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

A.R. Kane, all the descriptions and articles on them make them sound like my dream band, but the reality is so prosaic. May give them another go now.

I always thought I should like Tindersticks but never made it through a whole album in one sitting

Tho I also got into them in a funky way, and I'm honestly not sure how I'd try to "get someone into them"...

I'm Morris P and I'm here to say /
I got into the Beach Boys in a funky way!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJqL3BRDlo

Pet Sounds is a great record but it doesn't begin to scratch the surface of what a truly bizarre band they were, or the vast breadth of their catalog

LOL! xp

joy division

(I love New Order fwiw)

Also never got the big fuss over Spacemen 3

Even though I like Joy Division just fine, I am pretty surprised to find another person that also prefers New Order. High five!

(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)

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.

I would imagine there's more New Order fans than there are Joy Division fans?

I like the idea of Springsteen and I like the lyrics of Springsteen but do not actually enjoy Springsteen. Similarly I like the idea of Prince and the undeniable talent/genius of Prince but rarely enjoy actually listening to Prince.

Acid Mothers Temple
American Music Club
definitely Spacemen 3

S3 falls into the category of Sounds Like Your Ideal Band on Paper .. but just doesn't happen on vinyl

Acid Mothers live = classic
Acid Mothers albums = dud

AMT doesn't help out potential fans with the sheer amount of stuff they put out.

exactly how i feel about Prince xposts

Most of these have at least one or two songs I can still get with but

The Stooges
Franz Ferdinand
Echo and the Bunnymen
The Teardrop Explodes
Suicide
Television
The Pop Group
Pavement
Scritti Politti

I just went through an Uncut list and it well and truly delivered

I like the idea of Springsteen and I like the lyrics of Springsteen but do not actually enjoy Springsteen.

"Born in the U.S.A." was a big album for me as a kid -- I used to drive around with my dad in his pickup truck, listening to the tape and reading the lyric sheet over & over (...which I guess is a very "Springsteen-ian" image). "Tunnel of Love" got a fair amount of follow-up play, too. I think of both albums fondly -- especially "Born...," which I can essentially play in my head, song for song -- but I never play them, and have never really been able to get into his other stuff (while of course I acknowledge his "greatness" as an artist, etc.).

xp lol one of those bands is not like the others

seconding Franz Ferdinand
Tupac
Father John Misty
Iceage
King Krule
Tyler The Creator
Arca
Solange
Anderson Paak
Car Seat Headrest

the Rolling Stones
New Order
Elvis Costello
Nick Cave
The Cure

oh, also almost all of the dubby neo-soul that all the teens seem to love nowadays—i can't wrap my head around that stuff at ALL

Yeah - that's a perfect example of something I want to like, but can't get into.

(assuming we're talking about the same thing; now I'm not so sure...)

what're the examples you're thinking of? i was thinking like xavier omar, kyle dion, all the stuff that feels like jai paul by way of soulection. the zero fatigue crew (smino, ravyn lenae, monte booker) are one of the exceptions

ok yeah, you're more plugged in than me, haha... I haven't even heard of that stuff (I was thinking of more mainstream neo-soul/R&B, I guess).

just checked out Omar and Dion, and... yeah

i'm just on the cusp of the youth (just graduated college) so i still see what people right below me are into. i got into music during the peak blog-indie era, and now it feels like all the cool teens who would've liked that stuff have a pantheon of sza and frank ocean that all this stuff sits right below

when it's good it's basically the above mentioned zero fatigue people and like....noname (chicago artists seem like they're able to make something good out of the sound). oh and kaytranada

bjork

― flappy bird, Thursday, June 7, 2018 11:03 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

After years of not being able to get into Bjork, Homogenic and Vespertine ― especially Vespertine ― suddenly clicked very hard for me in the past month. It can happen!

Pet sounds is good but can’t say I’ve been compelled to put it on since I was 16

Pet Sounds sounds phoney, for lack of a better word. Pleasantville without the irony. The faux-innocence, the hokey lyrics, the retchingly cloying melodies (the further it veers towards the major key the worse), the overwhelmingly American sense of misplaced, self-deceptive optimism – I just can't do it, few things are as off-putting to me on a visceral level. And all of it drowns out Brian Wilson's formal accomplishments, which are very real. 'God Only Knows' is classic, though.

For me it’s partly just that we played “Sloop John B” in middle-school band, which forever ruined it for me.

Look, Pet Sounds is a remarkable piece of work, there's no doubt about it. No one in pop music had gone that deep up til that point and while it might sound a bit tame these days, the point is there's so much going on in there compared to the regular beat music of that era, it's a proper accomplishment and the result of serious hard work and inspiration. BUT, like all these great big serious canonical albums (Sgt Peppers, Kind of Blue, Blue etc), it's not the best entry point into the band. You're gonna have a lot more fun scoping out the music that came immediately before (Today/Summer Days & Summer Nights) and after (Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, Sunflower, Surfs Up) and then listening to Pet Sounds to hear what a sublime record it is in context. The twofer CDs are the best way to get into the albums - great liner notes in there too, and as you build up the narrative arc about the Beach Boys it all starts slotting into place. I'd never expect someone to hear Pet Sounds and fall in love with them on the off with just that

^v good post

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows” are also overused in movies and stuff (though that’s not the album’s fault.)

