Billy Bob and Music from 1980-Present

Jun 27 2009 Published by under Film/TV, Music, Random

Last night on the annoying show Real Time with Bill Maher, Billy Bob Thornton said something that bugged me immediately and then forced me to think about for a whole day before responding.  He was relaying a discussion about music that he had with a PA on one of his movies.  He challenged her to come up with a list of musicians from 1980 to the present who would be remembered 100 years from now.  He gave her two names: REM and U2.  And, he said, that was about it–compared to the hundred plus names he could come up with for the music from 1955 to 1979.  Now, Thornton is right that there are tons of great artists from that earlier period who have already stood the test of time.  He’s an idiot, however, because he assumes that any music created after his time sucks.  Here’s just a sprinkling of artists who emerged after 1980 who could compete with the people on his list (and I’m even going to leave out the punk and post-punk artists like The Clash and Joy Division who created their music on the cusp of this era):

  • Radiohead
  • Nirvana
  • The Minutemen
  • Meat Puppets
  • My Bloody Valentine
  • Neutral Milk Hotel
  • Robyn Hitchcock
  • Sigur Ros
  • The White Stripes
  • Massive Attack
  • Tricky
  • Portishead
  • Tim Hecker
  • Chris Watson
  • Public Enemy
  • Beastie Boys
  • Run DMC
  • De La Soul
  • NWA
  • Dr. Dre
  • Eminem
  • Pan Sonic
  • Fennesz
  • Random Inc.
  • Taylor Deupree
  • Autechre
  • Boards of Canada
  • Depeche Mode
  • Aphex Twin
  • Nine Inch Nails
  • Kode9
  • William Basinski
  • The Caretaker
  • Stars of the Lid
  • Primal Scream

And that’s based solely on my iTunes collection right now.  If I spent more time thinking about this, I can easily come up with 200 or 300 names whose music rivals anything created in 1965.  The problem with people like Thornton is that they assume that, because everyone listened to the same music when they were growing up, that music today is inferior because there’s more of it and (hence) people’s listening tastes are way more eclectic than they used to be.  He’s assuming that uniformity equals quality, in other words.  Or perhaps he just thinks that his taste in music is the be all and end all of music, period.  Either way, he’s way off.  But at least he got me thinking.

So, please, tell me: what names have I forgotten here?

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In Praise of Aeroplane (In Search of Lost Sound Part III)

Jun 16 2009 Published by under Music

I bought Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea years ago and have enjoyed it for most of those years (took a few listens to get it, but I got it fairly quickly).  Still, I never really LISTENED to it until about two months ago.

By LISTEN, I mean actually sitting down, not doing anything else, just LISTENING to it listening, the kind of listening I reserve only for the absolutely greatest music I’ve ever heard in my entire life.  Now, I love music and have for a very long time, but albums I will drop everything to LISTEN to are rare.  There was Bob Dylan’s Biograph, a few Stones albums (definitely Exile, possibly Beggar’s Banquet), the first Tricky album, Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out the Lights, Arvo Part’s Tabula Rasa, most everything by Boards of Canada and Sigur Ros and William Basinski, The Conet Project, and Joanna Newsom’s Ys.  And now Aeroplane. Continue Reading »

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My List

Jun 16 2009 Published by under Film/TV, Food, Literature, Music, Travel

Here’s a list of 20 places and things I like (in no particular order):

  1. Sigur Ros
  2. Boards of Canada
  3. The LA Angels
  4. Children of Men
  5. Finnegans Wake
  6. Marinetti’s “Futurist Manifesto”
  7. The iPhone App Store
  8. Rib-eye steak
  9. Sunday nights on Adult Swim (Venture Bros, Metalocalypse, Squidbillies…)
  10. Sleeping in
  11. The British Library
  12. Lawrence of Arabia
  13. The Daily Show
  14. Doctor Who and Blake’s 7
  15. Dublin
  16. Red Vines
  17. Everything Kafka ever wrote
  18. Monty Python
  19. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
  20. Maps

Originally published 7/21/08

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In Search of Lost Sound (Part I)

Jun 16 2009 Published by under Music

This is the first of a series of entries I’m going to add detailing my own musical history in an incredibly thorough, obsessive, and self-indulgent way.  I apologize for nothing, not even the opening sentence below! Continue Reading »

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