I understand the appeal of The GD’s scene - the sense of community, the footloose travel, the drugs, the hippie chicks – who doesn’t like hippie chicks? But I absolutely fail to understand the appeal of their music. And I like music. I like all kinds of music, especially if it’s well written and the musicianship is high and it pushes the boundaries. When I hear the Grateful Dead on the radio, I simply cannot change the station fast enough. The music is dull dull dull. I hear nothing original. I hear nothing interesting. The production values are bottom of the barrel. The vocals the vocals alway just suck to high heaven. Endless boring noodling. Not one moment of any Dead song I’ve ever heard appealed to me. Other jam bands make incredible, interesting music. Phish? Exponentially better than the Dead in every way. And yet some people actually like the Dead’s music. Dead Air is a very popular radio show on our local public station. What do these people hear in the Dead’s music? I will never like the Dead, I’ll never enjoy their music, but I would like to understand, on an intellectual level, what others might enjoy about their music.
Thank you.
Smoke something groovy, and listen again. You’ll dig it, man.
Dude, totally not cool. With only reply to the thread I thought for sure that I’d be able to get in here and tell the OP to chill out and have a little something to take the edge off, but no.
Pass the… chips.
They’re joking, but they’re not joking. I didn’t get The Dead until I got high and listened to The Dead.
I mean, my friend – ah, forget it. Quit bogarting the…chips, 'Bees.
To the OP: You are wrong.
Totally and completely.
I concur with you completely. Their music is utterly unremarkable, especially the improvisations. I, too, have long wondered about GD fanatics. My understanding is that at one time, there were roving bands of people who kind of centered their whole existence around following the Grateful Dead to their concerts. The only satisfactory answer I’ve ever gotten is that the GD and their music were really just a stand-in justification to “get high” and “tune out”–that it could have been Justin Bieber or Barney performing, for all they cared.
As much as I agree that the music is terrible, I’d still say that the OP is maybe going a bit overboard.
Eh, but what the hell, it’s Friday.
Q: What did the Dead Heads say when they ran out of LSD?
A: Wow, this music sucks, man.
I love that old joke. 
their musical depth was greater than many groups; they would do psychedelic/jazz and rock and ballads. they had a wide repertory in each area and did each well.
they were skilled as a touring band. they could do three concerts without repeating a song.
the band had a long history, they started in the late sixties and had an active 30 years that other groups didn’t. some of the same people and some different people. aspects changed over time. vocals could be rough at times at any time in their history but when they clicked they were some of the best in rock.
I’ve always assumed that folks just loved the experience.
I grew up in the Bay Area and never got them. Saw them once with backstage passes a few years before Jerry died; hanging out with Bill Walton and Bruce Hornsby who was guesting on keys, but really founded them aggressively meh. I avoided jam bands like the plague as a result. Then someone turned me on to Phish, and while I can barely tolerate their vocals, their musicianship is just a wonderful joy to experience, especially the transitions between songs.
It is what it is. Some folks love 'em and that’s cool. And they gave me fodder to vent on Guitar Douchebags (link to other SDMB thread), so there’s that… 
Y’see, it was the Seventies.
Er, I listened to an entire live concert that consisted, mostly, of them tuning their instruments. Okay, not “entirely.” There is no amount of “high” that could make that work.
And not “entire.” One has his limits regarding “E-A-D-G-B-E” and you quickly want to kill him.
See…the thing is…the Dead were a live band, and it would be really great or really sh***y depeding on their mood or what drugs they were on and how much or which lineup was playing. Also, there was Stanley Owsley (soundman and logo designer) and The Wall of Sound.
The '68 through roughly '78 era was their real apex, but there were off performances then too. I was talking to Glenn Cornick (original Jethro Tull bassist) about this one time. The first two times he saw them was in '68 and they were horrible the first time and absolutely outstanding the 2nd time. I told him the same thing almost…depends on how much acid or whatever they took.
The whole Dead culture was a big part too. The music was just background noise for the trips sometimes.
I’m too young to have seen them while Jerry was alive, but I’ve seen some of the modern line-ups put together by Phil Lesh and Bob Weir. Awesome every time.
I saw the Dead live in 2004 (having won tickets on the radio) and would describe them as the best covers band I ever saw.
They didn’t play anything I recognized as being their own music, but I heard everything from Al Jolson to Traffic to “Happy Birthday To You” mixed in there, and from what I understand their setlists vary wildly like this from show to show.
