Catch up (January)

Some of the things I've been listening to recently. No time to say anything detailed.

Brahms - Symphony No 2 I like it more than I used to but something eludes me about Brahms' orchestral music.

Brahms - String Quartet in F, op 88 - I was stunned by this, amazing. Must listen again.

Bonnie Tyler - Faster Than The Speed Of Night - OK, but the title track is brilliant, and of course "Total Eclipse Of The Heart"

Talco - Combat Circus - Listened to this again just before Christmas, it's brilliant.

DJ Emil - World Lounge vol 1, Sun - Mixtape or whatever of various world music. All interesting, a lot of it is superb.

Gang Of Four - Entertainment!

I really rated Gang Of Four when I was college, around the time this was released. They were brilliant live. I thought this was very good at the time, but not perfect* - I thought some of the tracks, such as "Natural Is Not In It" and "Return The Gift", were a bit monotonous. Then, when Go4 did a reunion tour about 6 years ago, this seemed to be elevated into the pantheon of all time great albums. I was prompted to listen to it again by hearing the aforesaid anti-consumerism anthem "Natural Is Not In It" on, irony of ironies, a television advert. (I'm surprised it didn't become a hit single and make Messrs King, Gill, Allen and Burnham very rich, which would have been even more ironic).

I'm still not sure if it deserves to be up there with the likes of Sergeant Pepper (or whatever the greatest Beatles album is these days), Pet Sounds (which I'm ashamed to say I still haven't heard all the way through) and Forever Changes, but it's certainly stood the test of time, and I think it's even better than I thought it was 30 years ago. Music taut and electrifying - Gill's scratchy guitar is unique, and intelligent and incisive lyrics. The high point is "At Home He's A Tourist".

However, the inclusion of the subsequent single "Outside The Trains Don't Run On Time", with its B-side "He'd Send In The Army", shows rather mercilessly that Go4 were great, but not for very long. (Spot, in "He'd Send In The Army", the reference to the now mercifully forgotten National Service sitcom "Get Some In".) Still, a great record.

*I rated Entertainment! number 3 best album of 1979, behind The Fall's first two LPs, Live At The Witch Trials and Dragnet. (I'd heard a couple of tracks off The Clash's London Calling but I wasn't keen. I changed my mind some time into 1980.)

The end of REM

No, I'm not going to say "REM RIP", which had become a hoary old cliche within 24 hours of the announcement. I feel sad about it, because although I didn't hear their last album I did hear "Accelerate", and to me it sounded that they still had fuel in the tank.

I still haven't heard the first four albums, and I'll try to seek them out. Like a lot of fans, "Document" was the first one I heard and liked. But "New Adventures In Hi-Fi" is my favourite.

I only saw them live once, at Wembley Arena on the "Green" tour in 1989. At the time their music didn't seem to me to fit big venues like that - I remember people singing along to "You Are The Everything" at the tops of their voices and thinking it was a bit stupid. But obviously they grew into it.

Good luck!

Beethoven - String Quartet No 9 (Rasumovsky No 3)

Finally finished listening to the Rasumovskys. Wonderful wonderful wonderful. So good there isn't anything intelligent I can write. The music says it all.

The Fall - Levitate

When I bought this in 1997, I was incredibly disappointed. I had heard bad stuff from The Fall before, but I realised (as I thought) they would never do anything worthwhile again. (I was wrong.) Listening to it again, the really disappointing thing is the way in which a lot of the songs seem to be created by laying down the musical base, and then Mark E Smith sticking the vocals on as an afterthought. A bit like making pizzas - and I'm talking Domino here, not (eg) the excellent Boca Cabana in Grasse. The only song where Smith seems truly with-it is "4 1/2 Inch". Some of the music could have made awesome Fall songs - "The Quartet Of Doc Shanley", "Hurricane Edward", "Ol' Gang", even the cover of Hank Mizell's "Jungle Rock". What a waste.

And whose idea was the cover of Bob McFadden's 1959 novelty hit, "I'm A Mummy"? Now "Monster Mash" would have been interesting. Perhaps it's not too late...

Catch up!

