Was your idea of a music better than the reality?

Know what you mean. A.R. Kane is a classic example. Also that description of Gram Parsons' music, American Cosmic Music (something like that). I was expecting something far wilder than the reality. I still like the term, but there hasn't really been a band who really nailed the idea (not counting say Juan Atkins, Carl Craig, etc.)

Capt Beefheart has never in fact lived up to my "imagination" of what he shd sound like, given the early descriptions. I like him fine, but he ain't what I wanted — he's just more twee (used in demotic not technical sense).

Word on G. Parsons, Omar! Heh,heh,heh! I was also expecting something better - Flying Burritto Bros is SO trad-country to these ears - where is the grand unified American cosmic? Sounds like the only things being unified are the Grand Ole Opry and smack.

I have to say that whilst I like'em, Can are talked up far beyond their real worth. There's a fair bit of stoned pissing about to deal with as well as the classics.

David Byrne wrote "The Overload" after reading an article about Joy Division, and having never heard them, wrote what he imagined they'd be like from the press. He claims to have been disappointed by the real thing, I have to admit I was too, a bit.
The first Clash album was the biggest disappointment I ever bought. I thought 'punk' would be more...well, you know, anything but earnest, gruff barking over pub-rock plod. I thought 'punk' was supposed to be crazed, jerky malevolence, not folk music, and I didn't buy any more 'punk' until discovering the Germs, now that was more like it.

The last Flaming Lips LP. I was expecting a sort of spaced-out, covered in effects, droney, mysterious masterpiece. It was alright and a lot of the tunes weren't quite there.

american cosmic music = "born to be with you" by dion.

Rob M = Kodanshi. Exactly what I went through, except much more recently and not when I turned 10. But all these Psych tracks I hear DO contain madness like phasing, mucho Delay, backwards tapes, etc.

When I heard the term "glitch-hop" I first thought of, you know, rapping over a Matmos track, or something to that effect. Straight- thug clickin' and cuttin' with some serious G's waxing futuristic over bass culled from the depths of hell. Luckily, it's quite good anyway.

I don't think I could have ever imagined the way the last Flaming Lips album sounded. And I've a mind for that sort of thing.

Being a huge psych fan (though no more than a dozen other styles) I just downloaded that song and listened to it. Interesting. Sounds like psychedelic New Wave. There _is_ other music like this but I'm drawing a blank. You should try Ozric Tentacles. All their albums essentially sound the same, doesn't matter which one. Well, okay, "Erpland" is probably their best. Also, Supergrass comes to mind as a "wimp psych" styled band that includes a good deal of grit and distortion in their sound.

As for your actual question. Yeah, I'm quite often underwhelmed by artists that others gush about. Just offhand: Coldplay, Catherine Wheel, Badly Drawn Boy, Locanda Delle Fate, and Squarepusher.

As for a whole _genre_ I'm dissapointed in. Hmm. Hard to say. How about the whole nebulous mass of dark matter we know as "metal" ; all kinds -- trad, thrash, black, death, rap, prog, power, nu. I like some of the stylistic elements of metal, but I wish that metal bands would vary those elements more. Of course, the list of styles proffered above seems to refute my complaint -- but it seems like most of the bands in those subgenres trade in for a slightly different archtype and stick strictly to _that_. There's exceptions of course, like Fantomas and Cave In -- and I'm sure that there are others who can add many more. But the fact remains that overall, I've been dissapointed by metal.

Television is the #1 example for me. They were supposed to be this radical punk band not Tom Petty with a performance degree.

My Blooody Valentine

I read about them in Guitar World in 1991 when I was 14. My idea of what they sounded like was a lot cooler than what they actually were. The song writing was better than I could come up with, but the sound in my head for "a guitar tone the sounds like shivering molten metal" "underwater flamingos."

I spent a year trying to make weird noises like that on my Guitar before I actually went out and bought the album. I think that was a good exercise, I still read music press and try and make sounds the way reviewers describe music.

I am not dogging MBV, they are one of my favorite groups of all time. I just thought they were going to be so far out there, and they were just really well written songs through a lot of reverse reverb and distortion. There is a lot to be said for that though...

> My Blooody Valentine

_Thank you_.

_Loveless_ was a perfect example of a vaunted album that I was dissapointed in. And it _is_ loved by a lot of people -- _Phish_ rehearsed the damn thing for their Halloween cover album.

But try as I might, I couldn't dig it. Sure, the production is interesting, but it's essentially just gloss on a rather drab and uninteresting collection of pop songs. IMO, of course.

Sigur Ros = Icelandic for Clannad. And I've just decided that that's bad.

Almost everything that's supposed to be difficult listening disappoints me. I've long been searching for something that makes the right squelches in the right place and overturns your stomach with just the right skree, but it is not to be. Metal Machine Music, whilst I enjoy listening to it, is disappointing precisely because I do enjoy it.

Unless something is irredeemably bland, offensively inoffensive, I just can't find it hard to listen to...

emil.y: Put MMM in the MMMicrowave ( along with some instant-popcorn) and then invite Markus Popp, Richard D. James, Kid 606, P. Diddy, Einsturzende Neubauten and Wheatus 'round for a snack. Mix in some khat with the p'corn and ask the assembled group to sketch, automatism-style, their hallucinations on the back of the disc with a purple magic marker. Record the results onto compact disc. Duplicate the CD, sending one copy to Merzbow, one to Slipknot and one to Will Oldham, requesting additional recorded material. When the modified discs are returned, put them into your 'puter- open the sound files using a text editor and everytime the numeral "2" is encountered, insert bits of binary-code translated versions of Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity", the Old Testament and Lloyd Cole sleeve notes. Viola!- your perfect album.

(But don't bother with the 'remix' version- it's identical, except a Kodanshi-doctored anime-porno image with members of the Boredoms photoshopped-in has been xeroxed onto the data side of the disc).

_Phish_ rehearsed the damn thing for their Halloween cover album

Much as I hate Phish, I would have loved to have heard this. (We shall take as read that any complaints about Loveless are shrugged off by me. ;-)).

Idea better than reality...I'm sure I've been disappointed here and there, I just don't remember where.

I thought that punk rock would sound like metal and metal like punk before I had heard either, and when I first heard punk I thought very sadly, "Oh no, this is crap," while listening to metal made me quite overjoyed at my expectations being more than fulfilled.

My Bloody Valentine for me as well...

Bland, bland and more bland. No dynamic, nothing exciting. Total suckiness. I dont understand all the praise.