Ask 411 Music: Actual Feedback! Hooray!
Posted by Adam Wallis on 10.29.2002
More on "Rock On" and the Eminem/Canibus feud; What "emo" REALLY is and a ridiculously overly-long list of albums to buy; Jack and Meg White; Why Slash hates Axl; Marilyn Manson's ill-fated collaboration with the Sneaker Pimps; N.E.R.D.'s "other" album; miscellaneous Nirvana stuff; Steelheart and the movie Rockstar. Sure, it's trivia, but it's all in good clean fun!
For your listening pleasure: The Rolling Stones - 12x5 (the new Stones reissues sound incredible, by the way), The Beatles - Revolver, Randy Newman's Sail Away (Randy Newman is one of the most underappreciated musicians ever, so I also recommend throwing a couple of dollars his way), Ben Kweller - Sha Sha, and Tom Waits' Rain Dogs.
Before I get to the questions, I received four emails with some more information on two topics addressed in the last edition: David Essex's "Rock On," and the Eminem/Canibus feud.
From Frank Richardson: A little bit more on David Essex / 'Rock On'...
David Essex shot to fame as one of the Teddy Boys in the film 'That'll Be the Day', co-starring Ringo Starr. Rock On, his first chart-topping single (in some countries) was produced by Jeff Wayne, who did the musical version of 'War Of The Worlds' with the late Richard Burton. In 1989 (or so... that was when we saw it in Australia) Michael Damian recorded a version which charted around the world. Who? Well, Mr Damian plays played Danny Romalato (?) the singer in The Young And The Restless on daytime TV. The wild bass line of the original was also sampled by, I believe, MC Hammer for one of his lousy pseudo-rap songs.
Fellow 411 Music columnist James Marshall also pointed out that the Smashing Pumpkins covered "Rock On" at one point in their careers, and it can be found on Judas O, the bonus disc included with some versions of their Greatest Hits album.
From BIGRipsta: The beef between Eminem and Can-I-Bus is actually very real. It dates back to the 1997 rap olympics where Em lost to Canibus. If you take a listen to the opening lines of "Role Model" off of Eminem's second album, the Slim Shady LP, you'll hear a quick shot in Canibus' direction: "I'm cancerous so when I dis you wouldn't want to answer this//if you responded back with a battle rap you wrote for Canibus"
And for the record, he has taken the beef a bit farther, spending a verse verbally destroying canibus and Jermain Dupri on his contribution to Xzibit's new record, Man vs. Machine, "My Name."
Enrique Santiago also wrote in to point out that Eminem and Canibus have battle-rapped before, which I'm sure would be cool to hear. Like most things, it's probably available for download on your file-sharing server of choice, so check that out if you're interested.
Thanks a lot for helping fill in the gaps, guys. Reader feedback rules!
Oddly, the first two questions I received were from two of my other fellow 411 pundits, who both mailed in virtually the same question. And it's a question I've really been hoping someone would ask, too. How's that for coincidence?
Cody Webster: Hey! I have a question. All I hear about is EMO. Yes, I know it stands for emotion, but that's about it. I was wondering if you could give me a good example of a emo song. You know, some song that is pure emo.
Legendary 411 Music News Reporter, Adam Cankaya: What exactly is Emo? Everybody says its music with "emotion" so I guess that means the Beatles, Eminem, the soundtrack from Bravehert, Hendrix, Pearl Jam and Eric Clapton are all in the emo genre as the majority of that music is very emotional? If music is suppose to be art then wouldn't any music that didn't have emotion just be worthless filler?
Hmmm, where to begin? Well, first of all, "emo" doesn't just stand for "emotion," it stands for "emotional hardcore." Or at least it used to, but there's not much "hardcore" left in emo anymore. As a note to avoid confusion, whenever I use the word "hardcore," I'm referring to hardcore punk (Minor Threat and Bad Brains being examples). This is also going to be pretty long (mostly because emo is so misunderstood these days), but hopefully you'll be able to learn a thing or two by the end of it. I also saved my recommendations for the end, so you're gonna have to read it all to find some good music. Well, I suppose you could just scroll down, but that would ruin my day. Just read it, okay? It'll take 15 minutes at most, and wouldn't you rather waste them with me instead of, say, this website? At the very least, it's one less thing to ask Scott Keith about.
