Name musicians/bands/producers you've never heard and probably never will hear

luka

Well-known member
Doesn't have the poise, hauteur or emotional weight of sade but it's a start
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I hate on Drake at every opportunity but he's had some really good songs that cannot be denied as (albeit miserable) pop music.

Saying that, I think he's absolutely massive at the moment for reasons other than the music, but the music is definitely well produced/written.
 
I've heard the name Mumford & Sons quite a bit in the last year or two, thought to myself I might as well fill in the gap in my knowledge. So I listened to three songs of theirs on youtube- what I presume are their three biggest tracks. I was expecting to recognise them as the chart topping hits that they are, one of them ones where you've heard them a million times before and they are actually okay you just never knew who did them. And... they seem to be b-sides, underwhelming tracks that never seem to kick in.

There's a scene in the Sopranos where Christopher plays Hesh the CD of the band that his girlfriend wants to sign. Hesh listens to it and says, "it's not a hit". Christopher says words to the affect of, "with all due respect you're an old man, this probably isn't you're kind of music". Hesh replies: "doesn't matter, whether I like this genre or not I can tell the difference between a hit and a miss, and that is not a hit".

He was talking about Mumford & Sons.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
He was talking about Mumford & Sons.

I hate them on principle because they're English public schoolboys pretending to be Irish gypsy folk, but I couldn't help but really like that song they did for "Inside Lwelyn Davies". I console myself with the knowledge that they probably ripped off the whole thing from some actual Irish follies.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I hate on Drake at every opportunity but he's had some really good songs that cannot be denied as (albeit miserable) pop music.

Saying that, I think he's absolutely massive at the moment for reasons other than the music, but the music is definitely well produced/written.

which tunes made him massive though? i loved 9am in dallas, but tunes like started from the bottom and marvin's room seem weak to me. not bad as such, just nothing-y. I'm perplexed that he's a superstar.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
best thing drake ever did was the take care album
his masterpiece imo
even though everything he does is a work of contrivance

vampire weekend - i like some of their songs too
though i dont remember the titles
contra i think was one
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
vampire weekend - i like some of their songs too
though i dont remember the titles
contra i think was one

This sounds close to my impression. I thought "Oxford Comma" was p. nice.

I don't listen to them regularly and when I heard A-Punk I thought the fake high-life vocal effects were pretty much, but then again we're told to cosign Talking Heads and were they much better necessarily?

I haven't heard any of Daniel Lanois solo, doesn't seem my cup of tea. And I have never heard a lick of Sick of it All.

Strawberry Switchblade is beloved by all my friends who love Cocteau Twins, so for that reason I've never ever ever listened to them.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
This article on Drake by Noz was highly influential on my subsequent suspicion of him as an artist: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127834096

I believe there's controversy over his rise to notoriety. I think him getting co-signed by Lil Wayne when Lil Wayne was the biggest rapper around was part of it. As Pusha T said (in reference to Drake) "I build mine off fed time and dope lines / You caught steam off headlines and co-signs".

The first song I heard by him was 'Best I Ever Had', which is probably seen by many as his low point, but I actually 'boldly' claimed to be his high point in a 'Wire' article. It stands in stark contrast to most of his later material by being upbeat and poppy and light hearted. (But maybe I like it because when I heard it I didn't know who Drake really was and therefore I took him light-heartedly.)

I think a significant thing Drake brought into rap was the fusion with R'N'B. Wayne and Kanye sang first, I think, but Drake was arguably the first rapper who was as much as much for an RNB audience as a hip-hop audience.

I'm sure Crowley among others can give a better overview of Drake's career though.
 
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trza

Well-known member
you couldn't make you point with less than four drake video embeds?
 
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Leo

Well-known member
funny thing is, when i think of this thread topic or "acts you just don't get" in general, the artists who come to mind aren't necessarily "bad". it's not that i don't listen to them because i think they suck, it's more some mysterious intangible thing about them (perhaps personality based), some obstacle that prevents me from giving them a fair chance. i know lots of people with great tastes in music who love bjork or drake (or kanye!), so i accept those artists are "great" in an objective sense, but something about them redirects me from having any interest.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Yes Leo I relate to that. Often its me being a contrarian - if loads of people are going on about something I tend to avoid it.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I do the same, but I try to figure out why...

A good example is Massive Attack. For years I've wondered why I don't love them. I like a couple songs fine, I love a lot of the people who know them but MA itself is... I once determined that as opposed to Tricky who (used to) make pop from a sort of post-hip-hop aesthetic which blurs a little with his Kate Bush fascinations, or likewise Portishead who do a similar thing... Massive Attack make a 'rock' version of hip-hop. Its all big stadium music and I tend to get bored by that very easily, and plus it worked really fast at shedding any real connection to dub or to hip-hop, instead becoming a lot more amorphous.

At some point I do need to do a Drake overview though bc so much of it makes sense but so much of it baffles me.
 

Leo

Well-known member
yup...yet at the same time, we probably all genuinely (ie, non-ironically) love some commercially popular (i.e., not-cool-for-heads-and-hipsters") artists. i love hot chip and the pet shop boys. i still really like the first xx album. i'd rather listen to a lenny kravitz greatest hits collection than most of the stuff on hyperdub.

ok, that last one might be going a little too far. but it's true!
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
if you dont like or get drake after listening to crew love, its prob not for you.

with drake you have to get past the whiny affected ennui but if you just want to hear him doing straight rap (and i think i might prefer it sometimes, even if its a more conservative option), then check out the motto -
this beat is one of my favourites of the last 5 years or so.

this one is also incredible (best synths since joker, in fact i wonder if it was influenced by joker) -

im obv a bigger drake fan than i thought.
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
This is a good forum for getting interesting discussions out of potentially boring subjects :D

Re: the discussion just above - I'm intrigued by the idea of what influence verbal/written descriptions of music has on our reception of that music 'post facto' ('post factmagazineo'). I remember reading about Talking Heads writing a song based on a description they'd read of Joy Division, having never actually HEARD Joy Division. I quite like that idea.

And I've read all this stuff about Tricky, e.g., which puts me off listening to him in the first place. Cos it sounds so very 90's, and also a bit depressing. This is a power that writers still hold, even in the internet age. I mean, if you've read a really eloquently negative review of something before you listen to it, isn't it likely that you'll be led down that negative path yourself?

Re drake (who is now taking over every post I do on here) - I think I actually could like him a lot more if he DID turn out to be a mouthpiece for other peoples' lyrics. I don't mind RNB singers doing that, for example. I think its the pretense with Drake that I can't stand. Particularly pretending to be a hard man when he is, as our American cousins might say, a complete Urkle.
 
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