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

XTC and Dinosaur Jr, chiefly.

also modest mouse,and yeah huskar du..

xpost - Dinosaur seconded. I like a few things here and there that they've done, and I've had You're living all over me since high school. I tried listening to it the other day, and besides the first track (which I really like) and Lou's song (I like the mopey early Sebadoh/Sentridoh Freed Weed, etc. stuff), I've never really been able to get into it. I don't think they're overrated, though, it's just one of those things that I can't really get into.

xxxpost the Fall definitely. Though I've admittedly only tried with one album, This Nation's Saving Grace, but it has never worked for me. But perhaps I should give the other stuff a listen.

"But perhaps I should give the other stuff a listen"

no perhaps - have to!

For a while it was the Boredoms, but now I just like them! Sonic Youth have taken their place.

I wonder why we pick specific bands to try to like. I know the bands I try to like are usually canonical ones, but there are certain canonical bands that I dislike and have not bothered giving a second chance to.

btw,if the search function worked ok - there are several threads on the subject

"I wonder why we pick specific bands to try to like"

there are some people with similiar music taste like mine, but they also like this one band that i don't get.
usually i try to like this band, cause it doesnt seem logic that i don't like them.
but who says life and taste in music make sense anyway..

zeno -- I know I could just look at a Fall thread, but what's an album I should check out if I didn't totally like TNSG? They have an awful lot of stuff...

you can't go wrong with slates, man

try a compilation of "the early years" and "the woonderfull and frightning world" which is like TNSG but with a better,cleaner,more accesible production.
if you don't like those 2, give up.
(and if you do - the next step is hex enduction hour, which is a more "difficult" classic)

that's pretty good advice!

my stock answer to this question is, and probably always will be:

Manic Street Preachers

I did try to search for a similar thread but without a unique keyword, nothing...

Tom Waits - I'm in that boat, too. This year, though, I made some progress with the 3 disc box he recently put out. The Orphans tracks, in particular, are really good. But not enough to make me own him.

The Fall took me years to go from hate to total and complete love, and I also started by getting into the poppier Beggars Banquet years, working backwards and then forwards again.

Sonic Youth also fall into this category for me, though I like alot of their work but I just don't love them and find their records inconsistent.

I don't like It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back at all, but the other Public Enemy stuff I've heard leads me to believe that I might still be able to get into one of their other albums.

"Sister Ray" and The Velvet Underground & Nico are so boring that I have no desire to listen to VU ever again. I remember one time when the stretch from "I'm Waiting For My Man" to "Heroin" sorta clicked with me and I 'got it', but the next time I listened to it it was gone again.

Three letters: G.B.V.

Joy Division & Pere Ubu. I understand their importance, but neither are any fun.

hey wait a damn minute. pere ubu are, at their best, a surreal experience.
secondly, the sounds that Allen Ravenstine produces are flat out kooky.
i wouldn't expect Dadaesque art to be "fun", but it can be entertaining as hell if you're in the right mood.

one of the most spine tingling solos i've ever heard is on the song "final solution" - not "feel good" stuff, but, like it or lump it, as powerful as anything ever recorded, imo

try a compilation of "the early years" and "the woonderfull and frightning world" which is like TNSG but with a better,cleaner,more accesible production.

On CD, Wonderful & Frightening World has always sounded really murky to my ears (though it is perhaps my favorite Fall album). If you're not averse to a career-spanning comp, I think 50,000 Fall Fans actually does pretty well.

I can't quite get into Van der Graaf Generator and am not sure why. It might be something about Peter Hammill's voice, sort of over the top or harsh. I like early Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, some Gentle Giant; being into the proggy stuff as well as later punk/post-punk, by which standards it seems like VDGG was more admirable than other prog, it seems like I should like them, but not much luck so far. He to the He I somewhat enjoy.

Three letters: G.B.V.

