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Topic: Samey Artists Who Gets Away With It
Author Topic: Samey Artists Who Gets Away With It (Read 20533 times)
Misspent Boners
Samey Artists Who Gets Away With It
By which I mean people who are essentially one (or maybe two or three) - trick ponies that hardly change the formula of what they do but have had an admirable amount of milage. Obviously this is a bit subjective, as I may have been long bored of someone another person might still champion.
1. Mac Demarco. I remember when I first got into DeMarco he was 4 albums deep, his most recent (although when I discovered it was already going on for about 2 or 3 years old) being Salad Days. I really loved it all, particularly the album 2, and its actually been something of an influence on me musically, but even then I remember thinking that even one more album of the same genius formula would be an album too much. That woozy guitar and lazy croon just felt like he could bomb fast without somehow evolving. But 4 years later while barely changing a thing he only got bigger and although Im not overly excited by Here Comes the Cowboy theres still a few songs on there that are luscious enough. People felt that this old dog was a more mature and deep Demarco but it wasnt a drastic change of pace. Theres an annoyingly appealing laziness and unispiredness to a lot of his work; titles of albums and songs are often quite unimaginative, its usually verse chorus verse chorus and the songs sound like they took less time to write than to listen to which maybe they were and a lot of them sound very similar... despite all this, maybe his time really is dwindling if he doesnt mix it up a bit. That song No More Yesterdays or whatever was particularly underwhelming.
Many others spring to mind. I'd have to say personally the Smiths being one. Sometimes maybe peoples distinctive inimitable signature sounds that they harbour can also be a bit of a burden in terms of it all sounding a bit samey. The jangly guitar and Morrisey vocal make the Smiths what they were and are but it results in at least to me it being a bit much to digest too much of their music at once. But regardless theyre one of the most influential bands ever and the songs are fantastic.
Ive loved Sunn 0 for years and some of their albums do have a distinctive individuality to them (black one, monoliths and dimensions feeling like their own entity) but they really are a good example to me of a distinct and wonderful band who by definition could be accused of just making one long song.
PaulTMA
Re: Samey Artists Who Gets Away With It
Are Guided By Voices the kings of this? New Pornographers also make the same album over and over
imitationleather
"The French... are famous... for their kissing"
Clinic.
The Go! Team. (Although they did try to do one album that was a bit different. However it was a commercial failure and they quickly went back to their standard sound.)
Jockice
I really have red hair. And a **********.
I didn't hear everything he recorded but everything I did hear by Elliott Smith sounded practically the same to me. Was I missing something there or was it just hard luck that I happened to hear similar-sounding stuff?
NoSleep
feat. Keith Jarrett and his singing parrot
AC/DC, The Fall, The Ramones: bands who made many attempts at recording the same album over and over again. It was probably a worthwhile cause (although The Ramones never topped their first).
EDIT: Add Sonic Youth.
Petey Pate
I'm only really familiar with their 'hits', but it seems that Status Quo essentially rewrote the same riff over and over again.
I was told by people who had worked close to them that that is literally what Status Quo did. Any variation to the sound was added by their keyboardist/arranger afterwards.
Kalabi
Musician that pretends to work in IT
Manic Street Preachers all sounds like the same dirge to me.
Mind you I make electronic music so I'm chucking stones from my lovely glass house here.
gilbertharding
Not even the rudest man in the Beatles
Quote from: NoSleep on July 26, 2019, 09:27:45 AM
Ramones did that album with Phil Spector, of course... but your point stands. As for never topping the first one, many would say It's Alive is the one to have - because it's all the songs off the first three albums, but played faster.
Sonic Youth... they evolved considerably over the years. The guitar sound and style of playing remained consistent, even if it got mellower, more musical, in the Eignties... plus every album had a mix of Thurston Songs, Kim Songs and Lee Songs which, ok, were instantly recognisable as such, but [post trails off without really concluding an argument]
Shameless Custard
PAUSE FOR THE JET
I absolutely love the first few Eels albums, but the past ten years or so he's just been doing the same exact thing over an over, but with less memorable tunes.
It's got to the point where you know exactly how a song is gonna sound just by glancing at the title
The first few records, though. Marvellous
And as much as I love them, I guess you could mention The Chemical Brothers in here too. They hardly push themselves, sound-wise. But they're still making decent records, so watchagonnado
« Last Edit: July 26, 2019, 11:37:41 AM by Shameless Custard »
People don't like it when I say this (I know cos I've said it on here before) but most of the Beastie Boys' material is indistinguishable to me. It's their voices for a start plus I just don't get all the stuff about them being cool. I genuinely don't understand the appeal no matter how hard others try to convince me otherwise.
