The "bad guy" in the band: who are the other Mike Loves in music?

even though Rick fuckin founder/singer Wright is in the band and on the album.

Wright's barely on the album (if at all):

his contributions were minimal. Most of the new keyboard parts had already been recorded, and so from February 1987 he played some background reinforcement on a Hammond organ, and a Fender Rhodes piano, along with several vocal harmonies. The keyboardist also performed a solo in "On the Turning Away", which was discarded, according to Wright "not because they didn't like it ... they just thought it didn't fit."[24] Gilmour later said: "Both Nick and Rick were catatonic in terms of their playing ability at the beginning. Neither of them played on this at all really. In my view, they'd been destroyed by Roger"

Mason's contributions were negligible as well:

Gilmour employed extra session musicians including Carmine Appice and Jim Keltner. Both drummers, they later replaced Mason on most of the album's songs; Mason was concerned that he was too out of practice to perform on the album, and instead busied himself with its sound effects.[20][28] Some of the album's drum parts were also performed by drum machines.[29]

I think we're getting somewhere. ,
Can we get some consensus on the criteria of what constitutes Loveness?
I humbly submit the following points to consider:

1) Not every band has a Mike Love.
2) Mike Loves are not the "genius" figures in the band, or the principal songwriters. That's the Brian Wilson. So no Billy Corgans, John Fogertys, Noel Gallaghers, David Byrnes, etc.
3) Mike Loves are dicks, but not all dicks are Mike Loves. Mike Loves should have vocal haters.
4) You should be able to make a case for Mike Love as being important to the band's existence, like the Peter Bagge defense of Mike Love.
5) To be a true Mike Love, some people think you're a shitty musician. So Johnny Ramone and Paul McCartney, while having many Mike Love-esque qualities, can not be true Mike Loves. Ginger Baker might also be off the Mike Love list on these grounds too. Lars Ulrich is definitely a Mike Love.
5A) The musical ability debate is a bit of a red herring. It's not really about ACTUAL musical ability - it's about fans' perceptions and the narrative that has grown around the band. Mike Love may or may not be a great musician, but he is undeniably a Mike Love.

Is Lars Ulrich really Metallica's bad guy? I mean, is he any more of a dick than Hetfield?

yeah

he's definitely more of a vocal moron

Good question: I'm no Metallica expert, but is Lars really an oppositional force to Hetfield? Or is he just the one most likely to put his foot in his mouth during an interview?

I haven't read much metallica press in a while, but I was always under the impression that they were a sorta douchebag tag team, is all.

To be a Mike Love, does there have to be an oppositional force within the group? A member who, in the absence of the Mike Love, would likely take the group in different directions and/or allow the group to fall into total disrepair?

The group would lose something inessential yet distinct if the Mike Love were not there.
The group would lose something essential and gain a Jon Stamos if the oppositional force were to leave and the Mike Love were to remain.

lol

every mike love has its 'new jersey'

The group would lose something inessential yet distinct if the Mike Love were not there.

This is the orthodox view of the Mike Love, and as such is the central issue of debate with regard to Mike Loves.

Good question: I'm no Metallica expert, but is Lars really an oppositional force to Hetfield? Or is he just the one most likely to put his foot in his mouth during an interview?

― intheblanks, Friday, May 23, 2014 11:03 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lars was very chill and personable when I interviewed him....

but it's my impression that Hetfield and him see themselves as the core of Metallica and that lots of their stuff was directed outward towards other members

I think we're getting somewhere. ,
Can we get some consensus on the criteria of what constitutes Loveness?
I humbly submit the following points to consider:

1) Not every band has a Mike Love.
2) Mike Loves are not the "genius" figures in the band, or the principal songwriters. That's the Brian Wilson. So no Billy Corgans, John Fogertys, Noel Gallaghers, David Byrnes, etc.
3) Mike Loves are dicks, but not all dicks are Mike Loves. Mike Loves should have vocal haters.
4) You should be able to make a case for Mike Love as being important to the band's existence, like the Peter Bagge defense of Mike Love.
5) To be a true Mike Love, some people think you're a shitty musician. So Johnny Ramone and Paul McCartney, while having many Mike Love-esque qualities, can not be true Mike Loves. Ginger Baker might also be off the Mike Love list on these grounds too. Lars Ulrich is definitely a Mike Love.
5A) The musical ability debate is a bit of a red herring. It's not really about ACTUAL musical ability - it's about fans' perceptions and the narrative that has grown around the band. Mike Love may or may not be a great musician, but he is undeniably a Mike Love.

― brio, Friday, May 23, 2014 10:36 AM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with all of these, and then also disqualify Robbie Robertson

Feel like maybe Mike Loves are not incredibly common. In this thread I feel like the Mike Loves that have met all the criteria are:

Steve Perry
Mel Lyman
Birdman
Eazy E
Mike Love

That said I don't know much about The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band or some of the other groups mentioned herein.

