Bands you should get but don't

[WOM]

Bands you should get but don't

I liked SS and CYHSY for one album each (Illinois and the one with Yellow Country Teeth on, respectively), but nothing before or since did much for me.

[Wyatt Earp]

Bands you should get but don't

G.Man wrote:

I might be wrong, but it seems to me that the T. Rex adulation refers more to Bolan's image than the music itself.

No, it really doesn't. I mean, the way he looked is a huge part of it all, but it's really about the songs in the end.

Mind, I guess I can see how someone who didn't rate the songs might think it was mostly about the "image". Sort of. But I can't see how anyone could think that about David Bowie. Really surprised by that one.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Bands you should get but don't

Reed John wrote:

Speaking of influential bands that don't do much. The Velvet Underground don't do much for me. I'm sure they were mind-blowing at the time, but most of their songs leave me meh.

I'm a huge VU fan and I'm surprised to hear that. I can understand you not liking them, but they usually polarise opinion – people usually consider them to be either brilliant or completely unlistenable.

I find it hard to imagine someone putting on Sister Ray, for example, and thinking it's 'meh'. A 'fucking horrible noise' is a description I'm familiar with.

[WOM]

Bands you should get but don't

I sort of categorize them as art-rock in the sense that it's not necessarily supposed to sound 'good', but sound interesting. See, also The Fall. I mean, both do sound good, but ease of listenability wasn't their goal.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Bands you should get but don't

G.Man wrote:

It's a bit like Bowie. I love Ziggy Stardust, and I can live, if I must, with most albums up to Scary Monster, but I don't buy into the Bowie worship on account of his music.

Find that odd too. Bowie's run of albums from The Man Who Sold the World to Scary Monsters is unprecedented – not a duff one in ten years of recording.* And so many musical styles.

*Although maybe a couple of average ones: Lodger and Pin-Ups

[Wyatt Earp]

Bands you should get but don't

I understand the idea of David Bowie not being one's thing, but not the idea of thinking the songs are insubstantial compared to the clothes and the hair and the makeup. He wasn't Kajableedinggoogoo.

[Freestyling buck wilding Stijn Stijnen]

Bands you should get but don't

I don't 'get' the current darling of the mainstream music scene, Lady Gaga.
She strikes me as being chock full of studied quirkiness, maybe these stage schools offer qualifications in studied quirky behaviour?

Bit of a Madonna style attention whore as well, and of course Madonna blossomed into a wise and wonderful person didn't she?

Lady Gaga, in twenty years time you will be directing second rate films and practicing a quirky new religion, I garontee.

She is the musical equivalent of the sun newspaper.

Yes, she's popular, and there's even a couple of passable aspects to what she does, but if you're subscribing to something like that then you are missing out on the really good stuff.

Someone whom I work with referred to her being a multi instrumentalist, which is fab and all that, so why does many of her songs sound like an ace of base rip off?

Fernando is it?
Listen to 'all that she wants' by AOB, and then 'the sign'.
And then don't ever talk to me about Lady gaga again.

[Freestyling buck wilding Stijn Stijnen]

Bands you should get but don't

Erm, Alejandro...

Abba earworm (as always)

[Jon]

Bands you should get but don't

"Speaking of which, Roxy Music deserves a mention on this thread"

You surprise me, G-Man. And you mentioned Led Zeppelin earlier on too. For shame.

For me, it's normally the voice. If it annoys me too greatly then I'm afraid I won't like it, no matter how great they're perceived to be. Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan for example.

[Reed John]

Bands you should get but don't

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

I find it hard to imagine someone putting on Sister Ray, for example, and thinking it's 'meh'. A 'fucking horrible noise' is a description I'm familiar with.

Noise doesn't offend me that way. I'm just not overly impressed with it. Same feeling I have about Sonic Youth, but Sonic Youth seem more pretentious and pleased with themselves. VU were just on drugs, I guess.

Sweet Jane is a fantastic song, mind.

[Guest]

Bands you should get but don't

Manic Street Preachers - great interviews, really dull music.

Pulp - it seemed everybody I had something in common with liked them. I just found them irritating.