I hadn't realised it was over 5 months since I last posted here. I haven't been listening to much music - some, but not much, and very little new. Also very little classical music. Here's a list:

Love - Forever Changes (great as ever)
Radiohead - In Rainbows (respected rather than loved, and the last track "Videotape" is awful)
Lee Perry - Arkology (the best bits rather than the whole 3-disk set, but fantastic)
The Fall - "Theme From Sparta FC" (getting to become my favourite Fall song)
Talco - Combat Circus (punk/ska with Italian folk influences, a bit like the Pogues but Italian. Really great, free download from Jamendo).

Dexys Midnight Runners - Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

This sounds better than ever (see link), and I'm getting to like the slow songs. I still haven't got into proper soul yet, though.

Bartok - String Quartet No 3

I really enjoyed this, much better than No 2. It's very taut and compact. The first time I ever heard any Bartok (it was the Violin Sonata), I pigeonholed him as (horrid) modern music. But actually modern is completely wrong - much of this is primitive.

Beethoven - String Quartet No 7, op 59 no 1 (Rasumovsky No 1)

This is fantastic. But the final movement seems a bit underpowered to me, not enough to overcome the tragedy of the slow third movement. Perhaps it was meant to be like that?

Radiohead - In Rainbows

I'm listening to music again, perhaps not as much or as enthusiastically as before, but I am getting back into the habit. Listening to this, I started feeling the same as before (see link), a bit "ho-hum, this is all right but it doesn't really engage me". And then "Reckoner" really got to me. This really is a fine record, I underestimated it last time.

Gone off music

It's ages since I last posted here. The truth is that I've gone off music completely. I've been ill for the last few weeks, and I can't face listening to anything. I hope normal service will resume soon.

Soft Cell - Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Even though I was a hardcore Fall fan and serious beer drinker in my student years, I loved Soft Cell in a way I couldn't explain. Coming back to this, their 1981 debut album, I enjoyed it a lot although some of the lyrics leave something to be desired - how did Marc Almond think, at the age of 24, he knew enough about middle-aged middle-class ennui to write a song about it ("Frustration")? But any sins are pardonable on a record which includes "Say Hello Wave Goodbye". Again, the lyrics are laughable because the song is about the end of a passionate but doomed heterosexual affair, but the person from whose point of view the song is sung from is obviously gay. Or is that why the affair was doomed? Either way, it doesn't matter: it's a wonderful song.

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

I've never really warmed to the Manic Street Preachers, although I'm sympathetic to their no-bullshit ethos. This was the first time I'd heard what is widely regarded as their greatest work, and I haven't changed my view. It's just so loud - any trace of subtlety has power chords ladelled on, and James Dean Bradfield sounds like the Shouty Choir out of "Sorry I've Got No Head".

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

I was astonished by how good this was. The conventional wisdom about the Bad Seeds seems to be that they became purveyors of ballads while Nick Cave expressed his darker side through his other band Grinderman. Not true, at least on the evidence of this. The title track is especially good, but the whole album is excellent. I suspect that Cave's lyrics veer towards self parody, but not without surprises. For example, it is obvious, in "Albert Goes West", that bad things are going to happen to Albert and the other characters who head for different points of the compass. But the twist is in the last verse - the narrator isn't going anywhere because "I like it here", and sees the sun coming up.

Love - Forever Changes

This has just nudged past Trout Mask Replica as my favourite record of all time. I wish I could write a lot about it here, but there isn't time. The crowning glory is "You Set The Scene".

Schumann - Symphony No 1 (Spring)

About 15 years ago I bought a CD of songs by Schumann thinking they were by Schubert (I think they had got into the wrong rack in the shop - this was when people bought records in shops). When I got home I realised the mistake, and just put the disk away. I didn't play it until a couple of years ago, and loved it. I decided to listen to as much Schumann as I could - but, as with most things, I didn't get round to doing it.

I really loved this symphony. Obviously very Beethovenish, but with occasional foretastes of Wagner and Bruckner.

Mozart - Piano Concerto No 23

Listened to this again, and I'm worried because I'm just not getting it. It must be me, because I'm sure it isn't WAM.

Mozart - Piano Concerto No 23 in A

I'm a bit puzzled. I used to love this, but it left me a bit cold.

