A journal like a twitter thread

[TheBig3]

Whoever wrote this skit is a fucking genius. Arguments like this are what I live for.

[Guybrush]

Haha, yeah. That's a good skit.

Early Weezer is good. Undone, Tired of sex, Buddy Holly.

The Africa cover was pointless. It's completely inferior to the original and also doesn't add anything substantially new or interesting, so I find it kinda baffling when things like that get popular.

[Trollheart]

I still don't like albums.

 

Have you ever listened to someone tell a joke or a story, and afterwards you thought "That could have been 5 minutes shorter, and it would have been more effective"? That's kind of how I feel about albums. Cut to the chase, get to the meat, and cut out the fat. Yes, sometimes an album can be a connected set of songs, all moving together to create a deep tapestry of emotion and painting a beautiful picture. But you have to understand I graduated high school in 2001, and we were buying $20 albums with 18 tracks and 2 good songs. That's just what was done.

 

While there's a lot to dislike about the modern music industry, streaming is a godsend. I get a chance to try things out, song by song. Save a lot of cash upfront (I still haven't been compensated for what the record industry did to my paychecks in the 90's/Aughts), and invest more in going to shows.

 

The one area of streaming I don't think has been fully fleshed out yet is from the artists. Too many artists are still recording music as if it were the 80's. 10-12 songs on an "album." Just stop. Release 2-3 songs at a time. Work on those seriously. Throw out random covers every now and again. If your band got in a fight about how to arrange the track – release both. What do you care? Let the listener's vote. Ok so one of you loses. You can go cry on the pile of money you make from commercial success.

 

Too many people want to be artists through a paint-by-numbers. For every [insert your favorite artist here] there's a 30 Seconds to Mars or Maroon 5 that is just going through the motions. Or Ed Sheeren, my god. That guy is just...Anyway, I think albums are "tradition" and like all tradition, if it goes on too long it just becomes bigotry. Let it go. Write enough bangers to go on tour again. Do side projects. Enjoy yourselves. And remember, if there's no new album, there won't be a mass rush to the beer tent during the middle of your set.

 

Although I'm older than you and therefore should not, I actually agree with you. I was brought up on a tradition of albums, but that was only because that was all we had. And even then I certainly am familiar with the idea of the duff tracks, the tracks you skip over, the ones you listen to and hope hope hope there are going to be better, and the oft-repeated ritual of the first, or maybe first and second being great, and then the rest of the album taking a nosedive. Making albums was - and probably still is - as you hint at, kind of an excuse for artists to dump any old crap they have on the disc/mixtape/insert as appropriate to your age and era, and really, should not an artist be trying with every bone in their musical body to make EVERY track good? If a writer writes a crap story he or she is not happy with, do they include it in a collection? No. Usually. Stephen King excepted: that man can write but boy can he turn out some turkeys! So if you dont' think a song is up to scratch, why include it?

I find myself listening to albums for one reason only - well, two, but one main one: to review. I also listen to what I can once through (especially new ones or new ones by artists I like) just to see what they're like, but yeah, overall if I'm listening it's shuffled playlists. An odd song may make me want to listen to an album again, and there are some you really just can't listen to out of context with tracks, such as Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, The War of the Worlds or the first side of 2112, but generally, yeah I do agree. So many albums now are 20 or more tracks, with often very little meat in among the offal. So I would support your initiative. Now all we need is funding.

Cool idea for a journal by the way. Good to see you writing again.

[TheBig3]

Ghosts of a forum I once knew.

I came across a really fun article today. "How Clutch Became The Phish Of Hard Rock"

It's fun because I love comparing bands, and the less obvious the better. It's fun because I love Clutch and it's rare to find someone who appreciates them period, nevermind as much as you do. And it's fun because I like reading about people's passions.

But then it hit me that Plankton wasn't around anymore to appreciate the article with me. If you knew Plankton back on MB, great. If you don't, it's not imperative, he was just one of the few people I "knew" who appreciated a band I liked, and one day he vanished. And now what do I do with this great musical treasure I've found except to mourn the loss of an internet friend.

Music has a great way of bonding people, and Clutch is a band that, if you heard them from a car window as it drove past, you'd probably chalk it up as another post-grunge band trying to sound hard. But Clutch is not that. Humorous, literate, adventurous in a way that I don't hear many other bands date attempt. Humor in music is not easy to pull off. You kind of need some balls to get up there and do it. And you need a way to get through the initial "I don't want people thinking I listen to Nickleback bands" feeling. Few make it to the otherside.

When the White Stripes first started playing, they'd dress up as pieces of candy. And Jack White said "If you can't get past the costumes, you're not going to get the music anyway" (or something like that). There's a similar thing going on with Clutch. If you listen to Willie Nelson and think it's Limp Bizkit redux, well then I don't think there's anything I can do for you.

And Plankton knew. And anytime I heard news about them I'd message him, or post in the thread and hope my Bat signal reached across gotham. Well, my friend, I hope wherever you are, you read that headline and went "oh wtf?" just like it did. But then read it and realized the author is one of us. Good luck, and god bless.

[DJChameleon]

Plankton introduced me to Clutch as well. I went back to MB to see if I had any posts in the thread there and I guess my memory has betrayed me because I didn't have a single post in the thread but going back to the first post from 2005 and seeing all the people that posted in that thread was definitely a walk down memory lane of old MB posters.

Murder Junkie, Jackhammer, 333, crash override, Antonio. I wonder what they are all up to nowadays.

[Lexi Darling]

Plankton introduced me to Clutch as well. I went back to MB to see if I had any posts in the thread there and I guess my memory has betrayed me because I didn't have a single post in the thread but going back to the first post from 2005 and seeing all the people that posted in that thread was definitely a walk down memory lane of old MB posters.

Murder Junkie, Jackhammer, 333, crash override, Antonio. I wonder what they are all up to nowadays.

Yeah I'll occasionally check back on some of those old threads. Quite a few people I'd love to see join up here. Cardboard Adolescent, Molecules, Satchmo, Isbjorn, not sure where any of them are now, what they're doing, but their posts made an impact on me.