"It's impossible to be Actual* Pop and Actual Rock simultaneously!"

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

the lex just claimed this: is he korrekt?

my response = it is NOT COMMON CERTAINLY but it has happened, like a kind of harmonic convergence within recorded music after -- with things after never the same as before

for example:
i. stones
ii. sabbaf
iii. slade/pistols (=essentially the same thing anyway)
iv. pulp fiction inspired resurgence of SURF sound

obv plenty of bands have been one then the other but not simultaneously, and some have even switched back again

*note use of ACTUAL here must not be employed in any kind of essentialist slipperiness, bcz that kind of behaviour is INDIE

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

but a lot of the time SOAD were kind of taking the piss! that was what made them so good, that they were overblown political operatic-metal but with a sense of humour, three minute songs, big pop choruses, etc. eg 'Sugar' is probably supposed to be about the alienation of modern life or something but mostly it's a guy with a beard rattling through impossibly wordy verses in a silly voice and then screaming 'sugar!', ie amazing.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

agreed, but they did so much awful toss like 'Aerials' to undermine the funny bits.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, it's the old bpm problem. SOAD only good when fast.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

they seemed really really very serious to me :(

[cis.livejournal.com]

I think the level of humour in metal is always really hard to gauge, a lot of the time the immediate reaction is to go 'well this looks frankly absurd but surely they don't realise this, they must be really really serious to take with a straight face something so silly-looking', also maybe because it sounds so doomy one would assume there are no lulz? Actually it's the level of humour in all this angsty/miserable/emotional stuff that evades you unless you're into it - some my chemical romance and panic! and the disco stuff is really, really funny, intentionally so I think (the songs about VAMPIRES!), and even some manics lyrics were v arguably pisstakes (i think 'everything must go' is the first manics album that really takes itself seriously) (and I think even the most hardcore manics fan has had a day where they sat down and re-wrote 'revol' starting with the line "mr bradfield: awaken the pie"), reading Kerrang at the time it was all much more light-hearted than you'd have expected.