[historyman]

Bands you should get but don't

The Wedding Present for me. I have tried, honest. Same goes for early Jesus and Mary Chain, although they did recover and produce some great singles.

[G-Man]

Bands you should get but don't

Why at Last! wrote:

I understand the idea of David Bowie not being one's thing, but not the idea of thinking the songs are insubstantial compared to the clothes and the hair and the makeup. He wasn't Kajableedinggoogoo.

Whoah there, big boy. That's quite a chunk of misinterpreting of what I said. I didn't say Bowie's music was "insubstantial". I declared my love for one album, and I said that he made a profound impact on pop music.

More or less in keeping with the theme of this thread, I respect and like Bowie's music, just as I respect and like the music of very many others. I own most Bowie albums of the 1970s. Hell, I even love "Absolute Beginners". I can't describe myself as a committed fan though.

My argument was that his projection of himself -- the Bowie persona, the strong image -- might be what makes him so iconic. The tipping point between pop genius and pop god, if you like.

AdC: I'd argue that T. Rex were crucial in popularising and edeveloping (some might even say initiating) glam rock. Even Bowie jumped on the scene that T. Rex kick-started. And, I would suggest, glam rock -- and here I mean more "Get It On", "Ziggy Stardust" etc than Gary Glitter and Mud -- helped set the scene for punk and the whole New Wave scene.

How much of that was cultural and how much was musical is a point to argue, but I think that Bolan and Bowie occupy a very importabnt place in music history (a suggestion that does not in any way undermine the position in that history of those artists whom you mention, some of whom were indeed more pivotal).

[Guff Daddy]

Bands you should get but don't

P J Harvey.

Whenever I hear something that sounds vaguely like sub-standard Patti Smith I think to myself "there's Polly again". And it nearly always is.

Seconded on The Fall as well. Bad noise, as opposed to Sonic Youth and VU - good noise.

[Jah Womble]

Bands you should get but don't

Pet Shop Boys for me, as well. Characterless, repetitious and self-consciously-fey doesn't begin to cover it. Seems to me that after a time they could put out any old sh*te and the hacks would, for some reason, experience an almighty collective orgasm. (They remind me of Erasure in the fact that one is hard-pushed to recall about 75% of their hits. Which is never a good sign.)

I've never fully understood the enduring adulation for Portishead, either. I didn't mind Dummy in small doses - it was, I guess, 'different' back in 1994 - but it seems to me that this one fairly thin idea was then stretched over the following two albums with little or no real development.

Regarding earlier suggestions:
Ian Dury was a top performer/writer, natch, but I think all the truly great stuff was on the one album. (By which I mean NBAP, so don't be getting smart-alecky with me.)

Have to agree, also, with some of the sentiments regarding Bolan and T Rex: some great singles and a unique look/sound, yes - but were they really that influential in the long term? (One or two Adam & the Ants/Jesus & Mary Chain riffs notwithstanding...)

Why would anyone seeking 'melody' go anywhere near The Fall?

She is the musical equivalent of the sun newspaper.

Yes, she's popular, and there's even a couple of passable aspects to what she does...

When did The Sun ever offer that?

[Bored Of Education]

Bands you should get but don't

Lots of my friends like Television, but Marquee Moon has never made much of an impression on me.

I find the same. I don't get a lot of the NY post punk bands and they do nothing for me. Blondie, Ramones, Johnny Thunders, yes but Television and, indeed, Talking Heads leave me cold (and, to an extent, TH still do) which leads me onto

P J Harvey

Whenever I hear something that sounds vaguely like sub-standard Patti Smith I think to myself "there's Polly again". And it nearly always is.

See, you could transpose those two names and hit the nail on the head as far as my opinion is concerned

Speaking of influential bands that don't do much. The Velvet Underground don't do much for me. I'm sure they were mind-blowing at the time, but most of their songs leave me meh.

I find Rush to be tedious.

I echo what Stumpy says about these. I hate Velvet Underground and love Rush but find it hard to see how people take it or leave it. I can see why people love VU even if I don't and similarly why people hate Rush but it seems odd that people would listen to two types of quite striking music and think "ho-hum"

Manic Street Preachers - great interviews, really dull music.

