| Author | Message | ||
     Richard Lim Member Username: Re17 Post Number: 31 Registered: 05-2005 |
After the recent threads about what people have been listening to and why, I thought I'd start a thread about bands you just can't get into or can't see the point of, despite the fact that they attract huge critical attention and/or have been knocking about for years. I've got a list as long as several people's arms, including some very big names, but before sharing it I thought it'd be fun to see what other people just don't rate or can't stand, but whom everyone else seems to rave over. So come on, get your iconoclast's hat on... Richard | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 2153 Registered: 05-2005 |
Crowded Fucking House The Beatles | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 348 Registered: 04-2005 |
Beach Boys/Brian Wilson ("God Only Knows" excepted) Robyn Hitchcock (watched a DVD about Syd Barrett recently and there he was being his wacky "I-am-a-bit-weird-me" self...not fit to touch the hem of Syd's garments frankly) | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1175 Registered: 08-2006 |
I feel like a heel saying so, but Wilco. I dunno why, but they don't speak to me. I admire what they do, they're hometown boys, etc. Still, the albums leave me cold. As long as I'm on the Chicago kick: Smashing Pumpkins. I don't mean circa 2008, when B. Corgan has made a mockery of himself, but in their heyday. Too prog-y for my taste. And that voice! I like of "non-traditional" singers, but Corgan did bad things to my central nervous system. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 841 Registered: 08-2004 |
Beatles Beach Boys Springsteen Magazine | ||
| Ewan Talisker McEwan Member Username: Ewan_mcewan Post Number: 250 Registered: 02-2008 |
Definitely Smashing Pumpkins (the adenoids should not be an instrument. Corgan needs a good ear, nose and throat specialist.) Magazine The Triffids The Cocteau Twins Suzy and the Banshees Fleet Foxes Blitzen Trapper Metallica Rufus Wainwright Artists I used to like but now have a blind spot for (perhaps that should be another thread): American Music Club Greg Dulli, in his various guises Jay Farrar Silver Jews | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1304 Registered: 10-2004 |
Radiohead Modest Mouse Built to Spill Midlake The Shins (debut was promising, but it's been downhill every since) Byrds when they went country Joanna Newsom Bruce Bon Iver Elvis Costello - Costello is dead to me after Armed Forces. Those first three albums are great, but nothing he's done since works for me. Well, that's not totally true: Everyday I write the Book and Clubland are BRILLIANT songs, but they're exceptions to the rule. I just think 99.7% of his output from 1980 forward is tediously dull. I just don't get it. Post-80s REM - we all know how much I adore those early records (especially Chronic Town!), but I absolutely can't get behind any of the music they've done in the past 19 or so years. Bright Eyes Oasis Pulp Blur Lou Reed (don't like pretty much everything after Transformer) Frank Zappa Iron and Wine Bonnie Prince Billy Most things "alt-country" come to think of it The Band Hold Steady My Bloody Valentine Spiritualized Happy Mondays Beck Weezer Tim Buckley and I'm with everyone on Smashing Pumpkins I'm sure this is more than enough for now... | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 2154 Registered: 05-2005 |
So basically you dont like anything thats a bit off the wall Jeff?  | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1305 Registered: 10-2004 |
Ah, those things are hardly off the wall, Kev. I'd consider much of what I listed above to be tediously dull and sometimes pedestrian. I mean, honestly, what in that list could seriously be described as "off the wall"? ;) | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 2155 Registered: 05-2005 |
Zappa, BPB, MBV, Mondays, Newsome, Buckley are pretty off the wall. And agreed, they are all also tediously dull(Loveless, WFL and I see a Darkness) excepted). To my list can I add Coldplay, The Police, and bands that make up 50% of Hardin/LK/Ewans record collection | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1306 Registered: 10-2004 |
I'm definitely with you on Coldplay, Kevin. Pure mayo on white bread material. Zappa - his lyrics are offbeat/funny, but the music is often so *proficient* that I never think of it as "off the wall." To me it's like slick session guys trying to sound weird. But then something like "Decals" by Beefheart - *that* is a great record that is "off the wall." Ditto early Throbbing Gristle, "Odyshape" by the Raincoats, "They Were Wrong..." by the Liars, "Metal Box" by PIL, "Out to Lunch" by Eric Dolphy, to name a few... And I think Newsome and Buckley are more irritating/grating than genuinely "off the wall." | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1176 Registered: 08-2006 |
You dissin' Ewan's Bette Midler collection, Kev? I'd watch yourself - he's very protective of it. | ||
| Ewan Talisker McEwan Member Username: Ewan_mcewan Post Number: 251 Registered: 02-2008 |
Hey, she ain't called the Divine Miss M for nothin! | ||
| Ewan Talisker McEwan Member Username: Ewan_mcewan Post Number: 252 Registered: 02-2008 |
