Can has always been a bit of a mystery to me. besides kraftwerk, they're the most famous 'krautrock' band, and are even a "token" krautrock band, often times used to lump together all the other krautrock bands and even international "prog-rock" stuff from the 70s. when an album reviewer hears anything remotely psychedelic and jammy coming from a new band, chances are they'll say "sounds like Can." what, you doubt me?? here, lets check google:
[ok, fine, none of the links on the first page are about the band. but trust me, once you get to the 3 millions, you'll know what i mean.]
and yet, i've always found them to have the most boring and least experimental sound, compared to many of their geographic contemporaries. and today, while listening to this album, it finally hit me - their boringness and lack of experimentation is exactly why they're so popular! they're musically the easiest to grasp, and being boring and less experimental just makes them MORE accessible to the masses. duh.
i came here prepared to say much the same thing, though you took it farther and phrased it better than i would have.
this is totally inoffensive music which would serve dutifully as an appropriate backdrop to a hippie drum circle where some bad people came and took away the drums, leaving only a turntable and two large wooden speakers my friend made in a pass/fail cabinetbuilding class.
but a lot of the grooves are really pretty tight, and a lot of the textures would totally be at home in very contemporary music. i heard a lot of radioheady washes of sound, and i now feel silly for thinking mew was ballsy at all for crafting an entire song with backwards lyrics. (although the fact that their track, when played backwards, forms a brand new, very pretty song, means they get to keep at least one of the adhesive gold stars i granted). D can u speak to this drummer? he seems really good to me.
i have a really hard time putting myself in the Time-and-Place, so i cannot say if this was considered fresh or cutting edge or turned-on or tuned-in or dialed-up or shaken-not-stirred or cleaved-in-twain. if i were in college back then though, i'd definitely have this on in the background while denuding a co-ed or whatever the hell was popular to do with co-eds back then. what the hell is a co-ed?
man i can't believe there's more than one Can album on this list! maybe it's all kinds of totally different. either way i'll bet it'll be all kinds of backgroundy.
pitchfork's top 100 of the 70's + top 100 of the 80's, considered, scrutinized, explored, assailed, defended, appreciated and deprecated, fussed over, held up high, kicked to the curb and held back up again. education by fire and a middle finger to disdain. tea, anyone?
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all music from the 1970's makes me want to do drugs.
ReplyDeleteapparently...
the rambling lyrics of halleluwah remind me of this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6HY6hIiAWc&feature=related
on a related note, if anybody wants to start a Nintendo commercial cover band, count me in.
Can has always been a bit of a mystery to me. besides kraftwerk, they're the most famous 'krautrock' band, and are even a "token" krautrock band, often times used to lump together all the other krautrock bands and even international "prog-rock" stuff from the 70s. when an album reviewer hears anything remotely psychedelic and jammy coming from a new band, chances are they'll say "sounds like Can." what, you doubt me?? here, lets check google:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=%22sounds+like+can%22&btnG=Google+Search
over 6 million entries for "sounds like can."
[ok, fine, none of the links on the first page are about the band. but trust me, once you get to the 3 millions, you'll know what i mean.]
and yet, i've always found them to have the most boring and least experimental sound, compared to many of their geographic contemporaries. and today, while listening to this album, it finally hit me - their boringness and lack of experimentation is exactly why they're so popular! they're musically the easiest to grasp, and being boring and less experimental just makes them MORE accessible to the masses. duh.
i came here prepared to say much the same thing, though you took it farther and phrased it better than i would have.
ReplyDeletethis is totally inoffensive music which would serve dutifully as an appropriate backdrop to a hippie drum circle where some bad people came and took away the drums, leaving only a turntable and two large wooden speakers my friend made in a pass/fail cabinetbuilding class.
but a lot of the grooves are really pretty tight, and a lot of the textures would totally be at home in very contemporary music. i heard a lot of radioheady washes of sound, and i now feel silly for thinking mew was ballsy at all for crafting an entire song with backwards lyrics. (although the fact that their track, when played backwards, forms a brand new, very pretty song, means they get to keep at least one of the adhesive gold stars i granted). D can u speak to this drummer? he seems really good to me.
i have a really hard time putting myself in the Time-and-Place, so i cannot say if this was considered fresh or cutting edge or turned-on or tuned-in or dialed-up or shaken-not-stirred or cleaved-in-twain. if i were in college back then though, i'd definitely have this on in the background while denuding a co-ed or whatever the hell was popular to do with co-eds back then. what the hell is a co-ed?
man i can't believe there's more than one Can album on this list! maybe it's all kinds of totally different. either way i'll bet it'll be all kinds of backgroundy.