Cool video. As an somewhat soon to be 40 year old, I gotta say though, get the other two strings for that bass. You don't have to play them, but at least get em on there so you don't look like a pretentious ass.
This is by far the best matchup so far. As much as I could totally vote for Psychocandy, I'm gonna go with Fleet Foxes. Love that first song. Not that they would want it, but they should be way bigger than Mumford and Sons or the Lumineers or whatever.
I remember when MDM was about bands from real genres like post rock. Explosions in the Sky vs. This Will Destroy You, that would be a real matchup.
First here we've got a nasally dude with a bunch of other nasally dudes going "oooh oooh" in the background on some kind of quartal harmony thing. (Probably not actually quartal harmony but I don't understand it and when I don't understand something I call it quartal harmony.)
On the other hand, we've got The Jesus and Mary Chain. Freshman year in college there was a drugged-out sociopathic asshat down the hallway from me; he had a Jesus and Mary Chain poster, and after reading the Wikipedia article, now I know why. (It wasn't Andrew, he was at York.)
You vote for Psychocandy? Is that some kind of ironic vote?
Revolutionary at the time? Historical importance? Culturally relevant? That's like going around saying the Merry Wives of Windsor is funny. Yeah, if you lived in the 17th century, it WOULD have been funny. And if you're an aggressive puerile iconoclast living on the other side of the ocean in the 80s, then The Jesus and Mary Chain WOULD have been interesting.
Okay, great, so the Jesus and Mary Chain was part of a movement. The punk movement. A movement of culture's bowels is more like it.
Making cool music is no excuse for being an asshole. Even in small non-sensational ways: I remember going to a show and that redhousepainters guy insulted the audience. Mildly, but sincerely, like: You guys are all kinda lame and I don't actually like you. And that was it. Forget it, Sun Kil Moon, you're an asshole. These Reid brothers come off as much, much worse. Their art is invalidated by the fact that they are assaholics.
I'm going to vote for The Jesus and Mary Chain just so I get a chance to trash it more later. I'm serious.
Although this Fleet Foxes album kinda rocks. On other albums of theirs I've been a bit put off by their distant/ethereal thing. I'm a simple guy, and I like drama. But this one has drama. Like when he lets his falsetto break on . . . uh . . . now I can't find the song, but I like it.
This was an interesting matchup. Listening to Fleet Foxes, I did get an underlying feeling of a hip, modern barbershop quartet, which is slightly troublesome to me. But on the other hand, I thought it was quite interesting.
In doing my exhaustive research, I did see a reference to Roy Harper, which is a surefire way to get my vote... they've got to be a super awesome group of guys to know who roy harper is. But then I was worried, that it really was just a way to get people to think they are a super awesome group of guys. Plus the nod was really to the guitar on a specific album, which may have just been 'we love jimmy page's guitar' praise, which invalidates all the praise (nothing is more of a letdown in the minimal roy harper press than the mentioning of jimmy page/led zep/pink floyd/kate bush references). So overall, to be fair, I have to treat the Harper reference as a net-zero.
So, after listening to that album, I really thought they may be able to pull out a win, but then I played Psycocandy and within 5 seconds I was thinking, hell yeah, Jesus always wins.
So Fleet Foxes, you're on my listen again list, but you'll have to sing the blues because Jesus and Mary Chain earned my vote on this one.
Fleet Foxes fans, Robin Pecknold says Roy Harper is awesome, so you have to listen to Stormcock, or (any of the poor collection of his music available on spotify)
I haven't read any of the comments because I wanted to try to not be swayed. This is a hard one. They're either both on my list or Fleet Foxes isn't because I saw that someone else nominated it. My 80s association with The Jesus and Mary Chain is that the two guys I sometimes skated with who were cooler (and better at skateboarding) than me really liked them. I was simultaneously interested and afraid of them because of their name. I hardly listened to them at all then and only listened to this album substantially in the last year or two. I listened to it probably 4 or 5 times in a row at work one day last year. It's kind of weird because I took an interest in it because other new things I was getting into were described as like them in some way. Okay, so it's a great album and, as far as I know, it was something completely different when it came out (or as completely different as you can get with rock'n'roll in the 80s.
