Musicians working in genres they have contempt for

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Are there any interesting examples of musicians making credible music in genres that they don't like?

This isn't so much about obvious parody acts like Spinal Tap.

Rather, the ideal scenario related to this question might be a musician making relatively straightforward country music (or dance music or bubblegum pop or reggae or punk rock or hip-hop or anything, really) for the purpose of demonstrating how easy it is to do. Or maybe they're just doing it for money. Either way, they don't actually like the music they're making, and yet it turns out good anyway and is (or can be) enjoyed without irony.

― Low Carb, Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard somewhere that Altern8 were Detroit Techno purists who made cheesy rave anthems for this very reason.

― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

didn't paul heaton feel this way about his work with the beautiful south? i think he was more interested in hip-hop (for listening to, rather than creating).

wes borland from limb bizkit may be an example. although maybe it was the band he had contempt for, rather than the genre.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

i think there are plenty of examples of musicians who have some contempt for their genre in it's excesses, or in it's most accessible and visible forms, but still maintain some hope that THEY're gonna do it right, or get it back on track, or sufficiently agitate convential definitions of it. possible examples: kid606, outkast..

― m. (mitchlnw), Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

(argh i did that thing with the its and the apostrophes that bugs me so much when others do it sorry)

― m. (mitchlnw), Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

convential = conventional. good god how am i going to write this essay i have half-finished in the microsoft word window on the taskbar?

― m. (mitchlnw), Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

frank zappa owns this thread, of course.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Are there any interesting examples of musicians making credible music in genres that they don't like?

Weird Al Yankovic succeeds at taking the piss almost everytime he attempts a new genre or style. And I am pretty sure he doesn't actually like all of them.

Gary Glitter always said he didn't like his own music. I wouldn't say it was good, but he certainly made a living from it for a couple of years.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

How about Sting during his time with The Police? Although he was interested in its energy, he regarded punk as terrible music and overly simplistic.

― Voodoo Man, Sunday, 17 October 2004 22:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Other than maybe "Fall Out", The Police never played punk. Their earliest couple of album may have had some of the raw energy of punk, but they were never punk.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 17 October 2004 22:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Guitarist Billy Martin of Good Charlotte (the skinny guy) says he's not punk and never was, just a friend of the Madden Bros. who thought they wrote good poppy rock songs and wanted to be involved. The guy's a big Perfect Circle and Mars Volta fan and to blame for how Tim Burtony their videos and fashion sense have become.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 17 October 2004 22:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Graham Coxon of Blur was none too happy with Britpop, the American slacker rock of the self-titled album was reportedly to placate him.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Sunday, 17 October 2004 23:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Glenn Gould's recordings of Beethoven

― (Jon L), Sunday, 17 October 2004 23:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Guitarist Billy Martin of Good Charlotte (the skinny guy) says he's not punk and never was

Lucky for him he's in Good Charlotte, then!

― kit brash (kit brash), Sunday, 17 October 2004 23:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Vladislav Delay as Luomo

loathes so-called experimental/clicky/Force Inc. techno

― manuel (manuel), Monday, 18 October 2004 00:38 (twenty-one years ago)

loathes so-called experimental/clicky/Force Inc. techno

I'd hardly call Luomo 'experimental/clicky'

― OCP (OCP), Monday, 18 October 2004 01:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I always imagine that the classical string players hired for stuff like November Rain have contempt for what they're doing, but then they probably don't imagine they're improving the genre much.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 18 October 2004 01:38 (twenty-one years ago)

About half of Stephin Merritt's output is in genres I don't imagine him enjoying. Black Box Recorder -- I doubt Haines and Moore would give their own music a time of day if not for the subversive lyrics. Morrissey always struck me as a guy who wouldn't listen to the Smiths.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 18 October 2004 03:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Ryan Adams?

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Monday, 18 October 2004 03:48 (twenty-one years ago)

loathes so-called experimental/clicky/Force Inc. techno

I'd hardly call Luomo 'experimental/clicky'

Yeah, but his stuff as Vladislav Delay is.

Wasn't a there a recent thread about a rapper who said he doesn't much like hip hop and rather listens to Radiohead or something? I can't remember who it was.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 18 October 2004 04:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I think that was Buck 65.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 18 October 2004 04:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, here it is:

buck 65 - "the more i've educated myself about music, the more i hate hip-hop"

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 18 October 2004 04:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Andrew Eldritch?

― dave q, Monday, 18 October 2004 04:17 (twenty-one years ago)

"How about Sting during his time with The Police? Although he was interested in its energy, he regarded punk as terrible music and overly simplistic.
-- Voodoo Man (yotsuya88...), October 17th, 2004.

