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Feed your Head


deanmass

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Challenging time-signature! 7/8 + 6/8 + 6/8 + 5/8

 

I can never figure out, with these "industrial" bands, whether their message is:

 

"Look how cool is the new techie world we're moving into!"

 

 

or:

 

 

"Poor us! We poor kids are being thrust against our wills into a technical, impersonal world... and making this music is the only thing we can do about it!"

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One of my favorite bands of all time.

 

Obviously far more influential than they ever were popular.

 

Off the top of my head I can only think of two nineties bands that really did something innovative with pop (to my way of thinking) and that would be Portishead and Nine Inch Nails. While I appreciated the pop genius of Reznor's original package, I was turned off by his attempts to incorporate rock elements in his sound (not to mention his monomania) and ended up shining him on after a couple albums that disappointed me.

 

Portishead, OTOH, seemed to evaporate like whisps of mist, before I ever got a chance to become disenchanted with them or they disappointed me in some way. (It's kind of the die young/stay pretty thing on a certain level.)

 

I always thought Portishead, particularly the first time around didn't really have to reach outside for guitar elements -- their music seemed to be at least as much about guitar as it was about the dub and downtempo influences that so heavily marked their 90s work.

 

FWIW, when the Portishead album came out I gave a copy to my local coffeehouse, telling them I suspected it would become a big influence. It took a long time for the album to gain acceptance there (a lot of the baristas at the time were into mainstream pop like U2) but it grew and grew until, maybe a year or two later and for a long while, it was probably the most played album. Ditto the second and live albums. But that was a long time ago.

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Challenging time-signature! 7/8 + 6/8 + 6/8 + 5/8


 

 

I did not even get as far as counting it...I was too throw by the synth burble that was out of whack at first but the song grew into....

 

I don't know if they are trying to make a statement, but the thing I like it, all this electronic stuff was supposed to replace musicians, and it makes me happy that in usual musician fashion, it just inspires them to incorporate it into the music as another tool.

 

'All this machinery making modern music can still be open hearted"

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I was a little put off by the intro to the first track, too. Hey, that's what happens when you get a bunch of quirky humans and some quirky machines together, I guess... :D

 

On the human-ness front, I think that's what really made/makes Portishead rise above other bands in this general area of trip hop/downtempo/cabaret... the sometimes painfully intimate humanity of not just the vocals, but the music, itself. The dub-aspect of their 90s work often seemed to spotlight and highlight that humanity, as the same general techniques did when originally applied to Jamaican reggae artists and toasters... lots of human rhythms and phrasings, even though they were made exotic by the context and treatment.

 

That said, as much as it really talks to me, I can imagine how it might be off-putting to others, who might like a little less intensity and darkness in their pop music. The losers. :D

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I can only think of two nineties bands that really did something innovative with pop (to my way of thinking) and that would be Portishead and Nine Inch Nails.

 

 

Also Massive Attack, IMO. Massive Attack and Portishead were my favorites from the '90s. I was never really a NIN fan except maybe for "Closer".

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