Records you just can't get into...

I bought a copy of "Destination Love : Live at Cold Rice!" by The Make Up about 5 years ago and still can't understand why the critics raved about it. To me it just sounds like a pretty ropey sub John Spencer Blues Explosion racket. Hardly the future of alternative music as some would have had us believe. I've tried to get into it over the years, but I don't know, it just does nothing for me.

Lots! Lots and lots and lots and lots! I recently got rid of about 35 CDs. Most of my albums are passing fancies, actually. I think I just have a problem with what to do while an album's on. Consequently, most are for either working out or riding on the subway (if I'm not reading).

Here's a few that I like IN THEORY but rarely do I even take off the shelf: Barcelona "Simon Basic", any of my Beastie Boys albums, all Black Sabbath, Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" (I always just put in "1916", "Orgasmatron" or this weird compilation called "Today"... I like Ace of Spades as an album, but it always comes down to "No Voices In The Sky" which plays through my head as soon as I think of Motorhead), Cardigans, Dipstick, Death Cab For Cutie & Lunchbox were both favorites for about 5 seconds... I think I just have a thing for new stuff. I need a 100 disc-changer stereo with a random shuffle option.

Stuff that's fairly new I'm still not sick of: The New Pornographers "Mass Romantic" (don't let the name fool you, they're great), Burning Brides "Fall of the Plastic Empire, The Fucking Champs IV, Le Shok "We Are Electrocution", The Lucksmiths "Why Doesn't that surprise me".

Plenty! For starters: "The Stone Roses" (see my contribution to the recent thread) plus, for some reason, anything by "lone maverick storytellers" (see the entire canon of Dylan, Waits, Springsteen, Patti Smith, Morrison (Van & Jim), John Hiatt, Townes van Zandt, Howe Gelb, Ryan Adams blah blah etc). I've never quite figured out why, but guess that it's something to do with the fact that I've never been too big on the lyrics-are-what-counts-the-music-is-purely- functional school of wouldbe litcrit. All doubtlessly worthy but they just don't touch and/or stimulate me. If, say, Denis Johnson was a singer-songwriter I'd probably say the same - some things work better in other art manifestations, e.g. literature, than in music. To the above list I ought to add Elvis Costello (I mean, explain!), everything-after-the-first-solo-album Nick Cave and everything-after- the-first-two-albums PJ Harvey. Exceptions? The Brit psychofolk strand (Drake, Martyn, R&L Thompson, Carthy, Denny) and the Scott Walker of Scotts 3 & 4, Nite Flights and Tilt. All Americana, most speed garage, most contemporary R&B (honourable exception: the Neptunes). Pretty well all contemporary jazz made after about 1975 with the occasional exceptions of the Zorn/Douglas school and those who were around pre-'75 (i.e. Brotzmann/Bailey/Parker E/Parker W/Ware/Tippett/et al). Think that about covers it.

The new autechre album confield. I've been told to turn it up loud, use headphones, listen to it as a texture but it still makes no sense.

no dog latin, i disagree. confield is superb, actually got into it straight away (unusual for autechre). only record to challenge daft punk's discovery and shaggy's wasn't me so far this year.

as for can't get into. well, obvious answer really, but:

trout. mask. replica.

Tricky's "Maxinquaye". Those were the days when I might still buy an album because I felt I 'ought' to. Anyway I sold it to someone (along with Portishead's "Dummy", which I liked but knew I would rarely play).

Funnily enough, when I taped my cousin's copy of "Dummy", I felt the same way about it; I always admired it rather than played it regularly. It was, however, the only album he listened to that wasn't part of some of Oasis / Beatles lineage (admittedly he probably felt he "ought to" listen to it after it won the Mercury Prize), so I admire the way it worked on *him*.

A few possible answers to this question from me: The Magnetic Fields' "The Charm Of The Highway Strip", Nick Drake's "Bryter Layter" (a semi-crossover with one of Marcello's choices; not sure whether I'd feel the same way now, but when I first heard it the "Fairport effect" of Pegg, Mattacks and R. Thompson's instrumentation made it sound overtly sweet and conventionally 1970 to me, and I was very much a "Pink Moon" type), Pulp's "This Is Hardcore", last year's Reflection Eternal album, the last High Llamas record (what I heard of it), Stereolab's "Microbe Hunters".

Actually, I agree about Portishead. Perhaps that's not surprising; but I did make an effort with that record at one time.

Does not getting into something mean the same as you dont like it? I mean, I don't see the big attraction with Radiohead or the Magnetic Fields, but I reckon it's not because I can't get into them; rather it's because I loathe them with every fibre of my being. So perhaps a better answer would be Portishead, which seems to be the popular answer. They aren't really horrible but they aren't really good either. They're background music, basically, so I don't understand why everyone went nuts for them back in the day.

