For example, I first heard Suburban Legends - Polyester, so I went to check Suburban Legends and they were just a regular ska band.
What’s your “that song was great, I wish the band did more of that” song and band?
Honestly radiohead - Paranoid Android
Lana Del Rey - A&W
Lana makes great music, but none of it really matches the vibe of A&W, which is unfortunate as that song is phenomenal
Chumbawamba - Tub thumping. I had no idea they’ve always been an anarchist sea shanty band and that song was the outlier and a total piss take. I am here for it.
LOL!
Came to this comment section to say exactly that, just to discover it to be already the first comment!
But it’s kinda the reverse thing OP had in mind, I think…Sea shanties‽ I absolutely love Uneasy Listening and will blast English Rebel Songs, but they’re not sea shanties.
yeah, it’s called english folk or something
They did a few songs that have a catchy repetitive chorus to be fair. Mouthful of Shit for example. Just not quite to the extent of Tubthumping.
That whole album has the same vibe as Tubthumping
in fact the album is called Tubthumper
the follow-up album, WYSIWYG, also has the same vibe
Yeah, they went through a few different sounds and that was their party era.
I preferred Mary Mary and it had the same problem. No others like that that I heard.
have you tried “The Big Issue”? it’s from the same album and is kinda the same thing, except the vocals are far more female-dominated and the song extends the melancholy a bit
He drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink
same band that did the song Torturing James Hetfield.
Also, Tubthumper (the album) is entirely amazing. The popular song included
I never understood this bands popularity until I listened to this song
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7n7WRidwYo
Their other songs are okay but this ones possibly one of my favorite songs of all time
This should become the new rickroll.
Hmmm
Something something username or whatever
As a teen I loved Family Reunion by them. Basically a pop-punk cover of George Carlin’s 7 words you can’t say on television
Chris Isaac, Wicked Game
Fun fact: that song only became a hit after having been included in David Lynch’s ‘Wild at Heart’ and then being played on radio by Lee Chesnut, fan of the director.
Rockit by Herbie Hancock. It’s a great hip-hop/electronica track, but the rest of his work is mostly jazz.
It’s because ‘Rockit’ was made by Bill Laswell, Michael Beinhorn, GrandMixer DXT and three other guys on turntables. Hancock basically turned up at the end to play some synth lines.
Laswell and Beinhorn were in the band Material, and turned it into a production outfit, plus Laswell was a producer at the label Celluloid at the time, which label was a pioneer of hiphop. He also participated in the New York no-wave jazz scene as musician and composer.
Hancock was in his early forties, and his career was getting stale. His manager, twenty-five years old, pitched the idea of making a track to both him and Laswell. Hancock was taken by Laswell to hear some popular djs, but still required more coercing by the manager.
Material’s early stuff might be closer to ‘Rockit’, although it’s more disco-funk. Dunno about Celluloid’s output, as I’m not really into old hiphop. Laswell used scratching in some of his genre-clashing projects well into the 2000s, e.g. in the ‘Axiom Sound System’ concert with Tabla Beat Science and a bunch of other folks (including Grandmaster DXT). Laswell also co-produced and played bass on the rest of Hancock’s ‘Future Shock’ album and the next two albums ‘Sound-System’ and ‘Village Life’, and did other collaborations with him.
(Yall might be familiar with Time Zone’s ‘World Destruction’ with Afrika Bambaataa and John Lydon; and Material’s ‘Seven Souls’ with the voice of William S. Burroughs. Both of these were featured in ‘The Sopranos’, and both were produced by Laswell, just like PIL’s album ‘Album’.)
My favorite from a him was always Chameleon from exactly 10 years earlier. That’s the song I hear when Herbie is mentioned.
I had a jazz teacher say that Herbie Hancock would play straight up jazz until he ran out of money, and then release a funky track like chameleon to rake in the big bucks, and then go back to jazz
Seems like a good gig if you can get it.
I’m more partial toward ‘Watermelon Man’ reinterpretation from the same album.
Whoa, that’s some good insight. As a fan of that New York mutant disco/funk stuff I’ve always liked Material. Never knew they were involved with that song. Cool.
I’ve been a fan of Laswell for about twenty years, and it’s fascinating to dig through his catalog and see how easy production comes to him, how he always had his fingers in a lot of projects and how he gathered a whole bunch of other musicians in his orbit. ‘Future Shock’ also has Nicky Skopelitis, who did guitar on some of Material’s albums and was in The Golden Palominos with Laswell, and whom Laswell pretty much dragged from one project to another for decades.
Eraldo Bernocchi is another illustrative example. He had an ambient project with some dudes, released something like four records, and then did a collaboration with Laswell, inevitably falling into his gravitational sphere. After that all of Bernocchi’s later releases in the project and under his own name were clearly marked by Laswell’s methods and the library of sounds and effects, even without latter’s involvement.
He is a jazz legend, yeah…
…wow. This might be the most “stand on his lawn” comment I’ve ever seen.
25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago
Everything else is more of a soft jazz rock. But this song is such a high energy banger
I could be wrong, but I believe there were at least two distinct phases of that band.
I think they started out as “Chicago Transit Authority”. A few years after changing their name to “Chicago,” one of their founding members died, so that might account for the change.
I’m weirdly more familiar with the history of this band, than their actual music, so I’m not sure where 25 or 6 to 4 fits in the timeline but it could be related
Terry Kath was essentially the leader, and also their main songwriter, and a truly spectacular guitarist. He died in a gun accident, and the artistic direction of the band changed.
