101 (or more) most obvious acts who get the "love them or hate them" response in the history of pop/rock

2. Frank Zappa

oh, and be kind and tell us if you love or hate them yourself.
(i love todd)

3. Phish

4. Grateful Dead
(love)
xpost

4. cardiacs (hate)

6. Tiny Tim

it's complicated

i think i'm one of the few who are in the middle with grateful dead

Yeah, there are a few, but in general opinion is pretty polarized.

7. Klaus Nomi

(who I love, by the way)

7. sparks (?!) - i love only kimono (and only parts of it), i hate most of the rest.

Antony and the Johnsons
(hate)

9. jandek (love)
10. beach boys (hate)
11. sex pistols (hate.)

I'm confused - no one has said Bob Dylan or Neil Young yet? - They're the reasons for the question, no? Love both.

12. Tortoise (love)

the beach boys?

who's middle of the road on the beach boys?

Tortoise? since when are they love/hate?

maybe also nine inch nails,marylin manson and all those rock-goth-new wave-metal shitty bands.

i think my mother is in the middle with the beach boys,for example.(of course, she is not aware of the full discography and stuff)

xp Since Ned Raggett?

tortoise are "love/boring" not
"love/hate"

I'll recite the conventional argument like a litany.

Are they brilliant post-rock pioneers, forging new terrain with unfashionably organic instruments replicating the structures of minimalist electronica?

Or are they a gigantic scum-sucking dud that harnessed:

(a) hipster cred from once-upon-a-time being in lame punk bands (b) a tape-crashing gimmick that sounded cool the first two [2] times you heard it (c) a very large and fashionable collection of old Can records

and fused the three to produce middlebrow elevator music, Philip Glass wanking in an interminable toked-up jam band, music so inoffensively pleasant as to be unpleasant?

-- Ian White, Monday, July 30, 2001 7:00 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Link

13. Nirvana (Love)
14. Cpt. Beefheart (Hate), Zappa seconded.
15. John Cage (Love), assuming we are not just in rock.

]i've heard our own john d. m*untaing*at go off on this subject both on ilm and in conversation: the idea that "indie", whatever it may be, was permanently affected with the introduction of chops, jazz fusion, the vibraphone, whatever, for the worse.

...the "whatever" in question is mainly "super-cherry vintage analogue synths" & accompanying deep-poseur dedication to various obscure microphones (SovTek was trendy for a year or two), community-determined era-based fetishes ("the '70s were so weird!"), loosely understood/expressed aesthetic stances, etc. All this recently became a more complicated issue for me when I opened for T*rt*ise and they were effin' great guys. For me the fact remains however that once the stench of conoisseur-ism has wafted into a room (the room in question here being "indie"), that room hasn't got long before it stinks to high heaven.

Jess you just did this to see if you could get me worked up.

-- J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Tuesday, April 22, 2003 6:14 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

isn't beefheart more a case of love it/i don't get it, though...?

16. the mountain goats

I don't think so. I think if you hate it and tell someone so who likes it, they'd probably ask if you really get it, but yeah, I kinda hate it.

17. Queen (luv)

18. M.I.A.

How could we possible miss that one?

Belle & Sebastian (love)
though I think as many people hate the idea of them/what they stand for as really hate them, they're (rightfully) a standardbearer.
Joanna Newsom (love)
Fiery Furnaces (hate)

22. Björk

Patti Smith, for some unfathomable reason. I love her, personally.

Also Mecca Normal. Everybody on ILM hates them except Ned and I and probably Douglas W.

ian hates the beach boys?

I love Mecca Normal! Joanna Newsom, not so much (hate) but Fiery Furnaces (love)! (That wasn't a sentence.)

1. todd rundgren - HATE
2. Frank Zappa - HATE
3. Phish - HATE
4. Grateful Dead - whatevs
5. Cardiacs - who gives a shit? talk about REAL BANDS
6. Tiny Tim - LOVE
7. Klaus Nomi - LOVE
8. Sparks - Would love to LOVE but HATE
9. Antony and the Johnsons - LOVE
10. Jandek - meh
11. Beach Boys - a little of both
12. Sex Pistols - meh
13. Bob Dylan - ...
14. Neil Young - ...
15a. Tortoise - FUCKING HATE
15b. Talking about Tortoise - FUCKING HATE
16. Nine Inch Nails - no one cares
17. Marylin Manson - see above, srsly
18. "All those rock-goth-new wave-metal shitty bands" - make a better suggestions now
19. Nirvana - look, no one cares
20. Cpt. Beefheart - LOVE
21. John Cage - LOVE
22. The Mountain Goats - appreciate
23. Queen - LOVE LOVE LOVE
24. M.I.A. - like in a friends-only way
25. Belle & Sebastian - LOVE, then HATE
26. Joanna Newsom - she's okay
27. Fiery Furnaces - annoying, but not annoying enough to hate or love
28. Björk - like you fine, now go away
29. Patti Smith - a little LOVE, a lotta HATE
30. Mecca Normal - the zenith of meh

wait who doesn't like queen? preposterous.