Now Helplessness Blues. The title song is probably my favorite song since whenever it was released. I like the commie sentiment at the beginning, I like the wandering, reaching for something, not knowing quite what to reach for, and also the guitar and sense of the song as a composition. I drove across Michigan on two lane highways recently and sang/shouted along with this song with the windows down four or five times in a row. I love most of the rest of the album, too. It all has this kind of medieval/mythical feeling to it for me with a little chamber music thing, like the Beatles' stuff with the harpsichord.
I think if I had a 25 year history with Psychocandy, I'd probably pick it, but I'm going with Helplessness Blues.
I remember first encountering earlier Fleet Foxes in an earlier Death Match, and not being totally on board. However, I've been listening to Helplessness Blues a fair bit since it came out, and I AM totally on board. Still, sometimes I am not in the mood for this album at all. I don't want to be this way, but in some moods, it strikes me as a bit too twee. But I would rather be twee than an asshat, for sure.
So I don't wanna vote for Psychocandy, for many of the reasons Karl mentioned. Andrew, I wanted to say that the video you linked to didn't help their cause. And that Andy's right about the two stringed bass. I wanted to not prefer Psychocandy, but I like listening to this album in most moods, and it just has more staying power. This is why I don't like pitting classics against newbies, but the game's the game, I guess.
Sarah. Don't you have anything better to do at 6:45 PM Pacific Daylight Savings Time? Which reminds me: Andrew, whom do I have to service in order to get this blog changed to EDT?
When I first revisited Psychocandy several years ago, after several years of not hearing it, I was surprised at how tinny it sounded. Maybe it had been reissued or something, or maybe people were writing about it because it was all over the “Lost in Translation” soundtrack, but many people referred to the album as possessing such a huge wall of sound. From the first bars of “just like honey” I was taken aback at how dry and sterile it sounded. The guitar all trebly, like your first cheap guitar through your neighbor’s shitty Peavy amp and your $20 distortion pedal, while the drums seem processed to make them sound smaller and more distant.
In any case, they stick to that sound more or less for a whole album and I like it quite a bit. In their time, while not quite the second coming that they take themselves to be, they did craft quite an interesting singular sound. They took 3 chords and forced them into a distinct new sound, as distinct as the first Ramones or Sex Pistols album, but very different from those albums. 15 songs too, good job. Like a Beatles or Ramones album but those albums only have 14 songs. This has one more.
I like this Fleet Foxes album quite a bit. Generally I prefer their first album, but this one’s good too. The first time I heard songs from the first record I was really taken by them and thought they were really great and really fresh. For better or worse, they have influenced a ton of bands and tons of bands sound a lot like them now. Unfortunately and unfairly, this has made them not age too well for me.
……wow, I just watched the video that Andrew posted, and it almost swayed me away from the J&MC.Did they invent this whole British unbelievably conceited prick persona? I mean sure John Lennon said that the Beatles are bigger than Jesus but that was taken out of context and it was kinda true and everyone loved those lads because they were so charming. Then the Sex Pistols and the other OG punks were confrontational and rude but in a such a charming and winning way. But these J&MC dudes, MAN!, they’re tough to love.
As for the Fleet Foxes, I saw them once at Pitchfork festival and afterwards I saw the bass player walking around and I told him that it was a really good show and he acted like I was LITERALLY the first person to ever tell him that—super happy and appreciative...actually maybe that is the problem with those young beardy types, sometimes they’re just TOO nice (ya feel me Steve?).
It seems that both of these bands like the Beach Boys.
It's true that a couple of them come off as asshats, but come one, there's some great moments in that video too. Tuning guitars as a party trick? Comic genius. The long delayed and non-sensical answer "Me favorite color is gold"? Classic. Plus the whole interview is done by Daniel Richler, son on famous Canadian novelist, Mordecai. And did anyone notice a very young pre-Primal Scream Bobby Gillespie calling for peace? It's like you guys intentionally overlooked all the good parts. In any case, I will admit that part of my love for this album is due to nostalgia. This was one of the very first cassette tapes I bought and one of my first concerts too. You can imagine it all felt very fresh circa 1990. And actually, I personally think it's aged pretty well. Essentially the album is two songs, the slower more melodic one and the fast one with lots of feedback, but they're both pretty great. If you're being fair, you'll admit that these guys always have a catchy tune/hook beneath the effects. Just listen for when those backing female vocals come in on "Just like Candy" and call my vote ironic (by the way, Karl, you're beginning to sound like some dude who loved prog rock in the 70s and can't get over it, implying that everything that came before it is overly simple and everything that came after it derivative---the same kind of dude who goes on and on about time zones and shit). As for Fleetfoxes, I pretty much agree with what everyone else has said (I was hoping Steve would chime in on this one since apparently he hates Fleetfoxes). I think they're pretty great, but I do have to be in the right mood, and when I listened to them the other day, I just wasn't in that mood. If I had been, they probably would have got my vote--seriously. Okay, if my math is right, even though Bruce picked Psychocandy and voted against them, they still move on. Now that's what MDM is all about!
