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Drugs. Music. Let's talk.

GarethD by Gareth Dobson [Edit this content] ▾ 32 comments 16:37 August 1st, 2007


Pete Doherty drank my bleach

Music and drugs. They go together seamlessly, flawlessly and as happily as bread and butter, Kurt Cobain and shotguns and Britney Spears and pre-psychosis.

The history of music is_ the history of narcotic abuse; from Paul and John with their acid and dope, Jimi and his heroin, Kurt and his brown and Pete and his um, heroin again.

The question is; what happens when you disentangle the artist and the mind-altering substance?

Essentially, a re-writing of rock n' roll history. The Beatles would have kept writing really good three minute pop songs, Pink Floyd** wouldn’t have written anything ever and Nirvana would be on their Automatic For The People_ style acoustic LP right now. Another positive tick in the ‘uses drugs a lot’ box is that of Peter Doherty. If he wasn’t a mashed up, disintegrating corn on the cob (see above picture), he’d probably be on his seventh album’s worth of whimsical folk punk tales of albion. But then again, he and Carl Barat would never have been torn asunder, meaning we wouldn’t have Dirty Pretty Things. Oh, the raging ying versus the soothing yang…

Of course, bands do survive the drugs, kick the habits, and almost inevitably, write a load of toss. Utter toss. See Aerosmith, see Bob Mould, Richard Ashcroft, Spiritualized or even Queens of the Stone Age - since the man who took all the drugs all the time left; they’ve been terrible. David Bowie’s been clean for 25 years, which is pretty much when he released his last good album – the rather patchy Let’s Dance.

In the case of Bobby Gillespie, the drugs he’s on seem to relate to the records he’s making. Ergo whatever he was taking for XTRMTR_ and Screamadelica was good, that which he imbibed for Give Out… and anything after XTRMTR is bad. The Super Furry Animals**, like many, are essentially singing narcotics, and all the better for it.

The ‘chronic’ has naturally been a ridiculous influence on the Hip Hop community (Dr Dre wrote an album entitled as such), but the likes of DMX, *Xzibit and Snoop Dogg* have either smoked so much they’ve literally mulched themselves, or they’ve stopped and are now lost to the world. It’s hard to say, really…

The list of those who are either unaffected by their peaks and troughs of drug abuse or got better after they kicked the badness is short in our eyes. We number Wayne Coyne, Tom Waits and Nick Cave amongst them, but not too many others.

Drugs, eh? Mental.

*_DiScuss: * Which bands or artists are better for the drugs? Or worse? Which is the best ‘Im on loads of drugs, seriously, it’s fucked up’ _album of all time? _ Ladies And Gentleman We’re Floating In Space? Is Sgt Pepper’s _the worst?

What’s your favourite drug? What’s the best way to take heroin?

Note: anyone who witters on about alcohol being the most dangerous drug of all will have their account deleted, then forced to smoke crack with Pipe-y Pete for a year.

Peter Doherty posing as a fucked up smackhead picture by Jeanie Rau

Bonus Feature - see what you look like on Crystal Meth: click here

The Flaming Lips Super Furry Animals Nirvana The Beatles Spiritualized

Ladies & Gentlemen

is definatly the best of the fucked up druggy albums of all time.
I listened to it the other day and its smack city central.
My favourite drug is love xx

TheKutlers | 1 Aug '07, 16:50 | X | Reply

The closing note

was my favourite part of the article.

If I were a Super Furry Animal (and I'd happily kill for the priviledge. Please let me kill) I'd be a little pissed off with the fact that a sentence to the effect of 'massive drug users' is usually the first thing said of them rather than 'better than anyone else, consistantly, without you bothering to pay attention, you arse'.

And whats wrong with Sgt. Pepper? Its ace. So is Ladies & Gentlemen..., but I'm just saying.

