Friday Night Videos
January 25th, 2013 - 10:37 pm
The problem with rock’n'roll in the ’90s — and why I spent the decade ruthlessly ignoring it — is that it started taking itself way too seriously. I blame Nirvana. Before them, it was pretty much sex, drugs, and rock’n'roll. After them, every four man band was one guy on drums, two guys on guitar, and another guy whining and wailing about… I dunno. About something. I wasn’t listening. There was an excellent Season 1 episode of The Sopranos which skewered those acts with a chef’s precision.
So tonight we have The Dead Milkmen, an ’80s band which could never, ever be accused of taking itself too seriously.
Nice. Thanks. Checked them out on youtube. Saw video for Punk Rock Girl.
“The problem with rock’n’roll in the ’90s…is that it started taking itself way too seriously.”
Invert that ’9′ and you’ll have it right.
Steve, I still have that album on vinyl in a box in the closet. Some great stuff from that era never made it onto CD. Oh! And the Dead Milkmen were there as well!
Rock and roll recovered from the some in the sixties but caught a cold in the seventies and recovered largely thanks to the Ramones, MC5, Sex Pistols, Runaways, Devo, Talking Heads, English Beat, Robert Gordon/Link Wray and the like. A much more serious illness arrived in the eighties but struggled on with dim hopes such as REM, Stix and that fricking idiot Bono and was finally killed off by the entire whining grunge malaise. We should have seen it coming and demanded that MTV remove the M…
For a new shot of our roots I suggest a serious dose of James Hunter and others that are going back, writing new music in an effort to start all over again. In the mean time there is always tons of Sam Cooke, Etta James, Everly’s, Hendrix, early Stones, Bowie, Eric Burton, Zepplin, Cream & the rest that we still can rely on. Bottom Line, we still have time to put the unk back into funk so stop the funeral and get to work supporting th artists that respect the roots.
What you said. +1 and all that.
Honored, thank you. Never a day goes by where I don’t check your page and rarely am I not pleasantly surprised by what I find. All the best to you, Bill Whittle, Insta Glenn and the rest of the PJ team.
Wow, that brings back memories. I recognized it after the first time through the bass-line. Now to track down Camper Van Beethoven for “Take the skinheads bowling”.
Used to play this album a lot in college. Who doesn’t love them a bitchin’ Camaro?