"Uncool" music you dig. Out with it!

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)

I feel like if I broke down and listened to albums by The Romantics that I would probably like them. I think I have them all in the store.

Sorry but early Europe fucking rule and probably influenced Ghost into the bargain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcv05PbZ5tA

Daniel_Rf – good post

Camaradarie's post above underscored for me how subjective (and varied) the concept of "cool" is. For me, it more or less means rock-critic-sanctioned, so seeing Fairport and Captain Beefheart was confusing. But for someone else, that may be the complete opposite of cool.

I mean Fairport and Beefheart and Bonzos fans generally hate those albums

Cairo might be considered uncool, even to prog fans? I've said it before but their singing reminds me of gillette adverts, maybe earnest and heroic in a power metal way? Easy to imagine them all with 80s mullets. "Angels And Rage" is one of my all-timers, just incredibly exciting and I like that sort of dense whirlwind quality they have sometimes.

Aren't all the swedish extreme metal bands into ABBA?

Late additions:

Magnum
Saga
Pavlov's Dog
Rhapsody of Fire
Uli Jon Roth & Electric Sun
Steve Hackett
Angel

(xpost) Okay, that makes sense--but I'll stick to "cool" being a subjective concept.

Unless we're talking about Michael Bolton, he's the sole exception.

that first Angel album rips so hard. its awesome.

i'm a big City Boy fan. i win. something. i win something.

i love the first Starz album more than any Kiss album ever made.

I enjoy some Sons of Champlain songs, but I wouldn’t even know of them if not for my dad. Horn rock!

Is union by Toni Childs uncool?

totally.

Returning to the topic of ABBA’s coolness in the ‘90s; just came across this Flying Nun tribute on social media (had never heard of it)

i looked at this on FB and realized that there are secret levels of whiteness that i am not privy to. other than richard thompson and the preservation hall band i had no idea who ANY of these people were. there are local festivals like this all the time around here. they aren't for young people. i should be the demographic. but unfortunately they just look really uncool to me. no offense to sir. richard. who i love. and who plays around here, like, 10 times a year.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/431883219_931582178343904_5510188593972983208_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=MK3PyoWjoJEAX-vDaFF&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfC4SRlMc7HbMyR6lxpbBu_4TcXHe-Isn2-LMuJQ6dp3nQ&oe=65FBE60C

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/432401269_931582175010571_632896888730513714_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=AsDwIGvx32UAX-fCKR9&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfCVG904LrGEChN-YXEFpcdG7BAsLRIB0VCAqKP4xHQB4w&oe=65FC5A6F

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/432423551_931582191677236_4885266910016941552_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=kvdnG8Z_K20AX9NdgUQ&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfDzFatc1kxG45NKaPYwLTqIzUhLnRGPYy6KroBvJZZvFg&oe=65FC62B5

i know laura cantrell. or of her. didn't she have a radio show on WFMU?

peter blanchette is from here and he plays a crazy guitar. the "archguitar".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COzLdipNUe4

anyway, i don't dig nu-americana for the most part. too many hats.

alright if no one's gonna name anything TRULY uncool I'll just mention that I think both Moxy Fruvous and the Barenaked Ladies have written some excellent songs

I've recently come around to Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66, those records are fun! maybe they are cool now but they weren't for years

they are permanently cool. all the 70s records are as great as the 60s ones.

Back in 2019, I tried (and failed) to drum up sufficient enthusiasm around here to place a “Frozen II” outtake on the EOY poll.

man, my kid is obsessed with brazil thanks to spotify. his playlists are insanely hip. he's 18! you'd think he was a 50-something japanese sake bar owner.

Steve Harley died! he's not very cool now. but does anyone still listen to him?? maybe in the U.K. they never stopped.

@frogbs I said The Tea Party and I’m with you on BNL (but not Moxy)

Stuck in the 90s man

Buy a new Gameboy

For the fun and the fashion

No, I bought it for Tetris

Seeing as we're above the 49th, I genuinely love--I'm about to cross a line very few have--Glass Tiger's "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)."

(The BNL's Bruce Cockburn cover is great, especially the video. Hated Moxy Fruvous--and talk about baggage...)

The Blow Monkeys are one of my favorite bands and sound objectively great to me.

This can't be cool.

I like everything Whiskeytown ever did, including the couple dozen unreleased tracks.

(Ryan Adam's solo gets patchy pretty quickly thereafter.)

Sergio Mendes could def be considered uncool from a bossa nova purist perspective, he's the dude who went off to become a big star in the US and do covers of Anglo songs. but then from a 90's and beyond lounge revivalist pov he becomes very cool indeed.

alright if no one's gonna name anything TRULY uncool I'll just mention that I think both Moxy Fruvous and the Barenaked Ladies have written some excellent songs

quite like Barenaked Ladies, I get that they're an early incarnation of epic bacon/reddit style humour but that stuff wasn't as omnipresent then, or perhaps I was younger and less discerning, anyway they strike me as fundamentally benign. got Brian Wilson to sing "Brian Wilson" on that live album, too.

I certainly despised Michael Bolton in my youth but "How Can We Be Lovers" works as well as the next AOR/power ballad banger.

I like that Bonzo Dog Band album Camaraderie posted

I also have a Blow Monkeys LP but tbh I don't like very much on it so maybe that doesn't count

I own the first Asia LP

I like lots of post-1980 punk stuff that was definitely not cool in the UK when I was growing up but appears to have been cool in the USA to some degree, and a lot of it seems to have been reappraised a bit in more recent times

main uncool music for me is probably lots of pre-Britpop UK indie music that is still roundly detested

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.

Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle ca. 1980.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZKk0vXesqmA/X9zspXItOZI/AAAAAAAAKCU/j_lEhCqq2RAjhwNF12352KGx2mLFH6WZACLcBGAsYHQ/s500/abbachris.jpg

I saw the Abba Voyage show in London last year and I was the only cool person there.

Oh yes ABBA Voyage is not cool.

The CBGBs store they had at that New York airport also wasn't cool.

That uncool couple you sat next to? Used to be in Throbbing Gristle.

"main uncool music for me is probably lots of pre-Britpop UK indie music that is still roundly detested"

names please.

only one post on the revived steve harley thread. ouch.

xp reminds me that I've had an "in defense of Kingmaker" blog planned for quite a while now, must get it finished.

I unapologetically love “Cracked Rear View” by Hootie and the Blowfish. As a Brit, do I get bonus uncool points for embracing the sound of mid-90s middle America.