This week we are taking a break from the literary realm, and entering into the equally as entertaining world of music. For those of you read our other blogs you are by now very familiar with the idea that Casey and I love music. We don't always see eye to eye, but more often than not we are coming from a similar place.
So in the spirit of music, this week "The 5" is counting down the top 5 Best Songs from Really Bad Bands. The criteria is simple: The songs have to be ones that we really liked at the time of their release, and at the same time the band has to be one that we otherwise would never consider putting on the jukebox. Make sense? To help illuminate the topic I present to you:
(5) Here I Go Again - by Whitesnake
This song has everything that a good power ballad needs. Slow buildup? Check. Drums that start on the second verse? Check. Crazy-ass lead singer? Check. Kick ass music video with hot lady? Check -and I know that at least Mysterygirl! has already mentally filled in the name of said "hot lady." Every time this song comes on at a bar or on the radio I want to crank it up, and I secretly hope that everyone around me will start singing along.
But with all this said, I would never ever play another song by Whitesnake on the jukebox, mp3 player, or my clarinet (but that does now have me thinking....). In fact, I can't even name another Whitesnake song, let alone the name of one of their albums. This all adds up to a kick ass song, but terrible band.
Man, are you serious? This song is terrible, even if I do know all the words. This song immediately takes me back to alligator shirts and shitty TV reception we had to pull in from Albuquerque. I'm having flashbacks of my sister's Hairnet hairspray wafting through the faux-wood paneled house. Yes, it has all the earmarks of a power ballad, way to go. It's songs like this that lead someone into November Rain, and that is just not acceptable. I have to say, though, this song does improve my pool game. So does Freebird. I'm not sure what that means.
To try and redeem this list:
(4) Home Again - by Hootie and the Blowfish
I know, the band is terrible, the album was painful, and the singer sounds like he gargles retard juice. The point is, this song is beautiful. It touches on all the great requirements of a real, unpowered, ballad. 3/4 time. Key of D, though capoed up to E. A guitar solo that builds counter melody through the second verse and explodes in clean toned awesomeness. To indulge music trivia a little, imagine a 3/4 slowed down bluegrass shuffle going IV , V , I , IV , vi, IV , V , V7sus4. I'm crying a little just thinking about that progression. And in the second half of the verse where they drop the Em, it's like the sky is crying along. The literal sky, not the song that's probably eligible for this list. Let's all go home again, indeed. Find where we have been. Time is never understood. In fact, I want to get a letter from you that will say: "Dear Casey, I'm sorry for the Whitesnake, could you stop to see me, :-)"
By the way, this band is notorious, at least locally, as in with me, for throwing a genius song onto a lackluster album. These guys are a big reason I picked up guitar and played only songs from before 1972.
Casey, I will give you credit for picking a terrible band. As for that song, I'm pretty sure it is still performed by Darius Rucker and his voice drives me bat-shit crazy. Plus, David Coverdale from Whitesnake would totally take down Darius "Hootie" Rucker if there were ever locked in a steel cage. Also, I'm pretty sure your "Roman Numeral Lock" was accidentally depressed a few minutes ago. Now, if you will excuse me *ahem*: I've made up my mind, and I ain't wasting no more time, cause here I go again....
(3) More Than Words - Extreme
Man does this song bring back memories. This song came out when a string of the so-called Monster Ballads were on the radio, but this song always stood out to me. Great acoustic guitar play. Harmonies in the vocals. And the entire slow, sweet song boiled down to a guy trying to get a girl to sleep with him. I played this song for many ladies back in high school - not a single one fell for it. I don't blame the song though, and I am more inclined to think I struck out because I thought snapping a girls bra strap was a legitimate dating "move." Once again, here is a great song by a band that went on to absolutely nothing else. Nada. Zip. Zero.
GSR, I have to agree with you on this one. The song is timeless. The band is 1990. And, no, all my time mastering this song out of Acoustic Guitar eXtreme Monthly did not help me get laid. That is until I learned the secret formula. Fuck the guitar, buy a motorcycle.
(2) Fishin' In the Dark - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Once again, how did this band make this song? With the exception of their appearance in the terrible movie Paint Your Wagon Red, I have never heard them play a single song I like. I hate shitty country music bullshit, but this song makes me feel like selling all my belongin's and living on a raft. The intro to this song, with its stuttering acoustic guitar playing a simple walk and the plainative vocals are a sure fire way to get me singing in a bar, provided enough liquor has been sacrificed to the gods of inhibition. I love the melodies. Growing up in a confusing, snake-handling cult-like religion in the backwoods of Colorado, I have an abiding soft spot for country accents and their harmonizing. This song could almost be sang under a tent with all day singing and dinner on the ground and not be out of place.
