"Uncool" music you dig. Out with it!

I didn't know Ben Folds Five was uncool???

I just found an early 2000s fan page for "geek-rock" bands, with pages for Ben Folds Five, Weezer, and They Might Be Giants.
https://geek-rock.tripod.com/main/main.htm

I think I'll leave it at that.

I have defended 311 a bunch, not to say I *love* them but I think they are underrated. FWIW they just did a Tiny Desk concert, which I'm curious to check out.

I still like lots of very uncool dubstep & d&b music, the kind of dubstep & d&b that people seem to want to distance themselves from.

hello.
as anyone who follows my twitter knows all too well re my love of cheesy dubstep mixtapes.
also, add bloghouse to the list.

I think those styles of music would prompt 90% of the population to say, “Whatever this is, it’s too cool for me”(!)

I actively disliked ABBA when I was a kid. They are now a guilty pleasure.

It’s been cool to like Abba for ages. Where you been, jimbeaux?

Josefa just recommended a book about this very topic.

They still strike me as deeply uncool. Anti-cool, actually.

I have similar feelings about the Bee Gees, although I think they are cool now.

beegees cool as fuck glad u reconize lol but not lol

I still like Tranceport by Oakenfold.

― omar little, Thursday, March 14, 2024 11:17 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

hah, should relisten to that, I remember liking it a lot when I was a teenager but yeah even then some of those vocals going "ooooh aaaahh you are the gamemaster" was a bit much

speaking of I do like Shpongle a lot. they're pretty embarrassing in spots but I think their records are really well crafted and all have a lot of great moments. and Nothing Lasts is an absolute tour de force album

Same deal with Bee Gees.

Carpenters too, if we are going down the alphabet.

I like Christmas carols and the bands James and The Tea Party

So, so much...Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years" comes to mind immediately.

(xpost) For a long time, definitely. But didn't the Carpenters get a second life sparked by Todd Haynes, the If I Were a Carpenter tribute album (with Sonic Youth), and the tragic dimensions of Karen Carpenter's story?

“holding back the years” is awesome, surely it’s been reclaimed by younger generations as one of those Miami Vice “stare through your apartment windows” heavy melancholy mood type thing, it’s quite vaporous

I enjoy the “rapping” on blues traveler’s “hook”

It was used memorably to open an episode of Pose, so maybe you're right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROIxst-LfSU

( beegees To Live Somebody was my wedding dance 25 yrs ago, a little biased)

er “love,” but at this point yo i lived it

I think ABBA, Bee Gees and Elton John suffered from overexposure in the 70’s and early 80’s and were considered uncool for a couple of decades but they have been rediscovered as iconic, cool artists with some great music with people born mid 90’s onwards. I have never heard anyone younger than 30 have a negative opinion on them.

i was listening to petula clark sing in french last night...

she is 91 years young i might add...

I have similar feelings about the Bee Gees, although I think they are cool now.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 16 March 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Heard a 12 year old recently muttering "Staying Alive" while walking down the street. I don't get it but I'm old now

growing up in the 90s, i remember elton/abba/beegees being "around" but more as like ... kinda "novelty oldies." also it was considered "gay music" in a lot of circles+carried connotations.

the 90s were fairly homophobic, idk if anyone else remembers that????

moka says overexposure- i say at least partial damage was done by "DISCO SUCKS."

(i think the three acts are fine. all are "greatest hits=good enough" for me.)

xpost i see you, scott! in the end, is early france gall _that_ much different?

Holding Back The Years has always been great, don't know why Simply Red were so hated for so long. I sometimes think about this scene from the otherwise pretty good film 24 Hour Party People

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B6AZdgQbeU

The quote (from "God") is "It's a pity you didn't sign the Smiths, but you were right about Mick Hucknell. His music's rubbish, and he's a ginger." - I am a ginger myself, and this sort of thing can fuck right off.

disagree. i don't deem anyone "uncool" for liking music, but 'holding back the years' ... nah, very dud. much no. you do you, but i can think of better ways to spend my time.

