20 / 20 Sound is a music reviews and commentary channel. We take a look back at overlooked music from indie and alternative rock history and explore what makes these moments deserving of much more attention.
Great stuff! Massive Sound fan from back-in-the-day. I believe they were the best live band around at that time. Some fantastic sweaty nights in various venues around London in the early and mid-eighties. Such a tragic story with Adrian, but the music he and the band made together is eternal.
Almost cried last night when I found that they were just in SF last month on a Strange Times set tour that I knew nothing about!!! On my top 10 albums list and a band I've never seen😢. Love love love their sound.
I very rarely comment on RU-vid videos these days but i juat wanted to say this is such a fantastic video on one of my favourite bands. I love Interpol too, but I'd never realised just how much they sounded like Burgess and Co. You've just gained a new subscriber.
When The Sound turned up, a New Zealand music journalist wrote " Joy Division had many imitators. The Sound was the only good one." True forty years ago, true today.
Throwing Muses and Kristin Hersh's solo music are fantastic but, for me, can difficult to listen to, sometimes genuinely disturbing, so I don't play them too often. Belly and Tanya Donnelly (and The Breeders and The Loyal Seas) are as easy to listen to as you get. I've listened to Star over 1000 times since its release and I will never get sick of it. Between the two of them (and all the people people from Pixies) they have made most of my favourite music
Swamp thing, The fan and the bellows, and many other songs by them - they are totally immersed in my heart and soul, I think that's what real music is. Kind of glad that they could stay independent and true to themselves and to fans. Probably will never see them live, but happy for those who can. Long live The Chameleons and Marc.
Show me a band that made a more complete album than Automatic For the People or Out of Time? You hit play, that's it. In an era of maybe getting 2-3 good songs, IF YOU WERE LUCKY. And, AND, not one cover. ALL original work. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
People who don't appreciate REM don't really love music. DREAM-level inspiration lyrics and melodies. Stipe has one of the most distinct and believable voice in history.
With hindsight...I think it's clear to see that the endless dissatisfaction and disillusinment felt by Mavers is the classic example of how a person's own mind can totally sabotage and destroy the person the mind is suppose to serve for the person's betterment. The way his mind was always able to highlight the negative aspects of each element of his musical creation must have been literally soul destroying. Is Mavers yet again one of society's tortured geniuses??? Probably. It's a real shame that even as I write this comment that Mavers can't experience along with each of us the sheer joy his music has and continues to give to us. Hopefully one day in the near future those conning feelings will dissipate and allow Mavers to at last recognise what a wonderful gift this so rejected wonderful album is. Deep breath Lee...all is good!! And excellent review Sir!!!
I'm from Mexico, I met them by an accident of fate listening to Killing Joke. I was so impressed by the musical composition of this band and the talent they have, especially the guitars, since I studied some guitar playing, even the voice of the vocalist of this band seems to me to have inspired metal bands like Sybreed that are from Switzerland in the normal voices. Benjamín Nominet's voice reminds me a little of Burgess's, that nasal singing. For me, Tears is their best song. Greetings
Re: The influence of Love. Yeah, they are from Liverpool so It flows. For the La's I'd check out My Little Red Book and Can't Explain from the first Love album (Pale Fountains / Shack took the Forever Changes orchestration over the beat group beneath it).
I think the issue with the La's, beyond paranoia, perfectionism and certain illicit products, is that most of the post-Badger songs were written with the Rhythm guitar as focus. Check out Feelin', Way Out... and mostly everything else! As you've identified, this was always Lee's song-writing focus - chunky Rhythm Guitar as nominal lead. The Trad. Lead guitar and drum parts for many songs were essentially established and locked in place in 1987 by Paul Hemmings and John Timson. There She Goes by contrast had a riff that screamed lead guitar; screamed hit single; screamed route-one production. And that obscured all else. Being a sad bastard I've listened to many, many versions of The La's songs, from the De Freitas Sessions onward, picking my favorites. I think Steve Lilywhite did a pretty good job considering, although I've often thought his productions were piss-weak and thin at times. Anyways, 1987-1990 represents about 22 songs, most of which are great. Is it too much to ask for more? Discuss
I was for so long a TFC agnostic. I felt there was something almost apologetic about their music. A shrugged, "Here we go" Dunkirk-spirit band, confusing awkwardness with sincerity. In short - a band who sacked their drummer for being too interesting. Everything Flows is a piece of utter mercurial nebulous beauty. The rest? Pfft. I don't care what she thinks of Status Quo. I still don't. When I actually got off my high-horse and actually listed to parts of Grand Prix I did change my mind. Verisimilitude was my entry point. I think it's 75% a great album and that should be good enough for anyone. As for Power Pop - do Blondie count as that genre? If so, sorry, it's Parallel Lines.