Various - New Weird Australia, Volume 6

I really enjoyed Volume 3 of this collection of experimental Australian music (compiled by Stuart Buchanan, of Fat Planet fame), so I was pleased to see that the series was still going and had in fact got up to volume 6 (I'll have to catch up on volumes 4 and 5). This wasn't as exciting as volume 3 - nothing as thrilling as K Mason's "Of Two Evils" - and some of the tracks didn't sound particularly new or weird (for example, the intro to Chrome Dome's "She Said" sounds like Killing Joke circa 1980). But still good things on here, particularly Eastern Grey's "24-5".

The Fall - Imperial Wax Solvent

When I first started listening to this I thought I wasn't going to enjoy it as much as the first time I heard it, a couple of years ago. But it is brilliant, especially "Tommy Shooter", "Wolf Kidult Man" and the extraordinary "50 Year Old Man".

Only slight disappointment is the cover of the Groundhogs' "Strangetown". It's not as bad as the version of "Junk Man" on "Middle Class Revolt", but I can see a sort of maverick affinity between MES and Tony McPhee, and somehow I would have expected something better.

Beethoven - String Quartet in E minor op 59 no 2 (Rasumovsky No 2)

I've listened to this over and over again during the last couple of months. I'm far from tired of it, but I will move onto something else. The slow movement is wonderful, not far away from the feeling you get with the late quartets. By comparison, the first movement is almost lightweight.

Terence Trent D'Arby - Introducing The Hardline According To...

I didn't like this at all.

The Who - Tommy

When I first started listening to The Who, circa 1974, Tommy and Quadrophenia were their most revered albums. When I finally got to hear Quadrophenia, about 15 years ago, I thought it was rubbish, and, having got round to listening to the original Tommy for the first time, this was pretty disappointing as well. A lot of the time this is all the things The Who at their best weren't - pretentious, flabby and rambling. I've seen the Ken Russell film several times, and the versions of some of the songs on the soundtrack are better than the original - notably Tina Turner's demented "Acid Queen".

Heifervescent - Pondlife Fiasco

Well-crafted collection of melodic but jangly songs by Andy Doran. The darker songs are the best, especially the Hitchcock-esqe (Robyn not Alfred) opening and closing tracks, "When The Stars Fall From Grace" and "And The Pondlife Flourished". The happier songs - "Kaliedoscope" and "It's Coming Together" - are a bit less convincing, at least to me. But that's probably because I'm a miserable sod.

Bartok - String Quartet No 2

I listened to this again the other day and I still didn't warm to it. Is it really me? The only thing which seemed to have any spark was the fast second movement, and that seemed too disjointed.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

I finally got round to listening to this, some three years after it was released. It's excellent, especially on the second listen, and I expect I will get to like it more and more. "Nude", especially, is a wonderful song. One but/cavil - there isn't anything to surprise or shock, nothing that made me think "F***ing hell!" And, with Radiohead, I don't think there ever will be. But still worth listening to.

The Fall - Middle Class Revolt

...aka The Vaporisation of Reality

My abiding memory of this record is "lacklustre". But that doesn't sum it up adequately. Much of it is very tedious (the title track and "Surmount All Obstacles" to name two). Some of it is insultingly bad (step forward the inept cover of the Groundhogs' "Junkman" and, worst of all, "Symbol Of Mordgan", which consists of someone - I read somewhere it was Craig Scanlon - talking to John Peel on the phone about Manchester City over the top of some half-hearted jamming).

But some of it is more interesting than I remembered - "15 Ways" is beautifully subtle, a skewed take on Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover" (evidently too skewed to bother the copyright lawyers). Originally I had "Hey Student" down as a pale retread of fierce 80s songs like "Lucifer Over Lancashire" and "Lay Of The Land", but I can see now it is pretty good in its own right. And "City Dweller" and "M5#1", which presumably are intended as a "town and country" pair. Though at the risk of being pedantic, I would point out that junction 1 on the M5 doesn't lead to anywhere "agrarian" - rather West Bromwich and Birmingham North-West.

The cover version of Henry Cow/Slapp Happy's "War" is OK-ish but it led me to check out the original on YouTube. Now that is fantastic.

