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

I like Sparks but have never understood the rabid reactions pro- or anti-. Some good songs and records, but nothing to get too excited about, IMHO.

Everyone has always, always said I'll absolutely love Sparks, but it hasn't quite happened yet

I like them in small doses, don't quite get the fanaticism

I think I have similar with Zappa. Everyone sees that I'm a Cardiacs fanatic and assumes I'll also love their supposed American progenitors, but it's a completely different vibe

you just haven't heard the right albums /lol

The problem is you have to complete a set of increasingly tedious quests to unlock the right albums

zappa cannot fail he can only be failed

The secret connection is that Ron Mael had a thick Zappa-style moustache in 1971.

That's two different moustaches, though: toothbrush vs. walrus (w/ added soul patch.)

https://i.etsystatic.com/19924296/r/il/5675c7/2395827332/il_794xN.2395827332_4f7v.jpg

I'd be more inclined to recommend Sparks to someone who loves say, They Might Be Giants than Cardiacs

Cardiacs fans are weird, their tastes tend to be all over the place. the only bands they universally seem to like are XTC and like, Koenjihyakkei

frogbs are you into Harry Merry at all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx-tu63ONGo

Ron Mael is sporting a pencil mustache these days. He's really evolved.

being annoying on purpose" is pretty much my favourite type of music

can't imagine a band who were so more completely tailor-made as something I should completely adore, with all the hyperactively arch camp bombast

Yeah all that sounds very good to me, what are some records I may not have heard that fit this description?

I recently recommended Sparks to a kid who's obsessed with Foxy Shazam and the Baby Driver soundtrack but I haven't checked in with him since.

Thanks for the Harry Merry link. Good to know Sparks *aren't* the most annoying band on earth after all!

I absolutely don't get the "being annoying on purpose" thing as a USP.

I work with teenagers and I have kids of my own. I don't need it in my music as well!

my comment was a bit pinch of salt but like p sure bands like Pere Ubu fit into the 'annoying on purpose' category

Interesting. Was thinking more like, Daphne & Celeste.

100 gecs are the D&C of nowadays obv

frogbs are you into Harry Merry at all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx-tu63ONGo

― brimstead, Wednesday, October 21, 2020 11:48 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

no, but after listening I'm flattered that you would assume I'm into this guy

I have a feeling I started an "I love irritating music" thread over a decade ago (so I'm not going to look it up and cringe at my old posting style), definitely included some big 'cool' acts like the Residents. I think irritating is a good descriptor, I like stuff that gets under the skin, it sticks around nagging at you in weird ways.

Sparks are sometimes too 'funny' for me, I think, but I do like them in general, and some songs I love a lot. I guess I'm one of the middle-grounders, rather than in the love-them-or-hate-them split.

Propaganda was a favorite as a kid and I still enjoy it when in the right mood, but I’ve never been able to get into anything else they’ve done.

This is weird given that "Propaganda" is pretty much indistinguishable from "Kimono My House".

I have a feeling I started an "I love irritating music" thread over a decade ago (so I'm not going to look it up and cringe at my old posting style), definitely included some big 'cool' acts like the Residents.

i looked it up and it's a very short thread, but interesting in that it shows a range of tolerance levels. One poster confessed their love for 'the hamster dance', another cited 'broken face' by the pixies as almost too grating b/c of the intro.

i dig that harry merry song / video

_Propaganda was a favorite as a kid and I still enjoy it when in the right mood, but I’ve never been able to get into anything else they’ve done._

This is weird given that "Propaganda" is pretty much indistinguishable from "Kimono My House".

100 gecs are the D&C of nowadays obv

― please consider giving h (imago), Wednesday, October 21, 2020 1:56 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Then does that make Skrillex the new Eminem.

Not really a "band I keep trying to like but can't get into", more of a "band everyone thinks I would like but extremely don't, and in fact is one of the few acts I actively dislike": The Divine Comedy

Despite my unwilling and prob genetic Anglophilia that extends to my culinary loves and crossword preference, I have absolutely no love for "when British humour gets stoopid" and that allergy extends to Allo Allo, Little Britain and Neil Hannon

divine comedy more like this mortal bore amirite

xp

band everyone thinks I would like but extremely don't, and in fact is one of the few acts I actively dislike": The Divine Comedy

not that I have anything against the Divine Comedy but that's hilarious and suggests a basic mentality of 'any old tat with an orchestra'

Anglophilia that extends to my culinary loves

oh ick

Ya that's kinda the thing that annoys me extra about it

And English cuisine is amazing

Never been able to get into anything by Rod Stewart or Elton John. Not even a little bit.

