Do you ever "try to like bands" for the sake of a friend?

My stock answer, since this applies to quite a few friends I've had and since people who like this artist usually like a bunch of groups I actually am a big fan of: Frank Zappa.

Conversely, do you have a band that you feel so strongly about that it's "Love me, love my favourite band!" and ifso, how do your friends (that don't necessarily like them) react to this?

Nah; it's more "love me, love the embarassingly inclusive scope of my tastes, and the fact that I NEVER EVER SHUT UP ABOUT MUSIC."

Another band that people are constantly pushing on me, based on my taste in music/shared interests: Smashing Pumpkins. This is just not going to work. I love those friends anyway.

I'm more interested in the aspect of - This Person likes everything else I like, except this one glaring example of a band. Why? And what am I going to try to do to compensate? Is it a weird aberration in my friend's taste, or is it some mental block that I have against that band? Or are our tastes not as similar as I first thought?

But Avril? Christ! HSA and I were in the video shop the other day (he wanted to get some cutsie movie about cartoon dogs. I wanted to get "Rock Star". I won!) and I would have SWORN they were playing Alanis Morisette. It wasn't till she got to the damn Sk8ter Boi song that I realised it wasn't. I didn't like Alanis the first time round, why would I like the cloan?

so yer not a John McLaughlin fan, then?

This is why i go to ILM.

ILX friends count as well. I count Ned as one of those friends who has generally similar musical tastes who mystifyingly enough likes Smashing Pumpkins.

What about the type of people that you would list on the "most similar tastes" thread? What if they mysteriously started liking something you found mystifying? (I mean, for example, your defense of Oasis has pretty much knocked me for a loop - I thought you were being sarcastic until you persisted!)

I think men are much more stubborn and focused on this than women, who often say 'Oh, I like pretty much everything'.

I've never 'tried to like' any bands for girls, but I have been introduced to so much stuff this way, from Spanish 'deep song' to Brassens to Haruomi Hosono and Miharu Koshi to Holger Hiller and Miharu Koshi. In fact, now I think about it, all the important music in my life is stuff I've heard at some girl's place. And the stuff I made myself was written as soon as I got home.

I think men are much more stubborn and focused on this than women, who often say 'Oh, I like pretty much everything'.

This is f@cking bullsh@it and you know it. Typical sexist assumption, you just attempt to try it on with me. Or Melissa. Or Ally. Or Sarah McL. Or any of the other women on this board.

Don't even TRY to bait me on this. There are just as many boys who say "I just listen to what's on the radio." I generally don't even try to date them, though.

Don't you have any friends that you *haven't* shagged?

um, not the same thing is it? here disagreements on bands/whatever is v much the thing with ILM. not as if i'll stop responding to someone if they like something i don't.

''What if they mysteriously started liking something you found mystifying? (I mean, for example, your defense of Oasis has pretty much knocked me for a loop - I thought you were being sarcastic until you persisted!)''

heh.

OK, for example, the first time I heard Smashing Pumkpins, it was in the company of my friend's husband. Generally, his taste was pretty much in agreement with mine, he liked lots of shoegazing and spacerock and the like, hated grunge and funk and the like. And then he turned up with _Gish_. I *tried* to listen to it, and I tried to like it, but it was like the shoegazing textures that I liked had been merged with this annoying classic rock/heavy metal tendency, like it was as much Blue Oyster Cult as it was My Bloody Valentine in its squawking vocals and hystrionic guitar solos. And I couldn't get past that. But in his case, that was what he was responding to - it was kind of a secret clue into his classic rock/heavy metal past.

AND (1) I change my mind about stuff all the time.

AND (2) Most of my friends like and dislike such an wide and crackpot range of stuff that I'd tie myself in knots trying to understand the significance of person A not liking Moby Grape.

BUT (1)never trust single-genre freaks. They know nowt.

BUT (2) liking these artists is clearly beyond the pale : Depeche Mode, Primal Scream, Belle and Sebastian, Spacemen 3 (*hides under desk*)

::weeps bitter tears::

...and Spiritualized.

(dives back under)

Must go and file now. Rats.

