Entertainment For Lively Minds
Difficult Albums - That You Actually Own
There was a thread on this, but not sure in the wake of the article on Zappa etc it got to the heart of the question of what is the most 'difficult' album you actually own. Sure, we all know about Metal Machine Music - but does anyone actually own a copy? And play it more than once? My own entry, listening to it as I type, is Kaddish by Towering Inferno. A combination of Hungarian folk songs, contemporary classical, electronica and heavy metal dealing with the impact of the Holocaust in Central Europe. Sample song titles 'Pogrom' 'Edvard Kiraly' 'Dachau''Partisans' etc.
But while undeniably difficult and demanding it's also very musical. Just the very opposite of background music. Here's a snatch of one of the mellower tracks.
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I have Metal Machine Music
... and I've played it more than once. The first time I heard it was when someone lent it to me, and I didn't get all the way through. I tried again many years later and found it quite pleasant, so much so that I also bought the live version by Zeitkratzer.
But then my taste is odd.
I too own MMM
And have played it more than once; although in my defence only when it's come up on shuffle and my OCD proclivities do not allow me to skip anything that shuffle throws up...
...unless it's Trout Mask Replica, which I also own. And which is unmitigated shite (sorry).
However the most difficult albums I own are undoubtedly the two I have by The Mars Volta which really, are such headache-inducingly hard work it hurts for me to listen to them.
So why did I buy the second, when the first one already tortured me?
I wish I knew.
Mind you, I do find it very difficult to listen to the odd David Guetta thing of Mrs W's that gets shuffled onto 'play' occasionally...
Trout mask replica
I bought TMR a couple of years back having never heard it. Knowing it was meant to be a seminal work, at £3 in Fopp I thought it was worth a punt.
I played it once through and found it almost unlistenable by the end.Funnily enough though I did put it on the I Pod and whenever it comes up on shuffle I find it oddly endearing. Never did listen to it all the way through again though.
Similarly
I cant listen to it in-a-row at all but on shuffle it occasionally throws up a wee gem. Me and Goatgirl have possibly got more enjoyment and fun out of the "Mascara Snake" bit than the entire collected works of Elbow. We often quote it to each other despite disliking almost everything on the record.
For some reason the Scotland and Celtic midfielder Scott Brown is referred to as Fast and Bulbous in our house. Like a squid in boots. If you've seen him you'll know what I mean.
I am with you...
on the Mars Volta - hard, hard work.
No Pussyfooting
bought it when it came out and struggled with it. 30+ years on I'm still struggling. The Fragile by NIN escaped me for two years until the night I was on a CD cull and decided to give it one last spin. Now, I feel they've never bettered it and amid all the 'hip, humourless, goth angst' there are some wonderful tunes. I have Trout Mask Replica, I acquired it as I was curious, apart from 'Ella Guru' and 'The Dust Blows Forwards' it is absolute shite. Mansun's Six is so bonkers it probably falls into this category, great singles 'though.
Acid in the style of David Tudor
by Florian Hecker. I will get my head around it eventually. Comes with instructions not to listen on headphones.
Bought on the basis of this review which you have to admit does make you want to hear it:
http://boomkat.com/cds/172484-hecker-acid-in-the-style-of-david-tudor
Trout Mask Replica
I listen to it every six months or so. Sometimes I get a bit bored of music, and TMR kind of reboots my hard-drive. It's akin to when it's really muggy and a good thunderstorm clears the air.
On a logical level it's absolute drivel obviously.
TMR
Every so often only TMR will do, and then it will gather dust for a few more years. Mind you I think I played it a lot more when it was two vinyl elpees. And Dachau Blues seems bloody silly now.
Of course it depends when you mean by Difficult Albums. For me there are few things more unlistenable than Easy Listening. Similarly you have someone like Rufus Wainwright : great in small doses, unbearable in larger ones.
But if we are talking experimental I rarely go for "rock" and if I do find it disappinting, a few odd exceptions...er...excepted. (Perhaps someone can come forward with an Idiot's Guide To Autechre ?) Instead I head towards contemporary classical or jazz. Even there the whole Emperor's New Clothes question is never far away : is it avant-garde or just a pisstake , but part of the fun of it all is having What The Hell Is This Rubbish (possibly in my dad's voice) nibbling at my ear. Take, for example is Pleistozaen Mit Wasser (sadly no clips available), from Cecil Taylor & Derek Bailey, where in the first half Taylor groans, gurgles, mutters poetry, scrapes at the innards of the piano and generally does anything but sit in front of the piano and play the blessed thing, all while Bailey sounds as if he playing the neck of the guitar. Couldn't get on with it. I took this CD to my first Massive meet, particularly as its sleeve-notes are a work of comic genius : however afterwards I played it again. Rather like it now !
