Why the hate for Sigur Ros?

I can actually imagine him saying all of the stuff on this thread with a broad un-malicious smile, though!

when did roger turn into Geir?

to the first two, yes, they are not songs nor were they ever meant to be, you couldnt play them on an acoustic guitar, yr right. Jerusalem however is a very great song indeed - whether you can play it well on the piano (and i'm sure you could) does not affect that.

Song A song, in classical music, is a short and self-contained piece for one or more voices; it can be accompanied or not, and either sacred or secular in nature. In popular music, however, just about any musical composition (vocal or instrumental) is called a song.

I'm a big fan. Loved them the first time I heard them, just before ágætis byrjun came out, ( ) is one of my 5 favouritest albums ever, Takk took a while to grow on me but I now totally get it.

I saw the screening + acoustic set they did in Ghent of the DVD they've got coming out next week, it's stunningly breathtaking ( trailer here: http://www.heimafilm.com ), the Hvarf/Heim reworkings are superb ( listen here: http://www.myspace.com/sigurros ) - more info about Heima/Hvarf/Heim here: http://sigur-ros.co.uk/band/disco/heima.php

I understand the hate, on paper/in theory I should hate them too, I shouldn't like anything about them, but it just works and I love them.

ok, start hating again, everyone :-(

I don't hate them. When anyone asks me to name some of my favourite artists, I always (always!) forget about Sigur Rós, but usually when I'm alone and in a certain pensive mood for which even Radiohead are too upbeat (ha!) and Joy Division are too heavy-dark, I'll rediscover something like "Starálfur" or "Olsen Olsen" or "Njósnavélin" or "Glósóli" etc., and be half-pleasantly, half-unsettlingly transported again into a half-world of ambient orchestral underground caverns in which the very twisted columns are built from crystalline sugar -- granted, haha -- but which also deflect, reflect and echo some kind of ebbing, flowing hesitant/grandiose beauty.

So yeah, at times, I really do like and even love Sigur Rós, recognising the "pretentious noodling" tag as being really very ridiculous indeed. I.e./ they're not noodling at all and who the fuck cares about pretentious?

I suppose I should also say I've been a long-time Yes and Cocteau Twins fan (respectively, from Close To The Edge and Garlands onward, really) so much so that so-called whale music has never been alien to me. It's a definite prog streak that, if you're not onboard with it, precludes you from loving the Icelandic chamber music (cosmic inflation-collapse) Sigur Rós specialise in. They're hit and miss in terms of timing and pacing and all that subjective shite, though. F'rinstance right now I'm listening to a song by them called "Flugufrelsarinn" and it's taken waaa-aaa-aay too long to reach the sublime payoff before dissipating waaa-aaa-ay too quickly. Although undoubtedly painfully gorgeous while it lasted.

Why the hate people?
-- Gregg, Monday, March 11, 2002 7:00 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

Because it's ambient noodling for fuck's sake. Use your ears.
-- Julio desouza, Monday, March 11, 2002 7:00 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

One of my favorite immediate answers to an ILM thread, ever ^^^

As for the band -- wouldn't say I'm a fan, don't own anything they've done, don't love em or hate em. Sigur Ros is just one of those indie institutions (so to speak) that is perpetually overrated by the kids who haven't found artists who have done/are doing what Sigur Ros is doing, but infinitely better.

Yeah, this is a critical and undervoiced position: Agaetis Byrjun versus "Blue Skied and Clear." I'm really not one for the whole "someone did that ten years ago so it's not good now" arguments, but I suspect that on some level this is why Sigur Ros strike me as good but inessential.
-- [ban me], Monday, March 11, 2002 7:00 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

[ban me] OTM, as usual, waaaaaay upthread.

(Going back to that "is there any good music writing left?" thread: Is [ban me] currently writing for anyone? Last saw a Pfork review by him at least a year ago, can't recall much else. Love his writing though, and generally agree with his tastes.)

(...why was N*tsuh changed to [ban me]??)

lets cyberfuck

tl;dr

Sigur Ros may be the only act on the ILM hate list that does not write traditional verse-chorus-based songs.

their albums can be kind of dull but they were amazing live a few years back, i was shocked. i think they work much better in a live setting, surprisingly.

I don't know how I feel about them, but I will say that they've never really sounded at all like anything anyone on ILM has compared them to. Their layers of vocals that distort as they grow louder really don't sound anything like the Cocteau Twins or any shoe-gazing band. Like it or hate it, it's definitely its own thing.

Agaetis Byrjun was pretty good, I thought, but ( ) was better. I also thought they were pretty amazing live when I saw them maybe 4 years ago. Heard bits and pieces of Takk but it never really stuck.

