Why the hate for Sigur Ros?

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cos they sound like radiohead, just more credible. they are the band radiohead want to be. the singers voice makes me want to pull my fingernails off.]

― ambrose, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I see I have been called for on this thread! Well, hmmm... They seem far too comfortable with their sound, content to rely on Jonsi's voice and that bowed guitar. And the maximalist sound that they applied on Ágætis Byrjun is really dull, all swelling strings and triumphant horns. They sound better live, stripped down, his voice not layered in reverb. But this still leaves the fact that they seem to write songs to wrap their atmospherics around, instead of the opposite. Most criticisms of them are true. They're turgid and static, and seem to be quite afraid of any sort of dissonance. And I find it odd that they're so often described as "alien" or "ethereal" when aside from his voice, they're utterly terrestrial. Yet another pop band with bad orchestral arrangements and silly choirs.

― Melissa W, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

If I wanted to listen to someone using a violin bow to play a guitar, I'll stick with Led Zeppelin thank you very much.

At least Jimmy Page knew it was just a schtick for onstage. Maybe he should tell that to Jonsi.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

Where is the love for SIGUR ROS?
;-P

― Anyone Who Can Pick Up A Frying Pan Pwns Death (AaronHz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 03:53 (8 years ago) Permalink

Where is Sigur Ros? Did they finally fuck off back to Haraybajargensberger?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:03 (8 years ago) Permalink

hhahahahahaha! ned hates the tweepeople like i hate the pumpkins!

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:05 (8 years ago) Permalink

Where is Billy Corgan? Still doing "poetry readings"?

― Anyone Who Can Pick Up A Frying Pan Pwns Death (AaronHz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:14 (8 years ago) Permalink

Someone told me that Sven-G-Englar was a brilliant song, the other day, and it just didn't occur to me that any reaction other than "Yes! Wow! Awesome!" was even like remotely possible. I mean okay yes yes sometimes they do go on a bit but Sven-G-Englar people!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:17 (8 years ago) Permalink

try playing that song on a piano or acoustic guitar and then tell me how 'great' it is

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:20 (8 years ago) Permalink

that does not happen to be the measure of a great song, thankfully.

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:33 (8 years ago) Permalink

that acoustic guitar/good song theory has never really held water
x-post

― Anyone Who Can Pick Up A Frying Pan Pwns Death (AaronHz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:34 (8 years ago) Permalink

Original text: rockist
Icelandic text: klettur, bjarg, hamar, berg, rokk, rugg, rugga, vagga, hrista, hristast

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:36 (8 years ago) Permalink

a piece of music can be interesting and even satisfying and not be a 'great song.' "Suzanne," "Thirteen," and "Tell Me Why" are great songs. "Four Violins," Disintegration Loops" and "Jerusalem" are all very awesome and amazing but not "great" "songs," ya dig what um sayin?

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:36 (8 years ago) Permalink

and what exactly is the point of this argument?

― Anyone Who Can Pick Up A Frying Pan Pwns Death (AaronHz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:37 (8 years ago) Permalink

nothing. Just that Sigur Ros has neither 'great songs' nor "very awqesome and amazing songs," but I'll accept someone having the opinion that they excel at the latter but not the former. Because I DO believe the "acoustic guitar theory" holds water. OK?

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:42 (8 years ago) Permalink

Someone told me that Sven-G-Englar was a brilliant track, the other day, and it just didn't occur to me that any reaction other than "Yes! Wow! Awesome!" was even like remotely possible. I mean okay yes yes sometimes they do go on a bit but Sven-G-Englar people!

― Anyone Who Can Pick Up A Frying Pan Pwns Death (AaronHz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:43 (8 years ago) Permalink

oops ok sorry substitute the word 'great' for the far more sensational 'brilliant,' then. Satisfied?

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Saturday, 26 February 2005 04:51 (8 years ago) Permalink

Look closer at the word after "brilliant".

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Saturday, 26 February 2005 05:01 (8 years ago) Permalink

i can mostly take or leave them but i Do love "Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa" (over "Svefn..." anyway).

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 26 February 2005 13:39 (8 years ago) Permalink

"Olsen Olsen" is nice.

― Anyone Who Can Pick Up A Frying Pan Pwns Death (AaronHz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 13:45 (8 years ago) Permalink

haha julio used to be so ANGRY!!

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 26 February 2005 13:46 (8 years ago) Permalink

i don't hate them anymore. they just leave me completely cold now. i have given the cd away to a friend btw. somehow she liked them in the beginning but she kind of understood my pov and likes them less now...

