Taking sides: Travis or Stereophonics

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Who's better!? Who's worse!!?? Who cares!!!???

― Michael Bourke, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Yeah, who cares is like it - could there be two more boring bands?

― Ally, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Oh geez...if I really *HAD* to take sides, it'd be Travis, just on the basis that they've been quiet for a while. Sterophonics are dire, the main guy has the worst voice ever...

― james edmund L, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Oh, but as rubbish as Travis are they will never even approach the meat and potatoes crapulousness of Stereophonics.

Kelly Jones is just so self-righteous about music, Wales, etc. etc. If it was in a way that could at least allow you to laugh at him, like Nicky Wire, it would be entertaining. But Kelly is just a stupid dullard, so his comments are dull and annoying as well.

One thing I've always believed about terrible bands is that if you can't be talented, at least be cute. And on a completely superficial basis, Stereophonics are totally ugly. Travis isn't nearly as piggin' in the looks category. Not great, but nowhere near the hideousness of le Stereophonics.

― Nicole, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

This is akin to asking me which type of dog shit I'd like on my pizza - a poodle's or a cocker spaniel's.

― Dr. C, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

the British music "industry" of bullshit boredom generation - 2001 - step in Mogwai to save us
Have you being reading my weblog this week? I slagged both of these ghastly bands off and proclaimed Mogwai as genius. I also made a comment on the relative sales of Stereodullophonics and trash trad- piss both sell over a million compared with Mogwai, 35,000 and concluded that the majority of people in Britain are stupid.
I also read today that tradpiss are back to inflict us with more whiney songs boredom.
If you visit my DJ Martian weblog there is a link to another website offering a free Mogwai Mp3 download, You Don't know Jesus - a track that reaches Godspeed You Black Emperor intensity.
My advice buy Mogwai - Rock Action on April 30th and turn the volume up.
There is a worse British band than Stereodullophonics and trad-piss Ocean Crapping Scene - there even more bloated and boring, those yawning plodding widdly guitars inane songs about nothing and whiney weak vocals. Feed them to the lions as well. Bring it on.
On a related note have you seen that arseing line up at Virgin 2001 music festival - even the NME had a go this week, what a shitty line up - crapping Coldplay, the not so hot chillis, tossing toploader and twatty texas - the ultimate Q band enough to make me fall asleep with yawning boredom, shed shitty seven - this amounts to a weekend community sentence of music punishment !
― DJ Martian, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Approaches the intensity of Godspeed You Black Emperor! eh? Blimey.

Travis are better than the Stereophonics. Or are they?

― Tom, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

check it for yourself.

― DJ Martian, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

What strikes me most is a sense of confusion, like, this shit's been on the radio for 3 years, so when's Jeremy Beadle going to appear wearing a traffic warden's uniform and a clipboard, and whisper the words "From Oasis onwards, it's all been a joke on you, kid!" Canned laughter, back out to meet my japing relatives in a brighter world, where the Stereophonics, Coldplay, Travis, Q, the NME, Britpop were only ever played by outrageously hamming out-of-work actors in an attempt to see how far my incredulity could stretch. Plus they'd probably have put my car in a duckpond, and then charged me to have it removed, but hell, I wouldn't mind, as long as Baxendale were also proved to be fictional.

― Peter, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Haven't heard much of any of their later work - but I have a feeling that Travis are way better, actually. They are - as far as I can tell - basically a melodic pop band who can make a pleasant noise ('Writing To Reach You', 'Driftwood'? Don't own those songs but wouldn't say no), as well as occasionally rocking out in a quasi-Rod- like fashion ('U16 Girls'). Stereophonics, on the other hand, are grim and unsmiling about what they do, which they think is Very Serious: because Kelly Jones is a Great Songwriter. Yes, his sharp pen-portraits of small-town life capture reality almost like a writer of short stories. Did you know he was on a screenwriting course? Oh, yes. It shows. Yes.

One other thing that these bands share: TERRIBLE names.

