The Hold Steady

[Nick Ink]

Ryan, what are you talking about?!

Seriously, the three words 'do me next', all lewd double-entendres aside, could naturally occur in just about a thousand different situations.

Well, I meant in the context of someone criticizing someone.

Well, okay, but I don't think swv was being critical.

disclosure : i don't know what Family Guy is, besides what I ghave deduced from this thread.

[DanielBurns11]

Ryan, what are you talking about?!

Seriously, the three words 'do me next', all lewd double-entendres aside, could naturally occur in just about a thousand different situations.

Well, I meant in the context of someone criticizing someone.

Well, okay, but I don't think swv was being critical.

disclosure : i don't know what Family Guy is, besides what I ghave deduced from this thread.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=lich59xsjik

[Wally]

American Dad approaches "decent" from time-to-time.  Its episodes generally manage to follow a plot and it's a bit sharper than FG. 

I'll take FG any day of the week. AD seems to rely more on gross out humor. It may be 'sharper' than FG, but I still think FG is like 10x funnier.

I had it very hard to imagine Family Guy is ten times funnier than anything. Genocide? Perhaps.

[sashwap]

American Dad approaches "decent" from time-to-time.  Its episodes generally manage to follow a plot and it's a bit sharper than FG. 

I'll take FG any day of the week. AD seems to rely more on gross out humor. It may be 'sharper' than FG, but I still think FG is like 10x funnier.

I had it very hard to imagine Family Guy is ten times funnier than anything. Genocide? Perhaps.

actually, family guy is only 4 times as funny as genocide.

[Thermofusion]

The Hold Steady is funnier than genocide

there we're back on topic buds

[Thermofusion]

no that was lame.  a better one:

genocide almost killed me

[slow west vultures]

disclosure : i don't know what Family Guy is, besides what I ghave deduced from this thread.

please keep things this way nick.  your respect for american culture will not suffer a tremendous leap downward from its no doubt already precarious position. 

[elpollodiablo]

Srsly Family Guy is dogshit

[Babar]

family guy > achewood

*goes in the threnches to avoid heavy gunfire*

[elpollodiablo]

I mean you are entitled to your opinion and I have many friends that like it but I think an objective analysis reveals it to be the excrement from a dog's asshole

[Thermofusion]

family guy > achewood

HAHAHAHA what???

[sashwap]

I mean you are entitled to your opinion and I have many friends that like it but I think an objective analysis reveals it to be the excrement from a dog's asshole

so many people like it, but i think it's just laziness on their part. they just like it because they don't really care what they like and are willing to accept that random always equals funny and any pop culture reference is hilarious. hilarious.

i seriously feel like i'm in the twilight zone sometimes when friends of mine like it, so i'm glad to know there are some like-minded people here on the internet.

[jebreject]

If Sufjan is the epitome of all that is wrong with indie music, Seth MacFarlane is the epitome of all that is wrong with American television and by extension culture

I mean seriously dude I cannot believe you just told me that American Dad approaches "decent," it could not see decent on a clear day from a high perch with a telescope

quoted for infinite truth

[Wally]

Nah, it loses truth points for the "If" at the beginning.

[Babar]

the "if" is there because pollo actually likes sufjan

[Wally]

Well in that case pollo loses "truth" points as well.

[Thermofusion]

I don't hate the Silver Surfer enough to pin the epic wrong turn indie has taken directly onto him, but I don't think he's helped spin the wheel away from the ditch, if you catch my drift.  He's just kinda edgeless and dully annoying.  And his hardcore fans are creepy.

I agree PFork has a lot to do with it, but I'm hopeful the rise of the music blogosphere is going a long way toward unraveling their influence. 

A part of me thinks shallow and bafflingly popular bands like Bloc Party and LCD Soundsystem are hurting shit the worst by homogenizing the indie sound into something narrow enough to casually spin at your local Urban Outfitters without having to worry about your customers noticing a single song in any discrete fashion: upbeat, danceable, vaguely sloppy but ultimately boring music that's functional only as a means to lift your mood into a closeout-rack-foraging disposition of corporation-suggested idiosyncratic independence.

[C of heartbreak]

Oh hey guys whats going on in this thread?

[elpollodiablo]

I have heard The Hold Steady in the Gap, you wanna go around throwing rocks

Also the Mountain Goats

It's all about product positioning and anything you hear in a retail store is gonna be sapped of context, consequence and significance

[elpollodiablo]

I mean really there ain't nothin wrong with indie rock except that it's tired, its fans suck, and the Man knows he can sell you some shirts and beer with it

[Thermofusion]

It's all about product positioning and anything you hear in a retail store is gonna be sapped of context, consequence and significance

I guess my point is there's a glut of indie bands right now with a homogenously shallow, feel-good sound that is perfectly suited for this function because they have no context, consequence or significance to begin with. 

[Andrew_TSKS]

I mean you are entitled to your opinion and I have many friends that like it but I think an objective analysis reveals it to be the excrement from a dog's asshole

so many people like it, but i think it's just laziness on their part. they just like it because they don't really care what they like and are willing to accept that random always equals funny and any pop culture reference is hilarious. hilarious.

man, i feel like that about a lot of stuff that friends of mine are into. it's just another one of those things that will cause me to go off on a tirade about cultural signifiers standing in for actual appreciation, etc.

[Ignatius]

I thought that, when it came out, the first few episodes of Family Guy were very funny - it was new, full of non sequiturs, and just crazy.  As the show developed, and the characters didn't (except maybe Brian), it lost its charm.  You can only point at Quagmire and say "look at this pervy horndog!" so many times before it's time to come up with a new joke.  That said, some of the pop culture references are presented in such a weird way, they still struck me as funny on first watch - there was an episode where Donny Most rises from the mist of a secluded pond, for instance.  It's stupid, but also, what the heck?  Still, there's no point in watching that again, while a good Simpsons episode stands up to LOTS of re-views.

Oddly enough, that's also a surprisingly neat allegory for my feelings on the Hold Steady, other than the Donny Most thing.  "Oh, that's kinda neat!  It's familiar, but, I like the energy!  What else can you guys do?  Oh. . ."

[coldforge]

I wasn't making a Stewie Griffin references.

[RavingLunatic]

Yeah, I think we all understand that now. (repeatedly bashes forehead with open palm)