Your Biggest Musical Disappointment.......

album, song, artist, genre, live show, whatever.....
when was the gap between expectation and reality the greatest?

I got two:

Bill Haley & His Comets

...not actually that bad, but when I was a kid I think I read somewhere that Mr Haley "invented rock n roll", so I was expecting some hard rockin, raw, high energy explosiveness.....
....after readjusting my expectations and realizing I must have misunderstood something, I came around to enjoying his slightly corny, jumped up western swing (and the album I got had an instrumental called "malaguena" which did kind of rock...)
....years later, when I heard Johnny Burnette's "Train Kept a Rollin", I realized that's what I had thought that Comets album was going to sound like....

------------------

Goldie - Saturns Return

...utter crap

(Timeless is such a great experience on a good sound system, so yeah, my expectations were high.....)

The Rolling Stones. To me they are no more than just overrated jerks who write melodically dead emotionally dry music. The most overrated band I know of, actually. The Rolling Stones receive way too much praise and credit for everything from influence to the quality of their hooks. I'd give them a one at best. That said, there are a bunch of Stones songs that I do like (even a couple that I love) and I can easily say Beggar's Banquet is a really good album, but for the most part they really leave me cold. Sorry, this is just how I feel.

I feel much the same about the Stones; whatever there is to get, I don't (though I've tried, many times). A handful of good tunes, definitely, but I have a more difficult time reconciling their iconic stature with their actual music than any other legendary band I can think of.

My two big answers are the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead. In the first case, I read "avant-garde geniuses" and "inventors of punk" and I heard boring songs by people who couldn't play their instruments. In the latter case, I heard "rock band that improvises" and I heard...boring songs by people who could play their instruments, but couldn't play them together and couldn't figure out when to stop playing.

jesus

i was pretty disappointed when i saw kris novaselic talk to a bunch of college students and he just bitched about graffiti.

Myself

The state of hip-hop outside of the US (perhaps the UK could be the excluded here).

the second strokes album

All music is ultimately disappointing because you expect it to somehow elevate ththe quality of your garbage life and yet it doesn't

― shmurda on da shmorient shmexpress

i haven't heard that, but there's no way it could live up to that title.........

"poptimism"

Weezer green album.

Mouse on Mars - Idiology

MoM was my favourite contemporary act, until this album came out with its awful indie vocals and pointless string interludes. A lot of electronic acts have gone to the shitter when they all of sudden they decide they want to be rockers (see: The Prodigy, 2 Lone Swordsmen, the aforementioned Goldie, etc), but with MoM the disappointment was huge, because they had such an unique and attractive electronic sound before this. TBH the bits from later MoM albums that I've heard have been even worse (the nadir being their collaboration with the mumbling rock band "singer"), but by then I'd already accepted they'd become crap, which wasn't yet the case with this album.

count me in the 'not getting the Velvets or the Stones' club too.

An Aphex Twin album that was supposedly the greatest innovation ever but sounded like stuff I was listening to in 1983. Not a crushing disappointment though tbh.

AR Kane '69' (is that what it's called?) and Arthur Russell's 'World of Echo', both of which I bought when they were released and both of which sailed in one ear and out the other.

Years ago I was just starting to get into reggae music and I found myself rifling around in one of those Our Price racks with CDs that had lost their sleeves. I came across an album called 'Dub Housing' by a guy called Pere Ubu and thought 'that should do'.

Getting back to my uni halls, I was disappointed to find that instead of the bassy Jamaican extravaganza I'd been hoping for, it turned out to be badly-played surf music with a guy singing like someone slowly letting the air out of a balloon.

Nearly threw it in the bin right then and there. So glad I didn't.

An Aphex Twin album that was supposedly the greatest innovation ever but sounded like stuff I was listening to in 1983. Not a crushing disappointment though tbh.

― Letsby Avenue (Tom D.), Friday, November 28, 2014 11:20 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Syro isn't that bad, Tom.

I don't even know what that means.

It Was Written

So glad I didn't.

Happy Ending!

(you heard my "Modern Dance" story?)

no?

OK...

Radio 210 football match, promises local celebs, actually a whole bunch of people that work for the studio, their team. Steve Wright reports back to studio, occasionally chucks out a bunch of singles to keep people interested.

There was a post-match disco, working mens club type of thing, they do a spot-prize for free albums, so loads are doing the rock and roll Grease stuff, or being in the mood for dancing, my lot weren't bothered only there for the beer.

Anyway, the family next to me, their daughter gets a freebie from Stevie, whoa it's "The Modern Dance" Pere Ubu. She rushes back to Granma, who says "Ooo lovely, I like Disco music"

There's a record destined to be unappreciated. What could I tell them? (I didn't even have one myself. Ever wished you did the hucklebuck when you had the chance?)

