HW boring ?...

[Keith A Henderson]

Alex clarifies...
>
> By "like that", I meant bland. That all sound alike.
>
> Well, I meant by "boring" the same as above : songs that all sound alike. As
> for the kind of music I listen to, well - apart from the obvious (BOC) - I
> like prog bands (like Kansas, King Crimson, Marillion, Dream Theater, Styx)
> and all kinds of other stuff : Pink Floyd (I don't really call them prog,
> though I know some people do, but as you say : it is a nebulously defined
> area in itself !), Supertramp, U2, The Police, Duran Duran (yes, you read
> well !), Talk Talk, Toto... and tons of other bands, some more obscure as
> well. All in all, I have rather eclectic tastes, I think. What I *don't*
> like though is techno music and also the more heavier rock, like thrash,
> death metal, etc... (and rap - I can't stand rap) BOC is about as hard as I
> go. The only hard rock stuff I like, all things considered, are the old hard
> rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple... Does that help ?

First off, there's no way in a million years that HW tracks all sound alike.  I
mean, maybe if you listened only to Space Ritual, you could possibly say that
(of course, they're all *good* as well :) ).....and then maybe the same for
something like Quark or Levitation.  But then, if you compare several songs
from each of these albums, they hardly even sound like the same band in many
ways.

And some albums *do* have a lot of different sounds to them.  The first album
has two bluesy numbers surrounding a whole slew of formless freakout stuff.
And HotMG has some odd ambientish things like Wind of Change and the two
keyboard pieces, plus Lemmy's Lost Johnny stuck in amongst the "normal"
Brock-HW tracks.  And then the HLL-80's had a whole different standard AOR-type
sound to the rock tracks, but with peculiar synth-based stuff stuck in between.

And of course, the two types of 'song-structure' I *knew* Hawkwind would never
do were:  A love song/ballad, and a rap song.  But then, Zarozinia appeared,
and the Brock vocals to 'Back in the Box' could be considered 'rapping' I
suppose, so they've even ventured where I never thought they'd go.... :)

Secondly, I'm absolutely amazed that anyone could find anything the least bit
interesting about Duran Duran's music....esp. someone who is fond of much of
the same kind of music I listen to (which includes most of the ones Alex has
listed here...BOC, Purple, Zeppelin, Supertramp, King Crimson, Marillion,
Police).  I'm not trying to be highly critical here of someone else's tastes
(well, maybe a little bit :) ), but HW is no doubt my favourite of all time
(with BOC maybe somewhere between 10th and 15th, depending on the day of the
week), and DD is absolutely my least favourite group of all time.  (I should
note that I don't include any (real) rap groups or country artists in deciding
this, because they aren't classified as being music at all IMHO).....

To be fair, though, I should admit that I like some awfully weird things that
other people who know my "core" musical tastes are shocked by.....including
10,000 Maniacs, REO Speedwagon's first two releases, and the song 'Heart of
Glass' by Blondie.  I have no explanation for this, nor do I expect that I'll
ever understand what aspects of a particular song or style are absolutely
necessary for me to find it enjoyable.  I just know that for me, Duran Duran
has none of those qualities..... :)

Keith H.  (FAA)

ObCD: Tea for the Hydra - Ade Shaw

P.S.  What the hell is Talk Talk???