Artists that are totally your thing, "on paper," which you nevertheless don't like at all

for me, Nick Drake, acoustic saddo slightly jazzy outsidery stuff yet I can't listen to it

Floating Points
Jesu

Sonic Youth sort of fits this bill for me, but "don't like at all" is way too strong.

Zappa

Captain Beefheart. I really like the idea of "fast 'n' bulbous"

sonic youth and pavement

Albert Ayler.

Mariah Carey

It actually frustrates me how little I can get into Dream Theater when I like every band that is ever cited as an influence on them.

hate to say it but Field Music is totally this

I love Mariah Carey

also I really love Sonic Youth

Agree on a lot of these - Floating Points, Ayler, Sonic Youth, Pavement, and Field Music too. All are basically artists I like, they just seem like stuff I would like a lot more than I actually do.

There are avant jazz guys I could say this about moreso than Ayler though -- Matthew Shipp and David S. Ware come to mind.

DJ Spooky, lol

It actually frustrates me how little I can get into Dream Theater when I like every band that is ever cited as an influence on them.

― No language just sound (Sund4r)

i don't want to be mean-spirited but do you think it's important for you to be into dream theater? i mean, maybe they're just really not as good as queensryche or rush or watchtower?

i feel like i should like gy!be or sigur ros more than i do. also spring heel jack's live record with a bunch of free jazz luminaries... it's very respectable in theory but i don't enjoy listening to it.

maybe the king of this for me is charles mingus though... i like some of his stuff (like cumbia and jazz fusion) but i listen to, like, mingus ah um, and i'm just like i don't know i'd rather listen to monk?

Return to Forever seems like a band I should enjoy given my love of 70s Miles, Yes, Weather Report, Mahavishnu AND pre-fusion Chick Corea, but their records just don't do it for me.

feel like there's already a thread on this somewhere.

Right now, Lana Del Rey and 1975. Just an overwhelming pile of meh.

This thread is somewhat similar: Bands you keep trying to like but can't get into

i hate to say this, but most contemporary jazz.

Jeff Mills & the vast majority of Autechre

this is made more ironic since the one review of my own music, on a split 12” released by “Mad Monkey Records” 20 years ago, compared my tracks to Jeff Mills meets Autechre

i don't want to be mean-spirited but do you think it's important for you to be into dream theater? i mean, maybe they're just really not as good as queensryche or rush or watchtower?

Idk important but a lot of people do seem to be getting something out of them. I'm not losing sleep over it but it does feel a little frustrating when some kid starts going on about them. I'm mostly just answering the question with an actual "at all" example.

I forget whether I posted this in the other thread but Stevie Nicks.

for me dream theater are the only band i have ever stopped liking, like i went through a phase where i liked them when i was younger but concluded their appeal was totally superficial and there was nothing of actual interest in their music... maybe there's something those kids are getting that i never got out of them, though!

I hate to say it, but Hüsker Dü. Ages ago, I bought New Day Rising, and it didn't click with me, so I bought Candy Apple Grey, and then Warehouse..

thing of it is, I like Sugar just fine.

xpost No, yr take is 100% correct. Dream Theater are the antichrist, boil them in stew.

Hüsker Dü meant so much to me at the time - especially Metal Circus, Eight Miles High, Zen Arcade, New Day Rising - but I don't feel as strongly about them today

This is where The Pretty Things "S.F. Sorrow" sits for me. I get the concept and all that, but I don't even think the idea was that great and the songs don't even register for me either.

Who cares about the concept? Two already mentioned for me, Albert Ayler and Autechre. And that's just the A's.

Angel Olsen

I don't care about the concept either. Just I put it on, the songs play, and I'm just like......

Ayler, I was warned it was inaccessible. So I tried it, thought it OK and not as unlistenable as all that.

