Stevie Ray wrote lots of great songs that sounded utterly original. How about Texas Flood? Or Couldn’t Stand the Weather? Or Cold Shot? Or Pride and Joy?
Eric Clapton has done pretty well writing blues songs, and covering other blues artists who could also write good songs.
John Mayer hasn’t produced anything close to either of these guy’s best output, so he’s got a ways to go as a songwriter for sure. That’s the last piece of the puzzle. One of these days he might crank out something like Texas Flood, and then we’ll all stop and go, “Okay, that guy’s great.”
Wow dude, you don’t have a disagreement with me there, that quote you listed is screwed up. I didn’t say the part about SRV not being a good songwriter, that was what Euthanasiast said and I just quoted him.
I personally can’t comment on SRV because I don’t believe I’ve heard any of his stuff.
And further, no one on this board is a bigger fan of SRV than me, but the lyrics in those songs are nothing that hasn’t been done before by the original blues legends. His music that accompanies those lyrics, however, are fantastic.
It started out as quite heavy, punk/hardcore-influenced music with low-fi vocals that were emotional in nature. There was growling, screaming, and some singers would cry on stage. But it definitely was not wussy music. Some songs would have pretty bits then end up in a big mess of loudness. The current use of emo has been pretty much bastardized. Here are some song samples of ‘original’ emo. There are different subsets, and the original forms seemed to have pretty much died out, and the term used for more post-emo indie stuff (Sunny Day Real Estate etc) ended up being used for softer and more polished groups and now the term seems to be pretty meaningless. So no, John Mayer is not emo, neither are My Chemical Romance - at least not in the true sense of the word.
You didn’t say lyrics. You said songwriting. Lyrics aren’ the be-all and end-all of songwriting. You can write a great song that has no lyrics at all. Or you can write a great song that has trite lyrics (“She Loves You”). To say that Blues isn’t about ‘great songwriting’ is crazy.
If Stevie were alive, he’d tell you that the vast majority of his music is just rehashed Albert King, Lonnie Mack and Buddy Guy, and indeed when you listen, you understand what he is talking about. Some of it is verbatim. I am not talking about the lyrics. I am talking about the guitar. Not much of what SRV put together was new or original, but it certainly was executed beautifully.
When Soapbox Monkey says that “Mayer writes drab, boring, middle of the road soft rock for college and high school girls”, it seems obvious to me that he is referring to the lyrics. You can take any soft rock song and change the lyrics to include passages about torturing kittens and totally change the song. You certainly wouldn’t call it middle of the road soft rock for college and high school girls then would you?
I stand by my statement. Blues is nearly all emotion. The great songwriting is a byproduct of that emotion. That is the way it should be. That is the way that it is. I’ve been playing the guitar long enough to know how much emotion plays into melody and the lyrical dynamic.
Look, you’re mostly having a somewhat heated, but still interesting, difference of opinion. That’s great, go at it.
The line is drawn, however, that you may not make comments about other posters. You can challenge their opinions, but not them as persons. Thus, comments such as:
are completely out of line here.
It is possible to for another person to hold different opinions from you without being ignorant or close-minded. Music is largely about taste, and taste depends on each individual’s perspective, is formed by each individual’s development through childhood and adolescence, etc.
Yes! Thank you, myskepticsight, I was just going to link to to fourfa.com.
kudos to the doper that linked Sunnydayrealestate with emo. They are one of the bands that really defined the cleaner sound of 1990’s emo. Jeremy Enigk is an amazing singer.
As for emo becoming a term associated with pussies and crybabies, I can’t agree more. It’s a shame really. One of the main reasons why I stopped listening to it (and of course the fact that it became a “in” thing to listen to it). I prefer listening to music that is undiscovered, so that I feel different from 98% of the population that keep hacks like coldplay on the charts.
Well, Indie, I guess I win the “openmindeder-than-thou” award since I would love for the bands I like to become popular. I’m genuinely surprised when hacks like Coldplay, as you say, hit the big time. (On the other hand, they did pave the way for artists like Keane which are not bad, if not my favorite band ever. Similarly, the success of pussified emo paved the way for okay bands such as All American Rejects.)
What gets me is these listenable-but-not-excellent bands are the ones that always make their way to the big time. I can almost measure which concerts will be sold out and their artists move on to bigger venues by the “ehhh” factor. If I really like the act they will stay small time (and, to my and your detriment, break up eventually :mad: ) If I really hate them they don’t count since I don’t keep track of them anyway.
But if I sort of like a band they will usually start off in the smaller, more intimate venues, then sell those out and break through to arenas. It’s as if the music industry takes perverse pride in mediocrity.
To tie this back to the main thread, John Mayer is a perfect example of an artist I sort of like becoming confusingly popular.