I can't get into rod stewart either but I've never tried because rod stewart is terrible and what's the point?

I can't even get into the Faces, tbh, and people love them. But beyond that, he (and Elton John) were *massively* successful in the '70s but nope, don't get it.

I am a big fan of Rod’s. i think he is a legit great interpreter of other people’s music, his covers i think are a good way to get into him.

But also it’s ok to not like him too, he can be a bit too MOR/“music yr mum likes” for some .

I feel you on Elton, but even The Faces' "Ooh La La" does nothing for you?

I like that one fine. Stay With Me, too, and I'm sure more than a few others. The Faces, I've certainly listened to them and enjoy them, it's just nothing I own or ever want to listen to. Which I guess in my book still slots them somewhere well above the likes of Journey and the Eagles, who I down't own anything by, never want to listen to but also actively avoid.

I had faces playing in the car during a date once and got clowned for being into mom music... I thought he was hip cuz there was a period of time in the early 00s or earlier where hipster dudes everywhere had 70s rod haircuts

all those hipsters were pursuing moms

his early run of solo records + the faces records is pretty much flawless

And yet ...

hahaha i'm going to get mellencamp and kenny aronoff to join rod stewart's band then you are IN FOR IT PAL :)

I saw Kenny with Fogerty and he killed it!

We were trying to get north from Portland and were getting tons of conflicting information about where to hop out, so I insisted the three of us hitch, since it had been three days since we'd moved at all. We began late in the day, and of course, ended up in a stripmall in Vancouver, WA, just across the river from Portland. It was drizzling lightly. We posted up at a gas station that sold beer and hotdogs, went to an on-ramp, and one of us went back to grab beer. No rides, too late in the day, weather too shitty. The beer mission yielded four cans of Camo Black Ice, a malt liquor that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, but we drank some of it anyway. We ended up hidden in some bushes in a grassy strip right next to the on-ramp, curled up in our sleeping bags with a tarp tied over us as the mist continued throughout the night.

The next morning, it was Father's Day, and we awoke covered in dew. We shared the final Camo Black Ice, then walked for a while through the stripmall, trying to find a spot that was open for food, and it turned out that all the stores were closed— that is, much of the mall had been deadmalled years previous, and few of the stores were actually operational any longer. It felt, quite honestly, like a horror film. An expanse of empty mall parking lots, shuttered and boarded up stores, and three skinny crusty kids with huge packs wandering in this fever dream. But then we stumbled upon a single open store in this long strip: a Subway.

They had just unlocked the door when we walked up, and as we entered, the opening notes of Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait" began, and I felt like I was going to faint because it was just too fucking weird. The guy behind the counter was amused by us and asked us some questions, then ended up giving us a ton of free food and chatting with us. Keep in mind that at this point, none of us had showered in four days, and we'd been sleeping in bushes and garbage-strewn train yards while hiking around and drinking beer in the heat of the day.

Then, as I was tearing into some sort of egg sandwich approximation, Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" came on, and we were all sort of silent, and it remains one of the most oddly spiritual moments of my entire life— listening to this cheesy power ballad in a deadmall's Subway at 7:30 am on Father's Day after sleeping in a bush, I felt like something was watching over me, or us.

Anyway, that's why I fucking love Rod Stewart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW18yRG0wZU&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW18yRG0wZU

i love rod's tender embrace of bryan adams' shoulder in the middle of this

Now I'm jamming out to "Desert Rose," the inevitable consequence of me seeing Sting's name

i reckon any tender embrace is a good thing these days, even if it's between two complete twats.

his early run of solo records + the faces records is pretty much flawless

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, October 27, 2020 5:29 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The first few Rod solo records are great, but some of the Faces records can be spotty. None of their albums (mmmmaybe with the exception of A Nod Is As Good As A Wink) are all-killer/no-filler, but the box is (Four Guys Walk Into A Bar...). It's as brilliantly sequenced as any boxed set I've heard. Also, they were better live than in the studio, and there's scads of live tracks on the box.

there's also a scene a bit later where bryan adams gives a little tender side glance to sting, as in, "this moment up here, the three of us...it's pretty special, sting. i'm glad i'm here for it". but sting just kinds of flips his upper-lip at him for a split second and then whips his head back to the front, all for one, all for love

can you do a play by play rundown of the classic bowie / jagger 'dancin in the streets' video? please????