Albums/artists you just DON'T GET.
- Thread starter baboon2004
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justwalkaway
New member
IMO, YES.
But they seemed to be, for a good bit, back int he 90s.
Another one I don't get:
The Beatles (I mean they were good, but JESUS CHRIST!)
DigitalDjigit
Honky Tonk Woman
"you don't have to be rich... to rule my world..." everytime I hear that I freak and body-rock uncontrollably until it is over - whether I'm on a dancefloor, at the shopping mall, at home, or at work. maybe you should see a doctor about this? some of your neurons might not be firing properly?
I don't get loads of 60s canonical stuff, bands like the Byrds, Love, Beach Boys, Dylan, Doors, etc. I find the music so boring, it actually becomes painful after 5 minutes. I thought the people involved were despicable - mouthing off about revolution and free love while trying to keep the coke up their nostrils. I've got more time for Richard Thompson, he might be an old folkie but "Roll Over Vaughn Williams" pees all over the above creeps, plus it's got an infinitely better tune than anything by the Byrds, and more sussed lyrics.
Never got Sonic Youth, just sounded like a slightly more distorted version of the Wedding Present.
The Congos' "Heart of the Congos" album has gone down as a serious roots reggae classic, but I seem to remember it being pretty dull when I listened to it - mind you, that was about 8 or 9 years ago, maybe I wasn't in the right mood...
Never got Sonic Youth, just sounded like a slightly more distorted version of the Wedding Present.
The Congos' "Heart of the Congos" album has gone down as a serious roots reggae classic, but I seem to remember it being pretty dull when I listened to it - mind you, that was about 8 or 9 years ago, maybe I wasn't in the right mood...
Guybrush
Dittohead
I third that. Speaking of painfully dull canonical stuff: Astral Weeks.
I think someone mentioned DFA upthread so I do too, they are bizarrely overrated.
this might be sacrilege on this board but i dont much like what ive heard of derrick may so far. ive sifted through the anthology just so i know what its like and get up on the history of the music but i hate those cheapo italian sounding toy keyboards on tracks like strings of life, the drum programming seems to be going for complex but seems to just sound over-programmed, a lot of the synths seem to be played totally randomly (would it have hurt to have some sort of musical training?). its also somewhat pompous and takes itself a bit too seriously. i prefer cybotron or kevin saundersons stuff - seems funkier/harder.
i can understand why people might be put off by prince - a lot of his production style hasnt dated well at all. maybe its just perfectly 'of its time' but a lot of it is pretty cheesy. i love his weird drum programming and the sounds he made from the drum machine using his guitar pedals and what have you, but the way he recorded them a lot of the time sounded a bit messy. not in the good way exactly either, just a bit shoddy, like the clarity isnt there. tracks like kiss or starfish and coffee are immaculate though, i dont know how anyone could have a problem with the sound of them.
i can understand why people might be put off by prince - a lot of his production style hasnt dated well at all. maybe its just perfectly 'of its time' but a lot of it is pretty cheesy. i love his weird drum programming and the sounds he made from the drum machine using his guitar pedals and what have you, but the way he recorded them a lot of the time sounded a bit messy. not in the good way exactly either, just a bit shoddy, like the clarity isnt there. tracks like kiss or starfish and coffee are immaculate though, i dont know how anyone could have a problem with the sound of them.
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P
Parson
Guest
whaaaat
i'm gonna listen to astral weeks right now just so the universe can have balance
i'm gonna listen to astral weeks right now just so the universe can have balance
nochexxx
harco pronting
without wanting to pick a fight, burial really doesn't have anything to do with skream.
sorry to break it to you but I think, like anything else worthwhile, this stuff might take some time and discipline...
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
Everything purple is bad.
Yay, for all the Prince loathing: I never liked the black D H Lawrence at the time, but that garish eighteez production certainly sounds even more dreadful now. But don't we have to distinguish between not getting something and disliking it: I GET Prince, I just don't like it (revolting priapic spiv and guitar hero day-glo jizzing over George Clinton B-sides).
Similarly with Pixies: wacky college rock. I get it, I just don't like it.
By contrast, surely not getting something involves acknowledging that there might be something about it that you haven't yet heard. I feel that way about Boards of Canada (although recently I have been able to grasp more about their appeal). Aphex Twin I don't really get either; it's only ever sounded mildly diverting to me.
I still feel that way about Dylan - I've never been able to hear in him what others have. (I echo Martin's dismissal of the whole 60s canon, apart from the Beach Boys: listening to Byrds/Love/Doors has always felt like school, in the worst possible way: studying the classics. But I think this is more a case of my not liking it than not getting it.)
What about acts you used to like but no longer get? I used to like Sonic Youth in the eighties, but I now just don't see the appeal at all.
Yay, for all the Prince loathing: I never liked the black D H Lawrence at the time, but that garish eighteez production certainly sounds even more dreadful now. But don't we have to distinguish between not getting something and disliking it: I GET Prince, I just don't like it (revolting priapic spiv and guitar hero day-glo jizzing over George Clinton B-sides).
Similarly with Pixies: wacky college rock. I get it, I just don't like it.
By contrast, surely not getting something involves acknowledging that there might be something about it that you haven't yet heard. I feel that way about Boards of Canada (although recently I have been able to grasp more about their appeal). Aphex Twin I don't really get either; it's only ever sounded mildly diverting to me.
