Why the hate for Sigur Ros?

wax cylinder?

man, i remember when sigur ros were (in my mind) the most exciting band in the world. i had to order the ny batteri EP from my local indie and i devoured ágætis byrjun when it came out. but never has my interest in a band waned so quickly than after that. but those records were GOOD and I could be tempted to return to them. Think I still have Ny Batteri and ágætis byrjun in their OG cardboard sleeves. Wonder if they're worth anything at all.

This remains my favourite thing they ever did. Verges on black metal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTGLiV6QwZA

man, i remember when sigur ros were (in my mind) the most exciting band in the world. i had to order the ny batteri EP from my local indie and i devoured ágætis byrjun when it came out. but never has my interest in a band waned so quickly than after that. but those records were GOOD and I could be tempted to return to them. Think I still have Ny Batteri and ágætis byrjun in their OG cardboard sleeves. Wonder if they're worth anything at all.

I loved Ágætis byrjun too. I revisited it recently and still enjoyed it. (), however, is boring in 2015.

yeah everything they did afterwards sounded very boring indeed. tv ident music. or am i just saying that because a tv station in the UK did use one of their songs as an ident? i liked SR when they hinted at folky grimness, but they decided to go down a more ambient/Radiohead-lite path I wasn't mad keen on. 2000 felt like post-rock was going to be the saviour of music music but so few bands managed to follow up on their promises.

Agetis Byrjun is easily their worst album.

( ) has my fave bits on it.

I had the same experience. Absolutely blown away by the Sven-g-Englar and Ny Batteri singles, and I loved the album. I thought it was a refreshing take on the quiet/loud dynamic that Mogwai and Godspeed were doing--it was just more sensuous and less didactic. My love of that record kept me on board for ( ) and Takk, though I never really connected beyond a couple of tracks on that latter album. I never bought another album after that though I paid attention to singles.

Now I'm totally uninterested in new stuff and the idea of going back to those earlier albums feels like a chore, aside from some nostalgia for Sven-g-Englar.

remember REALLY liking (). i still have it but haven't felt a desire to hear it in years. i jumped off the bus after that though.

Absolutely loved Agetis Bryjun and ( ), was pretty meh on Takk, really enjoyed Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, and haven't been too big either way on the ones since.

Ny Batteri and Sven-G-Englar are possibly my two favorite songs by them. I lost track after Takk.... they're kind of a one-trick pony, no? Whichever album you heard first might be your favorite by them, they seem exchangeable. They make a good first impression but as soon as you get to a second album it feels like more of the same. A friend describes them as the AC/DC of post-rock.

the last album was really good and intense and kinda post-hardcorey in a way. haven't really listened to it since it came out though

Some of you that faded away with Takk should really give Með suð... a go, it really is quite an outlier from the rest of their discography. It's pretty lacking in post-rock, the songs are more traditionally formed and have a lot of folk and almost jazz influenced bits. A couple of the songs remind me of Animal Collective too. It doesn't all work, but it worked for me as a way to get interested in them again, since they weren't chasing down the same formula.

Of their relatively recent releases, I love this track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DnPtTzUb9s

I really liked Med Sus i Eyrum... and the first Jonsi solo album even more. Lost track after that. I've always liked them most when they played a sort of twisted popmusic. My favorite song on Agætis is Staralfur.

Mind you, I still find it odd to hear them sound-tracking Philadelphia Cream Cheese and (I think, Jonsi solo) HSBC adverts.

i'm listening to agaetis for the first time in about 10 years and maybe i'm falling in love with these guys all over again. might be ready for a 1999 revival round my way soon.

philadelphia is a quality cream cheese

I'm not disputing that, Jón.

Because it's ambient noodling for fuck's sake. Use your ears.

Ágætis byrjun

live at íslenska óperan 1999

at 21.00 gmt friday, to mark the 16th birthday of their second album, ágætis byrjun, sigur rós will be streaming the release day concert played at the icelandic opera house on june 12, 1999. unless you were there, this 1hr 40min never before heard concert, will be streamed through once in its entirety. exclusively via agaetis.sigur-ros.co.uk, at 21.00 Icelandic time (14.00 pst / 17.00 est / 22.00 bst / 23.00 cet / 06.00 jst), the same time as the original reykjavík show all those years ago.

missed it, but it's going to be in the box set anyway

I'm liking this Circe thing a lot more than anything that's come out from them since 2008.

