(not) listening with prejudice

I agree with your apraisal of Pink Floyd as being "crap" and if such bigotry exists then I am party to it regarding quite a few bands but I usually make an assessment upon actually hearing something by the artist in question. I occasionally decide I am going to hate a band and actually hearing their music merely serves to confirm what I first thought which is a kind of prejudice but I'm rarely wrong.

What sort of wonderfully sheltered and protected life have you led to never have to come into contact with Pink floyd? you must have had an idilyc childhood and the sort of adolescence that other more disadvantaged teenagers can only dream of. I envy you.

The Vines. I'm just prejudiced. Intolerance is such a fun drug. Nothing anybody can ever say will convince to even listen to one track by them, I'm convinced they suck. End of story.

(Is my intolerance addiction like DRUGS [best feeling ever I want to recapture it bigger] or GAMBLING [jackpot! EZ understanding of stuff before I even hear it = instant cred shortcut + gaining hours of time wasted trying out stuff I'll end up resenting for said hours]? In this case it's the latter because I had made up my mind similarly about Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, on whom I staked my reputation by telling everyone how worthless they were before hearing a note. And when I did hear it - even worse than I imagined! I was right and it felt good)

Other famous and legendary things I won't even bother with - Acid Mothers Temple, Josef K, any ECM person I haven't heard, Chili Gonzales, 23 Skidoo (have actually heard one track but forgot it so it doesn't count), Anticon. Of course the corollary is, if 'taken by surprise' by one of these (i.e. "What's that, it's cool!" "Who!? Fuck") then I must honestly recant. I had to do that with Turin Brakes and El-P. Aimless prejudice is fine if you don't hold on to it in the face of evidence, because that's the path to the nuthouse.

Peaches, Chicks on Speed.

peaches-reason being that two years ago, i was supposed to book her for a 10-band festival i was organizing, but she had all these insane restrictions (gonzales must open, we must both get at least hour-long sets, top billing, etc - whatevah!) not worth my time, sorry, even if she really is all that

note if you are a band - if i book you for a show and you request '20 hand towels' i will larf non-stop (i really am a nice person to deal with otherwise!)

I have this with Pink Floyd aswell actually, my friend gave me Dark Side of the Moon before and I listened to the first song and turned it off. It reminded me of this film I saw about an amateur poet in Dublin's city centre who became a junkie while in America. There was this one part where he described taking heroin which just descended into comedy, it was something like "I got this sensual, almost sexual feeling and a sudden urge to run into the night, I kept running and running, towards the stars or the moon or or or SOMETHING", I just imagine him saying all this with big squealing pink floyd guitars behind it.

I've never heard Belle and Sebastien, I have no interest in hearing them but I guess I don't actively dislike them. Every band from Dublin I actively dislike, and I've only seen their names on posters, but generally I'm ok because they do all sound like REM crossed with Metallica.

Pretty much any folk singers that belong to the Pete Seeger tradition.

boards of canada, when the "geo-whateverthefuck" thread was spreading around i was interested to see what they were about. I downloaded a few songs and was turned off immediately.

am i alone in this bigotry or do some of you also have bands that you not only have no interest in persuing - but actively dislike, without having heard a single note?
I have a thing about hating Frank Sinatra. And I can't seem to separate my annoyance of his cloying music from his irritatingly smug personality. Yes, yes, yes, I understand how "important" his music is and how good alot of it sounds (when somebody else does a cover) and how pleasant it can be in small doses in certain settings....but I can't get over the fact that his insidious personality oozes out of every note. He's like putting together all the worst qualities of David Lee Roth, Richard Nixon and a used car saleman (as if these are three different things.)
Stank Stinknatra...Five Star Albums from a Second Class chunk of Cheese. Bleh.

There have been artists that I've *WANTED* to dislike prior to hearing them. When I first saw pics of Jeff Buckley, I immediately wanted to affix a "Julian Lennon complex" badge on the high-cheekboned pretty boy. Then, I heard "Grace" at a friend's house. "Wow, what's this?" I asked. Imagine my dissapointment to learn it was the young, doomed Buckley. Simillarly, put off by their gimmicky sibling shtick and rather precious aesthetic, I wanted to despise the White Stripes -- only to be completely won over by the DESTIJL album, forcing me to eat a big ol' slice of humble pie. They rock.