This seems to be similar to what people are saying about Bowie - an act judged on their later back catalogue. I mean, don't get me wrong, I find a lot of the Manics later stuff great and still stretching their sound in a way that Bowie's later stuff isn't but I can see where the perception that they are more one-dimensional after "Everything Must Go" comes from. Bowie has made so much rubbish since "Let's Dance" (although, upon checking, not as many albums as I thought) that you forget how much good stuff he made before. Indeed, I bought the wife that 3CD Bowie compilation and was pleasantly surprised that it only started getting pony halfway through CD3.

Like Bowie, though, the Manics music was so astonishing, diverse and exploratory which, along with the image and personas, makes me surprised that anyone would listen to it and think "meh". I mean I can see why people thought that Generation Terrorists was too Clash and Gold Against The Soul was too stadium rock but, even then, The Holy Bible knocks the "dull" tag on the head on its own and the reinvention just between the first four albums is enough to be noteworthy either way.

[Ray de Galles]

Bands you should get but don't

I really should like/love White Stripes and have watched them multiple times at festivals but always coming away with an "Er...that's it?!" response and with the odd exception their records have left me pretty much the same.

Conversely (and I have been mocked on here before for this) I love The Raconteurs which is my "Wings are the band The Beatles could have been" stance.

[Furtho]

Bands you should get but don't

Another "great interviews, dull music" band for me is British Sea Power; and I really really wanted them to be good.

[Harry Lime]

Bands you should get but don't

I think this thread is about emotional engagement.

I get Spacemen 3, but I can't engage with them. Impeccable influences, great record sleeves, great song titles, very influential on bands I do love (like Stereolab) and I absolutely adore Spiritualized, but the Spacemen albums leave me cold.

I got into them pretty late, when Recurring came out, which meant I'd only heard that by the time of Laser Guided Melodies which instantly put it in the shade. In fact the Feel So Sad 12 inch put Recurring in the shade, so when I eventually bought Playing With Fire and Perfect Prescription, they could never compete with the early Spiritualized stuff.

Maybe that's it, but even now I dig out Playing With Fire once every four years, try to get into it and never do. It undeniably has its merits, but I find Revolution especially hilarious somehow. I always imagine he's talking about being made to tidy his bedroom...

"There's a lot of bad people, who like, make life really difficult, and I wanted to go and hang out at the shops today but I can't, cos I’m grounded... and my parents are BASTARDS!"

*Cue Stoogian wall of noise*

[Wyatt Earp]

Bands you should get but don't

G.Man wrote:

My argument was that his projection of himself -- the Bowie persona, the strong image -- might be what makes him so iconic. The tipping point between pop genius and pop god, if you like.

Ah, I get you. Yeah, he wouldn't have been so volcanic and revolutionary if he'd looked like Badly Drawn Boy.

[Bored Of Education]

Bands you should get but don't

Actually, the Beatles are the band for me with this thinking about it. I overplayed my dislike for them when I was younger to be arch but, even with age, I am still left cold by them, the odd surprise like "Helter Skelter" and appreciation of the first album notwithstanding.

Similarly, I hate to generalise about a whole genre but reggae, I just don't get at all. It isn't even a cultural thing as I seem to remember enjoying a fair amount of ragga. It may be that ragga had a certain energy that I don't find in reggae

[Bored Of Education]

Bands you should get but don't

Add me into the Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys and Pulp camp by the way.

I am with Harry on White Stripes as well apart from it never occurred to me that I should get them having seen The Cramps and Billy Childish's various projects and Led Zeppelin already leaving me cold

[Jah Womble]

Bands you should get but don't

Add me into the Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys and Pulp camp by the way.

And that's seriously camp...

[Gangster Octopus]

Bands you should get but don't

Melbourne Arab wrote:

Manic Street Preachers - great interviews, really dull music.

Quite.

[treibeis]

Bands you should get but don't

Actually, the Beatles are the band for me with this thinking about it. I overplayed my dislike for them when I was younger to be arch but, even with age, I am still left cold by them

When I wrote something similar about The Beatles on this forum several years ago, I was informed that people who are left cold by The Beatles are "trying too hard to be cool" and "don't really like pop music".