Albums/artists you just DON'T GET.

[nomadologist]

maybe there should be a holy trinity. maggot brain, space is the place, and planet rock (with clear as a close second). that's probably the closest i'll ever come to feeling something like religious devotion.

who i don't get: beastie boys. maybe the first hundred times they wrote that same song i liked them...weirder part is i like the fall, even though they are even more repetitive. i guess their sped-up energy is more interesting to me.

 

[shudder]

i don't understand why anyone would ever listen to radiohead. i know i'm gonna get it now *ducks*

Oh come on now! Who here is really gonna defend Radiohead?

(not that I didn't grow up worshipping them, but that's a whole nuther story. and nomadologist is right: I don't listen to them now)

 

[nomadologist]

i guess if you're 13-years-old and you're really proud of yourself for catching the kafka reference on track 5 of ok computer, you're in the right developmental stage for radiohead. otherwise it's painful to be reminded that you once thought it was awesome at that stage.

ps you'd be surprised--i've offended many people unsuspectingly by saying flatly that radiohead sucks

 

[tht]

alice coltrane rsundin soundgarden anaal nathrakh amon duul cyndi lauper the kills wir abstract thought big youth vvm serge gainsbourg vaughn williams eisner jackie o motherfucker dusapin richard chartier gliere xtc lemonheads saint saens aube nerve net noise mantronix the killers cat power couperin kk null goeyvaerts roslavets papa roach shit robot u2 josef k duprat druckman bomfunk mcs niklas skallkotas luca francesconi ikue mori outkast factrix elp el-p dr dre sham69 camberwell now death aaron lacrate scsi9 nancy sinatra (w/o lee) os cariocas curtis roads child pornography on a friday why? dismemberment plan goo goo dolls earle brown thomas leer (w/o r rental) rzewski vsnares bunalim janacek the clash fuck jj72

can't see the fuss about joy division either but guess they're kinda ok

 

[tht]

Oh come on now! Who here is really gonna defend Radiohead?

(not that I didn't grow up worshipping them, but that's a whole nuther story. and nomadologist is right: I don't listen to them now)

cmon of the last 10 records you bought/stole how many of them were better than kid a, srsly

 

[nomadologist]

haha saint-saeans, or pachelbel. josef k i used to really think was great but they bores me lately. orange juice is worse.

catpower is a really good one.

your entire post reads like one of those surrealist spambot emails, if you emptied out my musical memories into one, tht

 

[nomadologist]

cmon of the last 10 records you bought/stole how many of them were better than kid a, srsly

maybe i just hate who i was when i liked radiohead more than i hate radiohead. because they're pretty tasteful sonically. i guess it's the politics that gets me.

 

[swears]

I remember sort of grudgingly admiring "OK Computer" when it came out, thinking it was pretty forward thinking for an indie/rock record. Everything they've done since though has sort of sounded muddy and miserable, like there's some sort of key or scale they're using that seems to give every track a....the best way I can describe it: "swampy" feel.

 

[Guybrush]

alice coltrane rsundin soundgarden anaal nathrakh amon duul cyndi lauper the kills wir abstract thought big youth vvm serge gainsbourg vaughn williams eisner jackie o motherfucker dusapin richard chartier gliere xtc lemonheads saint saens aube nerve net noise mantronix the killers cat power couperin kk null goeyvaerts roslavets papa roach shit robot u2 josef k duprat druckman bomfunk mcs niklas skallkotas luca francesconi ikue mori outkast factrix elp el-p dr dre sham69 camberwell now death aaron lacrate scsi9 nancy sinatra (w/o lee) os cariocas curtis roads child pornography on a friday why? dismemberment plan goo goo dolls earle brown thomas leer (w/o r rental) rzewski vsnares bunalim janacek the clash fuck jj72

can't see the fuss about joy division either but guess they're kinda ok

Listening to Alice Coltrane the other day reminded me that I HATE sitars.

I can school you on Bomfunk MCs anytime you wish, there’s a whole world there to discover, I tell you.

 

[Guybrush]

Mozart!

 

[nomadologist]

ok computer was on capitol records. i don't like the thom yorke-penned ballady slowjams radiohead sank deeper into after kid a.

one song from ok computer that always bugged me was the one about "pull me oooouuut of the aircrash"

 

[tht]

maybe i just hate who i was when i liked radiohead more than i hate radiohead. because they're pretty tasteful sonically. i guess it's the politics that gets me.

there is a 4tet remix of 'scatterbrain' on this japanese import fanboyfuck ep which i really like, obv 4tet+ radiohead should be the aural equivalanent of cancer of the jaw but this is good, it sounds like mego defacing a triphop demo but apparently it's a factory error

http://www.zshare.net/info.html?836833-1b2b6f23bb360eb92ec4bbc1911a2309

 

[nomadologist]

thx. wish i could listen to things at work but i'll have to wait.