I am not a fan, but I try to separate that from developing a somewhat-objective POV about him…
he is clearly a great guitarist. I wish he would break free from being a Stevie Ray Vaughn-abee, but he has chops.
he is a solid, commerical songwriter. One doesn’t have to like his songs to see that they have great commercial appeal, melodic hooks and work for their target audience. You don’t have to like Barry Manilow - lord knows, I don’t - to realize that for his audience - and from a songcraft perspective in general - he has written some great songs. Again, they make ME shudder, but the craft is clear. John Mayer has also displayed solid songcraft…
his playing on the VW commercial is some of the best stuff of his I have seen - meaning it is good technically, bluesy but not so SRV-ish…
I saw Mayer for the first and only time as part of the B.B. King 80th birthday tribute, I think on the Ovation network. His blues playing was impressive to say the least. But for some odd reason, he decided to play a number that was out of place, hokey, and bore no relation to the blues or B.B. King. I just could not figure why such a hot blues player would waste his time with such a weird tune, until it was explained that it was an original composition.
A fan here. Mayer’s music has this weird thing, where at first listen it doesn’t sound particularly interesting or good. But then, repeated listenings help bring it to you, so to speak. It grows on you. That’s been my experience with all his stuff. That’s why when I got Continuum and wasn’t impressed at first, I just set it aside and went back later. Now I’ve been getting into it more and more, like a lot of the tunes beyond those that were first on Try!. I won’t get into any arguments about whether he’s a good guitar player or songwriter or not; all that seems way too arbitrary. I just know that I like his stuff, and that’s sufficent for my purposes. I’d recommend him to others.
Back to what is and is not emo, I don’t know the difference between what Mayer does and what a “true” emo band does because, frankly, I don’t care. I, and others like me, have a nice, catch-all term for every whiny, overwrought band aimed at suburban, adolescent girls and if my daughter tries to explain how such-and-such a band is more indie than emo I tune her out. The differences are important to her so she can laugh at the scenesters.
Well, I think subgenres are important, and not just something to be tuned out.
The important thing, at least it’s how I see it, is that emo or indie is NOT a term that should be thrown around. But because it is, then bands like Dashboard confessional and Coldplay all of a sudden get labelled as emo, and for me, it’s a damn shame. But like somebody said before me, I’m caring less-and-less when it comes to which band is what style. I like what I like, whether or not the rest of you like it. The same is true to all people that listen to music.
Wayne Coyne (singer from The Flaming Lips) said once: Nobody should be able to tell you what you like or don’t like. It’s like food: nobody can tell you that you do or do not like a certain food.
But what I despise is the general lack of intelligence of millions of music listeners around the world. They lack judgment when it comes to music, and listen to what MTV or VH1 or [insert name here]-radio station says. And that’s why we have mediocre artists playing often-submediocre music.
Sure, I was guilty of that when I was like 14-15, but luckily through the influence of some good friends, I found something that was underground (at the time, anyhow) and I have never turned back.
I, too, think it’s great when a band makes it big time, especially when it’s somebody that I’ve been digging since eight years back. But it’s almost a fact that bands that do hit the big time either a) become musical whores, writing music that is subpar with their previous work or b) the eventually get dumped by the media and are labelled one-hit-wonders BECAUSE people only listen to the hit songs and never go deeper than that. Case and point: Jimmy Eat World.
I, for the life of me, don’t understand why people still listen to metallica or iron maiden or (my hate object) Redhotchillipeppers. My disdain isn’t pointed towards the scene (though I have little understanding of the allure of it) but towards the actual artists. Why, oh, WHY do millions of people worship these bands? Because they’ve been around for several decades? The music sucks. It sounds exactly like it did ten years ago. They’re drunks, drugaddicts and are, in my opinion, musical whores. What the music scene is missing is artists that are able to say “That’s it, we’ve done what we could, and now let’s wrap this party up”. But No. They’ve got a lifestyle to maintain, and because of that lifestyle they run out of money and have to create a new album to support them a few years.
Ok. Enough of a rant. But you get my point, hopefully. And I’m well aware that this is a tangent to the original posting. =)
I know I’m late to the fight, but you realize only one of those groups is (arguably) a rock band, right? Billboard Top 100 is mostly hip-hop and hip-hop inspired schmaltz. If you’re calling them Mayer’s peers, you’ve made the Monkey’s argument for him.
Here’s a softball for you though. John Mayer is no:
Jack White
Ryan Adams
Dave Grohl
just off the top of my head
I don’t know who actually writes the songs, but whoever takes credit for what
Scissor Sisters, Franz Ferdinand, Gnarls Barkley and The Killers are doing also kicks Mayer’s little touchas.
Ooh! A trap! I’m supposed to step in it so you can say that there is as much difference between John Mayer and a TRUE emo band as between the objects of your comparison. The thing is, I don’t care about how the ways something isn’t emo. Got that? I DON’T CARE! And I’m not going to make the effort to learn.
In answer to your question, the Beatles did “chick music” and TRUE heavy metal bands don’t unless it’s a barfy power ballad thrown in so some groupies show up at their concerts to screw the singer. Therefore, Metallica, which does whole CDs of barfy power ballads, is not a heavy metal band.
So, if metallica is not a heavy metal band, then what is it? Just a rock band?
Whatever it is, my previous post stands: they’re doing it for the money and the fame, not for the music.
Dropzone, I don’t really understand your stance on not even giving musical exploration a chance. It’s one thing if you’re not interested because it you’ve listened to it and found it unappealing, but another where you blithely disregard anything to do with a subgenre just because you think it’s for pussies (that’s my assessment).