Bartok - String Quartets Nos 1 and 2

It's good listening to Bartok's quartets again. I remember going to hear all six played by the Emerson Quartet at the QEH one Sunday afternoon in 1995: it was fantastic. I enjoyed No 1 a lot, a few weeks ago, but wasn't really in the mood for No 2.

Procol Harum - Nightriding

I first started listening to rock music around 1974, which was really the tail end of Procol Harum's career, and I couldn't work out where they fitted into the grand scheme of things. They were responsible for "Whiter Shade Of Pale", a seemingly undisputed progressive classic (which I hated, and - it's the opening track on this compilation - still hate), but they weren't really part of the prog mainstream. Listening to this, I still can't work them out. I hated most of this, although the bluesier songs like "Whiskey Train" and "Seem To Have The Blues" are a bit better. The saving grace is Robin Trower's guitar work, which even, almost, redeems dross like "Ramblin' On".

Mike & the Mechanics - "The Living Years"

My father died last week, and as I was driving to see Mum the next day I instantly recognised this song starting on the radio. I am supposed to say at this point that I was in tears by the time it finished, but actually I was laughing out loud at the screaming mawkish sentimentality. Ian Dury did the job far better in his song "My Old Man"

Though I would liked to have talked more in the last few years, luckily Dad didn't die "before we'd done much talking".

All the best, mate, from your son.

Led Zeppelin - Mothership

For two and a half years (from about April 1975 to the end of 1977) I worshipped Led Zeppelin. It started when I heard "Physical Graffiti" through our next door neighbour's wall. I borrowed it and loved it. The thing that made the most impression was John Bonham's drum sound. But when I bought "Led Zeppelin II" later that year (after the school carol service, if memory serves) I knew that it was the real thing. It's a bit sad, I suppose, that great as Led Zeppelin were, they never surpassed the music on their first two albums. It may, then, have been a long slow decline, but what a decline.

I don't think I've listened to any Led Zep for 30 years, and I was expecting to be underwhelmed, especially since heavy metal has long been a derided cliche, and Rolf Harris and Dread Zeppelin have done their worst, but I was bowled over by the immediacy and power of the early stuff on this compilation, especially "Good Times Bad Times" and "Whole Lotta Love".

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No 5

When I first started listening to classical music I rather stupidly gave Tchaikovsky a wide berth because he was "popular" (think 1812 Overture and Swan Lake). Later on I got to like the Sixth Symphony (Pathetique) and the Violin Concerto, so I was expecting to like this. But I really didn't, I found it turgid and boring. A bit like early Sibelius without the sparkle. I'm trying to work out why. I think that maybe it was because Tchaikovsky was trying to express really extreme emotional states within too rigid a tonal framework. Mahler is, of course, emotional, but his freedom with tonality gives him the language.

Mahler - Symphony No 5

Well, I finally felt up to listening to Mahler 5 this week, and it was fantastic. I used to love Mahler, but about 3 years ago I listened to the Fourth and didn't enjoy it. It was a weird experience, a bit like meeting an old friend again after a long separation and not getting on with them. I want to listen to it again soon, more carefully, analytically, movement by movement, because it is easy to be borne along by the emotion. The thing I noticed most this time was the third movement scherzo, which has somehow washed over me before. I think I found it a bit over-long and incoherent.

Brad Smith - Moon8

This is a re-creation of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" using primitive (moop!) Nintendo (neek!) sound effects (8-bit, hence the title). It's an interesting idea, but it didn't work for me. It seemed a bit like those reproductions of the Mona Lisa with Lego.

Free download at http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html.

J S Bach - Cello Suite No 3 (not Mahler 5)

I was planning to listen to Mahler's Fifth Symphony last week but because of the way things are at the moment I wasn't feeling up to it, so I listened to this again (see http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2010/02/j-s-bach-cello-suite-no-3.html), and really enjoyed it this time. It's austere but still sensual. I don't think this is the best possible performance: the rhythm gets "lost" sometimes, but it is still very good.

Steely Dan - Reelin' In The Years (Best Of...)