OH! I didn't know the interview was done by Mordecai Richler's son. THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING! I did like the video. Doesn't he also say something about they actually tune the guitar every day. That was good too.
I admit there was some funny stuff. I didn't even watch the whole thing, but the early-on, "That one's the same as the last question. It's because we're so incredibly good," or whatever, was pretty funny.
Still, asshats. And 25-minute sets?
I know what you mean about the "almost too nice" FF, though, JoeLG. Not that you meant it as a counterpoint to asshattery, but it works as such.
And for the record: in general I try not to judge the art by the artists, because otherwise I'd probably dislike all art. It's best to not know anything about their personal lives, or performances, or age, or sex, or philosophy, or thoughts on stuff, or anything.
I'll listen to Psychocandy again. I think on its own merits I like it okay.
Probably nobody will read this because the other matchup has been posted, but my favorite part of the video is the people climbing in through the window behind the interview.
VS.
Psychocandy!!!
ReplyDeleteJesus & Mary Chain Psychocandy for sure.
ReplyDeleteYou gotta watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlsL5m1nirs
ReplyDeleteTrust me.
Cool video. As an somewhat soon to be 40 year old, I gotta say though, get the other two strings for that bass. You don't have to play them, but at least get em on there so you don't look like a pretentious ass.
ReplyDeleteThis is by far the best matchup so far. As much as I could totally vote for Psychocandy, I'm gonna go with Fleet Foxes. Love that first song. Not that they would want it, but they should be way bigger than Mumford and Sons or the Lumineers or whatever.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI remember when MDM was about bands from real genres like post rock. Explosions in the Sky vs. This Will Destroy You, that would be a real matchup.
ReplyDeleteFirst here we've got a nasally dude with a bunch of other nasally dudes going "oooh oooh" in the background on some kind of quartal harmony thing. (Probably not actually quartal harmony but I don't understand it and when I don't understand something I call it quartal harmony.)
On the other hand, we've got The Jesus and Mary Chain. Freshman year in college there was a drugged-out sociopathic asshat down the hallway from me; he had a Jesus and Mary Chain poster, and after reading the Wikipedia article, now I know why. (It wasn't Andrew, he was at York.)
You vote for Psychocandy? Is that some kind of ironic vote?
Revolutionary at the time? Historical importance? Culturally relevant? That's like going around saying the Merry Wives of Windsor is funny. Yeah, if you lived in the 17th century, it WOULD have been funny. And if you're an aggressive puerile iconoclast living on the other side of the ocean in the 80s, then The Jesus and Mary Chain WOULD have been interesting.
Okay, great, so the Jesus and Mary Chain was part of a movement. The punk movement. A movement of culture's bowels is more like it.
Making cool music is no excuse for being an asshole. Even in small non-sensational ways: I remember going to a show and that redhousepainters guy insulted the audience. Mildly, but sincerely, like: You guys are all kinda lame and I don't actually like you. And that was it. Forget it, Sun Kil Moon, you're an asshole. These Reid brothers come off as much, much worse. Their art is invalidated by the fact that they are assaholics.
I'm going to vote for The Jesus and Mary Chain just so I get a chance to trash it more later. I'm serious.
Although this Fleet Foxes album kinda rocks. On other albums of theirs I've been a bit put off by their distant/ethereal thing. I'm a simple guy, and I like drama. But this one has drama. Like when he lets his falsetto break on . . . uh . . . now I can't find the song, but I like it.
Okay, I abstain.
