Music you don't listen to because of personal context, not what it sounds like

I am loathe to hear a single note off either AMPLIFIED HEART by Everything But the Girl and/or FOUR CALENDAR CAFE by the Cocteau Twins. It has precious little to do with the caliber of either album, but more for the fact that both are drenched in the experience of being dumped by a woman I'd been dating at the office (a monumentally bad idea) who later ended up sleeping with another mutual co-worker who was married with children.

Does Alex secretly work with me? That sounds like the sort of saga we have here.

Anyhow, there's nothing that I LIKE that I dislike because of something else; the closest that comes to that is I went and bought another copy of a recent album today because the copy I already had was given to me by someone who I no longer associate with and I didn't want that copy anymore, because it irritated me to have anything reminscent of that event. But if I already vaguely dislike something, personal association can make me loathe them. See: Magnetic Fields, Pink Floyd.

magnetic fields' '69 love songs' was ... well, i don't feel like airing dirty laundry. suffice it to say that listening to it makes me not very happy for many reasons.

There are a lot of records which I feel embarrassed to listen to now because of associating too strongly with them, or associating them too strongly with things. I can only think of one track which I would always fast-forward. No, I won't say what it is.

I dislike bands because of specific people liking them far too often but if the band is good I generally see sense.

Everyone so far has talked about music which reminds them of sad things but sometimes I find it more painful or difficult to hear music which reminds me of happier times.

Perhaps (probably) a slightly (very) predictable answer, but MSP's "The Holy Bible".

I've always disliked _Introspective_ by the Pet Shop Boys, but it was only very recently that I realized that one factor in my dislike was that it was released right after my brother died. I can't think of an album that I heard for the first time that year that I like today.

I'd concur with Tom here.

There are records that remind me of happy times so much that listening to them is unbearably poignant, a strain I just can't take. The records "of" the depressed times can on the other hand be quite uplifting - I was incredibly sad and introverted while listening obsessively to the High Llamas' "Hawaii" but on the (v. rare) occasions when I listen to it now, I usually end up feeling very happy.

Anything by Elliott Smith & Jeff Buckley take me back to darker times last year when i started uni, my folks split and i broke-up with the girl of my dreams. I only listen to those if i'm feeling particularly depressed.

REM's New Adventures in Hi-fi always remind me of sitting alonside my partner on the bus to Lanus, coming back from central Buenos Aires - look up, what do you see? It's harsh now, the bitch called me while I was in the psych clinic to tell me we were through...thank god I never shared my glen campbell albums with her.

As my old mate Dante put it: "nothing is more bitter or painful than to be reminded of happy times in times of misery". So it's Fred Astaire singing "The Way You Look Tonight" for me (or was until recently).

There's a song called "Trust" by the Cure which I listened to for the first time in eight years recently. I refuse to divulge why.

I used to love listening to the first Violent Femmes album, but unfortunately I associate it too much with some pretty bad times and for that reason just can't bring myself to sit through it anymore.

There's a band called 'The Cure', I think that's as far as we should go

Oh god yes. Did that thread on Abba teach us nothing?