In a past life, Fresh and the Qualifier used to get paid to write about music. For years they toiled through a tag-team article called Counterbalance, going head to head, hashing out the relative merits of new releases for the local Chicken Dinner Newspaper. But that was a long time ago - before the economy crashed, sending their frivolous Arts & Entertainment section down in flames.
After wandering in the wilderness, lost and directionless, Fresh and the Qualifier have returned to take on their most challenging assignment: the Greatest Albums of All-Time. Do these critics' darlings hold up, or are they just hyped up?
Rounding out the Top 10 is the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols, the album that helped launch a thousand ships - full of sailors who couldn't play an instrument to save their lives. The album laid the ground work for the punk revolution - which then gave way to post-punk, alternative, grunge and a myriad of other genres plus the countless bands that inhabit them. On the other hand, critics have lambasted the punk movement, especially the Sex Pistols, for placing more emphasis on style than on substance. Will Fresh and the Qualifier lambast? Or just baste in the rotten, rancid tunes? Never Mind the Bollocks, Counterbalance is next.
Fresh: I appreciate what Never Mind the Bollocks did for music in general. That's probably the last nice thing I'm going to say about this album. How about you, Qualifier? Do you have any nice things to say about the Sex Pistols?
Qualifier: I went out of my way to really listen to Never Mind the Bollocks in preparation for this Counterbalance (unlike previous editions where I just had my manservant give me the gist of the record). I had no idea what to expect. Like many impressionable teens, I picked up the disc in a fit of youthful rebellion then put it aside when the demands of maturity (you know, like finals and stuff) made it seem a little silly.
Now here I am, a 41-year-old man with a wife and kids and a mortgage, waiting to see what this disc has to offer me. And at first I was pretty pleased with the overall adrenaline rush of "Holidays in the Sun." The guitars are crunchy, the tune clips along nicely, and overall it was quite pleasant. But after 35 minutes of being hectored by a barely coherent teenager, I was about ready to dig out some old Yes albums and pretend punk never happened.
After wandering in the wilderness, lost and directionless, Fresh and the Qualifier have returned to take on their most challenging assignment: the Greatest Albums of All-Time. Do these critics' darlings hold up, or are they just hyped up?
Rounding out the Top 10 is the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols, the album that helped launch a thousand ships - full of sailors who couldn't play an instrument to save their lives. The album laid the ground work for the punk revolution - which then gave way to post-punk, alternative, grunge and a myriad of other genres plus the countless bands that inhabit them. On the other hand, critics have lambasted the punk movement, especially the Sex Pistols, for placing more emphasis on style than on substance. Will Fresh and the Qualifier lambast? Or just baste in the rotten, rancid tunes? Never Mind the Bollocks, Counterbalance is next.
Fresh: I appreciate what Never Mind the Bollocks did for music in general. That's probably the last nice thing I'm going to say about this album. How about you, Qualifier? Do you have any nice things to say about the Sex Pistols?
Qualifier: I went out of my way to really listen to Never Mind the Bollocks in preparation for this Counterbalance (unlike previous editions where I just had my manservant give me the gist of the record). I had no idea what to expect. Like many impressionable teens, I picked up the disc in a fit of youthful rebellion then put it aside when the demands of maturity (you know, like finals and stuff) made it seem a little silly.
Now here I am, a 41-year-old man with a wife and kids and a mortgage, waiting to see what this disc has to offer me. And at first I was pretty pleased with the overall adrenaline rush of "Holidays in the Sun." The guitars are crunchy, the tune clips along nicely, and overall it was quite pleasant. But after 35 minutes of being hectored by a barely coherent teenager, I was about ready to dig out some old Yes albums and pretend punk never happened.
F: You made it through the whole thing? How many times? I can only stand about ten minutes of this and I made the mistake of starting over each time so I ended up listening to the first three songs a couple of times - and then I just gave up. Because I don't like this album. Even when I was a rebellious teenager I never liked this album. And I had some really bad taste in music back then.
