Can You Force Yourself To Like A Record Through Blunt-Force Repetition?

I was kind of joking about this on the 77 Tracks of 2013 poll thread, but the idea won't leave me alone.

Is it really possible, if you force yourself to listen to an album enough times, that you won't just "find something to appreciate about it" but actually genuinely come to love the music through sheer familiarity alone?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately (both inspired by that "how many listens" thread, and also the experience of having to listen to the latest albums by The Knife and Dawn Richard over and over to unlock their secrets) - it's something I had a lot more patience for in the pre-internet years, when music was harder to get hold of, so I would make more of an effort with rare things which had entailed difficulties to get hold of. But I'm also wondering how much of that was either naïveté and not knowing what "my tastes" were yet, or being more in thrall to The Canon, and thinking that there were records that I *had* to like?

But I am determined to do this now. I'm going to pick a record which is both outside my normal taste zone, and something I have already decided that I don't like on a cursory listen, and listen to it 22 times in a row (that works out about 3 times a day for the next week) and see if I can actually *force* myself to like it. Or if, by the end of the experiment, I really *really* hate it.

I am inviting any other brave and intrepid listeners to try this experiment, too. Pick an album you know you don't like, in a genre you're not into, listen to it 22 times in the next week, and report back what your feelings on the record are. (Definitely at the end of the experiment, but feel free to comment *during* the experiment as well.) Who's in?

The only question now is, what record should I pick? On the other thread, I said I'd do it with an Interpol record, but 1) I'm not sure indie-rock counts as a genre I "don't like" and 2) I'm not sure I can actually stomach listening to it 22 times in a row. The former makes me think I shouldn't do this, the latter makes me think I should.

But the other things I started to think about (Kanye? The new Daft Punk?) inspired me even less. (Technically I should like Daft Punk, I'm just uninspired to even hear the record, so I don't think that's a good idea.) So maybe I should go with my initial impulse.

(No one else is going to do this, are they?)

I thought blunt force repetition was a well accepted method of hit single indoctrination

i considered doing a sponsored non-stop mumford&sons marathon before, mb this is my time

I'd like to try this but I'm not sure I have the stick-to-itiveness‎ to see it through?
I've kind of done something similar involuntarily via the holding music at the call centre I work for, so far blunt-force repetition has not made me like Swim Until You Can't See Land by Frightened Rabbit.

If I was going to do it I think I'd pick something that some people on ilx rave about but seems unappealing me rather than bumford or whatever

I think if a group of us agree to do it together, then peer pressure (or at least not wanting to let the group down) will keep us at it, where dedication would normally flag.

I'm just interested in this, because it is a trope - that sheer repetition can "indoctrinate hit singles" or whatever. But in my own experience, there are songs which I have heard 500 times if I've heard them once, and I will still never, ever like them, even though I can sing along with every word. While, on the other hand, there are things I have changed my mind about after repeated exposure, I think what it took was either 1) there was something inherently appealing to me which I was resisting because of reputation or whatever or 2) a song being popular and played a lot during a particular time of my life which was happy and meaningful to me, therefore the song has taken on the resonance of association with that time.

But I want to test if this can be forced (my feeling is that it cannot. And that I will come back a week later, saying, wow, I now know all the reasons I *do* hate this record, with perfect clarity, but I don't hate this record any less.)

I believe it can be forced but only by a third party and somewhat subliminally with a sneaky context

Yes, I've seen this movie, too; Josie & the Pussycats is one of my favourite films of all time.

I've never seen this movie but I like the theme song to the cartoon.
Cartoon themes are a good example -- who hates them?

What is 'like' is the question? How do you know? Not sure I can do this this week due to commitments and work, but I'm very intrigued to try, perhaps with The Shape Of Jazz To Come.

Define "like" however you like! But really, the question is to see *how* you feel about a record (if you feel differently, or more keenly the same) on repeated listens.

It might work, but in my experience, learning to like a record in a style or genre that I'm initially not into often has more to do with familiarizing myself with context than with content. Morbid Angel sounded like a bunch of nonsense until I heard Gorguts and realized what real nonsense was - then Morbid Angel sounded great. Now Gorguts sounds great. I learn more by positioning unfamiliar sounds in relation to each other than by trying to take them on individually.

See, jmm, that's exactly part of the journey that I'd like people to document, if that's the journey they go on. OK, not exactly the same journey, but very related - how you go from hating a record to loving it. Because it's easier to go from hate to love - and this is something that Sick Mouthy just brought up on twitter, because "indifference or bafflement" was the angle he said he was going for - or is it? Indifference or bafflement can go to love just with familiarity, which is what repetition brings.

I'm pretty much guaranteed that every time I say, about a genre "Oh, well, I like this bit, but I will *never* like (that more extreme bit)" that a year down the road, the more extreme bit will be my Favourite! Thing! Ever! - this has been happening since I was 15, and swore with perfect certainty "Well, I love The Clash, but that extreme punk nihilism of the Sex Pistols, never, ever, will I be tempted by that in a million years, just not my kind of thing..."

So I guess that's why I should go with Interpol, because my reaction to them isn't hate, it's closer to indifference and bafflement and "I like lots of things around this, but I don't like this" but it's not through lack of familiarity, it's just not liking it.

I'm interested in this actually. I might join in. I've been pretty vociferous in my hatred for certain songs and albums so may try those, or just go for something I purely don't understand - last year's LP by The Knife for example. But do I have time to listen to that 22 times in a week?

Maybe listen to Interpol covers rather than actual record? Triangulate what it is other people like about it that doesn't actually appear sonically on the record itself

in the interest of science i think the record chosen shd be something that the listeners not only hate but wd feel embarrassment about liking - i don't see any challenge with familarising yrselves with something that you're ambivalent to, the real stretch wd be an artist or genre that you'd actively be ashamed of liking

admittedly for some people there mightn't be anything associated with those feelings of shame but

http://www.theonion.com/articles/not-very-good-album-takes-a-little-while-to-get-in,17425/

Yes, you do have to listen to it 22 times. That's 3 times a day for a week, but I guess you could stretch it out if you were time-pressed. The idea is to listen past the point of passing resistance, then listen more, to the point of utter immersion.

Embarrassment (or not) factor might work if you are embarrassed by some music. (I can't even think any more of what I would find embarrassing, if anything?) It would be somewhat amusing to see e.g. Lex wrestling with black metal or Algerian Goalie wrestling with girly synthpop but really that's just a cartoon. The idea is just to take a record you already KNOW you don't like, and see if you can bludgeon your ears into getting into it.

i think that's good, NV, that way you're the real barrier (unless there's a legitimate cause in the music itself for shame etc., which seems improbable) to the change

thinking back to the accommodations in my tastes that were hardest for me, there were stupid elements of embarrassment/shame behind them

i might be being cynical, it just seems easier to say "i got into this thing that's broadly acknowledged to be reasonably cool" than to really work on something that challenges your sense of yourself

The only shame I could potentially see myself facing would be over serious backtracking on something I had already established An Opinion on - e.g. if I took on a Taylor Swift record and loved it. But that's not the music, it's the associations. And I've got quite good at backtracking - hey I've even come to enjoy listening to Autechre!

yeah, but in many ways BB i don't think you are the perfect test subject for the experiment because your taste has always seemed to be pretty open in terms of, lets say, sonics, and more about being drawn to types of things than actively rejecting types of things? i could be wrong but that's how your taste comes across to me.

it's your experiment so you'd be the best judge of what would be a challenge to come to enjoy.

i guess i'm already thinking about a slightly different experiment to do with the way the things we like reinforce our sense of self as well as (hopefully) expanding it - and the way this sense of self ties in with a notional community to which we wanna appear cool

I don't know if I'd like burzum in any context but the furrowed brow hands cupped round headphones approach was probably a little bit prophylactic if the goal was to like it.

hey now girly pop? I liked the songs I heard by the band you were in. Plus I grew up listening to synthpop as a kid. I just dont have any nostalgia for the 80s really.

plus id lose any wrestling matches with girls into synthpop!

i posit the theory that in order to like a record - or to be able to say we like it with something approaching sincerity - we have to be able to assimilate extra-musical elements of it into our worldview, either by refining our worldview or re-categorizing the record

oh it took me well over a decade to like black metal btw. Used to hate it. does that count?

I'll tell you a record everyone says I should like but even after owning it 20 years i still dont like - Astral Weeks.

to flip it on its head - i reckon that lots of the rationale behind not-liking the things we don't like is extra-musical too

OK! You can listen to Astral Weeks 22 times in the next week, then. Perfect.

I'm considering one album that's pretty much in 'the canon' that I've never really liked, in fact I struggled to find anything appealing in it at all, and I've owned it for 20 years. The only shame involved would be admitting that I don't get a 'canonical' album. Does that count? And it's not "Astral Weeks".

I doubt I'll last 22 plays but I'll give it a go just for you.

Man, 'reinforcement of sense of self' is my whole life. I'm always trying to finalize my taste, assert unequivocally and for all time that this is what I like and I'm going to spend the next year listening to it exclusively and become the world's biggest expert or whatever. That never comes close to panning out, I'm invariably off on something new the next week.

OK, I get what you're saying, NV - lots of ppl seem to not like particular music because they don't want to be The Kind Of Person That Likes That Music. I completely understand that mindset, and certainly did hold it in my late 20s/early 30s before outgrowing it. That's one of the good things about being treated as a middle aged woman - since you are presumed to have no taste, you can therefore have *any* taste without embarrassment.

I chose Interpol originally for the specific reason that they're the kind of thing I should like according to demographics & peer pressure, but just don't. (Though maybe "gawd indie-rock image bands from NYC are so tedious" is another "Kind Of Person I Am" assertion in terms of abandoning the person I used to be?) But I think it's a genuine "I just don't like this" because all my friends liking them didn't get me to like them; them being hott didn't get me to like them; one of my favourite musicians joining the band didn't get me to like the. What will it take to get me to like them?

Other people can do the experiment for NV's reasons, or for whatever reasons.

For me repetition doesn't lull me into surrender; repetition enhances a record's strengths, reveals its weaknesses in greater relief (or MORE weaknesses), or gets me to listen to instrumental, melodic, or vocal nuances I missed the first time. Many singles I review get middling scores only to wind up on my top twenty charts because I was wrong the first time (it happens more often with singles than albums; these days I rarely change my mind about albums more than once a year). A recent example: radio got me singing along to OneRepublic's "Counting Stars"

Sorry, Rob, but you *do* have to say what the record is. ;)

bb what do you think of BMRC?

(Though you do not have to say what the record is until the very end, when you reveal whether your opinion has or hasn't changed?)

BMRC or Dandy Warhols are 2 bands I thought I should like when they came out but didnt (apart from that one awesome song dandy warhols did)

Black Metal Rotorcycle Club?

haha

you know who i meant

Barents Music Resource Centre? Didn't they sue Dead Kennedys?

well, sure. it's the only reason "trout mask replica" has fans.

willing to do this btw, although be warned, Heart 106.2 FM at a former workplace of mine did not make me enjoy the Black-Eyed Peas, James Blunt or Maroon 5 any more than I did at first, despite quite some persistence

I will let the august minds of ILM choose something they thing I'd ordinarily be v bigoted about

*think ffs

james blunt obv, I assume you've only heard the singles which in no way represent what he's capable of

can you force yourself to like a blunt through blunt-force repetition

No, that's not how it works. You have to choose something that you already know you don't like. I don't think it works if other people choose for you.

ffs I almost had him listening to a james blunt album

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti, LJ. You're always dismissive of them.

I'd really rather if this thread didn't degenerate into "LOL it would be funny if X listened to Y" or people trying to get others to take on their particular baby. The idea, if there is one, is challenging yourself on your preconceptions,, not being sold on stuff (or pushed into for a joke) by others. That just strikes me as kinda lazy.

i find the thought of someone doing this pretty pathetic. i used to do it when i was a kid and my entire music library consisted of like 6 cd's. if i bought one i didn't like i would still listen to it a hundred times because there was nothing else to do. and yeah, eventually you do get hooked in a weird way... i guess if you were feeling burnt out on your music it could be a fascinating experiment. but there's so much good music to listen to it's hard to imagine an adult finding time to do this

That's one of the good things about being treated as a middle aged woman - since you are presumed to have no taste, you can therefore have *any* taste without embarrassment.

haha that's kind of awesome :)

I suspect anyone hired to master or remix a record does this as an occupational burden

I find the idea of dictating to adults what experiments they should or shouldn't find the time for pretty pathetic, myself, to be honest.

so there's no chance of you ever listening to a jazz record due to your hatred of that cymbal sound? :)

I'm going with my first impulse as being the right one.

I'm torn. There's the 'canonical" album I can't abide, or there's an album I know I hate and I'm listening to it at the moment, and the thought of having to hear it 22 times fills me with such horror that the canonical choice seems like an easier option.

I say do the canonical one coz I want you to like it, but go with what you feel.

Why not remix it so it is better? I wonder if this was impetus behind grey album.

The church organ solo at 13 minutes has made me turn off my alternative choice. Canonical choice for me then.

Was it Close to the Edge?

Correct!

My experience of being subjected to 'Mambo Number 5' and 'Livin' La Vida Loca' several times a day via the radio while working as a painter and decorator in 1999 suggests to me that there's no way I can grow to like a record by repetition. Hate even more, maybe, but not like. However, I'm prepared to give it a go.

I might try this with Zappa or the Residents. That's the closest to visceral aversion I get with music.

I'm going to have to scour second hand shops tomorrow because iTunes wants £7.99 and I'm not paying that for an experiment!

I suspect anyone hired to master or remix a record does this as an occupational burden

This was my thought. I don't think repetition on its own will force anybody to like a record, but when that record placed in new contexts (esp. film and commercial) it'll take on new shapes. [insert personal anecdote]

Is this cheating?
https://m.soundcloud.com/rc428/side-1-x-100
The link to it said this makes Beatles sound like residents

I'm now going through my canonical choice and already feel I was unfair on it 20 years ago and quite like it already. So that's out of the window too. Drat.

I'm going to have to scour second hand shops tomorrow because iTunes wants £7.99 and I'm not paying that for an experiment!

used copies of Turn On The Bright Lights are currently going for 42p on amazon

God I hate Amazon and don't even want to give them commission on 42p so I'll try the charity shop first but cheers!

Rob, keep going. I've listened to that album well over 100 times & find new things to love each time.

I'd really rather if this thread didn't degenerate into "LOL it would be funny if X listened to Y" or people trying to get others to take on their particular baby. The idea, if there is one, is challenging yourself on your preconceptions,, not being sold on stuff (or pushed into for a joke) by others. That just strikes me as kinda lazy.

― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Sunday, January 26, 2014 7:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is fair, but what if some people just aren't capable of challenging their preconceptions particularly well? or to put it another way, what if they hedge their bets a little and whether subconsciously or otherwise they pick something they have an inkling they *could* like? certainly i feel like i'd do that if pressed to choose.

really imo this would be best suited by a randomised assignment of music. is there a way to generate a random spotify artist? :D

lol or I could get really hard into Sublime *suddenly doesn't want to play any more*

Just go back through the 77 singles list and pick whatever artist you had the strongest "I just don't understand why people even like this!" reaction to.

That'd be Betty Who. Ok, then. You win this round, Johnny Fever

i wanted him to try led zep :(

Not sure she has an album out yet, but that's the spirit.

jordan s had a thread where everyone recommended him something to check out. I'd love it if imago did that

I'd love to subject myself to this experiment, but considering the albums rollout is this week and I will be doing my best to immerse myself in those results, I hope this thread can continue for a while as a rolling thing.

Ok, sure, bad timing - but there's no start or end date on the experiment. Pick it up whenever you have the listening space.

Considering that for years I had a knee-jerk loathing of Kanye West -- I think I will do this with the new Kanye album.

thats a good point. experiment will need to wait a week

xps

or should i pick something else?

That was one of my other considerations, Sarahell, so am interested to see how you get on with that.

it's possible to like anything when blunts are involved

This is such a great idea. I've done similar experiments in the past, like two summers ago when I forced myself to understand country music by checking out every c&w record in our local library system. I'm not sure what album I'm going to pick, but starting with something I hated from the singles poll results seems like a good idea.

i might try this with savages

at the very least it will make for interesting conversations with friends -- "sorry, I'm gonna have to skip your droney noise show, have to get home to listen to the Kanye album for the sake of science."

I am particularly looking forward to my upstairs neighbours absolutely *hating* me for the course of this, but I guess they put up with 2 solid weeks of The KLF over Xmas, so...

but the KLF are awesome

I think being subjected to music you didn't choose for that intensity is never fun. (Granted I think they were away.)

well yeah, my downstairs neighbor would practice funky keyboard jams for hours at a time a few years back.

the worst example of this was a roommate when i was in my early 20s who listened to "The Girl from Ipanema" over and over again, and ever since that song evokes the anger and anxiety of a trapped animal.

Imago Listening Club with his permission.

I find the idea of dictating to adults what experiments they should or shouldn't find the time for pretty pathetic, myself, to be honest.

― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Sunday, January 26, 2014 3:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry i was just being a dick & hadn't actually read the thread now that i have its actually a cool experiment good luck

i've done this several times btw

it's something I had a lot more patience for in the pre-internet years, when music was harder to get hold of, so I would make more of an effort with rare things which had entailed difficulties to get hold of

ha yeah - this was mostly financially motivated i think. if i'd dropped FIFTEEN QUID on an album - a lot of money for a teenager! - i'd damn well convince myself i hadn't thrown money down the drain. especially if i'd bought it on the strength of reviews and unheard.

i'm not sure about blunt force repetition as a way into an album - forcing myself to listen to anything over and over again would make me hate albums i loved, i think. one thing i'm always conscious of as a critic is giving an album a chance when i'm the specific mood to be receptive to it. this is usually weather-based but also dependent on time of day, level of hangover/endorphins, general emotional state. forcing myself to listen to yeezus on repeat if i'm ill would be pretty stupid and pointless: why not wait til i'm pissed off or energetic?

repetition bearing in mind the above can be pretty fruitful and i would read people's experiments in that with interest. like BB, i pretty much did this with the knife and dawn richard albums, both of which are so dense and so packed with sounds and ideas and so uncompromisingly the artist's hermetically sealed vision that it did take that time so find my way in. i also tried to do this with the paramore album, as was illustrated by my periodic whining on its thread throughout the year as to why i couldn't hear what everyone else was obviously hearing. (eventually it was paramore placing on the trax poll that made them click, all the repetition in the world couldn't have helped)

I have to review the new Malkmus, and quick because it's been out for a few weeks now. But much as I'm a historical fan of his work, I just can't get up the enthusiasm or mood to listen through to it enough for it to sink in (and usually it takes about 3-4 listens of a new Pave/Malk album for it to click).

yeah, I get what you're saying, Lex - the thing is over the course of a week, my mood & energy tends to shift a *lot* (really Did. Not. Get. King while bouncing around on a Thursday evening or whatever, but loved it on a Sunday morning, feeling lazy & relaxed) so that listening to a record repeatedly for a week means if there is a mood to get that record, I will probably hit that mood at least once. Ditto the English weather.

It's funny, how quickly times change and how you get used to a new normal. I remember, as a kid, buying things with ENORMOUS amounts of money, it was the only album I'd be able to afford that month, and if it wasn't good, I would have to force myself to like it because of the investment. And now I can't even imagine doing something like that, the idea of buying an album without hearing it is ludicrous. Like, I am really feeling it as an imposition to have shitty internet access and be unable to stream the new albums that are currently coming out at the moment. (I always miss a huge chunk of current music while unemployed.)

Anyway, I haven't started because I now have to find this thing, I suppose.

Now really want to start a thread on "Image Bands" and bands that, by rights, you should be able to tell if you like them, just by looking at them. And the resulting disappointment when a band *doesn't* sound as stylin' as they look. That's the kind of thing I don't think would fly on ILM any more. Oh, fuck it. Doing it anyway.

I Think something like that's been done before (what hasn't?). I remember being disappointed by Devendra Banhart when I found out he wasn't an old whiskery lady.

It is rare that I finish work on a song/record and feel "I'm not so fucking tired of this". There are maybe ten or eleven clients' songs I could but won't name that I worked on that would still thrill me to goosebumps to listen to today, having listened to them 100+ times in the work process. But bad songs, working on something bad can make me fill physically terrible around the tenth time. I've burst into tears, punched walls, written unsent resignation e-mails over some songs. (This is part of the reason I don't get why a handful of listens can drive people to the rage I've seen on EOY polls; you know not true pain.) And yeah, I don't think that blunt-force repetition makes me like a song any more or any less, any more than I could get used to eating cardboard around the twentieth time. My like/dislike of a song is far more susceptible to influence in hearing/reading the opinions of others.

That said, context is the most important thing here. I'll listen to the same song in the morning and think it's too slow, or in the evening and think it's too fast, too reverberant on headphones, too dry at a mixing desk, vocals too high in the car, vocals too low in a coffee shop, too bassy in my kitchen, too trebly in my living room, too emo when I'm driving, too aggro when I'm cooking, etc. etc. If blunt-force repetition is gonna succeed for anybody, I'd guess it'll succeed because you've found a way to position that song in the correct location in your life. (Interestingly I've found that that Amel Larrieux song works so well in every possible context that I've been trying to listen to it in a situation where it doesn't sound good and have been failing every time, it always works.)

This is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure you can force yourself to like something, even through repetition. First of all there has to be a glimmer of curiosity involved, even if its a glimmer of a passing spark, but this curiosity varies wildly between genres and listeners. I've been in situations where I've had to listen to an album again and again, and really if you're A: not interested at all B: don't have a frame of reference for it to fit into or C: it's just not very good music, it won't reveal itself any more after the fourth listen. On the other hand the inherent value in a good bit of music will reveal itself. For example, I had to review the album Mala in Cuba for a site. The concept was interesting - dubstep pioneer using traditional Cuban sounds to augment his style - so naturally my curiosity and enthusiasm were peaked. The first listen proved to be really rewarding as my enthusiasm levels were high. By the third listen, the crack were beginning to show. I couldn't help but notice some of the project's limitations. By the 7th or 8th listen (seriously I must have listened to it well over 20 times in the space of a couple of weeks), the album's weaknesses felt so glaring they threatened to assimilate any of its good points. IT's not a bad album really, but I never want to hear it again and in my mind it's become very little more than a travesty.