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, 26 February 2005 14:11 (8 years ago) Permalink

aaaw good for you...

[/SARCASTIC}

― Rizz (Rizz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 14:13 (8 years ago) Permalink

Where is Sigur Ros?

new album out this year for all you fans of good music

― Rizz (Rizz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 14:15 (8 years ago) Permalink

actually i know now the main reason why i hated them so much. there seemed to be a magical mystery behind their music at first listen. when i found out that it was all fabric softener for the ears i felt cheated. they fucked with my feelings.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, 26 February 2005 14:18 (8 years ago) Permalink

Noodling= a groove that goes nowhere and is just there to fill up space (just like concrete) is produced?

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 26 February 2005 14:19 (8 years ago) Permalink

haha julio used to be so ANGRY!!

I can actually imagine him saying all of the stuff on this thread with a broad un-malicious smile, though!

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Saturday, 26 February 2005 15:07 (8 years ago) Permalink

i know sean!! he is KING of "oh i get it, sweetheart not git" when you meet him in person

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 26 February 2005 15:11 (8 years ago) Permalink

when did roger turn into Geir?

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 26 February 2005 17:56 (8 years ago) Permalink

Come on, Sigur Ros are just the Cocteau Twins without the annoying vocals.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Saturday, 26 February 2005 18:08 (8 years ago) Permalink

JOKE

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Saturday, 26 February 2005 18:10 (8 years ago) Permalink

i like a.b. but was never all that hot on ().

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 26 February 2005 18:12 (8 years ago) Permalink

"Four Violins," Disintegration Loops" and "Jerusalem" are all very awesome and amazing but not "great" "songs,"

to the first two, yes, they are not songs nor were they ever meant to be, you couldnt play them on an acoustic guitar, yr right. Jerusalem however is a very great song indeed - whether you can play it well on the piano (and i'm sure you could) does not affect that.

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 26 February 2005 18:41 (8 years ago) Permalink

Does the acoustic guitar rule count on non-Western musics? Those crazy Chinese can't write songs for shit then, Roger?

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Saturday, 26 February 2005 18:44 (8 years ago) Permalink

from The Complete Idiot's Guide To Music Theory:

Song A song, in classical music, is a short and self-contained piece for one or more voices; it can be accompanied or not, and either sacred or secular in nature. In popular music, however, just about any musical composition (vocal or instrumental) is called a song.

― Anyone Who Can Pick Up A Frying Pan Pwns Death (AaronHz), Saturday, 26 February 2005 19:20 (8 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

I'm a big fan. Loved them the first time I heard them, just before ágætis byrjun came out, ( ) is one of my 5 favouritest albums ever, Takk took a while to grow on me but I now totally get it.

I saw the screening + acoustic set they did in Ghent of the DVD they've got coming out next week, it's stunningly breathtaking ( trailer here: http://www.heimafilm.com ), the Hvarf/Heim reworkings are superb ( listen here: http://www.myspace.com/sigurros ) - more info about Heima/Hvarf/Heim here: http://sigur-ros.co.uk/band/disco/heima.php

I understand the hate, on paper/in theory I should hate them too, I shouldn't like anything about them, but it just works and I love them.

ok, start hating again, everyone :-(

― StanM, Monday, 29 October 2007 06:58 (5 years ago) Permalink

I don't hate them. When anyone asks me to name some of my favourite artists, I always (always!) forget about Sigur Rós, but usually when I'm alone and in a certain pensive mood for which even Radiohead are too upbeat (ha!) and Joy Division are too heavy-dark, I'll rediscover something like "Starálfur" or "Olsen Olsen" or "Njósnavélin" or "Glósóli" etc., and be half-pleasantly, half-unsettlingly transported again into a half-world of ambient orchestral underground caverns in which the very twisted columns are built from crystalline sugar -- granted, haha -- but which also deflect, reflect and echo some kind of ebbing, flowing hesitant/grandiose beauty.

So yeah, at times, I really do like and even love Sigur Rós, recognising the "pretentious noodling" tag as being really very ridiculous indeed. I.e./ they're not noodling at all and who the fuck cares about pretentious?