The origins of emo are tough to pin down exactly, but it's pretty plain to see that emo's roots lie in the initial post-hardcore movement, which was pioneered by a band called Husker Du. Husker Du's back-to-back releases Zen Arcade (1984) and New Day Rising (1985) pretty much laid whatever groundwork was necessary for post-harcore; that is to say, these two releases took hardcore's preoccupation with the "faster harder louder" mentality, artistic authenticity, and the over-commercialization of the music industry and directed it into new territory.
Emo, one facet of the new "post-hardcore" scene, took that zeal and applied it to largely lyrical concerns. Emo lyrics tend to be of a very personal variety, and the music itself seeks to emphasize the emotion felt by the singer. Since human emotions are so rarely rational, the music is (well, was, anyway...) often eccentric and yet moving, full of noodling guitar work, white noise, feedback, and atypical structures.
Generally, Rites Of Spring are considered the "first" emo band, although I think it's pretty silly to pin it down to one and only one band. However, I believe the reason why Rites Of Spring is so important is their vocalist, Guy Picciotto, who I'll come back to in a second. Another of the first breed of emo bands was Embrace, an extremely short-lived act featuring former Minor Threat leader and hardcore icon Ian MacKaye on vocals. MacKaye was also the owner of Dischord Records, a label originally founded to document the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene. As hardcore itself was branching out, so did Dischord with the bands it signed, one of them being Rites Of Spring. When Rites of Spring eventually disbanded, Guy Picciotto and MacKaye formed their own band, the almighty Fugazi.
Fugazi pretty much defines the early emo scene, both in their sound and their mentality of ten-dollar albums and eight-dollar shows. There were a few other notable early emo bands as well, like Dag Nasty and Lungfish, both of which are making superb music to this day. But not much in the way of innovation came into the emo scene until 1994, when Sunny Day Real Estate borrowed a little from the recent grunge movement and presented the prototype of what "emo" would come to mean with their debut album Diary. Eric Katz was nice enough to review it for us right here on 411 Music, so let's all go read it. In 1996, Weezer further built on the idea of emo with Pinkerton, which despite horrible reviews at the time of it's release still managed to influence a new generation of sensitive guys to pick up their instruments and sing about their girl trouble. Every "emo" band since 1996 has borrowed something (perhaps unknowingly, but borrowed nonetheless) from either one or both of these two albums.
Now, I put emo in quotes just then for a reason: these two albums also marked a turning point for emo, because it was now becoming vastly different from the emo of old - I call this emo's "second wave," but that's just me. There were still a few bands attempting to play emo styled after the innovators (Drive Like Jehu and Les Savy Fav being the best of them) but true "emotional hardcore" has falled by the wayside, and now a poppier, more commercial form of emo had come into favor. Bands like The Get Up Kids, The Promise Ring (the first emo band to "go pop," which they did on 1999's Very Emergency), New Found Glory, and Saves The Day were now adding more pop-punk sensibilities to the emotional hardcore stew, and this newer, more easily digestible brand of emo was greeted with some degree of mainstream success. Latter-day emo bands like the aforementioned Saves The Day and The Get Up Kids, and also bands like Jets To Brazil, Jimmy Eat World, and Taking Back Sunday have achieved some degree of success in indie circles, and some have even managed to break into the pop charts. This is, of course, in direct contrast to the uncompromising and anti-commercial ethics of original emo bands, but who's to say whether that's a good or bad thing? Certainly not me. I'm just pointing out that it's a contrast, that's all.