Actually, that'd be my biggest disappointment: Not getting that, then.

(fwiw, I did get the Max Wall single on Stiff records, that day)

i can just imagine: 'Ermm, actually i think you'll find, ladies, that this is not 'disco' music in the traditional sense of the word, rather Dada-esque proto-post punk from the late seventies. May I suggest that in order to avoid further disappointment you hand over the item to yours truly'.

Would have ended messily..

The 3rd Le Tigre album really crushed me, but I think it was my expectations that were too high. I was a huge fan of the first 2 albums. I'm one of only a few people I know that loves and respects the second as much as the first. The 3rd just felt flat and paint-by-numbers.

actually, my biggest disappoinment as a kid was seeing all the Grateful Dead t-shirts and posters and envisioning the most psyched-out, balls tripping, mind-bending music of all time and then finding out they were a jug band with long solos.

^
That.

t-bomb

One of mine would have been the realization that most "supergroups" suck

post-Eno Talking Heads

R.E.M.'s Green

Going Blank Again

actually, my biggest disappoinment as a kid was seeing all the Grateful Dead t-shirts and posters and envisioning the most psyched-out, balls tripping, mind-bending music of all time and then finding out they were a jug band with long solos.

― ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes), Sunday, November 30, 2014 1:30 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^
That.

― Hideous Lump, Sunday, November 30, 2014 2:04 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I figured they would be like Iron Maiden.

These are all albums that I remember rushing out to buy and being totally crushed after I first listened to them.

Antony & The Johnsons - The Crying Light (This has grown on me but I thought it was a massive step down after the previous album which was perfect)

Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars (Supposed to be his big pop moment but ended up being incredible bland apart from Going to a Town which is the only keeper)

Divine Comedy - Bang Goes the Knighthood (One of my favourite bands ever. After four years away this is just such a half arsed record. Stop making songs that are just you listing things Neil!)

Magnetic Fields - I (How does this album manage to have more filler on it than 69 Love Songs? It does contain three of his best songs with I Don't Believe You, I Thought You Were my Boyfriend and It's Only Time)

Morrissey - You Are the Quarry (Like many others I was so excited for his return but I remember hearing this on my way home from work and my heart sank a little as every badly produced plodding song went by. The two singles sound great but can't remember much else about it now)

The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make a Living (Had to look up what this was called. Looking at the track list I don't remember a single song on it now)

Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis (Thought this was just such a boring album that made Jarvis sound like he was 100 years old. Could not understand the hype it got at all)

Johnny Boy - Johnny Boy (You are the Generation is one of my favourite singles ever but the album was just so weak all the way through)

Being a teenager in the 70s when Rod Stewart was amazing and so rock and then seeing what he became.

Also, Pearl Jam, Binaural, god do I hate that album (so do they, pretty much).

St. Etienne - Good Humour

The first time I saw that beautiful cover on the insanely priced import my heart skipped a beat. Still, I was broke and the price really was insulting. About a month after, when i had finally managed to save the cash, I grabbed a copy off the shelves and asked to listen to it before buying. I'm glad I did. To this day I can't understand why it is so highly rated by some people.

R.E.M.'s Green

― Brad C., Sunday, November 30, 2014 1:18 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too, at the time, but then I came to like it a lot! Maybe we should also do "Your biggest musical reappraisal."

Built To Spill - Ancient Melodies Of the Future

A quintessential momentum killing album.

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

Don't think I ever lost interest in a band so quickly. I haven't bothered with them since it came out and don't really care to revisit their past.

Yeah, I only 'got on' with Kid A, Amnesiac I liked as well, but that was it.

The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make a Living (Had to look up what this was called. Looking at the track list I don't remember a single song on it now)

Yes - this album was analogous to the third series of Mighty Boosh in my mind. Too much fame, drugs and egotism stifling all the original charm and creativity that should have been present on the third offering.

I don't understand how anyone could be disappointed by HTTT if they liked Kid A / Amnesiac - it's not a huge qualitative step down or change in style from those records. Maybe a little more rock-y but...?

eephus, i think "biggest reassessment" would be interesting as well....
probly lotsa "loved 'em when i was fourteen" type bands, but curious to see how many "acquired tastes" pop up too.....

i was pretty let down by the Red Shoes (Kate Bush). This was the first album I ever got as a pre-release, a tape via someone who worked in radio months before it came out, and it kind of killed me I was so let down by it. It's grown on me in recent years but I still think it's her worst record.