At their best, GBV create fantastic 3 minute pop songs that stick in your head. Unfortunately, most of their albums are chock-a-block full of song snippets and other failed experiments, making it hard to get to the nuggets. A friend of mine, a huge GBV fan, skimmed the top for me and culled out all their best stuff, and it's a joy to listen to. He recently lent me _Bee Thousand_ and I found listening to it a chore just to get to the good bits. So I can understand your feeling - find a friend who's a GBV fanatic and have 'em make you some compilations!

Spoon... such a goddamn impenetrable band.

Wilco - 'Summerteeth' to be specific.

On paper it should be so easy. But stick it on my stereo and my hand immediately reaches for the skip button.

Three letters: G.B.V.

Seconded. Bought three of their records before I finally admitted to myself that I just don't want to listen to half-completed demos of half-written songs.

I'm amazed that everything I was gonna submit has already been mentioned.. either we've all been lulled into quietly putting them into "the canon" without thinking, or we understand why they're vital yet it just misses the mark on a personal level.

My vote goes to the latter.. they're all pretty inventive.

So for me, again..
Public Enemy
Pere Ubu
G.B.V.
Husker Du
Bowie
XTC
Tom Waits

And I try three or four consecutive Animal Collective tracks at least once every two months. Never sparks anything.

The Fall took me years to go from hate to total and complete love..

Spoon, totally. Sometimes nice to hear on a jukebox, maybe on a soundtrack. Perfect incidental indie.

The Replacements

Yeah I finally clicked with The Fall about a year ago. No idea what happened there, it just made a great deal of sense one day. And this was after a couple years of trying to like them.

Pere Ubu and Tom Waits both way OTM, for me.

Broken Social Scene. Another Arcade Fire I'm afraid.

You know, I see a lot of bands being named here that I completely love (Hüsker Dü, The Replacements), but I totally understand how someone can be "eh" about 'em.

Spoon, the Arcade Fire, and the Fall. yeah, not an original bunch to pick, but those really ARE the ones that first pop into my head.

"Wilco - 'Summerteeth' to be specific.

On paper it should be so easy. But stick it on my stereo and my hand immediately reaches for the skip button.

"

yeah,otm.but only about that particular record.

pere ubu is hard to get into,and i can't say i'm always in the mood,but if i am - they are great experience.

plus, i can't get a alot of the progressive 70's stuff that is now quite trendy,maybe cause i grew up on 3 minutes songs,it's too pretentious and ridicules to me sometimes.

oh,and though i love "Can",some of their suppose to be "classic" stuff is boring.

90% of all popular music released in the past five years

"90% of all popular music released in the past five years"

how old are you?

really, who tries with that stuff?

I'm 25 years old. I listen to the radio. I go to the clubs. I read the Rolling 2007 Best Singles Thread. I look at the Billboard Hot 100. I know what the kids like. I try to get into it, really I do, but most of it just doesn't sound all that good to me.

the beach boys.
i keep trying the various reissues that arrive on the doormat, but no.
still cant stand'em.

galaxie 500

People are "trying to like" the Arcade Fire? Seems to me that with them, what you hear the first time will be all you'll ever hear.

With the Arcade Fire - I like the idea, but everytime I hear them I feel like I am listening to my Mom's new-wave tapes, driving around in the streets of my 80's childhood. Am I wrong?

arcade fire suck ballz, your mom totally had better taste in new wave

arcade fire are pleasant and have some good songs. but the singer's overearnest and much of the stuff is pretty thin. there's probably really not much to "get" as far as they're concerned...

Cosigned on Husker Du

rolling stones
led zep
kinks
the who

most 60s british bands
i like a handful of each of their songs but by and large i just dont like them

Bowie & Pere Ubu - I recently got their box sets from the library (again). I like Bowie's singles and his Berlin period but I can leave the rest. Pere Ubu's early material (singles and first album) are very good as is half of the next couple of albums but I can't get past Dave Thomas's voice - much as folks say about The Fall. I think it'll click one day.

60s UK bands - I like all the singles but I never, ever have the desire to hear The Kinks, Who, etc. Frankly I prefer covers by my favorite artists - Robyn Hitchcock's Dylan covers made me appreciate him as a songwriter much more than proper Dylan albums.

