Quite Dark Comedy

[michelej1]

It's easy to appreciate South Park type of humor poking fun at the band, but this comic strip is another matter entirely:

http://www.raketenwerfer.org/staticpages/Rumours01.htm

It's based on an article Jim Walsh did in Kill Your Idols. The book was about overpraised rock albums, Rumours being one of them, but Jim Walsh decided to take the title of the book literally when it came to Fleetwood Mac and this comic strip does the same.

Michele

[Johnny Stew]

Hmm. In their explanation of the site, they state that they "have an axe to grind, (involving) the all-pervading uber-cynicism that dominates American intellectual culture in 2006." Ironic given that this seems to have been written and drawn by one of those ever-so-cynical members of the self-appointed intelligentsia.

[michelej1]

Yes, cynicism and a rather indiscriminate resentment of everything that has gained mass popularity, regardless of merit. There's this attitude that if it's popular it has to be reviled just by definition of having been a commercial success. If you want to make a comment, then assassinate the songs that didn't deserve to be on an album that broke sales records. It's just too easy to target an album just because it sold a lot, without saying why it should not have done so. There is no shortage of FM material ripe for ridicule, but in this case, no one did the minor homework necessary to present it. It's like he (both Walsh in Kill Your Idols and the comic strip derived from the article) skipped to the punch line without setting up the joke.

On his blog http://www.raketenwerfer.org/?p=50 the comic strip author made fun of a fan review of an FM show saying that the fan had a sense of entitlement and demanded that Christine owed it to us to tour. Now, I'm not saying that fans don't feel entitled. I sure do. I am always having silent arguments with the band in my head, asking what have they done for me lately. Yet, there was no such indignation apparent in the fan review cited and the writer only said he missed Christine, nothing more.

The message seems to be: the band is overrated, in ways I can't explain. I want to make fun of them. But I can't take the time to figure out exactly why.

Michele

[Sarah]

****ing lame.

If you need to get a point across, there are better targets to pick off than FM.

[danax6]

Originally Posted by Sarah

****ing lame.

If you need to get a point across, there are better targets to pick off than FM.

I agree. What about those money-making hit machines that don't have an ounce of talent in them, only a large team of advisors, experts and providers doing all their dirty work? Just like Michele said, they failed to examine exactly what it was that made Rumours the success that it was, they just grabbed the first multi-platinum record they could think of.

[SortaSavageLike]

Originally Posted by Sarah

****ing lame.

If you need to get a point across, there are better targets to pick off than FM.

Ya mean, like a band or artist that has had a Platinum-selling studio album released in the last 20 years? Nah, that would be too easy.