Other than maybe "Fall Out", The Police never played punk. Their earliest couple of album may have had some of the raw energy of punk, but they were never punk.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), October 17th, 2004"

actually a funny thing i heard about the police was that stewart at least HATED reggae, and maybe summers did too

― duke afternoon, Monday, 18 October 2004 05:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Timbaland would rather listen to Coldplay than hip hop...

Armand van Helden always seemed more into hip hop than dance music.

― Jacob (Jacob), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Morrissey always struck me as a guy who wouldn't listen to the Smiths.

Judging by the groups he's been championing on his "Meltdown", he would definitely have the Smiths on if "morrissey two" was the singer

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Coupla points. First, it's an interview cliche for musicians to say they hate the genre their band is associated with, because they've always got a 'Don't fence me in' attitude and an eye on the long game, and genre is very subject to fashion. See, for instance, The Cardigans on 'Easy Listening' or Blur on Britpop.

Second, all pop musicians nevertheless work in a genre which is, to some extent, contemptible, and that genre is pop music. So it's inevitable that a highly ambivalent mixture of contempt and respect -- held in taut and suggestive tension with each other -- should mark their attitude to their medium. You could cite any pop record ever made and locate contempt/respect ambivalence in it, but just for fun I'm going to cite Beck's 'Midnite Vultures'.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd add that as we get deeper into the post-modern period, one of the hallmarks of pomo -- its refusal to make distinctions between 'high' and 'low' culture -- will rob pop music of some of its vital energy, which comes precisely from its contempt for itself. In an era where even the prime minister was in a rock band, where pop music is taught in pop music colleges, where pop music is played by the authorities in 'social control' situations like planes on runways, and where cultural studies legitimizes pop as a serious academic subject, pop can't retain its component of self-contempt, and therefore will start to take on the dead, fusty, respectable, museum-like mantle of classical music or jazz.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Which is what killed off britpop.

(killed off : Stifled any kind of progression and/or experimentation)

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Second, all pop musicians nevertheless work in a genre which is, to some extent, contemptible

Could you elaborate on this? Surely there are many pop musicians who are perfectly happy making pop music?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:04 (twenty-one years ago)

This is an extension of the attitude (which we now laugh at) of Noel Coward, who talked in one of his plays about 'the strange potency of cheap music'. My argument is that the potency is all tied up with our feeling that pop music is 'cheap'. Once pop music starts to feel 'expensive' and 'valuable' and 'endorsed by all the authorities', it loses the potency of its 'otherness'.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Er, do you think the average teenage Britney Spears fan likes her music because it's "cheap"? Thinking pop can only be liked in ironic way is quite patronizing towards pop listeners.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I think adolescents certainly think it's important that their music is disapproved of by authority figures like parents, teachers, etc. It certainly was for me. I know that increasingly, though, kids and parents go to shows together. Which is an illustration of my point about pop music losing its potency and becoming too respectable.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Another way of making my point is to say that when pop music ceases to be subcultural and becomes pancultural it loses an important part of its identity. It becomes omnipresent yet invisible. And one of the important things about subcultures is that they are divisive. People outside subcultures (whether it's the black subculture of jazz, the teen subculture of teen pop, the subculture of punk) often feel contempt for those subcultures, and that contempt is one of the defining parts of the subculture's identity. When the contempt goes, a lot of the identity goes too. The subculture both triumphs (by going mainstream) and dies (by seeing all its gestures becoming completely inoffensive and bland).

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:42 (twenty-one years ago)

strange equation of cheapness = contemptible

― cw (cww), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:49 (twenty-one years ago)

How about Plastic Bertrand and "Ca Plane Pour Moi"?

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:53 (twenty-one years ago)

John Lydon in the Sex Pistols, Jonathan King in the 1970s, Norman Cook in The Housemartins.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Monday, 18 October 2004 09:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Funny that you mention Lydon, because his name change is, for me, emblematic of my point here. He was 'Johnny Rotten' in punk, remember. That is, he was someone who chose a name which contained a mixture of self-contempt and pride-in-cheapness. Johnny Rotten is the name of someone in a subculture, looking at how the people outside the subculture see him. John Lydon, on the other hand, is the name of an artist who wants longevity, respectability, a professional career, etc etc.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 18 October 2004 09:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Aren't some of you guys stretching "contempt" a bit here?
Sure it may be that Norman Cook, at least later, developed more of a preferance for other genres, but during his time in Housemartins, he also liked what they did.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 18 October 2004 09:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember reading that Bjork was not particularly into the music made by The Sugarcubes, but I don't know it that quailifies as contempt.

For some reason I can't help thinking of Kenneth Williams stuck in those Carry On films he hated... I don't know if that's at all relevant to anything.

