Used to love it, had to 'kill' it...

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Are there any records that you haven't listened to in a while (I'm talking YEARS), but all you remember is that you really REALLY liked them - and then, you pull them out again, and not only are they not as good as you remember, but they sound TERRIBLE? As in INCREDIBLY bad?

See, the other day I was with a friend in a record shop when said friend said, "You know a bit about Bruce Springsteen, here's 'Wild, Innocent & E Street Shuffle' for a fiver!" I replied, "Buy it, buy it! It's classic, a masterpiece!" Upon listening to it later, I couldn't believe what was coming out of the speakers! What IS this pompous, rambling, poorly- and over-produced drivel with a mushmouth singer who's trying so hard to be Dylan but only gets the dictionary-swallowing bit right (sounds more like JAKOB Dylan, or Counting Crows[gak]), complete with a soap-dodging pony-tailed bar-band who can't decide if they want to be Deep Purple or Jackson Browne's opening act! Even the formerly-to-my-ears-untouchable-euphoria of 'Rosalita' sounded like the Blues Brothers, except with worse singing and those silly frat-house b.vox! Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed at recommending this rubbish, if I really needed to reveal a penchant for record-company-farmed singer-songwriter studio abortions I would've at least picked the first two Tom Waits albums!

So, has your perception of a record ever flipped completely 180 degrees, causing you to become disoriented to the point where you wonder whether you can even trust your own responses anymore, and you start to question, "Is everything mutable? Or just me?"

― tarden, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes. The classic example for me is Automatic For The People. I bought it the week before I went to University, adored it - unexpectedly too since I'd been bored tearless by Out Of Time - and at a drunken party in my first week at University told somebody (later to become a very good friend who REMINDS ME OF THIS ALL THE TIME, thankyou Magnus you fucker) it was the Best Record OF ALL TIME. And then I got caught up with some other records and didn't listen to it, and when I put on Automatic in a couple of months I didn't enjoy it much. Well, at all. So I put it away, thinking, god, I overrated that one a bit. But I still thought well, OK album.

Went home for the holidays, got talking to friends in the pub. The record came up and I said, well, it's OK, not really convinced in my heart that it was OK. And the friend said OK?? It's awful. And proceeded to list the reasons it was awful, and as he said each one of the reasons I knew in my heart that he spoke the Gospel Truth and could not argue. The next day I played AFTP again and shuddered at how terrible it was. It sounded like all the records I'd disliked before it came out, only worse. And thats how it's sounded every time since except "Drive" which I have come to quite like again.

And it did really make me doubt my tastes, because it was such an aberration - everything I'd known about what I liked pointed to me not liking it, and then I did love it to bits, and then I didn't after all. But what had caused this weird bubble of appreciation? Quite possibly ego-denial caused by being put into somewhere new and wanting to socialise and get on - which is quite frightening really.

― Tom, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

[Steps into confession booth]

Bless me ILM for I have sinned. I used to love these records and I have no idea why:

Out of Time - R.E.M. (I thought it was one of the great albums of all time at the time - WHY?)

Under a Blood Red Sky - U2 (even had the t-shirt)

Bandwagonesque - Teenage Fanclub (I mean REALLY!!)

okayokaystopstop: 5 million Hail Britney's and come back next week for another confession.

― Omar, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Some excesses in my early indie phase, but I never dug them so much as I felt I *should*. On the other hand, music which I love listening to (be it indie, drone, pop, et cet.) can sometimes feel drained of significance and trivialized when listened to with a hostile audience.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Basicly no, there's is not one single record that I've like and _now_ can't find anything good to say about. Counting Crows, even that Crash Test Dummies MMM...MMMonstrosoty have their good points.

Comming the other way round, there is stuff I've hated with a passion but now either like, or at least have gruding respect for. Rick Astley being a case in point, far to cool to like it at the time I've now come round to almost all the SAW stuff - classic pop. Distance and maturity ???

― Jon, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's nice to see someone slam the REM record - which has been appallingly overrated in the past - but, hey, Tom - it's NOT *that* bad! You've just gone from one extreme to another!

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Going from one extreme to the other', that's the whole point behind this thread!

― tarden, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i have experienced this with nearly every record i really loved/love. any music requires a leap of faith of some sort and can seem like crap if you don't make that leap. it doesn't faze me anymore. i just figure i'm not in the mood for the record and put on something else. at some point, i'll be in a mood to appreciate the record again.

(that said, i did listen to those 90s r.e.m. albums a fair bit at one point, didn't i? . . .)

― sundar subramanian, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, I recently got the Jesus & Mary Chain's _Honey's Dead_ at the HMV sale. As you all know, I was the hugest fan of the JAMC. This was a record I had burned holes in through. I thought it was the sexiest, the coolest, the most gorgeously textured record I'd ever heard, a perfect synthesis of shoegazer guitars and electrodance beats...