To directly answer Cody's question first, I don't think emo can be accurately expressed in just one song, especially now that there's essentially two versions of it. But if I had to pick just one, I think I'd go with "Little League," by Cap'n Jazz for the first wave, and "Emergency! Emergency!" by the Promise Ring for the second. However, since I tend to judge bands by albums and not singles, I can recommend quite a few emo albums well worth owning (I put the list in chronological order because the second wave becomes pretty apparent right around the Alkaline Trio, if that helps put things in perspective):
Rites Of Spring: End On End (a collection of songs recorded prior to 1988 re-released on Dischord Records, 1991); Fugazi: 13 Songs (Dischord Records, 1990) and Repeater (Dischord Records, 1990); Drive Like Jehu: Drive Like Jehu (Headhunter Records, 1991); Sunny Day Real Estate: Diary (Sub Pop Records, 1994); Cap'n Jazz: Analphabetapolothology (originally released on Man With Gun Records under the title Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards In The Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Stepped On And Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over in 1994, re-released with a great deal of bonus tracks on Jade Tree Records, 1998); Jawbox: For Your Own Special Sweetheart (Atlantic Records, 1994); any album the Promise Ring released on Jade Tree (Very Emergency is the most historically important, but the other two are more of the original idea of what emo was intended to be); Texas Is The Reason: Do You Know Who You Are? (Revelation Records, 1996); Weezer: Pinkerton (Geffen Records, 1996); The Get Up Kids: Four Minute Mile (Doghouse Records, 1997); anything the Alkaline Trio released on Fueled By Ramen Records (two full albums and a singles collection, all of which are great); The Ataris: Blue Skies, Broken Hearts... Next Twelve Exits (Kung Fu Records, 1999); Les Savy Fav: 3/5 (Self-Starter Records, 1999) and Emor: Rome Upside Down (Southern Records, 2000); Midtown: Save The World Lose The Girl (Drive-Thru Records, 2000); Cursive: Domestica (Saddle Creek Records, 2000). Your local record store should already stock each of these fine albums, but if they don't, just request that they special-order the one you're looking for, and they'll usually call you when it arrives. Virtually every store will do this for you at no extra charge, but they often don't advertise it, for some reason. Of course, you don't need to buy anything close to every album on this list to get a clear idea of what emo was and is, but I just figured I'd suggest every worthwhile emo album I could think of, in case you're looking for something new.
And finally, for the other Adam: I agree with the logic behind your point, and I also agree with the notion that music, as an art form, is essentially worthless if it can't inspire emotion. But as I said earlier, emo doesn't just stand for emotion, it stand for emotional hardcore - hardcore being the all-important qualifier.
As a footnote to all this, I personally am a fan of pretty much all emo up until about 1998, when the "depressed skinny kid in his mid-twenties cooking pasta all alone in his apartment because his girlfriend dumped him" stereotype started to take over. Also, to address what I'm sure someone is wondering, Dashboard Confessional is not an emo band. Their music bears none of the usual fingerprints of emo and has no hardcore influence. Lyrically, the only emotion their songs ever deal with is sadness, which is literally always caused by a break-up. I have nothing against the band, but there are other emotions than sadness and other causes of emotions than the dissolution of a relationship. Dashboard just isn't emo. Which, again, isn't a bad thing or a good thing, it's just a thing.
Sorry to be longwinded there, but I've been a fan of emo since the old days, and the style is becoming more and more misunderstood.
Here's a list from ~*Speakes*~: 1. Are The White Stripes Meg and Jack White brother and sister or husband and wife? I've heard conflicting rumors.
2. You've focused on Eminem feuds a little bit, but could you explain to me the tension between Slash and Axl Rose from Gun's And Roses?
3.To continue with the music feuds idea, could you tell me the reasoning between the problems with Marilyn Manson and the band Sneaker Pimps?
4. I've heard that N.E.R.D. put out a version of their cd In Search Of... that was recalled and replaced with the version that is on the stands now. Is there any truth to this, and if so, why was it recalled?
1) No one really knows. In fact, I sometimes wonder if even Jack and Meg know anymore. Originally, they were touted as a brother-and-sister duo, and they've always said in interviews that they were brother and sister. Given their similar facial features and complexions, I'd have to agree, but there's also some evidence to the contrary. As you may know, they're from Detroit, and when they played a 'homecoming' concert a while back and said that they were brother and sister, the local crowd laughed. Also, there's no record of a family in Detroit named 'White' with a son and daughter named 'Jack' and 'Meg.' A marriage license was recently brought to light claiming to prove that they were married, but it turned out to be a fake.
2) Axl and Slash never really got along that well during the band's tenure, but the main reason for their feud is, to the best of my knowledge, that Axl decided that Slash shouldn't be in the band anymore. This probably wouldn't have been that bad, except rather than tell Slash face-to-face like a mature adult, Axl announced on MTV that Slash was out of the band before actually, you know, telling Slash about it. Slash wound up seeing Axl's announcement on TV, and tried to contact him, but couldn't; he didn't wind up receiving any written notification until at least a few days later, and soon after went on MTV to say that he had heard nothing about his firing. This pretty much ruined whatever working relationship they had, and I don't believe that they've forgiven each other yet.
