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Call My Barbelith Music Bluff

 
  

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rizla mission
18:32 / 03.01.03
Those of you who selected Antihero for my choice are correct. Cos it’s exactly the kind of skuzzy obscure Peel-championed thing you’d expect me to like .. but sadly it’s just the most bloody awful local-support-band bollocks..

It’s funny how a consideration of people’s character and posting history informs responses to this thread.. like Jade’s description of ‘Money’ – “Ah, a true classic! Funky as hell, with great lyrics..”– SO faking it! Except that I recall Jade’s pretty damn fond of the Floyd.. but then again, could he be trying for the old “pick a song I don’t like by a band I do like” ploy? Aah.. such geeky mental gymnastics..

Right then, let’s try:

Rothkoid doesn’t like Spiritualized. (Or at least, if he does, he bloody shouldn’t!)
Flyboy doesn’t like Beth Orton. (ditto)
Flux doesn’t like Silverchair
Byron doesn’t like “Boys of Summer”
Jade doesn’t like “Money”
Bengali doesn’t like,um, actually I’m completely stuck on that one.. the Elvis track?
And Johnny doesn’t like “Stairway..”
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
21:58 / 03.01.03
< Channeling Bengali in Platforms >

Cheers hon.

Ha. Rizla was fooled. No-one else was. gah. Think Drukqs was hugely tolerated just cause it was an AFX product.

Have a go at these three cover versions:

Travis - Hit me baby one more time. Surprisingly lovely cover of bloody annoying Britney 'classic'. Beautiful harmonics. Genuinely touching. Nice vocals as well.

Suede - Shipbuilding. Nice vocals and interesting instrumentation. Really moving and sweet. And really does justice to Elvis Costelloe's version. Yum.

Billie Holliday - (I love you) Porgy. Gorgeous vocals, really slinky and yummy delivery. And one of the most romantic songs *ever*, really done justice to.
 
 
Cop Killer
00:17 / 04.01.03
The Clash -- Train in Vain -- the Clash to the punkest thing ever and write one of the best guitar pop songs ever.

Dio -- Holy Diver -- Nevermind that stint of his in Black Sabbath, this is the real Dio deal, fucking great, man, one of the best singalongs ever to be recorded.

Lou Reed -- Vicious -- Although I don't really like Lou Reed's solo career all that much, I think Vicious is a badass song, and I actually kind of like the Transformer album, because, unlike the vast majority of his post-Velvets stuff, it's not complete shit.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
00:25 / 04.01.03
Gee, I guess I'll pick the Reed song, but I sure hope it's not "Train In Vain", since it is one of the greatest pieces of pop music ever penned, as far as I'm concerned.

My gut instinct is that Misgendered Lord doesn't really like that Suede cover of "Shipbuilding" (incidentally, another one of the best songs ever!)
 
 
Ethan Hawke
01:08 / 04.01.03
Let's see here...
Flux - doesn't like Bush. Silverchair is the most obvious choice, as it's the worst song there, but I'm betting Flux was young when it came out and therefore has some sympathy with it. Dropping Albini's name with the Bush song is a giveaway.

Cop Killer - The Dio song. See, this has gotta be one of those chess moves, as in you want everyone to think "why would he even mention Dio if he didn't like it?" But it's impossible that you dislike either of the other two songs, right? Those are awesome songs.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
02:18 / 04.01.03
Todd finally got it! The bluff was Bush.

It works like this - I really dislike Silverchair, but I do like "Tomorrow", it's a guilty pleasure tune. I really genuinely love that Everclear song, but that band is mostly awful. Still, I can count about six or seven Everclear tunes that I dig. I genuinely like about seven or eight Bush tune, but "Greedy Fly" sure as hell is not one of them. That song is awful, and my Albini namecheck was, as Todd says, placed in there to deliberately throw people off.
 
 
bio k9
08:35 / 04.01.03
I might get beat around the head but I really do like Tim better than Jeff.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
08:48 / 04.01.03
Jade - Seymour Stein.
Johnny O - Stairway to Heaven
Cop Killer - Dio


My gut instinct is that Misgendered Lord doesn't really like that Suede cover of "Shipbuilding"

Flux: might make it a bit easier to guess to note that the suede/travis/billie one is actually *mine*. Dunno if that helps.
 
 
that
12:07 / 04.01.03
I need another go too. This might be a bit trickier.