No. No one can explain it to you. If you didn’t like them when you first heard them, don’t worry about it. You just aren’t a Dead Head. No worries, man, there’s always Floyd or Govt Mule.
I had this job when I was a teenager selling t-shirts, programs and sno-cones at concerts. So for a period in the mid 1970’s, I saw every single concert at a major venue in Kansas City. And that included the Dead, presumably during their peak years. Utterly meh for me as well, and trying to give them a fair shake, I later saw The Grateful Dead Movie. That was only interesting in the behind the scenes of the utter insanity of a sound system with the speakers behind the microphones, and the tricks they used to deal with that and avoid feedback.
I’ve heard the same “you have to see them several times to get a good show experience” thing said about Bob Dylan. Sorry, but no. With the price of concert tickets, I’d prefer to see people who try to do a good show for every audience. And I have seen too many talented artists who have done great shows to waste my time on those who don’t value it as well.
At first, The Grateful Dead were one of those bunches of folkies getting far out in SF. I heard Jefferson Airplane’s first LP (before Grace) at a Houston folk club on the PA between sets. (The club owner’s partner was his Mom who was running the place while he was out in SF–he sent back some records.) Country Joe & the Fish did political almost-jug-band music & Janis herself had played the club just before my time.
On their first album, The Dead were much in the same vein of bluesy folk rock with a visual style that was more interesting than their music–but I liked that folky/rocky stuff. Then they developed, as did the other bands; well, Jefferson Airplane did. I saw them a few times live–set & setting *were *quite important on how much you’d enjoy every show. And some of those details were quite legal! Saw them at the Catacombs Club in 1968; Owsley Stanley was the sound guy. Many years later, there was a memorable show at Hofheinz Pavilion. Never really “followed” them…
The Dead albums I tend to listen to nowadays are “Workingman’s Dead” & “American Beauty.” With actual songs! If a bad-voiced singer can learn to hit a note & sing harmony with his bad-voiced pals, they can sound pretty good…
ETA: Oh, “ticket prices.” I got into the Catacombs show for free with a couple of friends because one of them had met Pigpen at the Free Clinic the previous summer…
I’ve always liked the Dead, but I don’t necessarily like everything they’ve ever done, but a long shot. And I agree about the unevenness of the concerts. Once we went to see them at Red Rocks, and the concert was great. Just really outstanding. It was so fantastic that we decided to go back the next night, and the next night–well, it was like they had blown it all on the concert the first night.
But usually when I’ve seen them live, it’s been a good experience.
I worked with a woman who had never really gotten them, and who didn’t like their name, and figured she wouldn’t like anything they played. I came in with a CD I made with some things on it that seemed to be the kind of thing she liked–“Mama Tried,” “Bertha,” “The Race Is On,” “Me and My Uncle” and after a few minutes she came in and said, “Hey, who is that? I really like that stuff!” She was amazed when I told her it was a psychedelic hippy band she’d rejected. She liked them fine when they were covering country, because they could, in fact, be fine musicians.
I really didn’t much like the chick singer when they were in that phase. But I think she came with the keyboard player, and I liked him a lot.
Those were the Godchaux’s…Keith and…Donna?
I saw a early clip where their original singer Pigpen did Hard to Handle and it was actually really good, and Jerry’s lead work was melodic AND concise.
I have cited this before, but here is an NPR Fresh Air interview with brilliant blues/rock keyboardist Ian McLagan of the Faces. In it, he says:
At their heart, they’re not all that different from, say, Crosby Stills & Nash plus jamming. If you hate that kind of 60s folk/country thing, or jamming, or both, you’ll hate them. They don’t make it any easier by being more or less utterly indifferent to the recording process, which I think is more to blame for the out-of-tune vocals than anything else (lots of famous singers don’t sing in tune live), and by rarely trying to write a pop song. They love the inscrutable.
I’ve also noticed that maybe one out of every ten Deadheads is an obsessive lunatic who really loves the whole collect-every-live-show/a-million-versions-of-the-same-few-things concept. The deep-but-narrow thing. Case in point: I had a roommate in the 80s who was a brilliant bluegrass guitarist and played bass in a Dead cover band for money. He liked the Dead, but he once remarked he was always trying to get the band to cover, as he put it, “the next song down on the Doc Watson album,” but the band refused to cover anything the Dead didn’t cover.
Or Yanni or Kenny G.
Drop some LSD and it may be okay.
Otherwise listen to decent music.