I think VIDEO killed the Video Star.

[timrocker]

I do give Huey credit for smuggling drugs for Thin Lizzy, though. Any friend of Phil Lynott's must have at least some redeeming quality.

Wait. Huey did what? This is news to me. Any body got a link?

[soundcreation]

 

It really depends on your criteria. If you're judging by the ability to produce musical product that sells tons of records to a mainstream audience, Huey was "better" than Metallica (or the Black Flag, or whomever). But if you start looking at artistic integrity and longevity, 25 years later Huey's barely a footnote while people are STILL getting into "And Justice For All". Again, it depends on criteria. To a 12 year old girl who digs Miley Cyrus, Led Zeppelin is not "better". If you look at where Miley is in 40 years vs. where Zeppelin is today, the picture shifts. I know all about Clover, thanks (Huey didn't play on "My Aim Is True" though). Frankly, I don't give a {censored}. Huey Lewis And The News were responsible for a seemingly endless stream of trite, annoying, and ultimately disposable pop singles that clogged the airwaves in the '80s. That's what made them so perfect to use in "American Psycho" (so, I guess in the end I got some enjoyment out of them after all). Don't get me wrong- I have respect for them as businessmen the way I respect Jimmy Buffet or Garth Brooks- honestly. Those guys all figured out a way to mass market themselves and make a boatload of cash off bland, lowest common denominator music. My hat is off to them, in all seriousness. I just don't want to listen to it. There's an album I love that features all of that- it's called "Exile On Main Street", and it doesn't sound a damn thing like Huey Lewis. Vive le difference.

 

 

Wow...those are your examples of songs that "blow away" something like "I want a new drug"? Husker du strumming one chord for every bar with a simplistic drum beat and boring vocals?

 

And more 8th note plodding on the second one with vocals so out of key it's I don't know how you could stand it.

 

And both don't deliver one decent hook in the entire songs.

 

Now of course that's just my opinion, and if you like that stuff better than good for you. I'm not right and you're not either in terms of "like".

 

You use words like "artistic integrity" and "longevity" but again those terms are meaningless. Who's standard of those terms are we to use? Yours? Mine? It's subjective dude. The point you can't seem to understand. I know you really really really think there is something more fundamentally "pure" and "true" with the bands you are posting..but there isn't. It's just in your head.

 

And really dude...you think husker du and that other band you posted have had more longevity than HL? Please. Look at the live vid there of modern Huey...Husker Du get those kinds of crowds these days? (do they even still exist?)

 

I can show you tons of young people who have no {censored}ing clue who zeppelin is or was and are into stuff that you'd have no clue about.

 

The simple fact is you just cannot see past your own bias of what you think is "good music". You think your definitions are some how universal.

 

In short you are exactly the type of person I was talking about in my first post. My friends who would be only into one type of music in the 80's and everything else was {censored} if it didn't fit into that genre. It's just snobbery plain and simple. Thinking because your songs have "this" or "that" quality that some how make them superior to something else. All the rest of the reasons you give are just your own way to reinforce your opinion in your head. "Huey Lewis was conformist, marketed, mass produced crap.." "The music I liked never got popular therefore it gives me more credibility."

 

Well I've got a news flash for you. All those bands you thought were really cool...and the little "indie" labels they were on? Yeah, they SOLD to you too. They created and fed that MARKET of kids who felt out of place. The bands played to that image and you bought it. Just like the metal band sold an idea and a lifestyle to me and my circle. And we bought into it too. And just like the yuppie suckers bought into 80's pop. Doesn't mean there can't be great songs in each genre, unless you close your mind to the idea that there might be.

 

The sooner you open your mind to the idea that there is no better or worse in music the more you will find your horizons expanding.