But what is it in a band - or the band's fanbase - that drives you to draw that conclusion? I mean, is it just that the music is SO dire to your ears? Or is it a certain mentality that goes with liking a band? (I love Radiohead, but I CAN'T STAND Radiohead Fans, for example)

I'm trying to think of my own "beyond the pale" bands...

in some ways, it bugs me, because i feel like it's not being fair to the music, and not giving it a chance. if the music has something to say to me, then what should whatever circumstances i came to it under matter? but i know i've done this as well---it was rather difficult to listen to Björk for awhile because i'd had someone stalk me because he thought i looked like her (which is, er, a rather questionable observation, at best).

back on topic, i wouldn't say i try to "like" bands for the sake of friends. but if someone whose opinion i generally value really wants me to listen to something, i will. but i wouldn't say i try to like it, although i have listened to things i already knew i hated---more often as a peacekeeping measure than a reevaluative one. :)

Depeche Mode - as I've said on here before - were classic when Vince Clarke was steering the ship. Since then everything about them stinks. Heavy duty gloom, Gahan's cliched drugs probs, the pitiful lack of a decent tune. Possibly the most BORING group ever.

Spacemen 3 - hey let's stand our guitars next to the amps and record THAT. And then do it again. And again, and again...
Then whine on about their stupid, squalid, drug habits on top of that racket. Dreadful.

Dr. C, if it wasn't for the fact that I don't make mixtapes any more, I would make you a Sp* mixtape just to prove how FAR from the truth this statement is.

I mean, it's one thing to hate a band for what they are - vis a vis your description of Primal Scream. I agree with it, it's just that I *like* what they do. But to hate a band for a misguided vision of them is silly. It's like you listened to _Sound of Confusion_ and then went no further. That would be like listening to _Meet The Beatles_ and saying you hate the Beatles. All that mewling Merseybeat and endless harmonica solos. Sure, there's a big element of what you describe to Sp3, especially earlier stuff. But that's certainly not ALL that there is.

I'm still trying to think of my own Beyond The Pale bands. I mean, B&S might be in there, except I own some of their records and so do some of my friends whose taste I respect. I mean, I could say Toploader or the Stereophonics, but I find it hard to accept that anyone actually *loves* them. (OK, yes, I know, don't bring HIM up...)

OK, wait! I know! Bruce Springsteen! Loving Bruce Springsteen (and I don't mean people who say "Actually, _Nebraska_ is kinda cool") negates any other tastes you might have, as far as I am concerned.

(Now watch Barrus or someone pipe up with "I *love* the E Street band to destroy my universe...)

I am a mystery, yes. ;-) And I like Oasis too, rah! And Primal Scream AND Spacemen 3 AND Spiritualized AND Depeche Mode AND Pulp AND...

(I however am perfectly simpatico with both Belle and Sebastian and Bruce Springsteen being exiled to the back of beyond, but as there are many Good People here who love 'em both -- and that Dylan guy too! -- then a cosmic balance is therefore maintained. :-))

Oh wait, there's a thread about this just resurfaced, isn't there?

Seriously, I do have friends who just "like everything" i.e. they just have no discernment, rather than being simply agreeable. (Mind you, I don't mean "have broad tastes" - rather, I mean they just have no taste at all, they don't even try to judge music. Kinda goes along with the "I listen to what's on the radio" mindset.)

Dr C has a problem with drones it seems. I can see something like 'contemporary evening of sitar music' (basically a few drones, no vocals for something like 50 mins) being a drag BUT of course what i like abt this is the discipline the band shows throughout and there are subtle shifts from one drone to the next (not as good as something like palestine or ram narayan but there you go).

As far as the lyrics go I can't really make out the words of anything (a few things and its kind of funny to me), just sound, and the fact that kember or pierce sounds as if they are abt to go into a coma is something i like. Lou reed does somehting similar.

In some respects it is surprising bcz you enjoy reggae, which has some of those slurred rhythms (at least from the little reggae i've heard i feel that drone and reggae aren't worlds apart).

Curses, I am rumbled.