― the pinefox, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

The only interest I can muster in this thread, because I find both bands too dull to care about, is Peter's point about britpop. Isn't the endless trashing of britpop becoming more cliched than the bands from that period? (Admittedly I have a problem with any critical consensus).

I know it's all just wheel of fortune stuff; that things spin in and out of fashion, but I was playing pulp and supergrass the other day and feeling vaguely nostalgic! I think it might be time to sort through the dross and proclaim the britpop revival.

― Guy, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

You all might like the chorus from the new Travis single:

"Sing, sing sing sing Your love won't mean a thing Unless you sing sing sing sing."

Pure genius. Remind me to kill myself.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

1. I think that Guy is spot on about Britpop. *Not* that it was all great and we need a *revival*, no - but I think we need some kind of serious reassessment. I completely agree that the negative consensus is now far more of a cliché than the movement itself. It has become far too easy a target for too many people.

2. I saw the Travis 45 on Top of the Pops tonight. It was abysmal, like everything else that was on Top of the Pops tonight.

― the pinefox, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sorry Ned, nothing can beat "Turn turn turn, turn turn turn" for sheer monomania. Convieniently this thread leads into the 'bad taste' thread, as quite clearly anyone who likes either band has poor taste by anyone's definition. I would like it explained to me however why Mogwai are a suitable alternative - admittedly they are less conventional than those on trial here, but I find them just as boring, if not more. At least the other two shut up after about 3 and a half minutes.

― DG, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I can't say I am terribly impressed with that new Mogwai song. Didn't Slint do this like 10 years ago, only less predictably so? Even Godspeed has progressed.

Also, can I dare ask where this seething hatred for Travis comes from? I feel it might have to do with the hype and airplay they receive in Britain, where as in the U.S. they hardly get any. Is it because they are brit-pop-lite? Personally, I quite like The Man Who. Its just melodic alt-rock. Ear candy that I can put on when I am stuck in traffic.

― bnw, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I don't really care, because they both sux0r so much. However, I'd say travis are least worst, because I saw their video on TOTP last night, and I'm still laughing at the octopus flying through the air. Go figure.

x0x0

― norman fay, Saturday, 21 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

those in mogwai are even uglier than the sterophonics so i don't choose them either. i wonder how much the tickets for the new order/outkast tour will be? i think there are others playing as well, probably out of my range.

― keith, Saturday, 21 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Stereophonics are bad rock Travis are MOR pop.

I choose MOR pop. Their new single has a banjo which sounds nice.

― Nick, Tuesday, 24 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I agree, but perhaps not about the banjo.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 25 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i agree, but only about the banjo.

haven't heard the song.

― gareth, Wednesday, 25 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Heard the song on the radio (!) again today, and what strikes me is how much guts or stupidity it takes to carry such a dumb and pointless chorus all the way from the first stages of writing through to playing it to the band, through recording a demo, right up to the point where you're in an incredibly expensive recording studio and every minute costs a thousand pounds, and you still walk up to the mic and sing 'Sing - sing, sing, sing'. In my experience facing a microphone is a moment of uncomfortable truth, in the sense that any lyrical weaknesses are suddenly amplified by the imminence of their capture on pricey gear, let alone distribution to (in the case of Travis) many thousands of listeners. And yet he still managed to sing his dumb, pointless chorus, regardless of the qualms the rest of us would have felt.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 25 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

...and it's equally sobering to think that The Stereophonics followed the same process for "Mr. Writer".

― Dr. C, Wednesday, 25 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

just heard that new travis single for the first time - complete fucking crap they managed to sound as boring and plodding as ocean crapping scene and as bland and naff as Tospotloader.

Why would anyone want this?

― DJ Martian, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

five months pass...

Why is everyone slagging on Travis? No one's articulated any real criticism, besides slagging the lyrics to "Sing," which are a bit silly; but if poor lyrics aren't a downside to the silly kidpop y'all listen to, why should they hold down a perfectly good rock band? Travis aren't lyrical geniuses -- but it's all in the sound, man. They play (and sing) the right notes.

