Bands you keep trying to like but can't get into

Likewise, I occasionally feel like I don't enjoy Loveless as much as I should due to its canonical status. I always have this residual feeling that I'm missing out on a layer of greatness that's just beyond reach. Some classics breed anxiety, others not so much (I never experienced this with, say, The Dark Side of the Moon in spite of its conspicuous sense of self-importance).

The jazz album that's going to be the first you don't have to *try* to like really depends on what expectations are drawing a person towards jazz in the first place. Like is the jumping off point IDM or hip hop or soundtracks or guitar rock? Miles has got a entry point for most expectations, though I agree Ah-Um is a great place for someone just trying to get a handle on ride cymbals and horns.

― Mungolian Jerryset (bendy), Friday, June 8, 2018 11:21 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is otm. My entry point to Miles was Agharta, after six months or so of my first exposures to the Stooges, Pere Ubu, Albert Ayler, and Coltrane. It was as perfect an introduction to his work as I could have imagined at that moment. If KoB had been foisted upon me instead, it likely wouldn't have registered.

otm...and context fades, which is why I find 'Horses' a lot more interesting than 'Kick Out The Jams' 50 years later.

(also don't know that I've ever heard anything from Spacemen 3 that lives up to some of the more hyperbolist writings on their music)

― he doesn't need to be racist about it though. (Austin), Thursday, 7 June 2018 23:28 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

High five! I feel the same way about Joy Division. I mean, I get why they're important and all that, but I kinda feel like if you've heard one song you've heard 'em all (early / Warsaw stuff excepted)

And I have tried really hard with Spacemen 3, but nothing ever sticks. I like bands that have imitated their particular sound (Velvets meets Stooges meets, err, Terry Riley?), but I just find their records very dull and monotonous.

― Paul Ponzi, Thursday, 7 June 2018 23:36 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You have to have dropped acid to them in the late 80s to get it, maan

John Martyn

― Duke, Thursday, June 7, 2018 10:08 AM (thirty-one minutes ago)

Ahhh, that hurts my soul!

What have you tried?

― he doesn't need to be racist about it though. (Austin), Thursday, 7 June 2018 19:41 (yesterday) 

Solid Air, which is the consensus "best" album. I think I've got Stormbringer as well. A perfect fit on paper, but it didn't click

Semi-ironic yacht rockers can dig "Time After Time"

You're Under Arrest was actually the second Davis album I heard, right after Kind of Blue; I bought it because it was the newest one at the time, and I immediately just accepted it as another facet of Miles. I still like a lot of his 80s material.

Duke, you may want to give Bless the Weather and Inside Out a go, if you have the desire to give him another chance.

Will do, thanks

jesus christ will anyone recommend one world which is his actual best album

i guess in line with dog latin's point solid air works really well when you've listened to the albums surrounding it

solid air was the first one I heard and it didn’t really do much for me. hearing small hours and glistening glyndebourne and head & heart though, jfc

also John Martyn tracks poll now

When it comes to John Martyn there would need to be a thread for I'd Probably Like It If I Listened To It But I've Never Got Round To It And Life's Too Short, Basically. Would be one hell of a long thread though.

gt Peppers, for similar reasons, is a bit NBD for people who'd have heard other multi-instrument 'concept'-style albums that came out since. The idea of having a pop album designed in this way with an imaginary band who plays the intro and the outro and all these conceptual pop songs about circuses and women floating in the sky wouldn't have even been conceived three or four years prior

it's not a "concept album," so anyone coming to it with that framing is going to be disappointed. the major leap of Pepper was having so many fuckin' great songs in ostentatiously different styles and arrangements, performed and recorded really really well. the styles and arrangements part of that was so immediately influential that a subsequent listener without cultural context has no reason at all to note or notice it.

eh i don't think that's true. pepper sounded really different from anything i'd ever heard even when i was 12. revolver took me a lot longer to "get"

sorry to talk about the beatles again

the major leap of Pepper was having so many fuckin' great songs in ostentatiously different styles and arrangements, performed and recorded really really well

I'd argue Revolver did it first (and much better, overall).

Brad, I love One World. I've always defended it, even though a lot of people consider it a move to the more commercial soft rock thing. To me, it's his last thoroughly classic album from his brilliant 70s run. And one of his best eras for live stuff too; check out the deluxe edition for a great solo set.

The solo live versions of 'Big Muff' from the time are pretty much badassery of the highest order:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btRv4MnPOBE

Man, check out that Frankensteined guitar!

Brad, I love One World. I've always defended it, even though a lot of people consider it a move to the more commercial soft rock thing

i don't hear this particular criticism in the record itself, but fair! "big muff" kicks so much ass

That version of Big Muff is immense!

I always send folk to this live version of Small Hours if I feel they need a Martyn conversion: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pYLVM560Fok

Jeez, when you *want* something to embed...

If you want it to embed, clip the "s" off the "https" part of the URL.

My nomination for this thread: Magma. I've tried multiple times, heard all the canonical albums, and they never sound the way they're described. It just doesn't do it for me at all.

Just thought of one: Can. like, I like a few select tracks (notably Vitamin C and Future Days) and some of their solo stuff but whenever I've put on any of their key albums it's like the music isn't hitting the sides which us a shame cos I really want to like them

Yeah, cosign on Can.

