Wicked Nature

Is Wicked Nature their best release to date? I can't let go of it! When I think I'm not that into some of the songs, the song begins playing and I love it. I'm hooked to this album! It makes me think every Vines album should have been a double album!

What exactly is a single these days? Internet release? The last time I saw singles was when MTV cared about music and showed music videos. So what does a single do nowadays? Bring in new listeners, I suppose, but from Wicked Nature, you could choose most any song for the next single.

I too ignored "Girl I Want" upon my first 10 listens, but now I know I was under a spell, it is one of my favorite songs!

Damn, can't get enough of this album! Who else has the Vinyl?

Koala Owl wrote:

Damn, can't get enough of this album! Who else has the Vinyl?

Me, I have it! Was kinda disappointed with the t-shirt though, the logo was too far over to the side and small!

Still have to say Highly Evolved for the best release though to be honest. I think I'm liking Wicked Nature better than Future Primitive though!

Found another interview:

http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/418496/vines-back-better-ever.htm

Kitty wrote:

Found another interview:

http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/418496/vines-back-better-ever.htm

I liked this quote from it: "The LP opens with ‘Metal Box’..."!

I also posted scans of an article from this month's Rolling Stone Australia magazine.

https://thevines.forumotion.com/t229-rolling-stone-australia-article-october-2014

I just read the review from Drowned in Sound. The author of the article makes a joke about how Venus Fly Trap should be called Autumn Shade III. I love when people reviewing an album show their lack of knowledge of the band they're reviewing

Also, surprised none of us have posted what we would have made the album like if it were only one disc.

So, I'm going to do that. I'd first like to say that just because I left a song off doesn't mean it isn't good. I tried to pick the best of the best, best for album flow, etc. This is how I would have put the album together.

1 - Metal Zone
2 - Ladybug
3 - Into The Fire
4 - Green Utopia
5 - Truth
6 - Killin the Planet
7 - Out The Loop
8 - Girl I Want
9 - Venus Fly Trap
10- Good Enough
11- Rave It
12- Anything You Say
13- Funny Thing
14- Wicked Nature

Thats pretty good, platinum!

I get the feeling that Fly Away is the most underrated song on this album. Its simple and mellow and doesn't need to be in the foreground when it doesn't want to. The melody is pure and the lyrics alienating ("I'm not coming down"). Could be the sleeper track.

Time will tell.

really big int in Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/12/the-vines-craig-nicholls-i-already-thought-i-was-a-genius

suedehead wrote:

really big int in Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/12/the-vines-craig-nicholls-i-already-thought-i-was-a-genius

Thanks for posting! I was surprised they asked him upfront about the assault charges in 2012. His response was pretty vague but I guess that's understandable.

pretty interesting. kinda upsets me how he constantly refers to himself as a freak, though. some of us are more odd than others, but it doesn't make you a freak. i get the feeling he's given up on trying to fit in, with all this keeping to himself and not talking to anyone.

i really do hope they do some touring. a few weeks on, a few weeks back home, etc. i think it'd be good to get him out of the house, even if he thinks its the wrong thing for him. thats no way to live!!!!!


(and i know that if he wants to hide in a closet his whole life because it makes dealing with his condition easier, its up to him, i just hate to see him giving up on so much...)

Great little interview. Touchy topics dealed with as sensitively as possible. Nice humour in there too.

But I get what you mean, platinum. Makes me sad when he's so down on himself, like he's digging himself into the isolation even more with a "well I'm already like this (a "freak" etc)" mentality.

Anysound wrote:

Great little interview. Touchy topics dealed with as sensitively as possible. Nice humour in there too.

But I get what you mean, platinum. Makes me sad when he's so down on himself, like he's digging himself into the isolation even more with a "well I'm already like this (a "freak" etc)" mentality.

Yeah I feel for him. Maybe we should him fanmail to make him feel less like a freak.

Kitty wrote:

Yeah I feel for him. Maybe we should him fanmail to make him feel less like a freak.

Good idea, or least to reassure him his fans are still loyal.

His core fans like us are loyal, but I've got to wonder sometimes, what happened to the million + people who bought Highly Evolved?

platinum
Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:55 am
His core fans like us are loyal, but I've got to wonder sometimes, what happened to the million + people who bought Highly Evolved?

