Jeff Buckley Classic or Dud?

there comes a point in music that no matter how well written, well executed, or amazing talent with an instrument; the musician's songs are still for the most part boring. Thats why talent only means so much.

Another factor that must be heavily considered is the singer's voice. Does it make you sleepy (jeff buckley), does it sound whiney or bright eyesy (elliot smith), is it nasaly (neutral milk hotel). No matter how much talent is present, the singer's voice can destroy any hope of ever liking their music.

Yeah, Hot House in Chicago when it was still on Milwaukee Ave. I also saw him at Green Mill, Uncommon Ground, and Metro (documented on DVD). So it was three more, not two more times, oops. He was extremely drunk at the Green Mill, but still performed well.

xp: how does well written and well executed = boring?

surely boring songs are by definition badly written and performed? in other words, not all poor songs are boring, but all boring songs are poor.

amend: badly written and/or performed

You're right, Mouthy. It didn't make much sense. It just seemed to in my drunken brain at the time.

no. take king crimson for example. extremely talented, well executed, and lots of well written songs. but that doesn't stop me from thinking that lots of these songs are crappy anyways. hence, there is something more than just talent, execution and writing. There is the overall song and whether or not it is appeasing or not.

yngwie malmsteen songs, as a whole, suck balls.

Jeff Buckley was the Zach Braff of his era.

Ouch. Now THAT'S an insult.

I remember quite liking his music at the time, but I can't remember any instance in the last several years wherein I felt like hearing any of it.

no. take king crimson for example. extremely talented, well executed, and lots of well written songs. but that doesn't stop me from thinking that lots of these songs are crappy anyways. hence, there is something more than just talent, execution and writing. There is the overall song and whether or not it is appeasing or not.

yngwie malmsteen songs, as a whole, suck balls.

suit yourself. my contention would be that if the overall song is 'crappy' or 'sucks balls', that there is something lacking in its writing and/or execution, or at least something about its writing and/or execution that doesn't appeal to you.

there's no objective standard for judging a song's writing or execution - it's only measurable in your response to it.

With Liz Fraser anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ0QSpdnHJE

Let's face it.... his dad was both more talented AND made much greater use of that talent.

JB's music is pretty lazy really I think- sure, he's got a nice voice, but there's not much there beyond that.

VHAHAHAAHAH

so typical!

hahahahhha

Jeff Buckley was the Zach Braff of his era.

Lol. Perhaps instead he's the Mark Paul Gosselaar of his era. Though I suppose they kind of shared an era.

I agree with those upthread who praised "Jewel Box". I think that might be his best self-penned toon, wishy-washy lyrics notwithstanding. At least that's what I thought when I drunkenly extolled its virtues to a friend on a summer night in 2003 while eating raspberries.

some jock did "Last Goodbye" at karaoke night this week, it was LOL worthy

I never got this guy. He's fine when he covers a good ballad, but when he does a rock song, to me it doesn't sound that far from David Cook. Maybe it's b/c I never listened to him back in the day, when the 90s alt-rockness of it all wouldn't have bothered me.

I'm with you Mark, i can tolerate the ballads but the "rock" songs are just grating. Best thing he did was the Leonard Cohen cover, which is sublime. The rest i can pretty much take or leave.

a lot of unexpected people seem to like Jeff Buckley... but I listened to Grace for the first time a couple months ago, and thought it was pretty middle-of-the-road.

Yeah, that's what I thought the first time I heard it, too. ;)

see, i thought it was average on first listen. then it got worse.

Tried and tried. And tried again.

Didn't get it.

Prefer pops

I opened up Mojo Pin on the big hi-fi yesterday afternoon and pretty much loved every second.

To be fair to that song, the lyric "I'm blind and tortured" is a good summation of my feelings upon hearing Jeff Buckley at any time. Mark Richardson had it correct upthread: Jeff Buckley is like David Cook in disguise.

chix diggit

Sick Mouthy was right

"BLACK BEAUTY/I LOVE YOU SO..." I haven't heard Mojo Pin in over ten years, this is wild.

http://photos-b.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v336/157/40/710515316/n710515316_4235041_452.jpg

http://hartree.raunvis.hi.is/~jensba/thoughts/images/grace.jpg

There once was a man called Jeff Buckley
He could sing but had very bad luckley
One day at the vicar's
He took off his tickers
And said "Do you fancy a fuckley?"

