h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

DAFT PUNK UH you sad sad sad little man and you say I have bad taste becasue I like Semisonic!

Hey, don't insult eachother's bad taste now. We all have equally bad taste

we have been for the past couple of weeks...we can't talk to each other without unsulting each other about bad taste especially as Semisonic are good and DAFT PUNK ARE CRAP!

oh

don't worry your meant to hate at least one member of your non-band at some point in time...think of Lennon and McCartney!

don't worry your meant to hate at least one member of your non-band at some point in time...think of Lennon and McCartney!

Hey guys, I've never wanted to be in a band I was wondering if I could join?

I thought I could not play the whistle, like that guy that toured with the prodigy and would occasionally say "Get on one matey," or something. If you don't need someone to do that, I lack skill in practically every musical area, so I couldn't play all those wierd instruments like the sitar, the motorbike guitar and the xylophone that every band needs when they're making that big-band artsy-fartsy album.

Unfortunately I do have some skill as a lyricist so I wouldn't be able to not write any of the lyrics.

My musical influences don't include Edwin Morgan, Colonel Gadaffi and Brad Pitt -- because they aren't musicians.

Let me know... or don't.

--David, who can (not) also be expressed numerically

Sure a non-whistle playing member would be weird...but cool...weird is better though

Cool.

One more ambition not achieved. I'm going to go and not practice right now.

--David, who is currently living in high orbit around his own ego

Right. daft punk are not crap. theyre seminal. they invented a genre, with some awe inspiringly fantastic tracks. their second album seems chessy to the untrained ear, but it happens to be music i like. and frankly theyve sold a damn sight more albums than semisonic.

Oh yes, and im not a great fan of the beatles either - most (ie all but a very few) albums i hate of theirs.

I never saw what was so special about the Beatles. I preferred the solo stuff of Len and McC (not Wings -- surely there was a better way to keep the wife amused?), but I'm much more of a Stones fan anyway.

I know it's only rock 'n' roll, but I find it pleasing to listen to. Plus, few bands sound so good live -- probably because few bands have had so many years of practice.

*does not blow his whistle*

--David, who exists on a classic rock frequency

i hate, more than anything, imagine. truly, truly despise it.

In that case imagine there's no Imagine.

--David, who imagines he has enough patience to type out this signature line every time he posts, forever

Welcome, David.
What was so special about the Beatles, like them or no, is that they did a lot of things before anyone else ever did. I'm not meaning to put down the Stones, but I'm afraid they wouldn't have been as famous -- or at least they would have been famous for something different -- if it hadn't been for the Beatles. Mick himself admits that it was actually seeing the Beatles that got him to suggest the Stones do rock instead of just blues (they were already famous in the London area as a blues band). Also, the Beatles made British music popular in America. Without them, it would be possible that musical fads that started in England (such as punk) would never have reached the United States, and therefore would not have been as widely popular the world over as they are now or have been. I'm a Beatles fan myself, but I don't really mind when people say they don't enjoy Beatles music. It just bugs me when they have no /respect/ for the Beatles. It works both ways. I don't particularly like, for instance, Elvis Presley, but I respect what he did for music.

The Beatles are Seminal not Daft Punk!!!!

And think about it how many Beatles songs do you know?

The Beatles ground out some right crappy stuff that made little or no sense ..because they could. Take a song like 'Martha My Dear' ..read the lyrics or listen to it closely and it makes no sense atall-atall. And what's with bang bang max's silver hammer coming down on her head?Or, Picture yourself on a boat on a river with tangerine skies and ..no wait, that one makes sense.
Musically, they were a fusion of American blues and Lonnie Donnegan's Brit-skiffle version of Rock and were packaged for a white audience. Where-as the Rolling Stones were straight up blues, so black the BBC wouldn't play them.
I prefer the Stones for 'music', period/full stop.
But there was a magic synergy about the Beatles . They were gods and from 1963-69 with the great George Martin producing. In those magic days they could do no wrong, even if in hindsight most of it was technicoloured, overproduced, gimmicky crud with no lyrical value and of passing interest only. Musically over-engineered by George, but right for the time. Still, there were some good tunes. Classics.
And the Len-Mac songwriting effort will survive for the many other great tunes they had, and there were plenty with good melodies and good lyrics, that can be sung by just about anybody, anywhere, anytime. Ray Charles' version of Yesterday. Cindy Lauper's version of Working Class Hero. Lenny Kravitz' Cold Turkey.
~jwf~

I love Lenny Kravitz especially the acoustic version of Fly Away.

I'm trying not to get into the Beatles/Rolling Stones Arguement.

Personally I prefer the Rolling Stones, but it is hard to ignore the impact the Beatles had. Admittedly a lot of their songs where pap-pop*, but there are some classic songs and some masterpieces in there too:

For no one, Tomorrow Never Knows, She's leaving home and A day in the life,etc.

You either like them or you don't it's that simple. It seems to be the case that many people have a mental image of what they 'should be' listening to and what they shouldn't. Actually my neighbours seem to think that they shouldn't be listening to my music

*Pap-pop has it's place too, why should music only be serious ?

Lenny is a much under-rated musician. A bit of a spoiled-brat rich-kid, with a supermodel actress wife, none of the serious blues people or struggling jazz types take him seriously ..and it's not like he needs the work. But given half a chance to sing about something he knows or cares about, he can get right jeezly funky.
"
Cold tu-ur-rrr-ke-e-ey's,
got me-e-e-e-e
on the run.
"

On the run ..hmmm.
That'd be a good name for an album.
Like, ..The Banned On The Run
~jwf~

Oh and David, whistle is cool, but any chance of not-doing some really odd dances too ala' Chad (Madness) or thingy from the Happy Mondays, that would top it I think