Nick Cave. Just doesn't click

fka twigs

Flying Lotus too. I like jazz. I like IDM/avant-electronica. Just don't get it.

oh yeah, fka twigs is one of mine too

ditto that one. It's not even 'overrated' it's just ....

just can't stand her singing style

It's not even that, it's just that it's ... there

thread for 3776's post-idol art-pop/rock opus Saijiki [Started by ufo in December 2019, last updated one hour ago by the oxford book of chaos (Drugs A. Money) on I Love Music] 1 new answer

^^^this is a huge recent example of this for me

see also Palm and that last Julia Holter album - basically, show-offy information overloads in the service of weak or gimmicky songwriting seem to drive me to hatred

Funkadelic. I really like funk music, but there's something about the looseness of their arrangements and sound that's unappealing to me.

maybe I have a very narrow definition of 'funk' but sometimes I'm underwhelmed with how unfunky some Funkadelic stuff can be

Er, that's deliberate, they're not trying to be funky all the time.

... there's two parts to the name, after all.

Radiohead, bcs Thom's voice.

His voice is unbearable, true.

Speaking of unbearable voices: Joanna Newsom. Everything about her music is right up my alley except for this one key ingredient.

yeah I remember reading a lot about her and thinking I could probably handle it because I like a lot of artists with unusual voices but man, she is just something else

Btw, based on what I know of your tastes, I wouldn't have pegged Sonic Youth or Pavement as bands that are totally your thing even on paper, treesh.

Tom Waits

Hot Chip.

I like pretty much all the major new wave and post punk acts but just don't have any strong love for the Fall, the Cure or Joy Division. Also can't really tell one New Order song apart from the other tbh

Florence and the Machine. I normally like quirky "girl's name and the thing"-type music but I find her boring. I'm sure there were a whole tranche of bands that emerged around that time that I sort of liked the sound of but never got that excited by.

Jon Hopkins

Also: Smog/Bill Callahan

I love Jon Hopkins' understated work on King Creosote's album but his solo stuff sounds like dance music for people who don't listen to dance music. Lots of harsh buzzy synth sounds and post-rocky build-ups that don't really go anywhere. I haven't heard a song by him that doesn't make me wish I was listening to 'The Sky Was Pink'

Feel like there's some overlap between this thread and this one:

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

For me it's Henry Cow. I love the avant end of prog exemplified by King Crimson and Van der Graaf Generator, have tried to get into the Cow many times but they just come across as stilted and bloodless.

xp--that's exactly it, "dance music for people who don't listen to dance music" is my jam, but dude's stuff always leaves me cold

parliament/ funkadelic is an interesting one. i think it would have my personal specifications for this thread 20 years ago (but again, "don't like at all" way too strong); all the right elements were there but it didn't really gel for me until the last 5 years or so.

so maybe there's hope for me and Sonic Youth yet

Smashing Pumpkins. Never could get into them, concluded that Mellon Collie was a massive dud after buying it, etc. Years later my sons were playing SP songs on guitar, and I could suddenly hear what great songs they were. Conclusion: It's Corgan's voice. I hate that whiny, sneery quality, and it just ruins everything. And usually I like unconventional vocals (MES, Devoto, Lydon, etc)

it really is the pits. i stanned hard for Gish, Siamese Dream, and esp Pisces IScariot (kinda always hate Mellon Collie tbh) but i simply can not listen to that dude any more.

I think his voice is a lot more pleasant prior to that album but, yeah, still the same guy.xp

Hold Steady

this could just be from cobbled-together impressions but i believe flood produced corgan's vocals on mellon collie so that they'd sound deliberately rawer and more confrontational and even speaking as a fan: yeah woof sometimes it's the pits

xp

it's noticeable on adore when he starts singing like a normal person again. then back to the sneer for machina

i hate to say this, but most contemporary jazz.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Tuesday, December 17, 2019 11:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Me too. When I read about a "jazz" artist that is supposedly doing something new, I think, cool, I'll check it out...and there's the drummer doing the same fucking ride cymbal pattern that Kenny Clarke originated in the 1940s. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT ANYMORE (but I guess you do if you're approaching your work as "jazz").

For similar reasons, I love "power-pop" -- the early Who, Kinks, Small Faces, Cheap Trick, Green, Raspberries -- but have no interest whatsoever in any post-'90s (or really, post-'80s) bands doing that.

it really is the pits. i stanned hard for Gish, Siamese Dream, and esp Pisces IScariot (kinda always hate Mellon Collie tbh) but i simply can not listen to that dude any more.

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will)

^ So much this.
Especially since the first single to really feature the whiny/sneery voice (Bullet with Butterfly Wings) really rubbed in your face by soloing his vocals for the first few lines.

