"I don't remember a line,
I don't remember a word
But I don't care, I don't care
I really don't care
Did you see the drummer's hair?"
I don't remember a word
But I don't care, I don't care
I really don't care
Did you see the drummer's hair?"
It's a basic fact of pop music--appearance matters. Sure, you have a few Shane McGowans, but they're exceptions. How often have you heard someone mention how attractive a musician is? Does it matter? No, but often attractiveness can play a major part in a band's success. And also, pop music has entirely too little Dada! Funnily enough, the Residents fix both problems.
Not only do the Residents bypass the problem of appearance by never revealing their faces, they buck pretty much every other "rule" of pop music. The Residents Mythos is one of the most interesting and famous in modern music history, and comes close to overshadowing the skewered brilliance of the music itself, so I'm not going to dwell on it very much. If you want to know more google them or something. They remain anonymous after four decades, always changing their approach to creating unique, strange, avant-garde music. A lot of their stuff is bad. This is to be expected from a constantly experimenting band that put out 60 records in fewer than 40 years. Other records, however, are perverted genius nonpareil in modern art.
The Residents, it should be warned, are notoriously difficult to listen to for a first timer familiar with normal pop song structures and non-extremely nasally singing. Often described (by me) as "a trip into the mind of a crazy person," a great Residents song will simultaneously thrill and terrify. Although they have slid into predictability and irrelevance in recent years (SO SAD SO SAD FOR REAL) The Residents are the most groundbreaking group of the 20th century bar none I SHALL NOT BE MOVED
The Residents shit in the face of popular music. When they formed they had little to no musical talent, but yo, fuck that, criminology rap, speakers stay jet black. That ain't stopping the motherfucking RESIDENTS. They were one of the first group to embrace electronic instruments, a case can be made that they invented mashups (YOU'RE WELCOME GIRL TALK) Here is a cover that they did of Hank Williams' Kaw-Liga with the bassline to Billie Jean in the background. THEIR CATCHIEST SONG!!!!
Not only do the Residents bypass the problem of appearance by never revealing their faces, they buck pretty much every other "rule" of pop music. The Residents Mythos is one of the most interesting and famous in modern music history, and comes close to overshadowing the skewered brilliance of the music itself, so I'm not going to dwell on it very much. If you want to know more google them or something. They remain anonymous after four decades, always changing their approach to creating unique, strange, avant-garde music. A lot of their stuff is bad. This is to be expected from a constantly experimenting band that put out 60 records in fewer than 40 years. Other records, however, are perverted genius nonpareil in modern art.
The Residents, it should be warned, are notoriously difficult to listen to for a first timer familiar with normal pop song structures and non-extremely nasally singing. Often described (by me) as "a trip into the mind of a crazy person," a great Residents song will simultaneously thrill and terrify. Although they have slid into predictability and irrelevance in recent years (SO SAD SO SAD FOR REAL) The Residents are the most groundbreaking group of the 20th century bar none I SHALL NOT BE MOVED
The Residents shit in the face of popular music. When they formed they had little to no musical talent, but yo, fuck that, criminology rap, speakers stay jet black. That ain't stopping the motherfucking RESIDENTS. They were one of the first group to embrace electronic instruments, a case can be made that they invented mashups (YOU'RE WELCOME GIRL TALK) Here is a cover that they did of Hank Williams' Kaw-Liga with the bassline to Billie Jean in the background. THEIR CATCHIEST SONG!!!!
