Engine

Oops, I see that Urban had already addressed the death before I did (didn't scroll back before I replied).
But, yeah, as has been pointed out, he does have a reason for having breast implants beyond simply wanting tits.
His reason may sound abnormal but norms are meaningless anyway. I guarantee you that the people that Genesis has surrounded himself with for decades (i.e. New York avant garde artists) will consider the life of Genesis and Lady Jaye to be far more normal than a couple who lives in a house in the suburbs, gets woken up every morning by an alarm clock and drives to a job that they hate - just so they can pay the bills to keep living that way (or in your words, kayleigh: for NO reason). Not to get overly philosophical but that's why I feel that Genesis is not much different than a regular person. It's normal for people to do all kinds of strange things.

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

Urban Hat€monger ?

Richard Hell & The Voidoids - Blank Generation

So it's just occurred to me that I have never listened to this album in it's entirety.

I have always been a bit dubious of people claiming that the New York scene 'invented' punk and albums like this one just confirm that for me.
Aside from the two big songs on here, of which I enjoy both (Love Comes In Spurts & the title track) this is basically an album of dire pub rock with rehashed Stones riffs. Either that or the bastard offspring of the New York Dolls & Jonathan Richmond.

Now I happen to enjoy dire pub rock with rehashed Stones riffs don't get me wrong, we'll call it a guilty pleasure. But there was tons of this stuff around in the mid 70s. I don't see why Richard Hell or this album seems to have been put up on a pedestal. Why not Dr Feelgood or Joe Strummer with the 101ers?
In fact you could probably go to any club around London in 1975 and hear something like this.

Listening to this just made me want to listen to the two good songs and then hear it done properly by putting on a New York Dolls album.

I can almost imagine hearing Johnny Lydon laughing his bollocks off that anyone would even imagine he would steal from something this banal.

To sum up I don't think I've missed out a single thing not having heard this album as none of the other songs even approached how good the two songs I had heard were.

Would have made a cracking 7 inch single though.

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Unknown Soldier

I always thought, that it was his look and image more than his music that inspired punk and especially Malcolm McLaren.

VEGANGELICA

I’d never heard of Richard Hell & The Voidoids before, so I listened to “Blank Generation” and “Love comes in spurts” (spurts? Hmm....) to hear what makes their music banal.

Since I wasn’t around London in 1975 (I was over on the continent), I must take your word for it that Richard Hell & The Voidoids’ music sounds a lot like dire pub rock commonly played then in pubs.

For what it’s worth, the “Blank Generation” song reminds me of “Stray Cat Strut” by the Stray Cats, whose music apparently has some punk rock elements. I like “Stray Cat Strut” better than “Blank Generation,” though, because “Stray Cat Strut” has a cleaner sound and mentions cats. Cat songs are cool.

As for why Richard Hell might be put up on a pedestal as a shining example of early punk rockers, maybe it's because “Hell was an originator of the punk fashion look, the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins,” at least according to a friend of mine, whom I’ll call "Wikipedia."

There is one thing I like about Richard Hell & The Voidoids, though (other than safety pin fashion): the lead singer’s first name. That’s a nice name, isn’t it? I've always liked the name Richard...though I think its abbreviated version must cause some embarrassment for shy individuals. If I had been Richard, I probably would have just faced it head on and called my group, "Dick Hell & The Voidoids."

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almauro

Robert Quine's extraordinary guitar work on that album is what sets it apart. One second he sounds like a spot on, out of tune train wreck, the next he's highly technical and sweet, IE. "The Plan". Quine's got it totally together and is the high-light of this record.

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rock n music blog

dark shadow

sorry to break the topic so much, but that almost sounds ripped from the pages of fight club. not that fight club was anything overly original to start with, and many other philosophical ideas have said similar concepts, its just the most famous iteration of it i know as a male who read it in the teens. as for the concept of breaking down social norms, it does seem very strange to see, but more because a love that strong existed that he would make permanent, and drastic, changes to his body in a time when marriages carry very little weight

Engine

Yea - I wasn't trying to be clever, just making a point about the subjectivity of social norms. As you pointed out, this is not a new notion or a new way of saying it, rather it's a "famous iteration" (I like that phrase) of the idea. Still, it's an idea that hardly anybody takes seriously. That's why we get cathartic joy from literature like Fight Club and the "freakishness" of Genesis's boob implants. I was just saying that living outside of social norms is not necessarily an out of reach ideal that we only read about in fiction or philosophy books. Some people actually live that way.

I'm not sure I understand your point but if you're saying that Genesis's plastic surgery is a more drastic and possibly more meaningful expression of love than marriage is, then I agree with you.

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

dark shadow

yeah... thats the point i was making. we see it as ridiculous at the same time as talking about how love is blind and love conquers all

Urban Hat€monger ?

URBAN'S REVIEWS FOR PEOPLE WITH A.D.H.D.

In a continuing series which will probably continue for a week or so until I get bored of doing it I shall attempt to sum up what I think of an album in the most constructive way I can in as little words as I can.
To start this off I shall be reviewing....


No 1 - Trumans Water - Fragments of a Lucky Break - 1998

'Hmmm, shall we rip off Miles Davis, Sonic Youth or The Fall'
'Fuck it... Let's do all three at once'

I quite enjoyed this, dragged a bit towards the end though.

7/10

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Piss Me Off

Sounds like a quarter of my hard-drive then!

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