I wouldn't include Kind of Blue in that list – it is a great entry point, albeit not the most representative one.

Anyway, let's not forget that Pet Sounds is (or at least was) routinely touted as the greatest pop album of all time, so a lot of us did not hear it 'in context', precisely because it's supposed to be a standalone peak. But then again, I was familiar with their most famous singles prior to hearing it for the first time, so perhaps that was context enough.

Evey time the band YOB puts out a new album, I think "This will be the album that finally clicks with me!" and every time I am disappointed. I like a lot of other doomy stuff, & the people recommending them are people whose tastes I generally approve, but... idk. Maybe it's just not for me?

They've just released a new one, so I am once again wrestling with this dilemma.

Yes, I want more yearning doom in my life, but YOB cant quite bring it home for me, and only get flickers of morose satisfaction from Neurosis. So back to re-listening to US Christmas and UFOMammut.

Dog Latin otm

Beach Boys seem forever closed off to me because I dislike multipart harmonies for the most part, especially of the mid-century variety. See also 90% of doo wop and 60% of folk revival. I've been getting into John Phillips as a songwriter- who mines all of those genres- strip away the harmonies of the M&P, and his approach fascinates me. Love the Genevieve Waite album.

I totally get why people connect so deeply with Radiohead, but likewise there's something about Yorke's warble and brainy musings that push me away. Greenwood's soundtrack work confirms that I like the bones of their approach, just not the finished product.

dj koze. tried with the new one and watched him play live for a bit and it seemed I wasn't the only one who thought it was just ok. plumped for a hot dog and a walk instead

BUT, like all these great big serious canonical albums (Sgt Peppers, Kind of Blue, Blue etc), it's not the best entry point into the band.

i know i'm just isolating a single sentence in a greater point but: kind of blue and blue are actually kind of the best entry points into those artists imo

the greater point about context is otm

I wouldn't include Kind of Blue in that list – it is a great entry point, albeit not the most representative one.

I think a lot of rock/pop fans who are curious about jazz get told to listen to KoB and come away a bit non-plussed. It's quite sleepy, woozy and by today's standards a bit classicist. It takes a while to sink in, and while the performances are incredible and the whole 'they didn't even know what they were going to play that day' thing blows my mind, it's not quite got the crossover appeal of Silent Way or Bitches Brew, which I see as being more explosive, playful and appealing to someone who might already be au fait with psychedelic rock music and stuff like that. For people who are new to jazz and want to get into it, I'd say get Mingus Ah Um - it's a lot more sprightly and fun to listen to. No slight against KoB - it's become a go-to album whenever I'm feeling weary about music, but it wasn't the one that hooked me in.

I had the same problem with Blue - it's good and that, but it doesn't have the weirdness, the playfulness of Court & Spark or Hissing Of Summer Lawns. It displays a lot of the traits that made me unsure about getting into Joni at first - the idea that she's a bit of a wimpy-sounding AOR singer/songwriter (which of course she's not). It took Court to make me understand that she's a lot more than that - those songs are short, sharp shocks with lots of thrills, spills and twists. Now I can go back to Blue and really get it, but it's still not my favourite.

i completely disagree with your initial impression of blue, those songs are all compositionally weird and playful, it's just maybe not as obvious about it as court & spark

lol it's pretty rich of me to disagree with someone else's attempts to grapple with a record but i'm just sayin

Interesting, I was heavily into classic rock when I first heard Kind of Blue and it immediately clicked, whereas Bitches Brew (more so than the less busy In a Silent Way, incidentally) took me a long time. You need to embrace the surface chaos, which is something very few listeners – in my experience, at least – are willing to do.

xps

I dislike multipart harmonies for the most part

Well in that case you're not going to like the Beach Boys

xps it's all subjective of course. these are only my experiences.

Blue is the only Joni Mitchell album I've ever heard; I listened to it and immediately thought, "I understand why people love this artist, but I don't need to hear anything else by her as long as I live."

Agree that Kind of Blue is a better Miles Davis entry point (other candidates: Sketches of Spain, Round About Midnight, Milestones) than Bitches Brew. KoB clicked with me instantly at 15; BB took years to make sense, and I still don't play it very often.

> Well in that case you're not going to like the Beach Boys

Right, I think with a lot of these struggle-to-enjoy artists, there's some fundamental that is too hard to overcome. I can't pin down why Joni Mitchell escapes me, though, because I do seek out artists who have similar vocal styles, guitar and lyrical approaches. There's those weird cases of liking the descendants but not the originators. (Always disliked The Descendants, but I don't hear clamors of acclaim much these days...)

joni mitchell is another great example, but I'm not really surprised in this case; I find the music incredibly bland in almost all cases

i completely disagree with your initial impression of blue, those songs are all compositionally weird and playful, it's just maybe not as obvious about it as court & spark

― flamenco blorf (BradNelson), Friday, June 8, 2018 3:51 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes that's what I mean - its strengths are more subtly-felt and therefore, for me, hearing Court was what was able for me to get an 'in'. There's definitely layers to Joni-listening and I think that once you peel those back, it becomes an increasingly enjoyable listen