bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by seenoevil II » Thu Mar 03, 2022 4:57 pm

Pepe Silvia wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 6:24 am
Weezer they have both produced some of the best and some of the worst music of the last 30 years. Blue Album and Pinkerton Era will always be special to me.
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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by seenoevil II » Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:23 pm

Radiohead- loved them in high school. Like I was obsessed. I saw them in 2007 and I could tell what songs were about to be played just by the gear the roadies brought out.

I thought they had a monopoly on arty, creative music. But I also the sense that there was more out there I didn't know about. I eventually found all the other wonderful music out there and I understood Radiohead as a pretty good band amongst many other artists.

The problem is that most of their fans never make it to that second phase and think Radiohead is just like the best thing ever. They're the Wes Anderson of music. Enormously famous, but enormously influenced by vitally unknown artists. I mean, it's not their fault they're so famous. They've been consistently high quality and creatively adventurous for decades. It's just their fans I don't vibe with.

Also, they're so joyless, serious, maudlin. That's fine, I guess.

Muse- another band that I scrutinize pretty hard because they are so damn famous. If they only filled small venues and were on Matador, we'd adore them as genius. But they fill stadiums so they're just a bit... uninspired? Idk.


Flaming Lips I got into then at the Yoshimi point like most people. But I immediately fell in love with Clouds Taste Metallic and earlier albums. Fearless Freaks is an amazing documentary.

I get tired of their Schick. The extra extra extremeness and faux positivity. There is a colt around Wayne Coyne. Plus, when they started hanging with Miley Cyrus and Wayne remarried a 28 year old at 55, he lost me. Also when they fired Cliff Skirlock after he called out Wayne's baby girlfriends racism.

But, you can't deny the talent and quality work. The fact that they rebounded from the polished poptimism of At War Wiith The Mystics to experimentation with Embryonic and The Terror showed their continued vitality. But now their stuff is kinda samey. That's fine.
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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by s_mcsleazy » Fri Mar 04, 2022 1:29 am

seenoevil II wrote:
Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:23 pm
Radiohead- loved them in high school. Like I was obsessed. I saw them in 2007 and I could tell what songs were about to be played just by the gear the roadies brought out.

I thought they had a monopoly on arty, creative music. But I also the sense that there was more out there I didn't know about. I eventually found all the other wonderful music out there and I understood Radiohead as a pretty good band amongst many other artists.

The problem is that most of their fans never make it to that second phase and think Radiohead is just like the best thing ever. They're the Wes Anderson of music. Enormously famous, but enormously influenced by vitally unknown artists. I mean, it's not their fault they're so famous. They've been consistently high quality and creatively adventurous for decades. It's just their fans I don't vibe with.

Also, they're so joyless, serious, maudlin. That's fine, I guess.

ok. i'm one of those people who never drank the radiohead kool aid and i've got to say, i don't get what the fans see in them. like yeah, it's prog rock for the masses, but for someone who was already listening to a lot of the music they were inspired by, what's in it for me other than archival? the songs? honestly most the non singles since ok computer have just done nothing for me and even some of the singles bore me.

i've told this story on here before but my big hatred for radiohead is the fans and no more was that personified than a few years ago. i often get introduced at parties as "the guy who loves music" and as soon as one dude hears that, he's sticking to me like glue..... like not leaving my fucking side. the weird part is, it wasn't even like i was talking to him. he was just talking like non-stop about radiohead for 30 mins straight and telling me how all the albums are connected in a giant puzzle and if you get it right, thom york will appear from a time portal to gently finger your butthole (not really but he was talking about album barcodes at one point) eventually he asked "what's your favorite radiohead album then?" i say pablo honey and dude starts raging at me and calling me a pleb and pulls out an extensive use of slurs only seen on 4chan.