Linkin Park 'In the End' - Miserable, nu-metal bollocks. Shouldn't like it, but I do.

Red Hot Chili Peppers 'Zephyr Song' - They've just come on in leaps and bounds with the new album and this song is proof positive of that.

Vanessa Carlton 'A Thousand Miles' - A really sweet, pretty song, and I might even buy the album.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
12:34 / 04.01.03
Flux was right: Xiu Xiu are a buncha fucks.
 
 
No star here laces
18:29 / 04.01.03
Bengali is lying about the Travis one, she prefers the Britney version...

Cholister's ought to be the Chilli Peppers, because that Linkin Park tune is actually really good, and liking Vanessa Carlton must be about the least Barbelith thing ever, so I hope it's true.
 
 
A
10:20 / 05.01.03
Cholister, if yours isn't the Chili Peppers, then I'm on the next plane to wherever you live to slap you in the back of the head. That song is exactly the opposite of what you say it is, so it must be the one.
 
 
that
10:59 / 05.01.03
Yup, it's the RHCP song. I think it's dead boring, but I didn't think it'd be that easy. No slapping me in the back of the head necessary, but I am strangely proud to have managed the 'about least Barbelith thing ever'.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
14:16 / 05.01.03
Hey Byron, so which was yours, don't keep us in suspense man.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
14:21 / 05.01.03
Try this 90s indie selector:

Pulp - Party Hard

Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

Blur - This Is a Low
 
 
rizla mission
14:36 / 05.01.03
I reckon Nirvana would be the obvious choice .. so I'll go for Blur.
 
 
No star here laces
06:35 / 06.01.03
Mine was Scooter - that fucking chipmunk bit makes me grind my teeth in fury...
 
 
deja_vroom
09:53 / 06.01.03
My bluff is Money. I hate it. I hate it. Oh, how I hate it.
 
 
Cop Killer
00:55 / 08.01.03
My bluff was Dio, I hate that little man, and just about everything he put out, with the exception of the Rainbow song "Man of the Silver Mountain."
 
 
Jack Fear
15:26 / 08.01.03
In which our mild-mannered hero listens to three songs wildly out of character for him, and digs two of 'em: eighty words apiece, in alphabetical order by artist...

Metallica, "Enter Sandman" Now that Metallica have become lugubrious balladeers full-time, it's hard to remember what a revelation their "black album" was: everybody knew the band had punch, but it was here that they made their first steps towards embracing a pop aesthetic—i.e., honest-to-Satan melodies and something approaching a groove. That classic bent-note riff, those bone-shaking tom-toms, the wonderfully silly spoken-word middle-eight with the little girl's voice—just the thing for the car stereo, on a summer night, with the windows open.

Rage Against the Machine, "The Ghost of Tom Joad" The words to a whispery Springsteen heartbreaker are stripped of melody and nuance; grafted onto that four note riff, minute variations on which Rage built its entire career on playing; and delivered with such manic relentlessness that song and listener are both bludgeoned into submission. On paper, it doesn't work at all—but in practice, this track shows that RATM could be an astonishingly powerful and emotive band, when building a song around actual lyrics, and not DeLaRocha's empty sloganeering.