― quentin crisp (qscrisp), Monday, 18 October 2004 10:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Kenneth Williams is a good example. He wanted to be a classical actor, to play Hamlet etc. But he ended up doing all his best work in 'abject' comedies. He was also very conflicted in his sexual life, which is not unrelated. Just as the idea that sex is 'dirty' can itself be the source of sexual energy, so the dynamic between contempt and attraction is productive in art.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 18 October 2004 10:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's very true that a sense of illegitimacy gives power to music - "We're nobody's children at all" - or any other form of art. Part of it is the old cliche about books you're made to read at school being boring. There's a kind of endless ache of exile to the idea that your music, your world, will never be taken seriously. There's a longing for acceptance, but at the same time, identity is derived from the very fact that you are not accepted, and when you are, it goes.

I do think, though, that there are some kinds of music whose fascination is not predicated on this illegitimacy factor, which is a kind of (oedipal?) rebellion. Well, it does depend rather on your taste in music, but pesonally I think someone like Kate Bush is a good example of an artist whose appeal is not based on illegitimacy. On the one hand mainstream, on the other personal. Even as a teenager first listening to her music, I was aware there was a fundamental difference between this and the other music I listened to that had 'rebel' appeal. As to what the appeal is precisely, I don't know. If it's not rebellious and not entirely bland, then it tends to become something like 'quirky'.

Interestingly, the title single from our Kate's third album, The Dreaming, was denied radio airplay, because it was just *too weird*! You've got to respect that.

― quentin crisp (qscrisp), Monday, 18 October 2004 11:58 (twenty-one years ago)

There is a difference here between an artist who prefers different music, and one that 'loathes' the music they do.

Jason Spaceperson falls into the latter catter.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 18 October 2004 12:01 (twenty-one years ago)

.. of loathing the category rather than their own music, I mean.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 18 October 2004 12:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I think of Fleetwood Mac (and some other Blues Boom musicians) who felt they were selling out doing stuff like "Albatross" and "Man of The World" (cf also Clapton's contempt for Yardbirds poppier stuff like "Shapes of Things" and "For Your Love"). The stuff they felt apologetic about was on the whole much more interesting than the stuff they took seriously.

― frankiemachine, Monday, 18 October 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

What about session musicians? Many of the Wrecking Crew have gone on record stating that their true love was jazz, and playing simple teenage pop shit (which they did not hold in high regard, to say the least) for Spector, Brian Wilson, et al., was simply a way to make a living. Of course that's the session man's job in a nutshell.

I can also think of Charlie Rich: original Sun Records bopcat who later became rich and famous in the 1970s playing syrupy C&W pop that he clearly despised (his true love was also jazz).

― Hueje, Monday, 18 October 2004 15:09 (twenty-one years ago)

About half of Stephin Merritt's output is in genres I don't imagine him enjoying.

for example?

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 18 October 2004 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

umm. robbie williams in late era take that? and several other faces in various boy bands who have obviously no desire to ever listen to their own saccharine pop creations ..

― mark e (mark e), Monday, 18 October 2004 15:16 (twenty-one years ago)

(x-post)
charlie rich did make some pretty crappy records, but do you really think he "clearly despised" his early '70s country records, stuff like "behind closed doors"? that's some of the most beautiful country music ever made. i think what charlie rich hated wasn't "country" music or "pop" music, but just plain bad music in any style. and his entire career was a mix of bad and good in a variety of genres. (and his performances tended to make the bad at least somewhat tolerable, and the good absolutely great.)

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 18 October 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Robert Fripp and Peter Hammill never had anything good to say about Prog Rock

― Serghei Daduismus (Dada), Monday, 18 October 2004 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Many of the Wrecking Crew have gone on record stating that their true love was jazz, and playing simple teenage pop shit (which they did not hold in high regard, to say the least) for Spector, Brian Wilson, et al., was simply a way to make a living. Of course that's the session man's job in a nutshell.

Yes - see also the Funk Brothers at Motown, arguably an even better example because they tended to have more of a creative impact on the music, especially Jamerson.

― frankiemachine, Monday, 18 October 2004 15:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Graham Greene used to divide his books into 'novels' and 'entertainments'. Mishima did the same -- some of his books were potboilers, others serious. I'm trying to think of musicians who say the same kind of things. Perhaps people in bands who reserve their good stuff for solo projects, or vice versa; people who claim (as Mick Jagger did circa 'Primitive Cool') that their solo records are just for a laugh. (They usually do this only after the solo project has bombed and they've had to crawl back to the band.)

