The Police v Talking Heads v XTC

My top three bands from the same era: 1977 onwards.
All three pretty different: listenability, originality and diversity.

Rate 'em:
* Songs
* Albums
* Live

 

Don't care enough but I'd say the Police play the best by far and have the best (and maybe also the worst) songs... there are some Talking Heads tunes I like okay too... XTC I have no interest in

 

I like the one which isn't totally queer

 

Police, easily for me.

 

The Police and it's not even close. A lot of people like to claim Rush's Neil Peart is the best drummer in rock, which is laughable to anyone who really knows anything about drums. Stewart Copeland blows him away. The guy is frustratingly talented.

Talking Heads to me were pretty much a comedy act. Some catchy tunes but nothing to take seriously.

I know I've heard of XTC but I honestly can't think of any of their songs right now.


TFK

 

Brutal

 

TFK is dead right on Copeland vs Peart ... good musicians know

 

Who cares. The music they made was queerer than bumsex

 

So you prefer Rush?

 

You like Stryper

 

Strange remark... why would a "godless leftist" like Stryper?

Anyway, heavy metal is fucking dumb... especially hair metal... Stryper was garbage, though the lead singer did an excellent job as the rebellious teenage niece in "Uncle Buck"

 

Was just trying to smear your rep by claiming you were a fan of the worst possible bamd I could think of at that moment.

I'm actually with you when it comes to Heavy Metal - have never been a fan. Just never related to it at all.

 

Yeah I liked it when I was like 10 or so ... it's just silly shit

 

Talking of Neil Peart reminds me of this hilarious gem from years ago - the infamous Wil Calhoun v Neil Peart drum-battle at The Buddy Rich Memorial Show, as described by some clever cunt pretending to be a Rush fan (it's long but full of irony and sarcasm):

"3/4 of the crowd was there to see Neil, decked out in concert T's and 2112 starman apparel popping up everywhere. Cindy Rich (I believe it was her) welcomed everyone, and was probably expecting a tame, polite atmosphere, but was greeted by exuberant Neil fans.
Some "We Want Neil!" chants popped up, but she promised us "he was here" and would be on stage soon.

The night had a lot of drummers (over) playing to jazz staples and some drummers "trading fours" in mini-battles. Most of the crowd wasn't into Jazz and was probably there for the same reason I was, to see Neil.
I do remember a rather old Max Roach doing a solo, which was structured in a way that had to inspire Neil to structure hos own. Forgive me if it wasn't, in fact, Max, but he had a syncopated beat he repeated, and soloed to, that Neil incorporated in his Rush solos soon after.

Well, after watching some really great drummers, but admittedly, spending a looong time on our feet, we knew they were out of drummers, and Neil was next. Most of us had never been this close to 'The Professor', and before the internet, the odds of seeing Neil , in any situation other than a concert hall playing Rush tunes, was as rare as anything.

The set was a basic set, 4 or 5 pieces, but it did have his cowbells. He was introduced to incredible fanfare. He motored through a song which drew applause, but we were all in anticipation of the knock out punch. After two plus hours of drum soloing, and longwinded semi-imaginaitve drummers showing off, we were all ready for the professor to blow the roof off and show them all, why he's Neil and why they're not.

We waited in anticipation patiently fully prepared to see what Neil would be like without the "Chains of Rush" holding him back. (That's a joke, but secretly you wondered if he would be let loose and leave those who had never witnessed Neil play all blown away like the viewers of the ark's glory in Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Then came the time for his solo. How would he do with only a few drums? No gong toms? No electronics? No wood Blocks or chimes?
The answer: Surprisingly quite well. It was as good as anyone else's solo, but that was it...."as good as everyone else's".

Then came the finale: The Drum Battle. Neil set up stage right to Will Calhoun's stage left, and then the entire crowd wanted to see Neil flex his muscles and give em what they came for, validation that Neil was God, the next Buddy, the reason we all picked up the drumsticks and emulated most of our drumming lives.

Only thing is it didn't happen that way.

Everyone in the crowd watched our hero get beat at his own game by someone who no-one revered as his competition or equal.

To describe what happened, on a scale of 1 to 10, Neil threw out an 8.
We cheered Neil's display, but we knew he was capable of more, and was just starting slow. Wil countered with what could be considered a matched 8, but had us impressed none the less. Neil countered with an 8.5, turing it up a notch, generating more crowd approval, but was then met with an avalanche which left us all in stunned silence: Wil opened a can of whoop ass, and played the sickest improvs I have ever seen. Neil tried to counter, and couldn't match the speed, intensity, groove, originality, or anything that Wil threw out.
We pleaded for Neil to win, offering words of confidence and adolation in between the machine gun power of the drum battle, but it didn't matter. Wil stole the show. Neil's started repeating measures, and started to slow up, ending to a stunned smattering of applause. Then Wil pulled the Ivan Drago punch on Apollo Creed, and ended with a blister of eclectic fills, eye catching flashiness, funk and seasoned rudiments flying across the set, injecting energy in a room drained of it.

It was over now. Neil had lost."



Pure brilliance.

 

Yes but entertaining silly shit.

 

Both toileta

 

So what's your problem? He correctly stated that Copeland is a great drummer and Peart isn't

 

His musics shite but he's great at making music? Cognitive dissonance oww

 

I think Hut is more into 'attitude' or 'individuality'....more 'smashing the system' and "we mean it, maaaaannn!" then musicianship or creativity.

 

You mean he is not a nerdy elitist like cdogg when it comes to music?

 

I don't care for The Police but I always love the drumming on their records... where's the dissonance exactly? I hate the Eagles but they had some good guitar breaks

Stewart Copeland doesn't write The Police's songs, that's Sting's problem... Stewart Copeland's drums are always great to hear on those songs, whether the songs and Sting are irritating or not

 

Everybody's an elitist to you because you're dumb ... so instead of confronting your ignorance, you rage at "elitists"

 

The only thing I've been able to ascertain is that hut pretty much hates anybody that can play well

 

Uh, no. Word "Ignorance" entirely not applicable to matters of taste and personal preference.

 

Uh yes

 

Maybe.
But Hut is a whippersnapper - give him a few years and he'll be like me:

then:

followed by:

 

We've already ascertained that you really don't have a clue what I like or why

 

Again, no. But closer than Magus.

To draw a parallel with my favourite writer, bukowski. was the lack of big words and complex sentence structures evidence that he couldn't write? Would his prose have been improved if he'd taken the time to add some, prove he could really write?

Even the bluegrass song you posted the other day was...embellished. The licks and harmonies just a little self indulgent. Look, we can really play, eh? And we need to make sure you hear that. Music like that should be about the room not the stage

I guess, as with prose, I value getting the point across as simply as it's possible to. Which doesn't preclude great musicianship but does preclude anything which whiffs of being about it.

 

Yeah I do and I'm less surprised with each post...hence when you mentioned Bukowski above I just smiled wryly and thought "Yep. Hut reminds me of 'X' that I once knew".

 

Uh huh. Feel free to start demonstrating this cutting insight you have any time. Literally the only thing you've picked up on in the last ten years is that I like about 3 punk albums