Overhyped overrated Irish music

Everlong1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120145120#Comment_120145120

Oh Jesus I'd forgotten how dreadful they were. Thanks for reminding me...not.

Everlong1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120150250#Comment_120150250

Hot House Flowers success mystified me alright but would disagree strongly about In Tua Nua. Cracking band. I still have their albums and they still sound as good today.

Everlong1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120150571#Comment_120150571

You can blame Damien Rice for most of those I reckon. He really kick started the whole painfully earnest mediocre arpeggiated chords "ahhhh my baby left me" wave of songers. I don't begrudge any of them their success but they really are like clones at this stage. Music for teenage girls looking for something "cool" and "edgy" but who get frightened by actual, like, rock music.

Everlong1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120179798#Comment_120179798

Final Straw was a brilliant album, not a weak song on it. It's been the law of diminishing returns with them on every album since though. The last album I bought by them was dreadful muck. Listened to it once and wouldn't touch it again.

Everlong1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120189500#Comment_120189500

Saw this guy Skinner on Fanning Presents Live at Whelans recently, checked his stuff out subsequently and was well impressed. One of my neighbours has been raving about Meryl Streek alright and sent me a link to his album - good stuff too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9pmHLXUEGU

Everlong1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193228#Comment_120193228

Boyzone, Westlife and the rest of their ilk are glorified karaoke tribute bands and nothing more. Their success is due to the success of the original songs that they've polished up and wheeled out again for a generation of pre-pubescent girls who never heard the originals. I don't begrudge any of them their success but they have nothing to do with music. They're a very carefully crafted product designed for one reason and one reason only: to generate shi*loads of cash. They should never be confused with actual musicians who've dedicated their lives to the craft of music.

AyeGer

I hope nobody has criticised Daniel O’Donnell in this thread, for if I find out he has been there will be trouble.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343750#Comment_120343750

This is an "overhyped, overrated" thread.

Has DO'D ever been hyped or rated in the first place?

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343706#Comment_120343706

True .. is Rice that Blower's daughter dude?? Didn't Ronan K do a version of that too ??? ... I never liked any of these guys ... the only 'My baby left me' I am interested in is the Arthur Crudup and Elvis variety ... that was a proper song ...

Modern songsmiths as they call themselves are so up themselves it is to be seen to be believed ... even at a local level ... was at a gig by a local band a few years back just before Covid with a friend who was interested in the band ... I wasn't ... and the lead singer also main songwriter was boasting about each song ... how great each song was and how 'lucky' the audience was to hear the first live versions of them, of course which he wrote ... they all sounded like Gavin James stuff as James was the main guy pushed then ... as you say all clones and right down to the local circuit ...

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137847#Comment_120137847

A strange story about Zombie ...

Years back when I was working in a day care centre ... around 2013 ... they had this band come in to 'entertain' ... they sang their own self written usual rubbish and had alienated an audience more suited to Sinatra or Jim Reeves songs ... then they did Zombie but rather than saying it was by the Cranberries they tried to pass it off as one of their own songs ... I knew immediately they were lying and they murdered it, 2 teenage young wans backed by 2 Nidgelikes who sang the other songs 2 of which were about drugs !! ... one regret I have is I didn't challenge them about it, both the plagiarism and the inappropriate songs .... needless to say the centre never had this outfit again ...

The Golden Miller

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343741#Comment_120343741

Calling Westlife and Boyzone glorified karaoke tribute bands is generous, they were more a warped rubbish sh!te Take That/East 17, wannabe's not fit to hold a karaoke microphone in their hand. And on a level I respect TT/E17, Gary Barlow and Tony Mortimer wrote original music, but they paved the way for the years of commercialised rubbish that followed.

In hindsight, as much as I hate boybands, the US and UK had two each, just about worth their place in music history. Backsteet Boys, New Kids on the Block, Take That and East 17. As much as I dislike each, they actually wrote original music, they have to be given that.

Maybe its just me, but I'd also argue, a guilty please for many of us into "real original" music would be Take That after they reformed. Most of what they've come out with since isn't your traditional boyband stuff, and if a new 4 peice band came along with many of those songs we'd be applauding them. The flood was an absolute monster, stuff like said it all and the garden are brilliant too. Barlow, as much as I dislike him, is similar to Paul Heaton, in terms of their ear for a hook and melody as a songwriter.