It is true. But bear in mind that the state of the acoustics in the ICA rendered the performance a low, rumbling drone with occasional clicks and whirrs and theremin swoops as someone sang charming melodies about their penis over the top. Which is far more my sort of thing than yer usual mince-pop. ;-)

But also, pls bear in mind that Suzy is someone that I love *despite* her taste in music, not because of it. ;-)

(Ooh, I am in trouble now.)

But it's almost like... (random justification here) drug abuse in the S3 universe was a means to an end - a tool to make music, and the music itself, like the drugs, just a tool to reach a transcendant state. Rather than some hippie celebration of numbness.

But I am veering off topic here.

Well I'm not a big dronefan, it's true.

**In some respects it is surprising bcz you enjoy reggae, which has some of those slurred rhythms (at least from the little reggae i've heard i feel that drone and reggae aren't worlds apart)**

Not sure I understand this. I don't hear any rhythm to speak of in dronerock. That's one huge reason why I'm not v. interested.

Behold the ANTI-GEIR!!!

Taking drugs to make music to post to ILXOR about

I've always been curious about that S3 motto, about whether it is double-meaninged or not. Always had a hard time recconciling myself to it, because I'm not a drugs person, but I love drugs music. It always seemed to me that music and drugs were a shortcut to the SAME PLACE which was some sort of idealised transcendance to a world of glitter and drone.

My head hurts.

An opinion formed by listening to EXACTLY ONE SONG, but then again, yes, that one song is such an exact ripoff that it's almost frightening.

You could just as well say Spacemen 3 are a Suicide rip-off, don't bother listening to them. And they're a Red Krayola rip-off, don't bother listening to them. And they're a Silver Apples rip-off don't bother listening to them. And even though each one of those examples in itself is pretty damning evidence, when you hear it all together it forms a very different view.

Anyway, enough Spacemen 3 bashing, you are just baiting me. Talk about your lame friends' lame music taste! I command it!

SIGBH: Duran Duran are POO!
MDF: Spouse of mine, what would you think if I told you about this great band who wanted to be a three way race between Brian Eno, Chic and the Sex Pistols?
SIGBH: Why that would be the most AWESOME band on, like, planet Earth!
MDF: Listen to this record! ::plays Duran's first record, omitting the obvious single::
SIGBH: This is GRATE!!! Why I have never heard this before? I love it!
MDF: ::sniggers::

Tori Amos so owns the above category!

other bands i've pretended to like (for pussy or not): sade, bob dylan, sigur ros, wilco, garth brooks (this one was for a girl, believe it or not!).

ha! sorry. well its not exactly a rhythm. I suppose a drone is a kind of rhythm, it is its own groove (something that you can get into i guess).

I supposed the 'slur' that i was talking abt refers to some of those production tricks but I'm not an expert (though I like reggae and will get round to actually buying records in 'mass' someday).

''(NB: we aren't talking about lovers or potential sex partners. We all know that most men will pretend to like, or at least put up with just about anything for the sake of a little pussy.)''

don't most women do this as well.

and if they are doing this can i watch?

And I quite like Tori Amos too.

Where are all the girls?

I always feel sort of guilty when I don't 'get' the favourite bands of my friends, as if there's something wrong with my taste that I don't have a freaky fixation on, say, the Crocketts. In whose case, actually, the trying-to-like actually worked, although I can't tell whether I actually like them for their music or because the sound's so tied up in one friend getting all cute and excitable.

As for 'love me, love my favourite band'... not really. I've become resigned to the fact that no-one appreciates my fabulous music taste. ;)

i always then end up smiling and laughing and playing along, and end up with 5 cdrs of shit i wouldn't touch with a bargepole, and a couple of good things.

and the next few time i see them i um and ah and make excuses.

nb: this doesn't refer to ILMers I've traded with.

Ack! For a second I thought this was me and I was like "Shit, I know I'm scatterbrained, but I don't remember posting this!!"

In every other case, I acknowledge my friends' inexplicable weaknesses for bands that I find to be unworthy as part of what makes each of them an individual.

It's also a matter of picking your battles. Telling Laura and Jacki (both non-ILXorz) just what I think of Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots to me isn't worth the potential damage to the friendship.