Smashing Pumpkins, "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" The opening snarl, the voice in the void, yielding to that creepy, insistent bassline and drums you can feel in your chest: from there it's all coiled springs, gritted teeth, pins-and-needles waiting for the inevitable explosion—and the chorus delivers in spades, with its wall-of-guitars freakout and gloriously dumb tagline: and then the classic pop structure of buildups and breakdowns, cool chime breaking again into white-hot frenzy and back. Formulaic? Maybe, but who cares when the formula is this cathartic?

Detect away, Miss Marple...
 
 
rizla mission
15:54 / 08.01.03
Pumpkins?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
17:18 / 08.01.03
If Jack Fear likes that Pumpkins song, I'll eat my hat! I can believe that Jack may like a Corgan song or two, but definitely not that one.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
17:24 / 08.01.03
The world is a vampire.. cuz it sucks!

I have to go with the crowd on this one.

BTW, my Bluff was Britney - "I'm a Slave 4 U" is barely a song at all. The combination of the hype storm surrounding the Neptunes and a greasy, final-legal Britney clouded many a fanboy's mind over this one.
 
 
Jack Fear
12:55 / 09.01.03
Shit. Rumbled.

What gave it away? Is my digging a Pumpkins choon really that much less likely than my digging Metallica?!?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:10 / 09.01.03
I can imagine you liking Metallica cos they have super chops, and you usually have respect for that.

I'll do a new one.

Missy Elliot "Gossip Folks" - Stuttering electro funk with Missy's distinctive extended-whine rap and chirpy old-school vocal samples, and Ludacris drops a verse halfway through. It's irresistable, and the rants against gossip may not exactly be timeless, but it's still cool.

Anti-Pop Consortium "Clonemen" - Murky lo-fi indie hip hop with a flow that borrows heavily from El-P. The chorus is kinda weak, but the song still works, if just for the second verse and the general ominous tone.

Fat Joe featuring Ja Rule and Ashanti "What's Luv?" - Against all odds I like a song featuring two MCs whom I think are almost entirely lacking in talent, an obnoxious lyric reference to Tina Turner's "What Love Got To Do With It", a dumb boast about refusing to give women head, and the always-boring Ashanti. Go figure.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
18:51 / 09.01.03
I'll guess b.i.p.'s most recent, then - 'Party Hard' is the bluff, because although you adore Pulp, I suspect you think it was one of the weakest moments on This Is Hardcore, and fast became irritating as a single. Although now I've forgotten how it goes. But anyway - Nirvana too obvious for y'self I suspect, 'This Is A Low' too unquestionably good.

Okay: three politically dodgy as hell songs, two of which I guiltily love (and I love the guilt, oh yes)...

John Oszajca - 'Bisexual Chick': "she likes more than just..." - ahoy, voyeuristic fetishism and shameless stereotyping! Bisexually girls are really hot, aren't they, says Johnny, although a bit trendy and shallow. He says all this in a sort of cod-funky, identikit-alterna-rock-radio kinda way. But I still dig it: for the all-important hint of self-mockery on the part of the narrator, for the ridiculousness of that singalong chorus. And cuz I cannot resist the couplet "The quality of life it enhances / At least it betters your chances". [woolly defence] Look, I know bisexual girls who aren't offended by it...[/woolly defence]

Rolling Stones - 'Under My Thumb': it's down to Mick - the difference in the clothes she wears, the way she does just what she's told... A horrible story of chauvinism bordering on abuse disguised as 'getting even', set to one of the greatest bits of piano/guitar/bass ever. Maybe you could defend it as a character study, in which the guy telling you all this is a pathetic figure we're supposed to sneer at - but rarely have lyrical subject matter and the way the tune *feels* gone together in such a disturbing way. Feel your feet tapping, and the urge to clap yr hands, at the same time as your stomache turns...

Eminem - 'Kim': pushes the envelope of uncomfortable listening further than anyone else would ever want to try. The sound of someone fantasising about murder and at the same time wishing for their own death. The sound of a very talented rapper making an ear-bleeding rock dirge work. This is what violence sounds like - not glamorised, not softened, just raw, and ugly. Not a sound I find myself *wanting* to listen to very often - but as a piece of extreme art, it's incomparable.
 
 
rizla mission
10:13 / 10.01.03
the first one?
 