And oh, I left off my list of "artists" I just don't get: Death Cab for Cutie - another adenoidal wonder. Antony & the Johnsons - Get thee an inhaler, mate, that asthma sounds bad. | ||
| Ewan Talisker McEwan Member Username: Ewan_mcewan Post Number: 253 Registered: 02-2008 |
And, Tori Amos Sarah McLocklin OMD Soft Cell Erasure The Osmonds Rascal Flatts | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 388 Registered: 05-2005 |
Oh, we did this a couple of years ago where I listed, seemingly, every band (except the Fall) that Kevin loved! After a torrent of anti-Beatle abuse, I'm not game to say anymore!..... ALTHOUGH, I still find it interesting that Kev's hates are my loves and yet we still like the Go B's! We are obviously listening to them differently! I'm hearing great melodies that refuse to get out of my skull(a la Beatles, Crowded House). Or is it just one of those "things we hate" things that we carry through with us that we use to define us? e.g. I hate disco, I hate rap,.......I hate Beatles? I'm on the record as saying I admire Kevin for being able to so readily listen to, incorperate and get excited about new stuff. I guess I'm listening out for some clear, clarion call guitar riff (like "there she goes"), some magnificent harmonies (like "Heroes and Villians") and some meaningful yet playful, kaleidescopic lyrics (like "Subterranean Homesick Blues"), and if I don't hear any of these feature, it sucks the big one! .....by the way, I thoroughly agree with Smashing Pumpkins.... And that name is nearly as bad as Limp Biscuit! ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 177 Registered: 05-2005 |
Hot Chip Sonic Youth but most of all - LCD Fucking Sound System ...all staggeringly overrated.. Smashing Pumpkins goes without saying...I have it on good authority that Corgan's voice is used in conjuction with waterboarding at Gitmo and other US torture facilities.. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 2157 Registered: 05-2005 |
Geoff, its 2008 and much as I hate it too you're probably not going to hear the stuff youre listening out for, at least if you do it will be lame. I guess the Go-Bs transcend all musical borders then!! Going back to the Beatles, I really dont know where my aversion to them stems from. I was born in 1960, so while being too young to "appreciate" them in their prime I was still very much aware of them - eg the record I remember hearing first was "She Loves You" and I also remember watching the live broadcast of "All you need is Love". Maybe I indirectly hate them for all the copycat acts, maybe I just couldnt forgive them for Yellow Submarine and When Im 64 etc - who knows how a developing pop obsessed mind works. Oh and can I add Pale Fountains. Maybe not universally adored, but their workmanlike unoriginal dross does my head in at times. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1177 Registered: 08-2006 |
I know this sounds wishy-washy, but I don't hate a lot of stuff. I like what Richard called this thread: "Blind Spots." Some stuff I just don't get. I don't see it. It doesn't make me mad. George Bush makes me mad. Music that falls into my blind spot makes me sleepy, mainly. | ||
| Richard Lim Member Username: Re17 Post Number: 32 Registered: 05-2005 |
My own list turns out to be not quite as extensive as some , but off the top of my head: Arcade Fire (I've heard it all before) Springsteen (antiquated and leaden) Radiohead (endless variations on a few bleak-sounding themes) Nick Cave (always sounds forced to me) Arctic Monkeys (whatever Alex has to say doesn't interest me) Oasis (pointless) The Who (leaden and antiquated) White Stripes (not enough variety) David Bowie (just seems to have dated very badly) Kings of Leon (in one ear and out the other) Morrissey (but I'm a Smiths fan!) REM (from the very start, I never saw the point) While I can't say I really detest most of the above, I do wince when they come on the radio. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1687 Registered: 03-2005 |
I've been avoiding this thread because I figure I've told people what I don't like enough times already. Kevin, you once complimented me on my talent for rubbishing something. I really like the Pale Fountains a lot but your "workmanlike unoriginal dross" made me laugh out loud. Keep it up! I can't really argue with a lot of the criticisms of the folks I like, such as Richard's description of Nick Cave sounding forced. This thread is one designed to get us all brawling outside in the parking lot. For me, sometimes it's just a case of having heard it too many times. I have the Beatles stuff, but really--I've just heard it too many times for one lifetime. And I agree with Kevin about the artists who snatch Beatlesque sounds. How many people have based WHOLE ALBUMS on MacCartney's bass playing on "Taxman" or "Rain" or on Harrison's guitar playing on "And Your Bird Can Sing?" I think I'd probably still be able to enjoy the originals more if so many people didn't insist on slavishly ripping that stuff off. If you're going to rip somebody off, make it somebody unusual. Please. As a variation of that, I know that for me excessive familiarity is an obstacle to