My answer to this question:
Grizzly Bear / Beach House

xp -- there's a really, really wide variety of "contemporary jazz" out there, just sayin. I mean for sure there is a pretty wide proliferation of guys who endlessly just tweak and update hard-bop and post-bop because that's what they learned in jazz school (and I like some of them anyway), but there's other shit too.

There already is a thread on this.

I know, and I have heard a handful of things that I dug, but so much of it sounds like they're playing "jazz." Which is unfair, but that's how I'm hearing it.

(And to be sure, it's not them, it's me.)

xp

What's with that constant cymbal tapping in jazz drumming?

Donovan

Sun Ra

Def feel this way about most sun ra. There are a few good chunes.

Reverend Horton Heat. I like plenty of neo-rockabilly stuff, and he's a good guitar player, but all the songs are so uniformly balls-to the wall, like all the worst traits of Brian Setzer amplified. And his voice is thin and unappealing.

5-0 Ford rules though

Great thread... Astral Weeks

I dig Rev Horton Heat for the reasons you state, but in small doses, i.e. the best of comp.

Over the years I've learned to love Captain Beefheart, Pere Ubu, The Fall and other challenging artists through repeated exposure or otherwise becoming more familiar with their descendents. Others, like The Cure and Elvis Costello, will just never click for me despite consistent efforts. In cases like that, it's often the voice that fails to work for me. I'm still not sure how I adjusted to David Thomas!

I recently put together a big Sonic Youth comp and was worn down by the end of it. The poppy bits are great but their raison d'etre - squeally, droney guitars - I like in doses but clearly not as much as they do.

guided by voices has always been the big one for me. i was into all the matador bands as a teen, love DIY/home-recorded aesthetic, love a good short pop song, but could never get into gbv beyond a few of their tunes

Yeah, I too was never able to get into GBV for some reason. Hearing that Pollard was a Who-obsessive who recorded on 4-track, I thought, yep, sign me up. I listened to a couple of albums many times before admitting defeat; a small handful of ok things, and the rest just made no impression. Friends would make GBV mix tapes for me saying, "oh, no, you have to hear THESE instead!" Same result.

that Carly Rae girl

Oh man, GBV for me too

I saw Sonic Youth supporting the J&MC, I watched and thought "I don't get it! I just don't.." I sort of thought there was some "required reading" involved.

I sort of like them now, but am fairly sure I have more ciccone youth records (1) than Sonic Youth (pretty much the "Providence" promo single)

I have a GBV best-of on creation. I recall nothing about it.

Friends would make GBV mix tapes for me saying, "oh, no, you have to hear THESE instead!"

GBV good call for me, as well.

GBV were super entertaining the one time I saw them live, but I have never heard any recorded stuff that made me want to return to it or seek more out.

I sort of like them now, but am fairly sure I have more ciccone youth records (1) than Sonic Youth (pretty much the "Providence" promo single)

Charli XCX

Guided By Voices is a horrible band name

Oh it's not the album, it's the "Burning up" 7" I bought on my 1st stateside trip xpost*2

xp What? No it's not

Yes, it's a good name, if nothing else!

for a Christian acapella group...it'd still be a lame name lol

What do you consider a good indie rock band name, lol? It's a great name

I almost always hate music that's totally my thing on paper. William Nowik - Pan Sympony in E Minor was one.
When I was growing up it was pretty much all the goofy, whimsical nonsense that got compared to Syd Barrett.
Besides Jennifer Gentle, who i love.

Now I only check out whatever sounds on paper like i'd hate it.

The Kitchens of Distinction for good indie band name.

these are bad gbv fans, it’s not really complicated, they should’ve just given you bee thousand

Haha whoops I mean the other was Alien Lanes.

GBV truly benefits from cherry-picking the absolute best bits and jettisoning the rest of the experiments and failed ideas.

..no

just forget about gbv

ilm re-does this thread like once a month i swear lol

Guided By Voices is a horrible band name

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, December 18, 2019 2:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

..no

i love prime era GBV and i usually tell folks to just check the Bee Thousand-Alien Lanes-Under the Bushes run

but that's not going to help anyone who's given them a fair shake and still can't get there

I guess the early cleaners from venus albums are sorta like gbv with all the “crap” removed etc

i will rep for gbv's 'do the collapse' and 'isolation drills' -- in which They Are Produced -- but ehh i am not a missionary

I always kinda liked that song “Glad Girls”

there's a PROVIDENCE promo single??

