Just to back up gaffa - Kate Bush is hardly a cult artist. For whatever reason, her music never caught on in the US, but if you expand the pool and look at other countries, she’s extremely successful. Wikipedia calls her “one of the most successful female performers in the past 30 years.” She’s had many top singles in the UK and her career has spanned many decades. Hardly cult, IMO.
Same with Kylie Minogue.
A huge, huge star in Britain, Australia (where she’s from) and most of Europe, and she has been for decades. Granted, her songs are “poppy,” but so have been those of Britney, Christina, and even Madonna in her day.
Minogue is stunningly beautiful and a true entertainer, putting on dazzling concerts with a level of sophistication and showmanship virtually unknown in this country anymore…and yet for some reason she’s just never taken off here.
I believe it’s drunken fratboys and alcoholic chicks from the south.
I’ll back you up on that. I used to have a minivan that I bought used that had Phish stickers all over the back window. Having never heard their music, but lazily opting not to peel off the stickers, I decided to see what allure was. Downloaded a few of their more popular tunes. I still don’t know what the allure is. ::shrug::
I gotta add to that Grateful Dead. Maybe it’s just the genre and granted there are a couple of songs I enjoy, but by and large, I just don’t get them. Perhaps I didn’t smoke enough pot before I got too old to appreciate the lifestyle.
I’m certain the appeal of The Three Stooges is strictly a male thing. I know someone’s going to come in here and dispute that, but personally, I’ve never met a female that thought they were the least bit amusing. And just about every guy I’ve ever discussed T3S with, thinks they are rib-cracking funny.
On the flip side, I think Mitch Hedberg is hysterical, though I’m not exactly a “rabid fan.”
You take that back about Joan!
My comments are similar to what gaffa says about Kate Bush. I’m not going to try to help you “see” what there is to get but just wanted to share something. When I bought my first cassette of her music out of curiosity,* I was extremely disappointed, beyond even a reaction of “Meh.” I played it a few more times and was hooked. What attacts me is her modest personality, love of performing (I’ve also seen her live), and the apparent sincerity I get with each song.
- I’d always seen her music in those Columbia House ads selling “15,000 cassettes for 4 cents!” and wondered who the hell she was.
His storied career notwithstanding, I still don’t get that Zimmerman guy, you know, the one who calls himself Dylan.
I’m not certain any of these artists will technically qualify as “cult” but this thread’s as good a place as any.
Radiohead. - Couple of decent tracks, otherwise meh.
Modest mouse- When did off key, dissonant falsetto, retro become “teh awesomes OMG!”
Zappa- It’s fun enough, and complex; but only in small, small doses.
Dragonforce- okay yes I know they play at ridiculous speed, but seriously all their songs sound alike. I lOVE heavy metal, and their stuff all sounds alike.
Big names I don’t “get”
Marylin manson- Like radiohead, couple of good tracks and a lot of meh.
Tool- good, but not worthy of the fan rabidity.
The Beatles- Perhaps the most overrated group in history, sorry old fogies. There were a lot of other lesser known bands doing it better. They were, and remain nothing more that a huge marketing success. They have their moments, but mostly it’s filler.
Books-
China Mevielle- 900 pages of vacuous, vague, pseudo descriptions mixed with a heavy does of boring character introspection, leavened with a hefty dose of ham handed political commentary. His worlds have lots of imagination, but no follow through at all.
So, in other words, you heard a few of her very early songs, saw one (of her only) TV appearances in America, and wrote her off enough to bring her up in a thread like this almost 20 years later? Each to their own and all that, but songs from The Kick Inside, her first album, are as different from the songs on, say, The Dreaming or The Sensual World or Aerial, as night and day. You may not like Kate Bush, but it is possible that you didn’t like THAT particular Kate Bush, and would like another Kate Bush altogether. Or not. Some people’s ears just aren’t attuned, and that’s ok. But really, it sounds like, say, someone who says they hate Cyndi Lauper but then come to find out they’ve only heard “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” and maybe a couple of other of her more fun novelty songs. They don’t really know Cyndi Lauper enough to even say they don’t like her as an artist. Cyndi, like Kate, is much MUCH more than her novelty songs.
As far as Kate Bush being a cult artist only in America, the only reason she’s famous elsewhere is because of her early hits, especially “Wuthering Heights,” which is one of the weirdest-ass songs to ever become a hit, anywhere in the world, EVER, and it easily could have been dismissed by radio and died (it would not be played nowadays). Her airplay and fame was the result of a snowball effect, just like any hit. The more she was played the more other stations wanted to play her.
