[kj] Chug, commercialies, and various repressed gashness

[ade]

> Because none fall falt for me except OTG.

Agreed!!

-----Original Message-----
From: gathering-bounces at misera.net
[mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net]On Behalf Of Jiri
Sent: 09 May 2006 22:10
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)
Subject: [kj] Chug, commercialies, and various repressed gashness


I'm not persuaded. Killing Joke were accused of going for 
commercial/accessible hits even as far back as Fire Dances, then again 
with Night Time, and now too (and then) with BTATS. I don't buy it. Nor 
with 2003 and "Kerrang fans." They can hardly cobble together a cohesive 
tour, much less make an album directed toward a young trendy fanbase. 
It's more like this: Geordie has a bunch of riffs he wants to use 
(sometimes chuggy, sometimes not), then Jaz starts shouting over them, 
then a producer or label tries to make commercial sense of it.

On each of the above albums, there were some elements of commercial 
leanings--whether from record company pressure or change of sound--, but 
it was certainly not the primary motivator for any of them, and I think 
hardly worth mentioning. As someone said, you don't quote the Book of 
Lies if you're trying to sell out with a commercial hit.

If anything the evolution toward BTATS appears to be Jaz grabbing more 
and more control and yanking them toward his orchestral interest--not a 
big commercial push. It worked on Night Time, which perfectly captured a 
moment in time, a mood, a reflection of where they recorded it, with 
some good-to-fantastic lyrics (esp. Darkness Before Dawn), and Geordie's 
approach was just different -- not like Fire Dances nor Revelations nor 
WTF, but still effective to me.

On BTATS, it still worked--though admittedly dangerously close to going 
too far. But BTATS has some great, beautiful compositions, some great 
lyrics (one of the few times Jaz really hits the mark with longer lines 
in his verse), good riffs -- it's merely hurt by the high mix of the 
keyboards over everything else. As proof, play it very loud (or wait 
till they release the Kimsey mixes!), or check out some of the better 
live performances of the material. The drums aren't classic Killing 
Joke, and Big Paul was apparently frustrated during the recording 
process, but it says something that his favorite memory in KJ was from a 
performance during this era (and with this material).

Most of the elements of strong Killing Joke are there in BTATS (and when 
really are all of the elements at the top of their game?). Jaz's spiral 
toward OTG style--not commercialism--just obscured its beauty.

I guess I like each of their albums too much for whichever side (always 
different) of the band they happen to highlight, and how each one is 
different yet retains some elements from the previous one. Because none 
fall falt for me except OTG.
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