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

Their later stuff was definitely tighter and lighter, but the first few years were often loud and very not tight in the best possible ways. I love Peng but the way it was recorded or mixed always seems to undermine how raw they could sound. Here's Orgiastic off that record live in early 1993 the way I would have rather it sounded on lp (though the vocals are a bit buried)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG0poVy8GjA

Every time I immerse myself in the early '70s, I give the white dude singer songwriter combos (eg Simon & Garfunkel, CSN) another shot and, man, I just can't seem to hear anything but echoes of the smugly self-satisfied middle class boomers they'll eventually morph into. I mean, not those dudes specifically (or not all of those dudes, anyway) but more the people they're singing to. There's a mild drug haze hovering over it, some bohemian flourishes with a tinge of political awareness, but at the core much of it is just so...conservative. And I don't think it helps to hear it in the context of the overwhelmingly amazing music being released around the same time.

You're projecting. Not that I'm a fan of any of those groups, and I understand your perspective, but even I'll rep for the best of the Simon & Garfunkel stuff. "Mrs. Robinson" is the antithesis of conservative.

Oh, I'm for sure projecting. And that lot definitely made some good tunes, but the bulk of it is just so bleh to my ears.

I think their production often made them sound more conservative than they really were, you can hear this with their live recordings which imo always sound better. Famous example which pisses all over studio version: https://youtu.be/HhRwNqybWog

CSN(Y) for me, although I love most of the Laurel Canyon scene and a lot of their solo albums, as a group they've always bored me senseless.

I do like the 4 guitars workingf against each other in the electric jams a lot. They did some great extended Down By The Rivers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEXY4SlgJNY

but then i do like the studio lps too.

That clip from Big Sur was the one that Sonic Youth edited into their Snub Tv video

Rush

I'm sure this has been covered but I can't get near the Replacements no matter how hard I try. I don't find the ragged shambles thing exciting or endearing. Oh well.

elvis costello. i don't get him at all. boring songs without tunes - except that one lovely song which i only know in the awesome robert wyatt version - plus a croaking voice which makes bob dylan sound like an angel. to be honest i haven't really tried. 30 seconds of costello are usually the longest i can bear him.

costello has flaws, but writing "songs without tunes" is not one of them.

maybe i am too dumb to get his tunes then.

his first 6 LPs have plenty of tunes on them

can you hum the melody to the chorus of oliver's army? yes you can

elvis costello. i don't get him at all.

Yup, can't stand his voice and his music bores me rigid. I disagree that his work is "without tunes" - there are, I just don't like any of them. Also, I find his melodic sense actually quite limited.

Co-sign. I dig the early singles he did but I've tried more than once to connect with his early albums. No dice.

Turrican OTM!

I had the 1985 best-of on cassette in high school and liked about half of it. I also owned Trust, King of America and Blood & Chocolate, but haven't paid attention to anything he's done in the last 30 years.

https://www.discogs.com/Elvis-Costello-And-The-Attractions-The-Best-Of-Elvis-Costello-And-The-Attractions/release/3543966

Not a band, but I think this fits: I can't seem to get into Brazilian music. I keep buying Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Tom Ze, Jorge Ben, and Gilberto Gil records; I've read Tropical Truth, and own all the Os Mutantes reissues and a few Rita Lee albums; I like the political aspects of the music, the individual stories and personalities, even some of the sounds, but the music as a whole rarely makes any great impression on me. I think I just find a lot of it too lightweight and happy or something; too twee. Or maybe it's because the so-called "psychedelic" aspects of this music have been greatly exaggerated and oversold. I don't know.

what jorge ben are you listening to because i kinda want to fight you in real life

Paul Ponzi OTM too! WTF? Though, Jorge Ben is pretty good tbf.

psychedelic? i like 70s smooth jazz brazil, funky brazil.

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

jorge ben has so many great songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YspHjaITtJ4

Try Nacão Zumbi. Brazilian music from Recife has balls; it's not that fluffy curtains-in-the-breeze shit you hear from Rio.

Os Mutantes were amazing!

and they seem very distinct from other late 20th Century Brazilian music

but haven't paid attention to anything he's done in the last 30 years.

Looking away from me, trying not to catch my eyes

I get you Paul Ponzi, actually... Caetano in particular is somebody I admire but don't want to listen to, and Os Mutantes never made an emotional impact. That said, and it's totally comfort food music, but I listen to Joao Gilberto Voz E Violao at least once a month

can you hum the melody to the chorus of oliver's army? yes you can

idk i've had it stuck in my head for over a decade

oliver's army also has one of costello's best writerly tricks, when the song secretly modulates up a whole step during the bridge, but you don't notice it until the verse comes back.

The Jorge Ben album I have is this one:
https://www.discogs.com/Jorge-Ben-Ben-Samba-Bom/master/256717

and some various songs on compilations and mixes (a friend of mine--a bassist--is crazy about his stuff and used to burn CDs for me).

Try Nacão Zumbi. Brazilian music from Recife has balls; it's not that fluffy curtains-in-the-breeze shit you hear from Rio.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Monday, April 29, 2019 8:30 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I will check them out. and yes, "fluffy curtains in the breeze shit" is a very otm description of my issues with a lot of this music

Hüsker Dü.

Oliver's Army just came on the radio in our office and quite a few people were humming along, so clearly not 'totally forgettable' for everyone (I couldn't precisely tell, but it sounded like they muffled the n-bomb but left "London is full of Arabs' intact).

having been raised with a cassette of Joe Jackson's I'm The Man on the flipside to a Costello best-of, I have to say, Jackson was much preferred

I also, as a child, had a genuine terror of Oliver's Army. while recognising it as a good song, I had to run away from the room whenever I heard it. not sure why. think it might have been those hyperrealised high piano lines

I once listened to This Year's Model and have since repressed all residual memories of it. A few minutes ago, I decided to give 'Oliver's Army' a chance and now deeply resent the baiters itt.

Agreed about the Brazilian hipster heavyweights of yore. I'll stick to the mind-bogglingly prolific (and inconsistent) Heitor Villa-Lobos, thank you very much.

y'all bum me out. the attractions are a kick ass band

more elvis for us, brad

"Etude 11" from Villa-Lobos's Douze études is my favourite thing to play. I do enjoy the Tropicalia: Ou Panis et Circensis comp, though. Do you guys not like bossa nova too?

I love his Etudes. And I generally enjoy bossa nova.

XP: The Jorge Ben album that made a convert out of me was Forca Bruta. He was in the zone on that one.
(although if your complaint is that brazilian music is too happy, not sure that one is gonna turn you)

i like all the brazilian stuff people are complaining about itt

i used to have difficulties to get into bossanova. but this has changed. i love the smoothness and the flow of it. and i also like that it is so unobtrusive. it has got an ambient quality. and it definitely radiates positive vibrations. listening more thoroughly to the classic getz/gilberto album made me a convert.

I love Jorge Ben's '69 album and Gal Costa's India. Both have great album covers, too.

Devin Townsend. Tried again with all the buzz around Empath, but I gotta accept that dude is just not for me. I appreciate his singular, ambitions vision, but I just find the results to be overly dense cheese fests with flashes of great guitar playing.

Tracks like 'Spirits Will Collide' make me yearn for the irony era.

jon your description of the music is otm so i can't blame you for not getting into it

I'd totally cite him in a 'music that requires more suspension of disbelief than you can muster' thread.

hey my man i just enjoy things that are awesome, in fact i would suggest there is far less distance and interference between me and my earnest enjoyment of devin townsend's music than you wishing for a new age of irony bc it embarrasses you, thanks