dedex
Erwann S.
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12.17.20 🥳 2k soundoffs party + Overlooked 20 03.31.20 Our Band Could Be Your Life dedexbinge
03.17.20 Songs of the dedexcade12.09.19 dedex's "Yet another 2019 list"

Our Band Could Be Your Life dedexbinge

So I just started reading Our Band Could Be Your Life and it's pretty rad so far. I decided to discorun the bands profiled in the book in the meantime and I know it's gonna take me forever but these are all artists I wanna (re)visit. Will update as I listen to new records.
1Black Flag
Nervous Breakdown


Nervous Breakdown - 4.5 - ESSENTIAL
Jealous Again - 3.1
Six Pack - 3.4
Damaged - 3.7 - HISTORICALLY ESSENTIAL BUT DOESN'T MAKE ME PP AHRD
TV Party - 3.6
Everything Went Black - 3.6
The First Four Years - 3.7
My War - 4.1 - ESSENTIAL
Family Man - 1.7 - DOGSHIT
Slip It In - 2.7
Loose Nut - 3.0
The Process of Weeding Out - 3.9 - UNKNOWN GEM
In My Head - 3.2
Annihilate This Week - 2.5
I Can See You - 3.2
What the... - 1.4 - DOGSHIT

They really are an interesting band with almost all their records having a distinct knack. But, as absolute legend Gennaro Gattuso said: "sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit".
2Black Flag
The Process of Weeding Out


THE ONE BLACK FLAG RECORD YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO:

The Process of Weeding Out actually is the process established by the band to weed out (ie: they were tokin tha reefer) those who were still expecting Black Flag to be a basic run-of-the-mill hardcore band. This is free jazz with punk instrumentation, in all its noise and dissonance. So yeah at times it's obnoxious, but it always evolves into something weirdly cool. While not all of their outputs are, well, good, Black Flag have proved they are one of the nicest surprises in music. Always evolving (not always for the best, but eh not every band can be Fall of Efrafa), they didn't care about what could be said of them. They just be playin' what they wanted. And if what they wanted was a brutal free jazzpunk record, then let's fucking go for it.
3Minutemen
Double Nickels on the Dime


Paranoid Time - 3.8 - UNKNOWN GEM
Joy - 3.7 - TOO SHORT BUT DAMN IT'S TOO GUD
The Punch Line - 3.4
Bean Spill EP - 3.4
Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat - 3.7
What Makes a Man Start a Fire - 3.8
The Politics of Time - 2.6
Double Nickels on the Dime - 4.4 - ESSENTIAL
Project: Mersh - 3.6
3-Way Tie (For Last) - 2.9

Loved the band before doing this discorun, and I love 'em even more. I'd say they are less "interesting" than Black Flag as they experimented much less with their sound. They're much more consistent overall tho, all their EPs and LPs up to 1984 are really really good. And yeah Double Nickels is a monster album.
4Minutemen
Paranoid Time


THE ONE MINUTEMEN RECORD YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO:

Like a mix of hardcore and art punk, this was SST's second release, all 7 songs and six minutes and thirty-nine seconds of it. It's already interesting, as the drums are agile, the guitar is piercing and the bass is wobbling. If it's not really hardcore punk, the tempo and rhythm sure remind of it. And they already had the knack for politically cool lyrics: I try to talk to girls but I keep thinking of World War III. Quite amazing the material is already on point within such a short amount of time.
5Mission of Burma
Signals, Calls, and Marches


Signals, Calls, and Marches - 4.1 - ESSENTIAL
Vs. - 3.7
The Horrible Truth About Burma - 3.6
Mission of Burma - 3.2
Forget - 3.1
Peking Spring - 2.8
ONoffON - 3.3
The Obliterati - 3.5
The Sound, The Speed, The Light - 2.4
Unsound - 3.1