i've also had similar experiences with tool fans. they take themselves super seriously to the point where it is their personality and the personality is being a dick to anyone who doesn't like it. i've even had a tool fan say to me "you'll understand when you open your 3rd eye" dude, i'm not into urethral sounding and i'm not into tool
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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by seenoevil II » Fri Mar 04, 2022 2:39 am

s_mcsleazy wrote:
Fri Mar 04, 2022 1:29 am
seenoevil II wrote:
Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:23 pm
Radiohead-

ok. i'm one of those people who never drank the radiohead kool aid and i've got to say, i don't get what the fans see in them. like yeah, it's prog rock for the masses, but for someone who was already listening to a lot of the music they were inspired by, what's in it for me other than archival? the songs? honestly most the non singles since ok computer have just done nothing for me and even some of the singles bore me.

i've told this story on here before but my big hatred for radiohead is the fans and no more was that personified than a few years ago. i often get introduced at parties as "the guy who loves music" and as soon as one dude hears that, he's sticking to me like glue..... like not leaving my fucking side. the weird part is, it wasn't even like i was talking to him. he was just talking like non-stop about radiohead for 30 mins straight and telling me how all the albums are connected in a giant puzzle and if you get it right, thom york will appear from a time portal to gently finger your butthole (not really but he was talking about album barcodes at one point) eventually he asked "what's your favorite radiohead album then?" i say pablo honey and dude starts raging at me and calling me a pleb and pulls out an extensive use of slurs only seen on 4chan.

i've also had similar experiences with tool fans. they take themselves super seriously to the point where it is their personality and the personality is being a dick to anyone who doesn't like it. i've even had a tool fan say to me "you'll understand when you open your 3rd eye" dude, i'm not into urethral sounding and i'm not into tool
:D That's a knee slapper. I find most people who talk about your third eye are still struggling with the first two.

Ugh. Yeah. Radiohead do lean into their mystique a lot. I'm sure you heard when ok computer came out, they sent it to critics in welded shut tape players so they couldn't skip around. Then, ahead of their one record, they made their sights slowly fade to black ahead of release. Like, bruh, either/or and homework came out that year. Calm down with yourself. I'm sure it's all Thomass with that crap.

Jonny Greenwood was for sure my first guitar idol. His soundtrack work is pretty fire, I cannot lie. Even as a rock guitarist, he's iconic both aurally and visually. Him pulling the high e off the fret board and flickering a cut off switch is forever burned in my brain a the height of guitar badassery. Though again. That's a sonic youth influence which itself is a Glenn Branca influence.

Again, it's like Wes Anderso fans who don't know Aki Kaurismaki or Hal Ashby or a million other directors.

People are so eager to fuse their identity into these kinds of artists. It's like B- challenging material that they had to do 0 work to find.
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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by blacktiger » Fri Mar 04, 2022 7:54 am

cestlamort wrote:
Thu Mar 03, 2022 2:27 pm
s_mcsleazy wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 4:49 pm

my friend describes black metal as "the final boss of separating art from the artist" which i kinda agree with.
I love this so much.

Lots of talented musicians are very untalented human beings, unfortunately.

Good to hear that Bad Brains are maybe less strident (I actually stopped listening to them after the "don't blow no bubbles" song on Quickness, or at least with less engagement). (update: a friendster linked this article today on myfacejournal, worth a read: https://afropunk.com/2019/02/bhm-the-ag ... brains-fan)

X. Love them, but have to bracket out Billy Zoom's politics and whatever is going under Exene's tinfoil MAGA hat.

Killing Joke would be another one for the great band, not great people file. But I was never as (emotionally/culturally/etc.) invested in them as others, so it's not as big a leap.

A different tact on conflicted feelings: I haven't been able to listen to Elliott Smith at all since he died.

The reissue of Quickness uses only the instrumental for “Don’t Blow Bubbles” (and just lists it as “Instrumental”), which makes me very happy. I actually sold my OG copy because I just didn’t want to own that bullshit.