Good shout! I'm a hard CORE fan! Have been since between Highly Evolved and Winning Days!

From my experience, over here in the U.S., they are virtually unknown & only a small portion barely remember Get Free, let alone heard the rest of the album!

But what is it like in Australia and where do the vines rank in popularity? I mean in the Rock genre, as I assume pop music and rap (maybe country)dominate the charts.

Are they regarded as high as AC/DC, and is Silverchair big there?

id like to know that toil. I'm from the states as well, and most people have never heard of the vines. those who do seem to remember Get Free, and tend to look at the band as kind of a joke. it annoys the hell out of me.

I'm sad to say that The Vines probably aren't as well known here in Australia as you non-Australians might think or hope. :/

The "casual music fan" here of course knows of The Vines but there are a lot of people who don't even know them or have just "heard the name" but know nothing of them. Even the casual music fan would be stretched to name more than a couple of songs, even from HE/WD era, and even then their familiarity with the band wouldn't be the same as their familiarity with bands like Silverchair.

Bands like Silverchair have consistently been in the spotlight in some form or another. Silverchair have been consistently well received, with the band, if not only Johns, doing media appearances (think nighttime talk shows and breakfast programs) promoting their work. You would be surprised how much that helps - Johns is a well-known figure in not just the music scene but entertainment/popular culture in general just because every couple of years the public is reminded he's out there making music or art of some kind. With Craig, we don't get that so much.

Of course, AC/DC is another story altogether. Different time, different culture. Massive icons eclipsing just the Australian scene. Everyone knows them.

What's even sadder is that a lot of people seem to take The Vines/Craig as a joke here as well. You get talking to people (in my case, people around 18-25 at uni) about music and you mention bands and as soon as you mention The Vines it's like your taste is ridiculous or like the band is comical. I've had people ask, "The Vines?! Are they still a thing? Isn't Craig crazy now?" and just generally not showing much respect at all. And, mind you, these are people who I would generally say are pretty clued up on the scene.

Anyway, sorry for the rant.

Anysound wrote:

I'm sad to say that The Vines probably aren't as well known here in Australia as you non-Australians might think or hope. :/

The "casual music fan" here of course knows of The Vines but there are a lot of people who don't even know them or have just "heard the name" but know nothing of them. Even the casual music fan would be stretched to name more than a couple of songs, even from HE/WD era, and even then their familiarity with the band wouldn't be the same as their familiarity with bands like Silverchair.

Bands like Silverchair have consistently been in the spotlight in some form or another. Silverchair have been consistently well received, with the band, if not only Johns, doing media appearances (think nighttime talk shows and breakfast programs) promoting their work. You would be surprised how much that helps - Johns is a well-known figure in not just the music scene but entertainment/popular culture in general just because every couple of years the public is reminded he's out there making music or art of some kind. With Craig, we don't get that so much.

Of course, AC/DC is another story altogether. Different time, different culture. Massive icons eclipsing just the Australian scene. Everyone knows them.

What's even sadder is that a lot of people seem to take The Vines/Craig as a joke here as well. You get talking to people (in my case, people around 18-25 at uni) about music and you mention bands and as soon as you mention The Vines it's like your taste is ridiculous or like the band is comical. I've had people ask, "The Vines?! Are they still a thing? Isn't Craig crazy now?" and just generally not showing much respect at all. And, mind you, these are people who I would generally say are pretty clued up on the scene.

Anyway, sorry for the rant.

T'was a good rant! Get Free is about the only song people seem to know and the shittier Australian bands seem to be a much bigger deal here. Funny enough though they were popular in England and America before they were popular in Australia.

Koala Owl wrote:

Are they regarded as high as AC/DC, and is Silverchair big there?

One MAJOR difference between AC/DC//Silverchair & The Vines, is that AC/DC & Silverchair became massive at home, THEN went big worldwide. The Vines did the opposite & as we all know, kinda backfired.