But after working our way through the first nine albums on The List, I'm beginning to understand the reason behind these album rankings. It seems that a large part of an album's ranking depends more on the cultural effect than on the music. Which is not to say that cultural effect shouldn't be taken into account, but if you are going to compile a BEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME list, I think it should focus more on the actual music and not the media blow back.
Q: Ah, but the critics have spoken, and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone from Rolling Stone and VH-1 to Pitchfork and The Anarchist have ranked it on their lists and it's appeared on lists from the UK to China. Meanwhile, the best I can muster up is that a few of the songs are sort of catchy - and you think it stinks outright. Either they're hearing something we're not or this is the greatest case of groupthink since the Bay of Pigs.
Maybe we should start by having you go into greater detail about what you dislike about Never Mind the Bollocks. It may prove illuminating.
F: I'm a firm believer of music as the message. Music for the sake of music. The pure artistic expression as the sole motive for music. Not that music can't have a message - the message is an important part. But it should be music first, message second. I'd maybe go as far as a fifty/fifty split. But the message should never outweigh the music.
The Sex Pistols were never about music - they were about the message. It was the message that got them attention, it was the message that made them famous and it was the message that inevitably brought them down. The message: "We're young, we're angry (but we don't know why) and we hate you (because our mothers didn't hug us enough)." Never Mind the Bollocks was just a byproduct of that message.
Take a quick look at the band's history. There were only two "real musicians" in the group; Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious were brought in for their look. Strike one. The band then goes on to draw more attention for saying naughty words on live television than for the music they play. Strike two. And while the Sex Pistols may have galvanized the punk movement, paving the way for much more talented bands, they themselves had little in the way of talent. Strike three.
If I had to guess, I would attribute the Sex Pistols' universal popularity to the fact that most music geeks hate disco and most of the people who did like disco either rode the white pony for too long or ended up in middle management and now can't be bothered to listen to any music, let alone write about it.
Q: When you separate the Pistols from their myth - a myth that was largely created after the fact by Malcolm McLaren - the album that you're left with isn't terrible. I'll say it's a serviceable rock album with a few catchy hooks and some pretty solid songs. It's just hard to hear what the fuss is all about.
But that myth is the most frustrating thing about listening to Never Mind the Bollocks. You can't escape the awareness that you're listening to one of THE GREATEST ROCK ALBUMS EVER MADE, and you also can't escape the feeling that it so clearly isn't.
F: No, nowhere close. And using the word "great," in any of its conjugations, as an adjective to describe this record is a gross misuse of the English language. Unless its something like, "I'm greatly disappointed by this record and all of the music nerds who consider this "music" to be worthy of praise."
Don't defend Never Mind the Bollocks. It's OK if we both dislike it. Give in to the dark side. Let's just pan it, chalk up it's popularity to rampant drug use, vow never to listen to it again and move on down the list. I hear the next guy on the list actually knows how to play his guitar.
Q: But the myth, Fresh, the myth! The idea that rock and/or roll is supposed to about inchoate teenage rebellion, smashing the state, sticking it to the man, punching people who use words like "inchoate!" The Sex Pistols were all about that. They totally destroyed everything that came before them and nothing was ever the same again! They rinsed their feet in Jethro Tull's lemonade, man! They were the flowers in our dustbin! The flowers! In our dustbin!
Whew. I'm tired. And a little dizzy.
F: They were a couple of young punks with bad teeth and even worse musical sense. If they hadn't had a shyster manager/cat wrangler pushing them from one open microphone to the next, they would have never amounted to jack squat because they were too stupid to work the system for themselves. I appreciate what they did for music but not what they did to the music.
You argue message and I counter with music. This could go on all night . . .
Q: Well, I'm willing to call this one, but make no mistake this is an argument we'll be revisiting again and again, given the rich back catalog that is the Sex Pistols' true legacy.
