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Post by maarts on Jun 25, 2006 2:41:53 GMT -5
Not before you did! Good point.
Arguably they also influenced the New Romantic synth movement.
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Post by Mary on Jun 25, 2006 2:43:21 GMT -5
btw I've never even heard of Slapp Happy before, maarts. You're a walking encyclopedia of music. Amazing.
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Post by maarts on Jun 25, 2006 2:51:25 GMT -5
Slapp Happy shouldn't be a stranger for any Henry Cow-fan nor Faust-adept as both bands were main deliverers for this seventies-outfit. A mate of mine was a big Henry Cow-fan and through him I got Acnalbasac Moon which is still a landmark in Krautrock. Vocalist Dagmar Krause is one of the most underrated singers ever- think Ute Lemper, Nico's strong German accent and bits of Diamanda (she likes to whoop and holler) rolled into one and you are close to it. She was also involved in perhaps one other brilliant post-punk band, The Art Bears with Fred Frith (in those days the avantgardist-guitarist pur sang).
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Post by Mary on Jun 25, 2006 2:55:00 GMT -5
Slapp Happy shouldn't be a stranger for any Henry Cow-fan nor Faust-adept as both bands were main deliverers for this seventies-outfit. A mate of mine was a big Henry Cow-fan and through him I got Acnalbasac Moon which is still a landmark in Krautrock. Vocalist Dagmar Krause is one of the most underrated singers ever- think Ute Lemper, Nico's strong German accent and bits of Diamanda (she likes to whoop and holler) rolled into one and you are close to it. She was also involved in perhaps one other brilliant post-punk band, The Art Bears with Fred Frith (in those days the avantgardist-guitarist pur sang). Wow. Holy shit. Ute Lemper, Nico, and Diamanda?? I don't know whether to be excited or scared shitless. this converstion inspired me to play the post-punk/noisey-noise mix i made on iTunes a while ago. It's very very loose as far as 'post-punk' goes - practically refers to anything relatively inacessible or experimental or non-traditional recorded post-1980. but right now pigface is playing and seriously, they sound fucking great. poor pigface - with a name like that, no one is gonna take ya seriously..... but i'm loving 'em. all over again. |
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Post by maarts on Jun 25, 2006 3:14:40 GMT -5
He he he. Actually I'm playing some Zappa whilst cooking my meal (chicken). Talk about post-, proto or pre-any sort of music!
Just spotted the other posts in between my waffling- the scoop on Comsat Angels etc?
I don't know, Comsat Angels and Eyeless in Gaza were more wave but had this 'angular' edgy guitar quality that defined a Gang Of Four. The Comsats were in the same line as Joy Division but hardly as suicidal sounding. Sleep No More and Fiction are very good albums indeed. Eyeless had a more dreamy, synth-pop approach with some good Wire-y tracks but it's definitely more wave than post-punk.
Durutti Column is (almost) a guitar-instrumental project with links to folk, pop and even chamber music. It's very atmospherical and seemingly hasn't much to do with punk except for Vini Reilly's membership of Ed Banger & The Nosebleeds. Beautiflu stuff indeed! Stalwart of the early beginnings of the Factory-empire.
Savage Republic! Got into them via Spacemen 3 who loved a good drone themselves! Post punk with industrial/tribal overtones that can sound overwhelming at times.
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Post by rockysigman on Jun 25, 2006 3:33:53 GMT -5
Is Mission of Burma post-punk? If so, they are my #1, hands down. I feel sort of guilty giving it to someone other than Sonic Youth, but at the moment, by heart lies with Mission of Burma, and it isn't even really close.
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Post by maarts on Jun 25, 2006 4:44:45 GMT -5
Yeah I saw you picked up The Obliterati, Rocky- it is a damn good album indeed.
And I'd say that in the eighties they have had a lot of Gang Of Four-influences in them with a more sonic onslaught reserved for punkbands. Wow, I haven't listened to VS in two decades almost and I loved songs like Secrets and the Ballad Of Johnny Burma ver much....
