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Wait a minute. When I was a younger-young person, I jeered at old timers who, cool enough to recognize, say, The Who, for what they were in their heyday, would still drool over embarrassing garbage like"Eminence Front" like it was "The Who Sells Out" reborn.
So is this me with the three new Sonic Youth tracks I've heard? Because this is good: Sonic Youth -- Incinerate
No. And for two reasons. One: The aforementioned fans are the type of fat and bearded assholes who love everything by their fave music bands, the guys who buy bottled Geddy Lee farts or a t-shirt worn by Jeff Magnum's bank teller. I hate Sonic Youth 1994-now. I almost tracked them down to try and challenge them to a knife and chain fight just because of Experimental Jet Set and Complete Horseshit.
And two, I might still hate the rest of the new album. So let's apply logc, shall we? The highly opinionated kind, where no prisoners are taken? I'm going to narrow down artists' contributions to the world, in an effort to eliminate all the slop that the highly successful get away with. And maybe to pinpoint the moment at which certian people needed to be taken out and disposed of like a broken legged mare.
For example, some very easy ones would be:
Led Zeppelin can be dismissed in their entirety save for the live rendition of "Whole Lotta Love" from the movie The Song Remains the Same, specifically the 30 seconds of soloing by Jimmy Page, wherein Page uses a Theremin (no shit) while Bonham and Jones enjoy an unexpurgated soul groove they probably enjoyed playing more than the usual Page/Plant D&D -influenced bullshit.
Dave Matthews has no purpose as an organism other than two minutes of the movie Because of Winn-Dixie, about 75 minutes in, where he plays a pretty little acoustic ditty that wouldn't make fans of Iron & Wine blink an eye if you slipped it in between songs from Our Endless Numbered Days. Possibly because that's Iron & Wine's weakest album, but hey, it's the best DM will ever do.
The Zutons ... nah. There's nothing.
See? Easy. Now I dare me:
Iron and Wine: Don't act surprised. I'm trying to inspire argument. Aside from one track on The Creek Drank the Cradle, and then the entire, monumental and delicious Woman King EP, there's nothing else worth listening to by Sam Beam. At least in comparison. And no, I'm not forgetting anything.
The only decent thing about Death Cab for Cutie is the Postal Service. Ain't that some shit? (with the exception, possibly, of "The Sound of Settling" and "Crooked Fingers").
Wilco The first album. And some of A Ghost is Born. The rest of it reeks of WKCR 'semi-popular' music (and I'm a Unc Tupelo fan, but there is no such thing as Sun Volt). And sometimes they're as pretentious as PM Dawn.
Son Volt Nothing. Forget I even listed them. The Rolling Stones To quote Keith Richards, who said the following when asked what words he would use to describe their success: "Two words: Charlie Watts." Which means: "Miss You," "Heartbreaker," "Emotional Rescue," and "Waiting on a Friend." Everything else is oldies radio, 80s schmaltz, or cultural carpetbagging (this means you, Exile).
Ryan Adams Everything. Maybe not the song 'nuclear.' But probably.
Galaxie 500 "Blue Thunder" is nice. For the rest of it, I guess you had to be there. REM Chronic Town, much of Murmur, and Fables. Maybe a few singles, but nothing after "The One I Love" should ever be played to anyone, not even to teenagers deprived of pop music under some brutal dictatorship, not even in an elevator. Sugarcubes/Bjork With possibly the exception of the neurasthenic Vespertine, because it helped bore my child to sleep, you only really need Lifes Too Good.
Radiohead After Ok Computer, you really have no idea how you were suckered, every time, into buying another album in the hopes that they'd match it.
Tom Waits Ok, ok, another easy one. All you need is the Holy Trinity:Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, and Franks Wild Years.