Ever feel like you've been cheated?

Who was it? TELL US TELL US TELL US

Never had such a sudden conversion, I think. Things just drop away from me over time.

after reading marc almond's autobiog, i sold most of his cds the next day...i know what this is like, it's horrible, i'm sorry it's happening.

I don't think I have ever felt that way. I realize project myself on the music as well as interpret the music (and whatever is attached to it). If I discover the artist's intentions were different, or his personality is not consistent with the image I had of him, I am not too shaken by it. Who cares anyway? Unless of course their music is really right wing/sexist, then I would not feel cheated but angry.

Belle & Sebastian.

i saw the light.

Don't worry Nick, someone on ILM will buy your unwanted cd's. Unless it's Kulashaker of course.

Not quite 'woken up', but 'after playing then-current releases' - Manic Street Preachers, 'Everything Must Go' (Epiphany - "Shit, they weren't kidding about that 'Sell 17 million albums then split' - except they've decided to do it the slow, boring slogging way instead of the big glam splash way, just like Mark Knopfler), G'n'R 'Use Your Illusion' (Epiphany = "Shit, these guys are precisely as stupid as I've been loudly insisting they weren't. Thanks, bozos), Tricky 'Pre- Millenial Tension' (Epiphany being - "Hold on, this is not music. It sounds like it is, but it's NOT!" I.E. - Tricky in interview - "I'm not a musician, I fuck about with noise. Hank Shocklee was a massive inspiration." Difference being, when Shocklee said the same thing years earlier, I thought, "Classical training defenestration! I'm going to experiment with sampling sirens and concrete mixers!" Whereas when Tricky said it, I just thought, "Tell us something we don't know!"

after reading marc almond's autobiog, i sold most of his cds the next day

But what exactly was the reason?

Helenfordsdale - I feel like you about music, so nowt much bothers me.

I woke up one morning and realized -- after having purchased MASQUE by the Mission -- that "Christ, this stuff is CRAP!"

it was reading how much of a tosser he was, how pretentious the hwole thing seemed, and so what i kept was his live cd and his brel - they were the only ones left that seemed to carry some sense of "authenticity" - everything else seemed melo-dramtic-performed.

Thing is, I'm actually quite heavily involved with this band now - I used to write a fanzine some years ago, which, while it wasn't exclusively about them, became pretty much a 'one-band' job, and I've got to know them since doing that. I've been round the guitarist's house for beer, I'm very good friends with a close relative of the band, I've written a biography piece for their website, and I've even been on fucking TV (just last summer) waxing lyrical about how ace they are.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I've realised that I'm still waiting for the next record, if you know what I mean. That is, with the exception of maybe ten songs out of 50 or 60 they've released, they've never actually lived up to my expectations and hopes for them, which were not based on false expectations I'd made up myself, but rather on things the band had said, both in interviews and to me in person. To cut a long story short, the last few weeks have seen me revisiting stuff I used to listen to, stuff this band is influenced by a lot of it, and I've realised how much it pisses over 90% of what they've managed to achieve.

And now I'm stuck with this reputation for being their biggest fan when I only actually think they're 'quite good'. Which, in many ways, is worse than being 'fucking awful'.

i loved pavement for years but suddenly went off them when terror twilight came out

My roommates all love Colin Newman solo albums, so I thought it must be good, and just sort of had that subconscious opinion for some time, until I heard them. I can't stand those albums.

i'm not sure this has happened to me in this way. a number of bands i liked a lot have gone (for me at least) very much off the boil (stereolab, spiritualized, mercury rev, flaming lips), but that is more their newer stuff (still like the stuff i liked if you see what i mean)

who is it nick anyway? Embrace?

Aye, it is. However did you guess?! ehehehehehehe

I bet they wish they didn't do all those interviews "the Verve are good but Bittersweet Symphony wouldn't get on our album". Ho ho ho, it seems nothing that wasn't crap got on that album.

Aye, fucking madness. They said that before the LP, and I thought "wow, it must be fucking amazing then, what are they hiding?!", and it turned out they were hiding a really limp version of 'Hey Jude' and a crap one that was meant to sound like MBV but didn't.

Which one was meant to sound like MBV?

jesus thats shocking.

I Want The World and You've Got To Say Yes were BOTH meant to be like "the worst excesses of MBV and The Jesus And Mary Chain." That came out of Danny McNamara's mouth.

Ive never had that kind of revelatory experience, but many many slow, creeping losses of faith in bands (that have sometimes been restored).

Pavement around the time of Terror Twilight, if not before. MSP after about the 10th listen of Everything Must go.

I think the trouble with Embrace is/was that its easy to fall for their rhetoric and hope and pray that they make music that lives upto their words and your dreams. and it never happens. Never will with Embrace while Danny is the "leader" of the band.

The lesson to learn here is to never raise your hopes about a band. Just let the music wash over you, and if its great, then great, and if its not, then you havent been let down.

A band that will never let you down? Explosions in the Sky. fucking ace.

xRob

I should probably point out that Ive only heard about 3 minutes worth of Explosions in the Sky. but it excited me massively.

http://g2.insound.com:8000/explosions_in_the_sky_greet_death.mp3

found via insound.com, a great site for streaming music by bands youve heard of but never heard.

eg, les savy fay, set fire to flames, ligament, hrsta, and many many more.

xRob

it was reading how much of a tosser he was

Hm...I didn't think that at all! If he had his bad moments, hell, I've had mine.

I ran into Paul Westerberg on Market Street in San Francisco years ago, and he looked like the biggest jackass imaginable. Gold pants, blue leather shoes, a weird sports coat with shoulder pads, cheesy Porsche sunglasses and of course the teased hair. He just looked like an asshole, and I've found that I haven't listened to his old band that much anymore.

I'll often go out of my way to avoid hearing a favorite artist's later, crap albums for fear it would ruin my appreciation of their earlier music. Even when I succeed in the effort, I sour on them anyway. I feel doubly cheated by: Pavement, David Byrne*, Paul Weller*, Aphex Twin

*Earlier appreciation for respective bands, NOT solo

I knew it was going to be Embrace, as your still young Nick put it down to youthful inexperience and move on.

The wait for an exceptional Mary Chain/ MBV inspired band in 2002 - starts @ Xinlisupreme - Tomorrow Never Comes