Entertainment For Lively Minds
Artists you think you ought to like but don't
Posted by BryanD on 19 June 2009 - 12:23pm.
I've recently started reading the blog and can't help noticing that Richard Thompson is very popular around here. It got me thinking because he is one of those artists that I feel ought to appeal to me. I want to like their music and have tried to but I can't. Ry Cooder is another, I bought about four of his records in the late seventies/early eighties trying to convince myself I liked them before I accepted that his music wasn't for me.
I'm not asking people to suggest songs or records or anything like that. I was just wondering if other people have bothered persisting in this way and what were the artists?
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Steve Earle
I usually like that sort of rock, being a big fan of Springsteen and Petty for instance. But Earle just sounds tired to me. Strange. Great beard though.
Which era?
Steve Earle's catalogue can be split into the pre and post prison eras, which have very different feels to them.
I neither agree with nor understand your contention, but a listen to the Shut Up And Die Like An Aviator live album (pre prison era) should disabuse you of that notion.
For the Springsteen and Petty side of Earle
I'd recommend trying "The Revolution Starts Now" on Spotify.
For many years....
...Earle was my favourite artist....he's probably still in my all time top 3.
Ain't it funny how our tastes differ?
If I was to recommend a SE album to anyone, the last ones I'd point them to would be 'Shut Up And Die' and 'TRSN'. I'd also keep them away from 'Just An American Boy' and 'The Hard Way'. Not that there is anything wrong with any of them....maybe just a bit more effort required to like/stick with them.
For some decent stories and some country/rockabilly I'd recommend Guitar Town/Exit 0/Train A Comin'. For a bit more rock I'd point to 'I Feel Alright' and/or 'El Corazon'.
You missed my point
My recommendation for Shut Up And Die was in response to the "tired" contention. Not his best, but a very good live album and one that can in no way be accused of sounding tired. I was discussing this album with a mate because a couple of songs from SUADLAA popped up on by MP3 player as had a couple of songs from the Townes album. The vibrancy of the live album slapped me round the head and got me set up for a day's work.
Steve Earle
What have you listened to Ola that you think sounds tired ?
If you don't like his music fair enough but tired,i think not.
Have a listen to I feel alright,Train a comin,Copperhead Road,The last Album Washington Square Serenade,I could go on but i won't,i am at work after all.
I do appreciate the support
You all show my not-getting-Earle. :)
So I asked my Earle-loving friend (who doesn´t get Springsteen, so at least we have something to talk about) which albums he´s played me. He said most of the post prison stuff.
Maybe tired was the wrong word to use, after all he´s not more tired than Petty (I even like The Last DJ) or Springsteen. But Earle´s music just doesn´t do it for me. I have been listening to it quite a lot, since that close friend is a BIG fan.
I think I prefer the calmer more acustic stuff and I don´t mind some country flavour so if any of you can recommend a calm acoustic album that will help me see the light I´m happy to give it a fair chance under controlled circumstances.
He is a big fan of Townes van Zandt after all (but I don´t like the tribute album) AND was in The Wire.
So, acoustic recommendations please.
His first 2 albums...
....Guitar Town and Exit 0 could be described as country. The songs "My Old Friend The Blues" and "Someday" (usually sang back to back on stage) are classics.
Copperhead Road was his 3rd effort and where started moving more towards rock. At this time he was heavily into drugs and eventually ended up in prison. "Shut Up And Die Like An Aviator" was the next one which is live and in my view his worst vocals due to his drug problem though it's still a great set list.
His next one was "Train a Comin'" which is an absolute gem!! He's just come out of prison and he releases an album of his old(never recorded)songs and some covers. This is the one you need to try.....if you don't like this, Id agree with you that you can't get him.
Happy hunting!
I agree
with the Train a Comin recommendation,you could also
try The Mountain which he made with the Del McCoury band
which is acoustic but is more bluegrass than country.
Hope you enjoy them.
Steve & Del McCoury
Hopefully still available from a torrent somewhere near you: Steve Earle & The Del McCoury Band, Malmo Sweden, May 11 1999.
A brilliant set. Possibly the best bootleg recording I've ever obtained.