In the Seventies, I didn't really get on with Steely Dan. They were so painfully cool, and I didn't like cool. Listening to this again, I was spot on. I can appreciate the brilliance of the musicianship now, and the amazing way in which the songs are crafted, but still the coolness - which sometimes, to me, borders on dissociated - turns me off. Except "Reelin' In The Years" which now, as then I love.

Beethoven - String Quartet op 18 no 1

I don't remember listening to any of Beethoven's first six quartets before, although I immediately recognised the last movement of this piece. It was much better than I expected, but I was thrown somehow by the tragic intensity of the slow second movement.

SoLaRiS - The 12 Gates

I had a look at Jamendo to find something psychedelic and I confess I downloaded this apparently preposterous concept album of instrumentals about Ancient Egypt in order to poke fun at it. But I really enjoyed it, especially the opening track "Amun-Ra", which is awe-inspiring (albeit in a cheesy sort of way, a bit like the theme from "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"), "Hamunaptra" and the funky "Jackal Of Isis". It isn't enormously original, and the some of the tracks go on too long (especially the 13 minute title track, which reminded me a bit of Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful Of Secrets"). But it is well worth listening to.

Free download at www.jamendo.com/en/album/17695.

Phoenix - Live In Sydney

This was a freebie with the Observer a few weeks back. Didn't love it; didn't hate it. Mildly enjoyable in a few parts, rather boring as a whole (except the extremely boring "Love Is A Sunset", clocking in at 10 minutes, a minute longer than (eg) Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive"). I don't know what was getting the crowd worked up so much, but it wasn't the music.

Prog Britannia on BBC Four

I've just been watching the BBC's documentary on progressive rock on iPlayer. Wonderful.

I wasn't into what you might call hardcore progressive rock - Yes, ELP, Genesis, King Crimson - myself, though I respected it. (We didn't call it "prog": it didn't sound serious enough.). Partly this was because I found the lyrics too whimsical and the music somehow not muscular enough. Partly it was a money thing: I could only afford to buy an album every other month. If you don't like one of the tracks on an album with eight tracks, it's liveable-with; if the album has only three tracks (like, for example, Relayer) it's a disaster. So I didn't take the gamble. I finally bought The Yes Album in the early 90s, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The key to enjoying prog is not to take it too seriously.

Two criticisms of the programme - there was hardly a mention of Pink Floyd (though bits of their music could be heard in the background) even though they could surely be categorised as progressive up to including 1971's Meddle ("Echoes" is surely one of the archetypal progressive pieces, with its length and episodic nature, its nebulous lyrics and musical virtuosity). The other was the way in which it made prog out to be an exclusively English thing but (although I don't know about Scotland) there were important bands in Ireland (Fruupp and Horslips, the latter marrying rock to Irish folk music) and especially Man (from Wales), who showed that you could do progressive and heavy blues at the same time.

Mark E Smith on art etc

Just found this short video of Mark E Smith on the Tate website. Don't know about 50 Year Old Man: he looks more like 70!

http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/71190048001

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

Bloc Party are another band I had missed out on so far. Influenced by a whole bunch of circa 1980 bands which I loved (early Cure and, especially, Gang Of Four) or, at least, respected (Joy Division) I was expecting to love this but I was a bit disappointed. I can't pin it down, but it seems to be somehow detached, slightly lacking in real fire. Maybe it comes out live, and didn't on this (debut) album. It's there on "Helicopter" and "Luno" - nearly. Don't get me wrong. I thought it was very good. Just not as brilliant as I had expected.

PS - I am really mystified by the comparisons which have been made between Bloc Party and The Fall (as I was by comparisons between Franz Ferdinand and The Fall). Beyond a certain abrasiveness, they are a totally different kettle of fish.

Schubert - String Quintet in C

Another old favourite. Listening to the first movement again, I wondered if it sounded a bit too sweet, somehow. But it is like drinking a Beerenauslese - you get the sweetness and then you get the acidity, and it is perfectly balanced. The unbearable tenderness of the slow movement: I don't think Schubert surpassed this. I don't think I had noticed before how rustic - rough, almost, by contrast - the 3rd and 4th movements are.

