I know I said I was signing off for a few days, but I spotted two things today that prompted me to want to whip up another quick post before I went.
As I mentioned back on my roundup of favorite new tunes of 2012, so much of what is currently championed as this era’s greatest music just leaves me cold, clammy and filled with seething, palpable contempt. Never was this truer than today, in the wake of the Super Bowl, when practically everyone with access to a computer was feverishly vomiting all over the Internet about what an amazing artist Beyonce is (I believe I hinted at my withering disdain for “Lady Bey” here, in the wake of her global-stability-threatening lip-synching scandal). At the office, I blithely mentioned how I thought she was abjectly lacking in the talent department, and I was met with the sort of bug-eyed stares normally reserved for the pantsless hobo that wanders onto your subway car. Evidently, I’m something of an anomaly in thinking that the sun doesn’t shine out of Beyonce’s over-rhapsodized posterior.
Look, I’m just simply of the opinion that her music isn’t good enough and that she has nothing important to say. That would be fine if she was just your average pop singer, but the fact that she’s positively deified just irks the bejesus out of me. Let’s raise the bar.
But speaking of the raised bar, those unrepentant nostalgists at Slicing Up Eyeballs put up a poll for readers to vote for their favorite LP from 1980 today, and the choices are fucking staggering. Seriously, regardless of your particular cup of tea, the albums that were released in that single 12 month span are unbelievable. To name BUT A FEW…
Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam & the Ants, In the Flat Field by Bauhaus, I Just Can’t Stop It by the English Beat, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) by Bowie, Catholic Boy by the Jim Carroll Band, Group Sex by the Circle Jerks, Songs the Lord Taught Us by The Cramps, Seventeen Seconds by The Cure, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables by Dead Kennedys, Freedom of Choice by Devo, Crocodiles by Echo & the Bunnymen, Crazy Rhythms by The Feelies, Sound Affects by The Jam, Closer by Joy Division, Killing Joke by Killing Joke, the first Pretenders album, the first Psychedelic Furs album, Kaleidoscope by Siouxsie & the Banshees, Underwater Moonlight by the Soft Boys, Argybargy by Squeeze, Remain in Light by Talking Heads, Los Angeles by X, Black Sea by XTC and Colossal Youth by the Young Marble Giants.
…and those are just my personal favorites. The list is vast.
Honestly, I’m biased, as I was 13 years old at the time all these records came out and only in the beginning throes of my lifelong love of music. Will 2013’s harvest bear as much greatness? I’d wager not, but then I’m a grumpy old poop, so what do I know?
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