3) The troubles between the two bands began when they were asked to collaborate on a song called "Long Hard Road Out Of Hell" for the soundtrack to the movie Spawn. Manson had already written the song and has claimed that he simply wanted a female vocalist to sing backup, and had heard the Sneaker Pimps on the radio and thought the singer's voice would work perfectly. The Sneaker Pimps, on the other hand, planned to do something more along the lines of a remix of Manson's version of the song. The Pimps later likened the experience to "polishing a turd," and were very unhappy with the final outcome of the collaboration. Conversely, Manson viewed the whole thing simply as an friendly opportunity to give the Sneaker Pimps some publicity, and has acted pretty indifferent about the whole thing. Though I don't think either camp has apologized to the other, the song is about five years old at this point, so the beef has most likely been forgotten.
4) So far as I know, what happened was the N.E.R.D. group wasn't happy with the version of In Search Of... that was originally slated for release, and went back into the studio to re-record it. The first version featured music comprised entirely of samples and programmed sounds/beats, while the version that was actually released featured a lot more live instrumentation, though all the songs were essentially the same arraingements and kept the same titles. However, I don't think any of the first version was ever formally released, save for the song "Lap Dance," which was released as a single before the album came out.
Albert asks: I have a couple of questions relating to the group Nirvana. I've heard rumors for years now of a movie based on the band and kurt's life. How do you think this movie would do in the box office? and Had kurt been able to kick away the drug habit how much longer do you think the band would have lasted as a "top tier" band?
Well, there was never a formal box-office release (complete with actors playing Kurt, Kris, Dave, and Courtney Love and a "Based On A True Story" tag on the poster) in the works so far as I know, but there was documentary about Kurt's life released in 1998, under the title Kurt & Courtney. Comprised largely of interviews with people closely connected to Kurt and Courtney Love and also some home video footage, the film also documents Courtney Love's efforts to stop all funding for the movie due to filmmaker Nick Broomfield's uncompromising portrayal of everyone involved in the film, especially Courtney herself. For a lot of legal reasons, the movie was never released at theaters, but probably would have done modestly had it been released (given the cult Nirvana audience and the movie's minor crossover appeal). It's a great documentary with a lot of very telling interviews, and I highly recommend seeking it out; you could probably find it used for pretty cheap at Amazon.com if your local video store doesn't carry it.
Your second question is a pretty touchy subject, insofar as there are a lot of huge Nirvana fans out there. To answer your exact question, I've always been of the opinion that the drugs were necessary for Kurt to live the lifestyle that propagated his music - that is to say, if Kurt had cleaned up, Nirvana's music wouldn't have been as good. But to just assume that Kurt had never killed himself, my best guess that Nirvana would have continued to put out great music for at least another few years, but would have either lost their touch, or their audience, or bowed to label pressure to change their sound, or something else would have happened to make them follow a career path more like the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith rather than the Beatles or Bob Dylan. In other words, we'd get 5-10 albums of material ranging from average to classic, and then 20 more years worth of stuff ranging from sub-par to terrible. Of course, it's impossible to say for sure, but that's just my opinion.
Fatalcharm410: Could u shed some light on the vocals in the movie "Rocks Star", with Mark Wahlberg. I heard the vocals was by the old 80s band "Steelheart". I remember some story about the singer of the band, suffered a head injury in the early 90's, and pretty much lost his memory completely. I heard the guy is far dissassociated with who he was. Any idea?
For those not familiar with the plot of the movie, it goes something like this: Mark Wahlberg plays a guy that sings for a well-known tribute band called "Blood Pollution" but dreams of making it to the Rock 'N' Roll big-time. The band that Blood Pollution devotes itself to is the fictitious "Steel Dragon." Wahlberg is kicked out of the tribute band he helped form, but gains a measure of revenge on his old bandmates when the actual Steel Dragon needs a new singer, and Wahlberg gets the job. I only bring this up because it's based on the story of Tim "Ripper" Owens, the lead singer of a Judas Priest cover band who eventually did become the singer of Judas Priest after Rob Halford left the band.
The vocals for the songs credited Steel Dragon that appeared in the movie were indeed sung by Mike Matijevic of Steelheart, perhaps chosen because of the similarity in the two band's names. Mike also did suffer a head injury as you pointed out, which occurred when a lighting rig fell on him during a concert. As far as his personal life goes, he may indeed be a totally different person after suffering the injury, but he has reunited with his old band for an album that was released in the year 2000.
And that wraps it up for this edition, but always remember: send me mail!