enjoyment. I need some level of exoticism. That's why most American music doesn't do anything for me. It's too similar to the air that I'm breathing and the water I'm drinking; it's transparent. There are no surprises. It's boring for me. By contrast I find a positively spiritual dimension to the better Aussie stuff that I imagine the Aussies themselves might not be able to detect because--for them--it's all too much like the air they are breathing and the water they are drinking. My theory is that it comes from the vast empty spaces surrounding their islands of civilization. In the case of the British stuff even if they try to imitate the Americans, they always get it wrong in a way that is wonderfully different than what would happen here. Aside from all of that, I think there are different phases of life for different music. I used to absolutely love "Bodies" and "Anarchy in the U.K." and so on by Lydon & co. I still think it's brilliant stuff fantastically evocative of its time but, honestly, I'm not going to want to have my nerves jittered by it any more. Yes, I'm old. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1308 Registered: 10-2004 |
I'm glad someone mentioned LCD Soundsystem. While not horrible, I have a hard time seeing what all the fuss is about. Glad Richard mentioned Nick Cave. I actually like Nick's work through "Do You Love Me," but find everything he's done since to be self-parodic and stale. His shtick was cool when I was 18, but now he just seems so cartoonish. Arcade Fire - I'm ambivalent about them. They have potential, but I find the singer fairly grating, and the music devolves into bombast too often for my liking. A critic once compared them to John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, which I found hilariously apt. And someone mentioned Death Cab - another one I don't get. I suppose I should throw in the White Stripes, while I'm at it. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1309 Registered: 10-2004 |
Randy - that's a great post, and I can relate to your comments on rip-offs spoiling the Beatles and the relative lack of exoticism in American music (though there are some significant exceptions with the latter!). The potential for confrontation is huge with a thread like this. It's fun to trash the things we dislike, but not so fun have the things we like trashed. I'm so used to everyone despising my favorite bands that it doesn't really phase me when people attack them. It's all so subjective, at the end of day, who cares what other people think? | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 178 Registered: 05-2005 |
I used to dislike Nick Cave intensely for the reasons cited my many above - i.e. he had devolved into a cartoonish caricature of a goth who took himself way too seriously. But with his last couple of albums I've really started to like him again - mainly I think because he's taking himself a lot less seriously. A lot of the lyrics on Grinderman and Dig Lazarus Dig are laugh-out-loud funny... | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 177 Registered: 02-2007 |
Anything "alt country" Jeff. Wow a whole genre!! Bowie after 1980 U2 after Achtung Baby REM after 1992 ACDC after Bon Scott Genesis after Peter Gabriel Morrissey after The Smiths | ||
| joe Member Username: Dogmansuede Post Number: 473 Registered: 07-2006 |
this thread is great....though it would seem ewan and i are majorly at odds there on some of this mentions! put me down on the beatles front. VU's another big one. i'd say crowded house, but that's a whole other "they bore me senseless and i find them posturingly tedious" list. poor man's go-bs. i hope to work back through the late 60s at some point....a couple of female/girl groups aside, it all remains a mystery to me. totally with you mark on the cartoon-like morph of nick cave. no idea what he's on about anymore....ditto for moz. | ||
| Ewan Talisker McEwan Member Username: Ewan_mcewan Post Number: 254 Registered: 02-2008 |
Sorry Joe...the heart wants what it wants. I would indeed have to part ways with you on the Velvets - they are, in their own ghetto, as important as the Beatles (which, there you go, wouldn't be very important to you). An, Im no authority on Cave, but Grinderman and the new one are staggeringly funny and equally wonderful. I think my fave by him, though, is "The Boatman's Call", which while not devoid of humor is fairly serious. People Ain't No Good (kind of funny attitude at work there come to think of it), in my book, is one of the great songs ever written by anybody. Someone mentioned Hot Cheep. Another one that I listen to and wonder, "are they 'avin a laff?" Dont understand, though I dont hate on em, the frenzy about Orange Juice and Josef K. Except for a coupla their hits I just dont hear the songs. And Scott Walker....maybe Ive listened to the wrong ones, but all the recent ones Ive heard could feckin curdle milk. Good music when you want to clear your crib after a party... Artist I like that doesnt really impress with her range and diversity: Cat Power Groups that Pitchfork raves about that I think blow big chunks: Animal Collective and Panda Partner, or whatever the feck theyre called. Group that's so bad, bringing them up is like shooting fish in a barrel: Interpol Beloved by many but hated by me even if they apparently have a killer show: Flaming Lips | ||