I'm a mammal that cares. x

i don't like queen.

Cardiacs - who gives a shit? talk about REAL BANDS

Don't be afraid to admit there's someone you've never heard.

No, it's true. I only act hard 'cuz I'm scared on the inside. YSI?

You send it? You solicit internet prostitution?

Shhhh! They'll come over here and yell at us.

HAHAHAHA. Yeah. That's a good one.

31. Xiu Xiu

4. cardiacs

OTM

(hate)

FU

32. The Mars Volta (love)
33. Mansun (love)
34. Yes (love)

I can't think of many bands like this that I hate, probably because in order to polarise so violently you need to take some sort of massive musical risk, which will almost certainly endear yourself to me.

Oh, wait a moment.

35. Dream Theater (haaaaate)

But you can hate things that aren't taking a massive risk.

36. Garth Brooks

if we're going outside of "rock," then Bill Dixon (love). even cecil taylor fans either love him or hate him. i've seen reviews that said he was physically incapable of playing the trumpet, and reviews that were beyond over-the-top in their praise for his risk-taking. never seen a review that said anything along the lines of him being mildly inoffensive or somesuch.

Kiss

39. They Might Be Giants, surely! While the last decade or so has sloughed off quite a few fans, in general (and certainly in their heyday) they are a band whose fans relish in the details, form communities, start cover bands, analyze lyrics, and keep their eyes out for rarities.....while everybody else finds them annoying across the board.

Lots of Cardiacs mp3s to love or hate here.

40. Van Morrison!

(love)

The Smiths used to be thought of as a major polarising force. These days most people seem to quite like them or else just don't like that kind of thing.

41. Rush (love)
42. Springsteen (hate)

I quite like Rush. Enough to go and see them live and occassionaly crank it when they get played on the radio (which happens frequently in Canada, by the way). Not enough to buy any records by them though.

GG Allin

40. Van Morrison!

-- fritz, Wednesday, August 29, 2007 3:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

veto!

Does anyone HATE Van Morrison?

44. andrew wk

I have an enormous gut feeling that Van "The Man" is absolutely dreadful and the living antithesis of all I hold dear about music...
-- Tom, Tuesday, October 16, 2001 12:00 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

Morrison = Meat Loaf with a Celtic burden of significance instead of cheezy American humour.
-- dave q, Wednesday, October 17, 2001 12:00 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

Van is useless, has been since Them, and has inspired more shit music than anyone not called Bob Dylan...
-- Snotty Moore, Wednesday, October 17, 2001 12:00 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

I'd rather drill a hole straight through my teeth to my gums than listen to Van Morrison.
-- The Silent Disco of Glastonbury (Bimble...), Friday, 15 April 2005 06:39 (2 years ago) Link

45. john cale?

46. Yoko Ono

47. The Gerogerigegege

Wow. Very interesting.

48. REM (hate, because if you don't love them, you get the feeling that some joke, somewhere, is on you)

def. the strokes.

50. King Diamond

I'm willing to go there:

51. U2 (hate)

52. Tom Waits
53. Village People

(and, no, I am not trying to compare them ;) )

54. The Residents (hate)

I think our numbering is off (Zeno to thread!)

I'm dubious about John Cale's inclusion in this category, he has plenty of work that is straight out middle of the road average. Still,

55. The Velvet Underground
56. Whitehouse
57. Blackhouse
58. Skrewdr!ver

I would like to list Artless and Psychodrama but they don't seem like they would be "obvious" to most people...

59. Culturcide

wait the numbering is not off, mispost. time to get off the internet.

Skrew*driver? Shit dude.

Lotta folks here with huge enough discographies (Rundgren, Zappa, Dead, Van Morrison) to secure my own personal love and hate in equal measures. Or unequal measures, same thing.

They Might be Giants is a great one (I love em, lots of people hate them, never the twain etc)

60. Flaming Lips (perhaps? I just dont get them for some reason)

Just stumbled on this comment in the thread Sleater-Kinney breaks up:

the most fervently beloved devotion-inspiring cult band ever, or at least in my lifetime of music geekdom. absolutely no middle ground, either you worship @ their altar or wander the desert of disbelief.

not saying this is bad or wrong, just think it's interesting that nobody ever seems to be mixed or on-the-fence abt sleater-kinney.

-- m coleman (lovebug starski), Thursday, June 29, 2006 8:55 AM (Thursday, June 29, 2006 8:55 AM) Bookmark Link

which is to say,

61. Sleater-Kinney

62. Wynton Marsalis (though it's probably more because of his opinions than the music most of the time. I've somehow missed out on hearing him, so I dunno myself)
63. Mr Bungle
64. Wagner

oh, love and love on the last two.

With the Velvets it's mostly a matter of which songs. There are Velvets songs that I love, but also Velvets "songs" that I hate with a passion.

65. Neutral Milk Hotel (love)

66. Emerson, Lake & Palmer