The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Wow, I really am the asker of the questions around here, huh?

DRC: It's been a long day. I've been feeling pretty low lately. A lot of work, a lot of stress and just not enough laughter. But these things turn around.

QotD: What was the last band that someone tried to turn you on to that you just couldn't get into?

Today was "Give the Stills another chance day" as one of my co-workers tried to get me to dig the Stills. It didn't work. Something about them just doesn't do it for me. I hear them and I get disinterested.

QotD: My co-worker Rich really wanted me to like Skinny Puppy. I did end up dl'ing one song of theirs from emusic but overall I'm not really into it at all.

Girl Talk got a sales pitch from someone, but hasn't done well.

Most of my friends really like Death Cab for Cutie, but I just can't get into it. If I remember right, it was the songwriting that really bothered me. It was pretty boring too.

QOTD: http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5848
Kings of Leon.... heard of them for the last 3+ years... just don't get man!

Reïst wrote:Most of my friends really like Death Cab for Cutie, but I just can't get into it. If I remember right, it was the songwriting that really bothered me. It was pretty boring too.

Hear hear! I can't imagine writing lyrics like, "sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole/just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound" and being totally serious about it. His voice bugs me, too. I like the Postal Service even less. (/rant)

QotD: Like Niveous, I've had a hard time getting into The Stills (the only Stills song I really like is their cover of "I'm Gonna Live the Life I Sing About"). Also, I've had several friends recommend The Faint to me, without success.

DRC: So today I noticed that one of my degus had an injury on her leg. I took to her the vet, who proceeded to find six other wounds under her fur, all of which the vet diagnosed as bite wounds. I've got four of the little critters, and Aylee was the only one affected, which leads me to believe that the other three are ganging up on her.

On doctor's orders, we're now keeping her separated from the other three for the next week or so, which entailed buying a new smaller cage in addition to the vet bill we've incurred.

Between this and Allyson accidentally paying our power bill twice (they wouldn't refund the second payment, but they will credit it towards next month's bill), we're now officially hard-up this month. Maybe I shouldn't have bought Mega Man 9 yesterday...

I agree on Death Cab for Cutie. But I'll admit, I love the line and vocal melody in Soul Meets Body where he says,
And I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
But if the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too

It just flows so nice.

Aardwolves wrote:

Reïst wrote:Most of my friends really like Death Cab for Cutie, but I just can't get into it. If I remember right, it was the songwriting that really bothered me. It was pretty boring too.

Hear hear! I can't imagine writing lyrics like, "sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole/just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound" and being totally serious about it. His voice bugs me, too. I like the Postal Service even less. (/rant)

Ditto the Death Cab For Cutie thing

drë wrote:QOTD: http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5848
Kings of Leon.... heard of them for the last 3+ years... just don't get man!

Funny - I just bought their new album today, and on first listen in the car on the way home, I wasn't overly impressed - so I ejected it halfway through and put on their "Youth and Young Manhood" instead.

"Youth and Young Manhood" is totally awesome!! You should get into it Dre! I get it. You've got to get it. You've just GOT to!!!

First thing that comes to mind for me is Radiohead. but I'm sure there have been more recent but less enthusiastic attempts.

The one that comes to mind is Decemberists... I liked the music, but the singer's voice really turned me off.
-bill

Back whenever that one album came out, someone recommended the Shins to me. I hate the Shins with an intensity normally reserved for genocide and people who expect me to laugh at their puns.

OK, I'm going to admit something*. Caveat: this isn't an artist, it's an album.

After waiting, oh, thirty-eight years for SMiLE to come out, it truly disappointed. Everyone told me how great it was, the critical reviews were off the chart with their gushing, and a track even won a grammy.

I'm sorry, but I think that he is still trying too hard to be an American on this album, in order to contrast himself those British guys he was so competitive with. But you don't have to sing about Americana to prove you're an American. America has moved on, Brian, grown up, taken a few lumps along the way. And the competition is over. They won. Get over it.

Brian has taken his lumps as well, it's time for him to grow up, too. His other solo stuff proves that he has. But the final recording of this album, originally conceived in 1966, appears to have ignored all of that, and it's too bad. I would have like to have seem it done through the eyes of the current Brian Wilson, not the teen-aged one.

*It's hard to admit that your heroes have weaknesses.

i agree, spud, it was only an okay album, i thought.
-bill

Spud wrote:OK, I'm going to admit something*. Caveat: this isn't an artist, it's an album.

After waiting, oh, thirty-eight years for SMiLE to come out, it truly disappointed. Everyone told me how great it was, the critical reviews were off the chart with their gushing, and a track even won a grammy.

I'm sorry, but I think that he is still trying too hard to be an American on this album, in order to contrast himself those British guys he was so competitive with. But you don't have to sing about Americana to prove you're an American. America has moved on, Brian, grown up, taken a few lumps along the way. And the competition is over. They won. Get over it.

Brian has taken his lumps as well, it's time for him to grow up, too. His other solo stuff proves that he has. But the final recording of this album, originally conceived in 1966, appears to have ignored all of that, and it's too bad. I would have like to have seem it done through the eyes of the current Brian Wilson, not the teen-aged one.

*It's hard to admit that your heroes have weaknesses.

Agreed. AND the disc broke my CD drive back when it came out (my copy was defective).

Dragonforce. My friend keeps trying to get me into them but I still can't stand them.

wow! death cab hate! i dunno what to think about that.

Well, jeez. The figurative language doesn't exactly gel with itself perfectly in that phrase, but I find it a fairly insightful lyric.

Maybe this is why I never win...I started listening to oodles of anything related to Ben Gibbard somewhere around the time I started submitting here. Not that I idolized the guy or anything...I certainly took note of his imperfections...but there was an irresistible charm there, in all of his stuff. That's probably what I should have been trying to capture, instead of looking so closely at his songwriting mechanics.

I think I probably like Death Cab more than any of you that hate it. Though it's a close call with Caravan Ray. That guy is a true musical genius.

Blue, what is your actual position on Death Cab...I'd have thought that they'd be pretty hard to hate; is that what you're getting at? Who would have thought that a guy in his 30's gently cooing in the vicinity of Bellingham and Seattle could be so offensive?

Lord of Oats wrote:Who would have thought that a guy in his 30's gently cooing in the vicinity of Bellingham and Seattle could be so offensive?

Maybe I'm just too heavily influenced by pop, but I feel that bands like Death Cab and City and Colour depend too much on sounding pretty and not enough on hook. A song with pretty notes and no hook feels cheap to me. It's just not memorable.

To clear up what I meant regarding Death Cab. I don't understand their popularity and draw to them. I don't hate them, but I certainly don't like them. They are boring, and sound like an unskilled version of Toad the Wet Sprocket. I guess he's a role model for really dorky looking chubby guys that strum an acoustic guitar and fake emotion when they sing.
But then again, what the hell do I know, I like Kings of Leon.

erik wrote:Back whenever that one album came out, someone recommended the Shins to me. I hate the Shins with an intensity normally reserved for genocide and people who expect me to laugh at their puns.

I self-recommended the Shins to myself after hearing one song and thinking it was really good, and rushing out and buying an album and listening to it - and discovering it was complete garbage and boring as batshit. And the one song I liked started grating on me after about 2 listens. Yep - the comparison of The Shins with genocidal maniacs sounds quite fair and reasonable to me.

Frankly - I just don't see what the attractshin is.

(Get it!!! ....attractSHIN!!!! )