Conversely, I wasn't struck by the Amel Larrieux song at all on first listen, but I'm pretty confident that if I heard it a bunch of times (maybe sequenced around some other suitable tracks) and heard it in a few different contexts outside of cursory YouTube sessions, that its qualities would start shining through. I think the qualities that make this kind of music appealing to people are secondary to me and therefore aren't likely to register with me the first time round. I think, personally speaking, the 'message' of a song (the lyrics or sentiment) has a tendency to ingrain itself a bit later on than other factors might - texture, concept, (huge) hooks or whatever.

Larrieux song intrigued me on first listen, blew me away on second. If I love something it's *usually* got to have a very strong effect on me from the get-go but there are many counterexamples.

I heard it on Lex's mix and had that rare feeling of familiarity-on-first-listen. Lex's criteria for music-evaluation is so alien to me that it feels especially good when there is intersection.

^this, although I do declare he and I intersect a good deal more than is logically plausible, usually in the region of slow, spacious, slightly artsy R&B

I think my take on this is similar to jmm's - the best way for me to get into unfamilar or off-putting music is to take the long way around and listen to other things that put it into context. When I'm getting into a band I'm usually drawn to the songs that aren't too far away from things I already like but then I grow to like the rest of their stuff on its own terms - like when I first started listening to Creedence my favourite song on Cosmo's Factory was 'Who'll Stop the Rain' because it was mellow and had nice harmonies like Neil Young or The Byrds or something but I definitely wouldn't pick it as a standout now.

O, although I haven't mixed or worked on any music that isn't mine own in over 5 years, so I'm at a disadvantage, I don't really count "songs you hear 100 times in the course of doing session work or mixing an album" in this kind of repetition, for the simple reason that I listen to music I am *working on* with a specifically different part of my brain than music I am listening to (either for pleasure, or to review an album). Doing recording/mixing work is listening with the question "what does this need done to it?' in mine, listening for pleasure or evaluation is "what is here right now".

(And I've seen how the two modes of listening can lead to terrible differences of opinions - I've certainly been in a studio where the band and producer, who have heard the album 200 times, have one idea of which song should be the single (i.e. the only one they're not all sick of, after 200 listens) while the record company dude or manager, who has listened to the demos twice, will think it should be a different song entirely.

The Image Band thread I was thinking about was mine own Syllabus Band thread:

Artists With A Syllabus - is this or is it no longer A Thing?

But I wanted to discuss more "image" that works, and improves a band, as well as image that doesn't work/is disparate from the band's sound (because lord knows we don't need another shrieking thread of "OMG, Justin Timberlake wearing an MC5 t-shirt, the world will end!" etc) but I'll do more of a search and see if I have started one already over the course of the years, because I find it hard to imagine that I didn't start one over e.g. the Strokes.

My experience of repetition causing me to hate music that I'm actually making is that it's the hearing of the tracks in pieces and especially the way those pieces often don't fit together the way I want that makes me hate. Whereas disliking other people's music through repetition is more because the overall feel of the song doesn't work for me, rather than individual elements. There have been exceptions ('oh that closed hi-hat is really too loud'), but even then it has to be a major flaw for it to bother me.

OK, this is starting to take on the aspect of a mythical quest, where ~obtaining the album~ is becoming so difficult that I'm going to force myself to like it through scarcity value!

Because I've looked through all the charity shops in Streatham and though every other goddamn landfill indie band of the early 00s is in there (why didn't I pick Franz Ferdinand? Or the Strokes? Or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs? They're all really easy to find!) I can't find this one.

I will end up going into town to see if Fopp has it, because I refuse to pay full price for it. Hmmmmmmm.

Which one are you going for? The debut? I'll post you our copy if you want.

Yeah, the debut. That seems oddly in keeping with the spirit of the project, to have a friend post it. (I can post it back to you when I'm done if you miss it.)

But I am actually going into town tonight anyway so I could very easily just go to Fopp (I'd be embarrassed to buy it at Rough Trade, to be honest).

If you'd be embarrassed to buy it at Rough Trade, you should buy it there - that seems even more in keeping with the project spirit!

Well, in spirit, yes, but mostly not, because they'd make me pay full price, which I am currently refusing to do.

Heck I should just download it off a blog and stop whinging.

if repetition arrives prejudiced as "blunt force" and "pick an album you know you don't like in a genre you're not into" then no, nothing will be gained because there is nothing to gain

Can You Force Yourself To Like A Record Through Blunt-Force Repetition? [Started by I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell) in January 2014, last updated 1 minute ago by r|t|c] 115 new answers
Paul Simon's 'Graceland' [Started by dave q in December 2001, last updated 4 minutes ago by lag∞n] 13 new answers

(really Did. Not. Get. King while bouncing around on a Thursday evening or whatever, but loved it on a Sunday morning, feeling lazy & relaxed)

and like this is a misapprehension straight off the bat? it's so not a cosmic chill out record or whatever. begs the q does repetition mean cumulative understanding or actually taking millions of goes to hear it once properly

xp heh must concede that is v well played imago

I'm not sure what your point is?

If you think that this is a pointless and stupid idea, then yes, you're absolutely right, there is nothing to be gained from doing it, and you should probably not participate.

I do not know if it's pointless or possible for myself - I just know that it was mooted on another thread as a guaranteed way of making a person like "anything" - so I wanted to know if it would work on me.

Lots of other people have posited opinions on whether it is/isn't possible, or suggested alternate things that could change a person's mind on an album (context, friends' opinions, reforming one's ideas either of the self or the "kind of person that listens to this music). All of these are helpful, but for me, the single most helpful thing would be, to actually *try* doing it.

What is not helpful for me, is making blanket statements like "nothing will be gained because there is nothing to gain."

Just reading this thread, which I think is interesting, but wanted to pick up on this:

i posit the theory that in order to like a record - or to be able to say we like it with something approaching sincerity - we have to be able to assimilate extra-musical elements of it into our worldview, either by refining our worldview or re-categorizing the record

I don't think this rings true for me, there are records which I love which I neither agree nor identify with, and in fact feel enduringly alien to me (examples are some of the country music I adore and some of the religious music I love, too), and I don't feel the need to re-categorize them in order to like them, I feel I can like them on their own terms.

I would have to do some kind of wriggly thinking to make your point right, like "I want to think of myself as the sort of person who likes Toby Keith without having to assimilate his world-view", or similar sophistry.

I'm going to say a very predictable Branwell type of thing here, but I think this may be more of a concern for the Cis-Het Dude who uses music and Taste as his way of establishing a narrative about who he is, and the kinds of things that he likes? I mean, this idea of "projecting personality through music" is something that I mostly associate with young people - but then I have indeed met Cis-Het Dudes who literally are afraid to admit to being The Kind Of Person who likes pop, or certain kinds of dance music, because it would make them literally "like a woman" or "like a gay person" to like that kind of thing.

There was an article a while back about predicting music taste based on prior plays - I seem to recall a man who was trying out Pandora or some streaming radio service like that, and he was upset that it kept trying to play him (I think it was Celine Dion or something like that) and he kept complaining "why are you playing me this? Do I look like the kind of person who would like Celine Dion?" and the man at the streaming service kept talking about their algorithms and predictive programming and actually, it fit in with everything else he was listening to. And after grumbling a bit, then sitting down and just listening to it (for the sake of the article he was writing, clearly) a bit, he realised, actually, yes, he liked Celine Dion, and he had to change his worldview to conceive of himself as The Kind Of Person That Likes Celine Dion.

I think if you have already either a) detached your musical taste from your sense of identity or b) you have an inherent identity which puts you outside the demographic of "cis-het white dude" which "Objective" "Taste" is configured around, then you are less likely to fall prey to this kind of thinking. But I have indeed met many people who do.

I agree, but that was kind of the point of my last sentence: if there are people who are scared of being "the sort of person who likes pop" there are surely also people who enjoy being "the sort of person who looks like they wouldn't like pop but actually does like pop", right? I mean, we can play with and enjoy layered ways of thinking about ouselves and perceptions of ourselves.

Anyway, I'm basically saying that the universal law posited by NV is a dicey business.

Day 1 Check-in: still hate this album, but I've gone from the nebulous view that "it's just like those parody songs on 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' but not funny' to more specific complaints (there's not a lot of variation in arrangements, all the tracks are kind of sedate sounding).

pardon my ignorance but what is cis/het dude?

identifies as same gender as 'born' into, doesn't like the cock v much

he likes the only one that matters

This is becoming a ridiculously epic quest just to FIND a physical copy of this album.

1) THERE IS NO MORE HMV ON OXFORD STREET. When did this happen? How did this happen? Have I really not been in central London for this long?

2) Berwick St. Sister Ray only had a Japanese import double disc limited edition for £16!!! no way am I spending that for a hatefuck of a listen

3) Second hand record shops. Not only are there far, far less of them than there used to be, but they are so picked over it's barely worth bothering.

I am beginning to wonder if this record even exists at this point.

Closed a couple of weeks ago.
http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/12/flagship-hmv-store-at-150-oxford-street-closes-4259775/
The very same store where in 2001 a young professional couple mistook me for a member of staff and asked me where the easy listening section was.

Oh god that went with a whimper and not a bang. RIP :-(

Once the Virgin Megastore closed* the HMV faded out gradually over several years. I tried to drop in every time I happened to be in Central London for job interviews or whatever, and it just seemed to get bleaker and bleaker. Like the Tower Records store in Piccadilly Circus just before it was sold to Virgin.

(* I don't count it re-opening as Zavvi as competition)

I can remember when I first started coming to London as an adult to buy CDs, and the walk from HMV to Virgin (with a stop for the billion shops of Berwick Street) was such an exciting adventure. Gone, all gone now. So depressing.

(I think HMV opened up a new store up the other end of Oxford Street a little while ago fwiw, in the building which was the HMV flagship store when I first started record shopping in London in 1982 or whenever.)

I don't know why I'm saying "store" not "shop", it'll always be the HMV Shop to me.

if there are people who are scared of being "the sort of person who likes pop" there are surely also people who enjoy being "the sort of person who looks like they wouldn't like pop but actually does like pop", right? I mean, we can play with and enjoy layered ways of thinking about ouselves and perceptions of ourselves.

absolutely. the one doesn't undermine the other.

Should be possible to find Interpol albums and many other forms of indie pop detritus at Poundland.

Thanks, Tim. Fizzles did suggest this last night, but I have buggered my left ankle and could not face walking down to the other end of Oxford St at that point.

I looked at Poundland. I looked at Oxfam. I looked at Cancer Research. I looked at British Heart Foundation. There is lots of indie detritus. There is no Indiepol.

They seek him here, they seek him there
In Regents Street, and Leicester Square!

https://31.media.tumblr.com/5c3c2382525cab9d4ca89235a6ea68f2/tumblr_n031c4z14Q1rjw8sqo1_500.gif

Poundland does seem to be a place where you can buy the cream of shit music from ten years ago.

I still have not managed to hear a single note of Indiepol's music, but I now know all their names, and which one I fancy the most. This feels like progress, in my world.

Don't want to prejudice your investigation here, but the actual music on that first Interpol record is actually alright imo. You're fairly well disposed to stuff like the Bunnymen, the Psychedelic Furs and New Order right? I think as long as you can deal with them aping those bands you'll be halfway there, but the biggest barriers to enjoyment are the terrible vocals and lyrics. Not sure if those will improve much with listening, but you might be able to tune them out after a while.

Terrible vocals, terrible lyrics, and the fact that the singer shares both a first name and a surname with the two most objectively awful boyfriends of my life.

Where is Rob? I told him to come and post his experiences with this project on this thread, instead of teasing me on twitter, where is he?

If you remember I chose a 'canonical' album for this exercise but didn't reveal what it was. BB knew what it was as we discussed it off-board. The reason I chose it was because I bought it in '94 not long after it was issued and hated it. It was supposed to be this wonderful album, the future on one disc and I didn't get it at all. All I heard was doodles - pretty doodles. And more than anything I felt jealous. Because this was the kind of music I'd been making at home for years. Admittedly this album was better than what I'd done, but it just sounded like my music only on a slightly bigger budget. So I played it a few times, didn't like it much and put it away. From time to time I'd play it and think "No, still don't see the appeal". Oh and I TOTALLY objected to the album title, feeling I was completely mis-sold the record. It didn't do what it said on the tin, to paraphrase Ronseal. It seemed like the natural choice for this exercise.

I've played this LP twice since Sunday night and already I have changed my mind on it. With time and distance I can recognise that it's far superior to anything I ever made, and that the artist's future progression far outstrips anything I could manage. So my personal objections are nullified. As for the music itself, I have absolutely no objection to it now and find it pleasant, tuneful and interesting. I used to think it repetitive and boring. I was wrong, there is always something interesting going on. I am quite happy to keep listening to this album without recourse to a gun at my head. Therefore I can't really carry on using this album for the experiment so may have to go to "Close to the edge". After all, if I turned that off after 13 minutes then I really do have to work through my dislike of it.

Now you've got me trying to guess what it is.

IMO, you can carry on using the album for this experiment, because the experiment has clearly worked! It would be interesting to see if more listening made you swing your opinion back round to not liking it again. (Then again, I've listened to that album 100s of times and still find something of worth each time.)

Though if you'd really rather do the experiment over again with an album you still really hate (Close To The Edge) I guess that would be a second set of data.

SAW2 i reckon xp

s/o BB for starting the syllabus thread, always ask musicians about it now in interviews.

I kind of want to do this, but I'm pretty sure I have the "stick-to-itiveness" problem mentioned upthread. Also, no idea what I'd choose. Mariah Carey?

But then I sort of get the rationalist reasons for liking her, even if personally I cannot stand it, so would that skew the results by giving me some sort of "in" already?

the quiz it was linking to does not seem to be there anymore, but this seems it may be relevant to interpol research?

http://www.interpolnyc.com/forum//index.php?/topic/13492-which-interpol-member-are-you/?s=47f736291f10535635496816a845c13e

Aw, I'd love to read you doing this, emil.y! Ask Lex or someone what the most canonical Mariah Carey album is. I'm genuinely not saying this as a joke, I would actually like to see if you can come to terms with finding something on a musician's level to appreciate.

p.s. in interests of full disclosure, I do have to admit that I have, in the past couple of years (i.e. through running the School of Seven Bells Tumblr (with added extra TSM bits)) come into contact with the Interpol fanbase a great deal, because of the overlap between those bands. So I do actually already know a fuck of a lot about the band (stupidly too much for a band I don't even like) and come pre-primed with all the information about why I *should* like them. I just don't. So I do actually have an additional incentive to find something to like, and start liking them, so I can interact with the fanbase more enjoyably.

I should just order the album already off the link that Rob shot me. I am not going to find it in Poundland, even in Wales. ;-)

Rob, are you going to confirm or deny the guesses on your album?

SAW2 i reckon xp

― keiji cretins (NickB), Tuesday, January 28, 2014 10:39 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's what i was thinking.

I am deeply DEEPLY unamused by this.

http://quizilla.teennick.com/user_images/S/softcorejukebox/1069500678_quizCarlos.JPG

You're Carlos D. !!
Possibly the wild card of the band, Carlos enjoys his new wave music and frequently DJs at such sexy nightspots as BANG! Everyone loves Carlos for his killer style and ability to smoke, play badass bass, and wear sunglasses in a dark show all a

Do I have to have herpes now? I guess I am the bass player... FUCK THIS I QUIT THIS STUPID QUIZ.

It was SAW 85-92 actually. Good guesses. Sorry for delay - I disappeared into a signal-less zone called Asda. I will do the 22 plays on this LP then do "Close to the edge" afterwards.

The more I think about it, the more I think Carey would have to be my choice. I genuinely detest the sound of her voice, but I do feel a bit bad that I have nothing nice to say about it - though maybe this is just the weight of critical consensus telling me I should feel bad about it? Maybe I will never like it? But... she first impinged on my consciousness at a point where I was distinguishing my taste and she was an avatar of the mainstream (although I always liked to think I wasn't that affected by this, I probably was to a certain degree, still was more of a pop fan than a lot of my peers, though) - so attempting to move past the historical extra-musical connotations into a judgement based solely on music would be interesting.

I'm not going to commit to this yet. But maybe post-album poll. Maybe.

I'm not going to do this challenge, but I'm trying to think of what I would pick if I were to. It would have to be something that was critically or commercially acclaimed but also I have no necessary interest in or attraction to.

I don't want to force it on you, emil.y, but if you did do it, I'd be really, really pleased and interested to read your thoughts.

that's exactly how I got into Talking Heads ('Fear of Music' to be precise) some years ago.

Poundland does seem to be a place where you can buy the cream of shit music from ten years ago.

indeed.

move over mr fopp, there is a new player in your broken town.

I have ended up buying it off this Welsh mail-order place that Rob recommended. It feels like cheating.

(But maybe it will have mysterious Welsh stamps on it. Or something.)

Despite skepticism I would totally participate in this. Somebody recommend me something? I have continued to listen to Bruckner symphonies, Of Montreal albums and Morrissey solo records to allay my hatred (successfully allayed with Morrissey solo records). Maybe Oasis, omg

Oh god no, O! Do not listen to Oasis on account of this thread. I forbid it! There is a limit!

begs the q does repetition mean cumulative understanding or actually taking millions of goes to hear it once properly

thought this rtc point was quite crucial. repeated listens can mean so many different things. like, are you bludgeoning yourself with it regardless of what you feel like, are you coming back to it over and over again when you feel receptive to it, are you constantly encountering it naturally...

Think it's pretty obvious from thread title, etc that this particular experiment is just about sheer bludgeoning volume. I certainly have albums that I don't "get" and come back to in different moods & contexts in the hopes that something will have changed. But that's not the point of this thread - what I am trying to see is seeing if knowing every single note/lyric can teach me to appreciate an album the way that immersive experiences help you to learn a language.

OK, no Oasis (thanks). I didn't respond to your post upthread btw but I absolutely listen to music-for-leisure with the same part of my brain as I listen to for-work, and in my appreciation process, the possibility of change (as you might've noticed) continues to apply to finished product, as I tend to respond to bad tracks prescriptively instead of viscerally? or something? I actively EQ tracks when I'm DJing :(

do you turn cut the bass, slowly rolly your head back, extend a hand in the air, wait for the that perfect moment and then DOOF-DOOF-DOOF-DOOF? I try to that that at least 6 times per set.

I have to NOT do that or it destroys the pleasure of listening to music, for me. (Though, oddly, doing session work never impinged on my enjoyment of music in the way that trying to do music journalism did. I think because I was able to compartmentalise session work down to just "basslines and ba ba bahs" in isolation. Maybe if I'd been concentrating more on the whole thing, as was necessary with music crit, I'd have compromised the same part of the brain.)

Any ideas what you'd do instead of Oasis? Or would that involve having to think about / admit in public what artists you don't like?

Actually that does make me wonder, because to this day, the one thing I cannot tolerate in music is shitty basslines.

Honestly I can't think of anybody. Much-loved artists that I hate on an aesthetic level are precisely the ones I spend the most time trying to get my head around, either to "see the light" or at least form a logical basis for any taste-divergence.

Though as soon as you said "shitty basslines" I realized I hate the Sex Pistols

OK, listen to Never Mind The Bollocks, then, because I don't actually think that album has shitty basslines. (Mostly because none of the bass on that record is by Sid.)

(I am wondering if my bassline nazi-ism is contributing to my inability to like Indiepol. Or if I am conflating "hatred of the bass player" with "hatred of the basslines." The other thing that may happen is after 22 listens, I end up getting that haircut after all.)

Done.

Yay!

but the actual music on that first Interpol record is actually alright imo. You're fairly well disposed to stuff like the Bunnymen, the Psychedelic Furs and New Order right? I think as long as you can deal with them aping those bands you'll be halfway there, but the biggest barriers to enjoyment are the terrible vocals and lyrics.

I have since revisited this record and although it definitely has its moments, jfc it does go on a bit and I ended up basically wanting to strangle it. Anyhow, good luck Branwell B! Look forward to reading yr reactions to it.

OK, thanks for the heads up. Will let you know when the postperson brings it.

(Though if by Listen 15, my reactions are something like "God I hate this fucking record SOOOO MUUUUCH, (but I really kinda want to shag them anyway right now)" I will probably FP'd off the board.)

Anyone else up for this? Or thinking what record you would do if you were up for this?

I suppose there are two ways of approaching this:
(1) select a recognised classic in a genre you don't have any feel / fondness for; for me that's probably be some kind of rock / metal and I'd likely end up with "Back In Black" or something.
(2) think of an artist I don't like in a genre I know and like, at least in part. For example I've always hated Neil Young (largely due to his voice) but I like plenty of country rock; similarly I've hate hate hated the Pixies since day 1, but I understand their world well enough.

Either way, I'm pretty sure I'm not up for the challenge! I do try to provoke myself to listen to things outside my obvious listening habits reasonably often, but I struggle to find the time to listen to everything I really want to hear, I don't think I can justify the hours spent on something I don't fancy.

Do still think it's interesting though.

Neil Young was someone I eventually managed to push through my dislike of - because I loved covers of his songs by other artists so much! It was his voice I hated so much. And it was actually T.Yorke talking in outtakes from the NY documentary about what he appreciated, and how NY had "influenced" him, talking about frailty & vulnerability - and I suddenly saw the some of the things I admired so much about TY's voice were things he'd cribbed fron NY. So I went back & listened with those ears, and suddenly it clicked & I got it & understood why so many ppl rated him.

Is "cover versions" a contextualisation, or a "recommendation from someone you trust"?

I have just realised... if I *really* had the courage of my convictions to do this with something I really LOOOOOAAAATHED (as opposed to merely being mystified or perplexed or nonplussed) I would attempt this experiment with Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Except the thought of listening to RHCP for a week straight fills me with the kind of horror that I would consider self harm to avoid it.

And interrogating this kind of hatred, it's not just disliking the music, though *REALLY* disliking the music is a huge part of it - it's years and years of layered associations of "bad times during which this music was inescapable" and also "total assholes who loved/repped this music" and "the dancefloor at the local goth/punk/80sindustrial nightclub getting swamped with aggressive assholes who liked to physically stomp on kids they read as queer every time their songs came on" <- and it's all those associations that, even if I did force myself to appreciate the music, would never ever shift.

One of the first bands I ever rang up for an audition, when I was, like 17/18... this is an experience that has stuck with me all these years, is how deeply written it is in my psyche. The guy on the other end of the phone followed up "well, actually we're looking for a bass player more like... Flea" in about 30 seconds with "we would never ever even *consider* having a girl in our band" and this association of the kind of people who liked RHCP - that kind of considered hatred not just of their music but everything they, and their fandom, stands for, is never going to be shifted by anything short of a total memory core dump.