Plus, rivers garner totemic status with me. And women lying on their backs in moonlight with all the holiness of hydrological mysterious morphology going by in the eddies of black water gets my geology bone tingling.
-I'll chime in on this one to say that I grew up on the music of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, so they hold a special place in my heart. A little known fact about the NGDB is that they were the first U.S. band to be granted a world tour in the Soviet Union during the 1970s. In fact, many Cold War scholars believe that the friction between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. was ultimately diffused by a combination of the NGDB visit, and the movie Rocky IV. If you have never seen Rocky IV, let me just say that at the end of the movie Rocky delivers the final blow to the Cold War (which ended shortly after the movie release).
-Do you have any evidence to support this? I hate to raise the bullshit flag, but the wind is blowing and the brown tide is in. I think you made all of that up. I applaud you for adding another aspect to the aesthetic of this site--complete fabrication. For complete fabrication involving Rocky, I raise the chant of ovation!
-And for #1, we the management have decided to leave that wide open. Since this blog was designed with the hope of getting some audience support and participation we are asking you to contribute your #1 song to the list of "Best Songs by Really Bad Bands Ever!" (Ed. note - you will be required to use an exclamation point) The management will analyze and vote on the entries, and later this week we will add the best entry to our current list of 5.
GSR thinks this blog is about audience support. I think it is about being right. Try and add something for us to agree on by Saturday.
Best Songs by Bad Bands in comments.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The Five Best Books Ever Written!
The M.O. of this blog is indulgent pretense and hyperbole, so let's light it off right. I choose for this weeks Five for rating and commentary:
The Five Best books ever written.
This is subjective as hell, but anyone who is a literary critic of any ability will agree with me. Keep in mind this is not a list of the best authors or the most significant books, merely a run-down of quality.
1. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
It gets no better than this book. Analogy, opium, popular revenge, concubines, geologically analogous women, and a touching story. This book humanizes the characters to the point that you are raving in their acquisitions and beaten with their losses. And it helped inspire the American Communist Party. A better book does not exist, though I'm sure you'll have your unenlightened arguments.
I give this book 9.7 Chevelles.
Personally, I've never read The Good Earth. I'm inclined to believe that it is a good book, but it is on too many high school required reading lists for me to endorse it whole heartedly. Don't get me wrong, some books that show up on a lot of high school reading lists are good. But others? Let's just say they all aren't the finest examples of pen put to paper. So in conclusion - I can't disagree with Casey's assertion that it is good, but I can disagree with his claim that it is the best book ever.
I understand the squeamishness associated with high school reading lists. They are often more about social issues than actual literature. This one I have to say is not one of those. There are social issues, but the social issues are incomprehensible to an American, so they are neutralized, at least a little. I also like the overall snootiness I can claim as my own having read it.
Cue my nomination.
My first contribution to this list has to be:
2.The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
This book is one of the most technically perfect books I can imagine. The writing is top-notch, the characters are fantastic, and the social issues that Ellison presents still persist today in many different forms. You can read this book as a straight forward good read. You can read this book for symbolism and meaning that happens on several deeper levels. Most importantly, you can reread this book several times and find lots of new reasons to love it. If you haven't read this book - go now. If you read this book and did not like it - I am not-so-silently judging you right now, but I'm open to hearing your reasons.
I give this book a 9.9 (I don't know as much about cars - so I'm not going to try and compete)
The car thing was an experiment. I'm sure I'll rate everything with different standards as I whimsically choose to do so. You would if you didn't suck. I have read the book a few times. Unfortunately, the first was in seventh grade when my tastes were more juvenile. I hated the book. It was painful for me as a seventh grade boy with a motherfucker of spring fever going on to sit and read a book where nothing explodes and there is no mechanical porn to speak of. Reading it as an adult, I have to say that I would put it easily in the top ten, and it probably deserves a seat in the top five. On the other hand, we're American, and our bias will become apparent.
I can't believe you had to read that book in seventh grade. I disagree with your teacher's choice and not because of your "motherfucker of spring fever." What were you reading in 3rd grade? To Kill a Mockingbird?
Speaking of American bias in nomination:
3: The Log From the Sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck
This is a very unpopular book. It was published the same month Pearl Harbor got its shit handed to it, and I feel that may have ruined its chances to be ranked higher in the hearts and minds of the literati. Unpopularity aside, this read is amazing. Amazingly nerdy. Throughout the arc of great and not-so-great Steinbeck, his internal nerd monologue was stifled and edited out. In this narrative, he lets his littoral ecology freak flag fly to devastating effect. There have been no writers I have encountered that capture maritime life in littoral regions like he does. I understand if you haven't read this, but I still judge you as unworthy.
