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

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.

I like 100 gecs just fine so long as people don't go doing things like comparing them to Daphne & Celeste.

shows how much i gaf

wait n/m i was misreading you

I like Murmur/Reckoning, love Automatic/Hi-fi (and even Monster to a degree), but find the praise for Document/Green/Out Of Time mystifying. Green in particular is really not for me

same ambivalence towards the middle period here. Document is definitely an album I “keep trying to like but can’t get into”, however.

Lifes Rich Pageant tho...

“Cuyahoga” rules, love Mills’ backing vox in the chorus

The insurgency began and you missed it.

bill berry is an american hero

fgti plz re-listen to "Near Wild Heaven" and "Me In Honey", the strength of Out Of Time is the deep cuts

The "Half a World Away" -> "Texarkana" –> "Country Feedback" section roolz too.

There's a lot of 'rediscovered geniuses' I can't really get into - Rodriguez, for instance, I tried playing his album yesterday and had to take it off. However I was playing the first two Bill Fay albums the other day and I liked them more than I ever had before, I like his voice.

It's funny. Like fgti, I cannot get into Green, but Document is an amazing record that sounds politically prescient, and as mentioned by sleeve and NNN, Out of Time is really just gorgeous.

I was actually thinking the other day about the moment when the saxophone hits on "Fireplace," how it redeems this otherwise okay song

I also just don't comprehend how someone can hear the opening notes of "Disturbance at the Heron House" and not become irrationally exuberant.

I am more than good with eleven (!) R.E.M. records up to and including Up

+ Chronic Town=12

I had to give up on Jandek in the end, I think the idea trumps the reality.

I'm with fgti on Green and Out of Time. I have actually never given Document a close listen and should remedy that. It's not that the songs aren't as good on Green and OOT; rather, it's the bright, airy production. The mystery and obscurity of the earlier stuff is gone, and the warmth and depth of AFTP and New Adventures hasn't come in yet (Monster is its own beast obv). I love lots of songs on those albums but they feel embarrassingly dated to listen to. Exceptions are when the production fills out more -- either as an aesthetic choice that works (Near Wild Heaven) or in service to the song (Orange Crush). But would love to hear what songs like You Are the Everything, Low, even Endgame would sound like if they were produced like AFTP was. I love everything up to and including Life's Rich Pageant.

Out Of Time is my favourite REM. Of the ones I've heard, Green is my least fave, so I don't know what that means

Other than Murmur and a few of the hits, I generally struggle with IRS era REM. it's all fuzzy and obfuscated and the songs just don't seem to stick

I hated Losing My Religion so much due to overexposure that I don't think I've ever actually listened to Out of Time in its entirety.

I like IRS-era REM because the band sounds so wired. I remember when I first heard The La's I thought "this is what I've always wanted REM and The Smiths to sound like"... all three bands are effectively "Big Star, but faster". Big Star is one of my favourite-ever bands fwiw

I feel that Document-to-Monster-era REM started trading a full paintbox for primary colours, the mystery sounds became scarcer. There were still many good songs, but previously the singles had been highlights of the albums; starting with The One I Love, they became more obvious, two-chord riffs or conventional ballads.

There's a lot of 'rediscovered geniuses' I can't really get into - Rodriguez, for instance, I tried playing his album yesterday and had to take it off. However I was playing the first two Bill Fay albums the other day and I liked them more than I ever had before, I like his voice.

― Young Boys of Bernie (Tom D.), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 6:03 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah rodriguez was ultimately pretty mediocre, good story though

fay is amazing

I think I was able to respond to those mid-period R.E.M. records, and still love them, because they were bailing out before the sell-by date. The production choices said to me that they were owning the fact that the vibe and mystery of those early records was unsustainable. (Peter Buck was already 31 by the time of Document!) In that regard Green e.g. feels to me more left-field and denser with "aura" than say, Fables.

(Peter Buck was already 31 by the time of Document!)

i didn't know that! crazy

After Murmur and LRP, Document is my favorite REM record.

I don't 'listen' to Jandek, but I can kind of agree that the idea is much more interesting than the reality, which is...simply put, eerie and depressing.