I don’t think any of that is necessary. You either connect to it or don’t. The first few times I heard it, I kind of passively listened and it just blended in the background. Then one day, I had an epiphany with the album, and it’s leapt to my favorite album of all time. The sounds, melodies, harmonies, rhythms, experimentation, lyrics, etc. on that album just tickles all the right things for me, and I found the album anything but “pablum,” but rather a heartfelt, earnest, joyful, sad, touching, heartbreaking, human record. And it deserves your full sonic attention, and should be played pretty loud to fully take in its sonic and emotional adventure.
FTR, I agree with you on Sgt. Pepper, finding all those other albums preferable to it.
I’m just dropping by to say that, man, I wish people still sang about cars and drag racing. I love me some “Shut Down” by the Beach Boys, and that’s nothing more than a lyrical description of a street race.
The one that fits the OP for me the most is Liz Phair, although she’s probably not as mainstream “world famous” as the other acts mentioned in this thread. It’s almost a cliche to mention her, but, really, no artist has been more disappointing to me as a listener. Exile On Guyville was one of the definitive albums of the 90s (and would be on my list of favorite albums of all time), and everything that followed slipped more and more into generic pop, so much so that the only album of hers I can listen through is that debut.
I do agree that the Doors were hit or miss. Some very great songs, plus a lot of undistinguished stuff (sometimes even in the same song – the best thing for their career was when the record company cut that awful organ solo from “Light My Fire.”)
It is hard to come up with any group that’s consistently great (other than the Beatles, and they were only around about five years). The only other act I can think of that was that way was Spirit, and they only did four albums (and reformed several times to lesser success).
I remember in 1980 “Circus” magazine commenting about how given the various things deadheads ingested, they weren’t aware what the band was doing. Garcia said no, deadheads are perceptive and quite often knew the band was having a bad night before the band did. Deadheads felt in a five night home stand they get one lousy show, two okay shows, one pretty good and one superlative show.
That’s funny, because also I think Sgt Pepper’s is way overblown, and those are also my four favorite Beatles albums. But I also LOVE Pet Sounds. It would be a really tough choice between Pet Sounds and Abbey Road. Then Rubber Soul is right behind them.
On the topic of Pet Sounds, I hadn’t really heard it until several years ago either, and found it hard to hear it with fresh ears and really appreciate it, having heard so much of it as radio singles when I dismissed it as inane surf music without really listening. OTOH, when Brian Wilson released SMILE, I bought it without having heard any of the earlier released versions of the material and found it to be a pretty great album, and my opinion of it has only improved since then. If I could somehow erase my earlier exposure to the songs on Pet Sounds and hear them now for the first time, I’m pretty sure they would blow me away, but I can’t, so I can’t really get into the album.
This thread seems to be about bands. Otherwise, given his genre shifting and commercial sensibilities, I think Rod Stewart is a poster boy for this thread.
Music is incredibly personal; I’m not sure how one person’s takeaway is right or wrong… its right for them. The rest is just statistics… and even then if they love a song 99% of the world hates, they can still play it loud in earbuds and laugh at everybody else.
Some Beach Boys music I like; it can bring up for me a happy memory and/or a good mood. But that’s just me. Maybe someone else was stuck on a stalled elevator for an hour with five people with bad B.O. while “Surfin’ Safari” was on repeat through an overhead speaker.
ie- not all music memories are good ones but some are. Go figure.