Wow. You are quickly on your way to out-nerding me. You should know that this is not something that I am used to, and I always imagined when this happened I would start to feel "cooler." Sadly, this is not the case.
As you probably guessed, I have not read The Log From the Sea of Cortez. I am in fact suspicious of whether or not it is a real book, but due to some inherent laziness today I will not be fact checking. I will say that given the little I know about your background, if you endorse a book based up the way it presents some maritime themes I should be in no position to doubt you.
I have spent a good portion of my life on the water, so you should automatically defer to my judgement of such matters. As for being "out-nerded" you should remember that you are dealing with a minor Jedi master of nerdiness. Not that it matters when you bring up Faulkner.
Sticking with our American bias:
4. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
This is easily the most challenging book that I have read. Insert your "Well that doesn't say very much..." jokes here. Regardless, I experienced three false starts with this book where each time I was convinced I would not get past the first section, and I was even more sure that I would never enjoy it. By the time I broke through the first section I was off and running, and I have reread this book in parts and in its entirety several times since.
The book has (thoughts of) incest, guilt, alcoholism and suicide. The second section as told by Quentin is one of the finest pieces of stream of consciousness writing that you can find, and the final scene where he talks with his father amazed me each time I read it. I know that Faulkner can be a divisive "love him/hate him" author, and you can put me on the side of "big fucking fan." In fact, I almost love Absalom, Absalom just as much. If you are a Faulkner hater I want the opportunity to convince you that you are wrong.
I have been foiled. Judging by the "incest, guilt, alcoholism, and suicide," I'm assuming this all happens in a Visalia, CA trailer park? I remember vaguely seeing this pop up on the Amazon.com list of unrelated reading material they think I should like. They also tried to sell me on The Da Vinci Code. Why my purchase of Dark Night of the Soul would convince them that either of these books should be my next purchase is beyond me. I can say I was intrigued by the title, and I severely hope that when I do read it the book will live up to the name. If it does not, I'll take it upon myself to write a book called The Sound and the Fury that will have an appropriate number of explosions and boobs. And vikings.
To keep Ol' Glory waving:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Mark Twain is the three ton hairy chestnut of American writing. He is without a doubt the master of words and phrase that Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he penned the declaration, and you know, writing letters to John Adams. I would have used Letters From Earth, but I'm not sure if a compilation would be allowed. The scope and depth of the characters in this comedy(?) are unsurpassed in literature as far as I, and by extension everyone else, am concerned. Also, the plot is funny and sad at the same time without losing the piquancy of either, no mean feat. So, in conclusion, Mark Twain is the motherfucking man. 9.875 pyroclasms.
I feel sorry for the other countries, they haven't produced any of the top five books ever written. They must suck.
I won't fight you on Huck Finn or on Twain. Both are deserving of some high praise and anyone who is on the side of banning that book is completley bat-shit crazy. Now I'm pretty sure we could each add a few more books to the list, but at this point we're turning it over to you the readers. Got a problem with our list? Put in the comments. And if there is a book that you are convinced we should read there is a more than decent chance that I will take you up on it.
The Five Best books ever written.
This is subjective as hell, but anyone who is a literary critic of any ability will agree with me. Keep in mind this is not a list of the best authors or the most significant books, merely a run-down of quality.
1. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
It gets no better than this book. Analogy, opium, popular revenge, concubines, geologically analogous women, and a touching story. This book humanizes the characters to the point that you are raving in their acquisitions and beaten with their losses. And it helped inspire the American Communist Party. A better book does not exist, though I'm sure you'll have your unenlightened arguments.
I give this book 9.7 Chevelles.
Personally, I've never read The Good Earth. I'm inclined to believe that it is a good book, but it is on too many high school required reading lists for me to endorse it whole heartedly. Don't get me wrong, some books that show up on a lot of high school reading lists are good. But others? Let's just say they all aren't the finest examples of pen put to paper. So in conclusion - I can't disagree with Casey's assertion that it is good, but I can disagree with his claim that it is the best book ever.
I understand the squeamishness associated with high school reading lists. They are often more about social issues than actual literature. This one I have to say is not one of those. There are social issues, but the social issues are incomprehensible to an American, so they are neutralized, at least a little. I also like the overall snootiness I can claim as my own having read it.
Cue my nomination.
My first contribution to this list has to be:
2.The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
This book is one of the most technically perfect books I can imagine. The writing is top-notch, the characters are fantastic, and the social issues that Ellison presents still persist today in many different forms. You can read this book as a straight forward good read. You can read this book for symbolism and meaning that happens on several deeper levels. Most importantly, you can reread this book several times and find lots of new reasons to love it. If you haven't read this book - go now. If you read this book and did not like it - I am not-so-silently judging you right now, but I'm open to hearing your reasons.
