Albums/artists you just DON'T GET.

[IdleRich]

"i don't get the cramps. they're just terrible, a trendy girl at work who is trying to pretend she is into rockabilly, bacause its a fashionable thing to say or something says she likes the cramps but doesn't stay in the room when she puts a cd by them on."

I do like the Cramps but I think that they suffer in the same way as most bands who do a lot of covers in that they make a disparate group of songs sound like "Cramps' songs" in a way that homogenises them.
I think that they're pretty easy to get though, they're a cartoon rockabilly band who are very easy on the ear and they are also curators of a load of interesting music.

 

[k-punk]

Naturally, I like gloss, extravagance and glamour - but Prince always struck me as showbizzy and rawky rather than glamorous. I file 'Purple Rain' with Van Halen and Bon Jovi.

mms - it's not that I don't like Astral Weeks, it's that I do like it, but that's it ---- I'm not awestruck or captivated by it. That's what I would say is involved in 'not getting' something - mild approbation, with the sense that 'there's something I must be missing here...'

 

[baboon2004]

I don't get Stevie Wonder.

Let the vitriol fly.

 

[mms]

Naturally, I like gloss, extravagance and glamour - but Prince always struck me as showbizzy and rawky rather than glamorous. I file 'Purple Rain' with Van Halen and Bon Jovi.

really, i thought you'd at least be impressed by his never giving interviews?

 

[mms]

I don't get Stevie Wonder.

Let the vitriol fly.

entire albums by him do often get trying in the way that albums by well to do christian moralists often do, but he is incredible in so many ways. so many great songs under his belt, even some of his great christian moralist songs like 'as',, it just gets you with it's faith and loveliness.

i've never really got the rolling stones, how much i try, i think they have the same effect as so many of the 'classic' bands i dont get, they seemed energetic and important in the 60's, they are either still around or so diefied that they are now totally irrelevant as a force.

things i dont like anymore are pompous old goats like lou reed, cale and eno, nothing good done for decades, hang out with u2 etc, lou reed's shockingly awful wife laurie anderson, just shit.

maybe alot of this not getting is down to these fucking people hanging around so long doing nothing relevant, just letting their egos repeat the same bloody thing so far removed from any reality that it seems ridiculous. this isn't just big stars but half of the characters they feature in the wire every month are the same.

 

[martin]

What about acts you used to like but no longer get? I used to like Sonic Youth in the eighties, but I now just don't see the appeal at all.

I used to really like The Fall, and saw them live 5 times, but I don't think I'd ever listen to them again. Looking back at albums like "Grotesque", "Infotainment Scan" and "Middle Class Revolt", I know why I liked them- they seemed like iconoclastic sideswipes at ligger culture, and some of the lyrics (esp "M5" and "City Dweller") were dripping with black humour. "Grotesque", which I incidentally thought was way better than "Hex Enduction Hour", reminds me of those dead winter afternoons in skintsville, Camberwell, when songs like "Pay Your Rates" and "C&C" suited the atmosphere of grimey windows, weak tea and awful daytime TV shows...

But I can't understand why I liked them THAT much, they sound faintly embarrassing to me now, and I'm just glad the group never became so popular that I'll have to suffer the entirety of "NWRA" ever again. The amount of uncritical, fawning interviews with Smith is also a bit sickening. I do still have a soft spot for some of the tunes, but I can't be bothered to dig out what few CDs and tapes I've got by them, let alone check out any of their stuff from this millennium.

Also, Blaggers ITA - I used to see them live and loved them when I was 17, but they seem wedged in that period - "It's Up To You" is still enjoyable, but a lot of the rapping bits just make me cringe now. Their anti-bonehead stance was the main appeal and one of their best assets, though.

I also feel indifferent about 2-Tone, for a lot of reasons, not least the fact that as soon as any documentary focuses on the Brixton riots or Thatcher, you know it's odds-on that "Ghost Town" is coming up. Also, I find the second side of the first Specials album really irritating now, again for various reasons which I won't go into here...

 

[gumdrops]

Naturally, I like gloss, extravagance and glamour - but Prince always struck me as showbizzy and rawky rather than glamorous. I file 'Purple Rain' with Van Halen and Bon Jovi.

thats only one album of princes, and the most (80s-FM-)rawk of probably all his albums, save for maybe chaos and disorder. i dont think you can really compare any other prince album to bon jovi or van halen - hes too fey for that, not dumb and braindead enough. i seriously doubt many bon jovi or poison fans would like prince - hes not nearly macho enough.

lol@someone thinking genuwines version of when doves cry is better than princes. timbalands reconstruction of that song is really tepid and bloodless. a really pointless cover overall.

 

[swears]

Yeah, the whole widdly-diddly geetar thing was only one of the many colours to his palette. Sometimes he'd wail out if he felt the track demanded it, sometimes he'd hold back, like on stripped down, new-wavish tunes like "Head". I don't get why people made such a big deal about synth-playing "limey faggot haircut bands" like Duran Duran and Culture Club invading America when Prince was out-synthing and out-camping them all! Purple Rain isn't so bad, but it was probably the end of his great run of albums from Dirty Mind onwards. He wasn't really as interesting after that.

 

[gumdrops]

ATWIAD, parade, sign o the times, lovesexy (although this album is quite patchy/erratic and overproduced) werent interesting?