I guess that's kinda made me consider NV's posts in a different light. There is no universe in which I would *ever* become "the kind of person who liked RHCP" no matter what.

Daniel Kessler was The Cute One, fwiw

xp

well it's a pickle, certainly

Daniel Kessler is also my A+ number one "would bang" Interpolster (that isn't Brandon, obviously).

For once, we are in agreement. That boy is damn cute.

i have to do some separation of artists from their idiot fans in my head sometimes tho

There are totally bands where I cannot stand any of the other fans, but still love the music (hello, Aphex Twin and IDM d00ds) but when I hate both the music and the fandom, it's kind of a perfect storm of awfulness.

Can we just talk about Daniel Kessler's beautiful Italian shoes and blow job lips for a bit now?

Judging based on my experience working at an office job where they force you to listen to the same radio station that plays the same horrible 50 songs over and over. Becoming more familiar with the songs doesn't force you into liking them. It may result in hearing something you didn't notice originally that could sway in either direction, or it might change nothing.

Yeah, BSJ, I have totally had that experience where being forced to listen to something over & over only makes you hate it more (probably because you can more clearly hear why you hate it) but I think part of the awfulness of that situation, for me, was not being in control of what I was hearing. Choosing to listen to something I dislike puts a different slant on it, and may make me more open-minded?

Have come to the conclusion that if I were to do this, I should pick a metal album.

But would you pick a metal album so deep into metal that it would be totally alien to you, or try to go for a metal hybrid with signifiers you like/are familiar with?

Dunno, it's a good question. I can handle Keiji Haino or Deafheaven or Witchfinder General ok so my problem isn't with heavy rock, it's death-metal riffing and metal vox that cause me to tune out immediately. I think I need to go all out for this one.

Excellent, let me (The thread) know if you decide to do it!

If metal ppl are reading I'd be grateful for a recommendation that might be fit for purpose.

Otherwise I'll go with the Carcass album that just placed in the albums poll.

sean, for me the key was finding a way / place from which to hear the growling etc. not as ridiculous but as awesomely ridiculous

perhaps a mindset less of me-and-this-embarrassing-growling, more of me-and-this-awesome-growling-and-THEM (i.e. whoever can't revel in what's cool and satisfying in making noise like that to let out whatever it lets out).

like, chuck eddy is often grinding that particular grudge all these years later, that e.g. even the vocals in slayer are a barrier to taking the music humanly seriously, and i think that shows a fundamental unwillingness to play along / let things resonate.

several years ago i certainly found myself wishing i could listen to more heavy music but 'with normal vocals', whatever i imagined that meant—no shrieking, no growling, no cookie monsters, but also no over-singing, which leaves… almost nothing that ever makes sense in what the rest of the band are doing.

brilliant posting j.

Thanks, J. That explanation has actually got me a lot closer to understanding why that music is *like* that. It doesn't necessarily make me like it any more, but in terms of understanding "this stuff has a context, and this is what the context is" it's actually really helpful.

The funny thing is, one of the metal tropes I really like = full-on metal + extremely powerful & theatrical opera singer - Mutyumu do this, plus a couple of Wolves In The Throne Room tracks. That, I absolutely love - full on music with a completely over the top vocal style that I understand and relate to - even it's just as much "metal cliche" as cookie monster cox are.

seandalai if death metal grunting is a barrier (it is for me and i hate 98% of death metal) try blackmetl as that whispery shrieking vampire thingmight be easier to swallow.
If you dont let varg ending up a nazi murdering cunt bother you id go for "Filosofem" by Burzum.
If you can handle the lofi stuff then Darkthrone - Transylvanian Hunger (even KJB loves that)

If you wanna go melodic death metal you cant beat Carcass - Heartwork or Entombed - Wolverine Blues.

I think I had a go at Darkthrone before, kind of got into it except that I felt super creeped out afterwards.

Cookie monster cox = cookie monster VOX but god that's a hilarious typo.

cant say ive ever thought about the cookie monster having a cock.

Thats just PC GONE MAD now!

yeah when i was getting more into metal carcass' 'heartwork' (the track, which i was hooked on because of its fluttery main riff) helped endear me a lot to death metal vocal styles. then again walker's vocals are very throaty and he seems to take his job as a lyricist seriously even through all the barriers to intelligibility, so there's some fundamental aim at making sense that other lyricists may care less about, instead of just like expressing stuff in a stylistically and personally satisfying way and kind of enjoying the refusal to make perfect sense that is maybe not uncommon in metal vox/lyrics.

BB, this year i checked out a critically-lauded album,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sq9oQivijg

which is apparently a mythical epic about the european union or whatever, but i was a little eeewed out by its SUPER UPFRONT MEGA-SINGING, so you might get a kick out of that

^ fabulous album

If you dig Messiah era Candlemass then that album is for you

which is apparently a mythical epic about the european union or whatever

lol what

follow the lyrics!

Oh oh oh I'd love BB to check out Avatarium - Avatarium (leif the bassist and songwriter of Candlemass' new band and they have a terrific lady vocalist) I really love that album too.
And if youve never heard the 80s Candlemass albums (1st four) then i urge anyone to try.

Hey J, please - I'm having a lot of trouble w my Internet/bandwidth, as discussed on another thread, so embeds are really not working for me? What's the artist/track name in text, & I'll search for it later when I have a decent connection.

Atlantean Kodex - The White Goddess

bb i can send you a bunch of stuff on a dvdr if you want. Think I did that years ago?

Thanks dude. Oh god I was just ranting & complaining about The book "The White Goddess" last night in the pub so that'd be hilarious if they were related/inspired/whatevs.

I'd also add that black/death vocals shouldn't be interpreted as always aggressive. Colored Sands is all growls and yet the lyrics are about Buddhism. They're a necessary formal feature of the style -- necessary because anything else would sound weak when set next to the surrounding elements. Beyond that, they can have lots of different aesthetic purposes, from aggression to ridiculousness to dehumanizing/depersonalizing the singer.

pretty sure they were, bb

they're a german band

and yes yes on the aggression. and in many cases it's just kind of like zappa's excuse (not that i am making any other comparison to zappa): well, if you want to make this music they make you have vocals too, you can't not have them

Ha! Synchronicity. Again.

ilx's own kim kelly did this review
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18543-atlantean-kodex-the-white-goddess-a-grammar-of-poetic-myth/

bb email me your address and i'll get a dvdr done this week sometime and i'll get it out to you.

Any particular metal tropes you WANT or to AVOID?

King Diamond is VERY OTT and THEATRICAL but most people cannot handle his voice (took me 20 years!)

That's very kind of you to offer, but I've got my listening cut out for a while. Thanks, though. I do appreciate it.

you are excused from this little mysterious birdhouse icon dude because you admit you finally got into him but anybody who doesn't love King D can get the fuck out imo

yeah j as if you dont know who i am

bb it's not a problem. I can make it and send it whenever youre ready. It usually takes me a week to motivate myself to do anything anyway.

lol i know who you are obv i just wanted to type little mysterious birdhouse icon dude

the offers open to you too nv

apparently k3rr does not know who -i- am tho, how do i make a weepy-face icon

am i a mysterious little birdhouse in your soul?

im pretty sure sund4r told me who you are j

gasp

ok, sund4r's on the watchlist

I don't know who J is either but I'm a complete idiot who doesn't recognise mine own best friend on the street, either.

Who are all you people? What are you doing in my phone?

but then again i didnt know who he meant so i guess youre right! webmail me?

Can we have some more pictures of the hott dude from Interpol now?

j (he mentioned it when he was talking to me on fb and having the same discussion with you elsewhere )

j I have been dearly wondering who ur in accordance w yr recent spate of bomb posting, can we 20questions this shit idk

Can we not do 20 questions on this thread? (Unless each of those q's has a picture of hott interdude attached?)

my words should be enough for you (unless you want hott pictures of musicians, then ok)

j webmail me

quick someone post a pic of interpol for bb

Here is the little britishes one making a blow-job face.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/052bc25a4284ec912660f9762e561f1f/tumblr_mgp1oySvzo1qgugd7o6_400.png

As you were!

branners my aim is to make you love speculation as to an ilxor's identity, through blunt-force repetition

Lookit his adorable little hampster face.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2g16dJCdQ1r6cs0zo1_500.jpg

How can I not love your band? How? You're so adorable!

Lookit his pedal board!

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m36wwl89CW1qgugd7o1_500.jpg

He wants me to adore him so badly! Why can I not adore his shitty band?

You can. You probably will.

(And if you don't stop calling me "Branners" I'm going to give you blunt force trauma!)

you answered your own question

Now Slowdive have officially reformed do I use this thread to give them a chance?

I feel compelled to encourage anyone who is considering getting into Slowdive or Yes (makers of Close To The Edge) since they are both in my top 5 favorite bands ever. Let them enrich your life and fly into those vistas.

I hate Yes and will never subject my ears to YES,ELP, Jethro Tull or Gentle Giant to one more play nevermind 22

It's odd, there really isnt that much music that I hate passionately. I generally only really hate music when I've had it imposed on me from tv adverts or radio play when I'm not able to turn it off (at college years ago, at work, on some buses, in some shops or when someone else has the tv remote control) and heard a song way too many times. A lot of singles chart pop songs would be fine 3 times, but 5 to 200 times is torture.

There are quite a few bands I dislike things about their image/attitude (sometimes their opinions too) and their overexposure, but if there was no radio, tv and excessive magazine coverage forcing them down my throat, I really doubt I'd be much bothered by any of them.
I used to think I hated lots of pop acts, NME and Kerrang darlings, but I really just felt like I was supposed to hate them and then I grew up and let go of that.

The last time I really hated anything was at my last job because the radio was on and I heard the songs way too many times. Taio Cruz's "Dynamite" drove me crazy because I thought the lyrics were astonishingly bad but if I couldnt understand english, I'm not sure it would bother me much.

I recently was extremely annoyed in a shop by some stereotypical modern acoustic singer-songwriter stuff. But the associations with adverts and certain other things are where the real passionate response comes from. If I heard that music a decade or two later I'd probably just find it weak but not really that annoying.

I'm often baffled by the amount of boiling hatred people have for bands and I cant help but feel that some people are too caught up in surrounding factors around the music and some people feel obligated to hate or feel like it's a sort of masochistic fun to oppose something that way.
I think it takes a weight off you when you let go of this stuff. It seems really silly in retrospect too.

I'm not sure why films and books dont get the same level of ire. Maybe because it is more difficult to overexpose them and tv early on can show you all sorts of film genres before you build up any prejudices. People might dislike action, horror and romantic comedies but that's more based on there being lots of bad ones than having principles against the genres as a rule.
And that's a shame because I think music is generally far far far better than films and books and far more rewarding for being open minded.
I dont get why some people are so incredibly fickle on the music forums but have such crazily low standards/expectations for comic books (I'm totally a comic book guy but I still think the medium is a sad wasteland).

I'll admit that I irrationally think less of people when they like games like Grand Theft Auto and Call Of Duty (and anything similar).

@۩ - I got into Gentle Giant early last year and I'm still in awe of "Raconteur Troubador". Love Jethro Tull too.

I dunno; there are hatreds that seem silly in retrospect because it's based around a teenage identity thing or the surrounding factors which have nothing to do with the music.

And then there are hatreds which are representative of things that do actually mean something, and should probably be examined.

It's always interesting watching the EOY squabbles over kneejerk dislikes of "ILM Personalities" because of what they're revealing about themselves, and what *they* believe society values.

Every fucking year, there's this refrain of "ugh, indie-rock" followed by "ugh, R&B slow jams" which yeah, is about individual tastes and the music, but it's much more about what people think they're representing by upholding their favoured artists. When someone yelps about how unfair it is that "OMG, you only left 10 minutes after this art-metal epic, SO prejudiced, SO unfair" they making a stand that they think that (white, cis-het, male, college-educated art rock) is something which is soooo underprivileged and under-represented (either on ILM or on society at large) but by the same token, when that same person makes a sneer about "R&B slow jams" because this is what they associate with "mainstream culture" or whatever, and someone comes back and defends "R&B slow jams", they are not just talking about the music, as the people who make and consume it, and making just as much a claim about attitudes in society towards women of colour, and their tastes and artwork being really, seriously undervalued in society in a way that white, cis-het, male, college-educated rock loving dudes really don't have a leg to stand on.

Hating music, and what it says about what you hate is not always "silly". It sometimes says a huge amount about what a person values and despises in culture itself.

Blah blah blah, I am a broken record at this point, but it bears repeating. Blunt force repeating.

yo bran...well you're being flat-out ridiculous there, seeing's as i was the one who complained about the slightly short shrift given to the death metal albums appearing in the poll ('white, cis-het, male, college-educated art rock' being a preposterous description of either Gorguts or Carcass), but that if you actually read my posts in the thread, you'll see that not only was i NOT the one who complained about 'R&B slow jams' but that i actually REALLY LIKED a whole LOAD of the R&B in the rundown. you're conflating very different ilx posters together to make your increasingly bizarre point!

(bizarre because it seems to want to put people into reductive boxes, e.g. 'white, cis-het, male, college-educated rock loving dudes' (guilty as charged, but what ELSE am i etc) and thus create appalling false binaries that don't allow for grey areas, complexity of taste or anything that would undermine these very straightforward theories of archetype you seem to adore. yes i've been guilty of archetyping ILX as an immanent whole before, but i've seen the light, and this album rundown is thrillingly diverse and exciting)

taste is complex and people are complex and not pointing the finger at any one individual but there are still posters/people in the world at large with unexamined underlying cultural values who play a kind of moral realist "isn't it obvious?" shtick when those values do get a challenge

or a kind of "hey taste is a mystical communion with unknowable forces that does not stand any kind of analysis whatsoever" stance

Well, LJ, I can see why you're feeling picked on more than your usual persecution complex, but by its nature, summarising common thremes which have recurred through a decade of ILM requires collapsing and summarising. I still stand by what the gist of it says about power structures and personal narratives.

x-post NV OTM, as always.

oh i'm not saying my taste doesn't require analysis (listening to every album on the rundown except the arcade fire for intractable moral reasons has been a brutal and graphic new challenge for my taste!) but that it isn't as determinative as 'white, cis-het, male, college-educated rock loving dudes' may imply. also i was peeved at being implicated in dismissing R&B when i've been championing & enjoying loads of it

From recent experience, I know how annoying this phrase is when it's directed at you on a perplexingly inappropriate level. But in this case, I think it's fairly valid: LJ, this is not all about you.

get a room bb and nv lol

LOL, NV is awesome. I'd be ~honoured~ to get a room.

Although I am SPECIFICALLY NOT FAULTING ANY INDIVIDUAL POSTERS WHO ARE ENGAGING IN THIS EXERCISE because I emphatically said that people should choose their own hated record, and go with their own gut reaction.

But with the single exception of emil.y (sorry if I'm forgetting anyone else who has said their album? I don't think snoball said what they're listening to) everyone - including myself - has pretty much picked something from the White Dude Canon, whether that's Sex Pistols or Interpol or Led Zeppelin or Aphex Twin. Which probably has a lot more to do with who the people are who have decided to engage this experiment and our home ground. Actually, Sarahell said she might do Kanye, so there's that as well.

But I do actually think that "indie or metal dude genuinely tries to find something to like in R&B slow jam" would have been a more challenging and interesting exercise than "pop fan tries to ~get~ something from the witedude canon." Like, we are actually missing half the dichotomy posed in the original thread, here.

I guess that might be because it's way, way more of a trope in general outside culture, of "indie/rock dude who is lone music correspondent for local paper goes to see Beyonce or a boyband an comes away mystified and disgusted" <- I read that kind of thing ALL. THE. TIME. to the point where I don't even know what it means, beyond the eyeroll value. But the reverse trope? Most organs don't even seem to employ women, let alone women of colour, to write about music, let alone send them to a hilariously inappropriate death metal gig to see what she makes of it. (Granted, this felt like the whole punchline of my 2-month tenure of writing for Terrorizer so I know it's not a very fun joke to be the punchline of.)

But, then again, listening to an album 22 times is a hell of a commitment, so I guess I understand why people don't have the time to make it, and me, I'm kinda dreading the post now, for fear I'll have to stop looking at photos of hott boys and listening to their terrible, terrible music.

has pretty much picked something from the White Dude Canon,

You could have picked a jazz album

Jazz is so thoroughly canonised by middle aged witedudes it basically *is* witedude music, no matter who is making it these days.

maybe not Kenny G

it basically *is* witedude music

no no no no no

and no

Not sure I really 'get' the seriousness with which BB is imbuing this 'project' with - you've voluntarily decided to listen to a record you might not like. We have no way of verifying your 22 listens to you could quietly give up after two and we'd be none the wiser.

This is one of those "tone" things, isn't it? That you're seeing this whole thread as really serious, when I'm seeing it as being mostly very very playful, with a little bit of light-hearted musing and taking the piss out of ~the kinds of srs things I usually say~?

Maybe I should change my user name to an emoticon of a bouncing, excited smiley face with a mischievous grin, because that's the spirit that, like, 90% of my posts are made in.

But then, doubtless it'd just default to a square box and I'd be impossible to distinguish from birdhouse dude and random chinese character dudes. :-/

it could be a little crypt i guess

I'm bored. Let's have some more boys with haircuts.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m34suz0p0x1rsw6pco1_500.jpg

They are smirking at how much I hate both their bands.

Ah, sod this. I'm going to go and make lunch.

I'm mystified as to how anyone could take this as being anything but a fun experiment for cheerful curiosity.

But anyway; if I was to do this properly, I'd have to do it with Celine Dion, or some really savage, misogynist rap, or some metal, or some pop country, or some opera. I had thought about The Shape Of Jazz To Come, but I like a lot of jazz so I'm sure that'd be fine eventually. (I maintain that BB should do it with a jazz album! Happy to recommend something I think you'd get a good way in to.)

Was listening to Matana Roberts earlier, just about the polar opposite of witedude music.

Jazz is so thoroughly canonised by middle aged witedudes it basically *is* witedude music, no matter who is making it these days.

― these birches is awful (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, January 29, 2014 7:54 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"no matter who is making it"

that's kinda fucked up

Yeah, it's kinda fucked up, and I will probably backpedal on it. But after the quips on the EOY polls about "R&B slow jams, Luther Vandross shit" it's kinda on that level. It's an assumption based on the fact that 99% of the serious jazz fanatics I have known are all middle aged witedudes and they all invariably make these quips about how I should ~open my mind~ to jazz instead of all that "shitty pop music" I listen to or whatever, while, at the same time, suggesting that they could sit down and listen to an Electrik Red album is just "oh god horreurs" like, they expect me to "open my mind" but they are not willing to open their minds to the things I consider really amazingly good.

I am just really done with being told what to listen to, by dudes who will never take my suggestions on board.

i'm talking about jazz is still being made by non-white dudes and to say the music doesn't belong to them is fucking not cool i think. or that black ppl don't listen to jazz. i mean, yes, most don't, but neither do most middle aged white dudes! it's a niche market.

anyway:

I am just really done with being told what to listen to, by dudes who will never take my suggestions on board.

seems like it's weird that you started this thread then. it's almost like you purposefully create situations that will make you feel aggrieved.

Yeah, it's kinda fucked up, and I will probably backpedal on it. But after the quips on the EOY polls about "R&B slow jams, Luther Vandross shit" it's kinda on that level. It's an assumption based on the fact that 99% of the serious jazz fanatics I have known are all middle aged witedudes and they all invariably make these quips about how I should ~open my mind~ to jazz instead of all that "shitty pop music" I listen to or whatever, while, at the same time, suggesting that they could sit down and listen to an Electrik Red album is just "oh god horreurs" like, they expect me to "open my mind" but they are not willing to open their minds to the things I consider really amazingly good.

I am just really done with being told what to listen to, by dudes who will never take my suggestions on board.

I'm over 40, and white, and have been listening to jazz since I was 15 or so, and I totally understand everything you're saying. The idea pushed by jazz dorks that jazz is somehow good for you is one of the most sabotaging things ever done to a genre of music by its fans. I've said again and again that you should never tell someone "You should listen to jazz"; instead, you should say, "You should listen to [X album] by [X artist]." I mean, you wouldn't tell someone, "You should listen to rock" or "You should listen to hip-hop," would you? Jazz is every bit as variegated and diverse as any other genre, so it's pretty easy to find something you'll like that fits under the jazz umbrella, no matter what your primary favorite genre is. But jazz people have no idea how to make that case, for whatever reason.

This is probably starting to get into overly personal territory so it's probably better if we don't go down this road. Because I am not "aggrieved" right now, at all, though the continued insistence of people on this thread that I am expressing emotions I don't feel may soon make me start to *feel* aggrieved, with good reason!

But "why the hell should I open my mind to your music when you will not open your mind to mine" is behind a great deal of the snarking that I, personally, do about genres I "refuse" to get into. Jazz being a prime example thereof.

http://mindhacks.com/2013/09/29/jazz-no-longer-corrupting-young-people/

That's a fucking great point, Humorist (horse), and something I'm guilty of and will resolve to stop myself doing.

xposts

Horse Humourist, that's a really good and succinct summary of part of it, but by no means all of it. Thanks.

this is the perils of geographic distance similar to how a lot of african music has become linked in a lot of western minds w/ goateed white men in waistcoats or w/e & thus tarnished

Yeah, it's kinda fucked up, and I will probably backpedal on it. But after the quips on the EOY polls about "R&B slow jams, Luther Vandross shit" it's kinda on that level. It's an assumption based on the fact that 99% of the serious jazz fanatics I have known are all middle aged witedudes and they all invariably make these quips about how I should ~open my mind~ to jazz instead of all that "shitty pop music" I listen to or whatever, while, at the same time, suggesting that they could sit down and listen to an Electrik Red album is just "oh god horreurs" like, they expect me to "open my mind" but they are not willing to open their minds to the things I consider really amazingly good.

I am just really done with being told what to listen to, by dudes who will never take my suggestions on board.

This obviously sucks, and I'm sure lots of people irl have horrible opinions about all sorts of things, but here on ILM I honestly don't believe that many people think like this. People have their personal preferences and blind spots, and it's interesting to question them (like in this thread), but that doesn't mean writing off an entire category of music without trying to engage with it first. I've always assume that non-omnivorous listeners just select themselves off to some other message board. Is "Luther Vandross shit" a direct quote from a thread? I'd expect anyone saying that to be laughed off ILM.

Not saying that ILM is perfect or that posters don't get into pointless and petty arguments. Just that broad-mindedness has always struck me as one of its main virtues.