| Richard Lim Member Username: Re17 Post Number: 33 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy wrote: "This thread is one designed to get us all brawling outside in the parking lot." Nonsense - only if you're already that way inclined. I started it out of frustration with the blandness of the music press (which I basically refuse to read any more) and radio. It seems to me that nowadays (and for some time) all you ever hear is unalloyed praise for any number of bands, who seemingly can do no wrong and whose every release is a major breakthrough. To some degree I can understand this: certainly there's not much point in covering something if you have nothing good to say about it. But it seems to me there isn't much nuanced stuff, of the type that says "I like this group/album BUT...". Nobody points out how derivative some stuff is and we have far too high a tolerance for mediocrity. I just wanted to be sure it wasn't just me that was distinctly lukewarm about plenty of big names. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 2192 Registered: 05-2005 |
I'm with Jeff on The Shins (though he liked their debut, which is one more Shins record than I liked). I'm also with Jeff on Tim Buckley, and Joanna Newsom is excrutiating. And you might remember my dislike of Richard Thompson. Milkmaid-went-a-churnin' music at its worst. Can I say a movie too? Star Wars. Boring, awful, crap. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1310 Registered: 10-2004 |
A few others people have mentioned that I agree are way overrated: Cat Power Animal Collective David mentioned U2 after Achtung Baby, but I'd probably say U2 after Boy or October. And I have a new one to add to the list: A Certain Ratio. I have a friend who is just ga-ga over ACR, but after all these years, I just don't get it. Granted they have a few good songs, like the intense and moody "Knife Slits Water," but for the most part, they just sounded like a bunch of guys messing around in the studio with no clear focus or genuine ability (or need) to craft a tune. Their debut is just a freaking mess! | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1311 Registered: 10-2004 |
And one more for the fire: Belle & Sebastian. I've gone on B&S rants on this msg. board before. Tigermilk and Sinister are okay (but definitely not the life-altering experiences their hardcore fans claim), but for me, everything after that has been completely bereft of originality or anything distinctive or interesting. The obsession surrounding them fortunately seems to have quieted over the years, but there was a time, around '97 or so, when you couldn't go anywhere without running into mop-headed, cardigan-sporting hipsters who had enthusiastically guzzled the B&S Kool Aid. God, that was tiresome. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 1213 Registered: 01-2005 |
Oasis Erasure, although I liked Allison and Yaz. Pet Shop Boys. Everything But The Girl, I loved them from 1982-94 but I didn't care for the last two drum 'n bass albums. Lauren Hill, I never got the hype about her. Michael Jackson Prince, after The Revolution was disolved. Smashing Pumkins after the first two albums. Death Cab For Cutie, although I do like The Postal Service album Give It Up. Elliott Smith Jane's Addiction Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor Red Hot Chilli Peppers Black Flag Korn Kid Rock David Byrne, post 1988. Elvis Costello, Blood and Chocolate was the last great one of his that struck a note for me. REM starting with Green, althought the last 2 songs on AFTP (Night Swimming and Find The River) are two of my favorite songs from 1992. I'll agree with David...U2 after Achtung Baby | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 2519 Registered: 05-2005 |
I love this thread, ringside seat n all! However, I feel its somewhat unfair. To list things that are way off of one's radar, needs us all there, physically debating round a table with lots of alcohol surely!!??? My views on life and everything it brings change like the wind, one minute something's good, then the next, i don't get it or vice-versa. Its a trait in me I suppose. So for me to not get someting and list it here will be outdated by tonight. Music stuff is really so objective, there's no forgiving obvious bad taste though, all I can say, is I try, like when I was young and impressionable, to follow my nose, (the lineage from thereon seemed to be quite obvious), and avoid what I don't get, and what I did get, sorta shaped me and my life. Most people I knew, from say the ages of 10 to 20, who liked things that I liked, also seemed to like the things I thought they never heard of, if I had a mate who was like Jeff for instance, who was into all things released on the influential el records (which I was and remain into too), then there was a very good chance him or her would like, say, The Monochrome Set, or Momus. Or if someone was into Northern Soul, they'd probably into Dexys, But what made the whole thing interesting was that someone who was a rocker, would wear a Jam badge. Or a punk, wearing a Lee Scratch perry badge, I loved that idea. Things change over time too don't they? I didn't get Jimi Hendrix when I was a teenager, or Neil Young, now I adore them both, and I get it! Sorry for going on, I have just realised, I don;t know wher I am going with this, so I'll check out now. PS The Crowded House thing. I suppose, I quite like the music, I don't like the people much within the band, though I suppose Neil is alright, he's harmless enough, but I can tell you this, there was no way i would confess to liking these down the pub, no way siree! | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 389 Registered: 05-2005 |