Australian's are viciously notorious for the 'Tall Poppy Syndrome', & this was well apparent with The Vines & 'Highly Evolved'. Australians hate hype (if they don't think it's worth it), and will be quite upfront to say they don't give a shit about you if everyone else speaks so highly, until they see for themselves. So, if you add a critically acclaimed band that has a mentally unstable frontman with an audience like this, it was never bound to win them over.

AC/DC & Silverchair had blown up in Australia with their debut albums (High Voltage/TNT & Frogstomp, respectively) & had earned a massive domestic following for these efforts, mainly because the labels & bands did not aim for worldwide immediately. They earnt the respect & fanbase with now Australian anthems like TNT & Tomorrow, which are both now considered two of the greatest Aussie Rock songs ever.
'Get Free' is just a footnote in the history of Australian music, & is usually only commended for knocking down the door for all future Australian bands to find international success easier, which is kind of true.

Whereas AC/DC & Silverchair will forever have immensely strong fanbases in Australia (& Let's be honest, all future albums are basically already No.1 debutants on the charts, if history is to go by anything), The Vines will forever be implanted in the 'Modern Rock/Garage Rock Revival' era of the early 2000's, & will never break through that growing mould. All the bands that The Vines inspired are bigger than them now (Violent Soho, Tame Impala, etc.), whereas Silverchair & AC/DC succeeded so well, for another Aussie band to do that now in the US/UK, they'd be considered the new gods of this nation (Gotye doesn't count).

If The Vines did silence all the critics & Craig never had A.S, I think that they would of been in the same calibre as AC/DC//Silverchair//INXS//etc. & it'd be a majorly different story.

Ugh, that toll poppy syndrome thing is so true. Fuck we're dumb sometimes. Never really consciously considered how that would effect The Vines' reception here but yep, I see it now.

I also wonder if perhaps the band would have been more popular if they tried new things. Don't get me wrong, I love their sound AND I love their newest album, but for the most part you could mix up all the songs from all the albums and they all blend in. The Vines have been making the exact same kind of music for 12 years now. It would be the same if the Beatles were still writing She Loves You in 1974!!!

Sometimes the public likes to see something a little bit different. Some variation

platinum wrote:

I also wonder if perhaps the band would have been more popular if they tried new things. Don't get me wrong, I love their sound AND I love their newest album, but for the most part you could mix up all the songs from all the albums and they all blend in. The Vines have been making the exact same kind of music for 12 years now. It would be the same if the Beatles were still writing She Loves You in 1974!!!

Sometimes the public likes to see something a little bit different.  Some variation

Isn't that what Future Primitive tried to do?...

thelivingvines wrote:

platinum wrote:

Sometimes the public likes to see something a little bit different.  Some variation

Isn't that what Future Primitive tried to do?...

Didn't everyone, including us, give the album a universal 'eh' when we heard it?

I agree with Thelivingvines that FP did try to shake things up & do something different, but everyone was kinda like 'the fuck is this?'. When they did the same album 3 times over the general public's reception was 'Eh we've heard this before'. You can't win in this kind of situation, Craig repeated the same formula so many times where now, any kind of genuine expansion on their sound just seems inhumane to comprehend. Both general public & fans.

I genuinely think there was progress on 'Winning Days'. Craig could've wandered as far as experimental/noise rock, or orchestral ballads if he maintained that momentum/creative mindframe for their 3rd album. Chances are he probably would of been acclaimed for his sonic exploration & some NME bullshit writer praising 'Nicholls' intense musicianship & attention to deatil of how to build the bridge between simplistic garage rock & the diverse dimensions of experimental rock' . Instead we got a 'return to garage rock roots' with 'Vision Valley' & it hasn't really strayed far from the path since. I'm not saying that VV or any subsequent albums are shit, but there hasn't really been that great of progress aside from FP.

The Vines applying variation now is a little too late I think. What I'm anticipating with this Littlemore/Nicholls collaboration is a heap of electronic-meets-experimental rock tracks that would of been too 'out there' to be released under The Vines name.

I would not consider Future Primitive any different than the other albums at all. The songs are still the same old verse chorus verse rock/pop/grunge songs as always, they just had a producer who added spacey sounds to it all. The songwriting is still the same 100%.

And I would by far call it their worst album. Not because of the production, I just think it was a lazy effort. I love some of the songs, but their worst material lives here