Similarly you have to be in a particular mood for something as chewy as this :
Which in turn suggests that really these are live musics where you can see and feel as well as listen and which are made less for recordings, and so I try to hear stuff live first if I can. Trouble is there are not many Stockhausen gigs round my way , so CDs it has to be.
Having said all that, I am not in the mood lately...so gimme a shot of rhythm and blues right now.
Kapital by Laibach.
Bloody terrifying to listen to, to be honest. I've never made it past the first three tracks.
"Ascension" by John Coltrane
Have never actually played my copy.
I fear it may be a little too ... 'out there' for me, as post-1964 Coltrane tends to be.
You should play it, really
You may not ´get it´, however you define ´getting it´, but it´s a fascinating piece of art/expression. I think you will understand it on an emotional level, even if not on a musical level.
I think I prefer the stuff by Coltrane I really can´t understand.
Interestingly (or not)
I recently found that the new and barely imaginable levels of tra-la-la, nursery rhyme tweeness that Belle and Sebastians new album has reached, and my dear partners apparent enjoyment of it, have driven me enthusiastically into the arms of Bitches Brew, Neu, late period Scott Walker and solo Nico albums. I couldnt listen to them before. "Write About Love" played for days on end has turned me into Trent Reznor.
Thank you Stuart Murdoch. Your heaven helped me to appreciate hell.
I have around
60 John Zorn cd's. Define "difficult."
Eric Dolphy's 'Out to Lunch'
Certainly is ... and I also have a couple of albums by Ornette Coleman and his plastic saxophone. I can appreciate this sort of stuff on an intellectual level but after a bit I just want some melody and a chorus.
Are You Kidding?
Out To Lunch swings like a mofo.
Depends on the occasion
Sometimes a Big Mac is what you need, similarly, sometimes 'Tilt', 'Climate of Hunter' or 'The Drift' just hits the spot. If I want something more ambient, then Fripp & Eno's 'No Pussyfooting' is ideal. On the other hand, sometimes a hit of 'Lumpy Gravy' is ideal.
Gary
Ooh.. Phadra by Tangerine Dream
Never listened to it in full.
Load of old cock.
Oh I Dunno
I quite like that one. Got a soft spot for Atem too.
But then one man's old cock is another's...um...how do I finish this sentence?
Probably not a good time to say
Phaedra is my most very fave Tangs ellpee.
difficult, but in a good way...
...is late jazz, either free-form improv or fusion, that I listened to in my twenties but now find difficult to fit into my life.
For example, Miles Davis 'Live/Evil' is extraordinary and very funky, but I rarely have the time to seriously listen to something of that density for over 100 minutes. I find this a problem of all MD albums from the 70s that were live recordings of cocaine-based marathons.
Similarly, 'The Crypt' by AMM ( 60s free improv group, lets call it free jazz for convenience) is one of the most purely psychedelic, abstract recordings I have ever heard, but being entirely unmelodic, the only way to listen to it (again over 100 minutes) is to concentrate on the changing texture. To be honest, I would rather spend spare time reading a book or watching a film these days. So they stay on the shelf as a reproach to my middle-aged self.
I don't know why, but...
Blemish by David Sylvian is often described as such.For me,it's the best thing he's ever done.
Is it more difficult than Manafon ?
I love David Sylvian ( Blemish is one that I have missed though ) and I really want to love this album, but I'm having a hard time enjoying it.
I try every now and then, but I still haven't found the right mood to be able to appreciate it. I get restless and start to think about other things and stop listening.
Manafon...
I do find unlistenable. As far as finding the right mood for Blemish, well it's the same for anything.You can't will it.
Loving the "Difficult"
I tried to use The Mars Volta stuff in the gym. Great technical musicianship, but a bit of a bugger to row to.
Enjoy a bit of JZ (Painkiller / Naked City) and recently purchased MMM - and didn't find it quite as fearsome as I'd expected. Then again, I like Merzbow, Incapacitants, KK Null and other Japanoise artists.
Never had much of a problem with Throbbing Gristle / Whitehouse / Bastard Noise / John Weise / Wolf-Eyes. What I like is their consistency of vision.
Always enjoyed "No Pussyfooting" and "Evening Star".
Much the same can be said of Walker or Sylvian. They are not going to turn back to a more "commercial" form of music, much as we may want them to.
TMR's veneration annoys me. I've always assumed (rightly or wrongly) that it wrongfooted a generation that had listened to "Safe as Milk". As much as it was 'groundbreaking", the good Captain went straight back to the middle ground (pretty much). Any artist can do a "weird" album, it's having the dedication to pursue the vision that counts.
For "difficult" read
"trying too hard".
This is often true I find
Care to elaborate and throw
a few contentious choices out there?