I still feel that way about Dylan - I've never been able to hear in him what others have. (I echo Martin's dismissal of the whole 60s canon, apart from the Beach Boys: listening to Byrds/Love/Doors has always felt like school, in the worst possible way: studying the classics. But I think this is more a case of my not liking it than not getting it.)
What about acts you used to like but no longer get? I used to like Sonic Youth in the eighties, but I now just don't see the appeal at all.
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
Speaking of which... I've never really understood the appeal of Astral Weeks either! This is a classic case, actually, in that it's not that that I don't like it, I do --- I'm just not even close to grasping what is exceptional, outstanding, life-changing about it ...
swears
preppy-kei
re: Prince bashing
This is a generational thing I guess. If you were into Sonic Youth, The Smiths, Joy Division, etc during the 80s, then Prince must have represented everything you hated about mainstream, glossy pop. I wasn't even born until '83, so I have no memory of that era anyway, the mainstream I grew up with was post-Nirvana, Oasis being the biggest band at my secondary school. I got into Prince in '99, and I love his stuff for the reasons a lot of older gen-Xer's despise it, I'm sick of "regular guys" making earthy, organic guitar records. The glamour and sonic extravagance of Prince is the total antithesis of everything that bored me to death as a teenager, he's someone your average arrogant indie meathead would scoff at. And "garish 80s producton"? Prince invented garish, 80s production, and we should grateful for that.
This is a generational thing I guess. If you were into Sonic Youth, The Smiths, Joy Division, etc during the 80s, then Prince must have represented everything you hated about mainstream, glossy pop. I wasn't even born until '83, so I have no memory of that era anyway, the mainstream I grew up with was post-Nirvana, Oasis being the biggest band at my secondary school. I got into Prince in '99, and I love his stuff for the reasons a lot of older gen-Xer's despise it, I'm sick of "regular guys" making earthy, organic guitar records. The glamour and sonic extravagance of Prince is the total antithesis of everything that bored me to death as a teenager, he's someone your average arrogant indie meathead would scoff at. And "garish 80s producton"? Prince invented garish, 80s production, and we should grateful for that.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
The Congos' album is definitely overrated, aside from a few stellar tracks, I find.
As for Sonic Youth, I love 'em....for the unsure, I'd recommend listening to something like 'Hallowe'en' or 'Shadow of a Doubt', which don't sound like the Wedding Present insofar as I know that band.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
I don't dislike Prince's production for that reason, and I love sonic extravagence. But it always seems as though covers of his songs are, produciton-wise, vastly superior to the originals. Nelle Hooper's Nothing Compares 2 U is the obviosu example, but Timbaland's When Doves Cry shits on the original from a huge height to these ears.
I think my problem is with his sonic palette rather than his lust for glamour (which in theory I really like).
Keiji Haino. Yep. B-O-R-I-N-G. I saw him several times while in love with noise stuff in the mid-90s and he was always completely dull. And yes, pretentious. Related: I don't get what's so great about Jim O'Rourke. Isn't he just another *one of them*?
i can understand why people might be put off by prince - a lot of his production style hasnt dated well at all. maybe its just perfectly 'of its time' but a lot of it is pretty cheesy. i love his weird drum programming and the sounds he made from the drum machine using his guitar pedals and what have you, but the way he recorded them a lot of the time sounded a bit messy. not in the good way exactly either, just a bit shoddy, like the clarity isnt there. tracks like kiss or starfish and coffee are immaculate though, i dont know how anyone could have a problem with the sound of them.[/QUOTE]
derrick may still sounds fresh to me, he didn't use cheapo italian keyboards, it's all roland gear, it's recorded at home studios on tape so it may sound cheap. it doesn't sound random at all to me but i think there is a level of on the fly experimentation to what he did, those aspects yu hate seem to be te aspects i find very welcome about it, and the fact that its music made by a non musician is great, love it.
As for prince a similar thing applies. and i don't think you can ever call prince cheesy as a programmer, later on in his career he was cheesy but from about controversy to batman he was super creative. listen to some o his stuff again and it sound brutally fresh, parade or something. some of around the world in a day etc, it's crazy.
as for covers, 'nothing compares to you' versions are better but the family, the band that played it originally were shite anyway, nothing can beat princes' 'when doves cry'.
someone down thread was dissing bob marley, hes quite often dissed on the grounds of a couple of tracks and the fact that he was popular or is the person who doesn't like reggae's artist of choice etc.
so what, brilliant songwriter and lyricist, great song from the studio one era, to his death, thoroughly respectable man. Dissing him just seems to be dumb.
astral weeks, oh come on it's a brilliant album, full of life and energy, just standing up at the centre of chaos, ace.
i don't get the cramps. they're just terrible, a trendy girl at work who is trying to pretend she is into rockabilly, bacause its a fashionable thing to say or something says she likes the cramps but doesn't stay in the room when she puts a cd by them on.
dfa, they put a disco/rockish drum behind things and call it a track, maybe say something ironic over the top, they're shit, but good ears so good label.
never really liked culture on the reggae tip, just find them very boring.
never really liked dylan apart from a few tracks, its such fucking smug music, just music to confirm to a few weekend hippies the world isn't right. his voice is horrible and he's not as great as the music he copies.