"Luther Vandross shit" <- doglatin said this as a v. doglatin joek iirc

Somewhat ironically, actually, yes, some of the people who have done that whole "here, listen to these 17 albums I have recommended for you in a genre you've already stated you don't like" "oh hey, did you listen to that one album I suggested you?" "No, I don't like that kind of music" thing the most often, are people who sometimes post on ILM. But like I said, I don't want to get personal. It's just a thing; it happens.

I'd prefer not to continue down this path, because it's something that will lead to hurt feelings I'd rather avoid, if people start guessing names and linking posts. And I would really prefer to keep this a happy, fun thread of examining our own irrational hates and preconceptions.

x-posts ugh, yeah, thanks NickB, this is exactly what I wanted to avoid.

Like, I completely *do* understand that DogLatin's post was meant to be satire, and read it completely in that spirit.

But for something to be trope-y enough to be satirisable, even in a doglatin joek, means that this is a recognisably common attitude.

yeah, i don't disagree!

what was that guardian writer dude who used to say dumb shit like reggae is music made only for posh students?

I know it might be different in other places but I generally associate college with people who want to appear to be doing something (with the exception of some subjects) and university is for people who actually want to study. I went to college.

Many fans (although usually not most) of all sorts of things are willing to admit deeply problematic elements of their favorite genres, whether it's Manowar or hong kong martial arts films.
I'd understand if people said they found some stumbling blocks too difficult. Increasingly I cant watch standup comedy or South Park style humor because I find the aggression too upsetting (I find aggression in music is usually turned into something more positive), but I dont feel like condemning people for liking the stuff (I quite like Doug Stanhope and Charlie Brooker, but not sure I can stand the negativity anymore).

I was just saying that I think the bile directed at bands and types of music rarely comes off as principled or reasonable. It often seems like people are creating a lot of unnecessary hard work for themselves.

I quite enjoy some bits of Interpol but I understand why people dont care for them; dont understand why anyone could really really hate them.

see that last clause is one of those "unexamined underlying values" i was talking about

I guess I could ask "has anyone on this thread expressed bile?" because most of us (I think?) have been talking about records that we meet with bafflement or just "sliding off our ears/not getting it" I think, rather than actual bile. And I'm getting really tired of explaining my tone for the eight billionth time and being told I'm angry when I'm being playful or interrogative.

But that's not really the point, because there certainly are musical things that I have frothing bile for (RHCP, though, not Interpol).

So all I'm going to reply is, I distrust people who make these kind of sweeping statements about the futility of getting angry at things, because usually, the freedom to not get angry about stuff is an exercise of privilege.

But this is also backed with the understanding that a lot of the RRRRAGE I encounter on music messageboards (not so much ILM, though there are pockets) that gets directed at a lot of the music I like boils down to a howl of rage which is more succinctly expressed : "Ugh, isn't it terrible that teenage girls exist." That kind of rage, I do think needs to be examined and challenged at every turn. (Just like my dumb statements on Jazz above, born out a frustration with K3rr as much as anything else than anything else, needed to be challenged.) And being challenged is not always a bad, or a painful experience, it's sometimes just necessary.

God I'm bored of this now, and I haven't even obtained the album yet. :-/

Manowar

did so much damage to non-metal fans view of metal.
I loved it when they got called on the rolling metal thread as "widow twankey of metal"

At this point many people who claim to like manowar are those who want to keep it outsider music away from people. They hate the thought of people who are not like them* being into it)

*no that doesnt mean non-white.

Bile.

ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

Based on lifestyle and perceived audience.

haha. Not just bile, puke too!

Yes, puke usually involves some kind of bile, that was the joek. ;-)

i think you're pretty wrong about Manowar, K, partly because i don't think most non-Metal fans have ever heard of them, partly because peeps that do know them and wd hold them up as a stick to beat Metal with are pretty obviously not arguing in good faith

I'd have to do it with Celine Dion, or some really savage, misogynist rap, or some metal, or some pop country, or some opera. I had thought about The Shape Of Jazz To Come, but I like a lot of jazz so I'm sure that'd be fine eventually.

This interested me, because I think I could pretty easily do this with a Celine or pop country record, but misogynist rap and some metal (I'm thinking Cannibal Corpse, but there are probably better, worse examples) are two things, lyrically, that 22 repetitions are not going to make me like, even if I could on some level appreciate the musicianship or the production.

The real test, in that case, would be to do 22 listens of a thing you imagine you could come to like (Celine or whatever) and 22 listens of a thing you think would be a real struggle, and compare and contrast the experiences.

But, well, no one's *that* bored. Not even me, I don't think.

It would probably take your average pop-trained listener more than 20 tries to even figure out what most death metal vocalists are saying.

i think you're pretty wrong about Manowar, K, partly because i don't think most non-Metal fans have ever heard of them, partly because peeps that do know them and wd hold them up as a stick to beat Metal with are pretty obviously not arguing in good faith

J of course they haven't heard them (just as well really) but they KNOW HOW THEY LOOK and some have seen the silly shit they come out with in interviews.

You know all the metalheads are sexist stuff that BB sorta thinks comes from fucking manowar.

Manowar have 1 good song but no doubt phil posting above me disagrees with :)
Oh and Phil, I still haven't learned what they're saying 23 years into listening to metal :)

and phil 100% otm about recommending artist/album rather than just saying "jazz"

Sigh.

There's a point beyond which it's pointless to engage, so I'm really not going to bother. Goodnight, K3rr.

i could watch this 22 times!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsytdmYtcf8

Napalm Death! Lister from Red Dwarf!
pity that clare grogan could not come do guest vocals.

i didnt mean all of it comes from there but n/m

Manowar
did so much damage to non-metal fans view of metal.
I loved it when they got called on the rolling metal thread as "widow twankey of metal"

Do you think that metal gets more respect now that there's a generation who didn't grow up with hair metal?

i don't think one of the campest-looking bands in Metal history shd take the rap for much of the sexism in Metal fandom

Is there maybe a metal thread you can take this discussion to?

Yes, this is totally in character with me being a thread nazi, but come on. This is a thread for people to talk about interrogating their blind spots. Not for metalheads to complain about how come more people don't like metal.

Has anyone else thought about what albums they might want to try the experiment with?

thought about having a shot at notorious b.i.g. so to speak, cos i've had ready to die for years hoping it would click for me but the grimness of the subject matter has always just left me feeling sad and depressed and that's pretty much my reacton to a whole big chunk of hiphop so...

What's a canonically bad album by a good person? Attempting to like supposedly good albums by bad people is not working for me. (Terrible people make terrible art!)

I'm not going to do this experiment because I just have too much else to do but I'll try and think what I would choose if I was going to commit...

- I have a bit of dislike for the attitude/image of The Clash and Paul Weller, but I enjoy quite a few of their songs and I could probably quite easily get over any negative feelings.

- I dislike Jake Bugg's image a lot but I dont really know what his music sounds like.

- I've always been a bit funny about the vocals in Corrosion Of Conformity but I've heard they are very good sometimes, so maybe that would be too easy.

- The vocals in Coheed And Cambria put me off, but since I really love lots of challenging vocals many would consider annoying, this might be too easy too.

- Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Panic At The Disco and a bunch of other Nu-metal and Emo stuff might be a challenge because I grew up disliking a lot of it. I think the image of Fred Durst and the Linkin Park guys and other similar looking guys probably clouded my judgement of the music a lot. I know the image of band members can be important and it ties into the aesthetic of the music, but obviously the music is more important and some great bands can look visually not so great, or say stupid things they regret. I'm sure some of those guys cringe at how they looked.
Small bits of Linkin Park and Papa Roach songs worked well enough.

- Deathcore, metalcore or anything with a 90s to present urban tough guy or dudebro image bothers me. But I think most of the music would probably just be underwhelming and derivative more than objectionable.

- The Juno soundtrack was really grating in places. I like some of the associated artists so maybe this wouldnt be too hard.

- Taio Cruz, horrific lyrics discussed above (bad lyrics dont usually bother me).

- I remember thinking Daphne And Celeste were the worst thing ever, but I really dont remember a note of their music. It probably wasnt much different from most brit girl bands (which dont really bother me).
In retrospect I dont really mind Take That (I actually like their last single before they broke up in the 90s), Boyzone, (Mike Tyson's fave) Westlife, Blue, Spice Girls, S Club 7, Steps, Bewitched, Girls Aloud, Atomic Kitten, Sugababes and many other similar bands. They were just overplayed, often lacking but not really hate worthy.
Although sometimes I do think there is merit to the common criticisms of the music being half hearted and overly motivated by commerical factors. When you get in that mood when you think about the potential of self-expression and creativity, I know why this music can seem offensive.

- Maybe Nickelback/Chad Croeger (cant remember the spelling).

- Something that epitomises the modern coffee shop, mobile phone advert singer-songwriter acoustic people. Especially if it has novelty cover versions. I dont know the names of any of these guys. James Blunt doesnt really bother me much (him being such a lovely chap in interviews makes it more difficult to dislike him).

- I actually do this openmindedness excercise in my mothers car listening to Keane, Athlete, Snow Patrol etc. I think it's mostly mediocre but I think Snow Patrol actually have some decent moments.

- N-Dubz. I dont think I've ever heard them but Dappy is such a profoundly dislikable person it would be difficult not to keep that baggage.

- The whole pop diva thing used to bother me a lot, but I bet I'd end up liking some of Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Anastasia etc. I'd probably find those exercises more interesting and fun than most of the above, so it might be too enjoyable to be chosen for this.

- I heard the recent Madonna album at work and some songs annoyed me quite a bit.

==============================
I think I'm possibly so lacking in anger about music because I'm very detached from the social element/genre rivalries, the fact that there are probably less genre prejudices than ever now, and that I think even though things could obviously be better, I think music and the attitudes about creating it have always been better than other things.
But when I get thinking about the comics, films industries (sometimes a little about gallery art and text fiction) I often feel full of rage and want to scream "genocide on fanboys!". But I try and resist that because I know it clouds my judgement horribly.

The idea pushed by jazz dorks that jazz is somehow good for you is one of the most sabotaging things ever done to a genre of music by its fans.
Classical and opera have also fallen prey to this sabotage. With jazz there was a historical moment where this started happening and there are a lot of politics involved that relate to race, class, and Tipper Gore. I've listened to jazz since I was probably 7 or 8 and would be dragged along to my grandparents' parties, and that's what would be on the stereo. Though definitely in college, there was a certain type of jazz dork that made me feel less interested in it.

I've said again and again that you should never tell someone "You should listen to jazz"; instead, you should say, "You should listen to [X album] by [X artist]." I mean, you wouldn't tell someone, "You should listen to rock" or "You should listen to hip-hop," would you?
Nah, there's nothing inherently wrong with referring to jazz, in general. It depends on the context of the recommendation. Sometimes it's more useful to recommend a particular sub-genre or era or regional scene. Saying, instead you should recommend "x album by x band" seems like such a white male jazz dork thing to do. And conflating it with "listen to rock" is silly because rock is so culturally dominant, as hip-hop is coming to be (maybe already is, definitely in terms of people under 30).

Jazz is every bit as variegated and diverse as any other genre, so it's pretty easy to find something you'll like that fits under the jazz umbrella, no matter what your primary favorite genre is.

Jazz has also "fused" with so many other genres, but again, as has been discussed in this thread, just because you like these 3 things that share elements with this 4th thing, doesn't mean that you will like that 4th thing, and in fact, you might hate it.

and speaking of those things that share elements but one is adored and the other loathed:

BB, to me, your Interpol cutie looks a lot like poor hated Ezra (I think both are cute btw)

Ha, I was gonna say I might buy a Mastodon album (Blood Mountain was cheap in HMV) and try this but the metal moaners on here have put me off.

OK, I'm going to come back to Jazzwank in a minute, but just for now... HAY!

No, they don't look anything alike.

http://www.uncut.co.uk/sites/default/files/imagecache/article/2013/05/ezrakoenig140513w.jpeg
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/30870025/Interpol%2B%2BDaniel%2BKessler%2Bl_a9b66a6680a14094fc097744ac36.jpg

Unless you're trying to say that all prep school dorky dressing middle class white dudes from NYC look exactly alike. Which is the sort of thing I'd rightly be called out for massive prejudice if I ever posited!

Because Daniel has light brown hair and amber eyes and a dishy britishes little face with a ridiculous jawline and skinny little legs and Ezra has black hair and sort of, I don't know, I don't want to lookit his eyes any more closely than I have to because his eyelashes are dangerous eyes. And Daniel has better dress sense and nicer shoes and Interpol do better photo shoots and Daniel is a cute name and Ezra is one of those names of, who the fuck is called Ezra except people whose parents read too much of the Cantos Of Ezra Pound, and Daniel is adorable and has big puppy dog eyes and... OK, you're right, I'm out of ideas, they are the same person. Why does my vagina write cheques my ears cannot cash. Ugh. I think I'd be safer if I went back to flapping my big mouth about jazz.

(Mastodon are actually kinda OK, they're not really "metal" so much as classic hard rock. They'd have been played on Pyx106 in my youth.)

xp Daniel's face is longer and thinner and his eyebrows are less full.

Yes.

Daniel is all about his eyebrows.

Does Daniel always look like he's just taken off a wooly hat?

Kind of agree on the Mastodon = hard rock thing, recommend Crack The Skye as a good place to start

who the fuck is called Ezra except people whose parents read too much of the Cantos Of Ezra Pound

I know a dude named Ezra whose dad invented a synthesizer and his mom was French. Not sure how they felt about Pound.

Exhibit One:

One of Interpol wearing a Mastodon t-shirt. Grrrrrr, metal!

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5505/12218971624_92934c45d1_b.jpg

Exhibit Two:

Daniel's fusking eyebrows. Lookit him. Just lookit him.

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Daniel-interpol-69376_690_521.jpg

He is flawless. How can a human being be so utterly physically flawless?

OK, he's like 5'2". But that somehow only serves to make him cuter. *shakes head dismally*

i prefer stronger, thicker eyebrows, like Ezra's

x-post that "I've just taken off a wooly hat" cowlick is not a flaw. It's ADORABLE.

I'm going to stop this now, and talk about some music. Honest. Stop encouraging this!

Is Ezra one of Vampire Weekend?

I felt like it was making up for the dudes' Manowar/real metal discussion upthread ... providing some kind of balance or cleansing of the palate or whatevs.

i'm enjoying this tbh

Yes.

(I feel like I'm about 15 years old and discussing whether Andover or Exeter* boys are cuter in their Lacrosse uniforms)

*I mean the American prep schools, not the British towns they are named after.

hahah, I went to college with both Andover and Exeter boys -- forgot which were cuter

(i actually know what prep schools at least two of Interpol went to (why do I know this?) - not sure about Vampire Weekend though?)

I think actually Groton's uniform was cuter than either Andover or Exeter's. The Connecticut prep schools' away teams used to come and play at my and my brother's school. I can't think of those boys and not see hockey sticks.

Ezra is indeed one of Vampire Weekend

I think the cutest boy in my Freshman class had gone to someplace like Deerfield? I think that's what it was called.

I see shitloads of (real) Exeter boys in lacrosse uniforms all the time. #campuslife

this portion of the thread is really an exercise in previously loathed music appreciation, seriously

american prep school =/= uk prep school, correct?

what was that guardian writer dude who used to say dumb shit like reggae is music made only for posh students?

John Harris iirc.

Maybe I should just get the Deafheaven album? I fucking HATE metal screaming, it really is a barrier to me. The shoegazey talk is an obvious way in, though, and it's very modern-alt-canon for people with black framed glasses and beards who drink beer and ride bicycles, so I'm totally 100% of the demographic, which makes it cheating.

The alternatives are pop-country and opera? Modern R&B I've listened to plenty (albeit a decade ago and little from the last five years) but I'm just not particularly interested rather than actively disliking it.

xp - american prep schools like Andover, Exeter, Groton are often feeder schools to Ivy League Colleges.

Which prep school did Ezra go to? Where is Alfred when you need him?

Knowing all the boys from this list was basically my life, aged 9 to 14:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Boarding_schools_in_Massachusetts

(We'd moved to upstate NY from Connecticut, so my school's teams played mostly Western Massachusetts teams then. Also my brother's school is on that list. I also hate the singer of Interpol because of just how fucking much he looks like my brother. He went to, like, American Schools abroad, though, which is another level of fucked up ness. Interpol dude, not my brother, though he is also fucked up.)

like whatever schools for mostly wealthy kids who plan to go to Oxford or Cambridge -- that would be the British equivalent of Andover/Exeter, etc.

Matt DC was right when he said Deafheaven are like post-rock with screaming.

I tend to think of them as Explosions In The SKAAAAARRGGGGHHHHH

Thanks for clarification btw sarahell

Oh, god. This is absolutely why I both HATE Interpol, and also totally fancy them. They are just the archetypical prep school boys like my brother and all his philosophy club mates, who swarmed to Columbia and NYU and took out bassists wanted ads in the Village Voice. This completely explains both the loathing and the lust.

So. Jazz, huh? Let's talk about jazz.

wikipedia says that Ezra went to Glen Ridge High School, a public high school in Northern New Jersey

POSEUR! He's not even a real prep school boy!

If my mom hadn't thought NYC was far too dangerous and I'd get raped and murdered, I would probably have gone to NYU at the same time as your Interbros

All my mates were SVA, and thought NYU was ~beneath contempt~! Anyway, Interbros are all about 2 or 3 years younger than me, so I'd have viewed them with freshman contempt anyway.

(My brother and his mates all thought that NYU students were just not philosophically rigourous enough.)

We should really stop talking about class-based strictures of the American educational system and talk about music again. But, then again, I suppose this is part of the image and part of the block of preconceptions that comes with hating a band (hating a band because they are too close to your demographic, but just slightly off enough to trigger the narcissism of small difference.) Like, Interpol look like the kinda dudes we would have sneered at for being "art fags*" and refused to sit near in the campus centre.

*I secretly fancied AAAAALLLL of the art fags, but the punk dudes who worked at the vegetarian food coop had already adopted me.

Wow, OK, so Kessler's school was actually a "public school" (US sense) but it's one of those schools I always just assumed was a Prep School, and looking at its history, it's in one of those suburban areas which was historically so heavily segregated by race and religion that it might as well have been one of those super-WASP New England academies.

America and their ways of having a class system, even while pretending that they don't, is so weird.

America and their ways of having a class system, even while pretending that they don't, is so weird.

― these birches is awful (Branwell Bell), Thursday, January 30, 2014 2:44 AM (2 minutes ago)

Isn't it? I think this was something I got into an argument with someone about in the Common People thread

I'd pick Vampire Weekend for this experiment, but I think it would be too easy. Like I can imagine dating a guy who likes them and being converted to liking Ezra's music (as opposed to just his nice hair, healthy cheeks and eyebrows). So I am going to try to like Kanye, who is on too many magazine covers and billboards for me to accept that he is some kind of genius. (At least that is the bias I have going into this.)

Haha, let's not talk about the Common People thread.

But yeah, my parents, really bought into the idea that America really was a "classless society" compared to Britain - well, at least for the first couple of years, until we learned to negotiate the ropes of the unfamiliar class system. I mean, my parents were brought up under Apartheid, and no Americans ever let them forget that, so discovering that America had its own system of Apartheid, but without the encoded laws on the books to explain how it worked, or even the *language* to discuss what it meant. Talk about disillusioning.

I will never forget the day that my brother found this book on the American class system and brought it home like a forbidden thing and said "look! it's all in here, you're in here, I'm in here! this is how it works!" and it was like the light dawning on all these weird American things I had never understood.

x-post OK, yeah. My thing is, I can actually accept that Kanye is some kind of genius. But what I cannot accept is that he is not a massive kind of misogynist. So we're back to the Metal Problem here.

So... jazz.

The Common People thread was a great thread, at least from what I remember. It wasn't like that LJ thread about artistry and innovation or whatever that was which was doomed to failure from square one.

Yeah, I just remember getting kicked from both sides (UK and US) for just not liking a song.

HEY I COULD DO PULP FOR THIS EXPERIMENT!

Wait, really... no.

I remember it fairly quickly progressed to discussing and arguing about narrative POV and whether there is a class system in the US

On the "let's talk jazz" front...

What I get out of the jazz I like varies a lot depending on what it is; mid-70s electric Miles for instance, is almost close to what I get out of some shoegaze, where it's a maelstrom of sound with a really strong rhythm underneath it. I don't know what BB thinks of XTRMNTR by Primal Scream, but the MBV Arkestra on there is like a 00s update of On The Corner (literally; it samples it!). I find it quite visceral and cathartic. Then something like Tribute To Jack Johnson is a really electric funk thing, basically, but like the opposite of RHCP.

I think you'd like In A Silent Way, BB; it's basically very groovy, almost kosmische electronic music, like strung-out abstracted techno, or Future Days by CAN. It's very blissful, very beatific. The new Warpaint album is quite similar in tone and aura, actually. Drifting, rhythmic, insouciant.

The new Polar Bear album has lots of pre-programmed electronic beats which the drummer then plays fills around, and almost hip-hop rhythms coming from the bass riffs, with psychedelic, exploratory electronics and then really slinky, catchy horn melodies.

The Sons of Kemet album from last year was really dance-y, very kinetic rhythms, and a tuba playing mad, almost acid-house bass parts. The melodies on top are more African than skronky. No skronk at all, actually. And the Melt Yourself Down album was just an intense Nubian punk funk party album; barely jazz at all.

Other stuff, like Brubeck or Lee Morgan or whatever, it's just about the tunes and the swing.

The two things that really keep me coming back with jazz (which are very related), though, are 1; musicianship and interplay - it's just really fun and interesting to listen to people who can REALLY play - and 2; unpredictability - not crazy, wt-ness, or deviations into skronk, but just more complex patterns than you get in rock / pop / dance / whatever, that repeat less often or wit more variation or in more unusual (to my non-musician ears) ways; standard rock / pop / dance songwriting formulas can get tiring in their predictability to me, and the way a lot of jazz (but not all, obviously) works structurally I find takes me a lot longer to get to know, and makes it seem fresher to me for longer.

Which is to say that texture, musicianship, and sublimation are all key things I get from it, and things I think BB appreciates, so I'd like to see BB try something.

Edge of chaos, basically, sometimes, are my favourite bits.