Yep
Radiohead for a start. I tried the Mars Volta and found them unlistenable. And dear old Yes, saw a TV special recently. Just one clever bit after another. They had a couple of good ones, good IMHO cos they're actually songs - Roundabout for example.
Mars Volta
Here's a clip of them playing Goliath from Abbey Road.
There's a lovely Spinal Tap moment in the interview ('there's still a lot of hair...'!) and the most pointless use of congas I've ever seen.
Anyone know who the drummer is? He really is rather good.
I'm afraid to say...
...that the older I get, the less patience I have for stuff that's not got a nice tune. I've always been mistrustful of the meedly-meedly-check-me-out style of guitar playing, and generally dislike the big guitar heroes quite strongly for the reason that the music seems to be all about them having fun, rather than communicating with their audience. Stuff like TMR and MMM falls into that bracket to me: musical masturbation. Also, for me, simplicity is infinitely more effective than complexity, most of the time.
Give me a sweet tune, a stripped-bare arrangement, and lyrics with wit and intelligence and maybe even a bit of depth, and I'm sold. I reckon that's about the hardest thing in music to do well, and to my ears a lot of so-called experimental or groundbreaking music is a case of the Emperor's new clothes. Not always, but often.
I guess I'm just a young(ish) fogie.
Too many tunes
The majority of "difficult" records are of the dissonant racket/ tuneless self-indulgent toss variety.
But a friend of mine, aware that I like a tune, has stung me twice now with albums where the cancer-like supergrowth of melody has killed the corpse of the song.
First he gave me Van Dyke Parks' "Song Cycle". Then the bugger came back a few years later with another album he assured me I'd love. This was (covers face) "Smile" by Brian Wilson.
I'm instinctively reluctant to be too critical of records I haven't really listened to, but the fact that, despite several attempts, I always have to turn these albums off after a few minutes, qualifies them as "difficult" for me.
"simplicity is infinitely more efffective than complexity, most of the time" seems like a good rule of thumb to me.
Smile
I highly respect your opinions, sir, but Smile was my album of the year when it came out. The only difficulty was waiting 40 years to finally get to hear it.
Having bought 'Starsailor'
the other Tim Buckley stuff seemed rather lightweight by comparison. My ear became accustomed to the dissonance after a while. 'Song to A Siren' is obviously well-known now through other artists' versions. 'I Woke Up' and 'Come here Woman' are superb. I no longer have the album (sold my vinyl years ago), but would buy it again.
I must admit I've never listened to 'Lorca', but I suspect it's out
there somewhere.
The later albums get a bad rap but 'Greetings From LA' is still a favourite, if only for the stone-classic 'Sweet Surrender', but there is good stuff on 'Sefronia' ('Because of You', 'Honeyman') and Look At The Fool (Title Track) too - for me because of the musicianship.
I'm a sucker for Joe Falsia's smooth guitar licks (really influenced my playing), Earl Palmer's drum fills ('Tijuana Moon'). Also Chuck Rainey's wonderful bass propels and defines 'Greetings'.
I always get something out of Tim Buckley
Lorca is pretty far out there - but also pretty great. Starsailor is available on iTunes - snap it up. I too like the funky years. He's as desperate for connection as Ian Curtis.
Spinal Tap's Jazz Odyssey
Of course.
"We hope you like our new direction …"
I like Sun Ra
and other bits of Free Jazz like Pharoah Sanders, but I think its horses for courses. I have to be in the right mood for it. Same for TMR, I definitely couldn't listen to it all the way though, but on shuffle a quick blast of, say, Pena has me smiling.
Never judge an album by its cover
Always Now by Section 25. God awful album. Great sleeve though, reputably the most expensive ever.
...and pretty much anything involving Ornette Coleman. A great friend bought me The Shape of Jazz to come for my birthday thirty odd years ago. I have tried, honestly I have.
Life is too short to waste on "difficult" albums. Lets be honest difficult generally means "not very good".
It easy, isn't it?
..to go either way and dismiss music that doesn't immediately grab you, or alternatively, to say that anything that sounds initially discordant is fantastic, regardless of Emperor's New Clothes scenarios.
Personally, the albums I find 'difficult' aren't ones that my friends tend to agree with me on.
'A Northern Soul' by 'The' Verve makes me feel poorly - the sound of it, I can't hack it at all.
I like a lot of Dark Side Of The Moon, but not all of it. I like Meddle, most of it, I like all of Piper, but The Wall makes me feel ill. Perhaps intentionally, yes.
Trout Mask Replica, Karma (Pharoah Sanders), Free Jazz (Ornette Coleman) - I like all of these records. I play them all the way through. I find them more funny than anything. Perhaps they're laughing at me for listening to them - as Lou Reed replied when asked if he listened to them by, I think, Lester Bangs, "God no, I've never listened to it (MMM) all the way through, and if you do, more fool you". But, Lou tends to say things for effect, doesn't he?
