Sailing into the sunset this week:

89. Patti Smith (22)
88. Madonna (21)
87. Kraftwerk (20)
86. Beastie Boys (19)

Still here: Fleetwood Mac (15), Paul Simon (15), T. Rex (12), Elliott Smith (12), Buddy Holly (11).

I always hoped that Survivor would stimulate discussion of the artists involved, and boy howdy, did that happen in Week 4, particularly in regard to the newly-departed Ms. Ciccone.

85 artists remain:

The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Beck, Chuck Berry, Björk, Blondie, Blur, David Bowie, James Brown, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, Ray Charles, The Clash, Leonard Cohen, John Coltrane, Elvis Costello, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Cure, Miles Davis, The Doors, Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, The Flaming Lips, Fleetwood Mac, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, PJ Harvey, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly & the Crickets, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Joy Division, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, John Lennon, Little Richard, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Massive Attack, Curtis Mayfield, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, New Order, Nirvana, OutKast, Parliament/Funkadelic, Pavement, Pink Floyd, Pixies, The Police, Elvis Presley, Prince, Public Enemy, Pulp, Radiohead, Ramones, Otis Redding, Lou Reed, R.E.M., The Rolling Stones, Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Sly and the Family Stone, Elliott Smith, The Smiths, Sonic Youth, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, The Stooges, Talking Heads, T. Rex, U2, The Velvet Underground, Tom Waits, The White Stripes, The Who, Wilco, Hank Williams, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young.

As we jump into Week 5, I should note that I’ll be out of town next week for the holiday, but I’ll make sure to block out enough time to work out the results.

Rearranged the list a little bit, and 1 new entry. Note that I only try to come up with negative things about the bands I have to vote off. I do have some respect for Lennon, but he just annoys me most of the time, so he has to go.

1) Beck
2) Nirvana
3) Public Enemy
4) John Lennon - The Beatles' position I can understand, but the most irritating Beatle of them all at #41? Imagine is a pretty good song, but it gets worse every time I listen to it. The Plastic Ono stuff doesn't make it any better, in fact it makes it a lot worse. The production is pretty solid, and Ringo pulls off some classic drumming, but it all gets messed up by Lennon's self-centered, angst-ridden downright stupid lyrics. "Look at me, what am I supposed to be?" "Here I am, what am I supposed to do". Kurt Cobain anyone? After that has gone on for 3 minutes it makes me want to rip my ears off. A few years later our favorite bug makes a record on which he covers (read: destroys) a bunch of classics.. gtfo!
5) Parliament/Funkadelic

1. Bruce Springsteen
2. Fleetwood Mac
3. Elton John
4. Massive Attack
5. Curtis Mayfield

5 points)The Flaming Lips
4)Bjork
3) Fleetwood Mac
In order to finish my top 100 albums I've listened to some of the most acclaimed albums of which I knew nothing at all, and I got many disappointments : the 2 worst being Born to Run (but I like a few of other Springsteen stuff) and Rumours... is this boring radio music really that acclaimed ??? You can go your own way might be one of the worst Toto song and the rest is not much better in my opinion.
2)Pulp
1 point) The Smiths

5 points - The Doors
4 Sonic Youth
3 Bruce Springsteen
2 Wilco
1 Elliott Smith

This week we should talk about religion and politics.

1. Buddy Holly & the Crickets
2. Roxy Music
3. Pulp
4. Brian Eno
5.Leonard Cohen - It would take serious effort to sound more boring than this.

OK, jonmarck, I’ll get us started.

Religion: I follow St. Hubbins, the patron saint of quality footwear.
Politics: The current governor of California once described his platform as “to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the women.” (It was in a movie, but still.)

Reruns:
My top two also happened to be last week’s two nearest misses. I reeeally hope they’re out this week (especially the Mac).
1. FLEETWOOD MAC
2. PAUL SIMON
3. THE DOORS
4. ELLIOTT SMITH. Haven’t found anyone to replace him with.

Premiere:
5. CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL. Elemental 60s rock and roll. That’s a good thing, in that they were never very fancy or frilly. But it’s also a drawback, because apart from “Fortunate Son,” I find them…not boring, but they’ve never really made me sit up and take notice. Also, unlike most of the acts remaining, it’s difficult to trace any kind of development or evolution in their music—their output, prodigious as it was, happened over a surprisingly short span of time.

I was thinking we should just talk about abortion because that's not a particularly contentious issue.

Oh, and I'm a scientologist so all your religions are belong to us.

1. The White Stripes
2. John Coltrane
3. T. Rex

new:

here i go voting off 2 females. doh. i obviously would've kept Madonna around much longer, though. i'll be spreading some love in Henrik's thread.