Melt Yourself Down album was just an intense Nubian punk funk party album; barely jazz at all.

well, they named themselves after a Contortions song ... and there is quite a bit of that aesthetic that they draw from

ach sarahell you just reminded me of a band-I-wish-I-liked but had forgotten til now, I am going to listen a lot to Gowns and make it work

Scik I am in the same boat as you re: metal screams and I immediately thought you should hear Neurosis, you would love it, I like "Times Of Grace" and I think you would too

which album - Red State or the last one that only sort of was released, or was released in a weird way?

I love Red State btw, and is one of my go to albums for electronics/noise mixed well with normal "rock" instruments

Never heard an album, just a couple of disappointing shows together and a dislike of the EMA record. I will totally check out Red State tho

I really don't think I could commit to this project because 22 listens is A LOT - I mean I know that's the point but I've even with records I love I've always preferred to spread my listens out a bit and I have to be really obsessed with an album to play it twice in a row (individual songs are a different matter though). I'd like to think I could get a handle on a chosen album after about half a dozen listens - if I ended up liking it, great, I could maybe give it a few more goes but if not, the last 16 listens would just be mind-numbing.

OK, Jazz. This is going to be long so sorry if I x-post with Sarahell talking about cute prep school boys again, as the "class POV" was the last post before I typed this, and I'm not going to read the intervening posts yet because this is already way too long.

Yes, a lot of my dislike and distrust of Jazz is based around the people who tell me to listen to it. Yes, this is overly reliant on stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is that for every 100 people you find conforming to a stereotype in the wild, there will be a dozen who then come on a thread and tell you how completely unlike they stereotype they are, and yes, of course they are right. Stereotypes are blunt and inaccurate.

But, still, the stereotype persists, of dudes with really conventional and conforming-to-type rock (or indie-rock) backgrounds and tastes who show off their adventurousness (before you protest that this is assumption and no one is like that, go and look for interviews with Bobby Gillespie) by Liking Jazz. There's something really self congratulatory about it, and "look at me, pushing my boundaries and appreciating chaos, maaaan!" See also people for whom, the implied "difficulty" of the music and subsequent elitism is an inherent part of the appeal. (See the London Improv Scene, times one billion.) This is not helped by years of "jazz" in pop culture (whether in scenes in films, or the soundtrack for upscale restaurants) of "Jazz" being seen as something smooth, sophisticated, urbane, intellectual. Jazz is one of those signifiers of "I'm a grown up now" that listening to classical music used to take on in another century. Jazz is the thing that Financial Directors and Company Owners try to talk to me about when they find out I'm a music fan, and it's just... well, it's not as bad as when they try to talk to me about Radiohead, but, still, just... no. All this stuff is a fog around jazz, and not anything to do with the music itself, but none of it helps.

Second, and probably more importantly, is this thing I've been dancing around for the length of this thread, which is the phenomenon of Men Who Like To Tell You About Music.

All of my life, Men Who Like To Tell You About Music have been the bane of my existence. And it is gendered behaviour - the desire of men to "show off" their knowledge and taste to women, b/w the unexamined assumption that girls know nothing about music, and even if they are wearing the t-shirt for a band, it's as a fashion statement, and not because they actually like that band - this still fucking happens, I have a friend who was writing on twitter last month about her experiences of being in a tube carriage, wearing a badge of an old blues label, and in the course of flicking between a Led Zeppelin track and the blues original on her iPhone to compare and contrast, the bloke sitting next to her takes it upon himself to regale her, so loudly she could hear it over her headphones, about her being a fake fan girl and a blues poseur and she should really listen to ::the artist she was in the process of flicking to:: instead of Led Zeppelin. This is the world that female music fans inhabit. This is what you have to deal with when you are the only girl in the front row of an avant-drone gig, wearing an Other Music t-shirt, and men *still* assume that you are only there because your boyfriend dragged you there, and start telling you fucking basic stuff about the artist onstage whose every fucking album you own.

Yes, I know that some people just love music so much they want to share it with all their friends. And people who have a huge knowledge and a huge love and just want everyone to love that music as much as they do, so they make recommendations and push things on people and campaign for their favourite artists. And in some people, this is a treasure and a joy, and it's a brilliant stroke of luck to have these people in your life because they are *fountains* of musical knowledge. And then there are guys who just like to show off, especially to women, and it's what I was talking about above, with the "have you listened to those 17 albums (in a genre you've already stated you don't like) yet" "no, have you listened to the one album I suggested in return, to you?" "Nope, I don't like that kind of music" people.

I no longer tolerate this kind of behaviour in my life. I *love* my friends that love music as much as I do, and it's a shared joy, and they recommend something to me and I try it out and love/hate it, and I recommend something to them, and then 45 minutes later, they're reviving a thread on ILM to say how great it is. That is one of the joys of life. But the combination of "I'm going to force music on you, without accepting return recommendations, and ignoring your tastes and preferences" especially with a side order of "I'm just going to *assume* that it's impossible for a ~Primal Scream fan~ to have made the jump to trying out some of the Miles David records Bobby G is always banging on about, because girls are dumb and all they care about is haircuts" (OK, yes, this is irony, after spending 20 minutes talking about Daniel Kessler's haircut). It's just GROSS when this takes on a gendered dynamic like that.

And the overlap between "Self important dudes who congratulate themselves on liking jazz because it shows their ~musical sophistication~" discussed in point 1 and "Dudes Who Like To Tell You About Music" in point 2 just mean that my Not Liking Jazz and my *hating* being around the kinds of people who like to bang on about jazz have built up to the point where, even if I did actually like individual jazz records, I would still, never, ever consider myself a Person Who Liked Jazz.

If you're going to say "none of this has anything to do with the music" then you're perfectly right. I could write another whole book about jazz records I have tried to like, and failed. But if you are wondering why it is that I do not want to take on board your carefully chosen recommendation about What Jazz Record I Should Try To Like, all this shit is why you are going to get a blank and hostile stare, the insistence that I just "don't. like. jazz." and the end of the conversation.

Phew, that makes me sound a lot more worked up than I actually am.

I'm going to go and google "Interpol haircuts" now.

Re: jazz, my reasons for liking it are similar to Scik's but I'd also add that I really like a lot of the harmonic/melodic qualities too. I do tend to only like certain types of it though and big band jazz would be a genre I'd consider picking from if I was actually going to undertake this exercise. Another would be grindcore or the more extreme end of death metal and probably for similar reasons - it just doesn't go anywhere that's interesting to me, there aren't any pleasing hooks and there's not anything in the sonics to grab me either. I mean I'll happily listen to minimal techno or ambient music where not a lot happens as such but big band swing and that sort of metal both just sound 'busy' in an off-putting way and trying to immerse myself in it is like staring at TV static.

In Posts Completely Out Of Character: I fucking love Big Band music and have since my teens, probably more due to being in chorus in high school than anything else, but the whole fog around that era of music and the revivalism of it and modern associations with "Swing" skeeves me out so much that I will rarely, if ever, even admit it.

I totally respect your opinions on jazz, Branwell.

Now that the albums poll has reached the point where Ive heard a bunch of great new albums, it's time that I really put sooner thought into this. I've done this blunt force thing with broad genres before - country amd jazz. Each time, I planned to only listen to albums from those genre's for a whole season. Country, I lastEd a month and picked up some great new albums. Jazz late about two weeks and I still get surprised going through itunes like "I listened to this twice but can't recall anything about it."

Anyway, on those cases, I was learning to just one genre all day, but usually multiple albums.

Ugh at my autocorrect in that whole paragraph. Apologies.

@ BB, I feel you, 100%. A lot of my trepidation in jazz appreciation came from the perception that I was being patronized. Maybe I was, maybe not. Jazz heads in conversation make assumptions that you've heard Those Five Coltrane Records, but I didn't grow up with jazz, and there were a lot of Coltrane CDs available and they were not cheap. Even jazz survey discs are beholden to label boundaries, and you're listening to the wrong version of "Sorcerer" or the wrong kind of fusion. I was often getting mix CDs from friends but they were never jazz, except from people who liked "Hot Rats" and Django Bates-- stuff I wasn't interested in. I would buy random second-hand Eric Dolphy records and try and crack the code on my own, and failed. It was only when I was 23? 24? when This One Guy, the best guy, he made an effort, knew my predilections and my tastes and started putting Ornette Coleman and 70s Miles records in my hands, that I got an appreciation for jazz records. Still could never find my way through a jazz section but I have a few artists I am super passionate about and know what to look for.

Oh, I did this with dubstep for about a week too. Still don't really care for the music, but itv was kinda fun driving around going BROOOOOOOOMP all over town.

See also people for whom, the implied "difficulty" of the music and subsequent elitism is an inherent part of the appeal. (See the London Improv Scene, times one billion.)

I've never really seen that, wrt to improv - but it is a small group of people (and when you get to wondering why it is small you may get an elitist vibe out of it). Additionally that scene came out of a 'disagreement' with jazz in the first place.

My feeling about free improv isn't "elitism" but something else, a kind of presumptuousness, that 80-90% of the free improv I've attended/participated in has been unforgivable rubbish, but that the rubbishness has been somehow tactically-defended by "it is supposed to be difficult" and "it's improv! we are making this up" plus stranger currents of pedigree and fame and, well, forgivability, like it's impossible to truly hate a Michael Snow-at-80 rubbish improv set because he's Michael Snow! and he's 80! and it's improv! and who the fuck are you? Not quite elitism but a definite barrier for a more self-conscious listener. Once I stopped caring what people thought if I walked out on their improv sets, I started attending far more. (For the record I've never actually seen a rubbish Michael Snow set he is consistently great even at 80)

See, I did this with Dubstep (I was at that point working in Croydon, so the music seemed to *click* with the environment, and also it was research for *ha-hem* a fic) but I didn't do it for 2 weeks, I did it for like, 6 months. And with the help of old messageboard threads (reading, not posting, thank fuck) and Spotify playlists of "the history of dubstep" which included the roots of the music, and 2-step and weird dub remixes whereby you could hear the synthesis of these two different strands of music. I stopped when I caught myself sputtering "That's not dubstep! the beat falls in *totally* the wrong place!!!!" at some EDM remix because that was the moment I realised I was in danger of becoming a purist instead of a dilettante. But it was certainly an exploration that was worth making - and putting dedicated time into (significantly more than 22 listens' worth) because it did make me hear that there was more to the style than just that BROOOOOOOOMP and the whole @dubstep_song twitter bollocks.

But dubstep is now so old and so degraded by pop associations that I didn't ever feel in any danger of gaining up any "Cool Badge" for picking up an appreciation of dubstep.

While with Jazz - it's the same thing as with Classical - that it's so big and so encoded that it requires Cultural Capital to make inroads. It's not really the sort of thing you can pick up off a messageboard thread and a Spotify playlist.

And this is the irony, that I come from a class and a background where I was taught How To Appreciate Classical Music from grade school onwards (things like, it matters what recording, what conductor, which version of a symphony you listen to - as well as a working knowledge of crotchets and semi-quavers). And the irony with old school Jazz hipsters and beatniks is that loving JAZZ! was supposed to be a rejection of all those Cultural Capital signifiers, and yet has just been coded into a new body of Cultural Capital of knowing which records, which versions, which record labels will reveal the *right* version of the piece. But instead of going to school and having music lessons to pick up an appreciation of this music (like with Bach or whatever) you have to talk to and spend time with insufferable pricks to attain it.

And I'm really trying to minimise my "insufferable prick" exposure.

And I'm really trying to minimise my "insufferable prick" exposure.

Which is of course why I'm about to listen to an Interpol album 22 times in a row!

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/carlosd320.jpg

And just looking at this guy, I can see he's got it all over his face, that insufferable "let me talk to you about Jazz" kind of expression and I had 10,000 conversations with this dude and all his brethren in and around Manhattan every day for ten years and in 30 seconds time, he is going to go from talking about MBV Arkestra remixes to banging on about "yeah, so you're into spacerock, you should really check out this band, they're really obscure, you might not have heard of them, but they're called... Sun-Ra?" and trying to tell you about SPACE when you have actually been several times in the past few months to check out the open Arkestra Sessions that are still going on in a rehearsal studio over in the East Village and you just want to punch his face between his clove-cigarette stained fingers and say "Shut up SHUT UP SHUT UUUUPPPPPP" because there is no amount of shitty philosophy student drugs, shitty philosophy student music and shitty philosophy student sex that is EVER going to make this conversation worthwhile SHUUUUUUTTTTT UPPPPPP."

I don't really like Michael Snow's improvising, and saw a so-so set of his about 10 years ago.

The thing is its a 'community' so you think you'd get the 'big fish in a small pond' mentalities but I've never seen much of it (but I'm sure its there in many small communities: friend of mine was telling me just last week how she participated in writing groups and thinking about it now the dynamic sounded similar). A lot of ppl in improv and classical (the serialist, so-called complex end of things) where you think will give an inherently elitist thing but I found myself having conversations about how much of these scenes were stagnating (I got talking to a composer in the intermission of a concert and exploring how there wasn't much contemporary classical music that explored anything interesting since fall of the Berlin Wall.) But I'm ok with having a row and getting people on the defensive instead of appreciating...what I do find however is the people who are using their brains are ok w/that and don't get too defensive about it. xxxp

While with Jazz - it's the same thing as with Classical - that it's so big and so encoded that it requires Cultural Capital to make inroads. It's not really the sort of thing you can pick up off a messageboard thread and a Spotify playlist.

What do you mean? I made inroads by picking info off messageboards/conversations/magazines/books.

While with Jazz - it's the same thing as with Classical - that it's so big and so encoded that it requires Cultural Capital to make inroads. It's not really the sort of thing you can pick up off a messageboard thread and a Spotify playlist.

i'm still about a decade off getting into jazz but this sort of thing worries me a bit - with every genre i love i've found my favourite bits of it by ignoring received wisdom, canons, consensus etc...

xp!

Well, did you go at the field of jazz with as specific a focus as "dubstep" (as in, wanting to get into e.g. improv) or did you just face the whole overwhelming wall of 100+ years of jazz?

I mean, I already know where our experiences are going to differ - you had an interest in getting into it, and a motivation to want to try and explore it which I am fundamentally lacking (both through the faff surrounding it, and a basic being-turned-off by the music) which is probably more urgent and key in any exploration.

x-post to xxyyzz

(Sorry, xyzzzz - your display name/message wasn't showing in the "there have been x-posts!" box)

Still could never find my way through a jazz section but I have a few artists I am super passionate about and know what to look for.

This is how I am too. I listen to a fair amount of jazz (and had 3 jazz albums in my EOY ballot) but I cannot talk about it at all and am ignorant/unappreciative of the majority of canonical artists/recordings. And I'm ok with that.

I feel pretty unable to talk/write about jazz most of the time, too.

both outside my normal taste zone, and something I have already decided that I don't like on a cursory listen,

Did some brainstorming. Think I've settled on mine:

311 - s/t (not gonna do this to myself)
D'Angelo - Brown Sugar (eh, really more just can't bring myself to care about it)
The aforementioned Astral Weeks (so challenging)
The Clash - s/t (or any Clash album outside of Combat Rock or London Calling, which I used to like, but have heard enough when I was 15)
Prince - Sign 'O the Times (not "outside my normal taste zone", but people rep for this like it's amazing and I've never been able to make it through).
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace (JUST deleted this out of my itunes cloud. i think. hopefully.)
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

I like the sound and idea of improvisation. I've done nowhere near the going back through 100 years of jazz (or hundreds of years of classical either), doesn't exactly trouble me that I've not heard a mountain of Ellington because that I like things to come along.

Also I'm usually working through an idea or a reading of music histories, and that determines what I will pick to listen to.

Now I actually kind of did this with MPP back in 2009. And it suddenly clicked in May when the sun came out and I got new speakers. Was a baffling, disorienting headache mess until then.

like Branwell's choice, a Pitchfork EOY champion that I just couldn't.

I just want everyone to listen to Polar Bear etc so I can talk with them about it and thus learn to talk about it more.

Maaaan, I don't even dislike that band, but the thought that I am responsible for someone sitting through an Animal Collective album 22 times is really depressing me.

It could be worse, though, it could be Pavewank.

I like one and a half Pavement albums.

Or did, a decade ago, when I last listened to either.

I will probably buy tomorrow and start listening next Monday.

I've been lucky, the only scenester elitism I've ever encountered was from people into DIY hardcore punk that I knew through friends while I was at university and that was more along the lines of "This music is objectively better than what you like because it's not made for profit". I don't doubt for a second that Self Important Jazz Dudes exist though.

Oh actually there was one guy at school two or three years above us who was pretty obnoxious generally but one of his things was to say to anyone wearing a band t-shirt, "I bet you've only heard *band's most recent/most popular album*. What a dick he was. I'm not sure he put me off any music in particular though, I think his favourite band was White Zombie.

If I was to do this experiment, it would have to be with Pavement. I fucking hate the idea of them, and their influence on American rock culture, so much that they are pretty much the one band whose members I would actually consider hunting down and killing as children, if I had a time machine.

Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is a nice fun record with some good tunes and stuff.

Pavement are great, but I'd hate them too if I were locked in for twenty-two listens. They're for occasional casual enjoyment.

Horse, I'm with you. It's not even so much Pavewank's weedy albums as the awful, awful effect they had on American indie. Oh noes, Steve Malmus might laugh at your hair cut!

And Gavin, yeah. Like imagine the mist annoying, self important DIY scene dude, and ramp him up x1000 with the idea that someone from The Wire might find their album culturally important or something. Or, reasons hanging out at the Foundry was bad, part one million.

Now I just know someone is gonna come along and try to make the argument that Malkmus was hott. :-/

@ BB, I feel you, 100%. A lot of my trepidation in jazz appreciation came from the perception that I was being patronized. Maybe I was, maybe not. Jazz heads in conversation make assumptions that you've heard Those Five Coltrane Records, but I didn't grow up with jazz, and there were a lot of Coltrane CDs available and they were not cheap. Even jazz survey discs are beholden to label boundaries, and you're listening to the wrong version of "Sorcerer" or the wrong kind of fusion. I was often getting mix CDs from friends but they were never jazz, except from people who liked "Hot Rats" and Django Bates-- stuff I wasn't interested in. I would buy random second-hand Eric Dolphy records and try and crack the code on my own, and failed. It was only when I was 23? 24? when This One Guy, the best guy, he made an effort, knew my predilections and my tastes and started putting Ornette Coleman and 70s Miles records in my hands, that I got an appreciation for jazz records. Still could never find my way through a jazz section but I have a few artists I am super passionate about and know what to look for.

― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, January 30, 2014 12:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I find this is a major complaint with people who are curious about reggae - 'There's so much out there and so much of it's crap! How do I know what's good or where to start?' It also reminds me of why I gave up on metal for quite a few years - too many people deeming things 'false metal' when really I couldn't tell the difference between the two. And it's also how I felt about jazz (and I understand the issues and perceptions BB raises) until recently when I decided I wanted to try it out, mostly after interviewing Martin Carr and hearing him enthuse about A Love Supreme. With all these genres I've found that you can only rely on advice from people to some extent because there are gatekeepers (feel that this applies to all genres) who will try and put you off as much as possible for some reason. The big ILM jazz poll K3rr ran a couple of years back was a godsend for helping me find the best stuff. As for improv, I don't know anything about scenes (sort-of lucky enough to live in a place where scenes don't really happen), I'm kind of fascinated by people like Derek Bailey, whose music is admittedly kind of horrible to listen to, but I appreciate for his approach and method. I find it sort of daring and as someone who plays (mostly) pre-composed music I like reading about his theories with regards to improvisation. Certainly wouldn't force it down anyone's neck though.

I like cut your hair but it seemed sui generis for even the pavement catalog much less outside of it.
Unless it somehow influenced weird al?

Er much more so. I just wanted to use "sui generis" in sentence somehow

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

― bilbo bobbins (how's life), Thursday, January 30, 2014 1:56 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you do this, please please consider this half-baked record in the context of their earlier work. Especially the stuff including and preceding Feels.

Never heard their earlier or later work.

feel like MPP can stand or fall on its own - why do you think you need to hear the earlier work?

I'm scared of getting into jazz because it is so huge, but I like a lot of prog and metal with strong jazz elements. I listened to a Mingus album a load of times and it never really clicked.
I really dont like that "grownup" classy image of jazz. Same with stuff like Sinatra (the whole appeal of songs about going out and having a good time in classy joints is totally alien to me). "Classy" is one of my least favorite descriptors. Why wear a suit when you could dress like Sun Ra? I'm always disappointed when I see surrealist artists dressing in suits; I want them to dress like wild and free freaks.

Branwell Bell says "Now I just know someone is gonna come along and try to make the argument that Malkmus was hott. :-/"

I think Mark Ibold is very attractive too. Were Pavement really that big in America?

All this talk of condescending music fans makes me feel almost justified in not socializing. Reading articles, reviews and forum posts by that sort of prick is bad enough.

I'm scared of getting into jazz because it is so huge

How much do all the rock albums you'll never hear in your life worry you? Jazz isn't a course of study—it's art, and it's there for your pleasure. If you find one album by one jazz artist that you like, and/but you wind up listening to that album 100 times in a year, awesome.

It does scare me of how many great rock albums I might miss, along with many other things; but you just have to accept you are always going to miss infinite great things, whatever you choose to do.
Only a few years ago I was mad enough to think that I probably could get all the music, books and films I wanted eventually. But no matter how much I prioritise and cut down, there is always a sprawling labyrinth of things I want really badly.

This is what bothers me so much about there being so much dwelling on culture for the sake of the amount of conversation going on (often controversy). When lots of people feel compelled to buy something because lots of other people are talking about it and want to join the conversation, when there are always thousands of things you'd probably enjoy more and could use the attention more than whatever is buzzing this year.

My first jazz choices will probably be Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and On The Corner and Sun Ra's Hiroshima (hoping it will come out on cd sometime).

Hahahahaha! That's great, there is no indie band so terrible that someone won't find them attractive.

I was joking about "oh noes Malkmus will make fun of your haircut" - it was Shady Lane which had the awful insidious effect on the state of Amerindie. Which is ironic, because I actually really like Shady Lane, as a single, but my god the endless waves of college radio friendly mumble-mumble-SPEAK-sing local indie rock bands it launched, god help us all. It almost made one forgive Grunge. All that arch-ness and clever-ness. Did they think they were Blur or something? (that is also a joke.)

I don't even hate MPP, either. It is a time and a place for me - literally the last time I was ever in NYC (probably the last time I ever will be in NYC, unless they do something about the TSA) and wandering up and down the streets of Williamsburg, wondering what on earth had happened to the place in the previous 10 years since I been there, and I went into a record shop and they were playing it. And I asked the man at the counter if I could buy it because it was just one of those moments of thwarted nostalgia that had the perfect soundtrack, and he told me that it wasn't out until the next week, but that I could buy a copy because he liked my accent (LOL). So that is my story of why I don't hate MPP because it reminds me of that afternoon. But I can't imagine why anyone else without that raft of associations would want to listen to it.

