Talk:No Cure for Cancer

Backmasked content

No mention is made here of the backmasking on the song "Voices In My Head." This album should most likely be referenced in "List of Backmasked Messages" and similar pages.

Unfortunately, I don't have any way of obtaining the message. It can be clearly heard near the end of the song, and Denis Leary opens the song by announcing the presence of the track (turn up the volume to hear this). Does anyone have a transcript?

Yunatwilight (talk) 18:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hicks

I'm inclined to do some heavy editing to the Bill Hicks controversy section. There is some clear, heavy-handed anti-Leary bias implicit in the way it is currently written. For one, the whole affair is already given exhaustive treatment on Leary's Wiki article, so a section taking up 1/3 the article here is unnecessary. Second, statements like "...are extremely similar to material Hicks had been recorded doing for several years" obviously violate NPOV, and the Cynthia True quote implies Leary's Jim Fixx joke was nearly identical to the Hicks joke cited, when in fact the only similarity is that they both point out Fixx died young (Leary doesn't mention Keith Richards in his joke at all).

So I'm going to do the following (feel free to revert if you think I'm going to far): I'm going to delete the entire paragraph concerning "American Scream", as it refers to the controversy, but not No Cure For Cancer specifically. Same goes for the Hicks "I camouflaged it with punchlines" quote and the Lenny Clarke roast joke. I'm also going to neutralize some of the remaining language. For now, I'm going to leave Denis' self defence quote from Playboy, even though I don't consider it directly relevant in itself. But since it constitutes a response to criticisms related to No Cure For Cancer, I'll leave it for now. 24.79.89.131 (talk) 21:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You really should remove the "Bill Hicks - Writer and original performer" credit, too. There is no citation for that whatsoever, and it's about as NPOV violating as it gets. -- JCaesar (talk) 04:56, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. I'll take care of it. -- JCaesar (talk) 04:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the section criticising Denis Lear for taking Bill Hicks material is too heavy handed. It sounds like the Bill Hicks fan-boy material which was floating around at the time.

If you actually watch both acts, they have almost no material in common. Accusations of plagiarism ignore the fact Neither Hicks Nor Leary invented the angry American look for the stage. The routine with a beer and a cigarette and being fed up with life is a trope which predates both of them. Their characters are very different and friends who came to Denis Leary first prefer his energetic New Yorker performances to Hicks morose style. You can even watch material online where fans have put their acts side by side to show how similar they are, and they really don't have nearly enough in common to justify accusations Leary Stole Hicks act. Both comedians deserve to be considered as originals in their own right. Vapourmile (talk) 19:13, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]