Funny, you said Good Humor by St. Etienne. I feel the same way. I was very disappointed by it when it came out. Put it on last week to see if I like it better and picked the needle up halfway through track 3, side 1. The first three SE albums are classics though.

I've been thinking on this for a while, still tough, but I think it's gotta be:

Talking Heads - True Stories

or else PIL's This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get

Funny, you said Good Humor by St. Etienne. I feel the same way. I was very disappointed by it when it came out. Put it on last week to see if I like it better and picked the needle up halfway through track 3, side 1. The first three SE albums are classics though.

brotherlovesdub

I was doing my work experience at a record shop when this came out and the guy I was working with had to turn it off half way through he was so disappointed with it. I remember him saying "Nothing Can Stop Can Stop Us is one of my favourite singles ever. How have they gone so downhill?" as he turned it off. It actually ended up growing on me a lot thanks to songs like Split Screen, Lose That Girl and Woodcabin but I can understand why people didn't like it. Sound of Water was their big disappointment for me. Especially as Heart Failed was such a great lead single.

Mule Variations by Tom Waits - not that I got it when it came out but I'd heard it was one of his best and it really really wasn't

most post bone machine waits albums are all interchangeable for me. they are good but i never go "oh i want to hear THIS one but not THAT one:

Real Gone is very good, and Alice/Blood Money are not at all in the same vein

i don't know if i'm that disappointed any more. i barely listen to new music tbh, or rather my tastes are never driven by what is coming out in a calendar year. if somebody i like has a new album out i probably won't rush to buy it until i feel a strong need to. by coincidence i was really really into bill callahan last year and he happened to come out with a new album, so that was rad. but this year it's basically been 70s reggae and dub, 70s electric miles, palace music, and joni mitchell for me, that is what i am feeling, and some new album is probably not going to break me out of what i am feeling and what i have a strong need to listen to.

xp oh yea i guess i just meant that for me they are interchangeable, they mostly satisfy the same need for me, not that they are all basically the same works

probably The Eminem Show

when i was a kid i think my tastes were more driven by new releases, i read a lot of spin and shit and then pitchfork in college and kept up with BNM, this is like early 00s, and levez vos skinny fists comme antennaes to heaven was really fucking good but then yanqui uxo came out and was really boring. imo when you follow the calendar year instead of your own inclinations then you will be disappointed. bad shit comes out every year and it's hyped and looked forward to and you spend money on it and then people forget it because it's terrible and boring.

also how many of us spent a lot of time handwringing and listening over and over to see if some new bullshit that we dropped $15 on was actually good, to try to convince ourselves that we weren't duped?

I still vividly remember running to the library to get an album by this amazing Fleetwood Mac band that I was hearing on the radio somewhere around 1978, finding "In Chicago" and...

Oh, yeah, that's another thread altogether, too! Back when you didn't know which album was 'canonical,' so you bought the one you found, usually in the cheapo bin. This is why Trompe le Monde remains the only Pixies album I really like.

Back in my teen prog days, The Sentinel by Pallas was my big event album of 1984. Concept album about Atlantis - check. Produced by Eddie Offord - check. Gatefold sleeve with ridiculous Patrick Woodroffe artwork - check. Songs I'd seen them develop live over the last couple of years - check.
Bought it from Harum Records in Crouch End, almost ran home with the excitement (peeking in the bag a couple of times), reverently took the record out of the inner sleeve and put it on the turntable. And - oh. Piss-weak production, half the songs sounded like an attempt to emulate Magnum and it wasn't even a proper concept album.
Poor 16 year old me was crushed.
I miss getting excited about new releases though, now I'm old and jaded I don't even care when my own records come out let alone anyone elses.

!!! Erica America should have been on the radio, a heavenly pop hit if there ever was one

& I love Dutch TV too, will never figure that one out, the keyboard fill kills me

All right, let's also talk about premature, short-lived disappointment, because I always forget it later, or wouldn't want to admit it.

Albums that came impossibly hyped to me years after their first release (and where I already knew the artist) that disappointed me, more or less, on first listen: Another Green World, Radio City, Slanted & Enchanted. (Another Green World would not have been really 'disappointing' were it not for the build-up, but the next two I disliked).