I give this book a 9.9 (I don't know as much about cars - so I'm not going to try and compete)
The car thing was an experiment. I'm sure I'll rate everything with different standards as I whimsically choose to do so. You would if you didn't suck. I have read the book a few times. Unfortunately, the first was in seventh grade when my tastes were more juvenile. I hated the book. It was painful for me as a seventh grade boy with a motherfucker of spring fever going on to sit and read a book where nothing explodes and there is no mechanical porn to speak of. Reading it as an adult, I have to say that I would put it easily in the top ten, and it probably deserves a seat in the top five. On the other hand, we're American, and our bias will become apparent.
I can't believe you had to read that book in seventh grade. I disagree with your teacher's choice and not because of your "motherfucker of spring fever." What were you reading in 3rd grade? To Kill a Mockingbird?
Speaking of American bias in nomination:
3: The Log From the Sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck
This is a very unpopular book. It was published the same month Pearl Harbor got its shit handed to it, and I feel that may have ruined its chances to be ranked higher in the hearts and minds of the literati. Unpopularity aside, this read is amazing. Amazingly nerdy. Throughout the arc of great and not-so-great Steinbeck, his internal nerd monologue was stifled and edited out. In this narrative, he lets his littoral ecology freak flag fly to devastating effect. There have been no writers I have encountered that capture maritime life in littoral regions like he does. I understand if you haven't read this, but I still judge you as unworthy.
Wow. You are quickly on your way to out-nerding me. You should know that this is not something that I am used to, and I always imagined when this happened I would start to feel "cooler." Sadly, this is not the case.
As you probably guessed, I have not read The Log From the Sea of Cortez. I am in fact suspicious of whether or not it is a real book, but due to some inherent laziness today I will not be fact checking. I will say that given the little I know about your background, if you endorse a book based up the way it presents some maritime themes I should be in no position to doubt you.
I have spent a good portion of my life on the water, so you should automatically defer to my judgement of such matters. As for being "out-nerded" you should remember that you are dealing with a minor Jedi master of nerdiness. Not that it matters when you bring up Faulkner.
Sticking with our American bias:
4. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
This is easily the most challenging book that I have read. Insert your "Well that doesn't say very much..." jokes here. Regardless, I experienced three false starts with this book where each time I was convinced I would not get past the first section, and I was even more sure that I would never enjoy it. By the time I broke through the first section I was off and running, and I have reread this book in parts and in its entirety several times since.
The book has (thoughts of) incest, guilt, alcoholism and suicide. The second section as told by Quentin is one of the finest pieces of stream of consciousness writing that you can find, and the final scene where he talks with his father amazed me each time I read it. I know that Faulkner can be a divisive "love him/hate him" author, and you can put me on the side of "big fucking fan." In fact, I almost love Absalom, Absalom just as much. If you are a Faulkner hater I want the opportunity to convince you that you are wrong.
I have been foiled. Judging by the "incest, guilt, alcoholism, and suicide," I'm assuming this all happens in a Visalia, CA trailer park? I remember vaguely seeing this pop up on the Amazon.com list of unrelated reading material they think I should like. They also tried to sell me on The Da Vinci Code. Why my purchase of Dark Night of the Soul would convince them that either of these books should be my next purchase is beyond me. I can say I was intrigued by the title, and I severely hope that when I do read it the book will live up to the name. If it does not, I'll take it upon myself to write a book called The Sound and the Fury that will have an appropriate number of explosions and boobs. And vikings.
To keep Ol' Glory waving:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Mark Twain is the three ton hairy chestnut of American writing. He is without a doubt the master of words and phrase that Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he penned the declaration, and you know, writing letters to John Adams. I would have used Letters From Earth, but I'm not sure if a compilation would be allowed. The scope and depth of the characters in this comedy(?) are unsurpassed in literature as far as I, and by extension everyone else, am concerned. Also, the plot is funny and sad at the same time without losing the piquancy of either, no mean feat. So, in conclusion, Mark Twain is the motherfucking man. 9.875 pyroclasms.
I feel sorry for the other countries, they haven't produced any of the top five books ever written. They must suck.
I won't fight you on Huck Finn or on Twain. Both are deserving of some high praise and anyone who is on the side of banning that book is completley bat-shit crazy. Now I'm pretty sure we could each add a few more books to the list, but at this point we're turning it over to you the readers. Got a problem with our list? Put in the comments. And if there is a book that you are convinced we should read there is a more than decent chance that I will take you up on it.
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