(one side of a chat with Carl Neville aka the Impostume, done in the mid-2000s)
FAVES
Ian Dury
Jim Morrison (but
perhaps only his delivery could get away with some of that stuff)
Robert Wyatt (king
of bathos)
Kevin Ayers
(recently got into into him in a big way... "Decadence" and
"Song from the Bottom of A Well", amazing words)
Bryan Ferry (a
genius of delivery also)
Marc Bolan (best
spangly pop nonsense)
Edwyn Collins
Morrissey (not
after a certain cut-off point which is almost as early as The Queen Is Dead
except there are moments in the later Smiths stuff and one really great later
solo song "I Am Hated For Loving"... actually I just read a really good book on Morrissey by an academic that made a good case for his lyrical genius
throughout, broke down his various strategems etc... I was convinced but
then the music gets to be mostly so pedestrian post Viva Hate)
Roy Harper
Billy Mackenzie
Green (the early
stuff .... Songs to Remember just is too cute and smugly in love with
himself .... some moments on Cupid... the last LP, White Bread Black Beer, very much)
Jarvis Cocker
Martin Bramah
Kristin Hersh
Poly Styrene
John(y) Rotten/Lydon
Pete Shelley
Syd Barrett
(actually there is also one song that was a B-side early on, by Rick Wright --
amazing lyrics, strange fragile emotion i can't think of any prototype for in
rock. 'Paintbox" -- well worth checking out if you have any time for Floyd
at all)
Captain Beefheart
(not always but often)
Lawrence from Felt makes it just for "Primitive
Painters" and some of the Denim lyrics.
David Byrne (not always but quite often --
"Mind", "Animals", side 2 of Remain)
Iggy Pop when he was in the Stooges
further thoughts
Stevie Nicks, in a
funny sort of way
Rapping is almost
like another thing, it doesn't look good written down often, but Jay-Z, LL Cool
J, DMX
SPECIAL CATEGORY: can't say I adore exactly but you can definitely see why they're so rated: Lou Reed, Ray Davies, David Bowie
OVER-RATED
it's not that they're bad, they might even be
"good", but just substantially over-rated
Thom Yorke (just
very few really memorable lines)
Manic Street
Preachers (I warm to them as people but the lyrics are just fucking wretched
aren't they! as is the music and the singing come to think of it. Do not see
why Owen and Anwen et al are so into them, guess it might have been a
certain-age type thing)
Ian Curtis (it's
very young, isn't it? Exception: "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is perfect)
Elvis Costello (used to really like but it's rubbish, okay it's not rubbish but really masturbatory -- wordplaying with yourself in public heh heh- actually I kind of enjoy it on that level, as grotesque exhibitionism, and also as sensuously sounded nonsense) (see this earlier post, the section on "pubadelia")
Nick Cave (used to
like him a lot but now it seems so posey -- the over-written Birthday Party
stuff is still pretty great I think, but what's worse is when he tries to do
"simple" later on in a sort of King James Bible/Faulkner kind of way, tries to achieve the language of parables and common simple-hearted folk... cod-"timeless").
Mark E. Smith (agenius obviously but his seems to be an
approach where you could get away with murder so I wonder if he does that quite
a bit)
Brian Eno (the
story ones are good, the ones about people marooned on beaches or twilight
states of vegetative indolence... but the other Warm Jets type
stuff is just twee )
Kurt Cobain (some
great one or two liners and the odd verse but…)
J&MC, Primal Scream, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized -- it's like the cooler, slightly
higher brow version of how metal bands write lyrics, like they've gone to the
School of Rock
X, Violent Femmes,
etc -- American wannabe poets
Vic Godard (good
lines here and there, don't completely understand the fuss I must say - like "Ambition" - why is this considered an all-time lost classic?)
Patti Smith (has
her moments, but…)
Joe Strummer and Paul Weller
The Clash lyrics pale next to the Pistols (the exceptions here - "Complete Control", "White Man in Hammersmith Palais", "Lost in the Supermarket" and - while overly abstract - "Straight To Hell")
Weller has some moments but ("When You're Young", "That's Entertainment". "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" is great - a 3 minute Play For Today was his goal, he said - but then narrative doesn't make sense - why is travelling by Tube to bring home a curry; midnight is a bit late to be having a curry; how would the muggers work out his address so to be able to use his keys to break in and attack the wife?). "Town Called Malice" makes me wince. Then there's the Style Council...
Donald Fagen (except for The Nightfly, when he's great)
That was circa 2006, who would I add now?
Faves
The chap(s?) in Vampire Weekend but only for the first album
It pains me to say it but Ariel P**k
Florence Shaw, obviously
I should have added The Specials (Dammers, Hall, Golding, Radiation)
Also Gang of Four but only the first album (gets clumsy after that - except for "Paralysed")
Also Joni Mitchell (often)
Also John Lennon (often)
Also Paddy Macaloon except when he's very cloying (which admittedly is quite often)
Also Neal Peart but only for two songs, "The Spirit of Radio" and "Limelight".
Also David Crosby for "Everybody's Been Burned", "Mind Gardens" and "Triad"
Also Peter Perrett
Overrated
Really not sure - I don't seem to listen out for lyrics in the way I once would have, and for a while now quite a large proportion of my listening is music sans words.
But in terms of someone for whom the argument is made very much on the basis of the lyrics, I would say Lana Del Rey.