Soon, very soon, each was on continuous rotation, tied for favorite album ever, where they still stay today. I've been assisting with the hype ever since.

never heard the Sentinel but it sounds like EMI butchered it; have you heard the reissue which apparently fixes it?

the first 3 and last 4 on Good Humor are great but its middle really really drags.

the musical output of yo la tengo in the last ten years. they used to be my fave band but everything coming out after "summer sun" was so disappointing and uninteresting. they do not seem to be the same band as the band which recorded electropura and made unbelievably intense live shows in the 90s. for me they defnitely have lost it.

the rolling stones concert in luxembourg roundabout 1992. most expensive & worst concert of my life. they were about a mile away, i could barely see a little man far away jumping and running around on the screen, i went home after about an hour and listened to the rest of the concert on my balcony, about 3 miles away. it was a joke. they played "like a rolling stone" and i never want to hear that song again.

new order on the loreley festival 1993. sonic youth were so good at that festival and new order so terrible. some puppets on the stage which tried to play some of the greatest pop songs of mankind but just couldn't do it, somehow they didn't have the feeling (of joy division).

Big Star.

There's much-loved bands whose music I like less than these guys (eg the Cramps, whose charisma I enjoy much more than their actual songs) but no band where I'm left so head-scratchingly bewildered as to wtf the big fuss was about. When I first heard Radio City I had what I can only describe as an anti-epiphany. Nice, pleasant little songs, I thought, sort of generic nice-guy power pop, and I like those shiny shirts... Nothing wrong with it but my god the myths! The cult status! Based on what? The B side of the second Kiss album is ten times more compelling than this!

Big star=massive disappointment

the paul stanley stage banter thing, i remember not finding it very funny

anybody ever had anything grow on them?

Or is it "that's that, another checkmark in the 1000 albums to listen to" book

Brimstead are you quoting Paul Stanley ?

Sorry bad joke, but your question had a Stanley-esque ring to it

I think upthread some have already mentioned things that grew on them

(I continue to chuckle like a doofus at how this sounds)

nah anybody ever had anything grow on them? deserved a joke, if not a direct percy quote

My biggest live concert disappointment was seeing GZA a couple of years ago on a tour where was (supposedly) doing the whole Liquid Swords album. He didn't actually stick with that, but that wasn't really the issue. The problem was that he seemed wasted and kind of out of it. He comes across on record, especially on LS, as this cerebral surveyor of street life, precise lyrical mastermind, etc. etc. so seeing him out of breath, slurring, losing the beat, and falling behind in the verses and having to hurry to catch up was a pretty big bummer. Plus his whole stage presence, even the way he moved around, just seemed off. Not the least bit commanding, but also weirdly shaky, like he'd just gotten a concussion backstage. It was the only show by a touring act I've ever walked out of.

Apparently I was more or less alone in my assessment, though. But you can judge for yourselves, since somebody took some video and put it on Youtube. The audio is bad, but I think it's good enough to get a sense for what I'm talking about. The show really starts around 1:50 here when he gets into "Duel of the Iron Mic".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KMe7cATKHM

Oh oh I know mine now - Boards of Canada's Campfire Headphase. It still for the most part sounds like Groove Armada or late 90s chill out stuff

daft punk - human after all

ILM

2005 - not a good year for third albums by crossover dance acts.

You Are the Quarry seconded, also from 2004 R.E.M.'s Around the Sun, such a lifeless record, I remember in interviews Stipe saying that the album would take people seven or eight listens to get into, after the third go I just thought "There is no way I'm listening to this seven times". Bonus annoyance: the CD packaging included a booklet that fell out every time you picked it up.

xpost Big Star: "Nice, pleasant little songs, I thought, sort of generic nice-guy power pop."

That's complete nonsense re: Radio City. I think you read some articles calling it a power pop album, maybe you heard September Gurls and that was it. Even on September Gurls the drummer pounds it. There's nothing "power pop" in the slightest about "Life is White" or "Daisy Glaze" or, really, most of the rest of the records. It's a crunching rock record with off-kilter bits all over.

Vic, that's precisely why it's my biggest musical disappointment bar none: because it's the one that most makes me feel like I've been equipped with a different set of ears than the rest of humanity. Your reaction to my post is exactly what I expect (Although you and I may have different notions of what constitutes "power pop": I don't at all see it as incompatible with "crunching rock").

Yeah, wtf? Radio City is a power pop album even if it's not as tightly wound as Cheap Trick or Shoes.

rafael toral gone "space" glove
post-90s, wanesome sonic youth
post-a promise xiu xiu
us maple's quiet terminus

such a good call on Rafael Toral!!

that record was so, so disappointing

post-a promise xiu xiu
otm

Radio City was one for me too - not that I disliked it but I had the same "was that it?" moment. Ditto for the first 3 Wire albums.

Prince live w/ 3rd Eye Blind or whatever the fuck the awful band he's playing with now is.

my humble opinions:

Radio City is Beatle-derived, but from "Sexy Sadie" & "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey."