Because she became famous immediately with a novelty song, people (elsewhere) paid attention to what she was doing and the music she was releasing over the years. Some later songs/albums became hits and some didn’t (“There Goes A Tenner” didn’t even chart in the UK). If “Wuthering Heights” had died, maybe another song would have become a hit, but maybe it wouldn’t have, and maybe she’d be a cult artist elsewhere now the same as she is in the US.
ralph124c writes:
> Answer: the old MAD magazine used to metion the name-and it stuck in my
> head, for some reason. I thought somebody on the board would know!
That doesn’t mean that there’s a Francis X. Bushman cult. It means that forty years ago his name was a running joke in the magazine.
Heh. Thanks for reminding me.
It’s public radio fund drive time at KGLT. Every year I call up and donate to the Coffee Show (annoying overusage of They Might Be Giants but they do some funny skits.) Every year I offer to give them $50 if they find the people that do the “Dead Show” and say,
“Jerry’s dead, man. The Dead were a bunch of drug-addled fucking hippies who were too stoned to realize they were just noodling on their instruments. The Dead suck.”
They happily oblige and complain about the scent of patchouli left by the Dead DJ.
I’m feeling like Acid Lamp is whooshing us.
Name 3 americans that got shot in the head.
Abe Lincoln
J.F.K.
and the guy sitting in front of Pee Wee Herman at the porn show.
No whoosh. I really, really, hate the beatles.
There’s nothing wrong with hating the Beatles. They’re not going to be to everyone’s taste. But to outright refute the impact they’ve had on music just shows your ignorance of music history.
Who refuted their influence? I merely stated that they were overrated and made popular by a powerful marketing campaign. Anything popular is bound to spawn imitators and wield a heavy influence.
Music: Phish
Movies: Donnie Darko, the Evil Dead movies, Hedwig and the Angry Inch
TV: Doctor Who, Buffy/Firefly/Angel/etc, Futurama
<snip> was trying to make a point, but my damn head cold won’t let me…
Keeping with the spirit of the OP: The Smiths.
Lots of people I know like the Smiths. Even love the Smiths.
Almost anytime I fill in one of those “say what music you like, we’ll tell you what music you might want to listen to” sorts of things, the Smiths is the #1 recommendation.
And while I’ve come to . . . appreciate their talent as time’s gone by, I’m by no means a Smiths fan, and used to actively loathe them.
(To be fair, it’s mostly a combination of a) Morrissey’s voice, which annoys the crap out of me, and b) “Meat Is Murder,” which made me laugh the first time I heard it and has sounded almost as ridiculous every time since.)
I get why people like them, but they do nothing for me.
Oh, and if Tolkein is a cult artist, you can sign me up for the equal and opposite “doesn’t care for Tolkein” club.
I went way beyond not getting this one. My wife and I tried it and found it painfully unoriginal, poorly written, and badly acted. I was shocked when I logged on here to complain about it and saw people singing its praises.
I hear this a lot but I strongly disagree. I hadn’t listened to metal in over a decade until last year when I heard Dragonforce and got back into it. I have all their albums. Each album has a very distinct sound and all the individual songs are immediately distinguishable after a few listens, just like any other band.
Yeah, it’s been “cool” to say this for awhile now. I’ve yet to see anyone intelligently defend the sentiment, though.
The Pixies is at the top of my list for this OP. I have a number of friends who just about reach orgasm at the mere mention of them. These are friends whose musical taste generally accords with mine, and who have in the past often suggested I would like particular bands and they’ve been right.
So I give the Pixes a try and just don’t get it. At all. And then (after hearing yet another rave about how phantasmagorical they are), I give them another try. And don’t get it. And so on. I can’t help but feel I’m missing out somehow. It’s not that I don’t want to like them, quite the opposite. I just cannot hear their songs and not think they are noisy, tuneless crap.
Are you sure about Australia? My impression is that she makes a splash here because she’s “ours” and looks good on the cover of a magazine, but I don’t know if she sells any records. I think that’s largely Britain’s problem, not ours. Could be wrong.
I love the Beatles, and they were impeccable pop song craftsmen. But I think a considerable element of their continuing popularity was that they wrote for their very limited vocal ranges. Everyone on the planet can sing any Beatles song.