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Song of the day – 563: The Drones

Song of the day – 563: The Drones
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No surprises, right?

I had this idea about writing a blog entry entitled 10 Reasons To Hate The Drones. Most of it would be based around presupposition, though. I do enjoy a good Drone or five. Great, great singing voice.

  • Every Western country seems to harbour a not-so secret need to nurture its own Bob Dylan fans.
  • When Neil Young plays live with Crazy Horse he likes to extend chords by several minutes. This is only cool if you enjoy chords being extended by several minutes.
  • Regret and defiance and wit will only get you so far. As will the melancholy blues, baby.
  • Black. Fucking black. Fucking ATP featuring bands all playing the same variation on fucking black. How do you tell all these bands apart, come midnight?
  • Mess+Noise reckon, “To review a Drones record without addressing the impact of the lyrics would be pointless”. Really? Not much of a music then, is it? It’s also not entirely true. Unless your line about the impact of the lyrics is, “These lyrics have no impact on me as I’m too much into the repetition and sound of the main voice to catch a single line, the harsh and sardonic dark Satanic chords, the accumulation of shards or piercing percussion, the bitter brooding bruised melodies and turbulent twisted harmonies” (and so on). Mind you, M+N also reckon that the new Drones record is as “streamlined in intent as a shark at dusk” which is both woefully cliched AND woefully wrong (unless M+N are really suggesting The Drones have only one arrow in their quiver).
  • I have a problem with blanket approval. This ain’t Liddiard’s fault, or his band’s. There should always be questioning voices, though. Are The Drones really a shoo-in for an award whichever year their new album is released within, or if that more of a comment upon the listening habits of their fans among the Australian music industry? This new album of The Drones, it’s good. It’s fine, yes. Very fine. I will play it, and probably more often than the new album from Nick Cave and his motherfucking Bad Seeds (and yes, a quick comparison is relevant). For a start, Liddiard has a lot more fun with his words (words that I will never listen to, remember, same way as I couldn’t recite you a single lyric from any of the 53+ Fall albums I own). And I’ll give The Drones this. They ain’t a jocular band. Sarcastic, yes. Jocular? No. This is another problem I have with I See Seaweed. All these serious music fans loving their serious music bands (presupposition, remember?), thinking that cos it’s serious and Real Man Rock it has to contain more value than (shrugs) this… say.

  • Bullshit. Music has the value that you the listener place upon it. (So it’s not bullshit at all then, Everett.)
  • Classic rock. There’s a reason why any publication with that title is so shit. Are The Drones the exception that prove the rule?
  • There’s a song inspired by Google Street View. I think that’s borderline genius, but I’m willing to be dissuaded.

This final song is everything his solo album could have been.

Related posts: Why would anyone want to hate the best rock band to come out of Australia in decades?

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