It doesn't exactly remind me of The Raspberrys. It doesn't remind me of The Shoes either, who I admire. It doesn't remind me of The Buzzcocks or The Undertones, who are better than anybody regularly classified as "power pop" while being more pop, more power.

On the first album "When My Baby's Beside Me" --- that's some power pop though. And "September Gurls," sure fine, and some others too. But not the gist of the album. Not "Back of a Car," which is probably their greatest. Not most of Big Star's 3rd either.

"What's Goin Ahn" is a prototype of the metal ballad so far as I can hear. Is that a form of "power pop" too? If so, are Aerosmith & Guns&Roses power pop?

Big Star is the missing link between first gen Flamin Groovies and second gen Flamin Groovies, definitely more ghosts of the sixties in their music than many contemporaries (even though Cheap Trick are unabashed Beatles-worshippers, it only came out rarely in the songs they wrote). Big Star is sort of removed from their own generation of power pop and have more in common with the variety that emerged in the late 80s/throughout the 90s. All that said, #1 Record and Radio City are definitely power pop records. 3rd is its own thing.

Ditto for the first 3 Wire albums.

Yeah, Wire's best moments are all time for me, but I can't just sit down and listen to a Wire album

"I Want You To Want Me" struck more than one junior high schooler in 1979 as pretty Beatles ish right down to the screaming girls.

Oh, I can't agree there (xpost ,re Wire) but my theory re Big Star is that there has been too much like it since for them to be as much of a revelation as they would have been in the mid seventies

whoever said Ancient Melodies of the Future above is OTM.

also: the first Belle & Sebastian show in Athens, GA in 1998 was so bad that it basically killed my interest in 'em.

wouldn't know about hearing Big Star in the 70s because like almost everybody I didn't

I love Big Star, but I always felt that the mythmaking was due to the boring (and sad) logistics of shitty distribution. The few who heard the records at the time naturally raved about them, but they were pretty much unobtainable (I don't think Radio City even left the warehouse), so the myth snowballed. For myself, when I first heard them, I was immediately reminded of Badfinger and the Raspberries -- nothing about #1 Record seemed the least bit anachronistic to 1973 (though tbf, I wasn't really around at the time).

Wayne Coyne

even #1 Record has "Feel" and "Try Again" but it's comparatively trite

I just read the AV club thing on power pop and the author calls "Thank You Friends" 'transcendent'. Do people not get the sarcasm in that number?

god, yes. Used to love that guy, now I wish he'd be shot into the depths of space. xp

I love Big Star, but I always felt that the mythmaking was due to the boring (and sad) logistics of shitty distribution. The few who heard the records at the time naturally raved about them, but they were pretty much unobtainable (I don't think Radio City even left the warehouse), so the myth snowballed.

otm

it transcends its own sarcasm imo xxp

god, yes. Used to love that guy, now I wish he'd be shot into the depths of space. xp

― Johnny Fever, Friday, December 5, 2014 7:07 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh no he would probably make an album about it.

i was just re-listening to broken social scene and wow that band had a shitty singer who wrote shitty lyrics.

i'm talking about kevin drew here. they transcendent it sometimes by having good hooks but still a lot of unforgivable stuff on these records

"texico bitches" really?

I remember being disappointed by Scritti Politti's Anomie & Bonhomie when it was released, as a teenager who had recently become obsessed with their 80s material I have to say that 'the best rap-rock record'/'the best foo fighters record' was really not what I was looking for from the new Scritti album. I do like it a lot more now, though.

I know we all like to flatter ourselves at being ultra discerning expert consumers but it's ok to just be all "this is just not for me" instead of acting like our standards for music are in any way objective or more enlightened than "people who don't appreciate music as well as us".

Everything after the first 3 Jacula/Antonius Rex albums is a huge disappointment. I worshipped those first three and then bought a stack of the remaining albums and it was a terrible comedown.

Morrissey from Southpaw Grammar onwards.

Quite a lot of Frank Black albums were disappointing but there was usually something good going on but I haven't kept up with him in years.

That new age "music is the center" comp everyone raved about last year.. I was expecting more home studio synth stuff but i recall it being very "organic" sounding. Not in a bad way, though, I'm sure it's lovely music.

it is, but knowing a bit about your tastes I can see why it would disappoint (I like your tastes fwiw)

the first 3 and last 4 on Good Humor are great but its middle really really drags.

― brimstead, Monday, December 1, 2014 10:53 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thinking about what you said a few posts ago: how would the expression of this sentiment have been improved by your writing "but its middle is just not for me." ? Even if you were sincere, it would come off as somehow much more precious & irritating than the straightforward assessment you actually gave.

what the hell is your beef with people on this thread and their opinions

?