Also, in the rolling "lost record shops of London" document, I walked up to go and look at the Fopp outlet in the Bloomsbury Waterstones? that's gone, too. :-(

I feel like there is loads of context I'm missing on why people hate Animal Collective and MPP. I really like the album. I heard the hype but missed all the arguments.
Is it because of the fans are the sort of people who love Wes Anderson and Eternal Sunshine? (I nearly broken my skull from cringing and gritting my teeth from that film, but in mellowed retrospect, it probably isnt as bad as I thought it was). Just the association of the worst twee indie fans?

I know I repeated myself earlier about my bafflement at some bands being so hated but it really does take me by total surprise so often. I understand why people would hate some of my favorite bands (Emperor, Immortal and Devil Doll for instance), but some of the others mentioned recently totally confuse me (Yes, Jethro Tull, Pavement, Gentle Giant, Virgin Prunes, Interpol, Animal Collective and many more).

Sometimes I hear things like that about actors. I know someone who DESPISES Morgan Freeman. I once heard a group of people agree Sean Bean was total shit. I was heard someone say he thought Gary Oldman was one of the worst actors ever. HUH-WHA???

I think Malkmus has a really amazing nose and Ibold has this lovely gentle smiling face.

Another thread that kinda scared me with the agression...
which guy in grizzly bear has the most punchable face?

...I also really dont like that one where people make fun of the physical appearance of bands.

Animal Collective hatred is all about "ugh, indie kids are the worst" and "pitchfork buzz bands are the worst" and admittedly, the tone of the guy's voice is super annoying, but in the context of the earlier, folkier stuff the annoyingness was a feature and not a bug. But also the lyrics of My Girls (which was the big hit off that album) were really, really dumb but in a buzzy kinda way.

I do understand why people hate them; I just can't be bothered.

And anyone who thinks Gary Oldman is a terrible actor is either tripping on something or has only ever seen him in one film.

My anco objection was definitely from a musical perspective. I don't know anybody who listens to it and don't have enough indie saturation in my life to have a prejudice against pitchfork buzz bands. It's been a while since I've even listened to it, but I just remember it being awkward and unpleasant to listen to.

It is.

And I quite like it.

My bafflement levels blown through the roof when I saw the ILE board has lots of people criticizing men with long hair. What is happening to this planet?!!!

I guess we're circling back to "image" again, but that "most punchable dude in Grizzly Bear" thread did quite upset me. I don't have enough of an awareness of what their music sounds like to have an opinion on whether they are good or bad, but I do know, from the first time I read a review in which a reviewer casually wished violence or even death on me, because they did not like an album I had played on - it was an unexpectedly upsetting and decidedly unsettling experience. It made me much, much more careful about not saying things like "this singer deserves a punch in the face" (things like "this record should be blown up" or "if this record had a face, I would punch it in the face" are another kettle of fish because it's wishing violence on the object, not the person) because wishing violence on people for aesthetic decisions is really gross.

Making *fun* of bands for their appearances, though... this is not something I'm ever going to see as black and white. For a start, it's gendered. Female musicians are often treated as their appearance, and no more while male bands never ever get their appearance mentioned, even when their image or their looks are a huge part of their appeal - or lack of appeal.

OF COURSE PEOPLE NOTICE when a performer is attractive, or looks good, or looks cool/interesting/has an aesthetic that you appreciate. To me, what's weird is when people don't notice it, at all, or pretend that the aesthetics (even anti-aesthetics) are not important or somehow just don't matter.

People look like what they look like. Yes, it's kinda gross to slag musicians off for not being handsome. But saying "That person is not attractive" always has an unspoken to me tacked on at the end. Of course Ezra K is a physically handsome man, and I'd be willing to bet his looks are a not inconsiderate part of his appeal as a pop star. Even to people who pretend not to notice looks. But when I'm making fun of him for being unattractive, or for having "no dignity" (while he is getting a face full of confetti - come on!) that is based on his image, his clothes, all sorts of things that he himself chose, and is therefore open for debate. Some bands choose ridiculous images! (Fields of the Nephilim or Razorlight or whoever.) Some bands choose ridiculous images that somehow *work* for them - Adam Ant, bass nazi out of Interpol. Aesthetics is part of pop. It's not a lack of bone structure that makes me think Pavement are unattractive, it's their whole slouching, bearded, can't be bothered slacker aesthetic - while, ironically making fun of bands that do pay attention to image. That repels me.

I don't actually know what Animal Collective look like. They always wore those stupid animal masks, didn't they? That's a good reason to dislike them AFAIC.

You know, looking through AnCo's wikipedia article, I realized that my parents wanted to send me to Park School in 1993. I was a tie-dyed Phish dork just like these dorks. Guys, I could have been in Animal Collective! I guess I have to listen to this album now. It's like a problem I have to fix.

You could have been in Animal Collective, Sarahel could have been in Interpol, I could have been in... *tries to think of some terrible home counties shoegaze band* ugh, Slowdive or something?

But saying "That person is not attractive" always has an unspoken to me tacked on at the end.

Of course it does. But so does every aesthetic judgment offered in a piece of music criticism. Which is why one of my biggest hobbyhorses at the moment is the idea that critics should never, ever, EVER use the word "we." "Why do we love Bruce Springsteen?" Um, we fucking don't. You don't speak for me, I don't speak for you, and I wouldn't have it any other way. (Apologies for ranty tangent.)

I was a tie-dyed Phish dork just like these dorks. Guys, I could have been in Animal Collective!

um...no

big lol @ *tries to think of some terrible home counties shoegaze band* ugh, Slowdive

xp There's a use for arrogating "we" statements in the hands of some very skilled critics. Kael was always making declarations about how "we" respond to things in movies, but in her case it was clear that she didn't actually believe that her readers all agreed with her. It was just a casually high-handed way of asserting that everyone should agree with her, which worked since it fitted in perfectly with her whole critical style. But, yeah, not many critics are gonna be able to play that card.

Xxp: wk, do you think I am remotely serious? I'm just trying to rationalize listening to this piece of shit 22 times next week.

At least I can lookit the pictures on the Interpol record. Animal Collective album art will just give you a headache.

I'm stoked. I got a fresh bottle of aspirin. I'm ready for this, Branwell.

Good! We're rooting for ya! You can do this!

(I'm getting really antsy to start myself, like, I'm tired of psyching myself up for it.)

I'm scared of getting into jazz because it is so huge

Wikipedia genres of Jazz music and youtube a few hits from each genre, in chronological order

If you do that you get this cool 'swelling out' effect where quite clipped ragtime pieces swell out (i.e. starts going in more directions musically and emotionally) into Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and stuff, and then you can keep watching as boundaries get pushed and things free up until you end up with Miles Davis and Sun Ra.

After that, I have no idea, bcoz I know sod all about jazz (as ppl can probably tell from this post) but what I'm saying is it's a very approachable genre full of sounds and ideas.

I really don't like that "grownup" classy image of jazz.

But this is marketing after the fact. Back when it was new it used to be dirty music

*it's a very approachable genre full of sounds and ideas when looked at chronologically

First listen to "Red State". Do Americans know what listing American place names sounds like to people? Imagine my album was called "Blue Province" (blue means Tory up here) and the first track was called "Sudbury" and the first line was "I can see that blue room in Sudbury, Ontario with the Canadian flag draped over the basement window". Would you keep listening? You wouldn't. (I am still listening but it's for posterity, not because this is good music.) Now there's a list of drugs. I don't do drugs and don't know what these drugs are. She might as well be naming a list of pastas. And there is nothing else going on on this track. Here comes track 2, ok, I'm gonna wait til I've listened five times before posting here again, but right away this is sooooooo not for me.

we're americans, we don't care what it sounds like to people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QON6SSMLcC8

I love a song set in an American place but sometimes these songwriters, they just list the place names like they are supposed to mean something to anybody (incl other Americans). btw this record got really fucking good halfway through track five. (ok ok no more posting)

"I can see that blue room in Sudbury, Ontario with the Canadian flag draped over the basement window". Would you keep listening? Yes

nb I would probably hate whatever actual song you're talking about

LOL, this is the bit of the thread that I've really been looking forward to! And get stuck into listening to things they really hate, and the anguished "what even is this" posts that follow. So don't stop, O, this is half the fun of this thread!

I definitely *get* the frustration with Americans who think that their landscape is so mythical they assume it will just resonate with everyone b/w the belief that they are not just the centre of the earth, but that no other parts of earth exist (e.g. the dude on ILM yesterday asking for "national level freelancers" without ever stating the Nation in question - oh yeah, just assumed to be the US, by default.)

I didn't think that knowing the placename signifiers for this record were that important (I remember liking it at the time; not sure how it would hold up) but the record was thematically completely mystifying to me, until someone explained that "Red State" in the context of this record did not mean "communist state" (is she comparing Billings, Montana or wherever to East Germany during the Wall era? huh?) but actually due to some weird colouring foible of the American electoral system, it meant "right wing Republican state".

I suppose it's because I lived there for so long, and because their cultural products are so inescapable in the rest of the world, that it's more jarring to see a reference that really doesn't translate, than one that does.

Anyway, my Indiepol record still hasn't arrived. So this is just getting weirder and weirder, in that I'm only looking at photos and reading interviews and immersing myself in the prelude-to-a-musical-crush state of research and psyching myself up, and I am not doubt going to be cruelly, cruelly disappointed when the music actually arrives. I'm looking at pictures of them dressed like Kraftwerk and wanting them to sound like Kraftwerk and I know that they won't. Sigh.

Nope. They'll sound like Editors.

Or vice versa.

Were the Editors that terrible band that did the terrible dork rock version of Hounds of Love? Have I got the right Editors? (They headlined the year we played Truck and that song kept me awake, ugh.)

the Editors were the Happy Shopper Happy Shopper Joy Div, assuming first Interpol album is just single Happy Shopper Joy Div, yah

oh, the Futureheads were the clowns who abused "Hounds of Love", different style of hapless bungling

kinda secretly prefer shot for shot Joy Div copyists tbh cos at least that sound is kinda lush

Oh, I forgot about the Futureheads, Whatever. Cannot tell the difference.

Maybe the basslines will be alright then, maybe?

I was listening to some live stuff the other night and the guitar tone was just so terrible - yes, I know Barney's guitar tone was always terrible, but that was the point. But in this case, the guitar tone and the vocal tone were having some ultra death match to see which could be more annoying nasal. So I turned of the sound and just watched them dancing around being all hott and dressed like Kraftwerk and that was great.

flamboyant goon - sorry, what are you listening to again?

He's listening to Gowns - Red State.

Wondering how Rob is getting on. And snoball still hasn't done any kind of album reveal, let alone said how they're getting on.

Mysteries!

p.s. the post has come and gone today. No CD. I have stopped believing in Interpol even as a concept at this point.

xp I'm actually just about to listen to this album for the 13th time. Black Box Recorder's 'The Facts of Life', which I bought when it came out, listened to twice, hated, and then never listened to again.

As to how I'm getting on with it, I'll post a summary at the end of day 7, as *SPOILERS* my opinion has shifted a bit.

Thank you, Snoball! Enjoying the spoilers, but keen to hear your summary at the end of day 7!

I would like to just drop in something for the musicians on this thread to think about: to what extent are the things you dislike about the album you've picked reflect things you don't like about your own music?

never heard of gowns.

(I'm not going to touch that one, because the "reminds me unpleasantly of me" stuff is not the music, as much discussed upthread.)

But that is a really, really good question, snoball, and I'd love for others to expand on it?

dog latin: You remember the EMA album from a couple of years back? Before that album, EMA was the singer in Gowns

ahhh. IC. It was that Sky Ferreira album that reminded me of EMA quite a lot.

Gowns is Erika (EMA) and Ezra Buchla (son of Don), the drummer on the record is Corey Fogel, who may or may not be on this year's Julia Holter record, but has toured w/her in the past.

Hi folks. I'm on my eighth play of "SAW 85-92" and melodies are sticking in my brain and dropping into my head without me having to think about them. Usually this stage happens after four or five listens to an album, so it's a little late. I would love to do 22 plays on a week but its impossible around my life, so one play a day at the moment. I've got some flatpacks to build on Monday, it may well soundtrack that. As to my opinion - definitely changing my mind on it, it isn't a chore to listen to it, it's at the stage of "I don't mind this at all", not quite liking it but not hating it at all.

You've still not had the CD, BB? Jesus, it would have been easier for me to go to their shop and buy it and send it to you... Sorry!

to what extent are the things you dislike about the album you've picked reflect things you don't like about your own music?

Not at all anything I'm working on these days, but Gowns has been sounding a lot, a lot! like bands I was in in my early 20s. Uncanny at moments. The first listen through of Red State I was listening so comparatively, too comparatively. On my third listen through this afternoon I started to feel like I was better able to see Erika as a voice, and appreciate what she was doing, without having my own sense of self getting in the way. Before engaging in listens 4 thru 20 I'm gonna relisten to EMA and another Gowns album, I think, try and see some more breadth.

This is what you have to deal with when you are the only girl in the front row of an avant-drone gig, wearing an Other Music t-shirt, and men *still* assume that you are only there because your boyfriend dragged you there, and start telling you fucking basic stuff about the artist onstage whose every fucking album you own.

At that point, I normally say, not that it happens to me all that often, maybe I live in some magical enlightened place, though it does happen from time to time, but I normally say, "Yeah, I booked them when they came through town last." (Or some succinct way to communicate that I am not a dutiful gf or game OK Cupid date) I'm pretty up-front about it, generally because if you don't respond, they will assume you can't hear them, and continue your unsolicited commentary track. Do you ever experience the variant of this, the guy who wants to test your knowledge by asking you about some esoteric fact or release? I try not to be a total bitch to these guys, because they always seem a little too intoxicated or anxious and seem like they don't have any friends. Sometimes they turn out to be funny or interesting. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood to engage.

to what extent are the things you dislike about the album you've picked reflect things you don't like about your own music?

Absolutely nothing. If Kanye West's Yeezus turns out to have similarities to my music, hahahahahah, that might be awesome?

A lot of ppl in improv and classical (the serialist, so-called complex end of things) where you think will give an inherently elitist thing but I found myself having conversations about how much of these scenes were stagnating

HAHAHAHAHAH welcome to my world.

But I'm ok with having a row and getting people on the defensive instead of appreciating...what I do find however is the people who are using their brains are ok w/that and don't get too defensive about it.

That's the thing about most of the people involved (that I know), is that they are thoughtful and ambivalent about it themselves -- elitism vs. populism/openness, innovation vs. tradition, and then you get into thorny issues like diversity, which goes back to the free improv/jazz schism, but also gender parity. And there are recurring discussions about:
1. why do we make this kind of music?
2. how do we get more people interested in the music we make?
3. is the scene dead?

And there are marvelous arguments about things like: comfortable seating, the availability of alcohol at shows, fashion sense of musicians (including prevalence of male pattern baldness), ticket prices, and social skills and charisma.

fashion sense of musicians (including prevalence of male pattern baldness)

kinda funny, kinda sad

Damn, I'm a dork and posting way too many times in a row -- oh well -- such is life

My first jazz choices will probably be Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and On The Corner and Sun Ra's Hiroshima (hoping it will come out on cd sometime).

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, January 30, 2014 10:33 AM (2 days ago)

Ha, these are pretty typical choices for a young(er) person coming to jazz from rock/indie, which is probably good. I have a theory that there are jazz genres/sub-genres/a selection of artists that map well onto tastes in other types of music. It definitely helps that in the last 10-20 years there's been a lot of crossover, and you have all those Chicago jazz dudes (like Ken Vandermark and pals) who cross-pollinated with the post-rock scene. So if you're into post-rock, those guys might be something you'd want to check out. If you were into black metal, I'd go for stuff that features someone like Kaoru Abe or maybe Borbetomagus. People into krautrock-y stuff generally go for Sun Ra. People into metal or harsher prog that doesn't have the higher-pitched black metal vocals -- I'd probably recommend stuff like Topography of the Lungs (or some other Brotzmann/Bennink project), maybe some Milford Graves? There's plenty of jazz that melds with funk, that melds with disco, old school r&b ... it's a genre that has pretty fluid boundaries.

Nope, the Interpol album still hasn't turned up. It would have been easier to obtain this album had I swum to NYC and stole the masters, FFS.

Maybe I'll give that Gowns album another spin and see how it holds up. I'm liking your methods, O, I think that's a good idea, of listening to all the music around an artist's career in an attempt to contextualise it. But yeah, that "this sounds like bands I was in, in my 20s" is totally a short cut either to bands I really really love, or really loathe with a passion. And taking yourself out of the equation and judging them on their own terms is important to get any kind of distance or perspective.

Sarahell, that doesn't happen to me that much in person any more, because I rarely go to shows any more. There's a place to "be nice to dudes who are probably just lonely" and there's also a place for "I have a boyfriend already, and could you please be quiet because you're creeping me out, and I'd really like to shut up and just enjoy the wibbling now." I guess the place where it happens the most these days is online - obviously not so much on ILM any more (unless some n00b actually falls for the "Branwell pretends to be totes naive for a wind-up" routine) but definitely on other music forums. Which is why I don't spend much time on other music forums that much any more, it just turns into this pissing contest, which is really boring. I know showing off can be fun, but it's stuff like what I described my blues-loving friend as experiencing that really, really goes over the line. Maybe I'm just inherently *unfriendlier*, maybe I have a lower tolerance for anything I read as gendered behaviour (I'm really working on that, because eh, it's not working working yourself in knots over this shit) but I guess I'm just blowing off steam about ~stuff from the past~.

Oh god x-posts now but I'm not getting into improv or male pattern baldness.

heh - forgot Phil was regularly posting to this thread -- you probably wrote at least one feature on jazz that metal fans would like, right? I remember seeing at least one somewhere in the past 5 years or so, that was jazz for rock people or something like that.

Yeah, I've done a thing or two along those lines. Hell, that's basically the entire purpose of BurningAmbulance.com - to present jazz and metal in equal measure and on an equal plane with each other. If you like this, you might like this. Here's a piece I did just the other week - The Metal Side of Joe Morris. (For those who don't know, Joe Morris is a fairly well-known US jazz guitarist and bassist.)

in the end it doesn't matter what you listen to on repeat. if it is stuff you hate, you don't care for or you love. in the end repeated listens will always kill the music. if you hated it from the beginning on, you will hate it even more. if you didn't care you will be fed up soon. if you loved it, the love will be lost. the theory underlying this thread is totally wrong.

if you hated it from the beginning on, you will hate it even more.

I disagree, at least for the album I'm listening to.

Alex, this thread is about the literal OPPOSITE of "theory" - it is about trying out the actual experiment, and seeing what our experiences are.

If you're a fucking idiot come to shout at us for having different experiences than you, please just go away. That's the one thing that's not welcome here.

yeah, what the heck alex?

i am surprised by your aggressivity, branwell. we have different views on the subject, ok where's the problem? i have had 50 years of listening to music which have made me very sceptic about repeated listening to music. and especially about forcing something in general. because forcing does not work.

alex the possible fallacies of this theory have been discussed upthread and we've most of us agreed to give it a go. at the very least, "repeated listening to music" is not really something that can actually happen, as returning to an album in different context, different moods, different caffeine and/or alcohol levels, will each time present a unique experience. i have had 50 years of listening to music and it has made me very skeptic about first- or tenth-impressions.

The only song I can think of where my opinion hasn't shifted ~at all~ over repeated listens is "Ventolin", I always shut it off after 90 seconds thinking "I rather like that frequency and don't think any Aphex Twin song is worth losing that frequency"

And there are marvelous arguments about things like: comfortable seating, the availability of alcohol at shows, fashion sense of musicians (including prevalence of male pattern baldness), ticket prices, and social skills and charisma.

That's a v interesting post because I've just come back from a gig that addressed a lot what you raise. Two things: there was both free improvisation and composition on the programme. Now this is (I think) a fairly new-ish thing, certainly the first generation improvisers would NEVER EVER share a stage with anyone who might be following a piece of paper. But now many of them are dead. Composers use a lot of instrumental techniques developed in improv and vice-versa, and past wars are just that. In the past.

The trombone player I saw was tonight v chatty in between her improvisations -- how Hackney has changed over the years and the role of venues in communities such as these. She ended by talking about "starting conversations" (in response to asking someone in the audience to name a thing that happened today.) Now when I saw her last (about five years ago) there wasn't any of that: just play and stop playing. I'm sure she was thinking about this stuff, but its now coming out in different ways.

There was a recital weekend that took place in a disused car park last year. Free but I didn't go, the reaction within the community (via blogs) was ambivalent, but its def a time where ppl are trying v different things.

If you were into black metal, I'd go for stuff that features someone like Kaoru Abe or maybe Borbetomagus.

I think listening to Trout Mask Replica and Webern at 15 or so was my intro although I didn't know it at the time. iirc I did go on to listen to bands and electronic music and then for me it was always reading a lot about music and history that eventually got me to try things out. But it never felt like trying things out; I loved it immediately and unconditionally.

I wonder if many Borbetomagus fans like black metal. I think there are about 5-10 of us here and I'm the only one who probably thinks Black Metal fails at what it tries to do (doesn't hit the ear drums hard enough) whilst Borbetomagus do that, but I don't listen to them just for that (hitting the ear drums hard enough is not a thing for me, only one of a number of things).

Of course I am assuming Black Metal tries to be loud and hurt your ear, but I've never spent enough time with it.

There was a metal rec shop and I remember seeing a bunch of Xenakis and Lachenmann CDs. Lame and yet impressive they bothered in the first place.

i think it's fair to say that aggression or hurting the ear is only a strand of the Black Metal ethos, it's very often too inward-looking, morose or obscurantist to really want to batter its audience

ah right, bcz it doesn't do much for me - as in, I'm never under the cosh, so to speak.

Like I was hunting around for other versions of The Last One over xmas and this is a lot more the kind of things Black Metallers should be doing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peYies2j6Mc

If there is anything like that it would be good to know.

But -- listening to it now obv, nothing like it over coffee on a Sunday morning, natch -- I am not pummeled into submission. Its more like a feeling of exhilaration crossed with boredom.

That's the length of it I suppose. Whereas metal is too song like.

OH GOD I HAVE ACTUALLY STARTED DREAMING ABOUT THIS EXPERIMENT.

