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

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

The jazz album that's going to be the first you don't have to *try* to like really depends on what expectations are drawing a person towards jazz in the first place. Like is the jumping off point IDM or hip hop or soundtracks or guitar rock? Miles has got a entry point for most expectations, though I agree Ah-Um is a great place for someone just trying to get a handle on ride cymbals and horns.

yeah totes. that's the neat thing about Miles is he has an album for almost every taste / occasion. If you like funk, go for On The Corner; if you're more into ambient or kraut or even house music, Silent Way; if you're more melodically inclined then Birth of Cool; psych-rock or experimental-rock, Bitches - KoB, I'm not sure?? Just a good all-rounder I guess, but it is very 'JAZZ' qua JAZZ to these ears, despite how groundbreaking it was when it first came out. I think I was expecting some mad freakout shit or some moody Waitsian stuff when I first wanted to hear jazz, but this felt a bit staid, a bit sleepy, a bit 'traditionalist' or something?

the thing is that even though it may feel traditionalist there are extremely few records like it, but i guess that requires knowledge about the method of improvisation

xp thinking about it some more, the incredibly bland/staid/vanilla-ness of a lot of singer-songwriters, even undeniably classic ones, is what usually* puts me off. I fully know this is a bad take but at the same time why would I listen to [redacted to somewhat shield me from bad takes] when The Dreaming or Sunny Border Blue or Dynamite or From the Choirgirl Hotel, etc. exist?

* unless there is something else going on, like, I'll always have a soft spot for James Taylor because I grew up in North Carolina and my parents played him all the time, usually on road trips through the mountains

Dunno, the first time I heard BB I was into so-called electronica, IDM, trip-hop, d&b, ambient and the like, and I just couldn't make heads or tails of it (didn't get Squarepusher either, though, and partly for the same reasons). Structure was the problem at the time, whereas KoB made perfect sense straight away, precisely because of its traditionalism.

Semi-ironic yacht rockers can dig "Time After Time"

the thing is that even though it may feel traditionalist there are extremely few records like it, but i guess that requires knowledge about the method of improvisation

― flamenco blorf (BradNelson), Friday, June 8, 2018 4:32 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah totally. Most people who've no real grounding in jazz but nevertheless want to know more about it won't really be aware of improvisation, or what individual players sound like, or how groundbreaking KoB really was in the context of the time compared to what else was going on. That's all because we've heard music that 'kind of sounds a bit like Kind Of Blue' on TV shows where jazz is being played in the background: it's become the benchmark by which jazz is compared and therefore the staple 'sound of jazz'.

Sgt Peppers, for similar reasons, is a bit NBD for people who'd have heard other multi-instrument 'concept'-style albums that came out since. The idea of having a pop album designed in this way with an imaginary band who plays the intro and the outro and all these conceptual pop songs about circuses and women floating in the sky wouldn't have even been conceived three or four years prior. But new listeners wouldn't find this stuff all that interesting, and would find the overarching concept a bit loose, a bit contrived maybe.

ultimately, i think this all boils down to context when listening to legacy acts who are worshipped as innovators. without context, you can often lose a lot. i'm not saying it's impossible to enjoy, say, Pet Sounds without context, but it helps to know a bit about who the Beach Boys were; what they were going for; what the other music of the time was doing etc..

I'm still a wee bit skeptical towards that line of thinking tbh. The main reason I gave Pet Sounds a spin is because I had read so much about what a great record it is and why. If anything, I can't help but wonder whether I would have liked it better without knowledge of these countless write-ups (I doubt it, but you never know).

Likewise, I occasionally feel like I don't enjoy Loveless as much as I should due to its canonical status. I always have this residual feeling that I'm missing out on a layer of greatness that's just beyond reach. Some classics breed anxiety, others not so much (I never experienced this with, say, The Dark Side of the Moon in spite of its conspicuous sense of self-importance).