I.....like opinions? I have them....too? Others.....presumably have them? They.........are not all the same?

What exactly is going to happen on a thread about "musical disappointments," we're all going to agree about what is "disappointing"?

you have asserted that people who were disappointed by Radio City are somehow incorrect ("complete nonsense", like you have any authority there), and brimstead's opinion was not "precious and irritating", it was a specific reference to the gear used/overall sound on that comp.

stop criticizing other people's personal aesthetic experiences and tell another story about how some artist crushed your hopes, that's what's going on itt.

i.e you have confused this for a debate thread, it's a "tell a story thread"

the most recent GY~BE was a pretty big disappointment imo (altho I got a lotta mileage outta the drone tracks)

long repetitive post-rock crescendos sans interludes or spooky disembodied voices is, like... less than half of what I like about Lift Yr Skinny Fists

Look, my post to brimstead was friendly. brimstead's post noted that "we" act like we are objective but that it is ok to just say something is "not for me".

I pointed out, hardly in some kind of mean way, that brimstead had just recently posted something that was had "objective" sounding opinions in it. I then said maybe it wouldn't be better to change that post to some kind of "hey we're all just subjective" type post, because basically writing that way is incredibly boring.

Also nobody here does it, and if you are really serious about this "tell a story thread" thing you should probably whip out the citation book with some other people on the thread. This thread, if you haven't noticed, is full of opinions. Rather strongly stated opinions. And there have been some arguments. Arguments I wasn't involved with.

I also called for positive type disappointment-with-a-happy-ending stories a while back in this thread, none of which have materialized, so you can step off on the stuff about me bringing all the negativity.

one time I bought a Danielson Family CD (used), listened to half of it once & then immediately gave it away to somebody I met that night

xp dude it's one thing to say "hey I disagree, I think the first three Wire albums are great", and another thing to say "your direct personal experience is complete nonsense and here's why" or "the way you expressed your disappointment in that record was precious and irritating" (obviously paraphrasing there)

if you don't see the difference there, I don't know what to tell you.

Drive-By Truckers show in Sacramento earlier this year. We took my BiL for his birthday, he's a fan but hadnt seen them live.

We've seen them four or five times over the last 5 years or so, each show was like a huge party, just fun & jubilant & awesome every time.

This show was...not that. Setlist was uneven, weird mix of slow contemplative stuff right into a barn burner, never really establishing a mood either way. All of us sat for most of the show because it was just so average & boring. and they didnt even sound that good, which surprised me.

and i can't stand the new bass player. he stood smack bang in the middle of the stage grinning like a loon the whole time, annoyed the shit out of me. why am i forced into watching YOU? i dont even know who you are

I didnt go to any of their Fillmore shows in SF this month bc I'm still kind of mad about how boring they were :(

i love them so much but i feel like this really soured me. i'm not usually so fickle but they felt like a completely different band to me & i dont think i like what they are now

..like, life is too short to blindly follow a band that may or may not put on a good show anymore.

:(

I do see the difference.....between what I said and what you are saying I said. And this is so boring to explain at length and I apologize to everybody else:

brimstead did NOT express disappointment in a "precious and irritating" way; nor did I claim so!!! This is not that hard. brimstead HAD expressed disapproval, saying 'really really drags'. Had brimstead been putting the same judgment as 'this just isn't for me', THEN it would have been precious. But brimstead didn't. Christ, I was expressing hypothetical disapproval by way of supporting a more assertive manner of expressing opinions. Which as I've pointed out, everybody here does anyway already.

And why shouldn't I call some aesthetic opinion "nonsense"? Note this is a bit different than what you claimed I did, which was to say "your direct personal experience is complete nonsense." Which would be hysterically melodramatic bullshit to say. If I did. But I didn't. Neither did anybody else.

the first 3 and last 4 on Good Humor are great but its middle really really drags.

― brimstead, Monday, December 1, 2014 10:53 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thinking about what you said a few posts ago: how would the expression of this sentiment have been improved by your writing "but its middle is just not for me." ? Even if you were sincere, it would come off as somehow much more precious & irritating than the straightforward assessment you actually gave.

― Vic Perry, Friday, December 5, 2014 7:58 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post

It's the whole "listening to an artist once and offering a hot take" bullshit that walks a fine line. Like reading a lot about Big Star and then being not all that into what you hear at first...is fine... but people act like they've been put upon sometimes and it irritates me is all. I Know, I'm probably just projecting.

like being disappointed by a favorite artist's new album is not the same as being disappointed when you hear a critically acclaimed legendary myth-laden artist for the first time. But i do it all the time probably.

