(no subject)
Yesterday's Observer Music Monthly attempted a list of the 100 greatest British rock albums which compounded the usual problems of album-centered rock criticism (black artists are penalized for working in single-oriented genres) with the usual problems of British rock (there aren't enough black artists to penalize). My argument that Are You Experienced, recorded in London with a band that was 66.7% English, should count as a British album (in fact as the best British album) fell on deaf ears, since I never actually expressed it to anyone. In any case, I figured that there would be four albums that, due as much to their history of critical acclaim as any inherent quality, had to fall into the top ten: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Exile On Main Street, Never Mind The Bollocks, and London Calling. London Calling placed third, Sgt. Pepper's sixth, and Exile eighth. Never Mind The Bollocks, on the other hand, was placed way down at number fourteen, below even Metal Box by Public Image Ltd.
This reminds me that there used to be a joke commonly made on ignorant young pop music fans in the seventies and even into the eighties: "You mean Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?" This jibe could be transferred into the eighties and nineties with "You mean John Lydon was in a band before PiL?" and into the nineties and today with "You mean Dave Grohl was in a band before Foo Fighters?" It seems to me that we need to prepare for the future, and the obvious thing is for Chuck D. to form an ambitious, poppy, somewhat sterile supergroup so we old-timers who remember It Takes A Nation Of Millions can rib the younguns.
This reminds me that there used to be a joke commonly made on ignorant young pop music fans in the seventies and even into the eighties: "You mean Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?" This jibe could be transferred into the eighties and nineties with "You mean John Lydon was in a band before PiL?" and into the nineties and today with "You mean Dave Grohl was in a band before Foo Fighters?" It seems to me that we need to prepare for the future, and the obvious thing is for Chuck D. to form an ambitious, poppy, somewhat sterile supergroup so we old-timers who remember It Takes A Nation Of Millions can rib the younguns.