Not in Australia Spence. You probably WOULD be in a lot of trouble if you DIDN'T!...although, again, depends on which pub. I would have thought you would be in a lot of trouble in England if you didn't like the Beatles! Do we hate things BECAUSE they are popular - exalted by the great unwashed masses (FINALLY!)- rather than really listening and trying to work out how it fits into the scheme of good things? I'll admit I'm guilty of this at times. Even Crowded House, at the start, I dismissed! | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1313 Registered: 10-2004 |
Crowded House - I like their one big, huge, mega, international hit, whatever the hell that was called, Don't Dream It's Over, or whatever, but everything else is just kind of like tan linoleum to me. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 2159 Registered: 05-2005 |
Geoff, its generally never a good idea to trust the publics taste in music. Its a rule thats never let me down | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 2521 Registered: 05-2005 |
Geoff, I got into lots of similar trouble for slating Westlife in front of the relatives in Ireland!! Uncle Bertie, wasn't very happy... | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1688 Registered: 03-2005 |
"Do we hate things BECAUSE they are popular - exalted by the great unwashed masses (FINALLY!)- rather than really listening and trying to work out how it fits into the scheme of good things?" Yep, I sure as hell do at times. I'm not so concerned about somebody becoming honestly popular with the truly unwashed masses because, as Kevin suggests, if the general public ends up liking an honestly good artist it is a fluke. A freak event. And it never lasts long. My problem is when the great unwashed masses of critics start liking somebody. Critics are writers. They never seem to know anything about music, but go on and on about the lyrics. Good lyrics can really count but these critics will ALWAYS miss the magic. In my view, Springsteen is the ultimate critics' mirage: quite good lyrics and utterly banal and forgettable music which the producers (or the band or Springsteen himself) try to compensate for by hyper-inflated arrangements, the full-song-length coda. Ok, I did it. I trashed somebody. But it was for the purpose of illustration of why I don't like the critics' choices. The bad thing that seems to happen to nearly every popular artist is that he or she starts to just play to the audience--just do what they want, their schtick. And artistic growth and struggle stops altogether. The same thing can happen with cult artists but usually it takes much longer to occur. I'm a big believer in the idea that you make the record that YOU want to hear and cross your fingers that somebody else likes it too. Nobody with a big audience will have enough fortitude to do that; it's just asking too much of the human character. | ||
| Ewan Talisker McEwan Member Username: Ewan_mcewan Post Number: 255 Registered: 02-2008 |
I get it now and I likes it. Now that I understand that immutable law of music criticism, I don't have to really put in any effort listening to things and judging them based on their merit. This makes it much easier to simply categorize them. And, if artists might echo strongly some things that the masses love, as long as they mix it up a little, make it a little less catchy (hooks are for simps) and come up with a cool sounding name, like the Fleet Foxes or Hold Steady (to throw the great unwashed off the scent) and cultivate that patina of hipness, it's okay to like 'em! And lyrics - don't get me started! Feck all those lyric writers! They bore me with all their...words. Really, who has time for all that blah blah blah? Why should pop music make any more sense than having a good beat and being easy to dance to, or I forgot, we're hipper than that - a cool set of chord changes and an immaculate and oh so tasteful guitar tone? If you wanna send a message use FedEx! Now that I think of it, too, to heck with Mr. Grant McLennan. He actually LOVED Springsteen. He's probably a closet member of the hoi polloi. And Forster? He loves Creedence, who had some...euuuwww, hits, too. So heck with him, as well. Some might call these attitudes elitist or snobby, but feck em. Can we help it if our tastes are so superior? | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1690 Registered: 03-2005 |
Grant also liked Boz Scaggs and was a homophobe when he was in his early 20s. Now, if you take Springsteen and mix him with Creedence, you've got something really excellent. You've got the Go Betweens! | ||