4. Bjork - no doubt she is an influential artist, but i'd much rather listen to kate bush - better music, better lyrics, and, well, wayyy weirder. i think all of bjork's albums are overrated except for vespertine which i think might be underrated.

5. Blondie - Two solid records and a bunch of great singles ("Hanging on the Telephone" and "Dreaming" are both incredible), but when you compare her to her CBGB contemporaries (Talking Heads, Television, Ramones, Richard Hell) or her new wave contemporaries (The Cars, even Elvis Costello), her music is the least innovative, although she certainly presented a unique image. i love her in cronenberg's film videodrome, btw. anyone seen it?

1. Ramones
2. Buddy Holly/The Crickets
3. John Coltrane
4. Wilco
5. The Byrds - I love "Younger Than Yesterday". I love "Eight Miles High". I really love Gram Parsons' solo albums, but "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" not so much. In total, The Byrds don't mean an awful lot to me. They're another band I almost never go back to.

1. ELLIOTT SMITH
2. RAMONES
3. FRANK SINATRA
4. *new entry* - T. REX: Every now and then I go through my iTunes and perform a little housekeeping - with a library approaching 10,000 songs, it’s a task requiring focus and time (and therefore occurs infrequently.) When I do get down to business, however, chances are a few things get tossed. The latest victim was “Electric Warrior” – a glam classic, but I always preferred the cover to the content. Then I looked at the playcounts (zeros across the board, except for “Bang a Gong”,) asked myself if I really needed it in my collection – nope! - so I sent Bolan packing. Chances of a re-rip at some point? Doubtful.
5. *new entry* - THE DOORS: For most (or some) of us, certain music will likely always be associated with “sins of the flesh.” For me, it’s The Doors. During three separate liaisons, the Doors were playing (and during one of those instances I had Jim Morrison staring at me the entire time from the girl’s bedroom door. Talk about performance anxiety!) Now, I’m not sure if the Doors’ music is some sort of aphrodisiac, or why I end up hooking up with girls who are obsessed with The Lizard King, but the whole thing really makes me question the validity of classical conditioning. Considering the circumstances, I really should like the Doors more than I do.

(Keeping with the Survivor theme, who else thought Courtney was hot?)

Hmm...Courtney Love huh? Depends on what year (day?). But, she's had her moments mostly around when Celebrity Skin came out and she always look like she'd fallen down a flight of stairs. Who else thinks Malibu is a great song?

1. Tom Waits
2. Blur
3. Steely Dan
4. Nick Cave
5. Curtis Mayfield

Courtney from Survivor, not Courtney “Cobain Inc.” Love (who, I might add, was NEVER hot.)

And “Malibu”? The best song the Pumpkins never wrote. Oh wait, Corgan did write it.

Funny. I watched one episode of Survivor and stopped. But, Courtney Love had her moments. I didn't know Billy Corgan wrote that... No wonder I like it so much. Smashing Pumpkins songs are good if you take his voice out of the equation.

Looked up the Survivor chick. I'm gonna have to vote no. Sorry.

Music to keep Santa from coming to town:
5 points - Frank Sinatra
4 points - Fleetwood Mac
3 points - Nick Cave
2 points - Buddy Holly & The Crickets
1 point - T. Rex
(i.e. same as last week)

Enjoy your days off!

Fuck! Madonna and Kraftwerk gone? You guys have just tossed out 2 of my favorites! Hmmmm....

I didn't, I didn't! *Neoptolemos runs in terror*

Hehe- I'm of the docile variety, so I'll just stew in the corner.

Hey Anthony - I'll take that copy of Electric Warrior

5 pts. Elliot Smith - Anthony you have my support here.
4 pts. Fleetwood Mac - Too popular (surely an unacceptable reason, but I don't care).
3 pts. Brian Eno
2 pts. Police
1 pt. Steely Dan. Sorry, not feeling it!

Public service message to young music deleters: I used to have no use for T. Rex. Now that I'm old, I like them. Especially Electric Warrior. Same with The Band and Frank Sinatra. Also, I regret a lot of music that I got rid of when I was in my 20s (then, via the used record store).

1.Paul Simon
2.The Byrds
3.Nick Cave
4. Fleetwood Mac
5. Joni Mitchell - This artist stood out for me on the remaining list because I really have trouble figuring out what makes her stand out. She's one of the first people you go to when you think folky female singer songwriters, but since I have relatively little interest in that subgenre I have not heard or appreciated much of her music.

I hope everyone is grateful that I took the Cure off my top 5 for quite a few weeks now. They really do have enough interesting songs to last a little longer.

I miss a week, and Madonna finally goes! Hooray!