I like Ride more than I love them. I always thought their EPs and first two Albums were sometimes patchy. I think they often suffered from the Indie Singer Phenomena - a sort of Lead Singer Achilles heel, where the singer was the weak part of the band, but there wouldn't really be a point of the band without them. The apex example of this is probably Ian Brown, who pushed past his singing limitations (ahem) through sheer force of personality and (pre-Second Coming) by molding his lyrics to play to his strengths. Having Reni as back up also helped! See also: Bobby Gillespie. Ride's vocalists are not as successful at this on record and could be a bit foghorn. Often the songs distract from this, but there are times when the nasal whir reveals itself and also sadly highlights another weakness of the band - their frequent lyrical blandness. GBA: Leave then all behind; Twisterella; Cool your boots and OX4. These are brilliant songs. The rest? Kind of depends on my mood. One thing I do love about the EPs and first albums, is how the rhythm section is allowed to do their stuff, in particular the drummer. My favorite Ride song is Dreams Burn Down, where Loz is carrying the tune!
Hmm. I thinks perhaps the reason they are regarded as fading away is because the second album took too long while they collapsed due to internal conflict, over-indulgence and bad production. After all, post HOL bands like Ride were successful enough with a similar sound. Baggy didn't exactly kill contemporary bands like The Sundays. Maybe they were the John The Baptists of the Late-1980s. As ambitious as the Stone Roses but without the ziegeist (plus some dodgy lyrics). Lacked the cache of MBV, but just as influential on Shoegazing (yet on a Major Label). The second album did sell well, going Top 10. It was too late and for Dave (now-how-can-I-fuck-up-this-band) Bates, sold too little. He wanted an Indie Tears for Fears!
Man, what a great description of Kyuss! And the feeling of listening to their albums…. Truly unique sound. Sky valley is by far my favourite. One band that truly captures the Kyuss sound is Lowrider (the album is called Refractions)
I Love The Chameleons! And thanks to you now I Know of Slow readers club and Ist Ist. If you can push against the language barriers then I must recommend the album Oktubre from the band "Patricio rey y sus redonditos de ricota", a 1986 post- punk masterpiece.
Monster sounds unfinished. It's too bad as there are some really good lyrical moments on it like "I Took Your Name" and "Let Me In" yet at the same time "Bang and Blame" and "Strange Currencies" sound barely completed. I think Reveal was their last solid album. Around the Sun was a travesty. By the time Collapse Into Now came out I simply wasn't paying attention anymore.
I was late to the scene in 1994 when a friend of mine said "you need to listen to this." He was right. I love these guys and while I never got to see them live, I did get to see Firehose and Mike Watt solo several times. Good times, great music.
'Jeopardy' is a great album. Should have been much bigger. One of my favourite post-punk albums, with 'Unknown Pleasures', 'Entertainment!' and 'Pink Flag'.
Mansun and SFA were the best by far, they were way ahead of their time. Oasis and Blur were just media darlings and knew how to stay relevant with a super PR spin machine behind them. I started of listening to Oasis and Blur but got bored very quickly and then I heard SFA and Mansun and never looked back. Actually Mansons 2nd album Six and Radiator are the best albums I've ever heard. Both band were brilliant at finding those retro and futuristic sounds to blend them all together. I would put them in the class of future, retro art rock where as Oasis and Blur were more bland type mimic bands that were very unoriginal.
My current fave overlooked Charlatans song (although it's a potentially long list) is Don't Wanna See The Sights 👌 It wasn't even included on Melting Pot.
Agree they're one of the best bands of the 90's and beyond. Also one other point is that Tim was a massive coke user for many years at the height of their success, as he's admitted in his autobiography - but unlike pretty much every other band, including Oasis and The Roses, it never impeded on the quality of their output and has never been used as an excuse for under performing. They just carried on releasing great music.
I always thought Winning was a very sarcastic song. It felt a bit like that. Maybe my own mental illness colours my view. Great intro to this truly great band.
i just found this video. Thanks for bringing more attention to Throwing Muses. TM have been my favorite band since I was 20 (36 years ago). But my favorite thing about your video is the comments. You can see that TM fans are a cut above most people, fully understanding not only what actual indie rock is, but what a genius Kristin is as a songwriter, guitar player, lyricist, and author. Everyone below my comment has said something super important, so read them all. Great video, introduction, and mostly "cheers" to this group of commenters.
The thing is with REM is that when I go back to their music they still relevent to me no matter how many times I listen or how old. Think its because their sound is so unique but also very accessable at the same time yet they never get old. Man on the moon for example. Its hard to figure out the decade it came out if someone new to REM listen to it. Yet it still fresh and nice to listen to. I mean even the one I love from the 80's is still fresh if it was released this year. Heck it would have been better than most music out now. Yes REM and Beatles for me will never get old
I found them almost a year ago at this point, because a record store near me was selling a used CD of The Holy Bible, and the album cover really intrigued me, so I researched the album, and it was the greatest musical curiosity I’ve ever had
R.E.M. were so all over the Radio with Out of Time and Automatic for the People, it is just not considered "cool" to cite them as an important influence.
I am a newcomer to The Sound having happened upon them in a list of five bands who were goth forerunners (which I found after falling down a John McGeoch rabbithole!) and I am amazed that they weren't massive at the time, I am now completely hooked and have them on repeat the whole time.