Haircut 100 - Pelican West

I confess to a liking for Haircut 100 the first time around, and I really loved this. Music of almost insane cheerfulness - in "Milk Farm" they launch into the children's hymn "Glad That I Live Am I" - Prozac in MP3 form. Best tracks are "Fantastic Day" and "Love Plus One".

Beethoven - String Quartet in F major, Rasumovsky No 1

Heard this again last night. Wonderful, I keep getting more and more from it. I think I was right about the Violin Concerto.

Regrets, I've had a few...

I only listened to the Chemical Brothers' "Dig Your Own Hole" once (up until last week), but I still didn't regret buying it. There are only three LPs which I actually wish I had never bought. There was Mark Stewart's "As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade", which was bought on the strength of a brilliant set at ULU, but the sound was more electronic and experimental on record than live. I also bought the Redskins' "Neither Washington Nor Moscow" again largely because of a live performance (supporting the Dead Kennedys in late 1982), but by the time they released the album their musical style had shifted a lot from punk towards soul. And finally, there was Kingmaker's "Eat Yourself Whole", purchased at the late lamented Tower Records after a few pints, which I hated as soon as I heard it.

Beatles - Revolver

This is the very first time I have heard "Revolver" (with the exception of a couple of a couple of obvious tracks). There is only one LP I am more ashamed not to have heard, and that is the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds".

I was too young to be into the Beatles the first time round, although a few of their songs - "All My Loving" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand", for example - give me a sort of warm glow. I first started to listen seriously to the Beatles (and the Rolling Stones) around 1977, when all the bands I liked at the time (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin etc) were running out of steam, and punk (which I was still to loathe for another few months) was in the ascendant.

Back then "Sergeant Pepper" was the undisputed masterpiece, but opinion has shifted and there seems to be a widespread view that "Revolver" was the perfect pinnacle of the Beatles' work. That is strange, because to me it is anything but perfect, but rather imperfect and transitional. When you subtract "Eleanor Rigby", which has a sort of perfection, as if it could never be otherwise, and the awful "Here, There And Everywhere" (the token slushy love song), the thing which makes it so thrilling is the way in which it is striving for a new language (musical and verbal) but not quite succeeding - a struggle which is obvious in "Love You To" and made explicit in "I Want To Tell You" (both Harrison songs). And breaking through in "Tomorrow Never Knows".

Beethoven - Violin Concerto in D

This was the very first CD I bought, in May 1989 just before going to the Bavarian Alps for the first time. So I associate it with memories of stepping out from Garmisch on a beautiful golden morning, across the meadows, heading for the Ostfelderkopf.

This really was a favourite piece of mine, but I found it less interesting this time. Unlike so much of Beethoven - eg the F major Rasumovsky quartet I am listening to a lot at the moment - there is a lot of (wonderful) material but he doesn't seem to do so much with it. Listening to the first movement, I wondered "where's the development?". Maybe I don't get on with concertos as well as I did before - too much decoration.

Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole

"DYOH" was the last record I bought because it was trendy. I think I only played it once, and found it rather boring. I thought the same when I played it the first time last week, but it grew on me the second time. I had totally missed the gentler "Lost In The K-Hole" the first time before (I think young people call this sort of thing a chill-out track). And "The Private Psychedelic Reel" is glorious, it goes on and on and on in a good way (a reel both in the sense of a dance and in the sense of something cyclical). The only time it isn't so good is when the Chemicals try to involve human beings, and they tend to come off second best - Noel Gallagher in "Setting Sun" and Beth Orton in "Where Do I Begin".

Gosh, I bet the drummer needed a rest after recording this lot.

BBC6 Music - is it worth saving?

As a middle-aged, alternative, indie kinda guy (and the witty sort of person who uses the expression "kinda guy" in an ironic sort of way - a kinda guy kinda guy, if you will) BBC6 Music should be right up my street, and sure enough I felt sad when I heard about its probable deletion from the schedules. But I hadn't listened to it for some time, and before rushing to the barricades I thought I ought to find out exactly what I was defending. When I did, and I actually managed to find some music (because the first two attempts yielded an interview with Sir Geoff Hurst and another rather patronising interview with an elderly woman who runs a postal museum in Bath), it was very ordinary. It may seem like heresy, but is BBC6 Music really the national treasure its supporters make it out to be?