You know what I mean. Songs/music you like but that you pretty much assume that most people you play them for will–oh WEIRD!!! See the * at the end–absolutely hate them and think they’re totally annoying. For me an example would be Laurie Anderson’s O Superman which I think is absolutely beautiful and can and have listened to it over and over on end for up to an hour (it’s 8 and a half minutes long)…
So what do you love but have to concede is irritating to most people?
*ok here is the freaky thing that just happened. I was listening to the Russian hymn to the Hunt for Red October on Winamp. I had played it several times in a row and had started a thread about it. I decided to come make this thread, and so I searched YouTube to find “O Superman” so I could link to it in the thread, and let the Hymn play out without going and repeating it yet again. So I started typing the post, the hymn ended, and “O Superman” started to play. “Weird,” I said to myself. Why did the video start playing? I’d hit “pause” as soon as it loaded, see. And then I thought “and why did it start right when the other song ended? Spooky…” That’s when I realized that it wasn’t playing. It was Winamp, which had purely by chance decided to play “O Superman” next from my playlist of hundreds and hundreds of songs.
Edited to add: The video is cool, too. I like when she does Deformed Rabbit–it’s my favorite.
Surf music. I know it bugs the holy shit outta everybody when I cue up that playlist on Foobar–Los Straitjackets, The Torquays, The Ventures, Surfaris, The Blue Stingrays, Jan & Dean, the lot. I have a surf music channel on Pandora too and I am the only person in the world who’ll listen to it voluntarily. I have no idea WHY it bugs everybody because if I did then it’d bug me too, I guess, but I have empirical evidence that nobody likes surf music but me. I can live with that, and I’ll play it anyway!
Spanish rap. The eyes start rolling when I break out Control Machete, but again–fuck 'em! I like it and that’s good enough for me.
Rockabilly and psychobilly. Nobody I know can stand it. Closest is a friend who’s a ska and swing revival fetishist. Me, I love it to death. Gimme my Cramps, my Stray Cats, my Jeff Beck & The Big Town Playboys, my Southern Culture On The Skids and I will PISS OFF THE WORLD!!
It’s one of those albums, isn’t it? (Big Science). I think you either love it or you hate it. I even like “Sweaters” which makes most people twitch. I think I bought it in about '87 and immediately went out and bought everything else I could find by her, and have done so ever since. Only seen her live once, though.
I enjoyed the little bit of Philip Glass that I heard in my music appreciation class, and have meant to go look his stuff up sometime–is that a good album to start with?
Depends. It’s opera, though admittedly odd opera. I like it very much, but you might start with Solo Piano. I also like Songs for Liquid Days, which is a little like American lieder.
Here’s an excerpt from Einstein on the Beach with Lego characters, perhaps not the staging Glass envisioned, but still amusing.
Big Science was one of those albums I listened to over and over with my then-roommate. He’s dead now, and this is one of the albums that strongly evokes him.
The one song that makes everyone go :dubious: when I force them to listen to it is J. Geils Band’s No Anchovies, Please. I just love it, but everyone else thinks I’m a bit weird.*
*They’re right, of course, but that song is not really a part of it.
I really really love Meatloaf- I own four of his albums, but people always groan when I reach for it, so I stopped playing it when other people are around.
I like “Butterfly” by smile.dk, which is also featured on one of the Dance Dance Revolution games and way too many AMVs. Most people would find this song annoying.
Hey jayjay, what do you think of Aqua’s “Roses Are Red”?
Music from Disneyland. I have 15 discs filled with soundtracks, ride spiels, parades, and so forth. Nothing better on a long drive–except my wife thinks that I’m nuts.
It wouldn’t have struck me as annoying, but apparently my friends think it is: “Birthday” by The Sugarcubes. To me, Bjork’s screaming chorus is an absolutely perfect example of raw, unbridled musical emotion; I eat it up with a spoon. To them, it’s a crazy lady screaming.
I like surf music. In fact, I’m rather puzzled when you said that everybody else you knew hated surf music. What kind of a crowd do you hang around with?
I don’t understand it either–surf music is cool, Quentin Tarantino likes it fer Og’s sake! Besides, it’s mostly instrumental, it has a great beat, you can definitely dance to it, it’s pretty impossible to be offended by surf music… Well, maybe the 5.6.7.8’s are a bit out there but otherwise, what’s not to love? Perhaps the fact that people in my circle listen to current pop, J-pop, emo, thrash metal, angsty chick music and other abominations that offend the ear might have something to do with it. Hell with 'em, I say, bring on the Dick Dale!
Most people think minimal techno is either a) boring, b) repetitive, c) not “real” music or d) all of the above.
I still love it, though. Every so often, if I’m in a contemplative mood, I’ll sit down near the stereo with a good book and throw on Consumed by Richie Hawtin. It almost borders on white noise sometimes, but it does it in such a complex, layered, ebb and flow kind of way.
Definitely not music for the ADD generation.
ETA: SmartAleq, I’m also a fan of Mexican rap (which is amusing, because it’s pretty much the polar opposite of minimal techno). You may bust out the Control Machete anytime you like around me.
That’s sad.
