Stuff you don't get.

[wiblflibl]

The Eurovision song contest. Just. Fuck. Off.

I didn't get Metal for a couple of decades but I can appreciate the good stuff now. Disco was anathema to me until I got into electronic dance music in the early nineties.

I've hugely expanded my musical tastes over the years but the Eurovision song contest can do one. Permanently.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

So many for this. Primal Scream. Dinosaur Jr. Elvis Costello. Leonard Cohen. Arctic Monkeys. Captain Beefheart (what is that all about?)

The one that has always really puzzled me is the Stone Roses. Not that they're completely shit or anything, they have a few nice enough songs and all. But bloody hell do I not get the complete veneration they inspire in a certain kind of British middle-aged man, which seems to bear no relation to their pleasant enough but unremarkable output. The Jam are a bit like that as well, but at least have a few more good songs.

I'm surprised that people are saying the Red Hot Chili Peppers "should tick all their boxes". They shouldn't tick anyone's boxes really, wretched wretched band.

I think the important thing to remember about the stone roses, is that they essentially appeared after the low point of popular music in the UK. A big part of their veneration is simply down to being compared with Rick Astley. Their debut Album is very good though. I didn't hear it until it was 10 years old, and I find the sort of people you were talking about a bit weird. They seem to be missing the point of Music somehow.

[Lang Spoon]

Hell’s yeah forever a fat no to Johnny Cash. The two prison albums are all there is bar the maudlin dying man Rubin stuff. I realize this is a minority opinion. Like thinking Muse are shit and expecting to share warm bed in Polentona Italy.

[Lang Spoon]

Pulp were a bit shit from at least Different Class on. Horrible production. The original version of Babies is tons better.

[Lang Spoon]

The Band smell of jean piss.

[Lang Spoon]

Wranglers. Lee at best.

[Lang Spoon]

Think I’m too young to really get Run DMC. Prefer
Un-Rubin Bombast hip-hop of the time listening back. The idea of Rock My Adidas is far cooler than the reality.

[Lang Spoon]

What’s the point in Dexy’s?

[Sean of the Shed]

I am old enough to get Run DMC, but I still don't. Over-rated and poorly delivered, doesn't meet the standard of other Hip-hop artists of that period.
Soul brass Dexy's is fantastic, crusty violin Dexy's is a big steaming pile of unwashed laundry.

[Benjm]

Two recent-ish bands that on paper I ought to love but just, well, don't are LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip.

Lifetime achievement awards go to Echo & The Bunnymen and the Beastie Boys.

I don't like Sonic Youth but the same goes for a lot of noise/guitar scraping stuff, so it isn't a massive overturning of the form book. That said, between the neck and strings of a guitar wouldn't make my top three places where Thurston might usefully jam a screwdriver.

[Sean of the Shed]

LCD Soundsystem's lyrics just sound so fucking smug. I reckon when the lead singer writes them he is pleased with himself in a way that only Piers Morgan could understand.
Also on recent stuff, Public Service Broadcasting. It's Creature Comforts set to music.

[Benjm]

The one that has always really puzzled me is the Stone Roses. Not that they're completely shit or anything, they have a few nice enough songs and all. But bloody hell do I not get the complete veneration they inspire in a certain kind of British middle-aged man, which seems to bear no relation to their pleasant enough but unremarkable output.

I think that the pleasant enough, fun sized back catalogue is a large part of the appeal; they offer the thrills and sense of belonging of fandom while demanding little or no effort on the fan's part. It's the music equivalent of really liking football when, but only when, England get past the group stages of an international tournament.

[Benjm]

LCD Soundsystem's lyrics just sound so fucking smug. I reckon when the lead singer writes them he is pleased with himself in a way that only Piers Morgan could understand.
Also on recent stuff, Public Service Broadcasting. It's Creature Comforts set to music.

Damn straight, on both counts.

[Benjm]

James Murphy's smugness is extra galling because coverage of the band tends to present him as this soul searching, self lacerating character, rather than someone who would trounce Graeme Souness in a 100 yard sprint to a full length mirror.

[Jah Womble]

The Eurovision Song Contest doesn't count, surely? I mean, everybody knows that it's been cheap sherry since day one.

Pet Shop Boys - never got the fawning adulation they've garnered on these-here pages in the past. With the exception of the debut single, it's all painfully self-conscious, arch-fey musing-by-numbers. (That's enough hyphenating. Ed.) No, ta.

I was never that wild about Portishead, either. But I could at least 'see' what others were getting there.

(No issue with LCD Soundsystem, however. They/he have/has done stuff I've liked.)

[Antepli Ejderha]

The Beatles, sorry but it's dull music in the main. I don't get it at all.

[treibeis]

The Beatles, sorry but it's dull music in the main. I don't get it at all.

Ooh, you don't want to go round saying things like that. Whenever I've said it on here, I've been the recipient of all sorts. "A man who's trying too hard to be cool"; "Still rebelling against your parents, are you?"; "Saying you don't like The Beatles is like saying you don't like food", that sort of thing.

And all because you've said, "Love, love, love / Ner-ner-ner / Love, love, love / Ner-ner-ner / Love, love, love / Ner-ner-ner / Love is all you need" and songs about wanting to hold somebody's hand or dance with them aren't really your cup of tea.

Oh, and if you don't like The Beatles, then you can't like pop music. I don't and I can, but who am I to judge?

[WOM]

Lifetime achievement awards go to Echo & The Bunnymen

I seriously love me an early-years E&TB greatest hits compilation. Songs to Learn and Sing type thing, but the other, larger one. And I also love IM's two solos efforts. But their post-reformation Evergreen-onward stuff has been seriously wanting.

Relieved to hear about Public Service Broadcasting. I'd thought I was just too old or something.

[Lang Spoon]

Bjork.

[evilC]

Depeche Mode
Tangerine Dream
Nouvelle Vague
Howard fucking Jones
The fucking Eurythmics
Nick fucking Kershaw
Covenant and the billion-and-one bands that sound just like them

[WOM]

That's great, cuz I always think of Nik Kershaw as the guy your school would book if it couldn't afford Howard Jones.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Nik Kershaw happens to be a very, very good guitarist.

[jwdd27]

Well, if you guys are going to upset me with Stone Roses and Prince:

The Fall. And, as it's been a couple of months, Mark E Smith getting away with being an obnoxious drunken prick, apparently worth putting up with for the music. Not for me it wasn't.

I'll throw in The Wedding Present as well. And Muse. And Depeche Mode after 1983.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Muse are terrible, apart from about 4 songs.

[MrLeam]

Muse are terrible, apart from about 4 songs.

And those 4 songs are beyond terrible...