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Post by JesusLooksLikeMe on Jun 25, 2006 4:48:58 GMT -5
I got into Gang of Four, Wire and Joy Division in the late 80s. I also appreciate the Fall. Obviously there are going to be some good bands from any genre. But overall, the genre reaks of too much synthesizers, too much drum machine and too much hair spray. I think you're failing to distinguish post-punk from the new romantics. Who are these synth and hairspray bands you allude to? Name them. |
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Post by JesusLooksLikeMe on Jun 25, 2006 4:51:10 GMT -5
Ah, I see Mary already covered that point, though in terms of new wave rather than new romantics. And yeah Mary, that early Human League stuff is weird, eh? Complete crap though. In all honesty, I'd sooner listen to Dare than either Travelogue or the frankly awful Reproduction.  I can't agree with leaving the Cure off your post punk list. The Cure and the Banshees are fundamental to the post punk movement, imo, no matter how many other labels - principally goth, I suppose - that you can hang on them subsequently. What about The Sound? Do they fit? |
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Post by JesusLooksLikeMe on Jun 25, 2006 4:54:27 GMT -5
What's post punk now, in 2006? I suppose we refer to the post-Franz explosion as neo post punk or (ha ha) post post punk, but all those 18 year olds out there listening to it just call it post punk. So this is an important addendum or postscript to the movement, at the very least. We may even be living in the golden age of post punk right now, although that remains to be seen from a future perspective, and probably not by nostalgic 30-somethings who love to reminisce about Gang of Four albums.
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Post by pauledwardwagemann on Jun 25, 2006 11:52:16 GMT -5
I don't know how representative this is of PostPunk, but I randomly opened a page in the Simon Reynolds book and started writing down all the names of the 80s bands he was discussing (over a bout a 10 page section) in a chapter detailing what Reynolds calls the 2nd British Invasion. Here's what I got:
abc
soft cell
tubeway army
eurythmics
cure
spandau ballet
human league
ultroxox
scritti polliti
orange juice
aztec cameras
altered images
depeche mode
fun boy three
new order
bow wow wow
banshees
haricutt 100
simple minds
duran duran
thompson twins
whatm
culture club
adam ant
kajagoogoo
billy idol
devo
yazoo
...the new romantics stuff and the new wave/dance synch pop is really the stuff I find most puke-worthy...
My main problem with this music is that I cant identify with alot of it, especially the more teenage-girlish aspects of it. The music's got no balls--thats not to say that there arent examples of song sthat I like.
EDIT: I'm gonna post some "PostPunk" songs on the YouSendIt thread, if anyone else would like to participate, I'd appreciate it...
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Post by Mary on Jun 25, 2006 12:07:16 GMT -5
Jeesh, Simon Reynolds' definition of post-punk seems to be completely all-inclusive. Like, any bands which came after punk rock which aren't R&B or metal = post-punk. That's waaaaaaay too loose a label for me.
Mission of Burma are definitely post-punk, I think. But they don't make my list. They're bubbling under for sure, but not top 10. I'm not an expert on them by any means, but I've got one big compilation, which I find kinda uneven. Some of the songs are stellar and some leave little impression on me.
As for the Cure (and the Banshees, whom I honestly totally forgot!) I can definitely see counting them as post-punk, especially to the extent that goth seems like a subgenre of post-punk and whether or not they are literally "goth" they are obviously a massively important influence on the genre and beloved by many self-identified goths. I decided to classify them as new wave only because of a conversation I once had with a friend of mine about this pressing issue (the line between post-punk and new wave) and she pointed out that my classification system (I counted the Cure, the Smiths, Echo and the Bunymen, and the Banshees all under post-punk at the time) basically seemed to be post-punk = bands that are good and new wave = bands that suck. And that that was a weak classification system solely based on personal taste rather than meaningful genre distinctions. That seemed like a fair criticism. However I can't really figure out wtf the "objective" genre distinction was that objectively segregated Joy Division from the Cure (she definitely agreed that joy division were post-punk, which is hard to argue with, since they seem quintessentially post-punk in a lot of ways) so I'm not about to put up a fight over this. I think perhaps there was just a basic sense of accessibility as the real dividing line. But I dunno about that - Gang of Four seem pretty fuckin accessible to me. So once again the new wave vs. post-punk problem strikes me as intractable - it's like the Fermat's Last Thereom of music geekdom!!