And Birdman is an interesting one, because it's arguably not just about Big Tymers, but also related to the entire golden era of Cash Money records.

you have to come up w/ groups that do have inessential or at least clearly least essential members and then have that member be someone that manages to acquire a disproportionate level of power and influence over the band and uses that power generally for ill cuz they're an asshole. that's alot of conditions.

steve perry decidedly essential to journey so i'd disqualify him. eazy-e maybe, except he's also the bez of nwa so somehow simultaneously the least essential and most essential member of nwa. i mean eazy-duz-it was almost as big as straight outta compton at the time.

how is Steve Perry a Mike Love? I know he broke his hip and asked the band to wait until he recovered to go on tour--and then the band said we gotta get this cash and hired another singer

Do they have be inessential? Or do they just have to be oppositional to the resident genius/geniuses, and also influential in the group's direction?

I can't remember but wasn't one of the Jackson 5 kind of a Mike Love? Jermaine, maybe?

Yeah, scratch Steve Perry, totally doesn't qualify

there's a really good reality tv show somewhere in this thread.

jackson five didn't have a mike love. totally had a murry wilson though.

x-post America's Next Great Mike Love

Can we be shown weirdoes?

for someone to be truly Love-ish, it would seem that the family band aspect would be key. Like, Love's position therein was (I think) fortified in that as the wilson's cousin, he was not subject to Murry's abuse, and thus backed Murry a lot of the time? on the "help me rhonda" session tape where Brian stands up to Murry, Mike sides with Murry, if memory serves.

Jackson Five = Beach Boys/ Micheal = Brian; Carl = Jermaine; …I think I read somewhere that either Randy or Jackie took after Joe and thus are ruthless pricks. So maybe which ever one = Love.

I think yr recollection is correct but otoh Murry screwed Mike pretty hard with the royalties/publishing (which in turn fed Mike's financial obsession)

To be a true Mike Love, some people think you're a shitty musician. So Johnny Ramone.....

^did i miss the memo as to when Johnny Ramone was supposed to have turned into a great guitarist?

Johnny Ramone is a great guitarist

if you listen to Mike Doughty then the other guys in Soul Coughing were all Mike Loves

relative to the rest of the band

re: johnny

people could rightly argue that Johnny's style is super-simple and they would be right but I've never heard anyone argue that he is literally a shitty guitarist (which is certainly a charge levelled at other punk guitarists, ie Greg Ginn)

like it's really easy to imagine loving the beach boys but really having no use for love's vocals or lyrics while loving the ramones but having no use for johnny's guitar is insane.

now imagining Ramones as a dub act w just drums/bass/Joey

johnny IS the ramones, musically

also like he was in a band with a total fuck up deceitful junkie and a fragile child, i'd imagine from his perspective he was just getting shit done whether people liked it or not

again, I think actual musical ability isn't the question here. It's the perception of the Mike Love figure as being a weak link in the band musically - which no-one would accuse Johnny Ramone of being in The Ramones. If anyone was perceived as the weak link as a musician it was Dee Dee and then only on the first album mostly.

did Dee Dee play on the records or did Johnny ever pull a Steve Jones/Keith Richards and just play it himself?

Johnny Ramone is a great guitarist

― Οὖτις, Friday, May 23, 2014 1:35 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^jesus christ, on what planet. I think when you gotta bring in session guys to play your parts, you lose some cred.

I love the guitar on the Ramones records, esp the first one, but it's not "great" by any stretch.

xp not that I know of, it all sounds dee dee-ish to me though it wouldn't be the toughest thing to sound like dee dee

upper missisppi OTM about how he saw his role in the band - and that's where the most direct Mike Love comparisons work for Johnny, the vision of themselves as the straight hard-working money guy who just wants to tour for the fans and the bucks, but saddled with a beloved OCD weirdo genius who wouldn't make it on their own

it does what it needs to do, very well. sorry there aren't enough fiery solos for you. a great musician is someone who has command of his instrument, can make it achieve the desired effect, which Johnny definitely did.

but yeah brio and balls etc. all otm musically Johnny is not incidental to the Ramones, he IS the musical center of the Ramones.

xp

again - it's not so much about how great Johnny Ramone plays or Mike Love sings, those are subjective arguments outside the totally objective Mike Love taxonomy game. The Ramones narrative is not that he was a shitty player riding on the backs of his more talented bandmates. He's no Yngwie, that's not the point.

Disagree. And im not into firey solos chief. I just dont see anything really great about the guy.

xpost

Plus he was a fucking douche

not trying to be a jerk, i do like the ramones, at least i like the first 2 or 3 albums. Gets sketchy for me after that.

hahaha 'chief'

yeah but the thing is Ramones fans don't generally hate on Johnny because they think he can't play as well as the other Ramones whereas Beach Boys fans hate on Mike Love for being a lesser musician than the other Beach Boys. It's about being a weak link in relation to others' talents.

If you were going to go after Johnny on his musical contribution, I think a better argument would be that Dee Dee and Joey wrote all the songs.