So, approach with a sense of humour, is my advice. I wouldn't fancy listening to MMM, myself, but I like the others I've mentioned.
Bitches Brew? Well, I got sacked from a DJing job (at a nightclub, yes) after playing all of Pharoah's Dance, followed by all of By The Time I Get To Phoenix, by Isaac Hayes.
I know, I know, but I was sick of it and I didn't want to resign.
See! They do have uses.
Good for getting rid of guests who've overstayed their welcome, too.
Vladislav Delay - "Anima" A single track 62:02 minutes long
Vladislav Delay - "Anima"
Vladisav Delay is one of the pseudonyms of Sasu Ripatti (born 1976), a Finnish electronic musician. He has also recorded as Luomo, Sistol, Uusitalo and Conoco. He is very talented chappie....
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Delay
Album called "Anima" - A single track, 62:02 minutes of bubbling, throbbing, interwoven-ness resulting in complete going nowhere-ness and yet you really have been somewhere.....
Listen loud on a big hi-fi and tell me what you think....
I love it....
This is what Spotify is great for!
I've transferred it & will report back ...
Various..
Diamanda Galas albums I love and play often and I have also gone through 24 hours of Throbbing Gristle on more than one occasion.
How Do you keep it up?
Ooh Matron !
Some..
occasional "Orange Juice" helps.
The Drift
I do listen to it quite often. Despite having a taste in music with plent of room for the avant garde, I actually don't think this is music in any normal sense.
I've listened to (no pussyfooting) over 100 times since it was reissued. I find it relaxing and can go to sleep listening to it.
I have all of Omar Rodriguez Lopez solo albums. Of these, Despair is the most unlistenable.
As a bit of a Pat Metheny fan...
...I was aware of the warnings around Song X, but thought I'd give it a go anyway. How bad could it be ? Very is the answer. Big mistake. Don't think I got more than 10 minutes into it.
two I felt were missed off...
Boredoms
Vision Creation Newsun
Sort of what you'd expect with several Japanese drummers not playing in sync with other random vocal interjections over the top.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - The Effects Of 333
Internet only ambient / industrial noise / drone experiment of usually chuggy rock band. Unsettling to say the least.
Boredoms
I find Vision Creation Newsun amongst the most accessible of their madcap output. Their earlier stuff, like Chocolate Synthesizer, is way harder for me to understand.
However, for the Japanese dictionary definition of Difficult Music, may I refer you to Merzbow?
OOOOOOO!
I love me a bit of Masami Akita!
Went off BRMC
sometime after their second album but that was absolutely excellent, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I don't suppose there's any point me mentioning
the other 'Plastic Ono Band' (1970)?
Not for everyday obviously but definitely cleanses the palette
(very quietly)
The version of Yes, I´m Your Angel on the stripped Double Fantasy is beautiful. Not exactly avantgarde, but still.
(even quieter)
I kind of like Yoko.
(complete silence)
*smiles*
Constantly Changing Time Signatures and Stops can
do ones head in - I don't mean in a Neil Peart 'Wow' sort of way, I mean in a 'look at us we're so clever' sort of way.
Try listening to Kings X - clever, starts off great but becomes a bit wearing after a while.
Hatfield and The North and early VDGG could be classed as 'difficult', but I still love it.
I can't have that!
Nothing difficult about the Hatfields, unless the "noiseniks" can't take the unrelenting whimsy...
As for ver generator - the more headbursting, the better: bring on the plague of lighthousekeepers!
Well, to my mind
Neal Peart stuff - and Rush in general, so far as I recall, is exactly what I think of when I think of musicians who are, "look at us, we're so clever."
The only exposure I ever had to Rush was from one of my school friend's older brother and his mates. Perhaps it's unfair, but he was the type of chap whose only reason for doing anything was in order to look 'clever'.
Still, each to their own, eh?
God, I hate Rush.
;)
The archetypal 'look at us, we're so clever' group...
...was that 'supergroup' of classical musicians - Sky, was it?
They epitomised that smug attitude - the smirks to each other as they played whatever noodly crap it was...smirks that said 'we're proper musicians, us, but we can slum around and play this shit and make it sound like *real* music - a bit - but don't ever think for one minute we like this, or that it will ever replace the day job. But we'll take the money in the meantime, thank you very much'
God, I hated Sky.
And breathe.
Agreed
The whole premise of Sky was insufferable.
Nurse With Wound
I have loads of Mr Stapleton's albums, but even then it seems I'm only scratching the surface. (Which is ironic because a certain amount of NWW stuff sounds just like someone scratching the surface of something).
This is the best form of "difficult" music - on one level it sounds like god-awful noodling, but after some concentrated listening you are very pleasantly surprised to find some intelligence and intelligibility at work.