Now it just sounds horribly dated. It's got that same silly post-baggy drum machine beat on every single song, the guitars just sound *so* 1992, and the lyrics... gosh, they make me cringe now.

I'm scared to listen to other JAMC records (well, except for Psychocandy which will forever have classic status in my house) for fear that I'll have the same demystifying experience with all of them.

― masonic boom, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I had Mazzy Star's "So Tonight..." and I instantly fell in love with her voice (duh). Each listen would take me floating to a faraway place. Now, it just bores me to tears. Except for 'Fade Into You'.

― alex in montreal, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oddly enough, I just relistened to that album recently. Still enjoyable. :-)

Um...this is a very good question that I can't think of an answer to. Probably something I had in the early eighties when I did things like buy Asia records.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Years after having dismissed grunge I happened upon a very cheap copy of Nirvana's "Nevermind" in a used CD shop and it's far from as spectacular as I used to think it was. In fact, I could barely finish side 2.

― Adam Bruneau, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't go along with Kate on that JAMC album because it's still brilliant, particularly "Catchfire". Give me some time to think and I'll give you a suitable answer (probably some Skinny Puppy/Front Line Assembly side project...)

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They started the show I saw that year on Rollercoaster US with "Catchfire," and frankly it was sorta sleepy. But then not much could have stopped the insane opening 5-minute film/audio collage.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what sort of a denouncement is that? what does it say about guitars and rock music, if to sound "*so* 1992" in 2001 is a fate worse than death? would it have been so terrible to sound "so 1792" in 1801?

― ethan, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh heavens yes. In 1792 the Revolution was still in ferment but by 1801 Napoleon was in control and cracking down.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I listened to London Calling the other day and it sounded like a drunk and sloppy bar band was playing for their 2 friends. Which isn't a dis, by the way. But not what I remembered. My roomie and I turned it off halfway thru the second side. Weird cause I've heard that record a million and one times, always liked it, every song an instant classic, etc. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

For me it would have to be both Wilco's Summerteeth and the Flaming Lip's Soft Bulletin. Both albums I regarded as complete marvels at the time of their release, but which have now become a complete chore to get through. Shame about the Lip's though, I quite liked the other stuff. I recently went back and listened to all my Elliott Smith CDs (I know how much he's loved around these parts ;), and found myself amazed at how uninteresting and dreadful some of the songs were. I used to be quite fond of his stuff. I guess for one it's a good thing I've moved on, and second, perhaps it's because I've become much more demanding or intuitive about what I think makes an album or song "good". Or the more likely result would be my taste (for lack of a better word)has changed. Eh, I'll never know.

― JC, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

listening to summerteeth now depresses me.

― ethan, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Okay, confession time....I used to inexplicably swear by GOD'S OWN MEDICINE by the woefully indefensible Mission UK.

For what it's worth, LONDON CALLING still sound pretty damn fresh (as in new, crisp and full of life, not in a ridiculous hip-hop lingo sense) to me.

― alex in nyc, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ethan, that was brilliant. If a bit nasty on the nice Kate.

― Tim, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i had to listen to a tape of london calling yesterday working in the back of the food co-op, and i assure you it was not very fresh. the ll cool j tape i brought in today was far deffer.

― ethan, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh, gee, hi tim, i missed your praise while rushing to bitch about london calling. thanks though. i think it's sorta hypocritical to complain about styles becoming outdated quickly, as that is a very good thing in my mind. it's like complaing about computer from 1997 is outdated. ('would a steam engine from 1797 be outdated in 2001?' i'll take the computer, thanks. note: my computer is from 1993) anyway, as kate demonstrated, things always become outdated, it's not liek '1992' means anything different than '1997'. i'd be very disturbed if music had not changed since 1997, actually.

― ethan, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am not sure if this is more prevalent with the then they became famous bands, more than the indies... but I would say that U2's ACHTUNG BABY and even JOSHUA TREE (except for the song "Exit", which is a great nod to Joy Division to these ears)... I just cannot enjoy them as much as when they came out.

I am trying to think of something that would be a bit more obscure that has the same reaction, but I cannot think of one... even A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS sound OK to me these days... and I have done a lot of looking-back recently thanks to many remasters (Pink Floyd, Rush, Queen, The Who, etc.) and they are just fine.

In reference to Tom... REM after the third album went downhill for me... and AftP did fare better than anything since FABLES, but not enough to alter my current impression.

― fernando, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ethan is of course right about London Fucking Calling, but we've done that thread. ;-) And don't fret about the Mish there, Alex. Hell, I saw them twice within the last two years. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hmmm, I have to agree about both Summerteeth and Honey's Dead. Both will be going on sale soon at either a used record store or on Amazon -- can't figure out what for the life of me I was thinking. (I still like The Soft Bulletin, though I'm not as crazy about it now as I was when I first bought it.)

