The Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen”:
What’s this guy so angry about anyway? Guitar work and progression is like mine. Good backbeat. Can’t understand most of the vocals. If you’re going to be mad at least let the people know what you’re mad about.
The Clash’s “Complete Control”:
Sounds like the first one. The rhythm and chording work well together. Did this guy have a sore throat when he sang the vocals?
The Ramones’ “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”:
A good little jump number. These guys remind me of myself when I first started, I only knew three chords too.
The Romantics’ “What I Like About You”:
Finally something you can dance to. Sounds a lot like the sixties with some of my riffs thrown in for good measure. You say this is new? I’ve heard this stuff plenty of times. I can’t understand the big fuss.
Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer”:
A funky little number, that’s for sure. I like the bass a lot. Good mixture and a real good flow. The singer sounds like he has a bad case of stage fright.
Wire’s “I Am the Fly” and Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures:
So this is the so-called new stuff. It’s nothing I ain’t heard before. It sounds like an old blues jam that BB and Muddy would carry on backstage at the old amphitheatre in Chicago. The instruments may be different but the experiment’s the same.
(via Dangerous Minds, who got it from somewhere else)
Berry clearly saw where the battle lines were drawn up: the Pistols, Clash and Ramones were on his side, Wire and Joy Division were not.
ReplyDeleteIsn't one of Wire's songs their attempt to rewrite "Johnny B. Goode" with just one chord?
DeleteI didn’t know about that! But I think possibly it supports my point: Wire were interested in taking Berry’s music as a formal language and seeing how they could mess with it. Whereas the Clash and the Pistols, beneath all the rhetorical superstructure, fundamentally just wanted to rock.
DeleteIs Complete Control the shortest song that sounds unambiguously epic? 3:10, according to Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteA blogpost I've been meaning to write - about the relationship between "Complete Control" and the Libertines's "Can't Stand Me Now" - rock song as self-reflexive drama. (And Mick Jones produced the latter).
DeleteThe parallel between Complete Control and the Sex Pistols' E.M.I. are obvious, and you just reminded me of a quote from Pete Dohertyfrom around the time of Babyshambles' first album:
Delete"Apart from the Sex Pistols, The Libertines were probably the most manufactured band ever. Me and Carl signed to Rough Trade as songwriters and then pieced together a band from the miscellaneous. It was just a case of let's get the best looking people and be as much like The Strokes as possible. That was the idea at the time."
In the fullness of time, I suppose the crucial question has become, "So what?". Nobody gives Carole King any stick for writing a novelty dance number like The Locomotion straight after He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss).
The “mini-epic” is a fun concept to think about. Turn It On by Sleater-Kinney, at 2’48”, is a song I have always filed in that category. Berry’s own Promised Land, just 2’23”, certainly qualifies in theme and concept, if not quite musically. Another one I was going to mention was The Who’s I Can See For Miles, but it turns out that is a positively leisurely 4’05”.
DeleteAnother good one: Husker Du’s New Day Rising, at 2’35”. And it is possibly disqualified because it’s a cover, and relies on knowledge of the full-length version for some of its impact, but the Minutemen’s 40-second blitz through Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love could be the game-winner here
DeleteI have the depressing feeling that someone's going to nominate Napalm Death's You Suffer.
DeleteLol!
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