Let us now praise Living Color's "Cult of Personality"

I haven't heard it in years upon years but it easily comes to mind upon mentioning, and is still hands down a great song all in all. I think there's something about the production that sounds off after everything that's happened in rock (and hip-hop etc.) production since -- more so than early eighties sounds, it's that late eighties corp-rock production that suffers these days.

and there's stuff on Time's Up which is great too (esp the title track)

the live "memories" on Biscut...that there was great...and maybe still is

I meant "Time's Up," not Pride.

"Memories" is a Talking Heads cover, isn't it? I'm a diznork.

I will not rep for their most recent album.

one of them, Kareem,
was the only black kid who
was down with metal

he was a drummer,
we drove all around Boston,
Vivid on, and talked

later, when he learned
that his mom had AIDS, we just
cranked it up and drove

the records seem a little dated now, but overall i think they were cool....love the cover of memories can't wait by talking heads....times up was actually better than the first i think...

OTM

As for the claim "Rocking yet literate," I have no words.

And so "articulate" as well.

This song is one of the high points of commercial rock radio of the past 20 years, despite Corey's rectum-all-asqueezin' delivery, thanks in part to one of the possibly five most intimidating guitar solos in recorded history.

this song reminds me of trying to learn that main riff on my cheapo strat knockoff back in the summer of 1990. I never could manage it. I believe the two things I wanted to learn were that and "Cliffs of Dover" by wanker Eric Johnson.

yeah, i was gunna say. Or running over people in a tank in Las Venturas.

like lots of hit 1990 art-metal (by jane's addiction, faith no more, king's x, queensrhyche), it didn't rock anywhere near as hard as lots of the hair metal that, um, nirvana got credit for "replacing" a year later. still, right: some cool guitar parts by slumming jazzbo vernon reid. but no more "literate" than "save the weak" by britney fox, as far as i'm concerned. and that band had a better rhythm section too.

You learn something everyday I guess.

Every single one of these bands' singers shared one closet full of spandex bodysuits.

Haha! Same shaved-sides long-on-top hairstyle for awhile as well!

In their heyday, the live shows were stunning. Seek everything up through Stain. And the Live At CBGB's 12/19/89 release.

My wife liked them. And it used to be amusing to see lame cover bands with all white metal hacks run through "Cult of Personality."

-- The Ghost of Black Elegance (djperr...), August 19th, 2005.

I saw them on that tour too - it was my first real rock concert. I still remember chubby eleven-year-old me chanting "Elvis is Dead!" along with the crowd as my father and my best friend's mom plugged their ears.

Biscuits was great too - I love their cover of Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin'.

http://youtu.be/EeCQq3ot_Qo

Reid's shredding here is off the hook

Those dudes could really play. Reid is someone that took the 80s shredder guitar style of pure speed and tremolo bar abuse and applied it in a fairly musical way.

Cool clip!

Christ, that four bars or so preceding the solo, thrusting into outer space

And then the solo is like that guy skydiving from the edge of orbit.

lol at that insane clip above. You can def. sense their harmolodic jazzbo training when it's bursting at the seams, threatening to fall apart, but they somehow manage to keep it together. Muzz, the most talented, most missed dude who ever just walked away.

Chuck really Chuckin' hard upthread.

Britney Fox had a better rhythm section lol

Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee) at 9:27 19 Aug 05

Why did Corey Glover always sing like he was trying to imitate Stevie Ray Vaughan or John Popper or some other white-bluesman with a Sergio Leone-derived fashion sense?


.....uh....

If you’re listening for Corey Glover then you’re listening wrong

Why did Corey Glover always sing like he was trying to imitate Stevie Ray Vaughan or John Popper or some other white-bluesman with a Sergio Leone-derived fashion sense?

No, Glover's delivery isn't blues or soul at all - it's pure Broadway corn. He should be singing songs from Rent or something.

cough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed6TsOCIvUA

Yeah pretty sick solo in that clip.

harmolodic

The solo in this Arsenio clip may be even sicker (starts around 2:56):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j74mxqvxRDQ

You want harmolodics? Here's a half hour of Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society with Reid on guitar and Melvin Gibbs on bass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZL88zT-LsM

<3

oh god he starts playing the fucking banjo

That Roskilde clip is insane!

lol at that insane clip above. You can def. sense their harmolodic jazzbo training when it's bursting at the seams, threatening to fall apart, but they somehow manage to keep it together. Muzz, the most talented, most missed dude who ever just walked away.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, July 20, 2019 3:02 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I imagine they've just been playing that song every night for two years and are just tinkering with little parts of the arrangement, throwing in stuff out of boredom or danger or art

Sorry if I bit my "insane" description from Josh's post

Like Will Calhoun just shifting the entire rhythm of this hit song into a shuffle from time to time? What rock band would ever do that?!

I loved Muzz's playing when I were a lad, that modest little bass solo in Broken Hearts is beautiful, I saw them live later on with Doug and his playing was just as flashy as Vernon and it was a bit of a mess.

I had also totally forgotten about their metal-meets-daisy-age clothes they wore for those first couple of records :) Muzz could totally been in De La Soul.

Never understood the Body Glove thing, though.

at the Minneapolis Lollapalooza tour date, they upstaged everyone

incredible song

at the Minneapolis Lollapalooza tour date, they upstaged everyone

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, July 21, 2019 9:40 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was going to cosign this but it seems I already presigned it 15 years ago

I never liked Living Colour until I saw them at the first Lollapalooza, where to my surprise they walked away with the show, esp. with this song. I had no idea they covered "Memories Can't Wait" -- actually, that sounds really wrong, but I'll trust you if you say it's good.
― Guayaquil, Friday, August 19, 2005 10:38 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

(and yes, I too saw it at Harriet Island MPLS.)

Their cover of "Memories Can't Wait" is indeed really good, I later learned.

as perhaps the only band ever that could do justice to a bad brains cover, I remember they killed "sailin' on"

They did a pretty good cover of Pere Ubu's 'Final Solution' too.