― Lostandfound, Monday, 29 October 2007 07:27 (5 years ago) Permalink

I suppose I should also say I've been a long-time Yes and Cocteau Twins fan (respectively, from Close To The Edge and Garlands onward, really) so much so that so-called whale music has never been alien to me. It's a definite prog streak that, if you're not onboard with it, precludes you from loving the Icelandic chamber music (cosmic inflation-collapse) Sigur Rós specialise in. They're hit and miss in terms of timing and pacing and all that subjective shite, though. F'rinstance right now I'm listening to a song by them called "Flugufrelsarinn" and it's taken waaa-aaa-aay too long to reach the sublime payoff before dissipating waaa-aaa-ay too quickly. Although undoubtedly painfully gorgeous while it lasted.

― Lostandfound, Monday, 29 October 2007 07:41 (5 years ago) Permalink

Why the hate people?
-- Gregg, Monday, March 11, 2002 7:00 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link
Because it's ambient noodling for fuck's sake. Use your ears.
-- Julio desouza, Monday, March 11, 2002 7:00 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

One of my favorite immediate answers to an ILM thread, ever ^^^

As for the band -- wouldn't say I'm a fan, don't own anything they've done, don't love em or hate em. Sigur Ros is just one of those indie institutions (so to speak) that is perpetually overrated by the kids who haven't found artists who have done/are doing what Sigur Ros is doing, but infinitely better.

― stephen, Monday, 29 October 2007 08:13 (5 years ago) Permalink

Yeah, this is a critical and undervoiced position: Agaetis Byrjun versus "Blue Skied and Clear." I'm really not one for the whole "someone did that ten years ago so it's not good now" arguments, but I suspect that on some level this is why Sigur Ros strike me as good but inessential.
-- [ban me], Monday, March 11, 2002 7:00 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

[ban me] OTM, as usual, waaaaaay upthread.

(Going back to that "is there any good music writing left?" thread: Is [ban me] currently writing for anyone? Last saw a Pfork review by him at least a year ago, can't recall much else. Love his writing though, and generally agree with his tastes.)

― stephen, Monday, 29 October 2007 08:16 (5 years ago) Permalink

(...why was N*tsuh changed to [ban me]??)

― stephen, Monday, 29 October 2007 08:20 (5 years ago) Permalink

lets cyberfuck

― Curt1s Stephens, Monday, 29 October 2007 08:49 (5 years ago) Permalink

tl;dr

― stephen, Monday, 29 October 2007 09:04 (5 years ago) Permalink

Sigur Ros may be the only act on the ILM hate list that does not write traditional verse-chorus-based songs.

― Geir Hongro, Monday, 29 October 2007 10:55 (5 years ago) Permalink

their albums can be kind of dull but they were amazing live a few years back, i was shocked. i think they work much better in a live setting, surprisingly.

― akm, Monday, 29 October 2007 13:05 (5 years ago) Permalink

I don't know how I feel about them, but I will say that they've never really sounded at all like anything anyone on ILM has compared them to. Their layers of vocals that distort as they grow louder really don't sound anything like the Cocteau Twins or any shoe-gazing band. Like it or hate it, it's definitely its own thing.

― filthy dylan, Monday, 29 October 2007 13:18 (5 years ago) Permalink

Agaetis Byrjun was pretty good, I thought, but ( ) was better. I also thought they were pretty amazing live when I saw them maybe 4 years ago. Heard bits and pieces of Takk but it never really stuck.

I think the hate towards them often just amounts to kind of silly, knee-jerk reactions - "fuckin new age innit?!?" "fuckin ambient prog noodling" bla bla, come on guys. There is plenty of great stuff that could be saddled with the new age or prog labels, and shouting those labels was/is never a good substitute for decent criticism. That said I suppose the hate is just backlash towards the hyperbolic praise given to them from the indie press, and now I guess from the NPR crowd.

But decent enough ambient/post-rock band, even if there are a few songs that sound a little syrupy.

― Mark Clemente, Monday, 29 October 2007 13:45 (5 years ago) Permalink

Pulled from the Stylus archives today, in the Bluffer's Guide to Stylus retrospective:

Haiku Marathon 2005 (Stylus Staff)
Sigur Ros
Just one step away
From being Enya, you daft
Secret hippy scum!

― stephen, Monday, 29 October 2007 15:42 (5 years ago) Permalink

M83 are similar in some ways (large swelling orchestral cosmic ambience). I don't listen to NPR so maybe I've missed the backlash urge. (I'm not American.)

But, regardless, they sometimes hit heights of beauty that cause me to lose control of my entire skin. Which, for the most part, means they are a lot better than the ILM massive has traditionally given them credit for -- there was one poster who always, always posted on Sigur Rós threads and completely took the fucking piss out of them to the extent that any casual observer would think they were utterly dismissed here, which was not altogether fair.