Nuggets is a box I listen to every couple of years. I like much of it but don't love it the way some do. Messthetics is my Nuggets.

Pavement.

Flaming Lips.

zappa, my bloody valentine, genesis, dylan, talk talk, coltrane. respect what they're up to, like some of their stuff, appreciate their impact/influence/what i've learned from paying attention to the people into them, but still feel more obligated by the politics of taste, rather than compelled by how much they rule, to keep trying them out

animal collective. the only way I could really like them is if they did the exact same thing they do now, except they dismember and eat Mike Love (of the Beach Boys) on stage. 'cause they sound like the Beach Boys, if the BBs were, er, tuneless idiots or perhaps just vegetarians who can't cut it. I realize this is perhaps contrarian, but I've tried, like the thread title says.

Tom Waits, too. Tried, respect the dude in his film roles and he's a funny interview. But his music just makes me sleepy.

Stars. I want to like them. I have all their discs, and I love some of the elements to their music (the 80s influences, mostly), but there's something about them that prompts me to reach for the skip button a lot when they come up on the iPod.

Even though they have some absolutely ripper songs, i can see why some people like them but i just cannot absorb what music they are making. Public Enemy are an incredible band. What they did for music in 1988 was unbelievable but the Bomb Squad's production has aged terribly since the release of 'It takes a nation of millions to hold us back'. I still cannot handle the production including that of 'Fear of a Black Planet'.

^I wouldn't go that far, but (as a big fan) I'm not sure how someone would get into Sebadoh "fresh"... they seem like a pretty context-specific band, if that makes sense (III is a klassic, tho).

Also - Smash Your Head... is one of my favorite records, and I think the Barlow 'tude is fairly minimal on that one (it's mainly rockin'). So maybe there?

i prefer swordfishtrombones to rain dogs because its less traditional ... i remember finding rain dogs kind of a disappointment bc it just got a bit less theatrical and a bit more idk ... bluesy

Re: Sebadoh - How about listening to Jason Loewenstein's 100% Barlow-free At Sixes and Sevens solo album?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JPQpDqEGsY

Another thing about Sebadoh is (and I know this is a very Indie Rock Dick comment) a lot of their key stuff was spread out in random places - so if you didn't have, like, the "Asshole" 7"; Oven Is My Friend on Siltbreeze; the Magic Ribbons 7" comp box set, etc., you weren't getting the whole picture (though I'm sure that stuff is all on YouTube now).

Looking back, I can see how the main impression they make is - "Uptight stoner guy dryly dissects his hang-ups and passive-aggressively gets emo about relationships" - but they were really one of the premier bands of the scene, at least early on, they did so much that was so great.

Another example is Unrest - even in their time, they were mainly known for their last few albums (when they settled into a poppier sound), but their early output is some of the most exciting, diverse, and creative of anyone's (and they got started a little earlier, too). Now they're just lumped in on streaming services with a bunch of identically-named cruft, and are barely remembered AFAIK.

Just seconding morrisp on Sebadoh - the impact they'd had by 1992 was muddled (I think) by the years of the band after that. Not to say they weren't good later records/line-ups, but in that moment: this dude kicked out of Dino Jr, putting out lo-fi stoner folk tapes as duo with Eric, then pivoting to loud overblown trio live shows and then records (songs often redone from the original acoustic versions from those tapes), shambling shows where the equipment was falling apart, switching instruments/singer/songwriters (Eric was a huge part of that early group magic), and singles/albums/comp tracks coming out left and right as morris said made them as vital as any band then. Live stuff usually helps me get into a band, so these two from 1991 and 1992 might help with that context (or cement the perspective that he's a prickish ghoul - imo he's more that friend who can't stop obsessing over a past relationship. I'd lose my mind dealing with him as a friend/bandmate, but in the context of a fan of the band I don't mind it).

