EWB's Top 104 Artists 2013 - Results

[apsham]

Campesinos! have this thing with me where I'll like three songs off each of their albums and that's about it, with me probably liking their last two albums better as a whole than anything before it.

I thought that Drake was going to be alright at first, but yeah - that went downhill pretty fast.

Frank Ocean puts out music that I'm not really all that interested in so.. neutral there.

I despise the RHCP - boring lyrics and by the numbers music to go with them. Meh.

[gunnar hendershow]

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N' Roses, and Smashing Pumpkins on a list in 2013.

Damn EWB, we old.

[=BK=]

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N' Roses, and Smashing Pumpkins on a list in 2013.

Damn EWB, we old.

tbf I'm just now 22 and I put GnR in my top 3.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I've still never listened to Los Campesinos!, despite hearing a bunch about them on EWB.

Drake's shit, I've never heard more than mediocre verses out of the guy. I really don't get the hype, he's not even one of those "better as a guest rapper" types, he's just a bit.. shit.

Frank Ocean I like.

I also have a soft spot for RHCP, for similar reasons - one of the first bands I got into on my own. I'm pretty sure I still have copies of Freakey Styley, Uplift Mofo Party Plan and Mother's Milk laying around. They're an alright band.

[Rafael]

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N' Roses, and Smashing Pumpkins on a list in 2013.

Damn EWB, we old.

Besides Smashing Pumpkins, both Red Hot and Guns N' Roses are still relevant, incredibly.

[Gazz]

Oh Rafa. G'n'R haven't been relevant since Axl asked for some reggae.

And boo to Skummy for reminding me that I own 'Mary, Star of the sea' by Zwan, the least favourite album I've ever bought.

[gunnar hendershow]

I remember the local alternative station in like 2002 kept telling us all we should care about Zwan. This was because they were being paid to advertise Zwan of course, and it's no wonder alternative FM radio died a painful death in the early noughties.

[Sousa]

I recently turned on my local corporate alternative radio station that I listened to a lot as a teenager. They were playing Default.

They were playing Default, guys.

There aren't italics slanty enough to express my shock.

[gunnar hendershow]

Our local corporate alternative station, after experiencing a hilarious death in like 2004 where it was immediately transitioned into a Latin music station (leading to a wave of suburban kids to make regrettable statements about Spanish-speaking people on Livejournal and Xanga), was revived on FM a few years ago and essentially sticks to playing "the classics" with random selections of popular indie groups today such as Arcade Fire. It's a healthy way to cater towards the lowest common denominator while still pretending to maintain some credibility.

There is a good station out of Annapolis down here that has tried to stay afloat by having its DJs shill local businesses and products in between songs just out of the blue "well that song was great and so is my coffee from Starbucks". Their song selection has recently really dropped off and they've been stuck trying to sound more and more like a generic corporate alternative station. They probably won't be around much longer. The same really should be said for all FM radio. Its coffin's final nail can't get hammered in soon enough.

[METALMAN]

28. The Beach Boys

Number of votes: 5

Highest position: 2nd

27. Pearl Jam

Number of votes: 6

Highest position: 4th

[METALMAN]

26. Black Sabbath

Number of votes: 5

Highest position: 7th

25. Frank Turner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EucJIl0uonE

Number of votes: 4

Highest position: 2nd

[Jimmy]

Los Camps are my favourite band, so yeah, woo.

Both Frank's on the list is good.

[Damian WayLNKe]

Our local corporate alternative station, after experiencing a hilarious death in like 2004 where it was immediately transitioned into a Latin music station (leading to a wave of suburban kids to make regrettable statements about Spanish-speaking people on Livejournal and Xanga), was revived on FM a few years ago and essentially sticks to playing "the classics" with random selections of popular indie groups today such as Arcade Fire. It's a healthy way to cater towards the lowest common denominator while still pretending to maintain some credibility.

There is a good station out of Annapolis down here that has tried to stay afloat by having its DJs shill local businesses and products in between songs just out of the blue "well that song was great and so is my coffee from Starbucks". Their song selection has recently really dropped off and they've been stuck trying to sound more and more like a generic corporate alternative station. They probably won't be around much longer. The same really should be said for all FM radio. Its coffin's final nail can't get hammered in soon enough.

I haven't listened in a few months but Indie 97.9 (HD radio station) is really good and is what a modern HFS should be.

[probablyoliver]

Los Camp were a band I loved when I was younger. Not so much now, there's still a whole lot of good in their back catalogue. 'Knee Deep at ATP', 'Death to Los Campesinos!', 'International TweeXcore Underground' and 'This Is How You Spell...' are still wonderful tracks and always will be and there's a wealth of other fun tracks to go along but they've lost their appeal to me in the last few years. I haven't even bothered with the most recent effort and Hello Sadness was mostly shit (with the exception of 'By Your Hand' and 'Songs About Your Girlfriend') and they've been sub-par the couple times I've seen them but yeah, I'm okay with them charting so high.

I have a soft spot for Drake and quite like the one album of his I have but other than that I've never really bothered with much else he's done.

Frank Ocean is fucking tremendous and he should've been way higher than the #20 spot I gave him.