It also gives the lie to Steve sounding tired.
Persistence...
The Doors for me. And Bowie. With The Doors, I eventually came to the conclusion that it's because they're really shit - so it wasn't really my fault that I could never like them. I suspect the opposite is true with Bowie though - that he's actually really great and I'm probably missing out.
Are you *supposed* to like the Doors?
Seems to me they've been out of critical favour for a long while - although, interestingly, people still appear to think it's excitingly daring to express a dislike for them. Well, I'm going to be excitingly daring and 'confess' that I dig 'em.
Eh?
If, as you say, they've been out of critical favour for a while there would seem to be little that's "excitingly daring" about expressing a dislike for them.
Oh, and when I was a lad (in the mid 80s) it was most certainly considered the done thing to like The Doors. God knows why.
Because of The Echo
and His Bunnymen
Single biggest influence
Echoes, yes...
Of course. McCulloch was obsessed with Morrison - plus that dreadful cover of the dreadful People Are Strange.
One Doors song I do like: Hello, I Love You.
Oh, and sheevmaster - you're wrong about The Fall. Wrong.
Wasn't Echo the name of the drum machine
rather than Ian McCullough?
...or was it a Revox?
That seeming contradiction…
… was actually addressed within my post.
(Sorry, sometimes I just can't let things lie. I'll walk away :-))
He is.
You are. :-)
The Pixies
I bought Doolittle last year, and really tried, but no. Not for me.
Late-era religious Nick Cave
Bring back Blixa Bargeld and the noise terrorism of old! The punters choice these days seem to be the late ballads and if I claim to like Nick Cave, it's assumed that that's what I mean - I've tried, God knows I've tried (!) but I just can't get into it at all.
The Clash
Maybe if I'd been older when they were around, it might have made more sense - but have never got them. Like Spanish Bombs though.
Y'know...
As unfashionable as it may sound, I think it might be down to production. I like the idea of The Clash, and their songs and performances are very good. But their records sound thin and reedy. Sure, the Pistols seem to come of second best in the "meaning it" stakes, but Never Mind the Bollocks still sounds sonically fantastic.
The late great John Peel
Lovely chap and all that - but if he liked something then it's an odd-on stone cold certainty that I won't.
The Fall being a great example - awfall, dreadfall, afalling - imho.
The Fall
I agree sheev, I've never been able to understand their appeal. The odd exception is "Mr Pharmacist" but even that isn't brilliant.
Think you're using a broad brush with Peel
there must something here you like if not you may be in the wrong place ;)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/artists/
I like a broad brush, me,
generally to paint myself into a corner with - but I stand by what I said.
Obviously in 40 years of radio Peel will have played stuff I like, but it's almost what he seemed to stand for that I have little time for - The Fall being a great example as are Half Man Half Biscuit and Roy Harper.
Its a strain of English quirkiness slash miserabilism - which I find unspeakably tedious.
I'm off to listen to some Whitesnake - who Peel may have played but I guarantee will have hated.
The live version
...of "Ain't no love in the heart of the city", very loud I hope. Or either version of "Fool for your lovin'". Which do you think is better? Vai or Moody/Marsden?
The original UK version of Whitesnake
(up to and including Slide It In) was a cracking band. Saw 'em a few times. Marden/Moody was a good front line and Jon Lord was as good as Jon Lord always used to be.
Neil Murray always seemed a bit out of place though.
Once Coverdale moved to the US and formed the 'hair-metal' version of the band I lost interest.
Um
I liked the hair metal bit.
I was young. They had supermodels in their vids...
cut me a little slack here
Forgotten how good they were live
Just played the live version of "Aint No Love.." on Spotify.
Oh happy memories.
I saw them live in 1982 on the Saints 'n' Sinners tour at Hammy Odeon and they were fantastic.
I agree that the hair metal period was a bit naff but did still generate some good tunes.
