All Time Top 1100 Albums (Aerosmith - Big Ones) P265

If I can cherry pick some of your comments, for me, you've hit the nail on the head several times:-

"Byrne’s vocal is awful" - Whilst I actually like the song you are referring to, I hate the way his voice wobbles up and down all the time like some cheap Elvis impersonator. Once or twice would be fine. All through the album? No thanks.
"...for the most part a decent set of funky new wave songs" - well I don't like funk or new wave. Probably explains why this is not my thing.
" The songs though are largely nothing special" - definitely right there.
"it feels like some people have been duped by the rock critics." - yep.

We all like different stuff, I get that. But the fawning praise that this band is getting is genuinely beyond me.
I can't understand why everybody who likes it is happy to put up with all the weird keyboard noises that sounds like a five year-old was let loose with some new toys. I know it's probably hard to express in words, but I wouldn't mind some of the people who love this album explaining: is this part of the charm? Do you enjoy listening to those parts or is it just something you put up with because you love other parts of the music? Would you prefer the songs without all this dicking about?

I like some Funk and I'm afraid you will find the F word appears more than once in my forthcoming review although it is most definitely a rock album.

I like some New Wave too but I don't love it. I do have stuff in my album collection that is there to give it breadth but I won't keep anything that I wouldn't play again.

Therefore, I quite like Talking Heads but I have yet to hear anyhting that makes me think they are anything other than massively overrated. They remain me of Radiohead in that regard but I actually have several Radiohead albums.
 
I like some Funk and I'm afraid you will find the F word appears more than once in my forthcoming review although it is most definitely a rock album.
Of course, a little bit here and there if fine but in this case ....
I'm probably best not saying anymore. I think we both agree that Talking heads are massively overrated, but this album has plenty of fans and no one opinion is more valid than another so I don't want to spoil the discussion for those that like it.

EDIT: Final though. I notice that AllMusic rate it at 3.5 and Rolling Stone at 4, so even though they like it, the critics don't appear to think it's "all-time great" material.
 
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It might not be wrong. That SMS is the best concert film ever made is probably beyond dispute.
Unless you are a Neil Young fan who thinks Rust Never Sleeps wipes the floor with it, an Iron Maiden fan who thinks Live After Death can’t be beaten, or even a general fan of musical and cultural history who thinks the Woodstock film is beyond compare, agreed.
 
Re SMS I think it’s a wonderful album, even in it’s original form, as was the movie. Psycho Killer, Girlfriend is Better, Burning down the house are all highlights for me, along with - of course - Once In A Lifetime, which is their greatest song for me (though I do enjoy David Byrne’s solo Lazy equally these days).
8/10
 
Re SMS I think it’s a wonderful album, even in it’s original form, as was the movie. Psycho Killer, Girlfriend is Better, Burning down the house are all highlights for me, along with - of course - Once In A Lifetime, which is their greatest song for me (though I do enjoy David Byrne’s solo Lazy equally these days).
8/10
The 2 tracks that stood out for me were 'life during wartime' + 'what a day that was' both are superb, great funky beats with a bit of synth pop thrown in. Whack the volume up and they sound ace.
 
Unless you are a Neil Young fan who thinks Rust Never Sleeps wipes the floor with it, an Iron Maiden fan who thinks Live After Death can’t be beaten, or even a general fan of musical and cultural history who thinks the Woodstock film is beyond compare, agreed.
No (though I do like it), never seen it, and absolutely under any circumstances no.

Jonathan Demme is a real film director. This tends to matter to things like, say, the quality of a film.
 
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No (though I do like it), never seen it, and absolutely under any circumstances no.

Jonathan Demme is a real film director. This tends to matter to things like, say, the quality of a film.
To put my perspective on it. When I went to this film (that’s movie in ‘Murica) I was about about 21 years old and had up until then been fed on a diet of rock/prog rock with hints of country rock and folk. I didn’t do punk so much yet. I had dabbled with the likes of Bowie and wasn’t big on the new romantic scene and post punk mish mash.
I was quite selective in what I liked and would buy.
I’m pretty sure I heard of this film through a recommendation from Barry Norman on Film 84 or some such. I had seen Psycho Killer performed on OGWT and was interested but not overly impressed with it. As others have alluded to, the noise and feedback at the crescendo at the end kind of smacked of a lack of musicianship to me, judging it from my lofty prog rock tower.

But the Jonathan Demme film was given a great review and Barry urged that whether you were into the band or not go see it.

It was on the last night of a two or three week run in The Screen cinema in Dublin (showed arty stuff. Long since closed) Myself and my then girlfriend went to it, her knowing less about it and having less interest in music generally, than I did.

The cinema was practically empty.
We picked prime seats in the centre and laid back not knowing what to expect.
Up until that my ideas of a live album were all the mid seventies staples. Yessongs, Bursting Out, Rust, Moonflower, Live Herald, Live and Dangerous etc etc.

I hadn’t even seen Rory’s Irish Tour ‘74 film at that stage, if I recall, which in its original state is ok, but I don’t like the later editing. But the original album is insanely good in my opinion, for capturing this kind of artist in his raw majesty

From the moment we see Byrne’s feet walking out to the stage and him just placing a beat box on the floor of an empty stage I thought, this is different.
I know I’ve told this story in full in here before so I’ll cut it short.

Both of us were drawn in slowly to music we were unfamiliar with, sucked in skilfully by the sheer joy on display and then blown away by the whole funkiness and the foot tapping groove.
Whether you like Byrne’s voice or not, in concert you cannot take your eye’s off him. He’s always interesting and not in the typical rockstar moves that seem so formulaic with some bands. This weird shit he does just seems natural, like his movement.
I grew to hear the same in the offnotes and feedback which just fit the concert feel. After all I’m used to Zappa, Crimson, Yes and a whole heap of experimentation so it doesn’t upset my sensibilities.

We came out converted and couldn’t wait to tell our mates in the pub we were meeting them in.

Time past. I wasn’t with the same girl when the film eventually came back to Dublin for a long long extended run in The Ambassador which had a stage in front of the screen.
Well I can’t tell you how many weekends I saw that film. It became the highlight of the week.
Pints in the pub across the road, then in for the midnight show, where we would go mental on stage, be chased by the bouncers until they gave up because of the sheer volume of people who had taken our lead and started dancing on stage. Great memories of when I was in my prime.

So that’s basically what this film is about for me. I will revise down my score to a 9 for the album, as I do still look at SMS as a 10/10 film.

I don’t tend to listen to the album without the visuals anymore.
 
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