In any case, I apologize for my holier-than-holier-than thou tone, it's not really any better than the attitude i'm decrying

Sleeve in all fairness I didn't take Vic's "complete nonsense" phrase to be aimed at my disappointment per se, but at my characterization of that album's musical style (as power pop). I disagree with him, but have no problem with his objection.

As for the whole "precious/irritating" comment re brimstead's post, are you sure you're reading it correctly? I don't thing Vic is saying that b's post was precious etc, but that it would have been, had he added the type of qualifier he seemed to be advocating (to emphasize the subjective nature of one's pronouncements itt).

Lol entire treatises have been written while I composed that

brimstead -- you haven't been a bit holier-than-thou

I wonder if there is as much buildup now when it's easier to hear things quickly. I don't read about things for long any more before I go hear them, so there isn't as much chance to be strongly disappointed. But wow, when you had to plunk down nine bucks and get the shrinkwrap off....

As for favorite artists, I did develop a weird tendency to just expect to be disappointed after a few albums by everybody, to kind of a chilling extent. I'm not a very loyal fan. I nearly feel bad about this.

Multiple xp's iow

xps if y'all are cool with it then I have no right to complain on yr behalf, just thought Vic's tone was excessive (not that I am one to point fingers there, but w/e)

when you had to plunk down nine bucks and get the shrinkwrap off....

OTM

sorry for taking offense, carry on.

bring on further disappointments!

It was humorist(horse)'s use of the word "boring" that set me off, i guess. It's a word that drives me up the wall for some reason, maybe because it can rudely imply that people are seeing something that isn't there... which is a fine argument to make! and critics shouldn't be nice all the time. but just saying "boring" by itself is ehhh boring

All's cool.

I'm dealing with so much pent-up rage over Brown, Garner etc and dealing with thinly veiled racism in my neighborhood that to come in here and have someone rail at me for calling a band "power pop" is a positively delightful, heart-warming experience, and I feel nothing but good will to my pop-taxonomically offended interlocutor. I'm dead serious.

"Good will toward..." I meant

And Vic: sorry for assuming you're a "he". Feel free to correct

collardo OTM on all points and yes I am very upset about all that shit as well, sorry again for projecting

I remember being really really bummed out by the Legendary Pink Dots' Shadow Weaver, I was broke in the early 90's and had bought it new for , y'know, probably $16 or so. it's generally rated as one of the weakest albums (otm), and it followed The Maria Dimension which is a consensus high point in the discography. 22 years later and I can still recall the "I could have eaten for a few days on that" feeling, along with the "should I ever buy anything by this band again" feeling

fwiw I still have the fucking thing b/c I am a dumbass completist, plus it does have a few solid tracks which is all I need to keep a CD around

I'm a MANNNN, yes I am & I can't help but love you so....

Yeah very much enraged over cops getting away with murder again and again, and ridiculous excuses for. Which tend suspiciously to get super-micro, as if there weren't some sort of larger patterns or anything.

somebody who is totally into Shadow Weaver should get in here and argue with me, where's jjjusten when you need him

now that I think about it I could probably have eaten for close to a week on $16 in 1992! bread, eggs, beans, rice, greens. CDs really were a scam, weren't they?

Mass disappointment: I think there's a disturbance in the force, or the farce, at the temporal moment when Peter Frampton's "I'm in You" appearance. I don't know how people now feel about the pop juggernaut/endurance test that was Frampton Comes Alive, but that next album & single with its snicker-producing title....I mean, wow. I can remember hearing it: the new Frampton single! (I had been a fan, I was like 13 or 14) and then it goes on: "I'm in YOUUU....You're in MEEEEEE"

What an odd phenomenon that was. "Comes Alive" has to be the album with the least subsequent influence in proportion to its popularity, like, ever.

Btw I always thought of Leo Sayer as the reductio ab absurdum of Frampton, and Richard Simmons as the reductio ad absurdum of Sayer.

I think you are right with the FCA popularity-to-influence level. Although the career winner has to be John Denver. He was inescapable. Now quite escapable.

Richard Simmons always reminded me of Leo Sayer. Sayer though had this oddball appearing in mime makeup thing going on for a while that isn't very Frampton like.

The (fake) rock critic writing the liner notes to Aja mentions at the start he has just completed a "lukewarm review" of a Leo Sayer live concert. Those notes are hysterical, for years I thought they were real.

The albums made possible by In a Silent Way are much better than IASW itself.

which albums do you have in mind?

The Necks discography, for one.

the necks was a big disappointment indeed. everything i heard from them was so bloody repetitive. a positive surprise in this kind of instrumental, calm & slow music was bohren und der club of gore. really sublime night music with a dark undertone.

sorry i think i got it wrong, you didn't cite the necks as disappointment. still i didn't get them.

