Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

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Richie Allen
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by Richie Allen »

Man, so many great calls already. Not looking to argue, though. Music is subjective to some extent so if you like any of this stupid stuff that's great,

Pink Floyd after Syd Barrett are a total bore. Even Barrett's most interesting stuff was solo and not with PF. And he had almost completely lost his mind by that point.

Zeppelin. Probably a popular pick in a thread like this because they aren't that interesting. I hate the vocals and their songs are pretty unmemorable. That said, along with Hendrix, they were a fun listen in college when we were getting [expletive] up.

Petty: Never owned one of his albums and never will but I like him as a person (and DJ) and he has great taste in music.

Prince: Probably the biggest head scratcher for me but, then again, consider who he's most popular with. I've heard the arguments about his talent(s) etc but I don't care.

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Foo Fighters: When they first formed I loved a few of their hits but JESUS! Where the [expletive] did all the love come from? Why? That said, Nievana was great. Nevermind is near perfect. So is Unplugged. And they were amazing live. Before Nevermind, I feel they were hit and miss. More miss than hit. Apologies to those that like to brag that they were there before they got big. In Utero...saw them right after it came out and then he was dead within about six months so, yeah, that album has a lot of depressing feelings for me but I just started listening to it again and it is still pretty great for being written (almost entirely) by one guy in his mid 20s.

Beatles: Sorry, you guys are just wrong. Yeah, if you only hear 40 or 50 songs on the radio it might seem like you've covered it but you haven't. Not even close. But, whatever, if you don't get them by now you're probably not worth arguing with.

Tom Waits: Not all music has to slap you in the face by being instantly catchy.

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Bruce Springsteen. Don't like a single song but he's kind of hilarious when he wants to be (see the St Louis filmed Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll.

Marvin Gaye. I like him alright but I see his name thrown around with greatest this and that of all time and I don't get it.

Pixies. Love Kim Deal (hugged her at the Abbey Pub after a Breeders show and gave her a t-shirt with a picture of my dog on it) but I can't understand the Frank Black adoration. I feel a little silly knocking them because I know how influential they were in a good way but I don't imagine I'll ever listen to them again. I like the Breeders and Amps (Pacer album is perfect!) better.

So many mundane bands not worth mentioning and some already have been (U2, The Doors). Oh, and some of you are wrong about the Beach Boys too. Don't just listen to Pet Sounds and dismiss them. Although that would say something about you too. Listen to everything up till then and a few albums afterward. Genius. One man!

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Tambourine Man
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by Tambourine Man »

heyzeus wrote:
March 10 22, 7:24 pm
Tambourine Man wrote:
March 10 22, 4:33 pm
Elliot Smith...I'm seeking a divorce from zeus. He is horribly overrated though. His fans are baffled at why he's not more popular. The gal I might marry is Elliot-mad, doesn't get my shrug. It's because he tries to be Beatles and lacks their chops or voice. Sorry, dude.
I feel like you deserve to know that I’m on my way to your house to murder you, right now. You’ve been a good friend. But.
I know, I know. We can draw up papers.

Richie Allen, one of my all-time faves, just threw down some serious knowledge.

Syd Barret as a whole. This is a case of romanticizing mental illness and it hurts the community. I'm bipolar 1 myself and I can assure you Syd is more a victim of drugs than any illness.

Springsteen & Marvin Gaye....I don't get them. Imean, I really, really don't get Springsteen.

I'll fight about the Pixies.

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Tambourine Man wrote:
March 11 22, 8:46 am
Imean, I really, really don't get Springsteen.
Poetry. It was about his lyrics. At least it seemed at the time.

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Tambourine Man
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by Tambourine Man »

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:
March 11 22, 8:55 am
Tambourine Man wrote:
March 11 22, 8:46 am
Imean, I really, really don't get Springsteen.
Poetry. It was about his lyrics. At least it seemed at the time.
I do like Streets of Philadelphia.

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Radbird
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by Radbird »

Springsteen - The only album I ever listen to is his post-9/11 one, The Rising. I had a roommate from Philly back in the ‘70s who played Bruce 24/7. I wasn’t a fan and didn’t listen to him for years after that.

Zeppelin was a huge part of my youth so I can’t be objective about them. Their stuff was cutting edge to teenage boys in its time, especially since our parents hated them.

Superorganism
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by Superorganism »

Springsteen fans are a different breed. A good friend of mine is a diehard. Literally named his son Bruce.

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Big Amoco Sign
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

Tool.

Awful music and fake intellectual lyrics.

Oh you compared a sex thing to drug addiction? So deep. Oh you do the most bare bones, meat and potatoes polyrhythm and pass that off as something special to your fans? White Man-appropriated sacred geometry...wow so neat. Fraud band. The drummer is good. The rest of it sucks bad. Alex Grey art is beyond cringe and appropriately ripped by art historians.

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ghostrunner
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by ghostrunner »

heyzeus wrote:
March 10 22, 9:49 am
It's always been Tom Waits for me. Yes, I'm certain his lyrics are deep and expose the human condition etc etc. But I can get that from a novel without having to hear music and a voice that are unlistenable.
Counterpoint - his voice is great

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ghostrunner
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by ghostrunner »

For me The Beatles is the big one. I do like their middle period especially, but they're not one of my favorites. I think their songs are better than they are as a band - i like a lot of Beatles covers better than the originals.

The Who i didn't get for years, and then I did, and then I went back to being pretty meh about them.

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sighyoung
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Re: Legendary Bands/Artists You Just Don't Get? They Do Nothing For You

Post by sighyoung »

It's interesting to read the list of bands in this thread, because for most of them, I maybe liked a handful of songs, or perhaps some of their early work, but never really was a big fan of any of them.

Radio was so segregated in the 70's that I never listened much to Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd growing up: I've never been much interested in what I've heard.

I didn't listen to very early Fleetwood Mac, but I never understood the popularity of its Buckingham/Nicks iteration.

Of early U2, I liked individual songs in their early albums, but as the band's career wore on, its messianic pretension grew and grew to the point that I got completely fed up with them. Like some of the artists mentioned below, their earliest albums were interesting as striking departures, but I don't think their early sound has aged well. They're certainly not a group from the 80's that I run to listen to now.

Petty and Springsteen were interesting cases in the late 70's: they appeared at a time when their early albums straddled radio formats--in the Midwest, both were played on both AOR and college stations until their commercial success pushed them primarily onto commercial radio. They were comparative breaths of fresh air for a short period of time, but I was never a big fan of Springsteen, in particular.

For Petty, I really like half of the songs on Damn the Torpedoes, and I also owned Hard Promises, but I quickly grew tired of his later albums and THAT VOICE. There were occasional later songs that I liked, but that's about it.

Not to be too hard on Springsteen, but he was over-hyped as the Second Coming very early on, which I didn't hold against him, but people from the East Coast who came to St. Louis were LIVID that he wasn't more popular in the Midwest at the time. I do like several songs on The River, but a little goes a long way on it. I also picked up The Rising, but only like a couple of songs on it. I always thought it was interesting that Patti Smith's "Because the Night" was so much better than Springsteen's original.

Prince is another interesting case: I remember hearing him on the radio in the late 70's, but it was his third album, Dirty Mind, that really impressed me, and I still think it's a great album. Eventually, I thought he spread himself too thin as a musical impresario in the 80's and 90's, and some of those projects (like Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6) just weren't very good. But a really important musical force, a prolific and generous writer for other artists, and one of the main reasons Minneapolis was such an important musical center at the time.

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