Bands today have better technology to work with plus a larger body of inspiration to draw on. OG Gazers were making it all up as they went along so the songwriting was never as good as it should have been. The Cocteau Twins are really a phenomenon unto themselves and IMO the only band that approached their batting average writing-wise was Lush.
I met Miki Berenyi back on Lush's first US tour and she was so gorgeous and so charismatic it made you swoon. But in a live setting you realized she wasn't a very good singer.
I would add Slowdive to the list of good songwriters, but I like Lush too. Have you checked out Miki's new band Piroshka yet?
I haven't. I should. I interacted a couple times with Miki on Twitter and she's still a sweetheart. I think Split is one of the best albums of the 90s. But I also love how the Twins gave Lush a brushback pitch with "Smile." A bit of the old "don't forget who created this genre, dearies."
I like Slowdive very much but they get by more on the sound than melody per se.
Little help? Hartfield was a Japanese shoegaze/dreampop band (okay, nothing spectacular). There's that weird little effect at 26 seconds in (and repeated throughout). I'm sure that's been sampled from somewhere but I can't identify it.
"Ain't no party like an S Club party!'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
The band sounds good, but I was not a fan of scatting EF.
Wasn't she always scatting?
Well, sort of, with her made-up words and all, but live she seemed to abandon all melody for scatting. I recall Robin and Simon bemoaning her habit of sounding like a wounded dolphin.
"Ain't no party like an S Club party!'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
The band sounds good, but I was not a fan of scatting EF.
Wasn't she always scatting?
Well, sort of, with her made-up words and all, but live she seemed to abandon all melody for scatting. I recall Robin and Simon bemoaning her habit of sounding like a wounded dolphin.
This doesn't auger well for my seeing her with Massive Attack in September.
The band sounds good, but I was not a fan of scatting EF.
Wasn't she always scatting?
Well, sort of, with her made-up words and all, but live she seemed to abandon all melody for scatting. I recall Robin and Simon bemoaning her habit of sounding like a wounded dolphin.
This doesn't auger well for my seeing her with Massive Attack in September.
I wouldn't worry. I've got a boot of a show she did five or six years ago and she was more "normal." I wonder if her approach in the latter years of the Cocteaus was reflective of her unhappiness.
"Ain't no party like an S Club party!'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
The band sounds good, but I was not a fan of scatting EF.
Wasn't she always scatting?
Well, sort of, with her made-up words and all, but live she seemed to abandon all melody for scatting. I recall Robin and Simon bemoaning her habit of sounding like a wounded dolphin.
This doesn't auger well for my seeing her with Massive Attack in September.
I wouldn't worry. I've got a boot of a show she did five or six years ago and she was more "normal." I wonder if her approach in the latter years of the Cocteaus was reflective of her unhappiness.
Well, sort of, with her made-up words and all, but live she seemed to abandon all melody for scatting. I recall Robin and Simon bemoaning her habit of sounding like a wounded dolphin.
This doesn't auger well for my seeing her with Massive Attack in September.
I wouldn't worry. I've got a boot of a show she did five or six years ago and she was more "normal." I wonder if her approach in the latter years of the Cocteaus was reflective of her unhappiness.
That must have been no fun for anybody.
Yeah, a former couple in a band, one a raging control freak and the other an emotionally damaged person. As much as I'd love for them to have gone on, for the health of all involved it was best for the them to quit.
"Ain't no party like an S Club party!'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
Well, sort of, with her made-up words and all, but live she seemed to abandon all melody for scatting. I recall Robin and Simon bemoaning her habit of sounding like a wounded dolphin.
This doesn't auger well for my seeing her with Massive Attack in September.
I wouldn't worry. I've got a boot of a show she did five or six years ago and she was more "normal." I wonder if her approach in the latter years of the Cocteaus was reflective of her unhappiness.
That must have been no fun for anybody.
Liz was in terrible shape on that tour. She was hospitalized before the tour and hospitalized after. In the trauma ward.
The ridiculous amounts of drugs they were all taking at the time didn't help. Robin was visibly smacked out of his head on TV interviews. The band were at their all-time peak as a live unit two years later.