A friend loaned me some Neko Case CDs. I like a bunch of alt country. There’s some New Pornographers stuff I like. I love me the redheads. All the music critics and cool people love her. And I like to think I have good taste in music. But…
Meh. It just isn’t doing it for me.
Do you have anyone like that?
Leonard Cohen. Even moreso than Bob Dylan, everything he writes is amazing and the covers of his stuff are great but I just can’t get into his singing.
I know, as a music critic and musical omnivore, that I’m supposed to like Captain Beefheart, but it just sounds <i>retarded</i> to me.
And this is coming from a guy who counts Pere Ubu as one of his favorite bands (shrug).
retarded
This isn’t livejournal, now is it?
Jonanna Newsom. She’s much adored by many of the folks who like the same strange folk music I like. Hey, I like weird music, probably more than the average bear, but man oh man, every time she opens her mouth I hear the Wicked Witch of the West doing an impression of Jerry Lewis screaming “HEY LADY!”
…er, Cite. (YouTube)
Oh man. I go back and forth about her, but when I say that I mean I really go back and forth. For a while I thought that her harp playing was amazing and her voice was cute and that the songs were very well-written.
When I’ve heard her recently, I’ve said “I absolutely can’t stand this.” Can’t figure it out.
I agree that most CB is… well I won’t say retarded, but awfully difficult to appreciate. That said, Safe as Milk has some great stuff. The first song, Sure 'nuff & Yes I Do is one of my all time favorite songs, and his cover of I’ve Grown So Ugly is excellent. It is a much more linear album than anything else I’ve heard from him.
I have a lot of musicians that fall into this category: Nomeansno, Radiohead, most of Rush, Tool, Cat Power, Liz Phair, Stone Roses, Elliot Smith…
All pretty much universally adored but just missing something for me.
Exact same story here with Neko.
Also, early Blur. I love Britpop and psychedelia, and the Kinks are my favorite band. It’s like Blur’s first few albums were formulated precisely to appeal to my tastes… yet 13 and Think Tank, the albums they made after ditching those influences, are the only ones I like.
I agree about Joanna Newsom. I wanted to like her, but her voice hurts me.
I’m supposed to like Neutral Milk Hotel because I like the Decemberists, but I can’t get past the crap recording quality to listen to them long enough to make an actual judgment, and also they have the worst band name ever.
I don’t like Sufjan Stevens as much as I wish I did.
If we count classical composers, I keep trying and failing to like Aaron Copland.
Radiohead. I like a song or two, but they just don’t connect with me.
My EARS! Ze goggles, zey do nothing!
That is just painful.
Slee
Likewise. I have three or four Cat Power songs on my MP3 player and always wind up skipping past them. I think I’m supposed to like her given my other tastes but she just does nothing for me.
She was talking and I was thinking “She doesn’t sound too bad…” then she started singing. When she’s soft it’s not too bad, but then she gets loud and it gets all icepick-to-my-eardrums. Wow.
I want to like the Magnetic Fields. I do like a few of their songs, but most of them leave me unmoved. I did find it interesting that Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) plays music with Stephin Merritt and together they put out The Gothic Archies (music on the audiobooks).
sigh
together they put out The Tragic Treasury (music from the audiobooks).
<hangs head in shame>
The Beatles.
</hhis>
It’s not that I dislike them. They are OK. Just…OK, you know?
You know this is going to turn into one long discussion about the Fab Four, now, right? (psst, you know they loved Hitler? And Lennon read a book on Marx? And boy was Marx sore!)
Tom Waits.
I get Tom Waits. A few things that he’s done, I liked. But on the whole…I can’t get in to Tom Waits.
It makes me feel very … stupid.
I’ve tried numerous times over the years to get into these artists, but failed to grasp the greatness beyond a handful of songs:
Bob Dylan
The Grateful Dead
Janis Joplin
The Allman Brothers Band
Lynyrd Skynyrd
J. Geils Band
Jefferson Airplane
Santana
Genesis
Journey
REO Speedwagon
Van Hagar
Black Sabbath
Ozzy
The Sex Pistols
…I could go on, but I’ll quit there. All of those people are very famous and well-regarded by lots of folks, but I’m not getting it, or hearing it.
Oddly enough, the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title, before even reading it, was that while I love Neko Case’s solo efforts, and generally love power pop unconditionally, I simply can’t get into the first New Pornographers release. I keep putting into the middle of the pack in the 6-disc changer in the car and trying it at different times in different moods, but it just hasn’t grabbed me. I don’t dislike it, but I’ve reached the conclusion that it’s just something I’m not going to get. The reviews I’ve read of the two newer releases make them sound appealing (as did the reviews of the first one), but I haven’t been sufficiently inspired to try out either of them.
When I was about 8 years old my cousin introduced me to his KISS albums/posters. They sure looked cool. Monster make-up, pyrotechnics, coooool!
Then he played me some of they’re music.
Even at 8 years old I guess I was expecting something… heavier?
The music just sounded way too wussy for a band that looked that cool.