 

[mms]

Yeah, the whole widdly-diddly geetar thing was only one of the many colours to his palette. Sometimes he'd wail out if he felt the track demanded it, sometimes he'd hold back, like on stripped down, new-wavish tunes like "Head". I don't get why people made such a big deal about synth-playing "limey faggot haircut bands" like Duran Duran and Culture Club invading America when Prince was out-synthing and out-camping them all! Purple Rain isn't so bad, but it was probably the end of his great run of albums from Dirty Mind onwards. He wasn't really as interesting after that.

i dunno i think parade, around the world in a day and sign o the times are some of his best, he always cut ace 12"s and b sides too.



i've never got david bowie, he makes me mad, ridiculous nonsensical lyrics, utterly pompous drama to every song he does, hideous voice, incredulous self importance.
The only things i liked are the nile rodgers things in the 80's, when he calmed it right down. i like alot of things clearly influenced by an idea of david bowie like human league and japan.



as for things i liked but don't anymore, sonic youth are in there, but mainly for the reason that they no longer do very good music again, are the govnor's of alot of music i find utterly tedious, kids ten years younger than me sit around pouting to goo and kool thing, like it makes them really cool to have 'discovered ' an album 17 years old. i just can't listen to them anymore, i've heard the whole thing so many times and they just get way too much love for a band that were just pretty good anyway, its ridiculous, they cosily fit so well with a way for justifying so much tedious music and behaviour, they're a pain in the ass. There are also a whole bunch of much better bands of that kin that no one really remembers.

things also like beck i never really want to hear again although i enjoyed them.
an awful lot of mid 90's electronica and drum and bass never really want to hear again.

 

[swears]

ATWIAD, parade, sign o the times, lovesexy (although this album is quite patchy/erratic and overproduced) werent interesting?

All those albums are "interesting"! lol
But like you say, they get a bit patchy, very hit and miss. Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 are the peerless classics. He made some great tunes after Purple Rain, but no more great albums.

 

[baboon2004]

i've never got david bowie, he makes me mad, ridiculous nonsensical lyrics, utterly pompous drama to every song he does, hideous voice, incredulous self importance.

as for things i liked but don't anymore, sonic youth are in there, but mainly for the reason that they no longer do very good music again, are the govnor's of alot of music i find utterly tedious, kids ten years younger than me sit around pouting to goo and kool thing, like it makes them really cool to have 'discovered ' an album 17 years old. i just can't listen to them anymore, i've heard the whole thing so many times and they just get way too much love for a band that were just pretty good anyway, its ridiculous, they cosily fit so well with a way for justifying so much tedious music and behaviour, they're a pain in the ass. There are also a whole bunch of much better bands of that kin that no one really remembers, big black jesus lizard, dinosaur jnr etc.

things also like beck i never really want to hear again although i enjoyed them.
an awful lot of mid 90's electronica and drum and bass never really want to hear again.

Love Bowie to death, but I couldn't argue that there is pompous drama in his songs. Guess I just love that kind of overblown pomposity sometimes.

Sonic Youth I used to be wary of for their 'ironic', uber-cool posturing. But after seeing them live recently, I've kinda given in to the music.

Good call on Laurie Anderson tho - wtf is the appeal of 'O Superman' when you can listen to someone like Meredith Monk instead?

 

[baboon2004]

*Couldn't argue that there ISN'T*

Too much sherry. Sorry.

 

[mms]

Sonic Youth I used to be wary of for their 'ironic', uber-cool posturing. But after seeing them live recently, I've kinda given in to the music.

Good call on Laurie Anderson tho - wtf is the appeal of 'O Superman' when you can listen to someone like Meredith Monk instead?

its not that, sonic youth are a middlebrow fairly good band, who like a whole bunch of others have been around far too long and are treated as some untouchable thing.

laurie anderson is just a waste of space.

 

[tate]

laurie anderson is just a waste of space.

Laurie Anderson's tune "Speak My Language" was used effectively throughout Wong Kar-Wai's film Fallen Angels, and I like the tune very much: atmospheric, mildly propulsive, very precise in its mood. The backing band on the track consisted of Brian Eno, Jamie West-Oram (from the Fixx), and Joey Baron (great downtown nyc drummer). "Poison" is another nice track from that period of Anderson.

 

[zhao]

Keiji Haino. Yep. B-O-R-I-N-G. I saw him several times while in love with noise stuff in the mid-90s and he was always completely dull. And yes, pretentious. Related: I don't get what's so great about Jim O'Rourke. Isn't he just another *one of them*?

oh no no no no no. you are very much mistaken about O'rourke. whatever problems he has, and what ever new projects are ignorable, his earlier computer music is priceless - the very least of which is that record on Mego -- I will get a list of the essentials together for you when I get home...

 

[Poisonous Dart]

Huh?

All those albums are "interesting"! lol
But like you say, they get a bit patchy, very hit and miss. Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 are the peerless classics. He made some great tunes after Purple Rain, but no more great albums.

So you're saying that "Parade" and "Sign O' The Times" AREN'T great albums? Cocaine is one hell of a drug, indeed! One.

 

[swears]

So you're saying that "Parade" and "Sign O' The Times" AREN'T great albums? Cocaine is one hell of a drug, indeed! One.

They're very good, but just not great. Like eights or nines compared to the tens of the first four.

 

[zhao]

i do NOT get: elvis costello.

what the fuck is that shit?

 

[Guybrush]

I think part of my problem with getting into a lot of the canonical 50s and 60s stuff (and to some extent the 70s stuff) lies with my brain being used to overstimulation from flashy productions; listening to Dylan plunking away for hours on end can be a traumatic experience if you haven't gradually accustomed your brain to the cotton onslaught (it's a bit like cutting down on sugar). In practise this means taking a few days off from modern music and exclusively listen to oldies, or, even better, only listen to one artist.