The "Livin Fear of James Last" compilation is a good place to start, particularly Strange Play Of The Mouth:
Livin Fear of NWA
by James Blast, that was rubbish Douglas.
AMM for me.............
Is there any music more 'difficult' than Madonna or Michael Jackson?
Something that leaps to mind
A Whole New World by Peter Andre and Katie Price.
I believe it is blasted out at hostage-takers to force them out.
Which gives me the opportunity
To post my favourite piss-take reviews from Amazon...again. These will cheer you up and wipe away that Monday Morning Feeling:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B000JU8FXK/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_help...
Beefheart Shmeefheart
And thanks for that link JimBob!
Bone Machine and The Black Rider
even by the uncompromising standards and "acquired taste" status of most of Tom Waits' output these two are bloody hard work.
Anyone who finds Lou's MMM a trial ought to try "The Raven" - this is a double album with a proper concept, stellar guests, tunes, lyrics and so on - but I deny anyone to get through it twice for any other reason than justifying the cost of it or curiousity as to whether it really was so bad the first time
The Raven
I didn't even make it thought it once. Yet it sits on the shelf defying me to have another go, but 'Nevermore'.
Waits' two
I love Bone Machine. And there's a place in my heart for the Black Rider too.
So many good tracks to go into now, suffice to say there are at least 4 superb tracks on each, with proportionally more on Bone Machine.
BM -
Jesus Gonna Be Here
I Don't Wanna Grow Up
Murder In The Red Barn
Dirt In The Ground
BR -
November
The Briar And The Rose
I'll Shoot The Moon
The Last Rose of Summer
But then I'm a bit of a Waits nut. Even the crazy stuff.
I'm not a massive Tom Waits fan
But I give Bone Machine the occasional listen and I don't skip any tracks. It's a bit howly and crashy, yes, but it does have tunes.
Just 4 Words
'Neither Fish Nor Flesh'
Discuss.
Does anyone
own or has anyone listened to Neither Fish Nor Flesh?
It's one of those titles always trotted out when discussing pop stars disappearing up their own arses/crap second albums, but I'd be interested to know what it's really like.
I do! (sorry - missed this one and posted below also)
As a gullible teenager I bought Mr Trent D'arby's "difficult" second album and had it signed by the great (!) man himself at HMV in Oxford Street.
I innocently listened to it in my adolescent bubble while the music press and entertainment world widely rallied round to point the finger and say that TTD had monumentally lost it and made a totally bonkers unlistenable record.
I loved it then, I love it now. Had Prince, The Beatles and Bjork got drunk in a country pub and made an album using their cutlery and the horse brasses hanging above the bar - this would be it. There are truly brilliant, brilliant (yes two brilliants)songs on it that his subsequent work has failed to match in terms of quirkiness and energy. Since that album, when he had his fingers severely burned, he's gone a bit more "Lenny Kravitz". And we know what that means...
Does anyone else a) own it, and b) rate it?
(sorry in advance)
In defence
of my relative TTD I think there's a lot of fine material on NFNF, or "Hubris: The Soundtrack" as I like to call it.
If you read what Trevor Horn says about the making of Malcolm McLaren's "Duck Rock", or Guy Stevens talking about "Combat Rock" by The Clash, you appreciate how a good producer can act as an editor, reining in a act's indulgences and ensuring something coherent comes out the other end. What Terry needed was a strong producer like this to tidy up his mess.
But I can't be the only person surely to regard songs like "To Know Someone Deeply" and "Billy Don't Fall" as pretty decent pop/soul. Also, I feel Terry is singled out for criticism when all-too-similar egmoniacal dilletantism on "The Love Below" is praised to the rafters.
It's always difficult to follow up
a successful first album. 'The Hardline' was such a breath of fresh air when it came out (and he had such a good band), that such a dramatic change of direction was always going to be hard to swallow (and maybe seen as a retrograde step).
OK Computer
appears in many 'Greatest albums ever' lists but I find it extremely difficult to listen to. Yes were also wilfully impenetrable with Topographic Oceans. However TMR is okay if listened to in snatches although does him a disservice if it is used as an introduction to his much better works such as Safe as milk, clear spot, spotlight kid etc.
in defence of TMR
I'm genuinely surprised at the amount of flack that Trout Mask Replica is getting here, as it used to be such a staple for a whole indie aesthetic; 'serious fun' as Peter Hammill used to say. It's been a regular (albeit not frequent) companion round my way for years, but maybe everybody else has moved on. Perhaps it needs a proper remaster/relaunch to earn a re-assessment? That reminds me of how I really regret losing my CD of Lick My Decals Off Baby some time in the early noughties...
Fuck Buttons
I adore their complete output and some would class their music as being in the difficult bracket.