(like slagging off 'holding back the years' for an immediate example)

(also yes, 24 hr party people very good despite many problematic things)

but wait what about the "cool" version...

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

Whoa, I had never heard that!

Pretty good! I was bracing myself for the worst because of the band's name, but they get the mood basically right. The vocal is fashioned after Hucknall's, the music no--Mick Hucknall fronting the Velvet Underground.

The Frantic Elevator’s singer is Hucknall.

Oh god--that's the most spectacularly boneheaded mistake I've made since I reviewed an unmarked cassette of the La Bamba soundtrack in 1987 and complained that the version of "Who Do You Love" lacked Bo Diddley's menace or something like that...and it was Bo himself (I don't think the original, but maybe that too).

^^Bo w/Los Lobos backing him, IIRC.

Yeah, I looked it up--and it was, as I recall, a pedestrian version.

I like the Frantic Elevators' original, like the hit better.

It sounds like Bo doing his lyrics over a random Los Lobos song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq-vmb8Gem8

ABBA was cool in the ‘90s… Think “Muriel‘s Wedding.” ABBA Gold was a cool CD to have. I honestly don’t remember a time when Abba wasn’t cool.

Xxxpost: yeah the 90’s were very homophobic but also very cynical for the most part… so artists using gimmicky outfits and making bombastic, heartfelt party music was probably seen as corny or uncool. I’d argue the 90’s were one of the corniest decades for music, ironically.

dang I LOVED the La Bamba soundtrack, would still like it if i heard it I'm sure

my contribution to this conversation is probably Steve Miller Band "Abracadabra"

this is secretly the cool version of 'holding back the years' fyi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4R6UGHAVdI

I will never understand the love Los Lobos get. They are as replacement-level as it gets IMO.

As far as the actual subject of the thread, uncool music that you love...Al Di Meola. A North Jersey guido playing fake flamenco and shredtastic metal fusion? I am in. I also listen to Yngwie Malmsteen more often than I probably should.

The ABBA fan club includes Lester Bangs, John Lydon, Elvis Costello and Pete Townshend - they were always cool to ppl in the know, it's just they look very uncool to the squares.

Ian McCulloch used to bang on about them in the 80s too

I have a morbid fondness for a lot of 90's and 00's Modern Rock radio hits, I think partially because that stuff comes from such a culturally and geographically distant world to me. "Breakfast At Tiffany's", "Iris", crap like that - I hear it and I imagine a seductive life of normiedom I could never have, a world where Friends is the funniest show of all time and everyone's excited for the big game.

I have no idea of what's cool and what isn't, thus demonstrating my lack of cool from the off. Anyway my lowest-regarded favourites probably include:
- elaborately arranged, fiddly-diddly 70s prog like Gryphon, Kansas, Gentle Giant and Nektar. Also IQ and a bunch of operatic Italian prog (PFM, Le Orme, Osanna etc).
- the first two Europe albums.
- the first two Zebra albums.
- early Queen and Status Quo, because when you say you like them everyone thinks you mean the later, more popular records. Ditto Judas Priest and Genesis.
- Y&T.

I have some affection for the extremely uncool Greg Kihn, almost entirely because "The Breakup Song" was one of the first 45s I ever bought. I ended up having two or three of his albums, although not the one with Jeopardy on it. I know he eventually became a morning rock jock and is probably kind of a dickhead, but there are a couple of album cuts I would rep for.

i would say that Europe and Zebra are the two undeniably uncool ones and that you could find more than a few people who would say the rest are cool. i like early Y&T a bunch!

x-post

These three LPs I absolutely love have at different times severely reduced my cred with different friends

* Fairport Convention - "Babbacombe" Lee
* Captain Beefheart - Bluejeans & Moonbeams
* Bonzo Dog Band - Let's Make Up & Be Friendly

(Think if you are not a fan of these artists then these would most likely barely register as uncool, though I have had v negative reactions when playing Swarbrick-era Fairport to people)