Got this from Amazon yesterday (along with LAMF, Gene) and can’t stop listening. The whole album is as good as the Amazon reviews. You guys ignored the other song I put up by them and none of you seems to into the heavy Sabbath-type stuff, but this is really exceptional. Lyrics are nonsense, but you know how much I care about that. Iambic pentameter is all that truly matters.
I like it. It doesn’t remind me of anyone on particular but has an early 70s feel, kind of a more swinging version of Spooky Tooth.
I like it too, especially when it starts to get a little jammy at the end. Still, I have a hard time getting over lyrics and poses that just seem dopey. Like sure, it’s fun to play at satanism, or sure, it’s scary to meet a real satanist, but what’s the point in a non-jokey non-scary satanism? And if that’s what you’ve got, why not be jammy with songs about robbing a train or meeting a chick who drives a pickup truck or the night you dreamed you killed your father and raped your mother? Or maybe it wasn’t a dream.
I will also hold out the possibility that I’m missing something here.
The album is supposed to be a tribute to Hammer horror films, a company in England that made lots of films from 1950-1970, many of which you’ll know if you look it up. Doing stuff like this combined with good music seems to almost automatically win over the death metal contingent, more than songs about, say, robbing a train would. So I can understand if you want to make some money or, hey, maybe you’re really into Hammer horror films. Personally, I don’t care what they sing about and I can’t tell what they’re saying much beyond the key phrases anyway, with not a lot of interest in finding out the rest. By the way, upon further listens, I hear early Alice Cooper and the Queens mixed in there as well, so I’m understanding why I like this so much. The whole album is real good.
See, I love Hammer horror films, which were a staple of late night TV during my youth. Low budget sacrefests, not that scary but not self-mocking nor self-serious, they were well made with good actors, like Christopher Lee and Vincent Price (I believe), who is featured in the video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller, a minor hit from the 80s that was also tribute to horror films.
I couldn’t understand the lyrics which seems just as well. I had Peter’s problem with Turbonegro, who are great but jeez. It’s less of a problem with rocknroll than with rap, you can always as Steve says ignore them. I listened to Kanye West’s album at Lou Reed’s suggestion, and it’s a much bigger problem with rap – take out the word’s “nigga” and “fuck” and there would be no album. I can deal with the joke aspect, and I hate to sound prudish, but I get no kicks from malice. I see too much in real life.
I have to admit that for all the sonic brilliance and boldness on that Kanye record, and some clever and smart lyrics, a lot of it is just foul. Even Lou said he was appalled by some of it. It’s too bad, the first four albums had their scatalogical moments, but they were for emphasis and not an ugly point of view.
You can ignore rock ‘n’ roll lyrics, for sure, and many songs don’t rely on smart or interesting lyrics to get over, but smart and interesting lyrics are always better than dull or dumb lyrics. I was reading the Uncle Acid Wikipedia page and they seem to be a conceptual band. I think they say about themselves that they sound like Alice Cooper jamming in a cell with early Black Sabbath and the Stooges.
That isn’t a bad thing, but Cooper, the Sabbath and the Stooges all had lyrics that were better than no lyrics. Maybe the Dead Beats do too. I’ll listen more.
Shit Steve, not just Beatles vocals, but kind of a Beatlesque hook too.
I actually like this a lot.
But, I am not sure I really understand the heavy metal schtick of any band. I mean, i get having a gimmick to get noticed, but, dare I say it, this song is good which suggests the band might actually be good bereft of any archetype save they are a pop rock band.
I admit a hook is a great thing, but, if there are indeed clever words behind them, well that just makes the whole thing a better package for me.
I do like the Alice Cooper comparison, though. Alice had a tight band, and a gimmick to start, but he could both write a hook, and put together some fun words.
At least it is a comparison I can relate too, I guess.
Gene, I’ve been thinking a lot about your Turbonegro comment. Turbonegro’s lyrical content is 90 percent tongue-in-cheek (that estimate may be l0w). I’m not sure how one can be offended by tongue-in-cheek. I feel compelled to mention “Spinal Tap” but Turbonegro’s way, way better than that and I’ve always thought “Spinal Tap” is way overrated – not nearly as funny as it gets credit for. Maybe some specific examples would help, Gene.
I understand the tongue-in-cheek thing and for the most part the Turbonegro lyrics don’t bother me – it’s just that I won’t be singing along to “shit on legs approaching me” and “sperminator of the asshole.” I get it, they’re being outrageous in a world where it’s all been done, but to me that’s the point: try something else. Their lyrics often make the great music – and I mean the singing too, which is every bit as good – LESS effective or impactful, or whatever word I’m looking for. I dunno, with the best bad boy or bad girl lyrics, they don’t seem forced but natural. It’s the difference between “do you think you could make it with Frankenstein” and “I Touch Myself,” if that makes sense.
Spinal Tap is indeed way overrated. I didn’t see it for many years after it came out and I had already heard the best lines many times; that didn’t help. But the mockumentary people hadn’t hit their stride as they did with “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind.”
I love those phrases you mention, as I do most everything about “Dudes” (second best album of all-time IMHO – IMHO means “I am a whore” in text-talk). Luckily you haven’t listened to “Ass Cobra” much, where the lyrics are super-crazy. Although I like “Best In Show” and “A Mighty Wind” as well, I’ve always thought “Waiting For Guffman” is the best of that bunch.
i actually saw Spinal Tap live at the Warfield in SF cira 2000. in fact they opened for themselves playing the mighty wind band “the folksmen” (they pronounced it “the fucksmen” though).
the thing is they were indeed a good band, but, they were too good to be bad, and too bad to be good (poison redux?) live. just not as funny as in the movie, which is really funny and brilliant.
i love guffman, for sure. and, i love best in show (we have three dogs, and diane wants to finish at davis and maybe go to vet school, so…) as well as a mighty wind.
hell, i just like witty.
as for lyrics in songs, and i think as spinal tap sort of suggested (with brilliant irony if memory serves) there is such a fine line between smart and stupid.
or, as einstein noted, the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
Turbonegro always said their fans consisted of the smartest kids in the class and the dumbest kids in the class.
Often the same person…Hey guys, I’m about ready to write my memoir, can I call it “Fantasy Life After Death”, at long last revealing the seamy underside of the AFL Symposium?