I often dream about ILX, but this was centered around this particular idea. I dreamed I finally got the CD, and I was listening to it, and my first impressions were "wait, this is AWESOME" and I was worried that I was going to have to come back to the thread and say, I can't do this particular record, actually I really love it, don't know what was wrong with my ears when I first heard it! (Which is absurd, I really really wanted to *like* it when I listened to it properly for the first time.)

But the record I heard in my dream was, on waking, a very, very *different* record to the record I remember. (How is it I am able to hold a concept in my mind of what a record "sounds like" even though I can recall only one of the tunes, and none of the arrangements? Musical memory is so odd. There are records I can remember every single note of, because I've heard them 200 times, so I am quite certain I could listen to them in my dreams, note for note and get it right. This is not one of them, I've heard it maybe twice, could not sing you any of the songs.)

The record in my dreams was amazing, it sounded much more like they *look* (LOL, I am just so in love with their image, this is why the music is disappointing) and much more the aesthetic - cinematic, claustrophobic, dense, with a guitar tone that sounded like early Suede, but more staccato and stop/start, and kind of glitchy bits in the production. But it was the last song which really struck me, which does not exist in reality, but I loved it so much I almost want to write it. It was this odd semi-instrumental thing which was like a cross between There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, and The Chauffeur by Duran Duran - which is what they should, by rights, sound like, dressing like that - except it had Daniel singing, and he had a much lighter, prettier voice, not as strong, but more suited for the song. And it had lyrics about his "English Heart" and it was about flying home to see distant relatives in a country you'd once lived, and the video was beautiful, soft hazy images that flowed into one another, the flight into Gatwick, the Thameslink crossing the river at Blackfriars (the new station, though, which did not exist when this record was recorded) and then driving out along flooded shorelines in East Essex or Suffolk or somewhere. I have still got it running around in my head, I can remember the *fake* dream song so clearly in a way I can't remember their real songs. I think it was called "To The Lighthouse", after Woolfe - which isn't surprising, they have a later song called Lighthouse, which I do actually like. But it was definitely not that song, there was no mention of a lighthouse in the lyrics, it was about returning home, to a childhood home. And the lyric metaphors were all about weather, kinda like This Is A Low, but more wistful, happier.

Gah, the memory is still so strong. I want *that* album, not the album I know I will have to listen to when it finally arrives. It's weird when dream-songs hang around with you *that* long after you've woken up. Almost like they're bugging you to write them if they don't already exist (though I don't even write songs any more.)

There was a metal rec shop and I remember seeing a bunch of Xenakis and Lachenmann CDs.

A long time ago I interviewed Weasel Walter about his now-defunct black metal band Hatewave and he said "Metal already has enough Wagner in it; we're trying to add some Xenakis."

I try not to think about what genre-musicians "should" or "shouldn't" be doing-- why shouldn't black metal record stores be selling Xenakis CDs? (I get it, but) imo playing genre-Risk with metal is playing into metal's lousiest exclusionist tendencies. When anybody is excited about Xenakis, I am excited about Xenakis. I don't get black metal either, I don't understand why it's [X] no but [Y] yes when both records are comparable to my ears-- I actually do understand why but I don't understand why it is why, if you get me. I get why we are making fun of Deafheaven's photos i.e. but I can't affect my enjoyment of Deafheaven based on knowledge of their dopey looks.

Have we ever had a thread about 'dream songs'? I've dreamed several over the years.

It's a funny thing. Back when Plan B used to run its regular "Why I Hate..." column (and I wrote one, too, yes) there was a rule when you picked your topic that you can't pick jazz, you can't pick metal and you can't pick the Grateful Dead, because those were the obvious things that everybody initially went for when they named their hates. So of course this has ended up a thread full of jazz and metal but thank god no one has brought up the Dead.

I dunno; I just find common hates (and the inverse, of people popping up to defend common hates) a bit played out. Personal hates, and especially uncharacteristic hates are just much more interesting to me.

(Ironically, it has turned out that over the course of the last 3 or 4 days, I have actually listened to Coracle by Walls over 10 times, according to my iTunes. Which is not a record I hate at all, but it's just really good background music for when you are writing. It is, however, a record I was less than impressed with when I first bought it (on Sick's encouragement) and really needed to hear on good speakers to appreciate it. But it is, however, something that I have listened to 10 times in 3 days without getting the slightest bit sick or bored of it, and do continue to take something away from the experience. However, that is often just the experience I have with music. I do sometimes go on weird binges with records and listen to them an absurd number of times. I'm not one of those people that craves constant novelty in my listening experiences.)

ugh, gonna start this tomrrow morning. 22 times. gonna do it. sad, because i'm feeling passion about so much music in the wake of the polling madness.Haven't even fully listened to Yamantaka // Sonic Titan yet. Feel like I'm about to take a milkshake cleanse or something.

A long time ago I interviewed Weasel Walter about his now-defunct black metal band Hatewave and he said "Metal already has enough Wagner in it; we're trying to add some Xenakis."

Did you ask him wtf that meant?

I try not to think about what genre-musicians "should" or "shouldn't" be doing-- why shouldn't black metal record stores be selling Xenakis CDs? (I get it, but) imo playing genre-Risk with metal is playing into metal's lousiest exclusionist tendencies. When anybody is excited about Xenakis, I am excited about Xenakis.

I viewed it as fairly cynical. Maybe that's harsh.

what he most likely meant: there's a lot of heroic-sounding melodies and big riffs and sturm und drang. He wanted to add sounds that were grittier and more alien, more complex structure, more dissonance.

But that's interesting that he gets brought up in this thread, as he was really averse to metal for quite a while until a friend played him stuff that clicked.

The bits of Sabbath I know of (I actually really like them) doesn't have "heroic-sounding melodies". There are melodies and pounding riffs and good songs. A lot of metal is gritty and alien.

And by the time you get to thrash stuff you can argue its like Webern I suppose, in concentration.

So I like some metal but its this Dark distinction as something I don't have too much of a handle on.

There is definitely a heroic operatic quality to Sabbath imo -- and I'm talking about songs I like.

List a couple?

Iron Man
Black Sabbath
War Pigs

There's a huge difference between Ozzy-era Sabbath and Dio-era Sabbath. Dio-era Sabbath tends much more toward the mythic/heroic/operatic - songs like "Heaven and Hell," "Neon Knights," "Mob Rules," "Children of the Sea," etc.

There was a metal rec shop and I remember seeing a bunch of Xenakis and Lachenmann CDs. Lame and yet impressive they bothered in the first place.

― xyzzzz__, Saturday, February 1, 2014 4:51 PM (Yesterday)

Metal is cool. Xenakis and Lachenmann are cool. I don't get why this is "lame." Were they new or used CDs?

New.

Imagine the other way around, you get some Sabbath and Napalm Death CDs in a classical shop. Is that "cool"?

idk if anything has really approached 70s rallizes in any strain of 'avant' 'rock' whatever, they were just the best

xp - sure, why not? It's a store that sells things. Are you objecting to something that seems like a bad retail practice in terms of business strategy, or some sort of puritanical ideological stance?

Neither. My problem is that this shop was placing a purely surface approach by stocking the 'heavy' end of things. I'm not asking to cover all basis but couldn't they not be so fkn obvious with it.

I think we're getting a bit away from the premise of this thread

Couldn't they though? :-)

Ok fine I am going to listen to some Sabbath now.

idk if anything has really approached 70s rallizes in any strain of 'avant' 'rock' whatever, they were just the best

― Pedro Mba Obiang Avomo est un joueur de football hispano-ganéen (nakhchivan), Sunday, February 2, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah

Someone shd compile some of these, be doing the good lord's work.

Just what ILM needed. Another metal thread.

https://24.media.tumblr.com/5b8336f3f8b93a4840c944273dd5313e/tumblr_n0ezmrDnSJ1rjw8sqo1_400.jpg

Will my CD arrive this week? Do you think? (see above meme, again)

Why did I sign up for this again? This is like Phish by way of They Might Be Giants by way of someone who's real sad about being high. It's made me quite seasick to be honest. If this goes higher than 22 in my itunes play count, assume that I'm already dead.

lol what are you listening to?

AnCo merriweather post pavilion

ha ok guessing description is fair

i seem to remember people discussing feelings of seasickness when that thread was running wild

Listen #1 completed. Listen #2 commenced. When I was in high school, one of my friends had vertigo for an entire summer after being hit in the head by a lacrosse ball. I assume or was something like this.

I think there's lots to comment on here. Little for me to like. Plenty of antipathy. I'm gonna have to get a note pad to jot more coherent thoughts down. My phone doesn't work well enough for the kinda on-the-fly reaction stuff.

This is like Phish by way of They Might Be Giants

this is seriously making me want to try listening to AnCo for the first time in several years

i quite liked the 2 albums immediately preceding but was done with them by MPP, don't think i've ever heard it

I think the last time I gave them a try it was because of a Simon Reynolds post where he said he was kind of getting into MPP, but them someone pointed out a similarity to XTC, and this crystalised what he disliked about it. I think when I listened to them they didn't sound enough like XTC as far as I was concerned

but no AnCo raves have ever made me feel like listening to them, only things meant as critisisms

I really, really respect this fact about Animal Collective: prior to MPP they somehow made an enormous mass of people get really into this confrontationally unpleasant band with bizarre songs like "Grass", a band who embraces terrible gain structures and bad contact-mic-on-acoustic-guitar sounds as if they're a noise band, they somehow got throngs of young Londoners to put on masks and face-paint and fill the Scala and then they played some really, really weird music. I have some ephemeral half-ass theories about the Hows and Whys of their success-- mostly relating to some method of legitimizing the indie rock apparatus as having a place for more "avant garde" sounds? I guess? (half-ass). Aside from "Hey Light" I don't like that band, but I'll never be able to hate that band.

Haha, this is great. Your pain is actually making me want to listen to this record again. (Mainly just to see how accurate that description really is.)

Keep on, my friend! You can do it. (I did try to warn you.)

Oh yes. I'm determined to see this through and as interested in my own results as well as everyone else's. This was a great thread idea, Branwell.

It's just frustrating me more and more that I can't participate! Watching people's reactions is really really fun to me.

No album 4 UUUUUUUUU, Branwell:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/3d135cb1152e7a9b7365eb627239ec42/tumblr_mxdgj7jDms1qfh80oo2_500.gif

Picking up in the middle of listen 2 (where I, left off this morning). Still not well-equipped for note taking. The devices half of "guys eyes" is not that bad, I guess. can't remember how it began. I bet I'm in store for something I'll hate soon enough.

Oh this sounds like the Flaming Lips. Great.

At some point I'll have to look up the lyrics to this. I get the impression that the lyrics are intended to convey meaning, but I can only make out about 20% of whatv they're saying. It's this a concept album about being a middle-aged milquetoast?

Starting listen 3 now. Here comes "My Girls" again. Can't stand the phrasing on this and the rhythm reminds me of Rusted Root. I have found a place in my heart for the "aWooooooo!" though

Tell you what, Branwell, I don't know if I'll ever do this again with an album I dislike, but the idea of doing it with albums I like actually sounds kinda appealing.

okay I am downloading kanye now. At least I hope this file that says it's the yeezus album is what it says it is.

I can't do a steady diet of Kanye due to life responsibilities, but I will listen to it 3 times a day.

Oh, you're listening to Yeezus? We both have schaffel tracks on our albums (Black Skinhead and Summertime Clothes).

what if Kanye and AnCo collaborated?

http://animalcollective.org/community/discussion/829/the-most-epic-collab-ever-would-be-/p1

Wonder if Kanye would be comfy in nautica.

crut, areyoulawyer?

I want to make clear that from the first listen if the first song, I could tell this group put a lot of effort into achieving their creative vision. I think they achieved whatever it was they set out to do.

At this point (3 down, 19 to go), I don't think I'll ever get past the TMBGisms, ersatz Beach Boysisms, and the sheer unrelenting nature of it. The first listen through, the only song I was going to give any quarter to was No more running, for the sole reason that there was musical space.

God finishing this up. brother sport is a real bad trip.

this is pure masochism. listening 22 times to stuff you don't like. branwell, are you going to pay to the families after the experiment is over and the participants have killed themselves? ;-( life really is too short for this kind of terrible waste of time.

I still really like the first AnCo album, Spirit They're Gone Spirit They've Vanished. Ignore the excruciating first and third tracks, though.

I'm a big Anco fan longtime and I loved MPP for a good year, but in retrospect it and especially the one that followed maybe don't quite manage to harness the deliberate ugliness as their previous stuff had done, and end up just being ugly-ugly.

life really is too short for this kind of terrible waste of time.

I've completed the requisite amount of listening and I feel that I've actually got a lot out of it. I'm snowed under ATM, so I'll post a summary tomorrow.

I've read 3 alex in manhattan posts itt, 19 to go

Joining in on Animal Collective, which I've never heard! Don't know if I'll have time for a full listen tonight but I'll give it a go.

okay -- It's Kanye time!

this is better than I thought it would be, there's some cool sounds and interesting beats and weird juxtapositions.

I think I like about 20% of it after listen #1, though there are several tracks that I think are awful

eephus, not to be pedantic or whatever, but one of the original parameters for the thread was

and something I have already decided that I don't like on a cursory listen,

I don't want to stop you from listening to Animal Collective too (yes. yes, I do want to stop you. if you value your sanity, etc.), but can you think of any albums you have an existing bad relationship with?

It makes me slightly sad that this thread has made so many people subject themselves to animal collective ;_;

If I was doing it I might choose either the latest laura marling - an album by an artist I like that left me cold - or if that's cheating then maybe katy perry? The biggest pop star in recent times that I p much loathe, mostly on account of her disasrrous yawping voice - just to see whether some kind of pop stockholm syndrome would set in? That seems to have happened to a lot of critics who hated her at first.

Lex, I think that the Laura Marling record would probably be perfectly without the remit of this thread. "Album you should love, but don't" is way more intriguing to me, personally, than something on the other side of a yawping chasm. Or you could subject yourself to Pop Stockholm Syndrome? (You are the last person I could ever see falling for that, though.)

And actually, you make me realise that instead of Interpol, I should really have done Taylor Swift, because that might have been *my* Pop Stockholm Syndrome.

Snoball, I await your verdict, because you seem to have made the most dramatic turnaround of anyone in this experiment - or possibly just because you started first, you finished first.

How's Life, it's the kind of thing I do with albums I *do* like all the time. I probably listened to the KLF's White Room at least 22 times over the Xmas period. It's a good test of how deep your love is, and how substantive the record is, if it can hold up to that kind of scrutiny.

Sarahell, let us know how you get on with Kanye. Looking forward to your observations.

I can't decide whether this exercise would benefit records that repay close listening (the Marling album, or maybe Chance the Rapper - another album from last year that lots of people absolutely loved but that I never found a way into) or those where (presumably) the big pop hooks would batter you until you caved in and ignored all the off-putting stylistic elements. Marling and Chance feel like cheating because I don't hate the sound of either - I'd listen to either willingly - it's about searching for a way to make it click. Repeated listening and probably paying a lot more attention to the lyrics might well do that though. I mean, I DID that last year, but only gave them about 5-6 listens each rather than 22.

I was gonna suggest T-Swift to you BB but thought it might seem like proselytising (...it would have been proselytising). Would have been interested to see how you fared with Kanye yourself actually - maybe his early better stuff rather than Yeezus, though Yeezus is at least interesting - whether anything in the male rapper persona would have eventually resonated with you.

(The other reason I haven't suggested anything is b/c I have no intention of actually doing this, though I'm going to persevere with Chance anyway)

Heheh, I don't mind proselytising so much when it's coming from people who are willing to give my proselytised records a spin and you've certainly given *random ancient indie bands with vague links to SVIIB* and even a My Bloody Valentine remix a listen due to my prodding. In a sensible world, Taylor Swift would have been a better choice, but I deliberately wanted to do dudes for this. I think with Kanye, I would have got bogged down in admiring the production and not given the male rapper persona much shift, until it became impossible to ignore.

I do suspect that to listen to rappers with an eye to the persona, I would have to call upon my Inner Dude, and my Inner Dude is kinda wet and soppy and would respond to ~feelings rap~ rather than any bravaggio construction of masculinity. Is there a Kanye album that is more like that, and less of the pomposity?

If you routinely have to do 5-6 listens to things for your dayjob, I can understand why a listening exercise like this would not appeal, tho.

Thinking about doing this gives me a kind of terror! I pretty much decide if i like a track within a few seconds!

Kanye's first two albums are pretty much ~feelings rap~! Or indeed Chance seems like he might fit the bill. The best ~feelings rap~ is the stuff that coexists or is inextricably intertwined with masculine bravado imo.

There's a lot of the "n-word" and the "b-word" on this, which definitely got to me about half way in. And I realize that I'm probably being a "traditional" feminist because when Kreashawn and Nicki say "bitches" it doesn't bother me, but when a male rapper does, it grates. The autotune was also wearing. Kanye's regular voice doesn't bother me, though I did get tired of it after 6-7 tracks. I think it's easier for me to listen to an album of the same person "singing" than the same person "speaking," like I don't have the patience for talk shows or books on tape. Granted rapping is somewhere between speaking (in terms of tone and pacing) and singing ... and then I think about Death Grips, and how I can listen to a whole Death Grips album. In the Death Grips album, the sounds are much denser, and there are a lot more different sounds rather than rapping, as opposed to some of the Kanye tracks where I got tired of listening to his voice.

you started first, you finished first.

I was thinking about whether or not I should post this right now, since other people are still running their experiments. So maybe some people might want to skip this post for now for that reason.

BACKGROUND
The album I picked was Black Box Recorder's 'The Facts Of Life'. The title track was a Top 40 single in 2000, the album came out shortly after, and that's when I bought it. As mentioned above, I listened to it twice, thought it was terrible, and never listened to it again until now. Never listened to any of the other BBR albums, also not a Luke Haines/Auteurs/Bader Meinhof fan, not particularly enamoured of the Jesus and Mary Chain (John Moore was their drummer). I've not heard much of Sarah Nixey's solo material, but the whole 'flattened affect' style of speak-singing gets old fast for me. Also the idea of anyone collaborating musically with Paul Morley leaves me completely disinterested.

BIASES
Although I'm not a professional musician, I do write and record my own music. I think this is probably the biggest influence on the experience I had with this experiment. Also probably caused me to be less objective than other people might be - although there's no 'right' way to go about this of course.
I'm not expecting other people to reveal this kind of information at all, but FTR: white middle class English late 30's cis-male, formerly het but now mostly aromantic ace. IT graduate, currently unemployed (probably how I managed to get finished first). Probably 'middle class English' is the biggest influence here, as BBR are also, or at least come across that way.

PRE-EXPERIMENT OPINION
I hated the album, thought that it was more or less like those parody songs on 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' (note for non middle aged / non Britishers, NTNON was a sketch comedy programme shown on BBC TV during the early 80s, with a light political/current affairs edge). The album seemed like a rush job, something that had been slung together pretty quickly to take advantage of the maybe unexpected single success of the title track. Buying music was expensive then, £15 for a CD, and I remember feeling burnt that I'd bought this album.

DAY 1
I still hated the album, but I'd gone from the vague view that "it's just like those parody songs on 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' but not funny" to more specific complaints. There's not a lot of variation in arrangements, all the tracks are kind of sedate sounding, the singer sounded like she was just reading the words.

DAY 2
This is when I started to consider how my own attempts at making music affected my view of this album. I was starting to listen to it more as a work-in-progress mix, and being critical of individual elements.

DAY 3
The first time I listened to the album on Day 3, I was travelling on a bus, listening on my mobile through earphones. I'm not sure if this made much of a difference, since there's not a lot of bass on this record anyway. I did notice that the singer's voice was loud in the mix, probably louder than I would have mixed it. Certainly louder than I would have mixed my own voice in similar circumstances.
Note, for the rest of the experiment, I was listening on large semi-open headphones (Sennheiser HD570's). Also, apart from when I was listening on the bus, I took notes while I was listening.
I realised that the lyrics are rather heteronormative. A lot of pop music is, but this album doesn't have any ambiguity (except for 'Weekend', where the best friend might be male or female). Also there are odd repetitions of words, 'rainbow' turns up in several tracks, as does 'mistakes'. There's also a big Throbbing Gristle circa '20 Jazz Funk Greats' influence - that's my favourite TG album BTW. There's a supermarket-own-brand TG feel underlying this whole thing. 'Straight Life' hints at something seedy and untoward underneath suburban blandness, but never engages enough or tells us enough to be interesting. 'Gift Horse' covers the same territory, but makes a slightly better job of it by being more specific about what's being covered up. But OTOH it's still inneffectual and tells us next to nothing about the situation or the people involved. It's abstract, not personal. TG were far more direct. 'TFoL' is more like one of those Top Of The Pops albums in comparison.
I started to get bored with the album at this point. If not for the '22 listens' part, I probably would have stopped listening.
Another problem I have with BBR's music in general is that it simply acts mean and snarky. That reminds me of something that Tom Ewing wrote about 10cc's 'Dreadlock Holiday' on Freaky Trigger: "a rather mean-spirited song, a lose-lose game whose main purpose is to make 10cc seem clever and cynically realistic."

DAY 4
Branwell said upthread: 'hating a band because they are too close to your demographic, but just slightly off enough to trigger the narcissism of small difference' - which I thought about a lot on Day 4. This is where I started to pick out aspects that I disliked about this album, but also disliked about my own music.
As listeners we never quite reach that emotional connection with this album. I can sort of understand what their approach - holding back can be more effective then going all out - but they hold back so much that there's the impression that there's nothing there. Or that they're not bothered.
When I put together an album, I nearly always try and have 14+ songs on it. This is short, although not overly short, at 11 tracks. I will say this though, it does stop /just/ at the point where it begins to drag. This is helped by many of the songs being short as well - a couple of them even just stop, without a last chorus or coda. Total running time is almost 40 minutes - maybe I'm just impatient, but can an album of mostly slow-ish songs really be any longer? There are two bonus tracks ("Start as You Mean to Go On" and "Brutality") that are faster tempo. They weren't on the original copy of the album I had, but I listened to them a couple of times during the week. If they had been included on the album, they would have given it a bit more variety. OTOH they would have broken the atmosphere.

