I love The Blues! I’ll have yours!
In fact, I’m listening to blues, blues, blues, jazz, blues, blues, blues, blues, rock n’ roll and blues!
OP, you agree that people who dismiss whole categories of music are idiots, having done that in the OP. Help me understand - your dismissal is different how?
I totally respect anyone’s right to not like something. I understand how someone may not like the “rules” or “sound” of blues in general, so tend not to like much and to not listen to it. But if there isn’t a scattering of blues tunes that just moooove ya, then, well, that’s just a shame.
Makes me wanna write a song.
I used to say I hated “the blues” too, but my horizons were broadened by several people. I now like Delta blues and especially Swamp blues, the kind of blues that makes you want to hop and dance, rather than slit your wrists. Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band’s kind of blues.
You just TRY to slit your wrists listening to them!
“Clap Your Hands”
“Left Hand George”
“Shut The Screen” (Live)
“Mama’s Fried Potatoes”
This is not hoppy blues but it’s still fun as hell. I heard tell that the video was banned in the UK!
“Devils Look Like Angels”
I do like some wrist-slitting blues in small quantities, like Billie Holiday, Etta James, and Bessie Smith.
I love dirty blues, where the lyrics make you go :eek::eek::eek:
like Lucille Bogan’s “Shave 'em Dry” (WARNING: NSFW!!!)
I have to say I like some white girl blues too, like Duffy, Carmel, Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse.
What makes your big head so hard!?
I do love me some Dead Milkmen.
This sounds like the recipe for a dopefest. Let’s all meet up someplace in Mississippi.
It’s specifically the “I like everything but country and rap” (not hip hop) people who tend to be idiots.
Oh yeah. A friend–a very talented guitarist, and a great guy overall–loved the blues, and loved to play them. Problem was, that at local jams, he’d almost monopolize the session, because he insisted on putting 12-minute guitar solos into every song.
No problem watching the game with him, or discussing current events with him, or having a beer with him. But don’t give him a guitar in a blues jam and tell him to play, because then he Just. Won’t. Stop.
Thank you, my brother!
And, if I’m not too far out of line: Robert Johnson sucks! Fuck you, Robert Johnson! You aren’t the greatest guitarist, and your music sucks because it’s blues, and sucky blues at that!
The op hurts my brain,
I don’t like blues
Tom Waits song that isn’t blues referenced
profit?
Blues isn’t my favorite either. I respect it. I can listen to a song or two without going crazy. And I’m sure, if I thought about it hard enough, I could name a blues song that really moves me. But for me, blues goes in the same box as country-western music. It’s not horrible, but it’s just not my thing.
It’s funny because I actually like all of The Wire’s renditions of “Down in the Hole”, though.
[quote=“SlackerInc, post:13, topic:693674”]
(not sure if I’ve heard Robert Cray, though the name sounds familiar).
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Right Next Door (Because of Me)
Smoking Gun
But let’s not forget Weird Al’s take on traditional blues:
I have it from a different unimpeachable source the the blues ain’t nothin’ but a pain in your heart.
Why is that?
…but folks who dismiss other genres as a whole are okay?
Okay, then.
Rock, country and hip hop are blues (and also jazz), the same way people are monkeys and birds are dinosaurs. What you’re basically saying is that you don’t like the parts of blues that sound old. Like someone who can’t watch black and white movies because it puts them to sleep, you’re missing out on everything beautiful the world had to offer in a different era. You owe it to yourself to put the effort in, and get over your prejudice, because your world is immeasurably poorer because of it.
Sure, I don’t really like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and a lot of the 60s-70s electric bluesmen. But Jimi Hendrix was essentially just a more successful direct competitor to those guys. See, like Coke Zero versus Diet Coke, genres are just marketing terms. Hendrix was marketed towards hippies and young adults, so they called his blues music “rock”, and put it in the bin next to the Beatles. BB King was marketed towards older black people and so they called it “blues” and put it in the bin next to Muddy Waters. But all of it was blues.
And if you say you don’t like Jimi Hendrix, you lose the thread.
I don’t know–it’s a correlational thing, not some *a priori *notion (for me at least). Just something I’ve observed.
You’re telling me that song is not “bluesy” whatsoever? C’mon.
I don’t think that assumption applies in my case. I enjoy listening to Fifties acts like Hank Snow, Frankie Lymon, the Chordettes, Peggy Lee, and Connie Francis. And even older stuff like Bing Crosby, the Carter Family, and the Roy Fox Orchestra.
It’s funny: I never consciously would have thought “I don’t like Jimi Hendrix”. My reflex is to say that I do. But come to think of it, I had a huge CD collection at one time and no Hendrix. I now have a huge library on Spotify, but no Hendrix. So I don’t think I have ever purposely listened to a Hendrix song. I also don’t think, though, that I leap to change the station when “Hey Joe” comes on the radio. Does that count?
Rap and country music are essentially the same thing, so it’s not surprising that some people exclude both from the music they like:
Also, I wish I could remember which black blues artist once said, “Country music is the white man’s blues.”
ETA: Hmm, I think I need to print out that infographic for my racist dad. He’s a country music fan who never misses an opportunity to tell me how he doesn’t like that “black rap”. (Never just “rap”. Black rap. Maybe I should play him some Eminem. Or some nerdcore hiphop.)