The Residents' first album, Meet the Residents is described by the band (if you even call the Residents a band) as their "worst foot forward." They couldn't play anything and had little budget, and still came up with a piece of demented genius. The masterwork of the album is the terrifying "N-Er-Gee (Crisis Blues)," opening with crazed banging on a piano and singing not unlike that of a murderous idiot man-child. The voice begins singing along with "The Land of 1,000 Dances," only for the song to loop the line "BOOG-ALOO!" again and again, turning it into some kind of strange ritual chant, slowly building noise and chaos over it. HOLY FUCK! IT IS SO COOL! Following a strange instrumental passage, the music turns to short rhythmic blasts and back comes the murderous idiot man-child! He begins chanting, softly at first, that immortal montra "WE GOT THE EN-ER-GEE! CRISIS BLUES!" It gets louder and louder, more and more fucked and disturbing, until OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD THIS IS FUCKING INSANE FFFFFUFUFUFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK and then there's some stuff and it ends.
Good song.
Then there's Duck Stab and Buster and Glen, The Residents albums most resembling normal rock. There's some of their best stuff there, with lots of contributions from Snakefinger, the actual skilled musician the Residents roped in to help make their ideas musical reality. Upon recieving LIMITED COMMERCIAL ACCEPTANCE the horrified Residents made a sharp about-face and made Eskimo, perhaps the only readily available album completely without African musical roots. There is no rhythm, no discernable melody, weird non-words (all spoken while inhaling to make them sound more fucked up), and yet somehow it is their most compelling album. Ostensibly a musical "movie" of Eskimo culture, (which the Residents admit they fabricated most of when the real stuff got "too boring") it is an album of music completely unknown to the modern ear. When H.P. Lovecraft uses his cop-out descriptions and says that a sound was so alien that earthly language lacked the ability to describe it, he was talking about Eskimo. It is a great idea executed perfectly. It sounds too strange to be enjoyable, I know, but my god is it a revelation. It is also the first appearance of the tuxedo/eyeball-head look, possibly the coolest visual image of a band ever. It was a mixed blessing, though--nothing could top it, so they stuck with it, and the faceless band got a face. It would take time for them to totally get boring but still, sad.
Other fucking awesome records include The Third Reich and Roll, possibly the birth of the mashup, which is a pastiche of dumb 60s pop hit run through the meat grinder of the Resident's minds and coming out all weird and fascinating. The Commercial Album is 40 "pop" songs, each one minute long. The idea is that a pop song is just a verse and chorus repeated 3 times to make 3 minutes, so why not cut the bullshit and play the verse and chorus once each in one minute? Whatever, guys, but still there's some good songs here. A lot of filler, too, and it's best not to sit through the whole thing at once. God in Three Persons was the genesis of their "storytelling" mode, one which they have been stuck in for the past few years (and it's become rather annoying), but none of their story stuff comes close to topping this. Set to surprisingly well-composed music, it's a first-person story about a weird guy who meets weird Siamese twins who are weird (but cooler). And it rhymes, and it's cool. Way better than the annoying shit they have out today (although I liked The Bunny Boy tour). Not Available is pretty badass too.
Well enough talk. You came here to get music. If you want some other stuff (I have some rare shit like Smell My Picture and Postcards from Patmos, some bad recent storytelling albums, and also Animal Lover which has the song "My Window" which is STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL) just lemme know.
Duck Stab/Buster and Glen
http://www.mediafire.com/?zzmjd1yzjm0
Eskimo
http://www.mediafire.com/?5wdiyyzj4wg
God in Three Persons
http://www.mediafire.com/?kzng3tgmtzn
Not Available
http://www.mediafire.com/?yhmzc3drwtz
The Commercial Album
http://www.mediafire.com/?zm4yktezjmt
Meet the Residents
http://www.mediafire.com/?tyyjmljjo3o
The Third Reich and Roll
http://www.mediafire.com/?ttlgmmljmnm
5 comments:
I already got all your posts on vinyl and cd's since very long ( i collect all i can of them since 83), everything but "SMELL MY PICTURE" you've talk about, i never could smell it anywhere...
Can you post it ?
300Gthanx
djp
this made my night!
love the enthusiasm, nice descpritions
love the enthusiasm. nice descriptions.
Anyone know where to find the 1982 Best of Ralph compilation album?
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