I think the hate towards them often just amounts to kind of silly, knee-jerk reactions - "fuckin new age innit?!?" "fuckin ambient prog noodling" bla bla, come on guys. There is plenty of great stuff that could be saddled with the new age or prog labels, and shouting those labels was/is never a good substitute for decent criticism. That said I suppose the hate is just backlash towards the hyperbolic praise given to them from the indie press, and now I guess from the NPR crowd.

But decent enough ambient/post-rock band, even if there are a few songs that sound a little syrupy.

Pulled from the Stylus archives today, in the Bluffer's Guide to Stylus retrospective:

Haiku Marathon 2005 (Stylus Staff)
Sigur Ros
Just one step away
From being Enya, you daft
Secret hippy scum!

M83 are similar in some ways (large swelling orchestral cosmic ambience). I don't listen to NPR so maybe I've missed the backlash urge. (I'm not American.)

But, regardless, they sometimes hit heights of beauty that cause me to lose control of my entire skin. Which, for the most part, means they are a lot better than the ILM massive has traditionally given them credit for -- there was one poster who always, always posted on Sigur Rós threads and completely took the fucking piss out of them to the extent that any casual observer would think they were utterly dismissed here, which was not altogether fair.

(i.e. Search "Sigur Rós" and you'll see one name crop up consistently... in a negative way, obv.)

my boss listening to these guys on high volume this morning. i don't liek!

Caught their BBC Electric Proms performance the other night; seem to remember enjoying the record on first few listens, but live they seemed to expose the song for what it really was; i.e. no real backbone, in other words, what [ban me] mentioned at the start of the thread.

it sounds like new age crap. is that waht they were going for?

Ok then, but don't let their music put you off from viewing Heima, the views of Iceland are breathtaking (and it may add something to the music as well).

http://gigwise.com/contents.asp?contentid=36563

Oh come on. I'm a big fan, but this is WAY over the top, anonymous (why?) writer:

"To make all this a bit more concise: Sigur Rós are arguably the best music band in the world today."

http://www.ireland.com/theticket/articles/2007/1026/1193293628660.html

Well sure, they might be the best music band, but that's only one of like how many kinds of bands?

There's a trailer I keep seeing at the moment for a BBC4 documentary about photography, which uses a track I'm sure must be by Sigur Ros because it's got those eeeeeeoooooooooooooeeeeeeeee vocals. But it's loud, and quite fast, and I like it. Can anyone ID it?

Rubber? Don't think they're the most elastic. (xpost)

Is it online somewhere, Jim? Can't get 4 over here :-(

sigur ros now seem to exist solely for the purposes of providing music for bbc documentaries

so? even if it were true.

Can't find it online I'm afraid. The show is called "The Genius of Photography".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajm-m2jPgc4

Hmm. I would be very surprised if it wasn't them, but I don't recognise the track. And I thought I had everything :-/

Duh. It's the final bit of Svo Hljótt, from "Takk..." (2005)

Hmm. Remix perhaps? Or something from here?

http://www.hvarf-heim.com/

oh, xpost. ace! Thanks. :)

so? even if it were true.

so nothing. just making an observation, wasn't a comment on their music.

phew. :-)

Post-release blues? (taking a break, may quit or not, don't know yet)

http://www.vanityfair.de/articles/kultur/sigur-rA-s/2007/10/31/04288/
(in German)

No link to this more than embarrassing NPR interview yet? It confirmed all the prejudices I ever had about them and their music. If it was a joke it wasn't very funny. They seem to be even more serious/sad than their music.

I don't see how remaining obtuse and quiet in a boring interview in a language that isn't your native tongue confirms more about their music than it does about your "prejudices." I think it's hilarious.

They're able to create a unique aesthetic with conventional instrumentation, and they usually have great melodies. It's just easy to take shots at them because they're not screaming like idiots over badly played punk guitars and sixteenth note hi-hat rhythms.

boy you sure just zinged all of ILM

ban everyone except plastic tipped cigar.

Sorry, I was just being pretentious enough to further allow people to judge them on anything but their music. They're readily emotional and some of their songs would kind of sound at home in an AT&T commercial, so naturally a certain crowd of people have a knee-jerk response towards them (for instance, the Enya comparison is off base to anyone with ears). Obviously, my namesake confirms that I also enjoy people screaming like idiots over badly played guitars.

ban everyone except plastic tipped cigar.

-- StanM, Thursday, November 1, 2007 9:30 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^
Except for one condition: leave Geir Hongro unbanned. Then we'll have the ultimate ILM cockfite!

They do put on a great live show. More than once I have seen people cry at their gigs.

I like Ágætis byrjun, ( ), and Takk... and I don't really see much of a quality difference between them. Also, I don't find them all that on the fringe probably because it is very pretty music and no matter what other whack stuff is happening -bow strummed guitary, made up words, etc, everyone can connect to very pretty music.

Zactly.