Game: which band/artist is more enjoyable without irony

[washing machine]

New game. Put up two artists/bands that are more or less commonly accepted to be lame/dorky and admit which one is most enjoyable, perhaps even underrated.

I'll start:

Huey Lewis & The News or Hall & Oates?

Last edited by washing machine on Thu April 05, 2018 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[lennytheweedwhacker]

hall and oates are great, though

[washing machine]

So is Huey Lewis.

[Anders]

I think we need YouTube proof.

[washing machine]

I think we need YouTube proof.

Header most definitely updated. Good call, Anders.

[tree_]

I'm going with Huey Lewis & The News, cause, with them, it's definitely HIP to be SQUARE

[lennytheweedwhacker]

I don’t really care for huey

[washing machine]

I don’t really care for huey

What turns you off about his music?

[Anders]

Prefer Huey Lewis, but Maneater might be the best song.

[Jorge]

Hall & Oates. I like Huey Lewis's songs but I find his voice grating

[Balki]

Anne Murray and Christopher Cross. Love them both...

[washing machine]

How have I never heard Anne Murray before? That's some decent breakfast making music judging by that video.

[bada]

I love Huey (unironically) but they never came up with anything as sick as I Can't Go For That. That's all time great.

[PHATJ]

I couldn’t care less about any of these bands/musicians.

[rick malone]

Been meaning to get into early Huey for a while

80's forever

[washing machine]

I'm so into this AV Club theory:

Three years ago I posited a theory that’s almost certainly bullshit (but still interesting enough to re-consider) about how director Robert Zemeckis used Lewis’ “The Power Of Love” in the biggest box-office grosser of 1985, Back To The Future. Conceding that I was likely giving Zemeckis and his co-screenwriter Bob Gale too much credit, I argued that “all the timely accoutrements signifying ‘the present’ in Back To The Future”—including denim jackets, Calvin Klein underwear, Tab soda, and Eddie Van Halen references, as well as “The Power Of Love”—“would inevitably look like 1985 within just a couple of years; in fact, they were banking on it. Zemeckis and Gale were trying to create an archetypical representation of 1985 just like they did for 1955, with its soda fountains, social repression, and subjugated black people.”

In essence, I was asserting that Back To The Future was “a period piece made in 1985 that depicts 1985 as an era as distant-seeming as its version of 1955.” Music is one of the easiest ways to cinematically evoke an era, and just as Zemeckis signified 1955 by prominently featuring mainstays of the period like “Mr. Sandman” by The Chordettes and “Earth Angel” by The Penguins, he used “The Power Of Love” to give Back To The Future an extra dose of mid-’80s specificity. If Back To The Future took place during any other year, a teenager listening to Huey Lewis on headphones while sneakily hitching a ride on the back of a pickup truck with his skateboard would have been utterly ridiculous. Granted, it’s sort of ridiculous in Back To The Future—a California skater like Marty McFly probably would’ve jammed on some Minutemen or Black Flag—but it wasn’t entirely implausible. Huey Lewis really was a genuine pop star, and many viewers of Back To The Future in ’85 would’ve accepted him as a signifier of contemporary coolness without question. (Which makes “The Power Of Love” a perfect choice to musically represent the otherness of ’85 in retrospect, if that indeed was on Zemeckis’ mind.)

[washing machine]

I'm so into this AV Club theory:

Three years ago I posited a theory that’s almost certainly bullshit (but still interesting enough to re-consider) about how director Robert Zemeckis used Lewis’ “The Power Of Love” in the biggest box-office grosser of 1985, Back To The Future. Conceding that I was likely giving Zemeckis and his co-screenwriter Bob Gale too much credit, I argued that “all the timely accoutrements signifying ‘the present’ in Back To The Future”—including denim jackets, Calvin Klein underwear, Tab soda, and Eddie Van Halen references, as well as “The Power Of Love”—“would inevitably look like 1985 within just a couple of years; in fact, they were banking on it. Zemeckis and Gale were trying to create an archetypical representation of 1985 just like they did for 1955, with its soda fountains, social repression, and subjugated black people.”

In essence, I was asserting that Back To The Future was “a period piece made in 1985 that depicts 1985 as an era as distant-seeming as its version of 1955.” Music is one of the easiest ways to cinematically evoke an era, and just as Zemeckis signified 1955 by prominently featuring mainstays of the period like “Mr. Sandman” by The Chordettes and “Earth Angel” by The Penguins, he used “The Power Of Love” to give Back To The Future an extra dose of mid-’80s specificity. If Back To The Future took place during any other year, a teenager listening to Huey Lewis on headphones while sneakily hitching a ride on the back of a pickup truck with his skateboard would have been utterly ridiculous. Granted, it’s sort of ridiculous in Back To The Future—a California skater like Marty McFly probably would’ve jammed on some Minutemen or Black Flag—but it wasn’t entirely implausible. Huey Lewis really was a genuine pop star, and many viewers of Back To The Future in ’85 would’ve accepted him as a signifier of contemporary coolness without question. (Which makes “The Power Of Love” a perfect choice to musically represent the otherness of ’85 in retrospect, if that indeed was on Zemeckis’ mind.)

[Higgs]

Hall and Oates have some great great songs. Huey is OK but not same level.

[Higgs]

Anne Murray and Chris Cross I don't know enough about to comment.

[Jorge]

Sugar Ray


Smash Mouth