X - I feel exactly the same way. Exene’s Sandy Hook denial pushed me to the point that I didn’t want to support them at all, but she has supposedly backed off on her craziness a bit (or the other members convinced her to STFU).
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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by shoule79 » Fri Mar 04, 2022 8:59 pm

Regarding Radiohead, I think most of the die hard fans are too invested to look at a lot of their catalogue objectively. It’s like of like Weezer fans who praise anything they’ve done post 2000. At some level I think they know it’s not good, but don’t want to admit it. It’s like conspiracy theorists, they are convinced that there is something more to the music that only they see.

I personally love the Bends and OK Computer, and really like Pablo and Kid A. The quality really started to drop after that. I wasn’t over the moon about Radiohead when those albums came out, because I was already listening to bands that were in the same vein. But they were still really good albums and I think they aged well. I think Thom Yorke really started to like the smell of his own farts and didn’t have anyone to tell him otherwise.

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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by andy_tchp » Fri Mar 04, 2022 10:35 pm

The National: The ratio of interesting songs:boring songs just doesn't seem to work out so there's a lot of skipping.

Could probably say the same of Low, though apparently their newer stuff is a bit more abrasive so might be something I need to check out.
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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by Stephen_42 » Sat Mar 05, 2022 3:23 am

Well, I guess I'm the resident Radiohead fan here then...

Their last two albums haven't been as good as other stuff, but In Rainbows is brilliant. One of my favourite albums of all time. And I like the nerdy things like one album fading into another. It's fun.

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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by Jonesie » Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:52 am

cestlamort wrote:
Tue Mar 01, 2022 11:28 am
A friend in the 90s once described Superchunk as the most conservative/Republican band of the era – because they just kept releasing the same record again and again.
I gotta come defend Superchunk as a super-fan. I'll admit that S/t -> Here's Where The Strings Come In are pretty samey, but after that they started taking more chances. Come Pick Me Up is one of my favorites, great production from Jim O'Rourke, interesting sounds and more nuanced takes on the Superchunk sound. I feel like Majesty Shredding is their best album though, and that didn't even come out until 2010.

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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by marqueemoon » Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:19 am

blacktiger wrote:
Fri Mar 04, 2022 7:54 am
cestlamort wrote:
Thu Mar 03, 2022 2:27 pm
s_mcsleazy wrote:
Wed Mar 02, 2022 4:49 pm

my friend describes black metal as "the final boss of separating art from the artist" which i kinda agree with.
I love this so much.

Lots of talented musicians are very untalented human beings, unfortunately.

Good to hear that Bad Brains are maybe less strident (I actually stopped listening to them after the "don't blow no bubbles" song on Quickness, or at least with less engagement). (update: a friendster linked this article today on myfacejournal, worth a read: https://afropunk.com/2019/02/bhm-the-ag ... brains-fan)

X. Love them, but have to bracket out Billy Zoom's politics and whatever is going under Exene's tinfoil MAGA hat.

Killing Joke would be another one for the great band, not great people file. But I was never as (emotionally/culturally/etc.) invested in them as others, so it's not as big a leap.

A different tact on conflicted feelings: I haven't been able to listen to Elliott Smith at all since he died.

The reissue of Quickness uses only the instrumental for “Don’t Blow Bubbles” (and just lists it as “Instrumental”), which makes me very happy. I actually sold my OG copy because I just didn’t want to own that bullshit.

X - I feel exactly the same way. Exene’s Sandy Hook denial pushed me to the point that I didn’t want to support them at all, but she has supposedly backed off on her craziness a bit (or the other members convinced her to STFU).
I knew about Bad Brains. Good to see they have disowned the homophobia.

X is a new one on me.

I mean people’s politics and worldviews often change as they age, and the social media echo chamber, fame and money can help. See also Billy Corgan cozying up to Alex Jones.

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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by Stephen_42 » Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:42 am

marqueemoon wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:19 am
See also Billy Corgan cozying up to Alex Jones.
Ah, I didn't know about that. I got into/went to see Smashing Pumpkins about ten years ago, but he seemed increasingly... Something... As time went by. Disappointing, but explains a bit.

