Wire - 154 (1979) (1 Viewer)

[Lili Marlene]

I'll go this far:

Wire = visionary
Elastica = necessary

 

[JohnnyRaz]

I'll go this far:

Wire = visionary
Elastica = necessary

necessary how? (not disagreeing - curious as to your reasoning)

 

[Lili Marlene]

necessary how? (not disagreeing - curious as to your reasoning)

I guess because fashion is a necessary to pop music as sound? If everyone who made music tried to be Wire and no one tried to be Elastica music would only be made by groups of angry, virginal lads. That's kind of where it went with the US hardcore scene isn't it?

The whole connection/three girl rhumba thing, it's a lift for sure (or maybe even an uncleared sample as Wire argue) but the intention and execution is so different... they exist in completely different parts of my brain.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

I guess because fashion is a necessary to pop music as sound? If everyone who made music tried to be Wire and no one tried to be Elastica music would only be made by groups of angry, virginal lads. That's kind of where it went with the US hardcore scene isn't it?

The whole connection/three girl rhumba thing, it's a lift for sure (or maybe even an uncleared sample as Wire argue) but the intention and execution is so different... they exist in completely different parts of my brain.

ok - so the wire:elastica thing is related to a riff, not a general claim that they modelled themselves or their sound on wire? (the latter being something I don't see in my very limited recent listening)

I need an explainer here.

 

[Lili Marlene]

ok - so the wire:elastica thing is related to a riff, not a general claim that they modelled themselves or their sound on wire? (the latter being something I don't see in my very limited recent listening)

I need an explainer here.

They lifted the riff, and their song Line Up lifted the melody of I am the Fly. There might be a third one, Human maybe? Ripping off three different songs by one band is a lot ( mind you, they also ripped off the Stranglers a bunch of times).

Elastica were a pretty derivative band, but they never pretended otherwise. They basically made big pop songs out of the ingredients of old, angular post-punk ones. The New Wave of New Wave was what the scene was called just before Britpop went supernova and kind of amalgamated everything.

I believe the issue really is Elastica got big in the states and made a lot of money, way more than anyone in Wire had ever made. There were definitely court cases.

Just do add: I've heard it argued that the extended britpop scene is kind of the first time since rock and roll came along that popular music was looking entirely backwards in order to move forward. It's fairly standard behaviour nowadays but shameless appropriation of old riffs was a lot more unforgiveable back then, not least because the credits situation is usually sown up before release in modern stuff.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Sorry for hijacking the thread, i'll get it back on track:

has anyone ever gone to 41°N 93°W and taken a picture of themselves? I believe it's just an empty field in the USA but if you're a true fan you should be doing that.

this guy planted a pink flag there

Pink Flag at Map Ref 41 N 93 W

Wire have been one of my favorite bands since around 1980, and their latest album, Change Becomes Us, has been earning heavy spins on household and car stereos hereabouts since its issue last month…

jericsmith.com

to continue the Talking Heads thread from a few posts back, you could possibly make a comparison to their song the Big Country (not a fave song by them of mine but anyway) in that both of them come from the narrator looking down at the middle of the USA from a plane and thinking of how it compares to maps.

 

[Nate Champion]

I like Oasis I guess. I don't listen to them much in 2021 or anything but some of it holds up. I think Noel Gallagher once said that everything he had to say about the world he said in Cigarettes and Alcohol, Live Forever and RocknRoll Star and he was probably right there. I might add in Round Are Way as well, good song.

They did untold damage to the very fabric of pop music by lowering the standards and aspirations for your standard idiot about town and they had a billion worse imitators we all had to suffer from but that's not necessarily all their fault. I will put the blame for the English Rock Defense League whinging about black people heading Glastonbury or the like solely on Noel though. He's like the British Gene Simmons in that way.

I decided to watch a bit of Liam Gallagher at Reading after MOTD there a few Sundays ago...gave it about fifteen minutes. Think he was mostly playing Oasis tracks, but his voice is a bit of a joke these days - Tim Wheeler of Ash levels of lifeless limpness. The band just plodded through the songs... the worst was his in-between song patter. It was like as if it was part of some body-swap movie where the guy inhabiting Liam Gallagher had never been on a stage before... struggling to remember what he should be saying to work the crowd, like a big lump of a centre forward who's gone all season without a goal ["get in the box, Gallagher!!No, IN! IN!" The coach is losing it in the wings...]. Just standing there like a gormless slob, aye, have you ever been on a stage before in your life, lad? I turned to my housemate and went, "this is chronic. Surely they could have got someone better than this useless cunt to close the festival?"


Another baffling thing is the cult of Liam amongst the swaggering young... I remember being in Pravda during 2014, I think. And a load of Liam Gallagher heads came in... they were like the local fanclub. Young Dublin lads wearing parkas and fisherman hats. He was playing down the road, I believe. It was a really surreal experience.. how did he acquire this cultdom?? He's a massive chancer..."standard idiot about town", nice by the way - It would make more sense to me if a load of people came in dressed as Morris dancers with flamboyant facial hair and nimble steps on fruity boots after a Will Oldham gig to regale the punters with crude masturbation jokes and bursts of poetic eloquence. I mean it makes more sense that an enigmatic performer like Will Oldham with TRUE starpower would have his own cult.

