Topic: Fanfic Lass' Fantabulous Land of Eighties Enchantment
cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
I don't know much about Hutchence's mental state at the time of his death. In Cobain's case, though, I suspect there was considerable captial-d depression involved. I knew somebody IRL who, er, dusted themselves after prolonged depression. It was awful, but eventually I grokked that they weren't the person I knew when they did it. That made it a little easier to deal with.
I also give Cobain a few points for doing a concert in Portland at the height of (one of our all-too-frequent bouts of) ballot-measure-fight-induced homophobia and kissing one of the other band members onstage.
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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My goodness, the sanctuary has been less than soothing lately, has it not?
I'll remedy that by playing The Teardrop Explodes' fantastic debut album, "Kilimanjaro", which was the turning point (appropriately enough, at the turn of the decade where the 70s became the 80s) where grim post-punk transformed into gleeful pure-pop.
cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
Sorry for contributing to the lack of sooth.
I retaliate by playing Marshall Crenshaw's Field Day really loud, just as I was instructed to in the liner notes.
Though I'll grant you that it's not terribly synthetic. Still, it's Eighties.
Oh, and all the whiny-butt critics who said that it wasn't as good as his debut record can eat my skinny ties.
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
No need to apologize. After all, I was the one who took the thread on a negative tangent. Although if anyone's at fault, it's the millions of Bon Jovi fans who have kept the band on a major label after all these years.
Has anyone seen the video? Jonny Boy looks like a soccer mom on a crash diet.
posted
Okay, so the other night I dreamed that I met the guys from Def Leppard to negotiate the possibility of me writing a comic book starring them as futuristic freedom fighters. The weird thing is that Joe Elliot (for non-Lepheads, he's the lead singer) was absent, even though he's my favorite member. Sometimes my dreams have sequels, so hopefully this one will.
Anyway, it just reaffirms that I love Def Leppard as much as I hate Bon Jovi. Even with his range diminished, Joe can still do vocal acrobatics that Jon could never pull off.
I'm not going to pretend that everything they recorded is a must-listen, but their first four albums -- "On Through the Night", "High and Dry", "Pyromania", and "Hysteria," are all sterling examples of the very best of hair metal. The B-sides/rarities compilation "Retro Active" isn't really an album, but it's still awesome, as is their 2006 all-covers album, "YEAH!", where they take more chances than most veteran bands doing all-covers albums, and more often than not, they pay off, Roxy Music's "Street Life" and Blondie's "Hanging On the Telephone" being the best examples.
Def Leppard diverged from the other British metal bands of their generation by drawing inspiration from glam rock instead of proto-metal and progressive rock. And they did the glam thing much better than their American cousins, which makes them the best hair metal band, which makes them one of the best bands of their time.
posted
From my perspective, Def Leppard saved heavy metal. (OK, they were not alone: Quiet Riot and Ratt and Whitesnake and a number of other bands also contributed.) But in 1983, Def Leppard combined the youthful good looks of the Duran Duran-era bands of MTV with the hard rock sound of a bygone era and gave me (and other likeminded fans) something worth listening to.
(OK, that's kinda harsh: there were a lot of good things to listen to before this. But DL reminded us of how good power chords and vocal harmonies could sound. They re-energized a style of music that had been left for dead by mainstream radio.)
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Incidentally, I happened to hear an NPR interview with Jon Bon Jovi earlier today. I've never been a fan of Bon Jovi, but I have to admire a band that's been around for more than 25 years with four out of the original five members intact. They're clearly doing something right, and when Jon said that he'd watched boy bands and girl singers come and go in cycles yet he was always confident about the "truth" he and his band were singing, it hit home.
I'm still not a fan of Bon Jovi, but I can admire and respect someone who knows his musical identity and has stuck to it for more than 25 years.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Bon Jovi have always seen themselves as closer to the likes of Bruce Springsteen than the pop-metal crowd, so statements like that are no surprise.
I appreciate Def Leppard more now than I did at the time, though I can't say I'm a major fan. Their one-time producer, Robert "Mutt" Lange, deserves a good chunk of credit for essentially steering them towards a metal version of _Thriller_, where most of an album's tracks had real singles potential.
posted
Re: Mutt Lange, it is true that he deserves a lot of the credit, much the same way that Dieter Dierks deserves a lot of the credit for the best of Scorpions' more commercial fare. But "On Through the Night" (pre-Lange) and "YEAH!" (post-Lange) prove that the Leps could do just fine on their own (though I won't deny that when they went back to doing original material, with their most recent album, they went back to the mediocre levels that "YEAH!" seemed to signal they had risen above.)
Re: Bruce Springsteen, I'm not a fan but I do appreciate his sincerity, something which I've never seen Jonny Boy as embodying. Bon Jovi's career feels like a very cynical grafting of hair metal elements onto re-heated Springsteen-ana (who IMO is not particularly inspired to begin with.) The more I think about it, it's not Bon Jovi the band I object to so much as Jonny Boy himself, who, like a male version of Madonna, is not in it for the music but for the showbiz (is it REALLY a coincidence that Jonny Boy had the most successful acting career of any male pop star of that generation?) I can hardly blame Richie Sambora, who does seem to be in it for the music, for drowning himself in booze and drugs just do deal with the reality of playing second banana to a putz like Jonny Boy.
Back to the Leps: "YEAH!" is a great album, and I think it has the potential to become at the very least a cult classic, and I recommend people giving it a chance, as its ecelectic cover choices may even appeal to non-hair metal fans. For those whose curiosity has been piqued, here's a rundown of it:
1. "20th Century Boy", originally by T. Rex 2. "Rock On", orig. David Essex 3. "Hanging On the Telephone", orig. Blondie 4. "Waterloo Sunset", orig. the Kinks 5. "Hell Raiser", orig. the Sweet 6. "10538 Overture", orig. ELO 7. "Street Life", orig. Roxy Music 8. "Drive-In Saturday", orig. David Bowie 9. "A Little Bit of Love", orig. Free 10. "The Golden Age of Rock and Roll", orig. Mott the Hoople 11. "Not Matter What", orig. Badfinger 12. "He's Gonna Step On You Again", orig. John Kongos 13. "Don't Believe a Word", orig. Thin Lizzy 14. "Stay With Me", orig. the Faces
posted
I've felt the same sort of cynicism in regards to Bon Jovi, but I'm not certain he doesn't believe what he says about his music. Much in the same way that Billy Joel thought he was a rocker instead of an MOR entertainer.
But then I thought hair metal was a pox on music in the '80s, and time for the most part has not changed that.
That's an inspired set of tunes for a covers disc. And only because I am a music obsessive must I mention that "Hanging On The Telephone" was originally by late '70s power-pop outfit The Nerves. That's to take nothing away from Blondie's excellent version of same.
posted
Aha! Thanks for the correction on "Hanging On the Telephone"'s origins, OM. Any such obscure pop culture information is always welcome at the Synthetic Sanctuary.
Glad you think the covers choices are inspired. If you do end up listening to "YEAH!", please share your thoughts in this thread.
posted
Well, keep in mind that I'm ten years younger than you, so I had just begun grade school when the 80s ended. What few memories I do have are nice, but...it's all a bit garish for my personal taste.
Registered: Dec 2009
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