Whatever happended to John Sykes - surely not still touting about in a reformed Thin Lizzy?
the pixies : agree.
i tried, god knows i tried.
saw them twice (4AD tour with the far far better Wolfgang Press/Reading '90).
hated them each time.
bored me rigid.
to make matters worse, my wife LOVES them meaning i have to put on the albums just to be a good bloke.
well
Jackson Browne bought Late For The Sky, wafted past my ears on every play,got For Everyman at insistance of friends, still wafted past...and Frank Zappa fiddly, unfunny and exhausted me to the point of severe brain hurt.
Radiohead
Just do not do anything whatsoever for me. Lord, I've tried - I have all the albums and Lord how have I tried. It's just all "Emporer's New Clothes" to me. Sure, I've liked bits and pieces (My Iron Lung, Just, Paranoid Android) but no-one in the world will ever convince me that Kid A is a work of critical genius...
I am with you on this one
I only need to see the words: 'critically acclaimed' and I am heading the other way.
The Smiths
Johnny Marr is undoubtably a good guitarist. Decent rhythm section. Pretty average songs. Dreadful singer. I occasionally listen to the Greatest Hits, but really I don't get it.
Nick Lowe
At the risk of having a go at another Word sacred cow I should really add Nick Lowe to my list. Although to be fair I did like Jesus of Cool, so perhaps I shouldn't.
Despite efforts.
Talking Heads, The Clash, The Beach Boys (especially Smile), most of John Martyn, Bert Jansch. Also, of the more recent school, Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, Animal Collective.
I don't feel proud about this and (especially with the first three) have a nagging suspicion I am missing out
Zappa and Bee-Fart
are the 2 main hoary old artists that add street-credibility to a collection, but Hot Rats aside, can't do it.
(And I got a bit of stick over Nick Drake recently)
I've always loved the Doors.
I like the idea of Nick Drake
And don't hate his songs. But I'm not sure I understand why he is so revered. I'd rather listen to, for example, Nic Jones, Cat Stevens or Roy Harper who were all contemporaries.
I think I've said it before about one of your posts Tim...
What Tim said.
I like
and get the Beefster. Zappa have never got it, its the childish humour and the "intellectual" types who nod knowledgebly whilst I just nod out! You gotta love "Safe As Milk"
surely?
Most artist I don't like
I feel safe in my opinion that they are rubbish, but some seem to have so much critical acclaim that perhaps its me missing something...but I doubt it. Anyway from the top of my head
The Fall
The Pixies
Smashing Pumpkins
The Cure
My Bloody Valentine
British Sea Power
Coldplay, Snow Patrol etc
Sterophonics
Manic Street Preachers
Happy Mondays
Oasis
Artic Monkeys
a certain ratio
I have 3 or 4 of their records just don't seem to click.
Graham Parker
I remember my dear old dad coming into the bedroom while I was trying to get into Squeezing Out Sparks, listened for 20 seconds of You Can't Be Too Strong and said "You know, that doesn't actually mean anything", and for once I had to admit he was right.
Frank Zappa. Goodness knows I tried. My local lending library had tons of him. Far be it for me to pick a fight with Vaclav Havel, but I never figured out the attraction of either the noodling, Zappa's tuneless drawl or the delights of Why Does It Hurt When I Pee.
The Grateful Dead. What's to like ?
None are terrible, and jolly in small doses but tiresome after more than a song or two ( is that another topic I see before me ? First nomination : Rufus Wainwright).
You Can't Be Too Strong....
.....is about something- it's about a doctor performing an abortion on a girlfriend of the singer.
Hear that?
That's the sound of Stimpy not rising to the bait re the Grateful Dead :-)
Grateful Dead...
Never thought much of the endless noodling but thanks to Spotify am really enjoying some of their proper albums.
Try American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, Wake of the Flood and From the Mars Hotel and then....stop.
Stimpy, can you order me a taxi.
Since when has music had to mean something?
Graham Parker has made lots of great albums (in fact, isn't it time he got a big feature in Word?). They all sound like a load of blokes having a great time in the back room of a pub and I don't listen to them for philosophical insights ('I've got a lady doctors/she cures the pain for free!'). I am a sucker for anything with a Hammond organ and a great chorus.
if so, then no doubt
you will be familiar with the magnificence that is Southside Johnny
Sorry, I know we're supposed to be discussing things we don't like despite trying.
