Inscrutable

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I'm trying (and mostly failing so far) to work out why I like New Order for the review of their reissues I'm writing.

What are the bands you love but find hard to write about? (Or, if yr not a writer, love without being able to articulate why?).

Comments

Re: the vocals issue

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

ok I'm relistening now and Frank's right, these vocals are pale and enervated, but they're not making a virtue out of this in the slightest - they're completely subservient to the music, the groove, and they're adequate enough to hold the basic tune. Which means I don't mind the vox at all but they're also the reason that I love 3-4 NO songs without really ever having been moved to hear any more - my connection is with the songs, not the band.

Though I'd only heard four NO songs! ('True Faith', 'Regret' and 'Blue Monday' I love, 'Bizarre Love Triangle' not so much.) There are three I've never heard in my itunes, I'm listening to 'Ceremony' right now and it's DREADFUL, I now see why people hate on his voice! There are no big synth rushes to prop it up, no propulsive groove, no particular melody.

Re: the vocals issue

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha well ceremony was a joy division song, really, set up as if curtis were singing, except with barney instead, depping -- ie they hadn't yet worked the thing out where the massive obvious problem somehow becomes a bonus instead

i actually think my three alternative reasons for this working (instead of not working) appeal to different kinds of NO listener -- their fanbase was much larger than just JD fans who stayed out of loyalty

Re: the vocals issue

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think it's really interesting how on the first album they hadn't decided who was going to do the vocals - so Barney and Hooky swap over (and Hook is really not noticeably worse!) (god I wonder how rub Stephen Morris must have been to not even get a go). Definitely suggests that vocals weren't a priority.

The "rub lyrics" issue is an interesting one as well - Sumner has always been very keen to preserve the idea that he doesn't think about them, that he writes them all at the last second and they're not meant to mean anything. I'm sure this is true to some extent but there's also an ethic of accidentalism to NO that the lyrics (and vocals to a degree) fit into - which ties in with the whole "I shouldn't even be DOING this" response to Ian's death thing...

Re: the vocals issue

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

(Anyway some of his lyrics really are awful - some are rather good.)

Re: the vocals issue

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes there's definitely a cageian random-walk element to the words -- which they've been pretty rigorous about, come to think of it

(i think i probably actually give them points for this, unconsciously -- as part of a secret war against words in music; well, not quite that, but definitely a feeling that they're over-observed) (this would surely be part of the reason they're hard to write about? words breed more words, but wordlessness and quasi-wordlessness are a block on them??)

Re: the vocals issue

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I really agree with all of this (apart from the fact that I've never had trouble writing about New Order XD).