Also, The Blue Nile.

I'm ready to just resign myself to the fact that Ry Cooder's solo albums are terrible

This is my favorite ever version of 'Big Muff':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_zpNgamalw

That guitar tone is just huge. It's got that like "cocked wah" sort of sound. Some sort of filter.

Eleven years on from the start of this thread and nothing has much has changed, the Big Two remain...

1. Jefferson Airplane - though I have at least stopped buying their albums.

2. Derek Bailey - given that I've probably saw him live more than most Derek Bailey fans this has long been a lost cause.

Another one for me: Psychedelic Furs.

But it's a bit less-so with them, as I've always owned and rather enjoyed All of This and Nothing. It's just when I try to get into the proper albums that they lose me. Although, I do recall hearing Book of Days and World Outside and thinking they were kind of solid-ish.

re: psychedelic furs
I mean I'm kind of a huge fan and would say you're probably fine with a compilation. go to 'Should God Forget' or get the 1st album.

Ilx weighing in on kind of blue is one of my least favorite things ever

yeah totes. that's the neat thing about Miles is he has an album for almost every taste / occasion. If you like funk, go for On The Corner; if you're more into ambient or kraut or even house music, Silent Way; if you're more melodically inclined then Birth of Cool; psych-rock or experimental-rock, Bitches - KoB, I'm not sure?? Just a good all-rounder I guess, but it is very 'JAZZ' qua JAZZ to these ears, despite how groundbreaking it was when it first came out. I think I was expecting some mad freakout shit or some moody Waitsian stuff when I first wanted to hear jazz, but this felt a bit staid, a bit sleepy, a bit 'traditionalist' or something?

― My name is the Pope and in the 90s I smoked a lot of dope (dog latin), Friday, June 8, 2018 10:26 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So “jazz qua Jazz” = “traditionalist”

But “sounds like music I’m already familiar with that isn’t jazz” is presumably the “adventurous” choice?

Kind of Blue is a great entry point if you’re hoping to understand what miles davis was about at a core level, something close to an eternal essence that connects every piece of his entire career from his earliest recordings with Parker to his songs with easy mo bee; an understanding of his melodic genius, of his spare, minimal style, of his preference for understatement and unpredictability

But sure, on the corner is good if you like to rock out while reading Lester bangs or whatever

Three letters: G.B.V.

― Pleasant Plains, Monday, July 9, 2007 7:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm now as old as Bob Pollard circa. Isolation Drills and I still don't get this band.

But sure, on the corner is good if you like to rock out while reading Lester bangs or whatever

To write a novel, you don't have to study Charles Dickens—you'll do that in time. You'll exhaust your limitations first; don't forget, tradition is all around you. You're sinking in it, breathing it, and you can't escape it or resist it. To force it as a prerequisite—the most you can get out of it is that it presents you with such a phenomenal bunch of facts about how things are done that you're intimidated from ever doing anything. Art goes on forever, and my experience is that you start from where it excites you and if you're intelligent, you look from where the hell did this thing come?

Sure, whatever makes you horny, but this started bc people were questioning KoB’s facility as an introductory point not the other way around, as if bitches brew had some intrinsic “accessibility” KoB does not... thats not really the case unless rock is the center of your musical universe... and KoB is definitely, inarguably, a more representative work so...

It’s about whatever one encounters whenever one happens to encounter it. If it happens to be KoB, and if that resonates, great. If it happens to be, say, Dark Magus, that’s great, too.

You can choose to approach an artist based on a nebulous (and ultimately distancing) idea of THIS WORK IS MORE REPRESENTATIVE THAN ALL THE OTHERS, or you can stumble upon an artist in such a serendipitous way as for it to be a gateway into an investigation of their work.

and KoB is definitely, inarguably, a more representative work so...

Ween

same

My dad thought I’d enjoy talking to his neighbor, because he’s a music guy... he turned out to be a Ween fanatic who goes to lots of their shows... I was all, “Cool”

Of course it’s arguable. His sound, phrasing, and sense of orchestration/arrangement all evolved and changed dramatically in the ensuing decades.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, June 9, 2018 5:07 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think it's arguable at all that say 'bitches brew' somehow represents a greater swath of his career than Kind of Blue! certain fundamentals are consistent across his career (minimal melodic style primarily), KoB was an inflection point where he shifted from traditional jazz compositions to modal styles, highlighting those career-long consistencies ... birth of the cool sounds nothing like bitches brew but kind of blue kinda sounds a little like both

KoB strips down miles' style to the essence of his performance, of his fingerprint sensibilities ... stuff like 'the cool' and incorporating rock/R&B were just changing the canvas...

you're right, it does suck when ilx weighs in on kind of blue

yeah

Ween's one of those bands where I'll hear a song on Spotify randomly come up and go "Oh shit, this is cool. I should get around to checking out more of their stuff."

And then when I do, I'm all What is this, I thought I had heard something cool?

yeah

they probably have lots of other stuff that's like the things you hear, make sure to come here for unimpeachable advice each time

It's the only use I have for this board.

One of the design guys at work told me he met his wife online and then sheepishly told me it was through some sort of Yahoo! Ween Group. "Have you even ever heard of Ween?" he asked me.

I looked at him and said, "Yeah, I've heard of Ween. Ever heard of the Silver Jews?"

Steely dan.