'Discovery' - i dont dislike it - but im indifferent to it. can't see what all the fuss is about - its interesting in places -

seee also - grandaddy,calexico,portishead and lemon jelly albums

SLANTED & ENCHANTED (and pretty much everything else) by Pavement.

I just don't understand why people lost their veritable shit over this band! Gormless-yet-snobby "rock" which failed to actually 'rock' in any capacity. Blecch!!!

Loads of people whose taste I normally respect were into them, but I just didn't hear it.

I've been struggling with the Sigur Ros album. I enjoy them live, I liked the one of their singles I heard, friends tell me the album is brilliant, but it just sounds DULL.

The Fugs, Zappa and the Roches.
Regarding Beefheart's Replica record: I never thought it was weird. Isn't it just fucked up blues? That's how it sounds to me.

Built To Spill - Keep It Like A Secret

Uh, is it supposed to be something more than sometimes catchy guitar pop? I guess not.

Astral Weeks, frequently in critics all time top ten records list, that every time I listen to I think 'dear God, stop WARBLING'

music has the right to children (boards of canada) - I put it on, and then much later when the synthesized or processed voices come on, I find that I haven't been paying attention to it at all. I feel unworthy.

The Beatles - any album. Rolling Stones (cept Let it Bleed). I think I listened to the artists who took inspiration from them before I actually got round to them myself.

'straight outta compton'.

Sonic Youths' Daydream Nation.

Prefab Sprout compilation "Life of Surprises". I keep trying to peel back the layers of gloss to see what's underneath. Either it can't be done or there's nothing underneath.

High Llamas - "Hawaii" . The musical equivalent to wading through a lake of cold porridge very, very slowly. How can anyone stand this record?

Word on 'Hawaii' Dr.C!! How I tried with that one! What a double bag o'shite. Also Modern Lovers, whatever the title of that album is. Wee, goody two-shoes tosser. Ahem...'Give Out but Don't Give In', tried & tried, then did the smart thing, trip to record exchange, got the 'Jailbird' 12" instead. Trout Crap Replica goes without saying ;)

Oops. You've just dragged out the album I went the most irrationally far about *loving*.

Absolutely everything and anything by Frank Zappa. I could construct a decent argt to prove (i.e. to someone somewhat like myself) that he was good, and another to prove he was important: I just can't remotely get with the programme. I don't even hate him (tho it's sometimes more convenient to pretend I do).

(And btw I like Beefheart and Varese and Dolphy and Stravinsky and "Louie Louie" — so this sometimes suggested sideways route doesn't work)

I find that Zappa's like the Dead - great idea IN THEORY ('conceptual continuity', jazz 'chops', 'biting' satire, improv, impressive namedropping, 'the zone' etc. etc.) but just try listening to the actual fucking records! See also: The Residents.

"Come On Die Young" by Mogwai. I love the new album, I love the Stanley Kubrik EP, I clearly love their earlier droneRAWK albums, but just could never get my head around CODY.

Robin, maybe you can explain the attraction of "Hawaii", if you still like it. I just don't get it, but have some time for O'Hagan for his work with Microdisney way back when God was a boy. All the other HL albums I've heard seemed to be similarly wheel-spinningly dull.

hawaii is the best high llamas album by far. i don't really listen to it very much anymore, but it is a good record and was a favourite for quite a while

it is very confectionary like and i understand why people don't like them. its very much a brian wilson pastiche too with the bouncy pianos and all. actually thats probably why i like it...bouncy pianos.

i did, initially, think o'hagans voice wasn't good enough to carry it off, but i warmed to his earnest geography teacher style delivery (don't you think he always sounds as though he's explaining something when he's singing?)

I like your geography teacher analogy, Gareth, but O'Hagan's voice always sounded to me a lot like Paul McCartney in his dying moments of brilliance around 1969; that wonderful strained weakness and the beauty drawn from therein. However that comparison occured to me a lot less listening to their subsequent albums, which is probably because they sound a lot less like _Abbey Road_; their subsequent records are perhaps more ideologically defensible (dry, research-unit music) but which I find much less interesting to actually listen to. With _Buzzle Bee_ fussy production finally overtook HL and killed them.

_Hawaii_ is a strange one in that I responded to it at a moment of melancholia at the height of the 60s' strangehold over mainstream Britmusic; it just seemed to be a wallow in longing and aspiration and what-might-have-been and possible journeys rather than simply an act of replication. That romantic aspect wouldn't be enough for me now, but in '96, it worked. I hardly listen to it now; I think _Gideon Gaye_ is their best album because it's their most self- contained and well-executed, and I think _Hawaii_ is overlong and gets a little schmaltzy in places. I'd probably stand up for about half of _Hawaii_ now and be fairly indifferent towards the rest.

They were a good live band in '99 but I *massively* overrated _Buzzle Bee_ when it came out. Now come close to hating them for the first time.

Sorry, for those who care. I never liked _Buzzle Bee_; the one I overrated was _Snowbug_.