Pop-Eye 3/6/01

"So Fresh, So Clean" is a weak single, but it's wonderfully eerie on the album - that stiff-jointed groove and the marvelously tingly ambient-death keyboards! And anyway, the drum & bass remix Fatboy Slim's just done is hella fun.

More thoughts on "Lapdance" - I still only like it a lot (as opposed to adore it), but I'm thinking that an added reason for my relative lack of enthusiasm is that the Superthug-style tense rhythm plus repetitive clavinet or bass synth thing that The Neptunes have now used on any number of productions (latest examples being Tha Licks and Babyface's anonymous single) is just too familiar for me to get excited about.

Strange that they haven't capitalised on the more successful "Shake Ya Ass" sound instead, or the dozen different ideas they had on Kaleidoscope, or even the pop-funk sound of the "The Call" remix. Maybe 2001 is their "duff" year (relatively speaking of course) a la Timbaland '99 and Swizz Beats 2000. Which sets up Kelis' sophomore as a potential underrated masterpiece a la Da Real World. Also: where are more tracks in the "Southern Hospitality" vein - by far their most uncharacteristic track so far?!?

"What's Your Fantasy" is of course brilliant.

Yeah, boring does equal 'conventional' sometimes - not so much here, as I say it's an OK track. But boring also means I hear it on the radio and am bored by the chorus after 1 hearing, and there are LOTS more than 1 hearing.

Cheers, Tom

To piggyback Tom's "boring" statement:

If YOU were inundated every day with Crazy Town, Mudvayne, Linkin Park, Limp "Dammit, Fred, you have NO FLOW!" Bizkit, Tantric, Korn, Kid Rock, & god knows how many other "rock bands" - regardless of quality, there's a saminess that stultifies after the umpteenth listen; righteous & hollow indignation only goes so far - you'd be begging for a li'l Travis.

Who cares if it's ["So Fresh, So Clean"] better than whateverthefuck, boring and annoying are not relative terms. (Otis)

But nor are they objective terms.

Also, Tom, I'm just curious--it's pretty clear that Travis are generally accepted as sucky, and I have no problem whatsoever with that. I am very curious, however, to hear your defense of nu-metal, which is probably one of the most irritating styles I've ever encountered. To me, nu-metal proponents (Fred, etc.) are just jocks- at-heart who like to complain about their relatively minor family/mental problems and "pain" (whatever!), but are always up for making fun of some pussies. It's music by assholes, for assholes, and, quite appropriately, it sounds like shit. Even if you ignore all the sociological aspects of the music, though, I still think it's indefensible. Artless rhyming and/or over-affected post-Vedder whining over mundane and super-cliched "scratching" and generic guitar crunches is pretty much the pits for me.

I'm sure Tom will happily tell us all about his favorite nu-metal records :).

Clarke B: "Sounds like shit" is fair enough, but calling nu-metal fans assholes and bullies is pretty stupid considering most of them are probably about 13 years old. What would you rather have 13 year olds listening to? They're loud, they wear costumes, and they complain about their parents, just like Alice Cooper. Me, I just posted why I think Slipknot is the best american band in the world on the US pop eye thread, but my M.O. is my emo IS my asshole. Why so bitter?

Why does saying nu-metal is plainly better than Travis imply a defense of nu-metal?!

My defense of nu-metal is limited: it's pop for 15 year old boys, making it very much like old-metal. The hooks are occasionally there (when they're not, it's apalling) and often it's funnier than given credit for (still not very funny).

Also as David R (I think) rightly suggests we don't get very much of it over here: if it dominated the airwaves I'm sure I wouldn't be able to stand it. The upshots of this are two: we only hear the hooky stuff, and the genre-definition here stretches super-wide to incorporate pretty much anything faintly rocky with a chance of getting in the charts. So Limp B and Papa R sure, but also Crazy Town, Marilyn Mansun, Wheatus' big hit and even Feeder have been claimed for the new rock. And that fringe stuff is what I've come to like - "Butterfly", "Teenage Dirtbag", "Seven Days In The Sun", "Disposable Teens". So OK, I don't 'like nu-metal' in the strictest sense, but this kind of modern rock is more fun than the plodding coffee-table pop-rock Travis push at us.

I hear TONS of nu-metal, being in the US, and I still think it's better than Travis.

I doubt you'll find any kind of crowd more full of bullies and assholes than 13 year-old guys. Besides, Alice Cooper had a sense of humour.

So does, say, Kid Rock and Marilyn Manson, which fall under Tom's def of nu-metal. Just cos Fred Durst is a self-important dickhead doesn't mean everyone else is.

I don't think Kid Rock belongs in that category, though - he sounds too damn cheery and comfortable with himself, and his music is too straightforward to fit the dark-twisted my-stepdad-touches-me-funny mold.

I think I prefer the super-broad genre umbrella of mook-pop, as Spin or whoever put it (though I first read about it at maura.com). Pointlessly, occasionally amusingly disaffected boyz making big noize. This genre also takes in Oxide And Neutrino's blinding "Up Middle Finger" as somebody smarter than me pointed out somewhere else on the forum causing me a GASP of critical respect.

Kris, you got me. I'm only bitter because Wes Borland barely nudged me out in the Bizkit guitarist auditions a couple years ago. The bastard, I think it was those contact lenses that did it.

As far as nu-metal fans being 13-year olds, I have driven past Frat Row on several occasions and heard Limp, Crazytown, etc., blaring from the houses. I think equating nu-metal with old metal is a little off, because the fanbases are certainly different.

But Tom, you're probably right about Travis. Whereas the nu-metal loons irritate the piss out of me with their abrasive stupidity, Travis is more like water-torture--ignorable at first, but eventually lethal. Lulling and boring us to death, rather than annoying us until we kill them.

Sorry, kids, but I think it's all bollox.