And the final thing... how was this lump ever married to Nicole Appleton?? Mindboggling.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

Just do add: I've heard it argued that the extended britpop scene is kind of the first time since rock and roll came along that popular music was looking entirely backwards in order to move forward. It's fairly standard behaviour nowadays but shameless appropriation of old riffs was a lot more unforgiveable back then, not least because the credits situation is usually sown up before release in modern stuff.

8/10 stray cats might disagree

 

[prefuse]

Anyway I'm sure wire and stranglers were happy when the royalty cheques arrived.

 

[rettucs]

I decided to watch a bit of Liam Gallagher at Reading after MOTD there a few Sundays ago...gave it about fifteen minutes. Think he was mostly playing Oasis tracks, but his voice is a bit of a joke these days - Tim Wheeler of Ash levels of lifeless limpness. The band just plodded through the songs... the worst was his in-between song patter. It was like as if it was part of some body-swap movie where the guy inhabiting Liam Gallagher had never been on a stage before... struggling to remember what he should be saying to work the crowd, like a big lump of a centre forward who's gone all season without a goal ["get in the box, Gallagher!!No, IN! IN!" The coach is losing it in the wings...]. Just standing there like a gormless slob, aye, have you ever been on a stage before in your life, lad? I turned to my housemate and went, "this is chronic. Surely they could have got someone better than this useless cunt to close the festival?"


Another baffling thing is the cult of Liam amongst the swaggering young... I remember being in Pravda during 2014, I think. And a load of Liam Gallagher heads came in... they were like the local fanclub. Young Dublin lads wearing parkas and fisherman hats. He was playing down the road, I believe. It was a really surreal experience.. how did he acquire this cultdom?? He's a massive chancer..."standard idiot about town", nice by the way - It would make more sense to me if a load of people came in dressed as Morris dancers with flamboyant facial hair and nimble steps on fruity boots after a Will Oldham gig to regale the punters with crude masturbation jokes and bursts of poetic eloquence. I mean it makes more sense that an enigmatic performer like Will Oldham with TRUE starpower would have his own cult.

And the final thing... how was this lump ever married to Nicole Appleton?? Mindboggling.

you should read what Mark Lanegan wrote about him in his autobiography.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Listening to 154 tonight and it’s still absolutely magic. Every song is a banger. Apart from the depressing ones but they’re great in their own way.

 

[Nate Champion]

The depressing ones are great... but the mixing/sequencing of the album with the dapper little ones and then the stark, muddy ones...maybe it's fine.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

The depressing ones are great

That’s what I said!

I see Wire albums (Certainly Chairs Missing and 154) kind of like Beatles albums - they don’t flow because they highlight the work of different personalities/writers coming to the fore. The three main lyricists didn’t necessarily write the music for their respective songs so you get these strange combinations of styles which is part of what makes Wire so distinctive.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

That’s what I said!

I see Wire albums (Certainly Chairs Missing and 154) kind of like Beatles albums - they don’t flow because they highlight the work of different personalities/writers coming to the fore. The three main lyricists didn’t necessarily write the music for their respective songs so you get these strange combinations of styles which is part of what makes Wire so distinctive.

Really the last song could be about Wire as a band.

 

[Lili Marlene]

8/10 stray cats might disagree
View attachment 15163

Maybe, but their stuff only occasionally moved beyond homage into something new (i'm thinking Stray Cat Strut for example), very little britpop actually sounds like the 1960s, which is quite different to taking visual, artistic and fashion cues from the era.


Was glancing through Louise Wener's memoir of the era earlier today and there's a good line about all the go-nowhere bands in Camden circa 1991 being more concerned about knowing Wire B-sides than actually having anything to say themselves.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

Maybe, but their stuff only occasionally moved beyond homage into something new (i'm thinking Stray Cat Strut for example), very little britpop actually sounds like the 1960s, which is quite different to taking visual, artistic and fashion cues from the era.


Was glancing through Louise Wener's memoir of the era earlier today and there's a good line about all the go-nowhere bands in Camden circa 1991 being more concerned about knowing Wire B-sides than actually having anything to say themselves.

well if we're broadening the scope to artistic, visual and fashion cues - but not necessarily sound-a-like what about the new romantics?

don't disagree with the general 'looking backwards argument' btw

 

[Lili Marlene]

well if we're broadening the scope to artistic, visual and fashion cues, what about the new romantics?

I don't think anyone looks at them and actually thinks of Wordsworth and Coleridge.

 

[nuke terrorist]

In Simon Reynolds book Retromania from about a decade ago, he came to the conclusion that after the 60's mods there has always been retro tendencies in pop culture.
e.g. Beatles vaudeville songs on Sgt Pepper, psychedelic embrace of Victorian dandy style and Alice in Wonderland, US singer song writers playing old pioneer tunes w/ big Victorian beards and from 1969-70 on there was the 50's RnR revival which the first big revival of the rock era.
But really that doesn't even completely cover it, people have just probably always loved nostalgia.

 

[prefuse]

Good writer Simon Reynolds. Retromania & rip it up and start again were very good.

 

[Lili Marlene]

He's a writer worth reading but his chip on his shoulder about the Clash has, ironically, led to me forever having a chip on my shoulder about him.

Not sure I agree that Britpop was about nostalgia, although it could tend that way, it was a thoroughly 90s sound; I do take the point that everyone has their own particular past to mine though, it was 20 years ago today and all that. I'd imagine the widespread adoption of the cd was part of it as well, back-catalogue reissue music was increasingly becoming a thing. I know people have argued that Oasis' pilfering of riffs and sounds could be seen as similar to what hip-hop was doing with sampling.