| Ewan Talisker McEwan Member Username: Ewan_mcewan Post Number: 256 Registered: 02-2008 |
You've convinced me, sir. I'm now on an anti-Grant kick! | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 2522 Registered: 05-2005 |
We also make judgement (myself included) on people's music, without ever really delving into their back catalogue. The amount of times I've thought, Jeez, what is this!?? And resigned myself to defacing theri name in public, only to when presented with their album, or back catalogue, actually turn out liking them. One thing I will say, regardless Ewan, is that i feel its somewhat unfair to target, the masters, the originals, the movement starters, the mavericks in all of this, I don't see why Orange juice or Josef k or Magazine, or Scott walker or whoever (I adore all these), suerly these artists existed because they had a passion, they did what no one else did and no one has really done since, I mean i was never a big Costello fan but I can see, and I 'get him', surely the aim of this thread as GB's and similar musioc lovers is to stress the dull as dishwater impact Wishbone Ash, Coldplay, Asia, Men at Work, KT Tunstall and Stereophonics and the like have had on our everyday lives......???? | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 1096 Registered: 09-2006 |
I say this with a goodly amount of ambivalence, but for me, hip hop in general has become a blind spot. I'm sure that, as Randy notes above, age is one factor, but that's not all of it. Through the 80s and into the mid-90s I was seriously enamored, but as thug established itself as the new norm for the music (a place it still shows no sign of vacating) my listening time began a slow tailoff - these days it's almost nil, and when I do it's usually that older stuff. Yes, the prodigious musical invention is still there, yes I'm aware there still more flavors than gangsta out there...but even a lot of those flavors feel compelled to include the stuff that's caused me to tune out: I'm just sick to effing death of sitting there cringing, waiting for the inevitable, multiple use of "bitch," "ho," "faggot," etc. and the deep-seated contempt for "weakness", i.e. any normal human emotion beyond anger and self-pity. I know there are complex reasons for this pathology and that this whole subject is a tangled knot (which is part of where my ambivalence lies), but at base, the claims of ignorance as to how hateful that s**t is are straight-up lies. | ||
| Ewan Talisker McEwan Member Username: Ewan_mcewan Post Number: 257 Registered: 02-2008 |
Well put sirrah. I really dig a lot of the music, but so much of the lyrical content is just downright ugly and hateful. | ||
| TROU Member Username: Trou Post Number: 154 Registered: 05-2005 |
Ting Tings - We started nothing. My album of the month for one month . | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 1215 Registered: 01-2005 |
While I liked the early days of Rap, it lost it's charm for me in the early 90's when....hold it...yes, the lyrical content got ugly, so I'll agree with the last few posts on the lyrical content being a big turn off. I never listened to hip-hop because of what Rap had degenerated into. I've even seen a couple of clips of some groups that tried to meld jazz and hip-hop. While jazz is sometimes about molding different types of music and integrating into the jazz spectrum, the jazz hip-hop numbers were an abomination to these ears. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1320 Registered: 10-2004 |
I thought of another one that'll get me into trouble: the Rolling Stones. Sure, I like the odd song (typically the poppier mid-60s stuff), but generally, they've never done much for me. Too much bluesy riff rock for my liking. Not much in the way of melody. I've always taken the Beatles side in that endless and futile debate. Although for me, there were plenty of bands from the 60s that blow both bands out of the water. But back to the Stones... I grew up with their records playing frequently in the house, with a heavy emphasis on the '68-'72 era stuff. So I'm definitely familiar with the stuff. Just not my cup of tea I guess. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 1218 Registered: 01-2005 |
Jeff, I'm with you on the Rolling Stones these days. I have a half a dozen or so of their 60's & 70's albums on vinyl, but nothing on cd. Bob Seger, same thing numbers wise. They both lost all their charms for me by 1980, so by the time I bought my first cd player in 1985 I never felt the need to buy any of their cd's. Which I guess could be another topic, groups you have on vinyl or cassette, but not on cd. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1321 Registered: 10-2004 |
Michael - that would be a slightly perplexing topic for me to partake in, given that I'm such a diehard vinyl fetishist. I've actually been known to sell CDs after finding minty vinyl copies to replace them! (Did that w/ Big Star's "Third," for example). | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 1219 Registered: 01-2005 |
Jeff, a vinyl copy of "Third - Sister/Lovers" is mighty minty!! The only thing I have on vinyl that might be considered minty would be KATE BUSH The Single File 1978-83 13 7" singles box set. |