― Lostandfound, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 08:30 (5 years ago) Permalink

(i.e. Search "Sigur Rós" and you'll see one name crop up consistently... in a negative way, obv.)

― Lostandfound, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 08:32 (5 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 145 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

so i like this song alright, it is just too long for a single and really go nowhere. i have hopes for the album however.

― Bee OK, Saturday, 7 April 2012 02:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

Man, haters (or anybody left that's interested enough) are going to have a field day.
The entire record sounds like the keyboard players dog died so he listened to Arvo Pärt for a week straight then wrote the album while the rest of the band were on holiday.

― Dick Move's Wardrobe (MaresNest), Sunday, 15 April 2012 13:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

Who's that rapper on track 4 ?

― StanM, Sunday, 15 April 2012 14:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

Really looking forward to this.

― djh, Monday, 7 May 2012 20:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

Ding dong.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/06/shia-labeouf-naked-sigur-ros-video-fjogur-piano.html

Link SFW -- the video in it isn't.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 18 June 2012 16:36 (11 months ago) Permalink

Between this and working w Nick Cave, Shia Labeouf's "arty" period is going to be amazing.

― Cunga, Tuesday, 19 June 2012 05:00 (11 months ago) Permalink

You dislike this video. Thanks for the feedback!

― Black_vegeta (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, 19 June 2012 05:27 (11 months ago) Permalink

jesus christ man is this like.. how did we even... like fuckin 500 years ago people were making beautiful art/... fuckin leonardo da vinci was doing amazing things... and now some lesbian in a jumpsuit is doing slow motion footage of naked sam witwicky murdering a babe while the sound of a slow motion plane crash goes on

― Black_vegeta (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, 19 June 2012 05:29 (11 months ago) Permalink

I'm not sure what's worse; his penis, his ponytail, or his sad eyes.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 19 June 2012 05:47 (11 months ago) Permalink

^^^ a sentence I never expected to read

― Victory Chainsaw! (DJP), Tuesday, 19 June 2012 12:25 (11 months ago) Permalink

Popped up on blog view, mistook it for the cheesecake thread and was about to complain "why are you being so MEAN about Thom Yorke?"

Um never mind then.

― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Tuesday, 19 June 2012 12:32 (11 months ago) Permalink

I like that this thread now has a definitive answer to the question posed.

― I found him in a Bon Ton ad (Nicole), Tuesday, 19 June 2012 12:32 (11 months ago) Permalink

haha I was thinking that too

― Victory Chainsaw! (DJP), Tuesday, 19 June 2012 13:14 (11 months ago) Permalink

Why the hate for Sigor Ros? Shia Labeouf's ponytailed penis.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 19 June 2012 13:32 (11 months ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

just saw shia's la boeuf ... God, these Icelandic motherfuckers DEFY parody,

― notlih sirap (Eisbaer), Monday, 23 July 2012 04:16 (10 months ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

Alack:

"Sigur Rós would like to apologise to anyone disappointed not to see the band's Bestival performance live online last night. Early in the day a decision had been made to delay broadcast till after the show to give the band a chance to review the footage ahead of webcast, since they were dismayed that their guaranteed 'darkness' slot had been pushed into daylight by the expansive demands of the headliner.
"The band's only UK show of the year, this would-be highlight of the 2012 calendar, would have to be conducted without proper lights or visuals. Sadly then, a perfect storm of production issues and technical problems conspired to mean that the band went on to have a thoroughly miserable experience onstage too. And to spare everyone’s blushes a decision was made to draw a discrete veil over proceedings."

All of which is their way of saying "We wish we didn't have to have photos like this taken of us in broad daylight oh god please delete":

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 11 September 2012 14:26 (8 months ago) Permalink

6 months pass...

they lost a member and got heavier and i find myself liking the new song, which would make it the first thing i've enjoyed from them in ages

here's the artwork for the new album, kveikur

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Friday, 22 March 2013 16:42 (2 months ago) Permalink

Got a friend's ticket to their show at MSG last night, a more muscular performance than expected. Between that and this single, genuinely looking forward to this album.

― thistle supporter (mcoll), Tuesday, 26 March 2013 18:21 (1 month ago) Permalink

They played the title track on Jimmy Fallon the other night and it's pretty intense, too.

― Austin, Tuesday, 26 March 2013 19:04 (1 month ago) Permalink

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