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

Boards of Canada. I love the idea of all this occult stuff lurking in their music, but when I actually listen to it all I hear is pleasant, drifty ambience

Exactly - I like their first two albums a lot (and haven't heard the others) but both have patches where you kinda forget the music's even on. I dunno why they're so much bigger than say, The Black Dog (who are great IMO). I think it would be a lot spookier if people didn't talk about how spooky their music was all the time.

i asked mark richardson on facebook what he meant by this in his pitchfork review of BOC but he never answered me:

"The Scottish brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin didn’t invent a new sound, but they did take various strands of music floating around and pull them into one place and essentially perfect them."

because i really wanted to know what music they had "perfected".

i think sometimes artists hit upon a set of tunes or even extra-musical vibes that resonate hard with enough people to break out of the genre they inhabit. not sure it's analyzable much, it's the "X factor" of fable really, but it's usually recognizable when you see it.

Yeah that's the way I feel about some of the bands I really like. for example YMO is a band that people on here seem to "get" well enough but I read a lot of people think of them just as dudes who made video game music 10 years before video games. Or Gentle Giant (to name a band that I kept trying to get into, couldn't get into, then really got into) as just "overcomplex" or showy and nothing else. I'm not a part of the BoC fandom, but I'm glad it exists!

I looooove Art Bears but liiiiiike Henry Cow

― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, November 8, 2013 11:43 AM (2 hours ago)

Yeah, count me in with the Art Bears fans who don't get Henry Cow tribe. With the notable exception of 'War'. I'm going to try again soon, though. Theoretically I *should* like at least a bit more of this stuff.

I like Mogwai's first record but they never improved, really.

Beefheart is a borderline case for me. I genuinely love Safe as Milk and Clear Spot, the rest is a bit beyond me much as I've tried.

if you like those you might like lick my decal off, baby and unconditionally guaranteed.

I'd like to think I'm a proper Fall fan, and I love their poppy stuff

But I guess I think of them as sort of a catchy poppy band in their own weird way

I prefer their 80's records like Bend Sinister or Frenz Experiment to poorly produced or more raw ones like Dragnet or Room to Live

Telephone Thing was the song that got me INRI them! I'm an Extricate defender.... Hillary off that is really catchy DL you should listen to that.

i am totally a brix-era fall fan. the only records i own by them.

LOL, had visions of Tuomas sitting down to listen to a Blue Oyster Cult album

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Blue Oyster Cult actually have a song somewhere called 'Telepathic Workshop'.

Television, Radiohead, and Steely Dan immediately come to mind. All of these are bands that maybe once a year I'll think, maybe I'll put something on and I'll suddenly 'get it.' And every time, I put something on and think, HOLY CHRIST THIS IS TOTAL CRAP.

I just deleted all my radiohead albums the other day! I had given them a number of chances, but they're just consistently sub-mediocre to me.

I came close to pushing the button on Television too, but I don't feel like I've given them enough of a try.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Blue Oyster Cult actually have a song somewhere called 'Telepathic Workshop'.

"Flaming Telepaths" for sure.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3f/Workshop_of_the_Telescopes.jpg

And "Workshop of the Telescopes"!

xpost

yeah i forgot about that one for a minute

Are BoC BOC fans?

i like the two long Television songs. other than that, i don't really care about them. that debut just doesn't do it for me like it does it for other people. same with Young Marble Giants debut. and i usually love stuff like that. oh, and the Slits! i've listened over the years and i never want to go back to them. or own their records. i guess that's the true test for me. if i have the records. i don't own any records by The Clash. or The Band. i always sell Flamin' Groovies records too when i get them. never keep them. people love them.

yeah, i have the same thing with The Clash and Flamin' Groovies. the Flamin' Groovies aren't exactly dominating top 10 lists or anything so it's not too noticeable, but the main one is The Clash. i just don't get it. they're good and everything but i don't understand how they apparently blow minds.

The Clash are my answer to this question too.

Talk Talk are my perennial answer to this but I've given up on trying to get into them and have turned to judging people who love them. Oh you like Laughing Stock? And this is your new record? Is that the sound of you shoving the piano? And you recorded it to tape? You don't say.