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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by mackerelmint » Sat Mar 05, 2022 12:24 pm

Billy Corgan is an outstanding wrestling promoter.

Otherwise, he's pretty awful. I'd forgotten about the Alex Jones stuff.
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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by countertext » Sun Mar 06, 2022 1:02 am

The comments about X just brought back a lost memory -

I was in a band that opened for Exene and Lydia Lunch in the mid-90s in Atlanta. Right after our set, we were hurriedly yanking our gear off the stage like good openers, and Exene stomps up to us and starts railing on us about how we’re the problem with American society and it’s obvious what we’re up to and one day we’ll regret it. We were all just standing there stunned, and Lydia grabbed my arm - I thought I was about to get punched - and she said “Ignore her, man, she is in one of her fucking moods again.” During their spoken word set, Exene kept glaring at us like she was going to jump down and murder us at any moment. Lydia told us after the gig that she loved our stuff.

Looking back now, maybe I should be proud?

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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by epizootics » Tue Mar 08, 2022 9:44 pm

X-Ray Spex wrote:
Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:46 pm
Gonna need more info on the Black Midi run in, that sounds hilarious.
Ha, sorry, I missed that. Nothing too exciting about this one unfortunately - just one of those gigs you go to that get you thinking that you can't really point out any flaws in the music you're hearing but you can't get rid of that nagging feeling that you'd rather be at home reading a book. I call that the 'Music Students Band' syndrome. The keys player in my band knew their tour manager and we got introduced. I asked the band if their parents were "very rich", just to see if they had a sense of humour (and because everybody knows that most young, hip London-based bands these days have to have some form of financial support). They all went "NOT AT ALL! HOW DARE YOU!" and I knew I'd struck right. Not that it matters all that much. That was just me being an asshole trying to put them on the spot.

In my Manchester days I ran into a lot of local figures. Many of those encounters made me not want to listen to their music any more. Mark E. Smith was one of them. Apart from being the rude c**t he's made out to be, he liked to use his status as a local legend to pick up much younger girls. He even asked me and my friends to talk to his wife one the phone to cover up for him one night at a local pub. The girl he was with couldn't have been more than nineteen years old.

Same with Peter Hook. No young girls involved - just not a very nice guy at all. I was friends with Ian Curtis's daughter back then and everything she told me about how he handled her father's death didn't make him sound too great. And he tried not to pay us for the three nights we opened for him at massive gigs. After the third show, we raided his dressing room and left with most of his food and booze.

Fortunately, you sometimes run into people whose music you love and find out they are actually nice people. Kirin J. Callinan is a hoot. Tropical Fuck Storm are genuinely smart and fun to hang out with. Housewives have a great sense of humour and make the boring hours between the soundchek & the actual gig a lot less boring. Johnny Winter let me inside his trailer after a gig when I was 17 (and I didn't understand most of what he said in his Texas drawl).

Sorry. Much too much name dropping going on here. :-[

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Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by mcbrandt » Tue Mar 08, 2022 10:03 pm

epizootics wrote:
Tue Mar 08, 2022 9:44 pm
X-Ray Spex wrote:
Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:46 pm
Gonna need more info on the Black Midi run in, that sounds hilarious.

In my Manchester days I ran into a lot of local figures. Many of those encounters made me not want to listen to their music any more. Mark E. Smith was one of them. Apart from being the rude c**t he's made out to be, he liked to use his status as a local legend to pick up much younger girls. He even asked me and my friends to talk to his wife one the phone to cover up for him one night at a local pub. The girl he was with couldn't have been more than nineteen years old.
Funny, my neighbor just told me a story about Mark E. Smith. Their band opened for his here in the SF Bay Area at some point, maybe 20 years ago. One of the guys in my neighbor's band was a big fan and was excited to meet him. As they waited in the dressing room before the gig the manager came in and said "Alright guys, here's the thing. First off, no one is allowed to look directly at Mark. Second, do you know where we can get some drugs?"

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