1. Creedence Clearwater Revival
2. Pavement
3. Elliott Smith
4. Michael Jackson
5. Parliament/Funkadelic

I've actually revisited Off The Wall since the last time I tiraded against Michael Jackson, and that "Gotta Be Startin' Something" is some funky shit. But then you compare him to, oh, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Elton John or Joy Division, and then you remember: fuck Michael Jackson.

Funkadelic I have no real beef with, but they're pretty much the only other artist left on the list who I don't love at least one song by. Except for Hank Williams who I really don't know from atom!

So far only two of my top half artists have gone out: #30 Beastie Boys and #31 The Band. I can't complain too much.

Kraftwerk goes out from my list from last week, so one new entry.

1. The Cure
2. The Doors
3. Roxy Music
4. Joni Mitchell
5. Joy Division -- As I said last week, I'm now into artists with whose output I concede relative unfamiliarity. I appreciate the importance of this band, and respect the depth of feeling that Ian Curtis and his music evokes in so many. My inability to get into their music, and my vote for them here is much more down to personal taste in styles of music than my earlier votes, where I was more easily able to latch on to aspects of the music or performance that I found lacking. In other words, Joy Division, I sense, does what they do quite well. My own personal taste (which I am understanding better in the months on these boards) calls for at least one or more of certain elements that are not as evident in Joy Division: exuberance; fullness of sound; wit, humor, or (at the very least) snark; dynamic movement; and -- yes -- poppiness. What I'm trying to understand is why the pain expressed by Otis Redding hits me so hard, and the pain expresed by Ian Curtis does not. It would be too easy to chalk it up simply to different styles of music or of singing (although I love Stax soul, and I cherish Otis' voice). I will have to think about this more, but can't avoid a Joy Division vote at this point.

Adam. And you should.

Haha. I was waiting for that.

I think my way makes more sense. ;)

I've just been compiling the votes for this week, and I see we've got a couple of new voters, so hello to Asher and Mitchell Stirling (Mitchell, I've seen your posts on other threads--glad to have you aboard).

However, I need to restate how Survivor works: the first time you put an artist on your ballot, you need to explain why it is, exactly, that you're voting them off the island. So, for your ballots to count, you need to comment on your picks for this week.

I should probably make it a regular thing to restate this at the beginning of each week's thread...

Same votes as last week:

1. Elton John- My father-in-law calls him "vomit with a head". I can't put it much better than that!

2. Bob Marley- No Marley, no cry.

3. The Who- Who's next?

4. Paul Simon- I appreciate that he has an impact- he just bores me to tears, for the most part.

5. Frank Sinatra- Like Paul Simon, I appreciate his impact, but can't bring myself to listen to his music.

Some changes (Done some listening)
I can say that at this point, I have respect for all remaining artists.
The followong just don't have much effect my internal sensors


1. New Order 5 pts : with only one song I like (Age of consent), they cannot go further. Their music is everything I wanted to run away from in the 80's.

2. T-Rex 4 pts : it may be ignorance but Bolan is not the artist I want to come back to. I know is a favorite of the critic, and I'm still trying to find out why. Attitude ?

3. Blondie 3pts : I nominated Madonna in the last round. No surprise that it's Debbie's turn now. Pleasant pop singer, but nothing terrific to me.

4. The Smiths, 2 pts : Well, from this point, there are REALLY people I respect. In the case of the Smiths, its their lyrics, which say little in quantity but a lot about growing up in the western world if you're not let us say "a natural leader". But I really don't like their sound, it is too cold, too dull. The problem is that it paved the way for thousands of groups with the same sound but without the irony. That's when I started losing interest in pop/rock

5. Joni Mitchell, 1 pt : Not a bad songwriter, and an excellent musician, but I can't get used to her voice, and am indifferent to her songs.

Repeats:
1)Elliott Smith
2)Creedence Clearwater Revivial
3)Brian Eno
New:
4)Blondie:Well I've only got Parallel Lines and a greatest hits,but doesn't sound top 85 material to me...
5)Little Richard:Well I'm surprised at this,I respect his place in rockn'roll but I don't believe he has more than half a dozen songs upon which his legend lies...

1. (5p) James Brown - It's not possible to understand what he is saying, unless you are from Gibberia and know the Gibberish language.

2. (4p) Marvin Gaye - He's so boring I'm starting to wonder if that's the reason his father shot him.

3. (3p) Little Richard - He may have invented rock and roll, but that doesn't mean we should still listen to him. You don't see me driving around in an 1890's Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft.

4. (2p) Creedence Clearwater Revival - Still the most boring band on earth.

5. (1p) Chuck Berry - Another inventor of rock and roll. Sorry, Berry, whatever you did, Iron Maiden did harder.

Rune = My new hero or as James Brown would say: "Ruh! E-KQAL! Mah ne e-roe!"