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 18 October 2004 16:25 (twenty-one years ago)

i guess the minutemen's project: mersh would count, though i think it's a pretty swell record and though watt is, and always was, a big fan of pop music. it's not so much that they were working in a genre they had contempt for; but they used arrangements they had contempt for. or maybe it's just that they failed to make the pop record they claimed they were trying to make, 'cause they didn't quite scare debbie gibson with that one.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 18 October 2004 16:30 (twenty-one years ago)

btw, i don't mean the minutemen record would count as an answer to momus' question about musicians who divided up their "good" stuff and their "commercial" stuff. i mean it as an answer to the general question of the thread.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 18 October 2004 16:34 (twenty-one years ago)

a similar -- but worse -- example, perhaps, would be joe jackson's absolutely awful "obvious song."

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 18 October 2004 16:36 (twenty-one years ago)

the ideal scenario related to this question might be a musician making relatively straightforward country music (or dance music or bubblegum pop or reggae or punk rock or hip-hop or anything, really) for the purpose of demonstrating how easy it is to do. Or maybe they're just doing it for money. Either way, they don't actually like the music they're making, and yet it turns out good anyway and is (or can be) enjoyed without irony.

It just occurred to me, going back to the original criteria, there is at least one example I can think of that fits, well, perhaps perfectly. That is the single Let's go to Bed by The Cure.

I remember seeing an interview with Robert Smith in which he said that he more or less made that song and video in order to destroy the image people had of him as a gloomy goth and to show he could be as mindless and disposable as everyone else.

I'm not sure how far he extended this attitude to the rest of the material on Japanese Whispers

― quentin crisp (qscrisp), Monday, 18 October 2004 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

John Cage completely and will always own this thread.

― cdwill, Monday, 18 October 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

why do you say that cdwill?

― (Jon L), Monday, 18 October 2004 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah...and now Robert actually likes "Let's Go to Bed".

Mark Hollis of Talk Talk wasn't too happy with the music he was making up until The Colour of Spring.

Does anyone know if Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty of The KLF hated what they made? Considering what happened in their aftermath, it would seem to me that they did.

― Ian Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Monday, 18 October 2004 23:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Tubeway Army's debut single, "That's Too Bad" was a punk number that Gary Numan only did because he thought that was the best way of securing a record deal during punk's late 70s prime.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 18 October 2004 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, I guess the guys who made the Mr. Blobby, Teletubbies and Bob The Builder hits (all of them UK chart toppers) weren't that much into that kind of stuff (I mean, I hope not :-) )

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 18 October 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Um... actually. the guy who made the Bob The Builder hit is an old friend, who takes his work perfectly seriously. There wasn't a shred of contempt behind "Can We Fix It"; as far as he was concerned, it was a sweet, charming little tune which did what it was supposed to do. He gets decidedly cagey if anyone tries to deride him for writing "kids' music".

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 07:54 (twenty-one years ago)

John Cale has certainly said this before on occasion - "I shouldn't really be wasting my time on trying to be a rock and roller" sorta thing. Of course, his "rock" records are generally much better than his classical/avant garde records

― Serghei Daduismus (Dada), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 09:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Funny someone should mention Cale, as I reckon that the V.U. album "Loaded" is definetely "entertainment", compared to their previous albums. It was certainly an amazing effort by Lou Reed to be popular but I wonder if he actually likes it.

― everything, Tuesday, 19 October 2004 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

The only reason he doesn't like it is because Doug Yule and Steve Sesnick wrested so much control on the album from him - but Lou likes it really, he just doesn't like to admit it.

― Serghei Daduismus (Dada), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I feel like Aphex Twin should be here, but I'm not sure.

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders supposedly had no time for Punk Rock.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 16:15 (twenty-one years ago)

James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders supposedly had no time for Punk Rock.

did he ever play in a punk rock band?

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Technically, no, but the Pretenders were initially lumped in with the punk scene at the time (Hynde being a scenester and rock journo in London). And if you can't hear a punk influence to their music, you should adjust your speakers.

Andrew Eldritch also hates all (other) goth.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 16:29 (twenty-one years ago)

well yeah of course the pretenders were influenced by and surrounded by punk. but they weren't playing it.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Didn't say they were, but had Punk not been a factor, Honeyman-Scott might've been playing Clapton tunes.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 17:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Instead of playing Clapton's game. RIP.

― briania (briania), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Ian Levine's roster of Hi-NRG divas circa 83-86 (Miquel Brown, Evelyn Thomas, Earlene Bentley, Barbara Pennington et al) were mostly washed-up Northern Soul singers who needed the gig. In interviews of the time, they would openly dismiss the genre as trash.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Wednesday, 20 October 2004 08:57 (twenty-one years ago)

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