RHCP are a rock band for people who don't like rock music and they've not done anything worth half a damn in the last ten years. Still, 'Scar Tissue' is an absolute joy and there's just about enough good stuff in their history for me not to hate them.

Oh, the Beach Boys. Lovely, lovely. I had the pleasure of seeing Brian Wilson at Bestival a couple years ago and my god, that was lovely. I'll admit I've never given them enough time past Pet Sounds and their greatest hits but yeah, lovely lovely.

Pearl Jam are the worst of the big four grunge bands. Shit music for whiny dickheads.

I fucking love Sabbath but then again, who doesn't? Bloody fantastic at their best and inoffensive at their worst.

Frank Turner is a wretched cunt. The worst of the worst. Going from Million Dead to putting out the dullest, most shite 'folk' (and I use that term extremely lightly) ever recorded is a fucking travesty. Awful, awful. 'Worse Things Happen at Sea' is ruddy fantastic though and he did introduce a wider audience to Beans on Toast so there's always that.

[Skummy]

Oh, "Knee Deep At ATP" is wonderful, and heart-breaking and one of those songs that, when I was about 18 or 19, seemed to absolutely sum up my situation in the way that a pop song can when you're a teenager. I'll forgive the fact that they've got a bit rubbish since then, for that song. And some other good'uns.

I don't actually know if I've ever heard Drake, but I have friends who adore him. Same goes for Frank Ocean.

I once saw an interview with Nick Cave where he said, "Every time I hear a song on the car radio and have to ask my kids 'what is this shit?', it's always the Red Hot Chili Peppers". That sums them up pretty well. Couple of good songs in the back catalogue, but mostly it's a jump from puerile sophomoric humour to middle-of-the-road pap in record time.

The Beach Boys are one of the greatest bands of all time, and it's a shame how few people seem to know too wide a range of their stuff. While "Good Vibrations" is, undoubtedly, a superb pop song, they tend to - understandably - get remembered for the more gimmicky, poppy stuff, and maybe get unduly overlooked for that. "Surf's Up" is as beautiful a song as any other to come out the '60s/'70s, and in their way they were as revolutionary and took as many risks as The Velvet Underground, just within a very different framework. Brian Wilson continues to be wonderful, too.

Pearl Jam are another one that make me wonder if a lot of you guys just stopped listening to music fifteen years ago. I know that's a bit rich after I just raved about the Beach Boys for a paragraph but, honestly? They had a half decent debut album, and two or three good songs since, and have been consistently one of the most fucking boring rock bands on the planet for the better part of a decade. Their continued relevance and popularity absolutely baffles me. Also, I fucking hate how Eddie Vedder's voice has spawned an entire fucking wave of shit singers in shit bands mumbling through a terrible baritone. Fuck off, Theory Of A Deadman.

Black Sabbath are incredible. Their first few albums are amongst the greatest heavy metal albums ever recorded and, if you ask me, the further heavy metal strays from that blueprint, the shittier it gets. The best metal bands in the world are the ones who know not to let the fruit fall too far from that tree.

I never really knew Million Dead, and know very little of Frank Turner, to be honest. I enjoyed a couple of cover versions he did of Springsteen, so picked up a couple of his albums, and it's mostly inoffensive. Most of it I'd never choose to listen to, but there's a couple of songs I actually really like now and again. Nothing special, though.

[=BK=]

FM radio will be around as long as there are cars and spotty wireless internet.

[METALMAN]

Beach Boys are great. Relatively recently I came across the Beach Boys In Concert album from 1973. It doesn't have Brian Wilson, but it is still utterly fantastic. Great songs, great backing band and some really punchy performances.

Pearl Jam are okay, but I echo Skummy's sentiments. Their music isn't exactly timeless. But it is listenable at least. Eddie Vedder's soundtrack for Into The Wild, on the other hand...

Black Sabbath are great. Such a unique sound and some great musicians all with their own interesting styles.

Frank Turner is great music if you are an engineering student. He is really impressive for sustaining a fairly lengthy career without doing anything at all of interest. So, so boring. He did a cover of 'Dancing Queen' once. You know, one of the best pop songs ever. Except in Frank Turner's hands it was lumpen, boring and pointless. Being Frank Turner, it was probably an "ironic" cover, which is ironic in itself because there are more hooks in that song than there are in his whole career. A nasty piece of work too. Fittingly emblematic of Cameron's Britain.

I don't like Frank Turner.

[probablyoliver]

'Fittingly emblematic of Cameron's Britain.' is the best description of Frank Turner I've ever heard.

[Walker]

Boo the Frank Turner hate. I remember sitting in a field aged 15 and meeting him at Middlesbrough Music Live, he is a lovely guy. Admittedly, I probably only really like him because he coincided with the age I started caring about music properly, but I still think his music up to England Keep My Bones is great. The EP he did with Snodgrass is the last thing he did I really liked though, and that goes back a few years.

[Sousa]

I've really grown to hate Eddie Vedder's singles career because for some reason Pandora thinks I really really want to listen to it and it is just garbage. awwwwwwwwwwwwww yuhhhhhh.

That said, "Do the Evolution" is, as I've said probably a thousand places now, a fucking tune and acquits them of a lot of criticism in my book.