Friday, March 19, 2010

HATE IT! Part 13 - Surrealistic Pillow



















Again I've gone to the slop trough that is the Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest albums of all time to elbow the swine of classic rock to the side and pull out a scrap of rotten food undeserving of its accolades. Honestly, what the fuck were those hippies thinking when they listened to this crap and thought it sounded good? Grace Slick could never sing for shit, none of the members could really play all that well, and how many fucking songs about drugs did they need to listen to anyway? "White rabbit" in all its jackass allegory can suck the corn out of a bum's diarrhea pants. "Somebody to love" was really nothing new when it came out, it was just shriekier than the other, poppier schmaltz of the time. Jerry Garcia produced it, but even he didn't seem to like these guys too much. If you watch "Gimme Shelter", there's a great scene where Hell's Angels punch Marty Balin in the face and knock him out, then when Paul Kantner steps up, they beat his ass too. Then we see the Grateful Dead show up and someone tells Jerry that Balin and Kantner got their asses kicked, and Garcia is standing there with this giant shit-eating grin on his face, saying "oh, bummer, man." Yeah, he was as stoked as I was. Why? BECAUSE THEY FUCKING SUCK. THEY SUCK SEVERED PENISES FILLED WITH PUS AND TOPPED WITH SHIT, LIKE SOME KIND OF VILE, DISEASED ECLAIR. Then eventually they wrote "we built this city" about how they fucking invented rock in that town or something, which ironically was the opposite of a song that rocks. So fuck 'em and fuck the RS person who put this pile of shit on the list.

10 comments:

Dan said...

Oooh....I can't begin to tell you how much I disagree with you. This was groundbreaking FUCKING rock and roll. They had a sound that was unmatched with each part integral to the next. I am deeply sorry for you that you cant find a shred of good from this classic rock album. Also Jerry produced an album in his drug fogged state better than most producers i.e. Black Eyed..fuckin Peas.

Master Cianan said...

Ah, sweet dissent! I could be glib and say "unmatched in its shittiness" (OK, guess I just did) but really, there's just nothing they did that sounds good to me. Now I don't think I should be pitied for that, though...

But if you want to hate on the black eyed peas, by all means stick around the blog. You'll get no argument from me about those assholes.

Anonymous said...

"BECAUSE THEY FUCKING SUCK. THEY SUCK SEVERED PENISES FILLED WITH PUS AND TOPPED WITH SHIT, LIKE SOME KIND OF VILE, DISEASED ECLAIR."

Classic.

I don't really care for this album, or for these guys at all, but I don't share your hatred. Very middling stuff, not enough to get my angry fingers going. Dan, considering all the rest of the music at the time, if this was groundbreaking, it broke an inch and was promptly replaced by numerous edifices of monstrous magnitude.

Dan said...

It was an inch that took a mile. If you want to hear the best of JA check out "The Worst of Jefferson Airplane". That is my favorite JA album because it captures all of what they were about. Check out Lather and tell me that is not creative.

Master Cianan said...

"the worst of Jefferson Airplane", huh? Sounds like they knew the score.

I totally agree with you, Bryan, that it's really not groundbreaking music. They had the recognition as a hippie band, and had some songs about the counterculture, but big whoop, really. They didn't have that market cornered by any means, and tons of bands were way farther out there in terms of being progressive.

Anonymous said...

Dan,

That title alone is maybe worth checking it out, if nothing else but for a good laugh.

Master Cianan,

All I have to say is, when the Doors invited JA to the studio and Morrison was shrieking and howling and scared the shit out of them during "Horse Latitudes," whatever experimentalism they had was dwarfed by the sheer madness of Mr. Mojo Risin.

Master Cianan said...

Ugh, the Doors.

Dan said...

You see you guys dont get it. JA backed the Doors a number of times and adored Jim Morrison. They were "party" buddies and in fact Jim came out stoned/drunk while JA was on stage once and proceeded to lie down and pass out. I am not recommending that what they did was wholesome but they produced as good a music as anyone else back then. My main thing is the "young"talent that was kicking out great music so regularly back then. Sure engineers helped make the sound palatable on an album as compared to live, but the words and the melodies connected to people of the day and that music still does even today, including JA.

Master Cianan said...

Oh, I get it, Dan. I just don't like it. The Doors are another band who generally land on my fecal roster. Morrison was a drunken, self indulgent buffoon. In fact, that's exactly why I dislike so much of the music that came out of this era: It's entirely self-indulgent, self-congratulatory twaddle. At best, it doesn't interest me, at worst it makes me plug my ears and whine. You'll have to forgive me for not patting those people on the back.

Anonymous said...

Dan

The Doors are one of my faves, right up there with Floyd, Steely Dan, Sabbath -- but the Airplane? Few decent songs at best. I don't know, I think listening to the entirety of the music of that era in a short period has unconsciously made me relegate the least-talented to where they belong -- at the bottom. Bands were doing it better before them and way better after them. They just sort of came, did their one-trick pony thing and left, only to come back continuously and embarrass themselves.

Cianan,

Morrison was a full-fledged can-I-suck-my-own-cock kind of a wanker, and he was so awesome for it. The band on the other hand gave him the perfect backdrop to let that loosy goosy wackness shine. I get why you may not like it, but I totally dig the fuck out of it.