The jazz album that's going to be the first you don't have to *try* to like really depends on what expectations are drawing a person towards jazz in the first place. Like is the jumping off point IDM or hip hop or soundtracks or guitar rock? Miles has got a entry point for most expectations, though I agree Ah-Um is a great place for someone just trying to get a handle on ride cymbals and horns.

― Mungolian Jerryset (bendy), Friday, June 8, 2018 11:21 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is otm. My entry point to Miles was Agharta, after six months or so of my first exposures to the Stooges, Pere Ubu, Albert Ayler, and Coltrane. It was as perfect an introduction to his work as I could have imagined at that moment. If KoB had been foisted upon me instead, it likely wouldn't have registered.

otm...and context fades, which is why I find 'Horses' a lot more interesting than 'Kick Out The Jams' 50 years later.

(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)

― he doesn't need to be racist about it though. (Austin), Thursday, 7 June 2018 23:28 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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.

― Paul Ponzi, Thursday, 7 June 2018 23:36 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You have to have dropped acid to them in the late 80s to get it, maan

John Martyn

― Duke, Thursday, June 7, 2018 10:08 AM (thirty-one minutes ago)

Ahhh, that hurts my soul!

What have you tried?

― he doesn't need to be racist about it though. (Austin), Thursday, 7 June 2018 19:41 (yesterday) 

Solid Air, which is the consensus "best" album. I think I've got Stormbringer as well. A perfect fit on paper, but it didn't click

Semi-ironic yacht rockers can dig "Time After Time"

You're Under Arrest was actually the second Davis album I heard, right after Kind of Blue; I bought it because it was the newest one at the time, and I immediately just accepted it as another facet of Miles. I still like a lot of his 80s material.

Duke, you may want to give Bless the Weather and Inside Out a go, if you have the desire to give him another chance.

Will do, thanks

jesus christ will anyone recommend one world which is his actual best album

i guess in line with dog latin's point solid air works really well when you've listened to the albums surrounding it

solid air was the first one I heard and it didn’t really do much for me. hearing small hours and glistening glyndebourne and head & heart though, jfc

also John Martyn tracks poll now

When it comes to John Martyn there would need to be a thread for I'd Probably Like It If I Listened To It But I've Never Got Round To It And Life's Too Short, Basically. Would be one hell of a long thread though.

gt Peppers, for similar reasons, is a bit NBD for people who'd have heard other multi-instrument 'concept'-style albums that came out since. The idea of having a pop album designed in this way with an imaginary band who plays the intro and the outro and all these conceptual pop songs about circuses and women floating in the sky wouldn't have even been conceived three or four years prior

it's not a "concept album," so anyone coming to it with that framing is going to be disappointed. the major leap of Pepper was having so many fuckin' great songs in ostentatiously different styles and arrangements, performed and recorded really really well. the styles and arrangements part of that was so immediately influential that a subsequent listener without cultural context has no reason at all to note or notice it.

eh i don't think that's true. pepper sounded really different from anything i'd ever heard even when i was 12. revolver took me a lot longer to "get"

sorry to talk about the beatles again

the major leap of Pepper was having so many fuckin' great songs in ostentatiously different styles and arrangements, performed and recorded really really well

I'd argue Revolver did it first (and much better, overall).

Brad, I love One World. I've always defended it, even though a lot of people consider it a move to the more commercial soft rock thing. To me, it's his last thoroughly classic album from his brilliant 70s run. And one of his best eras for live stuff too; check out the deluxe edition for a great solo set.

The solo live versions of 'Big Muff' from the time are pretty much badassery of the highest order:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btRv4MnPOBE

Man, check out that Frankensteined guitar!

Brad, I love One World. I've always defended it, even though a lot of people consider it a move to the more commercial soft rock thing

i don't hear this particular criticism in the record itself, but fair! "big muff" kicks so much ass

That version of Big Muff is immense!

I always send folk to this live version of Small Hours if I feel they need a Martyn conversion: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pYLVM560Fok

Jeez, when you *want* something to embed...