This was an interesting matchup. Listening to Fleet Foxes, I did get an underlying feeling of a hip, modern barbershop quartet, which is slightly troublesome to me. But on the other hand, I thought it was quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn doing my exhaustive research, I did see a reference to Roy Harper, which is a surefire way to get my vote... they've got to be a super awesome group of guys to know who roy harper is. But then I was worried, that it really was just a way to get people to think they are a super awesome group of guys. Plus the nod was really to the guitar on a specific album, which may have just been 'we love jimmy page's guitar' praise, which invalidates all the praise (nothing is more of a letdown in the minimal roy harper press than the mentioning of jimmy page/led zep/pink floyd/kate bush references). So overall, to be fair, I have to treat the Harper reference as a net-zero.
So, after listening to that album, I really thought they may be able to pull out a win, but then I played Psycocandy and within 5 seconds I was thinking, hell yeah, Jesus always wins.
So Fleet Foxes, you're on my listen again list, but you'll have to sing the blues because Jesus and Mary Chain earned my vote on this one.
Fleet Foxes fans, Robin Pecknold says Roy Harper is awesome, so you have to listen to Stormcock, or (any of the poor collection of his music available on spotify)
My vote goes to Psychocandy. Duh.
ReplyDeleteMVB justified his vote. But can some of the other people voting for J&MC give some reason why?
ReplyDeleteI haven't read any of the comments because I wanted to try to not be swayed. This is a hard one. They're either both on my list or Fleet Foxes isn't because I saw that someone else nominated it. My 80s association with The Jesus and Mary Chain is that the two guys I sometimes skated with who were cooler (and better at skateboarding) than me really liked them. I was simultaneously interested and afraid of them because of their name. I hardly listened to them at all then and only listened to this album substantially in the last year or two. I listened to it probably 4 or 5 times in a row at work one day last year. It's kind of weird because I took an interest in it because other new things I was getting into were described as like them in some way. Okay, so it's a great album and, as far as I know, it was something completely different when it came out (or as completely different as you can get with rock'n'roll in the 80s.
ReplyDeleteNow Helplessness Blues. The title song is probably my favorite song since whenever it was released. I like the commie sentiment at the beginning, I like the wandering, reaching for something, not knowing quite what to reach for, and also the guitar and sense of the song as a composition. I drove across Michigan on two lane highways recently and sang/shouted along with this song with the windows down four or five times in a row. I love most of the rest of the album, too. It all has this kind of medieval/mythical feeling to it for me with a little chamber music thing, like the Beatles' stuff with the harpsichord.
I think if I had a 25 year history with Psychocandy, I'd probably pick it, but I'm going with Helplessness Blues.
I remember first encountering earlier Fleet Foxes in an earlier Death Match, and not being totally on board. However, I've been listening to Helplessness Blues a fair bit since it came out, and I AM totally on board. Still, sometimes I am not in the mood for this album at all. I don't want to be this way, but in some moods, it strikes me as a bit too twee. But I would rather be twee than an asshat, for sure.
ReplyDeleteSo I don't wanna vote for Psychocandy, for many of the reasons Karl mentioned. Andrew, I wanted to say that the video you linked to didn't help their cause. And that Andy's right about the two stringed bass. I wanted to not prefer Psychocandy, but I like listening to this album in most moods, and it just has more staying power. This is why I don't like pitting classics against newbies, but the game's the game, I guess.
My vote goes to the asshats.
Also, is there any greater asshatery than abstaining from voting? (At least in MDM.)
DeleteYeah, asshat!!! (great word, by the way)
DeleteUm, asshattery has two Ts.
DeleteAnd I'm no asshatist.
DeleteOh, and you're a spelling asshattist too: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spelling%20nazi.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSarah. Don't you have anything better to do at 6:45 PM Pacific Daylight Savings Time? Which reminds me: Andrew, whom do I have to service in order to get this blog changed to EDT?
ReplyDeleteWhen I first revisited Psychocandy several years ago, after several years of not hearing it, I was surprised at how tinny it sounded. Maybe it had been reissued or something, or maybe people were writing about it because it was all over the “Lost in Translation” soundtrack, but many people referred to the album as possessing such a huge wall of sound. From the first bars of “just like honey” I was taken aback at how dry and sterile it sounded. The guitar all trebly, like your first cheap guitar through your neighbor’s shitty Peavy amp and your $20 distortion pedal, while the drums seem processed to make them sound smaller and more distant.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, they stick to that sound more or less for a whole album and I like it quite a bit. In their time, while not quite the second coming that they take themselves to be, they did craft quite an interesting singular sound. They took 3 chords and forced them into a distinct new sound, as distinct as the first Ramones or Sex Pistols album, but very different from those albums. 15 songs too, good job. Like a Beatles or Ramones album but those albums only have 14 songs. This has one more.
