Bands you loved once, but now can't stand because you can't get past the singer

OTM, son.

Actually, it took me a long time (i.e only just until the past year) to get into the Rolling Stones, until I decided it didn't matter whether Mich and Keef were dicks or not.

B.Ferry, tho, yeah different category of dix.

bowie... never 'loved' perhaps.

Great thread.

Great comment.

I cannot for the life of me understand how you could take a singer's personality into account when judging the quality of the music.

Mouse on Mars - they shouldn't have gotten singers at all.

I'll always love Roxy Music for the songs, not for Bryan Ferry's son's Countryside Alliance links or whatever have you.

Tuomas, you have roused a feaful beast. I expect Dr.C here in no time.

I cannot for the life of me understand how you could take a singer's personality into account when judging the quality of the music.

I know what you mean, but I find it impossible not to link a voice to a person, whereas with instrumentalists, it matters less; and to make it clear; I did once love both bands mentioned in my initial post with a passion - and its not the odious Otis that bothers me about Ferry either.

Just listen to the instrumental bits then, I guess!

Haha, seriously, though, is it not possible to put odiousness out of your mind? Is it not possible to think "This is a great song whose singer happens to be a twat, but who's keeping score?"?

i used to love danzig but i can't get past big glenn, cuz he's massive y'know

"This is a great song whose singer happens to be a twat, but who's keeping score?"

It happens to me very time I listen to "Hotel California".

obligatory beth ditto joke

(er, which is exactly the same joke Charlie just made. sorry)

but you used a better example, stan :)

(better?)

I love them to death-still my favorite band by far-but Sabbath makes it tough with Ozzy's embarrasing TV show and his cunt wife, and some of Dio's exploits, e.g. suing a Latin band because they used the name "Dios" and his trivial pissing match with Gene Simmons about throwing the horns.

Razorlight. What's worst is that he'd probably take it as a compliment.

Blur

Bands you loved once, but now can't stand because you can't get past the singer

The Animals.

Coz he's too fat! Get it?!

A lot of artists are dickheads. If I threw away all the CD's made by asshats, my music collection would be pretty damn small.

right but the thread premise is you can 'get past that' w. some singers, but not w. others.

REM

no mention of 50 cent yet?!?

Gee, I love most bands because their frontmen ARE dicks, revel in it, and what's more, make interesting art about their ambivalences. That they risk ridicule or dismissal goes with the territory. I just don't understand why you couldn't accept this. We're supposed to have uneasy relationships with the music we listen to!

Gee, I love most bands because their frontmen ARE dicks, revel in it, and what's more, make interesting art about their ambivalences

Maybe the problem with Jagger and Ferry is that there is no ambivalence; they sincerely think that what they are is what what we'd want to be, if only we were as cool as them - it's not the dick-ness, per se - it's the vanity and self- regard.......
Ozzy and Dave Lee Roth, to pick two fairly random examples, think they are what we would be if we were them, and it may not be pretty, but the routine has a sort 'look at me, I won the lottery' co- conspiratorial air to it, rather than the vanity of Jagger or Ferry, or, the condescension of Stipe, which says 'admire the cleverness you will never attain'

Maybe the problem with Jagger and Ferry is that there is no ambivalence; they sincerely think that what they are is what what we'd want to be, if only we were as cool as them - it's not the dick-ness, per se - it's the vanity and self- regard.......

there's NO ambivalence or ambiguity in either mick jagger or bryan ferry's schtick?!?

Maybe the problem with Jagger and Ferry is that there is no ambivalence; they sincerely think that what they are is what what we'd want to be, if only we were as cool as them - it's not the dick-ness, per se - it's the vanity and self- regar

That's not true at all! Jagger has never shied away from the fact that he's a middle-class English guy singing black American music. These ambivalences have been in the music – his singing, lyrics – since day one!

As for Ferry, c'mon – he's not singing to anyone but himself. All those early Roxy songs are as much about the performative virtues of love songs as they are about serenades to the beloved.

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned U2... or were they never loved (certainly not by me)

plus, how can the son of a fucking COAL-MINER from NEWCASTLE FUCKING ENGLAND not possess some sense of irony in crooning about high-life demimonde decadence?!?

Sorry, wasn't clear - I didn't mean there was no ambivalence in their personae; what I find objectionable in both of them is the self- regard - 'the look at me, white middle-class MJ singing the blues; so interesting' and the 'look at me BF son of a miner singing about the high-life' and their entirely unironic embrace of the upper-classes. There may be a productive ambivalence in the lack of fit between background and subject matter, but its destroyed by conceit, rather than used to investigate itself as an artistic procedure.

their entirely unironic embrace of the upper-classes

You expect him to pal around at the pub? Aren't you being as snooty and class-conscious?

Sorry, wasn't clear - I didn't mean there was no ambivalence in their personae; what I find objectionable in both of them is the self- regard - 'the look at me, white middle-class MJ singing the blues; so interesting' and the 'look at me BF son of a miner singing about the high-life' and their entirely unironic embrace of the upper-classes. There may be a productive ambivalence in the lack of fit between background and subject matter, but its destroyed by conceit, rather than used to investigate itself as an artistic procedure.

i take it that you don't like Jay-Z very much either, then?

and accusing Ferry of "self-regard" is like accusing Dylan of obscurity. At Ferry's best he illuminates the link between singing baroque love songs and self-regard. That's what Roxy Music such a shock when I discovered them in my teens: here was a band that could make you laugh hysterically AND move you to tears in the same bar.

I know why Ferry is/ was good - and remember the thread title is about bands you loved once (thats why this has nothing to do with U2); I'm not even defending my inabilty to listen to them anymore without feeling shortchanged - what I'm asking is why BF's latterday decline from irony to dimwitted mannered snobbery should affect my ability to listen to work from when he was really interesting.

And no I don't expect them to hang around with me in the pub; but Bowie, for example, has resisted the embrace of the idiot shire classes, without pretending to be a man of people (and for refusing the OBE or whetever it was, I will never entirely dismiss him)

well, good for Bowie. For the record, he capped his teeth.

i'm unaware of bryan ferry ever being knighted, though.

It's odd if you think you can detect a line between Ferry being playful and inauthentic and a time when he became serious and dull, cos I don't see what would create that impression. Also I have to point out once again that Ferry played "Let's Stick Together" at the Princess Di memorial gig.

An ironist is always a failed romantic anyway, so Avalon was inevitable.