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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 8, 2020 10:10:01 GMT
Look everybody knows I will never stop championing the late great Kim Shattuck in all music threads. She died a fncking undeserving death from ALS and she was the great female rock star of her era.....she was also a goofy and humorous charmer in her bands especially the one that was HER band - The MuffsShe wrote this song - one of her best and which is full of sad things - but done funnily and in the video quite silly - she mocks herself in the opening verse a fake "whoo" (done twice throughout) she flashes her chest before the line "did you see what I hear?" (get it?), and she sets a record for goofy fun faces. Quirky, slyly endearing and in Shattuck's case impossibly girly (almost always in a dress for one thing) .......and she acts in her videos in a way that predates Lydia Night of the Regrettes before Lydia was even born. "You're the talk of the town.........so you say"
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 9, 2020 9:48:44 GMT
Let's talk politics - or at least cultural politics - because no artist used it more for his sense of humor - which some would say was NOT funny - than Frank Zappa. Zappa put his slant on what he even could say in songs and around them to a wtf/staggering effect - on this album (Joe's Garage) he's in blackface on the cover and he'd laugh at anyone saying that was racist and missing his satire (ie the blackface is representative of grease paint - "Joe's Garage" - which is representative of a parody subtext to the album itself).
He would walk right up to the topics of race....gender....sexuality....um bodily functions and cross all kinds of lines and then ask you why YOU were offended anyway.
This songs title is a joke too (but not really!) as is his introduction of it.......and sometimes Zappa could make joke songs ahead of the curve (Valley Girl). sometimes he was the curve all by himself.......... and he's a definitive love him/hate him artist .........and he wouldn't have had it any other way.
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Post by Kings_Requiem on Jul 9, 2020 13:37:00 GMT
The Beastie Boys Blink-182 The Front Bottoms
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 10, 2020 11:02:42 GMT
Of all the pacinoyes eyebrow raising opinions the fact that my favorite 70s UK Punk album (until London Calling) is not made by the Sex Pistols, Clash or Buzzcocks is often maybe the most surprising one. Not only that, it's by The Damned and it's not even their more famous debut Machine Gun Etiquette (1979) - and if you find anyone who has it or loves it - chances are you've found a kindred spirit. My fave for a lot of reasons - great songs, a lead singer who thinks he's Dracula, a guitarist who is genuinely an oddball and makes the singer looks normal - not a bum song in it's original 12 tracks and it's really funny (and diverse!) too. They weren't just funny - they laughed at their own jokes specifically - predating pacinoyes and ...The Replacements whole wtf humor AND...... The Smiths in this songs subject matter a full 7 years later. You can hear this song a million times and never get the full nasty cutting humorous lines. It's gonna be fun tonight Spreading news around the town That the vicars are transvestites With a fetish for robes and gowns
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 11, 2020 9:59:23 GMT
It's important in life to have a good vocabulary and The Only Ones and their lead genius, Peter Perrett had (and he still has) one. Perrett also had an incredibly corrosive nasty streak which could transform itself humorously in lyrics the way that pacinoyes does in his signature/location settings on MAR .......the best word for Perrett would be "caustic" - he channeled Dylan/Reed and their personas more than anyone as his own persona............ and when he joked you could be quite certain he wasn't just joking. It was the intersecting of his aloof meanness and his detached humor ......."caustic":
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 12, 2020 10:34:49 GMT
No one talks much about Weezer on MAR but everybody (with ears) would admit that in 94-96 they made 2 pretty ace records - the 2nd of which - Pinkerton makes the hallowed pacinoyes top 25 of the decade so it's certified amazing dammit.
The geek insider humor, wrestling references and shambolic performance here summed up 25 years of outsider/pre-punk/punk sensibility - from the Dictators to Modern Lovers to the Violent Femmes and more. That's the dark side of the band who with this record inspired a lot of terrible albums and got fairly terrible themselves ........but on this album they were the world champions of the pile driver through a table.
When they get to the last song on this great (and colossally misunderstood initially) album - the devastating "Butterfly" they pulled the rug out from under you and themselves and forced you to rethink each second and each joke too.
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Post by Kings_Requiem on Jul 13, 2020 17:37:17 GMT
Say Anything
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 14, 2020 12:01:32 GMT
Often times Rock bands lose their sense of humor as they go on because they fear they'll be dismissed as a joke which shows you how self-seriously that genre took itself after a certain point - "act serious, get taken seriously" - REM, U2, The National all had this issue at some point in their careers imo.
But the artists "pre-Rock" often didn't limit themselves that way really......Dean Martin especially could be quite funny in poking funny at his drunken persona and in this case his brokenhearted, clueless persona too.
A pacinoyes classic:
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 20, 2020 10:13:53 GMT
On their first couple of records Arctic Monkeys front man Alex Turner was like a standup comic who dropped hilarious and distinctly British insults with stinging regularity. Like Ray Davies or Paul Weller he HATED his generation too........ and in his generation "love is not only blind........ but deaf". From their first record - one of their best songs, meanest, catchiest and one of the funniest too.
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 19, 2021 15:41:23 GMT
Dry Cleaning are a current (debut!) band who have a very distinct - and odd humor - I'm not as crazy about them as many are (rated this album ~ 7 / 10)- but their formula (and it is a formula) is to repeat random phrases into a weird sort of mesmerizing tapestry of almost absurdist words and ideas.
This is the kind of thing that people wouldn't get as funny (at all) - but if you've ever listened to The Fall - well, you know.....and they are British and .........the British think this kind of thing is REALLY funny .........anybody remember Art Brut
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