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

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????

that clip of “one for all” is missing the best part, the intro where sting is visibly pissed and poodle rod saunters in late with a couple of his poodle friends and utters some unintelligible “bantz” while bryan laughs uncomfortably

Read that as 'Poodle Rod Saunters' and was like, man, great name.

tabes i love that “forever young” story upthread!

yes, so good

Thanks friends. I have some other good ones from later that day, actually. Probably one of the more insane days of my life.

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

Comedian Roy Wood Jr. has a funny story about his mom and Rod Stewart that is worth checking out.

I remember feeling unspeakable despair hearing kylie minogue’s “in your eyes” at a mcdonalds in amsterdam, broke and cold. it’s where i discovered the excellent pairing that is coffee + mcflurry

I actually have one for this thread! Avalon Emerson! I feel like a total loser for not feeling it :/

I just thought of my number 1 - Fanny

love their story! they seem awesome! really a cool band in rock history

just don't *love* their music

Try as I might I can only ever admire XTC, and not particularly like them. Same goes for most post-punk - Gang Of Four, Magazine, Pop Group etc. This fact makes me feel strangely inadequate.

Hmm. XTC can be a bit exhausting. Them and Pop Group, to take those examples, if you don't like one song you probably won't like any of them. But Gang of Four, Magazine, there's a lot of diversity there. What about Wire? Joy Division?

I was advised to listen to one of the later XTCs as it's more psych. What they and JD have in common is that I can't get past the singers. See also The Doors, Bowie and numerous others. I'll try Go4/Mags again, I always liked Wire so maybe it's me.

More stuff I can't get into however hard I try: all no-wave.

I am finally coming around on Killing Joke after being unable to truly connect with their work for literal decades. I mean, I bought their 1990 album, liked a few songs, didn't care about the rest; saw them live in 1994 or 1995, had an OK time but never heard the album they were supporting in its entirety; bought their 2003 album (the one with Dave Grohl on drums), liked a few songs but only listened to it...three times, maybe? I even interviewed Jaz Coleman once. (He's a fucking nut.) But all of a sudden I'm liking their work a lot more, and I don't know what changed. Maybe they're just really well suited to life in hell, so...2020.

HONOR THE FIRE!

the 2003 album is one of the great workout / running albums if you're into that sort of thing

i really dig the first song on the first Fanny album

they aren't bad at all, they have some jams

it was just weird i was listening to a podcast history of fanny hosted by jessica hopper and the writer who did the piece was talking about how she came upon fanny a couple years ago on youtube and loved the story of the band

she then said "it was great because it sounded so modern and not a relic of the 70s" which i find like incredibly mystifying, they are incredibly 70s (i don't see that as a bad thing and don't believe that music is "timeless")

No idea why Fanny get cited as the 70s band that could rock as hard as the guys, and no-one ever mentions Birtha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKWtnFM92DQ

(miming here apart from the vocals I think)

dang that's sick thanks for sharing

I have similar problems with a lot of post-punk, but i also just remembered one of mine: Patti Smith. People are always shocked at that one. I legit just don't get what's so great about Horses or anything else she did, and I've tried every couple of years for the past two decades. Never taken.

I am not a fan of Just Kids, and I don't care for the production on Horses but I do love it still

cosign on Patti

I liked Horses when I heard it in high school, and I saw her at one of her first comeback shows and enjoyed it a lot, but I haven't listened to her in probably 20 years.

free money is a jam

People are always shocked at that one.

Not in my experience.

I only really like Horses plus a few odd songs here and there tbh. and Free Money is indeed a jam

if anyone wants to try again, my favorite is the "Teenage Perversity" bootleg of a Roxy club show in LA right after Horses came out.

this used to be the Kinks for me but I finally gave up. yes I know many people find them incredible, I fuckin tried, I bought Village Green, etc etc., it does not reach me.

yoooooo jclc

haha my mom used to consistently confuse the Kinks with the Beatles whenever I played them around her, then looks vaguely disapproving when I told her who it was, like she had been duped (n.b. I love the Kinks)

*looked* sorry for tense issues there

I like the kinks but they are weird

Ray Davies' music is so much its own thing, and his aesthetic permeates it to such an extent, that I can't think of an "outlier" album or song to bring someone into it. Even his many mediocre songs are all him.

Some xposts to Tom D, it's shocking to people when they know me. Trust me, you'd understand if we met.

Got you.

the other big one for me is the "classic" era REM that literally everybody loves, the pre-Green stuff -- I hated it then & I've tried and tried but it always hits like the weakest stuff to me, just nothing in it that works for me at all. once Stipe starts enunciating then I tend to like the big hook-laden hits well enough but all the stuff people find so special in that is like wilted lettuce to me.

:(

B-b-but are they as bad as Paul Simon?

there’s so much shade and mystery in those first few albums but I can see the jangle jangle and the drum sound for instance turning people off. or yeah stipe.

Stipe's singing seemed radically oblique at the time, impressionistic, or expressionistic, or Rousseau/Chagall or whatever painting analogy you wanted to throw at it. The jangle itself was pretty unique too after fifteen years of overdriven rock/metal/punk guitar. Something something kudzu, something something New South, something something deaf in one ear. By 1986 there were a zillion American bands with a similar enough sound, and C86 and Flying Nun kicking in from overseas. REM were clever enough to leave what they pioneered behind.

Booming post, bendy! Don't sleep on Bill Berry's off-kilter funky beats either.

yeah the beats! I don’t know how to describe it.

yes, great post, bendy

i honestly don't think there is one of these that exists for me? part of it is i'm increasingly lazy, lol. maybe some newer acts with young hipster appeal like 100 gecs, i tried a few times with them nope not gonna happen. i like the new charli xcx though - not sure but i think there was some relation.

one thing that i'm not even going to try but is very much *relevant to my demographic* is arca. also this new artist that PAN is pushing in my facebook feed called Eartheater. i can't get past the visual aesthetic. just not my thing really. i mean if anyone wants to rep for them maybe i'll try listening to something lol.

oh maybe a good one actually is anohni - i feel like i should definitely like their work and keep coming back to it and have been genuinely impressed by some things but i've never fallen for it. i will probably try again with them.

this makes me feel a little shook to admit but pj harvey kind of falls into this category for me. i genuinely love some things but a lot of her work just hasn't connected with me at all. will probably try again with her at some point though, have a feeling she'll make more sense to me in a few years.