Guided by Voices is an awesome band name

Is Providence the stoned answering machine message thing? Can't say that isn't admirably perverse.

Hey, that's Mike Watt you're talking about!

Most "shoegaze" bands end up being a disappointment for me because they are not loud enough or hard enough. I believe the initial idea was to be fucking LOUD.

OTM on shoegaze. Pretty much every "classic" shoegaze band aside from MBV just elicits a shrug from me. MBV's heavy/pretty ratio is what makes them so good.

Flying Lotus too. I like jazz. I like IDM/avant-electronica. Just don't get it.

Same here, good call. Another for me is Dead Can Dance - I'm convinced they'll click for me one day but there always seems to be some vital component missing from their stuff.

GAS. I love ambient and minimal techno, but I have absolutely no idea what makes Voigt such a notable producer.

Coil. Scatology is alright but everything else is supremely underwhelming.

Swans, as well.

GAS. I love ambient and minimal techno, but I have absolutely no idea what makes Voigt such a notable producer.

I like, say, Las Vegas but nowhere near as much as I should. There does appear to be a pattern.

Flying Lotus def otm here, just never felt that dude for some reason

Coil. Scatology is alright but everything else is supremely underwhelming.

― pomenitul, Thursday, December 19, 2019 7:10 AM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

:|

Las Vegas is more Jörg Burger than Voigt, I think. Or at least it sounds closer to his solo material from that era.

These two are my favourite Voigt tunes from the 90s... "R.E.S.P.E.C.T." in particular is one of my favourite dance tracks of all time.

https://youtu.be/l2G9PxAKQz0

https://youtu.be/y8yIIvVwlKY

(xpost)

Same here, good call. Another for me is Dead Can Dance - I'm convinced they'll click for me one day but there always seems to be some vital component missing from their stuff.

― Gavin, Leeds

oh yeah cosign on this, also cocteau twins, this mortal coil

w/r/t flylo the stuff i heard of his just makes my ears hurt with how brickwalled it was, not enough space in his music for me to listen without being exhausted

Huh it just remembered to me that I was at a GBV show in 99 or 00 and wearing these baby blue shoes and they played “Glad Girls” (not yet released) and the crowd went wild and so later in the set they played it again (obv very proud of that song!) but can somebody confirm to my soft brain who might’ve also been seeing that band around that time that the song was originally “Black Girls” which is 100% more o___O but is also a far less arbitrary choice of adjective

A lot of choices in this thread are people contesting the very id of an artist like “Joanna Newsom’s music is her voice so how could she work better on paper”? Like ok you don’t like a caterwauling horny thesaurus, that’s fine, but how did that somehow look more appealing on paper?

A lot of bands look great on paper but just suck at writing/production. Julia Holter (she keeps autocorrected to Julia Hitler on my phone lol) hits the mark whenever she doesn’t use drums, I don’t like her rhythmic approach. Coil’s songs are super boring. Husker Du has one good album and it’s the super hardcore live one, Land Speed Record; the rest of their catalogue can fuck off until Sugar when they get good again. Dinosaur Jr. is as appealing to me as a dad with a White Russian quoting The Big Lebowski. I love modern jazz when it’s super square like Django Bates but don’t like it when it’s Spring Heel Jack or No Neck or whatever. Dream Theater are good for one reason and it’s Portnoy’s endless “look what I can do”-isms.

Henry Cow are terrible but Art Bears are great. You know what band is amazing both on paper and in the ears? Procol Harum

Disrupt should be my thing but i always get bored ten minutes in

ilm re-does this thread like once a month i swear lol

― brimstead, Wednesday, December 18, 2019 6:44 PM (yesterday)

so otm

Irl lol

Like ok you don’t like a caterwauling horny thesaurus, that’s fine, but how did that somehow look more appealing on paper?

My favorite type of thesaurus

This is Radiohead for me

What do you consider a good indie rock band name, lol? It's a great name

idk throw some out there. GBV is unbelievably lame, can't belive multiple ppl are defending it but ppl have horrible tastes ie different from mine

I think Radiohead's the opposite of my thing on paper -- band that's influenced by a lot of less-accessible music and synthesizes those influences for a broader audience, but I enjoy the albums if the mood strikes. I like the influences!