I like this Fleet Foxes album quite a bit. Generally I prefer their first album, but this one’s good too. The first time I heard songs from the first record I was really taken by them and thought they were really great and really fresh. For better or worse, they have influenced a ton of bands and tons of bands sound a lot like them now. Unfortunately and unfairly, this has made them not age too well for me.
……wow, I just watched the video that Andrew posted, and it almost swayed me away from the J&MC.Did they invent this whole British unbelievably conceited prick persona? I mean sure John Lennon said that the Beatles are bigger than Jesus but that was taken out of context and it was kinda true and everyone loved those lads because they were so charming. Then the Sex Pistols and the other OG punks were confrontational and rude but in a such a charming and winning way. But these J&MC dudes, MAN!, they’re tough to love.
As for the Fleet Foxes, I saw them once at Pitchfork festival and afterwards I saw the bass player walking around and I told him that it was a really good show and he acted like I was LITERALLY the first person to ever tell him that—super happy and appreciative...actually maybe that is the problem with those young beardy types, sometimes they’re just TOO nice (ya feel me Steve?).
It seems that both of these bands like the Beach Boys.
In closing, I vote Jesus & Mary Chain.
It's true that a couple of them come off as asshats, but come one, there's some great moments in that video too. Tuning guitars as a party trick? Comic genius. The long delayed and non-sensical answer "Me favorite color is gold"? Classic. Plus the whole interview is done by Daniel Richler, son on famous Canadian novelist, Mordecai. And did anyone notice a very young pre-Primal Scream Bobby Gillespie calling for peace? It's like you guys intentionally overlooked all the good parts.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I will admit that part of my love for this album is due to nostalgia. This was one of the very first cassette tapes I bought and one of my first concerts too. You can imagine it all felt very fresh circa 1990. And actually, I personally think it's aged pretty well. Essentially the album is two songs, the slower more melodic one and the fast one with lots of feedback, but they're both pretty great. If you're being fair, you'll admit that these guys always have a catchy tune/hook beneath the effects. Just listen for when those backing female vocals come in on "Just like Candy" and call my vote ironic (by the way, Karl, you're beginning to sound like some dude who loved prog rock in the 70s and can't get over it, implying that everything that came before it is overly simple and everything that came after it derivative---the same kind of dude who goes on and on about time zones and shit).
As for Fleetfoxes, I pretty much agree with what everyone else has said (I was hoping Steve would chime in on this one since apparently he hates Fleetfoxes). I think they're pretty great, but I do have to be in the right mood, and when I listened to them the other day, I just wasn't in that mood. If I had been, they probably would have got my vote--seriously.
Okay, if my math is right, even though Bruce picked Psychocandy and voted against them, they still move on. Now that's what MDM is all about!
OH! I didn't know the interview was done by Mordecai Richler's son. THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING! I did like the video. Doesn't he also say something about they actually tune the guitar every day. That was good too.
DeleteI admit there was some funny stuff. I didn't even watch the whole thing, but the early-on, "That one's the same as the last question. It's because we're so incredibly good," or whatever, was pretty funny.
DeleteStill, asshats. And 25-minute sets?
I know what you mean about the "almost too nice" FF, though, JoeLG. Not that you meant it as a counterpoint to asshattery, but it works as such.
And for the record: in general I try not to judge the art by the artists, because otherwise I'd probably dislike all art. It's best to not know anything about their personal lives, or performances, or age, or sex, or philosophy, or thoughts on stuff, or anything.
I'll listen to Psychocandy again. I think on its own merits I like it okay.
Probably nobody will read this because the other matchup has been posted, but my favorite part of the video is the people climbing in through the window behind the interview.
DeleteI read it. At 4:00 PM pacific time.
DeleteI read it too.
ReplyDeleteI read that you read it at 7:45 pacific time.
ReplyDeleteI mean 8:55.
ReplyDeleteI listened to Pyschocandy again and I like it. For the record.
ReplyDelete