Like most British songwriters though, spent most of their career in Damon Albarns shadow

The Golden Miller

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343719#Comment_120343719

Their downfall was Chasing Cars success and letting Leona Lewis cover run. Up until this a well respected alt rock band with Chocolate as their signature song. After the succes of both the aforementioned songs, they got stereotyped and stigmatised in a certain light. Had some great songs on "A Hundred Million Suns", most of which wasn't the soppy stuff many rushed out to buy, expecting all their stuff to be in that vain.

The reality is Snow Patrol were generally a great upbeat alt rock band, with a few slow "deep" songs thrown in. Because of how they got stigmatised with those two songs, people rarely remember Signal Fire, Crack the Shutters, Spitting Games, Hands Open, How to Be Dead. Final Straw one of the best alt rock albums of the mid-00's British music scene.

We say Irish bands, do they even qualify though? Ash and the Undertones from the north completely Irish obviously, Van Morrison, Stiff Little Fingers and Snow Patrol Im not so sure

JKerova1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343699#Comment_120343699

Hot House Flowers are one of Jeremy Clarksons favourite bands.

littlevillage

This is a pretty strange thread.... and has inevitably gone down various weird rabbit holes. The opening post is a rambling mess and hurt my head reading it.

But a few points of my own, if I may.

Ireland is not unique in bigging up local artists, happens all over the world, we have punched well above our weight for years on the world wide stage, thanks in no small part to English language and a massive diaspora around the world (particularly US and UK).

Don't even bother with the "Sure, music was better in my day..." bolloxolgy, to quote Paul Simon "every generation throws a hero up the pop charts"

Good music is very subjective.

Not all musicians are in it for the money but the music business is just that, a business..... and artists who take the 30 pieces of silver from record companies, promoters etc. know exactly where they stand.

LowOdour

Probably one of the worst threads I've read on boards! Pure waffle by most on it!

NIMAN

We have been getting battered in the media this last few days about the imminent release of a new u2 album, of "reimagined songs ".

I have heard about 4 songs off it so far, and all are bad. Seems to just be a chance to do slow, acoustic like versions of great songs. I won't be buying it.

cheese sandwich

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120363164#Comment_120363164

They’ve clearly run out of ideas. Which is fine, they’ve been going for over 40 years, but maybe it’s time to call it a day rather than pretending they still have it. Or else just accept that they’re a greatest hits live band now, like the Rolling Stones

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343695#Comment_120343695

So Much for the City was a bargain basement classic. Every charity shop had a copy.

Everlong1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120363477#Comment_120363477

I wouldn't be writing them off just yet. They've been talking about recording a back to basics guitar rock album which I'd dearly love to see them do. This "reimagined" album of old songs is just them indulging themselves, which they do from time to time - the Passengers album is the best example of this. The Edge is interviewed in the latest Hot Press and claims that the whole "reimagined" album was basically something to keep him occupied diuring the lockdown period.

DB83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140687#Comment_120140687

I'd argue that Dustin the Turkey is more talented musically than all of the above

cheese sandwich

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120364259#Comment_120364259

They’ve been doing ‘back to basics’ guitar albums since All That You Can’t Leave Behind, to ever diminishing returns. I personally am a bit tired of Bono singing about his childhood in the past twenty years

Man Vs ManUre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120365856#Comment_120365856

Bono son Elijah is here now, his band inhaler will get big over next few years. His singing sounds just like Bono!!

lumphammer2

Now with Tubridy leaving the Late Late Show ... maybe a new rethink is in order about music in Ireland ... I know it prob won't happen but we need to change things around ....

Tubridy was the reality TV/talent competition era host ... his 19 years presenting chatshows was dominated by that era ... as a result he just went along with that odious culture and everything incl music suffered ...

Tubridy's Late Late only catered for modern pop, modern country, modern contemporary so-called songsmiths ... nothing else ... the many other genres did not get a look in .... it was all Ronan Keating, Imelda May, et al ... those types got unfair advantage and it was a closed shop ...

Alas I predict no major change will be made to the Late Late ... most likely to get it will be Jennifer Zamparelli because she is a woman and because she is a female Tubridy ... lightweight and entrenched in reality TV .. involved with DWTS et al .... the same old same old overrated mediocre music will continue to be pushed and the church of worship of Imelda May will continue ....