I would also have to throw in Zen Arcade -- sounded great when I was 15; listening to it now, it sounds like the Godfather of All Emo Records (a bad thing, but y'all knew that already). I'd rather listen to Pedro the Lion, Deathcab for Cutie, or other such crap.

Then there's Neil Young's Freedom, the CD which got me into Neil Young but now sounds so much like a Big Eighties Rockstar Album that I can't even sit through it. Matter of fact, I'd be hard- pressed to distinguish Freedom from whatever CDs Eric Clapton or Genesis were releasing at the same point in time, which may only show just how far most of Neil Young's Eighties stuff sunk.

And while I largely agree with Tarden's description of The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle, all of that's actually the stuff about that record that I love about it. Matter of fact, that (and Tunnel of Love) are the only Springsteen CDs I can sit through in their entirety.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I wrote something about this theme.

― alex in mainhattan, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Kid A, Radiohead. I think I was just pretending to like to so much when it came out, though.

Sixteen Stone, Bush. After picking it up after six months, it just seemed dull.

Jagged Little Pill, Alanis. Her bitchiness lost its charm.

That's it. With everything else I've been consistent.

― Acia, Monday, 23 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The second Davy Jones solo album. I recently bought the used LP recently, a good twenty years after wearing out my original copy. I knew it would be awful. I *expected* it to be awful. The awfulness exceeded my expectations.

― Catty, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think I have anything that's a complete 180, but Tom Waits Mule Variations is a good record in this vein for me. Upon release I was like, "Oh yes, Tom is back and sounding as good as ever. One of his better releases" and now I would never think to pull it out and can only listen to maybe "Eyeball Kid." That record has zero melodic imagination, and judging from it I'd say Tom's songwriting gift has left him. When you hear the first three or four notes of every song, you can guess the rest of the melody right away. What a let down.

― Mark, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Momus - Stars Forever

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yikes.

― ethan, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

seven years pass...

Just popped in The Rapture's Echoes, and YIKES. I had to 'kill' it...

― Z S, Monday, 8 December 2008 04:49 (seventeen years ago)

Goldie - Timeless

LOL. Not quite.

― redmond, Monday, 8 December 2008 04:54 (seventeen years ago)

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN I'M FLOATING IN A CONSTANT HEAVEN!
ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE *stereo clicks off*

wtf was I ever thinking?

― Z S, Monday, 8 December 2008 04:56 (seventeen years ago)

i had an echoes moment once

― negotiable, Monday, 8 December 2008 04:57 (seventeen years ago)

ugh, for some reason the complete PIL ripoff on "Echoes" is bothering me waaaaay more than it ever did before. Talk about an appropriate track title...seriously, did Lydon see any money off of that?

― Z S, Monday, 8 December 2008 05:01 (seventeen years ago)

My Bloody Valentine: Isn't Anything

I never actually owned this, but my local library kindly loaned it to me for about three years straight back in the day. Loved it, to the cringeing extent of carefully selecting it as a soundtrack to a parents' dinner party once. Lord knows who I thought I'd be converting.

I took it back to the library eventually and forgot about it and them for ten years until I saw 'Lost in Translation', and then shortly afterwards saw this for a quid in a secondhand shop. Couldn't believe what I was hearing when I put it on. I've got it on again now for about the first time since, and it's just so weak - awful singing, songwriting I could've done myself, one-paced drumming, a mix that lacks any warmth whatsoever. Plus I've had sore ears for the last few days, and this isn't helping. I'm sure they were interesting enough noises for the time, but they sound so unadventurous now because they don't do anything with them like form them into tunes or varied shapes - they just sit there like a cloud. Plus they don't break them up at all, so now after the first few seconds they have no impact other than doing my head in. Even things I used to find swoony, like 'No More Sorry', are now just plain embarrassing, the vocals are so bad. The only things I can bear are 'Feed Me With Your Kiss', the guitar break in 'Several Girls Galore', and the rare moments where the bass is turned up.

I've been on a major downer on them ever since. I had tickets for them in the summer, and was so put off by the shoddy promotion that I didn't even go. I dread hearing Loveless again.

― Ismael Klata, Monday, 8 December 2008 22:00 (seventeen years ago)

It can happen: It happened to me once.

There is such a thing as "not in the right mind for Loveless"

It's not about being happy, sad, depressed, hyper or even hot/cold. Just a day when it's not the right thing. But there are the other 364 days...

― Mark G, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 08:09 (seventeen years ago)

Sonic Youth.
Everything. From EVOL to Goo I thought they were the best band in the world, but even then i averted my ears from the lyrics, and the live longuers while they searched like a one-legged dance troup for their 'groove' - now I just can't listen at all. Weak as weak gets.

― sonofstan, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 08:31 (seventeen years ago)

You need to listen to Sister then.

― sam500, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 08:40 (seventeen years ago)

oh no that's a pretty elaborate panning of isn't anything

― Charlie Howard, Tuesday, 9 December 2008 08:52 (seventeen years ago)

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