I also love Trout Mask Replica on the ipod when I need to pay attention. Knowing how he deconstructed the music and how organised the chaos actually was, I marvel at it. It's like a little head adventure.
Tilt and the Marble Index are albums I stick on when I am doing other bits and bobs around the house as it's all a bit samey but there are moments that make me sit up and I stop what I'm doing to tak it in. Then it drifts away again, as do I.
It's all about mood. Sometimes I leave work and just want to have my ear drums bleed so I'll put on some skull-shattering techno, other times I fancy a melody.
it's all so 6th form
The "difficult" LP's I own were all bought after reading some rave about its classic status; I just never never learn.
The last one I bought, after reading about its classic status was Shooting at The Moon by Kevin Ayers - apart from the sublime May I? it is absolute cock. Other LP's I have stupidly bought by taking the word of certain journalists or musicians:
Trout Mask Replica - music for intellectual snobs
Robert Wyatt Rock Bottom - drone drone drone it goessszzzzz
Tim Buckley Lorca - horrible
John Martyn Live at Leeds - recorded on a dictaphone concealed in some foul patchouli-reeking overcoat
Gene Clark No Other - the sound of single men of a certain age feeling depressed
Greatest "difficult" LP ever - Sandinista!
No Other?????
What's not to like about No Other? It's got tunes, and a big production. One of my all time faves, of all time, mate
Seriously, putting in the same bracket as TMR is very harsh
Total agreement
Where did No Other come from?
I have never heard it described as a 'difficult' album.
It is a beautifully melodic album that deserves repeat listening whenever possible. The only thing that may challenge is the length of the tracks. Sometimes they do outstay their welcome, I seem to remember most of them clocking in at over 5-6 minutes, but at the core of each song is a heart that sings.
No bOther
You've never heard No Other described as a difficult LP? Well, you have now. I'm chucking my hat in the ring. Wouldn't it be boring if we were only allowed to select "difficult" LP's from a pre-approved list of "established" difficult LP's? Pharoah Sanders, Throbbing Gristle, The Fall, Edgar Broughton Band, Whitehouse, Nurse With Wound, various prog acts... how boring would that be?
David Geffen certainly found it a difficult LP, and for once, I'm with Dave. Just because something is nice and polite and shiny, it doesn't make it inoffensive or difficult to some people.
oh brother, no other
heh heh...I thought that might irk someone.
You make good points - it is melodic, has all the best session muso's on it, produced to a fine sheen, and all that. All well and good, if that's your bag.
But I find listening to it is like being crushed under an enormous marble mountain of melancholia. It's a suffocating air conditioned nightmare. There is a deep deep whirlpool of introverted singer songwriter stuff out there, and truth to tell I have only dipped my toe in the edges, yet No Other is as far as I'm prepared to go. There is no humour in it, no joy, it doesn't rock, it doesn't roll, it just goes round and round and sucks all the life out of the room. For me. It's as oppressive and painful as TMR but in a very different way.
I know recently Word did an article on difficult LP's, but I'm stuck in Australia and I won't be seeing that edition for a while yet. I think Dorian Lynskey was writing it - one of the best and funniest writers Word has - and I understand he would be appraising the Fall. I have long detected an anti-Fall bias in Word, and Mark Ellen was very sniffy about them on OGWT, so I look forward to reading what Dorian has to say. I will say this, though: second greatest difficult LP ever - Grotesque by the Fall!
See ya mate!
Yeah, see ya mate.
See ya, mate!
Yeah, see ya, mate....
Strange use of the word "bias"...
...IMO. In a culture-based mag like Word, that's all there is, surely? The vast majority of music writing is just taste and opinion - so I don't think the dislike of The Fall that you see is an institutional bias: it's just that not many of the Word's writers like them very much.
Something, incidentally, which they have in common with the vast majority of the population, and me. Emperor's new clothes has never seemed more apposite a description of a band than it is of MES's lot, IMO.
Note the "IMO". That's all anyone can ever say about music, isn't it?
a matter of bias
IMO - absolutely! And that's what this is all about, innit?
Do you not find it interesting though that Trout Mask Replica is held up as THE classic ground-zero lp, the LP that - if you really know your music - you will "get". It holds this seemingly unassailable position as the true rock connoisseurs LP, the ultimate music magazine reader record. Difficult LP that is actually genius? Why, that'll be Trout Mask Replica, sir!
I have read, over the years, thousands and thousands of words about Trout Mask Replica. There's been two big features based around TMR in Word in the last few months alone. Back when I used to read M***, it'd be mentioned in virtually every issue.
My point is - what is my point? Oh yeah. My point is, there is certainly a "bias" towards TMR as the ultimate thinking persons difficult art-rock LP - I think I can prove that - and, by the same token, a noticeable "bias" against The Fall. True, Word magazine reflects that fact that most people in the country don't like The Fall, but most people don't like Take That, either, and they're probably the biggest group in the UK right now.