There are a handful of more chill electronic artists (Tycho's the first that comes to mind) where I'm just kind of left cold. I listen and I'm just like, this is fine but I'm not going to search it out. There was some poppier act some friends were into... Flume? idk, just didn't click

Pablo Honey is a 10/10 album imo, great band when they’re feeling unambitious, True Love Waits fucks me up every time, Pop Is Dead is great too

just for fun I'm now keeping count and 7 of my 10 favorite artists of all time have now been mentioned itt

and #8 is just around the corner, I can feel it

I'm trying not to keep track of that.

Every time I see Guided by Voiced album and song titles, I’m all “Cool, yeah, cryptic! Prolific! An American Fall! Gotta try em again.” Hasn’t worked out tho.

1975 definitely. I don't hear whatever it is everyone else is hearing.

i don't understand what's wrong with the name 'guided by voices'. that's a great name. regardless of what you think of their music.

prove it

it sounds good?

they are three good words that work together?

better than Granny Dainger anyway

1. sounds good
2. makes a distinctive acronym
3. not too long

algorithms be like "hey crüt have you heard Max Richter?" gtfo with that boring shit

they work together great if you're naming a xian acapella group performing at your local outlet mall
lol @ u taking this personal

XP

Oh man, the Blue Notebooks has been licensed to within an inch of its life by now, but when that first came out, that was the juice.
That said, maybe the spell only worked on people with a pretty limited knowledge of contemporary classical. i've heard a lot of complaints about how it sounds like a watered down version of <insert name of more seminal minimalist composer>.

https://www.discogs.com/GVSB-vs-GBV-8Rounds/release/2420862

A Christian a cappella group wouldn't call themselves that.

they'd be more likely to call themselves 'his name is alive' which is a bad name (for a band I really like)

Agreed!

A Christian a cappella group wouldn't call themselves that.

Possibly if they were serial killers who claimed Satan made them do it.

A Christian a capella singer named her blog that

https://www.vqronline.org/memoir-articles/2016/01/guided-voices

His

That's an essay, and the title was likely chosen (by the journal's editors?) as a catchy play on the band name.

Having been a member of Christian singing groups, i can tell you it is not even remotely outside the realm of possibility that a Christian singing group would name themselves that.

Half of them have Voices in the name already ffs

To me, and I expect to Robert Pollard, the phrase guided by voices suggests madness and schizophrenia - granted though that hearing voices, having visions and speaking in tongues is some people's religious experience!

The Apostle Paul comes to mind

Guided by Hoarse Voices.

Glad I like pretty much all the bands I've tried on this thread. Should try Newsom someday because I love annoying voices.

Couldn't get into Bardo Pond, Espers, Windy & Carl, The End, Spiritualized and Love Spirals Downwards as much as I would have liked. I think Espers might click now. I love coming back to something after years then it clicks, always a good feeling.

Had a rough patch recently trying to get into Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Lady Land. And with bands I already like: Deathspell Oemga's Synarchy Of Molten Bones and the newest albums by Breeders and Opeth. Loved parts of them all but never fully clicked. Surprising for the Breeders because it sounds simple enough.

on paper just doesn't work. hardly ever has. the only artist which i liked on paper and in real was nick drake, i guess. when i read about him around 1980 i knew his music was for me. but most music i loved i have discovered on my own. like joni mitchell in the summer of 1985 in a house on a hill close to a small lake. without any paper involved. because on paper almost every artist sounds good. by the way i don't consider ilm as paper. ilm made me discover talk talk and i am very grateful for that. thanx everyone.

Serge Gainsbourg. Don't get me wrong though, I do like the occasional track but... I was just rifling through my CDs looking to put something on for some background music and came across "Histoire de Melody Nelson" - an album I've had for years but have never played much - stuck it on and then found myself listening to about half of it before taking it off and literally muttering, under my breath, "Why am I listening to this crap?" And this is his 'masterpiece', I believe? I can only imagine I must have fooled myself at one point, in the dim and distant past, that I liked this, how to describe it, late 60s/ early 70s loungey library music kind of vibe? But I don't. Although I do like when Morricone does it.

melody nelson is not his masterpiece. it is more pastiche than anything else. his real chef d'oeuvre is l'homme à tête de chou. and especially the explicit lyrics which might be quite difficult to translate.