My point is - why try - when there's so much great other stuff around?
Have a good weekend
P.S There's a couple of bods in the video I can't place
..and here's the same crowd from 1978
Absolutely ! Give me Louie Louis any day.
And I do love a good organ I do. But...
I rarely read a lyric sheet, and prefer to take my chances with my ears. However here was GP straining to be all street and grit, on that album at least, so was unavoidable and SO clunking, like the worst adolescent poetry, with same self-regard (it had I Believe This Is My Masterpiece written all over it ) that I just couldn't get past it. And I was an adolescent myself at the time.
As for the pub thing, comparing their lumpy version of Hold Back The Night to the sleek beast by The Trammps does them no favours either.
No, something lighter on its feet for me. Southside Johnny? Now you're talking.
It's the feeling I'm missing out I suppose
I'm the same with red wine. I don't like it, any of it but every now and then I try some in case my tastes have changed. Luckily there is beer and white wine. Not in the same glass, obviously.
Red wine - try a light Pinot
and chill it down for about two hours before drinking - and see what you think
Perfect with BBQs
brilliant
another thread which amounts to - i don't like this band, which bands don;t you like.
remember when word's tag line was intelligent life on planet rock?
i don't really like dylan/springsteen/van moz/rem/pink floyd/u2/ but, frankly, who cares?
i certainly don;t care which bands you don;t like.
or like, for that matter.
there have been some great threads on here.
but i'm sick of the old'like/don't like' stuff, dressed up under a variety of names.
i'm off to start a thread.
brilliant
another thread which amounts to - i don't like this band, which bands don;t you like.
remember when word's tag line was intelligent life on planet rock?
i don't really like dylan/springsteen/van moz/rem/pink floyd/u2/ but, frankly, who cares?
i certainly don;t care which bands you don;t like.
or like, for that matter.
there have been some great threads on here.
but i'm sick of the old'like/don't like' stuff, dressed up under a variety of names.
i'm off to start a thread.
Make it 2 threads
if you like
Pinot
Thanks, I'll give it a try.
The Pixies
was a good call. People who I know and respect absolutely swear by the wonderfulness of this band but I remain steadfastly unmoved.
Similarly Husker Du.
The Stone Roses
Just sound like muddy, honking stodge with occasional passable tune to me. I think I got there too late - the sound of the first album has dated very badly.
Well I don't dislike but also don't get
Iggy or Nick Cave but judging by the sheer number of column inches they get, I must be missing something. See also Sex Pistols, Manic Street Preachers, Morrisey, Springsteen, Fleet Foxes, etc etc
Iggy?
Funhouse. If you listen to this and still don't get his/their importance, there's no helping you, I'm afraid…!
i dont get
Emperor's new clothes,for decades.BOB DYLAN,whiney whiney whiney,the accoustic years,the electric years,the mototbike accident,hes found god.Who gives aflying f@@#
Punk
Period!
Tom Waits
I tried but.... it may be his voice but it just didn't happen for me. You can't force these things.
Crowded House
Anodyne MOR of the Wet Wet Wet ilk don't see what all the fuss is about.
Dark thoughts
sugar-coated is what it's all about. Lovely songs with great choruses, but often with a bleak undertone.
not unlike the Eagles
who often pulled the same trick
The Clash
I like a couple of their singles but their albums are all so bloated and overwrought to me, I mostly don't see the appeal.
I like at most two or three Pixies songs, the rest of their stuff does nothing for me. I prefer their contemporaries The Breeders.
The Smiths and the Cure. Some people hear depressing, deep meaningful music. Everything I've heard by those bands just sounded trivial and goofy. I've encountered alot of insufferable Smiths and Pixies fans online and in person.
And Oasis, if I wanted Beatles music I'd just listen to the Beatles, not a watered down immitation played by people with repugnant personalities and who give Alan Partridge-esque responses when asked about music. What's you're favorite Beatles album, Noel? "I love those red and blue greatest hits ones."
The Who
Who's Next is brilliant, the early singles are great - but the rest I can live with never hearing again. They are good, but I don't get why they are seen as being near the top of the pile after the Beatles and Stones.