DAY 5
The synths annoy me, because they sound like they would have benefited from more tweaking/programming. As it is, they sound like presets. The guitar sound is a bit blah as well, with really digital sounding effects. Both are things I don't like about my own music though.
I don't like 'wallpaper' music, and sometimes this album drifts into that territory. It's something I'm always always trying to avoid in my own songs.
My opinion about the singer shifted a bit on this day. Before I felt that Sarah Nixey's vocals flattened out any emotion in the song, but I came to the conclusion that it was more the fault of the lyrics, and it was her vocals that in fact made the lyrics more interesting than they might have been if sung by a more emotive singer.

DAY 6
Despite my earlier reservations about the songs all having the same atmosphere, I have to admit that it really helps the album hold together as a piece.
Supposedly 'The Deverell Twins' is about two Victorian twins who were found dead, floating in the river Thames. It's 'clever' touches like this that drag me out of the album and spoil the atmosphere. Because I have this image of Luke Haines standing on a hill with a megaphone shouting "Look how clever I am to be referencing things you know nothing about!". But OTOH this is exactly the kind of thing I enjoy (or maybe now previously enjoyed) about writing lyrics - that I could put in things that people might not get on first listening.
I realised that my 'hatred' of this album was in two parts. I'd been involved in making music for my own entertainment since the late 80s, but by the late 90s I'd stopped so that I could concentrate on my IT career, basically on the grounds that 'working on my career' was the kind of thing people were 'supposed' to do in their mid 20s. When I first heard this album in 2000, I hated it because it sounded lazy, like the band hadn't been bothered to put more effort into it. And ironically that sums up my IT career at that time - something I did because, well, what else was I expected or supposed to do? But it was also something that I didn't care about or put much effort into apart from the absolute minimum amount of effort to avoid getting into trouble at work. Although at the time I wouldn't have admitted that to anyone, not even myself. Mid 00s I made the decision to only to do the kind of work I was genuinely interested in, rather than what was 'expected' of me. So when I started listening to this album again this year, I very quickly stopped thinking of it as 'lazy', and instead began looking for specific flaws with which I could justify disliking it again. But they're not really there. Arguably the singer's voice is boring, but from listening to the bonus tracks, it's clear that this is a deliberate decision that was made. Yes, the synths and guitars are generic, but this is an album on which the lyrics are the main point of interest. And not everyone is an excrement hot synth twiddler or guitar tone nerd. I stand by what I said above, that the lyrics often sound like someone trying to be clever, and that they could do with some reworking to be more direct. But OTOH, if I want to listen to GPO singing 'Hamburger Lady', maybe I should just go and listen to GPO singing 'Hamburger Lady'?

DAY 7
The two bonus tracks are openly cynical in their lyrics, so probably a good move that they weren't on the original album. Which flies in the face of what I said above about wanting the lyrics to be more direct, but those songs wouldn't have worked with the rest of the album.
I don't think that I could keep listening to this three times a day every day much past the end of today, but neither was I thinking 'oh pleeeeeeeeeease let this be over'.

SUMMARY
I originally hated this album because it subconsciously reminded me of my own laziness and career compromises. Later I hated it because I suspected that it's faults were faults my own music shared. Now I don't mind hearing it, but it reminds me that I don't really want to be a supermarket own brand Luke Haines.

Yeah, Lex, that was my impression, that Kanye was known for other stuff that was more ~feelings rap!~ - so the first two would be the ones to go for if I did this?

I could and probably have already written a whole thread's worth on my conflicted feelings on the B-word. It just *is* totally different when Nicki or Angel Haze drops "bitches", whether in the context of solidarity ("these bitches are my sons") or, more complicatedly, a queer woman complaining about the quality of the totty ("this bitches is awful"?) I know this is complicated by issues of race, in rap music, that it can also be a reclamation when men use it - but it does actually bother me more when I hear black men disrespecting black women than idiot white boys. Like, misogynoir is such a layered thing, but really, black women get shat on enough for being black, you gotta shit on black women for being women, as well? Hip-hop is not the only place this happens, no, and I'm gonna call out dumb metal misogynists like Axl Rose just as hard.

(The real question is, though, how do I still manage to maintain a fond feeling for Guns N Roses' music, when I'm not prepared to sit through a Kanye record full of the B-word? I suspect it's more basic than straight-up racism: that GNR snuck into my canon before I was politicised enough to be *aware* of these as problems - which is kind of a cop-out because I was certainly aware of what a huge fuss there was over the "immigrants and faggots" line, which I thought was funny/ironic because I *was* at that point, both an immigrant and a faggot. But today, I would not, on principle listen to a band that came out today that either used language like Axl, or engaged in his behaviours (I got rid of my GNR records after the appalling stuff about Erin Everley came out) though the nostalgia I feel when a GNR record comes on these days is more about honouring the confused teenager who was working it all out back then. My Inner Dude, when I was a teenager, *certainly* found something to relate to and identify in Axl's bratty anger and lipstick-wearing bravado. However, I am no longer 18, and I don't know if I would be able to get into that kind of thing *now*, relating to a new artist, and not listening with an 18 year old's ears.)

Eh. tl;dr - language is complicated, but it's not everything.

x-post OK WOW, WILL GO BACK AND READ, THANKS SNOBALL!!!!!!!

Snoball, that was so, so awesome. And your detailed and meticulous observations have totally, in my mind, validated the whole experiment. Gonna re-read a couple of times before I respond to anything else, but thank you so much for entering into the experiment with this kind of spirit and attention to details, and thank you so much for sharing your results. This is everything I hoped for, from this thread, and more! Booming post.

808s & Heartbreak is probably Kanye's most overt ~feelings~ album but it's such a weird experiment on his part that I'd never recommend it as a starting point. Kanye's first two albums are just straight-up better on every level, including his approach to his own feelings.

(ha, Nicki's @all these bitches are my sons" thing is not solidarity at all, that's one minor problematic point about Nicki - she directs her put-downs at other women 99% of the time. Which is why her explicitly eviscerating men on "Boss Ass Bitch" was so amazing)

Huh, I read that lyric wrong, then. I thought it was comparison to e.g. The Godfather where one's lower associates were one's "sons" but I fully admit I'm totally out of my depth here.

OK, "if I had a dick, I'd pull it out and piss on 'em" is explicitly not solidarity, no, you're absolutely right. I must be thinking of another track.

It's weird, though, that a battle between two women, even if it entails the b-word, still posits two women as equals, in a way that a man calling a woman a bitch is automatically pulling up the whole inequality between them before the battle has even begun. But Nicki is weird and complicated, because looking through her lyrics, a lot of the time she seems to position herself as a man when she is addressing "bitches" which is both ugly, in that it is overtly and blatantly sexist, but also really interesting to me because Nicki's male personas and alter egos are relevant to my interests because of the inherent genderqueerness of those positions. I read her both as a man, but also as a woman, all at the same time.

Which automatically makes almost any Nicki "these bitches are my sons" lyrics about 1000x times more interesting than a boring heteronormative line like "I'd rather be the dick than the swallower."

(That line, coming from Nicki, though, would have been like... wow. That's amazing. But from Kanye it's an instant turn off.)

what's interesting is that the putdown in "these bitches are my sons" is "sons", not "bitches" - Nicki, like most rappers, uses "bitch" as a stand-in for "woman" that can be either positive (eg "Boss Ass Bitch"!) or negative. "Sons" is the word that makes the point about her status vs their status, positions her as the original and them as the copies...the word that sons her opposition.

Nicki's male persona/gay male persona is also interesting precisely because she makes little to no effort to actually distinguish it from when she raps as herself, a woman. Whether this is because she's a scattershot artist who throws shit at the wall before making sure it makes sense or not is another matter, but it's what makes her carousel of characters so exciting.

snoball sets the bar high.

I can count the number of LPs I have ever listened to 22 times in my life on the fingers of one hand. But I'm almost tempted to try this experiment now.

hmmm, Beyonce CD + coaster is due to drop through my letterbox any day now. I wonder...

Yeah, see "sons" was what threw me. I thought it meant "my associates" when really it meant "my inferior copies".

And really, why *should* she try to differentiate her male personas from her female? This is related to a whole raft of assumptions about how gender should work that I don't even have a word for (I'd like to call it "One True Trans Bullshit" because it's tangentially related) but really need one. That a person's masculine and feminine personas *need* to be differentiated? Why?

Like, Zora called me on this yesterday, when I said that I was writing a male character at the moment, and that was making me feel very "masculine" but when pushed to describe that feeling in words, the only thing I could come up with was "swagger" - which was actually untrue because my own female persona is quite "swaggering" a lot of the time, and the male character I've been writing was the opposite of swaggering - he's neurotic and insecure and kinda nerdy creative man-child.

p.s. this is probably the most embarrassing thing I've typed on ILX in aaages but I've listened to Merryweather Post Pavilion twice in a row this morning, and you know, I totally recognise and acknowledge all the inherent problems with this album and this artist. But I still really enjoy listening to it. It's disorienting and dizzying and yet feels fake in its psychedelic, like tripping on the Sheep Meadow in Central Park with a bunch of NYU students and pretending this is so ~pastoral~ and yes the lyrics are embarrassing and I have to tune them out - which is quite easy - but I am still bouncing back and forth on my bed and yeah. I like it.

And yes, snoball sets the bar really high!

Still encourage the sentiment of trying the experiment, though.

But jeez, wow... like, when I like an album I'll play it 25, 50 even 100 times. Looking at my itunes, all of my 25 most played tracks are all over 70 counts and I can count 11 different albums represented pretty equally there! (OK, 90% of them are from only 3 artists, I'm sure you can guess what those artists those are.) And this is only playcounts dating back to 2008 or so.

Kanye take 2.

two of the songs I liked on first listen are sounding better -- really like the beats/rhythm/sounds on Black Skinhead and I am God.

haha Death Grips would be a good thing for me to try this out with. I don't get that band at all, they sound like a complete mess in a bad way

which kind of relates to the revelation I've had over the past 2-3 years that most people who say they're into experimental music/"noise" are into completely different things than I am

this is so funny, because I think of myself as someone who dislikes more music than most ilxors and now two people on this thread are choosing records I like a lot. (Death Grips and Red State)

Back to Kanye: "Hold My Liquor" is still a problem -- I think it's because he is dismissive of Corrollas and I have owned the same Corrolla for over 10 years and before that it was my dad's, and I learned to drive on that car.

two of the songs I liked on first listen are sounding better -- really like the beats/rhythm/sounds on Black Skinhead and I am God.

― sarahell, Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:18 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these two and New Slaves are kinda ok-to-good but later in the album I literally had to turn it off

"Blood on the Leaves" was the first song I heard from this, when I was listening to a bunch of nominated tracks for the EOY poll. It is a weird song and all over the place. I am sympathetic to its oddness.

great thread idear. gonna do this w gorgut's colored sands, which i've been trying to like for several months now, have heard it maybe five or six times. so i will listen to it sixteen more times (4x a day for 4 days) and see how things go.

I haven't opened this thread before, but I'm hoping someone made a "your mom" joke somewhere in here

im late but i want to join in. what should i listen to? i'll sleep on it.

Kanye Round 3: warming up a bit more to "Blood on the Leaves" -- there is an OTT melodramatic quality to parts of it, like when he goes on about "It came out of your body." Now I'm pretty sure that he isn't referring to the automated alien abortion scene in "Prometheus," which is what it made me think of, but I can still appreciate the drama.

The sample on the last track is getting appealing with repetition.

Still having trouble with "New Slaves," "Hold My Liquor" and a couple of the tracks in the last half that haven't left much impression

Sorry, I've been falling kinda behind with this thread because: life, but yes! New people are certainly welcome to join the experiment and start their 22listens whenever. In fact, I really quite like how the thread has been staggered, so that now Snoball has talked about their experience and delivered a booming post, now Sarahell has picked up the baton and is documenting this as it's going.

I've been enjoying relistening to others' hate listens, so perhaps seeing what other people hate in records you love (Death Grips and Red State?) can actually help focus or crystalise your love more? Feeling the urge to defend MPP ("yes, all of these things are right, I like it anyway") did actually help me come to grips with my feelings about that record.

Maybe my record will turn up today! Or maybe I'll get to continue my lust undistracted by the indelicate matter of his music for a few days yet...

maybe they're waiting on the herpes vaccine to package with it?

It's OK; the band has been declared virus free since Carlos left.

Dear Branwell Bell and fellow partipants. I am sad to say that I must prematurely end my participation in this experiment after only 6 listens. I have come down with an office cold that has moved beyond the sniffles and sneezes phase and into the head-like-an-aquarium, bumping-into-walls sick. Base on everyone else I know who's caught it, I'm certain I'll be under the weather for the next week or so. I don't think I'm in any condition to subject myself to a test of will and endurance such as this one.

The album had begun to open up for me after these six listens. I was able to revel a bit in the watery delays. I began to recognize strains of Tusk-era Lindsey Buckingham (although I largely prefer Stevie and Christine, this is at least a way in). I grew to not mind the awkward vocal cadences in My Girls that had been a sticking point earlier. There are a handful of songs that I like now.

Conversely, there are some things about the album that continued to annoy me and I even began to dig in deeper against. I can't stand the ravey break in "In The Flowers" All things considered, it should be something I like, but the timbre of the (organ?/synth?)raises the hairs on the back of my neck, and in a bad way. I like the acoustic opening to the song and love the drumming and the melody when it really starts to take off. But the synths are just the wrong side of screechy so as to elicit an unpleasant response from me. I don't know if this would change over the course of 22 listens or not, but it continued to annoy after 6.

Other sticking points included the adenoidal "TMBG" vocal tone that I mentioned earlier. It crops up first at "social STATS" in "My Girls" and reappears occasionally throughout the album and prominently on "Summertime Clothes." It's the reason I stopped listening to TMBG when I was 15 and I don't see myself changing my mind about that particular tone regardless of how many times I heard it.

Over the past two days, the album's lyrical repetition allowed for many of the lyrics to become stuck in my head, earworm-style. I am confident that even if I never hear this album again, some of these lines will echo around in my head until I'm 80.

Lastly, there is a klaxon (synth?/sample?) that begins at about 1:30 in "Brother Sport" that I find supremely annoying. It reminds me of Daffy Duck. It was a constant source of despair and dread, once I knew what was coming. I know I'm an old man, but I've listened to some repetitious rave music in my time. This just bugged the shit out of me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwpD3USKEKw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGQjyGT1-mc&feature=kp

Haha, oh I'm so sorry, HL, hope that you feel less ill and that the death flu clears up quickly. No, listening during Death Flu is probably a fast track to 1) getting more sick and 2) having horrendous associations with the album for the rest of your life.

(I have to admit, though, that I am a massive fan of that annoying klaxon sound. There's another song earlier on the album that I can only describe as having a sound like a farting duck woven into the rhythmic samples - it makes me laugh like a drain, it's the kind of thing that would make me listen to it over and over if I were on acid, which, let's face it, is their target audience.)

I completely understand how someone's vocal tone and accent/affectations can really throw you off a record (it's 9/10 of my objection to Haim) but I find the TMBG comparisons hilarious. I guess I never went through a TMBG phase, so it strikes me as comical more than anything else. But if something reminds you of a band you once loved but now have no more time for, I can see how that would stick on your craw.

OH MAN I thought that was the postman just now, but no, it just just a dude sheltering in the lee of my window to light his cigarette. Damn.

Astral Weeks sounds no better after 8 listens

Farting duck, lol!

Sorry, Snoball, I said I'd come back to your post and I didn't.

DAY 6
I realised that my 'hatred' of this album was in two parts. I'd been involved in making music for my own entertainment since the late 80s, but by the late 90s I'd stopped so that I could concentrate on my IT career, basically on the grounds that 'working on my career' was the kind of thing people were 'supposed' to do in their mid 20s. When I first heard this album in 2000, I hated it because it sounded lazy, like the band hadn't been bothered to put more effort into it. And ironically that sums up my IT career at that time - something I did because, well, what else was I expected or supposed to do? But it was also something that I didn't care about or put much effort into apart from the absolute minimum amount of effort to avoid getting into trouble at work. Although at the time I wouldn't have admitted that to anyone, not even myself. Mid 00s I made the decision to only to do the kind of work I was genuinely interested in, rather than what was 'expected' of me. So when I started listening to this album again this year, I very quickly stopped thinking of it as 'lazy', and instead began looking for specific flaws with which I could justify disliking it again. But they're not really there. ...

...

SUMMARY
I originally hated this album because it subconsciously reminded me of my own laziness and career compromises. Later I hated it because I suspected that it's faults were faults my own music shared. Now I don't mind hearing it, but it reminds me that I don't really want to be a supermarket own brand Luke Haines.

I'm picking this out of your post because 1) it's something I suspect that I share, though substitute "late 30s" for "mid 20s" for when I gave up and concentrated my lazy arse on my IT career. But 2) it's something you hinted at earlier, but many many people have brought up. Some of us are not hating these records for their own failings, or through just not getting or understanding the music. (And this may be because I slanted it towards "things you should like, but just don't".) But because these records remind us of our own failings.

(I have no idea if listening to Interpol 22 times in a row will bring back "OMG, the subway she is a porno, NYC I miss u so much!!!" nostalgia giving way to "why did I waste so much fucking time playing in other people's post-punk covers bands? WTF?" I'm going to be hyper aware of this tendency now.)

But "lazy" is a really easy criticism to make, and an awfully hard one to back up. (Beyond those complaints of "the guitar tone, the synth presets, so boring" when really, there are many albums with bad guitar tone and synth presets that manage to sound exciting, because of who you were when you heard them.) Lazy recording, band stuck in a rut, or lazy listener? I think maybe I just enjoy the reactions more when they are people looking at their hatred of a record and finding it says something about themselves, rather than about the record. Because that goes along so well with my conception of fandom and how music works, that whatever your reaction is, it's almost never about the record, it's almost always about the listener. Haha, so I like reactions that really capture this.

initial project-assigned listen to gorgut's colored sands (metal album of 2014 in the estimation of many) on the way to work last night, circa 7:15 pm. it's starting to unfreeze, too sound both looser and more coherent. i can hear how the sections are stacked, how they morph in and out of each other and why one might choose to arrange things that way. the more obviously "rocking" parts are starting to appeal.

my main problem, i realize, is pressure. a lot of extreme metal and hardcore goes for this sense of constant, vein-bulging, suffocating tension. the music is held in this constant state of desperately frustrated almost-but-not-quite explosion, generating this sense of unrelieved and oppressive claustrophobia. as violent as the music might get, it never quite "goes off", never surrenders to an exultant ecstacy of rage. i can't help but see this dynamic in crudely sexual terms, a painfully swollen organ choked forever just shy of release. bad vibes.

main gorguts guy may be barfing up spiritualist paens to tibetian sand mandalas, but his musical expression more resembles the desperate (and seemingly failed) attempt to repress hideously violent urges. it makes no sense to me, and i can find no substantial well of pleasure in the pure sensations provided. that said and like i said, it's opening up. i'm finding my way in.

i suppose i'm more curious about the attempt to comprehend & enjoy musical approaches & aesthetics that seem utterly inaccessible than engagements with albums that are more-or-less understood but just not liked all that much. i might as well, say, have chosen an insane clown posse album. and now that i think about it, i suppose that would have been a far braver way to go. failure of nerve...

contendo are you a fan of a certain other Gorguts album?

lord knows i've tried. tbh, i find obscura even more musically alien(ating), but the front-and-center weirdness at least keeps things interesting.

maybe that's the one i oughtta be duking it out w, i dunno

Imago will turn you into a fan of it

like, okay, so there's this sort of romantical horror gothic chamber piece ("the battle of chamdo") smack in the middle of colored sands, effectively breaking the sweaty meatman rep session in half. i like it. it's old-fashioned, almost corny, but seductive and entertaining, musically generous. i like it, but what the fuck does it have to do with the rest? why does it bear absolutely NO trace of the challenging atonality that's so unrelieved elsewhere, no suggestion of violence or progressive ambition? why, by the same token, is there no trace of its genteel formal familiarity and melodicism in the metal tracks? what does it have to do with the battle in question? did the battle involve vampires? argh.

Amazing post, snoball.

I haven't done any lateral EMA/Gowns listening yet, busy week, but I hope to take in an album a day. I am starting to realize that there is no reason for me not to like Erika's work, and am starting to suspect that I dislike this music because of stupid superficial reasons (a bad irl first-impression, coupled with hairstyle prejudice)

"my main problem, i realize, is pressure. a lot of extreme metal and hardcore goes for this sense of constant, vein-bulging, suffocating tension. the music is held in this constant state of desperately frustrated almost-but-not-quite explosion, generating this sense of unrelieved and oppressive claustrophobia. as violent as the music might get, it never quite "goes off", never surrenders to an exultant ecstacy of rage. i can't help but see this dynamic in crudely sexual terms, a painfully swollen organ choked forever just shy of release. bad vibes."

A great point, put super well, contenderizer...

My favorite Gorguts records are the early ones. Listen to "Orphans of Sickness"--those organs still explode.

contendo, try listening to it more like techno

Yeah I mean try not to think of Gorguts' music in sexual terms - it's more ambiguous than a race to orgasm. Put crudely, it is the tension between conflicting velocities, and the chaos it births is a state of spectacular flux rather than a climax. Also, the string quartet piece is the unchaotic pivot around which the album turns - less the apex of a parabola than the eye of the storm, whose apparent clarity is so quickly forgotten...

"a painfully swollen organ choked forever just shy of release" = new board description?

contendo , try listening to it more like jazz

*prog

https://24.media.tumblr.com/5b8336f3f8b93a4840c944273dd5313e/tumblr_n0ezmrDnSJ1rjw8sqo1_400.jpg

Thanks Sarahell for the jazz recommendations.

contendo what other metal bands do you like that are similar to gorguts?

Question inspired by some things that Contenderizer raised and have been discussed up thread:

Do You Identify With Lyrics, And Ifso, How?

should i pick something by an artist that i definitely hate, or just something from a genre that i don't normally have any interest in?

roxy - you should pick deafheaven or Dresden Dolls (lol)

dresheaden

forgive me

OMG do Dresden Dolls. ILX would explode.

(but not if it makes yr ears explode with hatred. I'm not that mean.)

lj -- you're spending an awful lot of time on this thread for someone not participating in the experiment.

Last week I listened to 77* albums I wasn't necessarily going to like, gimme a break :P

*nearly

sorry, by no means should you participate in this experiment.

You know what, I'm gonna cosine that.

lol that'd entirely depend on what album I chose

he has his own thread for this, after all.

yeh i think you've already been set 35 albums' worth of homework

tbh, i like deafheaven! so that wouldn't work.

Amanda Palmer looms large in yr future!

dresden dolls, omg. i fear what would become of me if i DID learn to like it though.

that is how I felt about Kanye!