Circe = Sígur Rós members Georg Holm, Orri Páll Dýrason & Kjartan Holm with Hilmar örn Hilmarsson, instrumental soundtrack for an upcoming (2016?) BBC documentary film about vaudeville, circus acts etc with loads of old footage

docu will be called "The Show Of Shows" btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFfyt6Hdmnk.

Weird. Bought it having played that ... but now it is doing absolutely nothing for me.

I finally got around to buying Kveikur. It's got some good songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU3TYFSNybg

http://www.dooloop.tv/iframe/embed/?vid=4323187&as=0&ivw=specials/extern_as&

^^ 24 hour slow TV thing.

^ Curious new video.

3 nights in LA with an orchestra etc, April 2017

http://www.laphil.com/tickets/reykjavik-festival

I still like some of the early stuff but I still cant believe how badly the third album drops in the last three tracks. How unvarying the vocals are in them, it sounds like slight variations of the same sounds. Keep hearing "You sigh alone, you sign on a lot, you siphon a load".

tbf those lyrics would be an awesome encapsulation of millennial anomie

Definitely sums up my issues with () quite well!! Felt very lazy

Disagree.

The words were never meant to be anything other than another instrument on that album.

Far and away their best work.

I knew the vocals were not proper words, the problem is those last three tracks and much of Takk isn't creative enough with the vocals to carry off this approach.

Less like Liz Fraser and Magma and more like When Dinosurs Ruled The Earth ("akita!") and Team America ("durka durka"). Although Fraser and Magma used made up words rather than sounds, or maybe a mixture?

This isn't a problem in the earlier Sigur Ros stuff, so it's more frustrating.

first album and eps all great. lost interest after that

First album is seriously great. Remember I was in a stage production of Little shop of Horrors and hearing that album was deeply therapeutic. Untitled was also good, but christ after that I fell off pretty deep.

Once a band becomes a peak and valleys catharsis and reprieve formula, it's time to jet. They were pretty amazing live in the early days

So, wait, when you guys are saying "first album", are you referring to Von? Because that's a pretty brave statement, considering how dull most of that record is.

And I will still ride pretty hard for Kveikur, and especially Valtari.

Agaetis Byrjun is the album everyone thinks is their first. it's like that with Mew's Frengers too.

Von has some good tracks but Agaetis Byrjun was a massive step up.

Always forget Von is their first, largely because Agaetis was pushed as their "debut" of sorts at the time

I looooooooooooved Sigur Rós circa 2001 - 2005 (the rooftop scene at the end of Vanilla Sky was my gateway). I also fell off hard after Takk, which I really liked. By the time the next record came out (2008?), their shtick and post-rock's schtick in general had already been completely exhausted and started showing up everywhere in movies, tv, commercials... proto-"epiphany core" music defined by Arcade Fire's "Wake Up." it was just like grunge, there was only so much you could do with epic quiet-loud-quiet instrumental rock. Same thing happened for me with Explosions in the Sky - I adored The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place, but the 2007 record was in one ear out the other for me. They're another band that was liscened a lot.

yeah flappy bird, well said

lol didn't mean to italicize EITS...

also i gotta stick up for ( ), the first song and the one that was in Vanilla Sky are my favorite Sigur Rós songs. But R.A.G. is right - Jonsi recycles the same vocal melody and made up lines on the back half of the album. It's not that I don't dig him singing in a made up language - just that he's singing the same made-up phrase with similar inflection and melody on half the record.

xp thanks

I’ve listened to new stuff from this band since the album where they’re all naked on the cover - maybe ten years ago now?

But for whatever reason I just gave their new one, “Route 1”, a try - it’s really nice. More of a straight ambient record than what I’d expect a Sigur Ros album to sound like. Jonsi’s voice doesn’t show up until the last track, and even then just barely.

I have a feeling this is an outlier in their discography but I’m inclined to try some more recent albums just to see.

it's a reworking of the software-generated soundtrack to their 24 hour trip on Iceland's route one iirc (the 360° video is on youtube)

Meant to say above I’ve NOT listened to new stuff for the last ten years...

ísjaki off of 'kveikur' is one of my fav sigur ros tunes

drummer orri accused of not just sexual assault but rape

i guess at the time the accuser was working at famed la stripclub the body shop