Yes I know but HE WOULD HAVE APPRECIATED IT

"Tonight, Matthew, Henry K Miller IS Jeff Buckley."

*tumbling tumbleweeds from audience*

*interspersed with who he when's Jim Reeves coming on murmurs*

http://www.popjustice.com/images/stories/j/jeffbuckleyalbumsleeve.jpg

http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3334&Itemid=9

Yes, but does it have "Hallelujah" on it?

so i just downloaded this lil live ep thing of jeff covering his dad's songs

fuck

wait, what songs are they? i've heard his versions of "i never asked to be your mountain" and "once i was" from a tim tribute concert in the early 90's, but did he do others? there's so much drama in those songs, it's great. the chorus of "once i was" -- "sometimes i wonder just for a while, do you ever think of me?" -- is suddenly about an abandoned son addressing his dead father, instead of a man addressing an ex-lover. and when he breaks a string at the end and has to sing a capella he's got nowhere to hide, and you can hear it in his voice.

is this that tribute? just went up today -- http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=220

yup!

yeah that's the one, there's also Sefronia/The King's Chain and Phantasmagoria in Two

So Lonely [arr. Mazzacane/Langille]

Am I missing something? The Jeff songs are the ones I can't download

i never asked to be your mountain fucking SLAYS

just fucking kills me

i've literally listened to it like 12 times in a row and i'm watching the sun come up right now what a fuckin life this is

Sadly I don't think I've even heard that one, but hey, I'm feelin' ya.

weird, I was just listening to mystery white boy yesterday

I can get people not digging buckley but there are some great moments on that

i never asked to be your mountain fucking SLAYS

it's funny how he imitates some of tim's vocal tics on that song, going into that throaty low register and then getting really keening and nasally. like i said upthread about "once i was," there's some great drama in that performance, too: "she says, your scoundrel father flies /with a dancer called a queen...oh the child dreams to be his hands /in the counting of the rain /but only barren breasts he feels /for her milk will never drain." remember this was at a tim tribute concert, so i feel like jeff's caught in this really sticky position of wanting to honor the music and the audience's love of that music, but he's also got some rightful bitterness toward tim. in a song like this, it seems like he's tapping into tim's own self-recrimination in order to express his own anger.

the drowning references are pretty eerie, too, in hindsight.

yeah the drowning references gave me chills the other night

the Tim/Jeff bio Dream Brother is not great but really gets into Jeff's whole uncomfortable relationship with his dad's music/legacy in an interesting way -- like he would really squirm and get uncomfortable about Tim's fans coming to his shows, hated the comparisons in reviews, but then there'd be friends who said he really studied TB's records a ton and learned things about his voice from singing his dad's songs, etc.

plus he was raised scotty moorhead and adopted jeff buckley as a stage name so yeah, quite a bit of ambivalence towards his legacy

from el wiki

Buckley flew back to New York early the following year to make his public singing debut at a tribute concert for his father called "Greetings from Tim Buckley".[38] The event, produced by show business veteran Hal Willner, was held at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn on April 26, 1991.[38] Buckley rejected the idea of the concert as a springboard to his career, instead citing personal reasons regarding his decision to sing at the tribute.[39] With accompaniment by experimental rock guitarist Gary Lucas, Jeff performed "I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain", a song Tim Buckley wrote about an infant Jeff Buckley and his mother.[40] Buckley returned to the stage to play "Sefronia – The King's Chain", "Phantasmagoria in Two", and concluded the concert with "Once I Was" performed acoustically with an impromptu a cappella ending, due to a snapped guitar string.[40] Willner, the show's organiser, later recalled that Buckley's set closer made a strong impression.[41] Buckley's performance at the concert was counter-intuitive to his desire to distance himself musically from his father. Buckley later explained his reasoning to Rolling Stone: "It wasn't my work, it wasn't my life. But it bothered me that I hadn't been to his funeral, that I'd never been able to tell him anything. I used that show to pay my last respects."[19] The concert proved to be his first step into the music industry that had eluded him for years.[42]