I have a Necks' album and to compare in any way to 'In a Silent Way' would be laughable.

I have a lot of disappointments about genres not being what I expected or not having enough of the elements I liked best or bands going in a direction I wasn't as fond of, but generally in both cases I don't think I can blame them for not creating the sort of music I want to hear.

xp: About 8,540 results for "the necks" "in a silent way"

It isn't a novel comparison. One could also look at Hassell or late Talk Talk for other interesting directions taken from IASW. It's certainly a great album, but like many great albums, I find its influence to be much greater than the actual sound, in hindsight.

I love the Necks (and have been lucky enough to see them live) and love IASW and am glad I don't have to choose, but if I did have to choose only one to ever hear again, I'd pick that 39 minutes of magic over the Necks entire discog.

I feel sorry for anyone who finds disappointment in the wondrous beauty of The Necks.

never heard of Hassell and have avoided Necks because of the name, but may investigate.....
yeah, bohren & der club of gore are excellent ....
Sanpaku, did you hear IASW after having already heard Necks, Hassell, Talk Talk, etc?

Jon Hassell, in case of confusion.

I don't think I can blame them for not creating the sort of music I want to hear.

Which reminds me, when I finally got a copy of "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts", having heard bits and pieces of it over the years, I found it to be pretty disappointing.(xp)

Yeah, me too but again I think its because its influence has permeated a lot of things, it seems less, um, original now.

@MostlyClean

I'm only slowly getting to classic jazz (besides the Davis/Mingus/Coltrane canonical picks). I'd heard modal Miles and electric Miles, but despite having the album and seeing it namechecked for years, hadn't gotten around to hearing In a Silent Way until only a few months ago. I've had everything by Hassell for decades due to the Eno association, late Talk Talk due to Ned (I think), and The Necks (especially Hanging Gardens, Drive By, Quay, and Raab) are my most exciting musical discoveries of 2014.

So while I hear IASW, or some hypothetical album very much like IASW, as a neccessary antecedent for many musics I love, the experience of listening to it was a bit underwhelming, possibly because it was Teo Macero's first complete reedit of Miles sessions. Good selections, but disjointed. Macero perhaps hadn't quite perfected his editing technique with the thematic progression of his electric Miles constructions.

Yeah, me too but again I think its because its influence has permeated a lot of things, it seems less, um, original now.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

Never watched it, but yeah.

I see Big Star get a mention there, much what I said upthread.

"Eiffel 65 sounds a lot less fresh today after thousands of rappers ran the Autotune gimmick into the ground."

A ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa..

Oh dear.

the new Run The Jewels. College kid music, total turnoff.

Shudder To Think - 50,000 BC

Where do you go after making an incredible math-glam masterpiece?

You make a record that even members of The Rheostatics or The Caulfields would probably dismiss as boring college rock.

I bought a cd of "A minute to pray a second to die" by the Flesh Eaters on the basis of their unassailable singles ("Sleeping Sickness" & "Pony Dress") and decided on first hearing that I had unfortunately bought a goth record. I returned it to Tower and got the Rhino collection of Link Wray, which of course.

But I bet that Flesh Eaters album is pretty good right? If I weren't so in need of getting real musical value out of my $17 or whatever it was, it would have grown on me like some kind of graveyard mold, yes?

MaresNest are you as entrenched in 90s acts as I am, at least when it comes to pop/rock?

Vic, have a listen again and decide!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9hbLzz2OXk

I've never gotten deeply into this album, even though it should be right up my alley. Feel like it's got all the right attitude, but not enough hooks.

Thanks! I will.

Pony Express Record has waned in my esteem over the years while 50,000 BC has grown (shrugs).

But like, how do they compare in the end? Are you saying 50,000 has surpassed Pony for you?

Evan, if I knew more about your posting habits beyond our shared love of the Lilys I could comment, but I do like a good LOL 90's rabbit hole, Arcwelder being my most recent.

xpost Maybe? It feels like a stronger synthesis of their ethos, somehow.

Mare- That's all I was really going by myself, that and having opinions about Shudder to Think. I've been revisiting a lot of Poole myself.

Wait I want to revise that to better match the Arcwelder sound/vibe. I've been revisiting a lot of Ultra Cindy myself. There.

XP - 50,000 BC ain't all bad, Call Of The Playground is ace and Red House dates back to before PER, but Pony was singular and rarefied and I had high expectations.

I know nothing about Ultra Cindy, will investigate!

They're great! Not much discography at all but their one LP is very nice.

I love the Flesh Eaters but I am pretty goth so ymmv