 

[mistersloane]

alice coltrane rsundin soundgarden anaal nathrakh amon duul cyndi lauper the kills wir abstract thought big youth vvm serge gainsbourg vaughn williams eisner jackie o motherfucker dusapin richard chartier gliere xtc lemonheads saint saens aube nerve net noise mantronix the killers cat power couperin kk null goeyvaerts roslavets papa roach shit robot u2 josef k duprat druckman bomfunk mcs niklas skallkotas luca francesconi ikue mori outkast factrix elp el-p dr dre sham69 camberwell now death aaron lacrate scsi9 nancy sinatra (w/o lee) os cariocas curtis roads child pornography on a friday why? dismemberment plan goo goo dolls earle brown thomas leer (w/o r rental) rzewski vsnares bunalim janacek the clash fuck jj72

can't see the fuss about joy division either but guess they're kinda ok

child pornography on a friday why?

great name.

 

[mms]

(Isn't Maggot Brain maybe the best thing that ever happened to the world? Some days I think that, honestly. Lately I have been into Space is the Place, too. Not that they're all that similar, but...)

i only put maggot brain in there as rocky people like it, i'm not that into it personally, it's one of my least faves they done.

 

[DigitalDjigit]

My fave Funkadelic is "Cosmic Slop" (just the track, not the album). It just flows like water...or slop I suppose.

 

[shudder]

maybe i just hate who i was when i liked radiohead more than i hate radiohead. because they're pretty tasteful sonically. i guess it's the politics that gets me.

altho, the politics are not really front and centre in most of the songs... in fact, they're pretty buried (except for some obvious exceptions).

@tht: I haven't listened to Kid A recently... I should do.

 

[michael]

This blog entry (by a fictional Achewood character, no less!) sums up a lot of the problem with Radiohead, I think:

http://orezscu.blogspot.com/2004/11/is-thom-yorke-douchebag.html

I was right into them, and into my 20s too, and I put the single off 'The Eraser' in my best of the year... but I can't really defend them because they are most certainly one of the most overrated bands ever. I also didn't like album enough since 'OK Computer' to buy it. Never read any Kafka, either.

When 'Kid A' came along Thom Yorke was really upfront (IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW IN Q, OH GOSH!!) that he'd become obsessed with Warp records and had bought up the entirety of Autechre's back catalogue when he got back off tour. So it was pretty hard for me (an electronica nerd at the time) to be excited about it... the first dabblings of someone trying to synthesize their influences (influences that were really transparent and had been at it for a while) getting celebrated as an amazing revolution in sound. Meh. It's cool that they were attempting to engage with something contemporary and all, but to my ears it's really naive and about as successful as U2's Zooropa or something. Subsequent releases I guess I was just sick of what they're peddling...

 

[tom pr]

I think there's so much more to Kid A than the late nineties stuff off Warp though. Maybe it's the way it so skillfully combines the electro-noodly bits with trad song structures (the idea that Kid A got criticised for 'not having proper songs' was ridiculous when you consider stuff like The National Anthem; I remember skimming through a Guardian article with Andy Gillespie a couple of years ago and being shocked people still had that view.. let alone someone who should really know better!), but I get much more out of it than anything by Aphex/Squarepusher/Autechre etc. It doesn't feel like showing off, which is what I get a lot of the time with those artists, and it's very emotive. The last track gets me every time.

That said, OK Computer is criminally overrated.

 

[shudder]

to be honest, I guess I'm quite ambivalent about Radiohead. It's very hard for me to cast them off wholesale, since they were so formative in my early days of pop music obsession (I had grown up listening to and playing classical). Going back and listening to, say, The Bends (album #2), I'm not totally in love. But Ok Computer still seems pretty much alright, and I do like Kid A a lot (I think... I'll have to dig it up and listen again now tho). Re: its relationship to Aphex etc., tom pr has it right. I'd also say that a lot of the actual sounds still sound fresh (e.g. the title track). And hey, even some of the cool kids liked it at the time .

Of course, they're hugely overrated, but I still feel the intuitive appeal. They could (of course) never be an artist I "don't get".