I would recommend, Minna, that you sit down and listen to Pink Floyd. They may not completely be your cup of tea (especially if you like self-righteous piffle like Ben Harper) and they may indeed be pretentious bastards, but to call them crap says more about your disregard for fact than anything else. Convince yourself they're crap by listening to them, and if you still maintain that theory, then resume your campaign. Otherwise, you're being rather narrow.

Yes, yes, yes, I understand how "important" his music is

I don't think anyone here would say that, Custos. At the very least, I doubt anyone here would advance an undefined "importance" as something to worry about. Who cares about that? It sounds like you don't like him because of his "personality". I really don't know much about his personality besides anecdotes I've heard, which characterize him as by turns charming and a vicious thug but, strangely perhaps, those stories I've heard don't inform my opinions of his music much. Not sure why.

< /ned >

Nice end tag.

don't deny yourself new experiences.

Sit down. Listen to Piper At the Gates of Dawn (their 1st LP) and start from the beginning.

they're a strange group, don't dismiss their impact on global psych music. Most forms of music are worth checking out, sure many artists within those forms are worthless, but don't miss out on why a certain type of music bears some kind of signifigance.

Speaking of Peaches I had an evil fantasy of sneaking into a certain someone's house and replacing their smoov music with "Fuck The Pain Away" so it would come on when they brought their date home, resulting in an emotional breakdown of some sort. Then I decided this wouldn't be nice.

um. i think the ben harper mention was meant to ammount to an "i'd rather eat glass" sort of thing.

i was sure i despised momus' music before hearing a note of it, especially after combing through some of his essays and violently disagreeing with just about everything he believes about music. stunningly, downloading most of "folktronic" recently converted me.

"What sort of wonderfully sheltered and protected life have you led to never have to come into contact with Pink floyd? you must have had an idilyc childhood and the sort of adolescence that other more disadvantaged teenagers can only dream of. I envy you."

this was really fucking stupid.

I had pretty much the opposite experience with Pink Floyd - I listened to them because I had no real idea of or confidence in my own taste and because everybody seemed to be saying they were good. This is considerably more stupid than disliking them without listening as it involves spending money on their records.

I start to form an opinion of a band from the moment I hear their name, really - it kind of works up gradually and resolves into one of two categories - "want to hear" and "don't want to hear". Oh, no, there's a third, "feel i ought to hear because they get mentioned so often". I guess putting a band into the "don't want to hear" category is disliking-without-listening but you have to have SOME kind of sorting mechanism.

I liked pink floyd for a bit when I was a teen. They got boring for the most part. However, the stuff with Syd barret is still pretty good, so i mght suggest that if you never hear it, you are missing something decent, but what the hell, it won't kill you. hating thigns without listening to them seems a bit pointless, but all you need to is read some interviews to assume a band or artist is a silly prick.

i still basically want to hear everything

i deal with this — and the obvious inevitable disappointment that comes with it — by never hearing anything

But we can't hear everything or anywhere near, so we have to decide what to pursue (as well as some randomisation and stuff), and if I hadn't heard Pink Floyd I would not trouble to do so. We can make some judgements with confidence without hearing the act, i.e. if someone says in an interview "We are really inspired by Stereophonics and Embrace" there is no need to ever hear them, and indeed a pressing need not to.

The last few months I have lost that obsession (wanting to hear everything). I prefer to focus on the music I have, deepen my relationship with the records I have (and the few I buy lately).

do some of you also have bands that you not only have no interest in persuing - but actively dislike, without having heard a single note?
No, I think that is a ridiculous attitude. Sorry.

I think this kind of blind musical prejudice might be psychological protection against having to own very single cd that sounds interesting or is a "classic," I mean, you're never going to be able to own every cd that you want to, so your brain convinces itself that you don't even like some artists (even though you haven't heard them) and I wish to god that I could REMEMBER THE STUPID PSYCHOLOGICAL TERM FOR THIS! ARGH! What's the word that I want? Shit!

A FAMISHED FOX saw some clusters of ripe black grapes hanging from a trellised vine. She resorted to all her tricks to get at them, but wearied herself in vain, for she could not reach them. At last she turned away, hiding her disappointment and saying: "The Grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought."

but i'm not like the fox! it's not like i'm straining to 'get' pink floyd but can't... i have gotten nowhere near that far with it. i am rejecting the grapes without having been tantalised in the first place. and yes, i completely agree nathalie, it is a ridiculous attitude.

widespread panic