There's a band who were around in the late 70s, early 80s called Kleenex/Liliput. I have never read a thing about them anywhere in any of the music magazines I have ever read. They're difficult, too. Greil Marcus likes them; what more do you need? They do abstract angular rock, odd rhythms, blocks of noise, odd vocals, primitive. All the ingredients of TMR are in their music, yet they make brilliant pop music out of it. They are "difficult", but joyous pop music, which makes them a most inclusive listening experience. TMR has the same ingredients yet excludes the listener (IMO).
Maybe the subtext
of a 'difficult' album is intention.
Did Gene Clark intend to make an album that would annoy some listeners under a tumult of melancholia? Probably not.
I think difficult in this context means that the artist intended to challenge the listener and break down pre conceived notions of style or genre (or their own back catalogue)
I don't find the Fall difficult as I know what each album will kind of sound like and I look forward to them because of this.
Difficult for me in one sense would be listening to a Michael Buble or Jamie Cullum album, but they make music to appeal to the many and not the few.
"Gene Clark No Other - the
"Gene Clark No Other - the sound of single men of a certain age feeling depressed"
... He's saying this like it's a bad thing! Seriously, them's fightin' words, stranger. I must ask you to step outside (:-)
Both sides
I think it's a brilliant album, and also a difficult one. I also believe it is intended to be difficult, or at least uncompromising. In those days the labels had little idea of what the listeners wanted and would indulge anyone with a 'name'.
As I get older, I have less tolerance for depressive music, and I had a particularly hard time with drug records that are depressive. Some of these guys had everything going for them, a good life, and yet thy saw it fit to lay a bummer trip on everyone else. If I'd been a musician with the same set of chances I would have had a bit more respect for the listener, but then, it's easy for me to say I suppose.
For 'Difficult' read 'Unfamiliar'..? Dylan anyone??
I was listening to the mono Dylan stuff at the weekend, and it occurred to me that I'm old enough to remember when he was considered very 'difficult' in the early 60s. Familiarity and the sheer genius of the material gradually got people beyond the voice and we listened with different ears.
It got me thinking because I was amazed at the negativity being heaped on Trout Mask Replica here, and I was trying to work out why I feel differently! I can only think it is because I actually worked my way to this LP through Safe As Milk and Strictly Personal, which prepared the ears for the more outrageous experimentation on the 3rd album. Other differences from then to now that occur to me are that it was a much more experimental time anyway - rock music was moving so fast that you expected to be challenged - and also this was a double LP rather than 1 CD; I doubt I ever listened to all 4 sides in one sitting, but rather listened to a side or two at a time.
Frank Zappa's Lumpy Gravy - now THAT's completely unlistenable...and yes, I do own it...!!!!
Icecream for Crow
By Captain Beefheart.
It was really useful back in my university days for getting rid of my hall of residence room mate. He could always be relied upon to depart when I put it on.
Hurrah!
I love this album.
Interesting point about earlier Beefheart albums
I bought 'Starsailor' after 'greetings From LA', but had not heard 'Happy/Sad', 'Blue Afternoon' etc. so I had no preconceptions about Buckley's earlier work.
I had experienced freer jazz - Cage, Riley, Don Ellis ('Electric Bath'), Shepp and live - John Stevens, Lol Coxhill, Maggie Riley etc. as well as the rock, pop, folk and blues stuff I more often listened to, so my ear had already become accustomed to atonality to a certain extent.
Initially, yes, the album was a shock, but familiarity bred acceptance in this case.
Doesn't mean that I would go out seeking Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Cecil Taylor and other denizens of 'free jazz' etc. I retreated to the foothills of Fusion and other crossover Jazz styles. Caused some consternation when I played in Country bands, but that's another tale.
Bauhaus
I love 'em, but can't say their output is 'easy listening'.
their albums work for me apart from Burning Inside which is utter wank - Indians included.
Current 93: Black Ships Ate the Sky
Call me wet, but I don't think I own any album that makes me feel quite so uneasy. It's a bad trip, without the drugs. Menacing vibes ooze from every orifice. Can't even look at the thing these days, let alone play it.
Dear Mr. Tibet
I'll happily fuckin' deliver you!
label: ArtWank
sound: amateur, music/art workshop bollix
would like to be: scary
redeeming features: fascinates you into think it's better than it is - it isn't, it's rubbish
advice: avoid
I am somewhat partial to your analysis James ...
... and agree that Mr T. can sound a bit comical out of context. But to my tender ears the whole album has an unrelenting mediaeval fervour. Tibet sounds like he's about to be burned at the stake. Oddly, the presence of Marc Almond, Anthony Hegarty and Bonnie Prince Billy does little to relieve the suffocating sense of alientation. There's nothing else in my music collection that makes me feel like this. It's like eavesdropping on someone having a nervous breakdown. Bummer.