Their 80s stuff is extremely interesting noisy post-punk, "Signals, Calls, and Marches" being the best they've done, and "Academy Fight Song" being an absolute banger. Their live shows were a different beast though: one member of the band was only there to tape something that was going on, manipulate it and then send it back so that it would sound like something totally different. Their live recording "The Horrible Truth" is a good example of that ~ the horrible truth being that when these tape loops worked, they were amazing; when it didn't, they were an absolute horrid mess. On top of that, their first two 2000s comeback records are surprisingly solid for a band that was on hiatus for 20 years, make sure to jam 'em
6Minor Threat
Complete Discography


First Demo Tape - 3.0
Minor Threat - 4.0 - ESSENTIAL BUT IT'S ONLY A SEVEN-MINUTES EP
In My Eyes - 3.5
Out of Step - 3.7
Salad Days - 3.3
First Two 7" - 3.0
Complete Discography - 4.0 - THE ONE ESSENTIAL MINOR THREAT RECORD

Easy discorun, I heavily jammed these dudes back in da dayzzzz and their discog is really short (I'd say less than 3 hours to listen to all their records). This particular type of early hxc doesn't please me as much as it used to (had the s/t and the Complete Discography at 4.5d before re-listening) but these mates knew how to create anthemic hardcore punk that still make you wanna jump and shout in the pit almost 40 years after. Also no need for another entry, just jam the complete discog.
7Husker Du
Zen Arcade


Statues/Amusement - 2.7
Land Speed Record - 2.4
In a Free Land - 3.2
Everything Falls Apart - 2.9
Metal Circus - 3.6
Zen Arcade - 4.2 - ESSENTIAL
New Day Rising - 4.1 - ESSENTIAL
Flip Your Wig - 3.6
Candy Apple Grey - 3.6
Warehouse: Songs and Stories - 3.5

Fucking hell I didn't realize these dudes were so ahead of their time. Basically every 90s alt rock band that drenched their pop structures into a noisy aesthetic own to them. Once again, their evolution is super interesting: starting as a hardcore band, they slowly started incorporating poppy choruses - read: you can shout along the lines and you'll feel good about it. They didn't rush this process though: you can truly hear the difference between each record, moving from hardcore punk to post-hardcore to noisy power pop to alternative rock. Btw now they are the godfathers of 90s alt rock in my book.
8Husker Du
Warehouse: Songs and Stories


THE ONE HUSKER DU RECORD YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO:

Their final one. Why is that? Because the songs are good, man.

Truly, the only thing you could nitpick is that the band kinda spent the second half of their career emulating Zen Arcade. What's interesting is that, in a way, they couldn't not emulate it: signing with Warner Bros meant that any change was a move to sell out. But if you can criticize Husker Du for emulating their one legendary record, you can't criticize them for writing fucking good songs. Legendary band.
9The Replacements
Let It Be


Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash - 3.0
Stink - 2.6
Hootenanny - 2.9
Let It Be - 4.4 - ESSENTIAL
Tim - 4.1 - ESSENTIAL
Pleased to Meet Me - 3.7
Don't Tell a Soul - 2.9
All Shook Down - 2.7

I'm in love. Basically what I said about Hüsker Dü can also be said about The Replacements: they found their greatness by incorporating pop melodies into their harsher sound. The 'Mats never were as abrasive as Hüsker Dü, and the songwriting greatness was more apparent from the get-go - and that's why they had much more contemporary success than HD, the band being somewhat of an indie darling at the time. Their adolescent persona was perfect for their "always-on-the-edge" vibe and the vibrancy of their best tunes, like "Unsatisfied" or "Bastards of Young". If there's one thing I remember from this book so far, it's that 1984 is a pivotal year in the development of alternative rock and, more generally, the whole "alternative" 90s culture.
10Sonic Youth
Daydream Nation