This week's top 5, the point where everyone has at least one song I'd hate to live without:

Repeats:

5 points: John Lennon - I'm a little disappointed in Moonbeam for not reviving the John Lennon hatred and voting him at #1. I actually like the Beatles, but I really can't stand Lennon's solo stuff (except for Instant Karma, that song rules).

Anyway, I listened to All Things Must Pass the other day which confirmed my belief that Lennon's solo stuff was the most banal of any of the Beatles. George released the magnum opus of post-Beatles land and at least Paul was having fun (I guess Ringo doesn't count here). John still wanted to tell a generation what to think and how hard it was to be John Lennon. I'm sure he was a nice guy, but I can't believe it listening to his music.

4 points: Joni Mitchel - Respectable songwriter; extremely grating voice

3 points: Chuck Berry - To me, he wrote Johnny B Goode and a bunch of other songs that sound like Johnny B Goode but weren't as good. His personality in later years (greedy SOB, total misogynist) don't really make me like him any more. Johnny B Goode still rocks though.

New entries:

2 points: Little Richard - He has some good songs, but they seem really really silly now. This is awesome though:



1 point: Ray Charles - This may be my first vote in awhile based on ignorance about the artist. I don't really care for "What'd I Say" that much or "Georgia on My Mind," but I do appreciate his influence.

So you're going at Berry and Little Richard ?
It feels my heart mithe sorrow
The worst part of that is that a the whole work of a guy like Chuck Berry is narrowed down to the only Johnny B Goode...
Those guys are definitely more than a few hits, but you don't hear them abymore
Not in person on the radio, and not in that pale cadaver that became indie rock
You don't hear that pounding, that soul, that fun, that urge, that sexual thing, that exuberance.
How can somebody hear "Long Tall Sally", "Rock'n Roll music", "What'd I Say" and get bored ?
oh it sounds like an old man complaining bout the good times gone
But these times are definitely gone, and unless you really want to discover their hidden traesures, and take the time to study those artists and the context and everything, they'll keep fading.
It is one of the big shocks to me to discover all the young generation's indifference to these giants.
BUt I think they live now in hip hop more than in rock;
Hip hop and rap took over that fun exuberance, movement and soul
Sorry for the mispellings and all but it's a one shot
But those times are gone
It's strange to see what

Well I should have read it at least one time but I guess you got the picture
Now I'm gonna watch that Little Richard video

One more thing : is it a matter of weeks till Survivor island looks like Sun City ?
I'm kidding of course

... and merry christmas to you all
(I had this little reaction after seeing 2 posts i a row with certain names on them, but of course I'm not generalizing..)

Slight tactical reshuffle-

1 The Police
2 John Lennon
3 Fleetwood Mac
4 The Doors
5 The Clash

Incidentally, nicolas, the island won't look like Sun City unless Queen play it.

Nicolas, I'm w/ you all the way, man.

here's a cool article by thomas dolby (!). at the end is a link to a youtube video of the best rendition i've ever heard of the american national anthem (seriously):

http://www.counterpunch.org/dolby04032007.html

then there's this live james brown performance from '67. watch this and tell me he's not one of the greatest performers and most vital musicians of the century:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icMQZNMjqqM

1. Little Richard
2. Pulp - I prefer my orange juice without pulp, my record collection as well. I have no problem seeing this group leave the island.
3. New Order - I really enjoy Joy Division's work but these guys pale in comparison.
4. Massive Attack - Trip-hop, hip-hop or rap, I can do without. Not being ignorant, just not my thing.
5. Flaming Lips - Their music gets on my nerves after a while.

I really hope CCR sticks around for a few more rounds. I don't think they deserve such an early exit. How anyone can call them the most boring band around is laughable. Their output from Aug 1969 to July 1970, releasing three great and certainly not boring albums (Green River, Willy and the Poorboys, Cosmo's Factory) within the span of a year is commendable. They were not just a singles band. Far from it. Those three albums are proof of that.

I think it's funny that in the same ballot Keith gives a shout out to CCR and 5 negative points to Little Richard, who was a big influence of CCR. I always liked CCR's swamp boogie version of Good Golly Miss Molly.

Nicolas, I'm with you too.

That's not funny at all. That's a huge oversight on my part. I didn't realize I had to be a fan of all my favourite bands' influences. Loophole are you saying that in order to appreciate Dylan's music I have to like Dave Van Ronk or to be a fan of The Velvet Underground I must enjoy La Monte Young's output or be a fan of Patti Smith's stuff because R.E.M. sites them as an influence? Give me break.

I just said it was "funny" not "high treason."

You can have a break.

You're right, I may have overreacted there. I appologize for jumping down your throat like that.