Thanks Martin
reading it back it could have gone either way, drink had been...
I do try with all these bands as I'm sure I'm missing something, I've yet to find that elusive 'something'.
I love 'Beauty Stab' by ABC .....
roundly savaged by the rest of the world, if only for containing 'King Money' (oh and 'SOS' and.........)
Excellent album!
But discarded mainly because it isn't "The Lexicon Of Love", though I still really like it.
I remember at the time that BS seemed to come out a long time after TLOL, and that they'd scrapped another album in the interim - a quick glance at my Guinness Hits book tells me it was only 18 months between albums, which these days would be considered suicidally fast, my how times change...
I think it was one couplet that did for them
"Can't complain mustn't grumble, help yourself to another piece of apple crumble"
From glittering intellects with - apparently - Ferry's acuity and their own real pop class, right down to berks who wrote couplets even Sting would purse his lips at, in one fell swoop. Pity.
Neither Fish nor Flesh
As a gullible teenager I bought Mr Trent D'arby's "difficult" second album and had it signed by the great (!) man himself at HMV in Oxford Street.
I innocently listened to it in my adolescent bubble while the music press and entertainment world widely rallied round to point the finger and say that TTD had monumentally lost it and made a totally bonkers unlistenable record.
I loved it then, I love it now. Had Prince, The Beatles and Bjork got drunk in a country pub and made an album using their cutlery and the horse brasses hanging above the bar - this would be it.
Does anyone else a) own it, and b) rate it?
(sorry in advance)
Dude, you have friends here
See further up the thread^
Metal Machine? Try Pat Metheny...
and his Zero Tolerance For Silence. Christ, I didn't make it past the two-minute mark.
Johnny Violent's Shocker is pretty horrendous. Mindless gabba for an hour? No thanks.
Kaddish - that started this thread - I quite liked. For a bit. And then I slung it.
Tangerine Dream: Zeit is a load of laughs!
Er, not really.
Bruce?
If any it would be The Ghost of Tom Joad.. Love many tracks but the Album is too intense to swallow whole too often.
Wiv my name I am obliged to say
Great cover btw..
Bruce?
If any it would be The Ghost of Tom Joad.. Love many tracks but the Album is too intense to swallow whole too often.
Wiv my name I am obliged to say
Great cover btw..
Kid A
Radiohead's version of Metal Machine Music - unlistenable in parts
Ver Head
Hail to the Theif is a solid, competent album, and yet..? I find it really hard to stomach. It feels like it sucks the life out of me. I have no clue why this is, either, but I have rarely made it all the way through. None of their other efforts have this effect, I even include The Eraser.
Weather Reports
First album is particulaly unlistenable, the eponoymously named one, and the second album, the fabulously named I Sing the Body Electric is equally dire. The group had a good run of albums after these but like the bands name ran into changeable conditions, members leaving, dieing that sort of thing. They crossed over mid seventies and became comparitively Pop compared to the first two offerings. Even had a pop hit record with their most famous and oft played Birdland.
Must also give an honourable mention, if thats the right phrase to the appalling mish mash which is McCoy Tyners Sahara,an album I still attempt to play once in a blue moon or on a dark night. Just about anything from Keith Jarrett is unlistenable. Apart from Arbor Zena which is a masterpiece.
Phew, thought it was just me
I gave away 'I Sing...' back in the 80s - thought Shorter, Zawinul and Co - bound to be good - Wrongety Wrong!
"Just about anything from Keith Jarrett is unlistenable"
Oh dear. That must mean that I have over 30 CDs of unlistenable music.
Difficulty?
Reading this thread, I have to say that I've never found either No Other or Smile in any way difficult. Merely rewarding. And I'm relieved to see no mention of another one of those 'difficult' (ie not in the slightest bit) albums: Tonight's The Night. Difficult Neil Young albums? Try Arc.
http://open.spotify.com/album/49qY6IFZ1hHxTSvXzXb4qC
Bloody hell.
I'd forgotten that. After the rave reviews, I got Arc and absolutely hated every moment of it. Needless to say I didn't go anywhere near Weld.
I like Weld
It is noisy and heavily distorted, but it is Neil Young's classic sonsg so there are tunes there. Abeit sounding as if they've been put in a dustbin filled with lumps of concrete and pushed down the stairs in a multi-storey car-park.
Let's not lump Arc In with Weld
I have to say this. Not only do I think that Weld is one of the best live albums by anyone ever - it just sounds enormous; genuinely a live event - I also believe the following to be true: that every single song on the album is the best version of that particular song that Neil Young has recorded. Seriously.
Is White Light/White Heat
considered a difficult album? I love it to bits, but I could understand why it would be.