No worries. Their music is just blah, basically. Background noise while waiting in line.
The guitar solo in that song has no right to be that amazing
Absolutely killer song.
Pretty much any individual Ween song
Ween is a truly mixed bag
Outkast - Hey Ya!
Mrs Robinson is the only other Outkast song I can stand.
Also Blur - Song 2, but in a good way. Song 2 is great, but their other music is very different but also great.
IIRC Song 2 was supposed to be a parody of how simple radio friendly rock music had become, then became their biggest hit.
Wasn’t Smells Like Teen Spirit also kinda like that? They have similar places in my head and I think I remember something about Cobain hating how popular that song got.
But Nirvana’s other songs were similar enough that that one didn’t come to my mind for the main question. Blur is like a different band from the one that did Song 2.
I think with Smells Like Teen Spirit is Kurt always felt that like he didn’t deserve as much praise because he considered the song to be a Pixies rip-off. It wasn’t done to poke fun at the Pixies but out of his love for them.
B.O.B., come on!
There’s like ten plus great Outkast songs, you need help
I might have given up too soon but the vibe is way different from Hey Ya! for the ones I did try.
Completely agree with the first part (Hey Ya is the only song of its kind, Andre3000 is a genius) but not the second part (you can’t stand their other songs?? What is wrong with you??)
outkast is an insane take
they have nothing but banger albums (including idlewild)
I Can’t Decide
… by The Scissor Sisters
Their other music is badass though.
A nice classic tune to dominate humanity by.
give Mary a listen. It’s pretty enjoyable from most angles
But that song isn’t an outlier.
what songs sound like it?
Most of them? They’re an upbeat dancy modern disco band. Basically a modern ABBA. They make boppers.
which is very different from “I Can’t Decide”, a music hall track that’s somewhat baroque, even though disco also happens to be upbeat and the vocals are very similar
Grateful Dead - Touch of Grey
The Dead never set out to record bangers; they were all about the vibe. Touch of Grey came out in the late 1980s, way past the band’s prime. A lot of old bands were putting out bangers around that time. But Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, and the Moody Blues had a ton of bangers before, too.
So I love Pink Floyd, but (at least to me) the sound is very different from Touch of Grey.
Good call on Fleetwood Mac and Moody Blues though - also some greats!
Not sure what you’re saying here — that you think no Pink Floyd song sounds like the Grateful Dead song Touch of Grey? Or… are you saying the difference between Pink Floyd in the 1960s/1970s is not so different to Pink Floyd in the 1980s as Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac, and Moody Blues were from their latter work?
Because I can see it either way, but I don’t like Pink Floyd that much. I like some of their songs. I like the stuff on A Momentary Lapse of Reason — I feel like it’s a more mature sound. I also like that song off Ummagumma (I think) with the really long title. Something like “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict.” Pretty sure that’s mostly it, without Googling it. Dark Side of the Moon is okay, but I feel it’s a bit overrated. Some clever word play. Annoying alarm clocks in Time. Maybe it’s better if you’re high? I don’t get high. And The Wall, also overrated, but I did like some of those songs as well. So, I like some of their songs, and I like some quite a bit. I listened to a more recent album from them, which was all/mostly instrumental, and that was cool, but I didn’t listen to it again. I guess I like them more than a lot of people but wouldn’t call myself a fan.
So the tone/mood/beat of most Pink Floyd songs is more chill, but Touch of Grey just sounds “peppier” (if that makes sense). I like both but for different reasons, and in different moods. Totally get why others don’t though - I’m far from a deadhead but I can see the appeal to folks. Contrary to a lot of my post history I am (or at least used to be) a live and let live guy - do what you like, I’ll do what I like, and where those intersect well have some fun!
Gotcha. It just threw me off that you were comparing a single Grateful Dead song to the entire catalogue of Pink Floyd. I assumed I misunderstood.
So I suppose the only other question I have for you is: do you consider A Momentary Lapse of Reason to be an exception to Pink Floyd’s catalogue (for better or worse) or more of the same? Or just part of the evolution of their sound over the decades? I think a lot of fans are fine with it, but I’ve also heard some fans of 60s/70s bands less accepting of the band’s latter catalogue.
It does have a different feel, but I still like it. And actually, thanks for reminding me about it - been a while since I have it a listen but I’m glad that I am!
Thanks for the new comic!
Oof that hits me right in the middle age
The whole Gran Turismo album by The Cardigans. I was a angsty teenager, listened to that album and found it excellent for my angst sessions. Then I got all the other albums and they were not at all good for my angst sessions.
Luckily I got over myself and realized that the other albums are excellent as well, just different. Pikebubbles<3
Modern English - I Melt With You is a catchy new wave pop tune. The rest of their work is much, much darker
The subject matter is still pretty dark even if the tune isn’t.
90s glam hair rock bands all had a hit ballad, despite rock tempo wall of main sound. Then there’s Extreme. “More than words” is one of the best ballads of the time. They had the glam hair look. The rest of their music is jazz fusion funk. Decent, but no real hits/bangers.
I think Extreme is one of the best examples of this where their most popular song is absolutely nothing like the rest of their music.
Also the power balland bands all had similar singing styles Motley Crue/Axel Rose screaming out tone that you knew were part of the generic rock genre. In addition to the ballads having big rock climaxes. More than words is like a Simon and Garfunkle song, even if rest of catalogue pretty loud.
@TheDoozer Last Resort - Papa Roach
