Junior Wells says
Tame
garyjohn says
Heard this in the pub last night. Didn’t think it was terrible.
Junior Wells says
Nice enough
But # 1 best song of the whole year ??
garyjohn says
Sadly JW, I fear we’re not the target audience.
Junior Wells says
Yep like it says on the tin JJJ is a youth station. Even had bald to get my rid of some long standing announcers Coz they were too old like late twenties maybe early thirties.
Junior Wells says
Fucking phones. Balls not bald
garyjohn says
Perhaps bald was right after all.
Johnny Concheroo says
The people next door had an Australia Day pool party yesterday with the Triple J countdown blasting out across the neighbourhood. I couldn’t see them but it sounded like 20 or more teenagers were having a great old time, yelling, cheering and/or booing as each record came up.
It all sounded like unlistenable shite to me and my wife confirmed I’d finally turned into Norris Cole (look it up JW) as I said something like “Really! Do they have to make quite so much noise?” over and over.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Quick drive ro the other side of town. Payphone. Call the feds and give their address, claim it’s a Daesh cell plotting a bomb outrage under cover of a pool party. Drive home, watch, enjoy.
Johnny Concheroo says
Don’t give me ideas…
garyjohn says
Bollocks Norris Cole JC.
You’re Victor Meldrew.
Johnny Concheroo says
I DO believe it!
mikethep says
In a spirit of inquiry and fair play I gave them all a go. It’s all so bloody PROCESSED! Not a proper voice anywhere to be heard, and precious few guitars too. I spit on them all.
Now I rather like this, which got a fair amount of play on Triple J but came nowhere in the Top 100. Full disclosure: it’s my wife’s son’s girlfriend’s brother and his girlfriend. No idea what the vid is all about, but give it a listen.
mikethep says
Anybody? No? Disappoint.
Johnny Concheroo says
Well, I liked it Mike. That production/vocal sound could only be Australian.
And while we’re getting into spot of nepotism, Jeff Buckley has a new album out in March. The lead single from it is a cover of The Smiths The Boy With The Thorn In His Side and the sleeve for the 7″ vinyl single was designed by my very own son.
mikethep says
I thought you were having a senior moment there, but I see that Jeff Buckley does, indeed, have a new album out in March. Good on young Master Concheroo!
Johnny Concheroo says
Thanks Mike, no doubt I’ll post the single sleeve here when I have a copy.
The album is all cover versions “from the vault” I believe. Could be another barrel scraping exercise I suspect.
H.P. Saucecraft says
What’s all this Jeff stuff? It’s Tim. Every time. Tim Buckley; folky troubadour/heartthrob, out-there mystic jazzbo/heartthrob, intellectual free jazz poet/heartthrob, raw sex Rn’B wild man/heartthrob, laid-back LA crooner/hearthrob. Heroin addict/heartthrob.
If you’re a Jeff fan and don’t know Dad’s work, you’re in for quite a ride.
Joe R says
Articles like this drive me up the spout.
The fact a 61 year old man finds little to like in mainstream radio isn’t a surprise. I’d imagine when he was in his teens/early 20s, people in their 60s thought the music he liked was rubbish too. Pop music is (generally) about being young and having a great time, and he’s certainly not the target audience for much of this.
He also falls victim to some of the ridiculous clichés that blight the thoughts of those who don’t like modern pop. Fair enough if Kendrick or Major Lazer aren’t your bag but some of his “criticism” is infuriatingly lazy.
The Major Lazer track is “meaningless” and the lyrics aren’t up to much? So what? Not every song has to ruminate on the effects of deforestation or the political situation in Burma. Sometimes people just want to have fun. Anyway, isn’t “I am the eggman / They are the eggmen / I am the walrus” a load of meaningless twaddle?
Also, if Steve Kilbey genuinely thinks King Kunta is “like a million other things I’ve seen and heard before” then I’d really like to borrow some of his records, because this man has the finest collection of hip-hop in the world. As for his dismissing it as “gangsta malarkey” and “homies gettin’ down” is veering uncomfortably close to racism IMO.
Junior Wells says
Well I’m not sure he took it too seriously. And it was for Guardian readers probably not a JJJ audience. He was being the smart arse but its not as if he thought they were all rubbish.
The Church was psychedelic jangly pop / rock with prog leanings. He really slagged the Go Betweens in their pomp as effete or some such before he worked with McLennan on a fine album.
Junior Wells says
Without wanting to be overly defensive, I dont really care either way but the articleis introduced as
The Church singer-songwriter offers his curmudgeonly thoughts on the top 10 as voted for by young Australians….
fair bit of reaction on his twitter page too
https://twitter.com/stevekilbey?lang=en
chilli ray virus says
I feared the worst (old git pining for a bit of “rawk”), but agreed with much of what he says. “Magnets/Disclosure” is pretty great pop song, and he’s wrong about Kendrick Lamar, but the list on the whole lacked anything edgy or interesting. Triple J appears to have gone very soft mainstream with a similar playlist to the pop commercial stations , (and an annoying set of “frat” humour presenters to go with it). Having said all that I for one am glad to see the back of “indie” guitar bands which dominated previous lists.