Sonic Youth - 3.5
Confusion Is Sex - 3.1
Bad Moon Rising - 3.4
Evol - 3.9
Sister - 4.1 - ESSENTIAL
Daydream Nation - 4.4 - ESSENTIAL
Ciccone Youth - The Whitey Album - 2.7
Goo - 4.0 - ESSENTIAL
Dirty - 3.6
Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star - 2.4
Washing Machine - 3.6
SYR1: Anagrama - 3.8
SYR2: Slaapkamers met slagroom - 3.4
SYR3: Invito Al Cielo - 1.9
A Thousand Leaves - 3.2
SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century - 3.0
NYC Ghosts & Flowers - 4.0 - OVERLOOKED AS FUCK
SYR5 - 3.2
Murray Street - 3.6
Sonic Nurse - 3.8
SYR6: Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui - 2.5
Rather Ripped - 3.1
SYR7: J'accuse Ted Hughes/Agnes B Musique - 3.0
SYR8: Andre sider af Sonic Youth - 3.0
The Eternal - 3.4
SYR9: Simon Werner a disparu - 3.7
11Sonic Youth
Sister


Woah, that's a hugeass discog they got there. What was the most interesting was their constant evolution: from their early no wave endeavors to their more alternative rock albums, they changed their formula between each album. It results in a mammoth discography that generated - and still generates - countless debates about their best album - it's Daydream Nation y'all know it. Seriously though, their discography is so stacked with excellent releases it's difficult to even come up with a top 5. Last, but not least, Sonic Youth clearly are the most experimental band off Our Band Could Be Your Life. Being part of the NY avant-garde scene, their self-released Sonic Youth Recordings series is a must-listen, as it shows how broad their influences were. It's difficult sometimes, but it's also the most rewarding OBCBYL band.
12Sonic Youth
NYC Ghosts & Flowers


THE ONE SONIC YOUTH RECORD YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO:

After the theft of their instruments in 1999, the band relied on oldass gear and prepared guitar. That kind of was a blessing, creating a clear separation with their other 90s material. Indeed, Sonic Youth in 2000 sounds like early 80s Sonic Youth: noise and dissonance are at the service of cryptic lyrics and surreal suspense. It builds up again and again, never reaching its conclusion. There is inherently no problem with that: the day you die also is the day everything that you built reaches its non-conclusion. That last sentence was pompous innit? It's still way less pompous than that 0.0 Pitchfork review.
13Butthole Surfers
Butthole Surfers


Butthole Surfers - 4.0 - ESSENTIAL
Psychic...Powerless...Another Man's Sac - 3.9
Rembrandt Pussyhorse - 3.5
Locust Abortion Technician - 3.6
Hairway to Steven - 3.8
Pioughd - 3.2
Independent Worm Saloon - 3.9
Electriclarryland - 3.1
Weird Revolution - 2.2

If Sonic Youth if the most experimental Our Band Could Be Your Life band, the Butthole Surfers sure are the weirdest. Including people vomiting in their songs is only one aspect. The way the guitars use feedback and dissonance differs from Sonic Youth's: while the NYC arty bunch used noise rock as a mean to convey their symphonic desire, the 'Surfers simply wanted to be as fucking disgusting as possible. It worked. Their first albums/EPs are masterclasses of snuff music: psychedelic, noisy, vulgar, raw, and above all fucking manic.
14Butthole Surfers
Independent Worm Saloon


THE ONE BUTTHOLE SURFERS RECORD YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO:

Produced by John Paul Jones (!), Independent Worm Saloon sees the band muscle up and make their psych rock heavier - almost stoner - at the expense of the noisy experimentalism sported by their 80s albums. This is thus less gripping, but a newfound coolness emerges from this stylistic change: the 'Surfers are not as obtuse as before. Sure, some moments are there for them to remind you they like to fuck around a bit, but overall the album is - almost, they conclude the album with a noise improv jam - as digestible as any alt rock album of that era. It's heavier, more psychedelic , and noisier than their counterparts, but the 'Surfers still successfully softened their formula while still swaggily rocking out.
15Big Black
Atomizer


Lungs - 2.8
Bulldozer - 3.5
Racer-X - 3.7
Atomizer - 4.0 - ESSENTIAL
Headache - 3.6
Heartbeat - 3.2
Songs About Fucking - 3.8