I honestly think a lot of it has to do with MTV. The explosion of new wave is so closely related to the explosion of MTV. It strikes me that a lot of new wave bands owe their careers at least in part to MTV, and to a very carefully managed marketing of image through videos. Bands that are typically classified as "post-punk" had less of a presence on MTV, and a lot of them were over before MTV even went on air. As a genre distinction this is dubious, but it might have spillover effects. If you are carefully attending to your image to make it MTV-friendly, this can also result in a similar attention to your music, making it relatively more accessible, melodic, friendly-upon-first-listen, etc etc.
But who knows.
The Sound - hmmmmm. I suppose I'd class 'em as post-punk, but the truth is, my obsession with them was extremely short-lived. I haven't listened to them in ages. Can barely even remember what they sound like. Doh.
Cheers,
M
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Post by Mary on Jun 25, 2006 12:17:13 GMT -5
As for all the neo-post-punk (ack!!!! my eyes!!! what a hideous genre name!) bands of today..... I don't know much about this scene, my knowledge of contemporary music is pretty weak. But the one thing about the 'post-punk' label for these bands that strikes me as problematic is that there's something about the very idea of 'post-punk' that seems anti-revivalist. I'm not saying these bands are bad or unworthy because they're revivalists - whatever, I'm not such a fucking fundamentalist. But, simply trying to capture the spirit of what 'post-punk' is supposed to mean, I think in part it's supposed to capture a spirit of creativity that lead a lot of bands in the immediate aftermath of punk to combine the punk ethos with a musical experimentation and an effort to create novel blends of genres (punk/funk, for example). I just don't know how much a strongly revivalist movement can be experimental, and can be looking to create something novel. I'd think some of the crazy stuff going on in electronica now is actually more 'post-punk' in some ways than a band who sound like Gang of Four or Joy Division.
Cheers,
M
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Post by pauledwardwagemann on Jun 25, 2006 12:28:02 GMT -5
Reynolds definition of PostPunk seems to suggest that it is reliant on something Britpunk started...
"It was a this point [the summer of '77] that the fragile unity that punk had forged between working-class kids and arty middle-class bohemians began to fracture. On one side were the populist "real punks" (later to evolve into Oi and hardcore movements) who beleived that the music needed to stay acessible and unpretentious, to continue to fill its role as the angry voice of the streets. On the other side was the vanguard that came to be known as postpunk, who saw 1977 not as a return to raw rock'n'roll but as a chance to make a break with tradition. The postpunk vanguard...defined punk as an imperative to constant change. They dedicated themselves to fullfilling punk's uncompleted musical revolution..."
I havent got far enough into the book to see if Reynolds distinguishes PostPunk from New Wave, but he does use the term New Pop to describe some of those bands I listed in previous post--from the chapter on the 2nd British Invasion...
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Post by Mary on Jun 25, 2006 12:31:18 GMT -5
I think that's actually a pretty good definition if you're trying to make a point internal to punk rock - i.e. trying to differentiate between two fractures which both came out of punk rock - the orthodox punkers vs. the experimentalists. But if you're just trying to figure out wtf post-punk is, and not just how it differs from punk rock proper, it seems like that definition is a little imprecise. That said, it's probably impossible to define this nonsense anyway and I certainly can't be arsed to do it (i like how within 5 minutes of jllm talking to me on a board, i start using the term 'arsed') so I don't know wtf I'm complaining about.
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