Artist/Band you just "don't get"

Oh, and Radiohead lost me at "Kid A". Can't get into anything they've done since.

OK, I'll stop. Actually I do "get" why somebody might buy into each of these, but I "don't get it".

Led Zep
Flaming Lips
Mercury Rev

heresies all, i know

http://www.sfbg.com/39/20/cover_box.jpg

Spiritualized
Kraftwerk
!!!

That said, I don't know what interests people in Ashanti, whom I don't loathe or even dislike but I find hard to care about.

Richard Marx. I don't loathe him either. In fact I think "Hazard" is a great song. Which confuses me even more, since everything else he's done has passed by me with zero impact.

anyway - i don't "get":

John Lennon solo (aside from Working Class Hero and Jealous Guy)

any of the Bastro / Squirrel Bait / King Kong stuff

Red Krayola (actually I do get it but i think they suck)

a good deal of M.I.A's album (just definitely NOT "Pull Up The People" - that song rules)

Merzbow

Antony & The Johnsons

Loretta Lynn

Joy Division

Le Savy Fav and Enon (God knows I've tried)

"grime"

Elvis Costello

Tsunami (except "Geniuses of Crack")

Teeth of Lions Rule The Divine

and many many many more. None of these are artists I *dislike,* you understand - these are all artists / genres that I have TRIED to appreciate at one time or another, for some reason or another.

They're incredibly ordinary. I'd add dull, crass, horribly overproduced, need better tunes (even S Club 7 had the decency to provide some). Sigh. I suppose their best tunes must be on the albums or something.... The singles start to actively bore me before they have even finished (1:30?)

Beatles > Oasis
Spice Girls > Girls Aloud

And I don't even like the Spice Girls.

I'd still do Nadine though

< /obligatory >

Do Girls Aloud remind older guys of top 40 stuff they heard growing up? Is that it, nostalgia?

Ok, I've thought about it far too long already.

Had your ears syringed lately?

And be at least a decade younger, possibly female.

Otherwise they just seem utterly by numbers. Not so much out of control as just 'fairly fast' for the Top 40.

I knew it wouldn't be a popular opinion round here!

totally awesome out of control Panzer-attack pop songs

"They're Not Gonna Get Usssss!!"

Ooops.. wrong band.

Hehe. Does the NME like them too?

Don't get the appeal of the Futureheads at all. Seems so pointlessly manic. Or the Libertines. Can't stand the Cure. The only rational explanation for my hatred of the New Pornographers would be that their music was playing when something horrible happened to me, but I've suppressed the memory.

The tendency to pick bands that are hugely critically adored seems contrived to me.

what

Because Drake sells even less than Zappa? Because Zappa has 75 CDs and Drake has 5? Because Drake offed himself after 3 studio albums and Zappa busted his ass releasing 2 or 3 a year for 30 years?

Def Leppard

Whitney Houston. Some people on ILM act like she's unassailable!

you haven't read enough alfred or djp posts about "so emotional"

I have "how will I know" in my head every day so she obviously did something right.

I thought Daft Punk was supposed to be, like, bangin' techno with rock influences?

wtf is this poppy gloss with guest singers?

what am I missing?

check out alive 1997 + second half of their first album

rock influences? hmmm “human after all” has a kinda of rock vibe but it’s a strange album... try “steam machine” and “the brainwasher” maybe

thank u my man, I knew I could count on you

Et Joostice Pour Tous
https://s6056.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/8004672295_132eec87be_b.jpg

wtf is this poppy gloss with guest singers?

disco?

definitely! but not really what I was expecting.

emerson lake and palmer i have geiven them many chances but i do not like anything they did!

emerson lake and palmer i have given them many chances but i do not like anything they did!

The Frogs

real fuckin assholes that band

Anything vaguely post-punk recorded on the UK between 1978 and 1981 is like catnip to me but I’ve tried and tried and do not see the appeal of Swell Maps and Young Marble Giants.

Aw really? I think Nikki Sudden said the Swell Maps were best appreciated as a cross between T Rex and Can, but of course I disagree with him.

Never noticed much T Rex in there.

Nor Can, tbh.

There is def a stylized aloofness about Sudden's schtick that I could see as his take on Bolan, but...

No, Can's definitely in there. "Full Moon In My Pocket" uses the bassline from "Mother Sky" for a start.

emerson lake and palmer i have given them many chances but i do not like anything they did!

― xzanfar, Wednesday, February 24, 2021 3:53 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

perhaps try Emerson, Lake, and Powell instead

"Don't Throw Ashtrays At Me" etc.

I never noticed that about Full Moon/Mother Sky, seems obvious now that you mention it.

I get that Can are an inspiration for their background clatter but it's done to such a different effect.

Jowe Head's vocal on Full Moon is a charicature of Damo I guess?

It’s weird I love Nikki sudden/jacobites/epic’s solo material but can’t get into swell maps

What I love about them is mainly gonzo adolescent lunacy, the cliquish camraderie of their interplay, comic book-like onomatopeic clanging and clattering, an affectation of elegance in entirely the wrong context...

(xp) Well, they're not similar at all.

(xxp) No, I think he just can't sing very well.

"Big Empty Field" is the one Swell Maps song that has blown me away, and that one (and that one only, mind) really reminds me of This Heat--I admire their scrappier stuff but it hasn't stuck with me in the same way.

I think it's just that the Maps are best understood as part of a pre-punk/proto-punk context that includes said artists, Krautrock, the Velvets/Stooges, etc, and IMO that's an easier point of entry than the postpunk scene they were part of

Swell Maps fans - I've heard the two proper albums and liked about half of each. They have a bunch of compilation/outtake type records that I'm wary of. Are these on the level of the albums, or for completists only?

for completists, mostly, IMO, once you have Marineville and Jane and some of the singles in some form there are diminishing returns unless u are a true fan

this one is good:

https://www.discogs.com/Swell-Maps-Train-Out-Of-It/release/326625

I don’t care for the comps (stuff is remixed, etc.). I love the first album, can leave everything else — so maybe I’m not the fanniest “fan.”

The singles tracks don't seem to be collected together anywhere as far as I can tell, they're scattered on those compilations, which is an irritant.

The Peel Sessions are also hot sh!t. They’re on YouseTube.

^^ very true

and xp to Halfway yes and there's STILL one single that's not on CD afaik:

https://www.discogs.com/Swell-Maps-Real-Shocks-English-Verse-Monologues/master/246556

I think it's just that the Maps are best understood as part of a pre-punk/proto-punk context that includes said artists, Krautrock, the Velvets/Stooges, etc, and IMO that's an easier point of entry than the postpunk scene they were part of

xp Real Shocks is on both Train Out of it and International Rescue CD comps

Nm you mean english verse and monologues dont you