The most uncompromising band so far. The way Albini renders noise is in total contradiction with Sonic Youth's or the 'Surfers, Roland the drum machine adding a mechanical vibe only supported by the industrial guitar tones. Also, the use of synths was innovative, as Albini saw the instrument as another way to create dark vibes instead of the poppy synths that flooded the music industry at the time. What should not be forgotten, however, is how good of a songwriter Albini was in these years. Songs like "Kerosene" or "Passing Complexion" are brutally noisy, yes; but they stand tall as the band's best work simply because they are fucking great songs (yes I say that many times but really, these bands know how to fuse an uncompromising artistic vision with amazing songwriting).
16Dinosaur Jr.
Bug


Dinosaur - 3.6
You're Living All Over Me - 4.0 - ESSENTIAL
Bug - 4.1 - ESSENTIAL
Green Mind - 3.8
Where You Been - 3.9
Without a Sound - 3.3
Hand It Over - 3.4
Beyond - 3.6
Farm - 3.9
I Bet on Sky - 3.5
Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not - 3.5
Sweep It Into Space - 3.5

Ok, so this was a positive surprise. Not that I'm blown away by the band's quality, nope; rather, I'm impressed by their capacity to consistently release great records. Whereas the other OBCBYL bands had at least of couple of records that were merely above-average, here each single one of Dino's albums contain enough energy and songwriting qualities to be appreciated on its own. Fucking hell, my least fav Dino Jr is a 3.3, how strong is that?
17Dinosaur Jr.
You're Living All Over Me


Retrospectively, this might be the band - off this book eh - that carries the most classic rock features, which partly explains their success, and the influence they have had on 90s alt rock. Their folk influences were infused in the hardcore origins of the band, as well as the typically-80s solis that would soon become *the* Dino Jr trademark. Apart from Sonic Youth, Goo-era, this is the one band that sounds the most like a 90s alt champion.

Also, Dino Jr. summarized:
"I'm starting to struggle soundoff'ing Dinosaur Jr's albums. Not that it's bad, it's just that I've rarely seen a band so deeply focused to one sole aesthetic. Because, yes, be prepared: in 2016, Dino Jr. released another solid indie rock record with noisy antics and a lotta cool solis. Nobody was surprised, but is it the goal? Do y'all listen to Dino Jr to be blown away? Nah, you listen to them because they rock."
18Fugazi
The Argument


Fugazi - 4.1 - ESSENTIAL
Margin Walker - 3.7
13 Songs - 3.9
Repeater - 4.3 - ESSENTIAL
Steady Diet of Nothing - 3.6
In On the Kill Taker - 3.8
Red Medicine - 4.4 - ESSENTIAL
End Hits - 3.7
Instrument Soundtrack - 2.7
Furniture - 3.5
The Argument - 5.0 - ESSENTIAL

This was the band I knew the most before starting this binge (you can tell). I love them even more now. Their slow but steady incorporation of artsy elements into their hardcore roots was consistently done intelligently, in the sense that none of their records feels like a misstep. Some albums do succeed less in what they are doing (eg End Hits), but they nevertheless have the merit to offer something different. Their progression is nothing but logical, from "Waiting Room"'s first dub influences, to the anticapitalist manifesto that "Merchandise" was, to all the way through "Argument", a track that alternates between almost-spoken soft bits to the final hardcore fury closing the track, the album, and their careers.
19Fugazi
Red Medicine


check fugazi
20Mudhoney
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge


Superfuzz Bigmuff - 3.6
Mudhoney - 3.4
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge - 3.8
Piece of Cake - 3.1
My Brother the Cow - 3.5
Tomorrow Hit Today - 3.5
Since We've Become Translucent - 3.2
Under a Billion Suns - 3.4
The Lucky Ones - 3.0
Vanishing Point - 3.2
Digital Garbage - 2.8