 
No star here laces
10:20 / 10.01.03
Flux's is Missy because APC would be too obvious and that Fat Joe number kinda creeps up on you until you find yourself humming it (as I am in fact doing now). Plus I think the Missy song (from what I remember) is a pretty rubbish bit of Under Construction.

Flyboy - I reckon it's actually Eminem, because you've raved about the Stones track before, and the first one would (again) be too obvious. I personally haven't listened to Kim in a while but suspect that after having heard "Cleaning out my closet" this would also sound like it was in "emo-nem" territory.
 
 
000
21:40 / 18.01.03
I say the Rolling Stones.

Yes I do.



Marvel at the Robbie Williams triple treat (one of them is a goddamn lie):

Love Supreme: I wish I could offer better descriptions for why I like this track than simply saying: I like it. So I will try, The opening strings, Williams' cheeky, charming lyrics and the rhythm leave me all blubbering like a whiny, teenage girl. Best memory married to this track is when I woke up, hungover, on a March noon at Jesper's place, who is a flirt of mine, and he put this on and danced to it while still naked.

Freedom: One of my fave George Michael tracks is given the makeover by Robbie, one of the defining moments of when he became more than the boy band member. He is persuasively cheeky and charming, melts my heart it does. Best memory married to this track is when I first saw the music video, I was so convinced that the way he behaved was a nod towards his true sexuality. He was so gay here.

Feel: Has done the impossible: made me want to buy a heavily rotated track. It is sad and fab. He is so cheeky and charming, as always. I could envision it being one of my Self-Indulgent home alone tracks, the sound turned unbearably way up. Best memory married to this track is still to come.
 
 
The Apple-Picker
12:36 / 19.01.03
I'll have what Byron Bitchlaces is having. I can't break it down, but that was the feeling that I got reading Flux's and Flyboy's lists.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:47 / 19.01.03
Yeah, you got me. I like Eminem, but not Emo-nem.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
15:14 / 19.01.03
Apples and Byron have me - I don't like that Missy song one bit. Not that I'm really a big fan of the other two, but I do like them enough.
 
 
Cherry Bomb
13:17 / 21.01.03
I would first of all like to second Mr. Illmatic's hatred of all things Bob Marley. Hell is a university dormitory with "The Best of Bob Marley" playing endlessly at top volume from dueling stereos (one in the room next to you, the other across the other side of the dorm in a horrible contest).

I would also like to second Mr. Flyboy's hatred of that "I'd Ban All Beards" chick. The cops should take her away and not the nice guy sitting next to her, but the cops should let me have her shoes because they are very cute.

I would like to beg Flux not to hate "What's Luv" regardless of what he may think of the overrated talents of both Fat Joe & Ashanti. It's just too much of a fun pop song.

Bengali is bluffing on the Blur song.

And now I'd like to play:

Pink: "Just Like A Pill" - I don't care what anyone says about her, I like that Pink, and I'm sorry I missed her when she was in concert! And though I was admittedly sick to death of "Get The Party Started Right" towards the end of its single run, I could hear "Just Like A Pill" again and again and POSSIBLY not get sick of it.

Weezer: "The Sweater Song" - I just love the beginning where you can hear all the voices talking about the party they're going to go to later. And it's a very catchy tune, even after all these years.

Nelly: "Ride Wit' Me" - I realize "It's Hot in Herre" was a much bigger song, but I still prefer Ride Wit' Me. And immenently danceable song and indeed great for driving and lightin' up a jay, or just driving and enjoying the day
 
 
Saveloy
13:28 / 21.01.03
It's Weezer. That is all.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
22:02 / 21.01.03
Reckon it's Pink, actually.

And damn you Flyboy, you got me.
 
  

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