Gainsbourg doesn't even work for me on paper, but I'd read enough rapturous praise that I eventually snagged a copy of Melody Nelson. I sold it back a year or so ago - like Tom D it just never really grabbed me. His louche perv persona didn't really appeal to me either (quite the opposite).

for me, Nick Drake, acoustic saddo slightly jazzy outsidery stuff yet I can't listen to it

― I have not yet begun to fart (rip van wanko), Wednesday, 18 December 2019 01:26 (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

begs the question, which other acoustic saddo slightly jazzy outsidery stuff do you like?

Serge Gainsbourg. Don't get me wrong though, I do like the occasional track but... I was just rifling through my CDs looking to put something on for some background music and came across "Histoire de Melody Nelson" - an album I've had for years but have never played much - stuck it on and then found myself listening to about half of it before taking it off and literally muttering, under my breath, "Why am I listening to this crap?" And this is his 'masterpiece', I believe? I can only imagine I must have fooled myself at one point, in the dim and distant past, that I liked this, how to describe it, late 60s/ early 70s loungey library music kind of vibe? But I don't. Although I do like when Morricone does it.

If you don't know it check out Jean-Claude Vannier's "L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches" album from 1972, he was Gainsbourg's arranger and made this cult-y prog/funk/god-knows-what record that sounds like "Histoire de Melody Nelson" gone mad.

Yes, I've heard it, don't remember much about it.

Artist I like on paper - a-ha

Very droll.

Pretty much the entire Projekt label catalog. I happen to lurve 80s 4AD, but removing the jazz improv from Cocteaus, the ethnic explorations from DCD, or the tuneful originals from This Mortal Coil left a very limp product. IIRC, I wound up liking quite a few things that Project distributed (from Steve Roach to Euro goth bands).

Coil. Scatology is alright but everything else is supremely underwhelming.

― pomenitul

fyi this is objectively wrong, try again

I love the concept of Coil (which I mostly got from England's Hidden Reverse) and I like them well enough but I can't help but feel I'm still waiting for the revelation. I'm reasonably convinced it's a drug thing and meh to that at this stage.

Melody Nelson I like just fine, just that laffing track irritates .

I wonder if Jane beat up her brother because of it.

begs the question, which other acoustic saddo slightly jazzy outsidery stuff do you like?

Tim Buckley? John Martyn? John Renbourn? Bert Jansch? Davey Graham? All of whom I love while also not being able to stomach Drake.

Serge is definitely a good one for me in this regard. I like David Axelrod though

Very weirdly (maybe?) the only Tim Buckley album I keep returning to is Greetings From L.A.

Bardo Pond, Espers, Windy & Carl, The End, Spiritualized and Love Spirals Downwards

I wasn't into any of these at first. Bardo Pond especially I was "guh?" about for years, I think I pretended to like a Hash Jar Tempo album for a week or so. Spiritualized especially annoyed me, I think I read an article where J Spaceman was talking about how innovative he was for orchestrating for eight violas (and no other strings) and eight horns (and no other brass) and my eyes rolled and my ears closed. I came back to Spiritualized years later and I really like them, especially the first two albums. I like Bardo Pond now, came round to Windy & Carl in a big way.

The Goslings were a band I was so excited to listen to having heard about them for years and I really don't like it at all. I think I wanted them to sound like Harvey Milk but they sound like sub-par Beach House songs run through a Rat pedal.

I'm really into the idea that certain bands/artists/composers will get through to you at different points in your life. I have always been lukewarm/negative about Beethoven, and my dad has always said "wait til you're older" and I can feel it happening. I thought Stockhausen was annoying when I was in my late teens/early 20s and now I listen to him all the time; my theory is that his music is actually designed to be respite for professional musicians, aural stimulus that doesn't make you think about your job. I used to be obsessed with John Fahey and Shostakovich but am pretty cool on both of them these days.

I like Robbie Basho on paper but don't really like listening to him.