I was under the impression that this was a thread about bands with little variation in their sound, but despite this are still good. Not just bands who are shit.
Because I think both of my choices, Clinic and The Go! Team, are great. Even if their albums are totally interchangeable.
Natnar
Enya. Every album since Watermark has just been a remake of it.
Quote from: gilbertharding on July 26, 2019, 10:58:44 AM
The first album is the one for me because it's rock solid performances; it's relentlessly good. It's Alive and other stuff I've seen of them live all seem a bit wobbly and erratic in comparison. Tommy is probably the key to this, both as a drummer and producer.
Quote from: imitationleather on July 26, 2019, 11:36:45 AM
I do like Clinic. What I've heard of the Go! Team it sounds like they're trying to fit about six different tunes into every song.
Teenage Fanclub were never ones to stray too far from the formula.
Fabian Thomsett
Shut the door keep down to south
The Ink Spots.
Delete Delete Delete
Quote from: Jockice on July 26, 2019, 11:33:49 AM
They don't like it because your talking out of your Arse. From The Beasties Hardcore orgin to the country Mike stuff, there is so much varation in the Beasties Cannon.
This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTtQ-uTf1uo
Sounds nothing like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmarOFIXK74
Or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8RJ8UPrcRU
To this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teQqelBTw7g
OnlyRegisteredSoICanRead
Tom Waits has released the same album about about 10 times by now.
Quote from: Delete Delete Delete on July 26, 2019, 12:33:44 PM
Ah, the angry Beastie Boys fan. I've been expecting you. Funny how anyone can slag off any act for any reason on these pages but that lot seem to be somehow protected. I've had the same thing with some mates of mine too. You. Must. Not. Criticise. The. Beastie. Boys. I realise it's probably only me and Nicky Wire on this one but I really don't get it. I just think they'rs shit. And samey. So there.
Quote from: Petey Pate on July 26, 2019, 09:52:00 AM
Their Bass player wrote all the good ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAp7nF3gpyI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScJoPNYII74
The Doors wrote their famous one.
Quote from: Jockice on July 26, 2019, 12:59:07 PM
Delete responded because your assertion that their material all sounds the same is provably not true. If you flat-out don't like them that's fair enough, but as Delete points out they have a lot of variation and cover a lot of ground, which you were refuting. Don't know what the theatrics are about.
The Beasties even have eras. There's no comparison between the band that did Cooky Puss/Beastie Revolution, No Sleep 'Til Brookyn and Paul's Boutique.
OK then, I'll admit defeat. They are (or were) the most talented diverse musical artists of all time. We were lucky to have lived on the same planet at the same time as them. And their voices aren't irritating and make everything they do sound exactly the same unless you have ears actually made of cloth like I do.
The only other musician I can think of who attracts such blanket 'how can you possibly not bow down to the sheer utter genius of that?' response from fans is Bob Dylan. Who I also think is shit.
I'm going out now. I may be some time.
icehaven
Please don't hi five people in Tamworth
I do like the Beasties but I nearly ruined them for a friend who was a massive fan by pointing out how often one of them will sing a line with the other two joining in on the last word (or few words). It's one of those can't-be-unnoticed things.
As others have said The Ramones were the most egregious example of free pass sameyness, more so than I've ever been able to tolerate. They're one of the big influences on so much music I do like, but I got a compilation out of the library a few decades ago, genuinely couldn't tell the difference between half the songs and haven't really bothered with them since. I can recognise their importance and influence etc. but I just don't want to listen to them.
You didn't click the links did you? You might think they sound same if you judge them by their biggests hits, Fight For your right, Sabatage and Intergalatic. If you were experiencing them only via club nights, but saying they sound the same proves your igonrance and makes your musical judgement untrustworthy. By all means say you don't like the way they rap, you don't like their image, you don't like their songs. Those are fair subjective views to hold, but what you have posted has only made you look like a fool amoungst your peers.
Again Bob Dylan can be utter crap, but it would be unfair to say all his stuff sounds the same, considering one of his most Infamous moments was him changeing has Sound to electric and being called a Judas for it.
The voice isn't really the best measure of how samey a band or artist is though is it? Most singers/rappers usually tend to sound the same from song to song, which is obviously emphasised when the music is samey too but I can't think of many singers that sound wildly different across their work (other than sometimes they sing loudly, sometimes quietly.) Your voice is your voice innit.