Cookieboy says
Had a conversation with a co-worker today about the Hot 100
She said, “I listened to it, was okay, but I don’t think I’m their target audience any more.”
She’s all of 29yo
Junior Wells says
well add another 29 years for me. But in previous years I’ve liked quite a lot so old fart at 58 but not at 57, 56, etc etc
I’m with Mike – all too processed and if it between this pap and indie guitars ,strap em on and tune em up.
Junior Wells says
@JoeR hear is what Kilbey had to say on Facebook. His last para may well reinforce your view.
storm in a teacup
we are very amused by the feeble little backlash against our music reviewing skills.
i was contracted by the guardian to review the JJJ top ten.
it was not my idea to do it.
i am putting myself forward to the guardian to write some “serious” articles on rocknroll. i hate to call myself an expert but after more than forty five years of rockin’ in the free world i know a bit about this beast and i have the deafness to prove it.
i guess the guardian offered me this job to see if i had the “smarts” and did i have “what it takes?” to deliver an article on time.
i am bemused to think that some people out there think i am too old to “get” the Rubens et al. Yes i am very very old but even when i was young and very beautiful , let me assure you, i would not have liked the Rubens et al. Its not because i am old that i dont like them, its because i came to review rocknroll and i found limp bland pop. Maybe i was overqualified for this gig. People have been making this bland tripe ever since i can remember. yes the fifties and the sixties and the seventies were full of it. it will always exist and there will always be people like me railing against it. Because rocknroll is capable of making statements that no other artform can make. I aint no philistine either. I am well versed in many literary, artistic and religious works and still i say rocknroll can do things that no other artform can do so effectively. its sexiness. its rage. its revolution. its anger. its otherworldiness. its dissociation. its preposterousness. its glory. its tragedy. etc etc etc. I find none of these qualities in the people in the top ten except for tame impala upon whom i certainly bestow my blessing (big deal!). I find many of the artists in the top ten indistinguishable from what are generally known as “boy bands”.In that they sing dopey little songs in their “little boy” voices to some little girl who (shame upon shame) broke their little heart. good for them. I was a random reviewer asked to give an assessment. i would be willing to admit if i was too old to dig some wild or strange new mess. but this is the same old limp tepid pop that theyve always dished up and probably always will. And believe me i DO understand it.
Second thing is a few people have castigated me for not researching the lyrics to KIng Kunta and they assure me that if i did and i wasnt so old and white, that i would realise how brilliantly essential this song is. When was the last time you heard of someone researching a fricking pop single ? superficially i look at the vid and sho’nuff theres the chicks shaking their bums, a guy saying mutherfucker and homies doing the homey dance.
having spent a lotta time in the USA i would say superficially that this vid/song is pretty much par for the course with all the standard accoutrements of stuff that ive been seeing for well over 25 years. What is an old reviewer to do..? i admitted that i couldnt dig it but someone else probably does. boo hoo. fuck you!
hopefully my next assignment i will be back on familiar ground writing about the stuff i am best writing about . which is rocknroll eg bowie beatles dylan and stuff like that. something that fucking means something. not the vapid miasma of the JJJ top 10.
amen brothers and sisters
i love you all
please carry on !
mikethep says
Right on, as I believe the youngsters say!
Mousey says
FWIW I “liked” this and shared it.
Junior Wells says
yeah thanks Mousey it was your Facebook entry that drew me to it.
Joe R says
In the interests of fairness and balance, I should probably say I think it’s good he concedes that there’s always been rubbish music in the charts. From his Guardian piece, it came across more that he thought everything from his era was great and everything now was terrible. Can’t say I’ll be awaiting his Beatles, Bowie and Dylan articles with baited breath. But yeah, that FB post pretty much does reinforce my opinions.
Oh, and “homies doing the homey dance”? Is he really not going to get picked up on that?
JustB says
He wants it both ways. On the one hand he wants “rock n roll” (boak) to be taken seriously but then baulks at the idea of doing his homework and finding something out about an artist. He’s a poorly informed reactionary old fart who can’t punctuate.
BigJimBob says
Agreed. This is a familiar trope in music. This stuff is authentic, That stuff is manufactured shit. In their time Sinatra, Elvis, and the Beatles got beat with this stick. It was brought out to punish folkies who went electric, “world music” artistes to dared to record in multitrack studios… I bet when someone in a cave turned a deer antler into a flute, the older guys in the tribe were immediately on their back; “Like, why can’t we go back to acapella and banging bones together, youth?”
Junior Wells says
think that should have been @Joe-R or possibly @Joe_R