F: Oh, the inchoate irony!
But after working our way through the first nine albums on The List, I'm beginning to understand the reason behind these album rankings. It seems that a large part of an album's ranking depends more on the cultural effect than on the music. Which is not to say that cultural effect shouldn't be taken into account, but if you are going to compile a BEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME list, I think it should focus more on the actual music and not the media blow back.
Q: Ah, but the critics have spoken, and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone from Rolling Stone and VH-1 to Pitchfork and The Anarchist have ranked it on their lists and it's appeared on lists from the UK to China. Meanwhile, the best I can muster up is that a few of the songs are sort of catchy - and you think it stinks outright. Either they're hearing something we're not or this is the greatest case of groupthink since the Bay of Pigs.
Maybe we should start by having you go into greater detail about what you dislike about Never Mind the Bollocks. It may prove illuminating.
F: I'm a firm believer of music as the message. Music for the sake of music. The pure artistic expression as the sole motive for music. Not that music can't have a message - the message is an important part. But it should be music first, message second. I'd maybe go as far as a fifty/fifty split. But the message should never outweigh the music.
The Sex Pistols were never about music - they were about the message. It was the message that got them attention, it was the message that made them famous and it was the message that inevitably brought them down. The message: "We're young, we're angry (but we don't know why) and we hate you (because our mothers didn't hug us enough)." Never Mind the Bollocks was just a byproduct of that message.
Take a quick look at the band's history. There were only two "real musicians" in the group; Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious were brought in for their look. Strike one. The band then goes on to draw more attention for saying naughty words on live television than for the music they play. Strike two. And while the Sex Pistols may have galvanized the punk movement, paving the way for much more talented bands, they themselves had little in the way of talent. Strike three.
If I had to guess, I would attribute the Sex Pistols' universal popularity to the fact that most music geeks hate disco and most of the people who did like disco either rode the white pony for too long or ended up in middle management and now can't be bothered to listen to any music, let alone write about it.
Q: When you separate the Pistols from their myth - a myth that was largely created after the fact by Malcolm McLaren - the album that you're left with isn't terrible. I'll say it's a serviceable rock album with a few catchy hooks and some pretty solid songs. It's just hard to hear what the fuss is all about.
But that myth is the most frustrating thing about listening to Never Mind the Bollocks. You can't escape the awareness that you're listening to one of THE GREATEST ROCK ALBUMS EVER MADE, and you also can't escape the feeling that it so clearly isn't.
F: No, nowhere close. And using the word "great," in any of its conjugations, as an adjective to describe this record is a gross misuse of the English language. Unless its something like, "I'm greatly disappointed by this record and all of the music nerds who consider this "music" to be worthy of praise."
Don't defend Never Mind the Bollocks. It's OK if we both dislike it. Give in to the dark side. Let's just pan it, chalk up it's popularity to rampant drug use, vow never to listen to it again and move on down the list. I hear the next guy on the list actually knows how to play his guitar.
Q: But the myth, Fresh, the myth! The idea that rock and/or roll is supposed to about inchoate teenage rebellion, smashing the state, sticking it to the man, punching people who use words like "inchoate!" The Sex Pistols were all about that. They totally destroyed everything that came before them and nothing was ever the same again! They rinsed their feet in Jethro Tull's lemonade, man! They were the flowers in our dustbin! The flowers! In our dustbin!
Whew. I'm tired. And a little dizzy.
F: They were a couple of young punks with bad teeth and even worse musical sense. If they hadn't had a shyster manager/cat wrangler pushing them from one open microphone to the next, they would have never amounted to jack squat because they were too stupid to work the system for themselves. I appreciate what they did for music but not what they did to the music.
You argue message and I counter with music. This could go on all night . . .
Q: Well, I'm willing to call this one, but make no mistake this is an argument we'll be revisiting again and again, given the rich back catalog that is the Sex Pistols' true legacy.
F: Oh, the inchoate irony!
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