Television and The Clash for me too. I currently have marquee moon on my ipod, hoping that hearing songs from it in fresh contexts via shuffle will change my mind. Until last night I was mystified by James Blake's appeal but I saw him play last night and it was amazing.

Yeah I can't get into James Blake, who on paper would be right up my street. haven't tried that hard though.

Tried a few times with MBV, but never got beyond Only Shallow being interesting but not really for me

!

this thread jesus

FTGI, this kind of surprises me.

What do you think of These New Puritans?

why do you all keep trying to like things that you seemingly have no realistic prospect of liking, or in some instances seem to have an emotional investment in not liking them and being seen not to like them

Well, most of my best friends loved MBV and raved about them in the 90s, and I tried really hard to get into them for that reason.

i never give up on bands i'm supposed to like

you never know...took me forever with the fall actually, now i love them, same with bitches brew, etc etc

Iggy Pop

It we're being honest, I never got into classical music and this bothers me

if you are 15 years old and you 'loveless' is overrated pretentious rubbish then yes maybe you should play it a couple more times just in case in turns out not to be overrated pretentious rubbish

serious concerted attempts to enjoy things that you ought reasonably to enjoy because you like other similar things is also to be encouraged

if you just play television once every year to to affirm your cool belief that they are shit then you are a fucking imbecile

afghan whigs

treeship - this helped get me into 20th century classical, fun read (though i think TRV KVLT classical O.G. killa bobby johnsons think it's breezy slop for dilettantes, which is probably why i like it)

http://www.therestisnoise.com/

Yeah don't reckon anyone's doing that.

xxpost

Television, Radiohead, and Steely Dan immediately come to mind. All of these are bands that maybe once a year I'll think, maybe I'll put something on and I'll suddenly 'get it.' And every time, I put something on and think, HOLY CHRIST THIS IS TOTAL CRAP.

― Poliopolice, Friday, 8 November 2013 15:37 (1 hour ago)

if you just play television once every year to to affirm your cool belief that they are shit then you are a fucking imbecile

your armchair psychoanalysis is both reductive and absolutely ridiculous.

It we're being honest, I never got into classical music and this bothers me

― Treeship, Friday, November 8, 2013 11:55 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ditto, except for it bothering me. I can't recognize well-known Mozart pieces as Mozart, and I know shit about Beethoven. Could probably pick Bach out of a crowd.

I love 20th century formal concert music, though (Webern, Schoenberg, Ligeti, Nono, others). But most everything I've heard before that leaves me completely cold.

you should not take things you read on a message board so personally. you might end up irrationally angry about things that don't matter all that much.

you were the one that used all caps

If you've ever been listening to something and suddenly "get it," there's no reason to think it wouldn't happen with something else. Christ, you're so sour. xps

agree w/Johnny Fever, this has happened to me dozens of times which is why i tend to keep stuff around even if i don't like it initially

tbf using all caps is only a MODERATE STEP ON THE INTERNET INTENSITY SCALE!!!

Television, Radiohead, and Steely Dan immediately come to mind. All of these are bands that maybe once a year I'll think, maybe I'll put something on and I'll suddenly 'get it.' And every time, I put something on and think, HOLY CHRIST THIS IS TOTAL CRAP.

― Poliopolice, Friday, 8 November 2013 15:37 (1 hour ago)

so either you grant that person the interpretive charity that their interest in that music is sincere and that do try insofar as possible to approach that music tabula rasa

or you use every other piece of evidence in that post to assume they are just another entitled pleb who gets upset when some band doesn't do the thing they want them to do and uses it to affirm their own cool totally not deluded incisive tastemaker cred

eh. we're on a message board, and I'm being a little dramatic. does everything here have to be spun into an academic paper?

i probably would have hated half of what i listen to today, if you asked me to listen to it 10 years ago. some people establish their taste and preferences early on and have a consistent, reliable listening niche. other people need time to wrap their heads around stuff, or to listen to related music that sorta unlocks the mystery.