Then there's the Stereophonics. I'm not very familiar with them -- all I've heard is "Mr. Writer" ; the lyrics are dreck. I think every songwriter is tempted to write anti-critic lyrics at one point or another. But some give in to that temptation, hence we have this song and Creed's "Faceless Man." Oh well. The music sounds okay, with those semi-funky keys, although they definitely seem to be suffering from midtempo-itis; ie. "If Radiohead play slow I guess we gotta play slow too."

― Jack Redelfs, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Why is everyone slagging Travis? Because they're everything music should never be ever. I would put every CD ever recorded and every musical instrument into a giant space shuttle and rocket it into the sun if it meant that Frannie would have his tongue ripped out by the roots and the rest of them had the hands fused via blowtorch to plugged-in Cuisinarts. Behind the ugly, smirking, stupid-hatted Middle Earth visages (ever notice they all like Mike Love?) and their "och, aye" 'innocent' emetics (updating George Harrison's village idiot for the glue-sniffing generation that replaced George's acidheads) lies the soul of a middle manager and the peerless craft of a summer-school two-week 'Commercial Music' end-of-(two-week) session recital. If you think that Mick Hucknall and Marti Pellow (not to mention Phil Collins) are making a risible and disgusting job of inevitably falling from commercial grace then just wait to see what this lot are going to be like.

― dave q, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sorry, I meant to say "they all LOOK LIKE Mike Love". As for Travis - do they like Mike Love? My guess - they probably say things like "Good Vibrations really touches people, and we think we do the same" in interviews, and say "Fuckin' Yank bollocks! Dennis Wilson didn't even drum on 'Pet Sounds'!" amongst themselves.

― dave q, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

More quality vitriol from dave q, yay!

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

dave q is on the pounds and pence.

― gareth, Sunday, 30 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

two months pass...

Stereophonics definetely stereophonics. Thus I don't like Kelly Jones' voice neither Healy's voice. One interesting thing: Have you noticed that almost every song from travis involves a capo on any fret? I think Kelly Jones is a better guitar player because once i saw him perform with Tom Jones and he gave an amazing solo. Mr. Writer and Handbags and rag******, and have a nice day are good songs. The Sing song is one of the worst I've ever heard. 100% bullshit. What a smart chorus eh? Why does it always rain on me? and all I wanna do is rock are the only good songs. the rest is crap. I agree. Both band names are stupid

― Donyi Ponyi, Thursday, 27 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

twelve years pass...

the British music "industry" of bullshit boredom generation - 2001 - step in Mogwai to save us

Have you being reading my weblog this week? I slagged both of these ghastly bands off and proclaimed Mogwai as genius. I also made a comment on the relative sales of Stereodullophonics and trash trad- piss both sell over a million compared with Mogwai, 35,000 and concluded that the majority of people in Britain are stupid.

I also read today that tradpiss are back to inflict us with more whiney songs boredom.

If you visit my DJ Martian weblog there is a link to another website offering a free Mogwai Mp3 download, You Don't know Jesus - a track that reaches Godspeed You Black Emperor intensity.

My advice buy Mogwai - Rock Action on April 30th and turn the volume up.

There is a worse British band than Stereodullophonics and trad-piss Ocean Crapping Scene - there even more bloated and boring, those yawning plodding widdly guitars inane songs about nothing and whiney weak vocals. Feed them to the lions as well. Bring it on.

On a related note have you seen that arseing line up at Virgin 2001 music festival - even the NME had a go this week, what a shitty line up - crapping Coldplay, the not so hot chillis, tossing toploader and twatty texas - the ultimate Q band enough to make me fall asleep with yawning boredom, shed shitty seven - this amounts to a weekend community sentence of music punishment !

― DJ Martian, Thursday, 19 April 2001 01:00 (13 years ago)

― disconnected externalized and unrecognizable signifying structure (nakhchivan), Thursday, 20 November 2014 02:22 (nine years ago) link

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