I’ve been a big fan of Roald Dahl since college, when I picked up a collection of his short stories. Dahl’s stuff for adults is nothing like the kid’s books he’s famous for, and I’ve never read any of those (I’ve seen some of the movies, though).
I first discovered the Berenstains for Marital Blitz, one of their humorous books on marriage they published in the 50s-60s before the started writing about bears. My parents had a copy and I would look through out. I think I gave me a lot of my impressions about what a marriage looked like. But I’ve never read any of the books about bears, and didn’t even know they existed until the late 80s.
The only thing I’ve read from J.K. Rowling is The Casual Vacancy, which I thought was top-notch.
When I think of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, it’s their first album Child is Father to the Man when Al Kooper was leading them. And the classical rock group Renaissance is about their first album, with none of the personnel from albums that made them famous.
Does anyone else really like a particular artist, but for lesser-known or obscure works of theirs?
I love Basquiat, he’s not for everyone.
In music I love all kinds, right now I am into Hayes Carll. His Americana music just speaks to my hillbilly side. Love it.
I am reading poetry right now, I love Slyvia Plath. I thinks she’s popular though.
I discovered Andrew Bird when he did fiddle work on the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ albums. He put out two fantastic albums of fiddle-driven swing with his band Bowl of Fire, and played on one album with a band called Kevin O’Donnell’s Quality Six (which was literally just Bowl of Fire with a different guy’s name on it). They are absolutely fantastic, tight, thick albums of hot jazz.
Then in 2001 he put out an album that was not in the same vein as the other two (pretty much dropping the whole “swing” thing) and has gained much success as an “indie rock” or “indie folk” artist since then. I know at one time there was a thread here about him (in recent years) and I asked a mega-fan to check out his swing stuff and they were super un-impressed. I haven’t gotten into Andrew’s “new” stuff whatsoever, but that’s really what he’s known for.
Back when Tom Hanks was first getting noticed in the series Bosom Buddies, it wasn’t his acting that impressed me so much as it was his comedic timing.
I love Styx’s concept album, “Kilroy Was Here”, which was done at the insistence of Dennis DeYoung, pretty much the only band member who liked it at all.
I like Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright but the consensus opinion seems to be that it’s a romantic, near-seamless integration between nature and man. My view is that the integration only goes far enough to enter the “Uncanny Valley” and turns it into a slightly off-balancing experience, contrasting with most places that use boxy concrete slabs and are are unabashedly urban and unromantic.
This works as a piece of art if this contrast were deliberate, which I don’t think it is: I think he did indeed try to integrate as much as possible. But just like dissonant music can still be art, Fallingwater can still be art even if I do not consider it romantic or natural.
H.P. Lovecraft’s famous stuff is not his best work. “Call of Cthulhu” is one of the worst stories he ever published. (It starts out great, but I dislike the ending.) I prefer “The Silver Key” and “The Strange High House in the Mist”.
I like Larry Niven’s “Teleportation” stories and “Warlock” stories better than his “Known Space” stories.
I like Robert E. Howard’s “Kull” stories better than his “Conan” stories.
My favorite Fred Astaire movie is The Pleasure of His Company, in which he neither sings nor dances.
Charlton Heston’s best performance was in The Private War of Major Benson. My favorite Heston performance was in Wayne’s World 2.
Ridley Scott’s first movie, The Duellists is as good as anything he’s done since.
My favorite Abbott and Costello movies is The Time of Their Lives, which is a romantic comedy/adventure with no actual comic routines and where the two only appeared on screen together in a handful of scenes, and only had one scene where they talked to each other. (they were feuding at the time).
Counting Crows’ Recovering the Satellites is my favorite album of theirs. Weezer’s Pinkerton, too, though it seems to be gaining some retro-nostalgia traction these days (I just saw it released on vinyl recently). Both were often considered lesser works by fans at the time.
In fact, a lot of bands were criticized in the mid-90s for “selling out” to the grunge crowd, but looking back, those were some great records. REM’s Monster, for example. Hell, even Metallica’s Load isn’t as bad as the “true” fans from the 80s make it sound.
Sublime is almost exclusively known for their break out self-titled 1996 album (the one with “What I Got” and “Santeria”), but it doesn’t hold a candle to 40oz to Freedom, one of the best albums of the 90s.
While Leo Rosten is best known for his works introducing Yiddish into the English language, his earlier detective novels are on par with Mickey Spillane, and I adore his stories about his good friend Groucho Marx.
I’m a big fan of Pink Floyd, but only the early and middle periods. I regard Dark Side of the Moon as their shark jump. If they’d broken up after Meddle nothing of value would be lost.
I could do without the signature Stones rock sound, but I love their mellow stuff. Mick Jagger’s voice when he’s not screaming or being misogynistic can be lovely – “She Smiled Sweetly,” “Moonlight Mile,” even throwaways like “Indian Girl.”