Consistent band. Their formula hasn't changed much over the years (get the Big Muff and Superfuzz and rock it out), which makes for a less interesting second career half. At least none of their albums is downright bad or annoying, or even boring - their consistency is truly to be lauded - but you don't need to jam it all to get an idea of their sound. Just jam their late 80s/early 90s record and you'll be alright. Kudos for coming up before everybody else with the whole grunge package - I think that's the main reason why Azerrad included them, as I've personally struggled to find any 4+ album in their discog - all albums are 2.8-3.8 material.
21Beat Happening
Beat Happening


Beat Happening EP - 3.5
Three Tea Breakfast - 3.3
Beat Happening - 3.9
Crashing Through EP - 3.0
Jamboree - 3.7
Black Candy - 3.4
Dreamy - 3.8
You Turn Me On - 4.3 - ESSENTIAL

Sonically, Beat Happening were the least punk band in this whole book. When it comes to attitude, they are sending back each and every one of the other protagonists to their mama's hugs. They couldn't play or sing, but no single fuck was given: they went for it, exchanging instruments and sharing vocal duties in a pure indie tradition. They also played - according to Azzerrad - a huge role in broadening the "punk rocker" image. Featuring Heather Lewis on drums (and other things) or a dude like Calvin Johnson, which was cuter than tougher than anyone else in the punk rock scene.
22Beat Happening
You Turn Me On


When it all comes together on swansong You Turn Me On, it's simply a twee bliss, taking their simple but damn effective formula and developing it to create epic pop songs, or poppy epic songs. Because if neither their sound nor their musicianship were always on point, they knew how to write heartwarming songs. So, yeah this is their masterpiece. This is fusing everything that made their previous records good, but all elements are given their proper place and are extended into epic and ambitions longer tracks. It's also more polished, "Godsend" being the first time the band used multitrack recording (with multilayered vocals!!!). It's, quite simply, their best album, with no bad song, and some of their best tunes ("Tiger Trap", "Godsend", "Hey Day"). That's one hell of a finale.
23Fugazi
Repeater


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And now a book description woohoo

If you're at all interested in rock history, 1991 retrospectively looks back on as "The Year Punk Broke", and Nirvana's Nevermind album is said to have "changed rock'n'roll overnight". Okay, great, but how does one year, and more importantly, one album, change the game? This is the basic question that Michael Azerrad, an author who wrote a biography of Nirvana during Kurt Cobain's lifetime, asked himself. To answer this, he looked at the US independent punk scene of the 1980s. Tracing the decade through thirteen bands and as many chapters, the author achieves above all a work of memory.
24Black Flag
My War


Beyond having allowed, in its time - the book is celebrating its twentieth anniversary - the rehabilitation of important 80s punk bands such as Minutemen or Fugazi, we tha readers understand, not why Nirvana turned everything upside down, but rather which bands allowed Kurt & Co to reach the ultimate punk formula. Bands like Hüsker Dü or The Replacements laid the foundations of the Nirvana sound: almost constant distortion that hides pop songs with catchy riffs and choruses - but oh so much more sulfurous than the arena rock that was dominating the charts at the time. Alongside them, long descriptions explain how Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr. were respectively exploring noise rock and a new approach to guitar heroes.
25Husker Du
New Day Rising


Each chapter thus focuses on a particular band, and while one can appreciate the diversity of the forces at work, one can also wonder where some American indie behemoths like R.E.M., Bad Brains, or Pixies are. Truth is, that's not the point: with an incredible sense of detail obtained from the many interviews Azerrad conducted, this book is best seen as a history lesson told through the solipsism of a fan - who knows how to write damn well by the way.
26The Replacements
Tim


But the main message is that these bands, legendary as they are, were, after all, made up of normal people - although this remains to be confirmed for Steve Albini. The stories told are those of bored, music-loving young people who pursued their passion with what little means they had. This whole philosophy is summed up in the title of the book, taken from a song by the Minutemen: "Our Band Could Be Your Life". What transpires from this book is a state of mind. It's about making the music you love, despite half-empty gigs, lack of moolah, and a touring life at least as rough as an arctic winter. A veritable ode to DIY.
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