It's gonna be a really interesting day when I wake up suddenly loving The Lemonheads

I'm gonna make a concerted effort between now and the new year to get into Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who's always seemed interesting in theory but who's never really clicked for me. I bought one of those cheapo sets that has Here Comes the Whistleman, The Inflated Tear, Left & Right, Volunteered Slavery and Natural Black Inventions - Root Strata. We'll see how it works out.

Volunteered Slavery is the best one. But live footage is where he really shone.

I think what makes him “difficult” is that essentially he was a contrarian w competing impulses to be both a classicist and an iconoclast - so if you approached him anticipating something avantgarde he would bust out a note-perfect Rodgers and Hammerstein number, but if you approached him from the opposite end he was liable to just smash a chair and play a noseflute solo.

I love Kirk on the Mingus, Jaki Byard, and Roy Haynes records he's on, as well as Rip, Rig & Panic, the latter being an all-time favorite. But nothing else I've heard of his measures up.

Also great when he shows up on Les McCann’s Live at Montreaux

I should have specified that The End I'm talking about is the metal band (I think there's several bands with that name).

The only Coil album I have is Horse Rotovator but I was impressed by just how much further depth repeated listens revealed to me. Wonderful album.

It does seem like a lot of Projekt artists and their ilk have a narrower pool of ingredients than the main bands they've modeled themselves on but Dead Can Dance and 80s Cocteau Twins is such a high bar that I don't think it's a real issue that most of those bands cant meet it. Lycia, Trance To The Sun and Rise And Fall Of A Decade are better than most 4AD bands.
Also, I like that they have something closer to metal in their dna (even if there's no heaviness) and they're a bit more shameless about how they might appear to goth-phobics.

John Martyn. As I've said on the earlier thread like this one. He ticks lots of boxes for me on paper, but I don't get it

Never got into him either.

Prepare Thyself to Deal With a Miracle is my favourite Rahsaan. Dude could blow.

Of the live stuff, this is something (the solo at the end give me actual palpitations):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFOnCk0p4-8

Gary Numan - a bit Bowie and a bit Kraftwerk should have been right up my alley, especially when I was in my 20s.

The Goslings were a band I was so excited to listen to having heard about them for years and I really don't like it at all. I think I wanted them to sound like Harvey Milk but they sound like sub-par Beach House songs run through a Rat pedal.

― kelis navidad (flamboyant goon tie included)

i somehow missed hearing this band when they were hyped... there are songs? "grandeur of hair" is just an awful slab of unpleasantly oversaturated tape, and i _like_ les rallizes denudes and high rise

i'm a late convert to "solid air" but i like it ok!

If you don't know it check out Jean-Claude Vannier's "L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches" album from 1972, he was Gainsbourg's arranger and made this cult-y prog/funk/god-knows-what record that sounds like "Histoire de Melody Nelson" gone mad.

IMHO, for a record that recycles so many of the same elements it's a remarkably different thing from Melody Nelson. L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches is cluttered, colorful and eclectic, almost like a DJ mix in comparison to the much more streamlined and focused Melody Nelson album. I guess there are thematic similarities (madness, etc) but one is manic and the other is subdued, etc. It has a much higher prog-funk ratio, etc etc.
Agreed that it might be a good re-entry point for someone who didn't like Melody Nelson.

Zappa

i somehow missed hearing this band when they were hyped... there are songs? "grandeur of hair" is just an awful slab of unpleasantly oversaturated tape, and i _like_ les rallizes denudes and high rise

― revenge of the jawn (rushomancy)

seriously how does this record not sound as good as dead's "musical abortions", jesus this shit is the fucking carl ruggles of noise rock

as for roland kirk, i don't know if this is what is meant by "his work with mingus" but his solo on "c jam blues" at carnegie hall... if kirk was a gunslinger that night would have been one of the greatest tragedies in the history of jazz.

I was thinking of Kirk on Mingus's Oh Yeah. I haven't actually heard the Mingus Carnegie Hall set, something I must remedy post-haste.

fyi this is objectively wrong, try again

I did try again many a time. My loss, I suppose.

Prepare Thyself is the Kirk that clicked for me. Until I got the LP notes last year, I didn't realize second side is a continuously held circular breathing blow. I loved it without knowing the gimmick - that's the thing with him, he transcends the flex, even if that's part of what makes him fun.