That just about concludes my day of work on a Council Tax funded wage. Good day.

snow_brigade | 1 Aug '07, 16:53 | X | Reply

NB.

the subject line suggests I thought this article was rubbish doesn't it? I didn't mean that, just that I LOLed at the closing note. Ta.

snow_brigade @snow_brigade | 1 Aug '07, 16:54 | X | Reply

QOTSA?

i wouldn't normally say it on matters of musical opinion but you're a fucking idiot

People who say QOTSA got rubbish after Oliveri left are, in general, complete penisfarmers

smezzer | 1 Aug '07, 17:45 | X | Reply

but it's true

their new one was a bit better, but they'll never touch 'Rated R' or 'Songs For The Deaf' without Oliveri.

therapyrock @smezzer | 1 Aug '07, 17:48 | X | Reply

bullshit

i don't think he provided anything more than solid and powerful bass playing and a couple of (admittedly great) shouty thrash numbers per record.

I'd say the're just as sleazy, depraved and hard rockin' as they've ever been (or are at least capable of being that if Homme wants it that way)

smezzer @therapyrock | 1 Aug '07, 17:56 | X | Reply

Sgt Pepper is great.

Piwi | 1 Aug '07, 18:25 | X | Reply

Be Here Now?

I can't decide whether it's a fascinating window into the coke-filled times of Oasis, or a bloated turd. On paper the songs are really poor, but the whole context of the album is still pretty interesting.

That said, Stand By Me is a tune, even free of context.

IrishMagpie | 1 Aug '07, 18:38 | X | Reply

bill hicks...

...has already given *the* rant on this subject.

withpaperwings | 1 Aug '07, 18:47 | X | Reply

I've said it before and I'm saying it again

I like my music by junkies, for junkies, and about junkies.

oceanRain | 1 Aug '07, 19:02 | X | Reply

I stupidly tried the crystal meth site

and it made a picture of me wearing a baseball cap. That offended me more than the sores and sunken cheeks of the meth. Hmmph.

cysquatch | 1 Aug '07, 21:11 | X | Reply

.

Surely Steven Drozd/Elliott Smith/Lou Reed all deserve mentions in this too. Pretty obvious who's good/bad on whatthough, s'pose...

Figure8 | 1 Aug '07, 23:22 | X | Reply

oh come on

Heathen and Reality were damn good albums, and I'm fairly sure they've been released in the 25 years since Let's Dance, yes?

brusma | 2 Aug '07, 08:32 | X | Reply

what site is that?

it sounds funny

mattgoesfaster @cysquatch | 2 Aug '07, 10:14 | X | Reply

No

it's shite.

tom_edwards @Piwi | 2 Aug '07, 12:00 | X | Reply

but

his musical progression has stilted, and even gone backward.

And his lyrics have got even worse.

withpaperwings @Jen_Perkin | 2 Aug '07, 12:14 | X | Reply

qotsa

its all been toss after the first album. theyre no good at all as a pop band so why not go back to being stoner?

ad_c | 2 Aug '07, 13:06 | X | Reply

great album/bad drugs

The Cure/Pornography

perfect-murder | 2 Aug '07, 14:09 | X | Reply

how can someone

using aerosmith and spiritualized in same sentence ?

kowalski__ | 2 Aug '07, 14:40 | X | Reply

Have you got any Klarky Kat?

Damian | 2 Aug '07, 15:00 | X | Reply

can anyone name a great straight edge band?

Fugazi? At the Drive-in... actually think I'm confusing crowd surfing rants with drugs, there's no way those Mars Volta lyrics were written straight.

sean | 2 Aug '07, 15:03 | X | Reply

Look At The Damage Drug Excess Does

Took a man of great talent who had creative juices flowing through is body (wrote and sang Song For Lovers), one of the greatest ballads ever penned and became carcrash.Admittedly some of the Babyshambles stuff is good but most of it is complete dross.

scouseblade @free_plosion | 12 Aug '07, 14:40 | X | Reply

PISH

To all of you. Everyone knows (or should do) that the first queens album was the best and Oliveri wasn't on that either.

Pah

vonmusic @KillYourKids | 21 Aug '07, 14:35 | X | Reply

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