Maxwell's 1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMlY93hlL-o
Maxwell's 1992: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLILUFeYF8w (with snippets of Royal Trux and Smog)

And yes to Unrest too!

Nice links! This is my favorite Sebadoh boot (7th Street Entry) - it's tense, brittle, terrific:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9A9T9Nm7lQ

RE: Coltrane stuff upthread

Must concur on Crescent. It is so lovely. Jimmy Garrison's long, unaccompanied bass solo on "Lonnie's Lament" is one of my favorite Coltrane Quartet moments on record. Andy once had a dream that John Coltrane did not exit in 1967 and, with Alice by his side, ended up as a co-leader of Sun Ra's Arkestra. In his Earthly life, Coltrane was a fan of John Gilmore, mostly based on Gilmore's time in NYC around when this album was recorded. There are a few anecdotes around it in John Szwed's Sun Ra biography.

Would liken someone not really getting why with Sebadoh now to a time when we worked at Tower Records. It was 2005-ish and a very younger co-worker (eighteen exactly, to be sure) was recommended Sunny Day Real Estate and hated it based on the fact that, at that point, it sounded like a thousand other stock cliche emo bands. Sometimes the context is approaching to be —or just as— important as the music.

Those Sebadoh clips are good - definitely a band I never completely "got" and I can at least see what people see in them from those. I would have enjoyed those shows I think.

That Maxwell's set is crunchy as hell - love it

Okay, I actually dig that clip from Maxwell's. I still probably won't get into Sebadoh, but it's the first thing I've heard that made the appeal palpable

Fourplay

Love ;_;

Margo Price

Someone said it upthread but Unrest was one for me, before Perfect Teeth. Tried to listen to the early stuff but nothing doing. In theory I should love them.

Young Marble Giants

Swell Maps

smiths, morrissey, new order, bernard sumner

ha, Unrest, YMG and Swell Maps are three of my favouritest bands

I think I've said this before but I love the Young Marble Giants album so much that I rarely play it. Which sounds like a Yogi Berra-ism, but I really never want to wear out its charms with overplay and overfamiliarity. It's one of my favorite records of all time.

Unrest - Imperial F.F.R.R. is one of my favorite albums. Interesting though if that does nothing for someone who likes Perfect Teeth!

I think I've said this before but I love the Young Marble Giants album so much that I rarely play it. Which sounds like a Yogi Berra-ism, but I really never want to wear out its charms with overplay and overfamiliarity. It's one of my favorite records of all time.

Unrest - Imperial F.F.R.R. is one of my favorite albums. Interesting though if that does nothing for someone who likes Perfect Teeth!

_Unrest - Imperial F.F.R.R. is one of my favorite albums. Interesting though if that does nothing for someone who likes Perfect Teeth!_


Lemme try again!

I love the Young Marble Giants album so much that I rarely play it.

There are lots of Big Monolithic Albums that I count among my favourites (Colossal Youth, Suicide s/t, The Drift) that I've maybe listened to about five or ten times only. When the music has a simplistic quality to it, it resonates in your brain longer and doesn't require actual listening, at least, that's my experience

The Drift is a great example of that. I love it, have only listened to 3 times, not going to happen again anytime soon either

also, so far i have only listened to laurie anderson's United States Live once, in full, but it was enough to fall in love

also, so far i have only listened to laurie anderson's United States Live once, in full, but it was enough to fall in love

My exact experience as well, though I've dipped into bits and pieces over the years. I'm due for a full immersion soon.

Pixies

i forget, was the original performance of the material from US Live also 4 and a half hours long? If so, were the performances split across multiple nights, or did she do it all in a single night (with intermission, I'd assume)?

I don't remember, but I asked her about archival footage once and apparently it does not exist :(

The Drift, in particular, has a cinematic or radio-play aspect to its sound and structure, so you can absorb it on a dramatic level as well or instead of a typical musical level.

Wikipedia says United States originally ran about 8 hours and that most of what's not on the box set was chiefly visual.

I saw her on the Strange Angels tour. It was one of the most remarkable performances I've ever seen.