Another vote for Zappa. My brother is a big big fan and I understand where he fits in music history. I even did a paper on the PMRC fights in 9th grade, and included his testimony.
But I’ve never listened to a Zappa song and thought “this is a song I like” and especially not “this is a song I will like for the next 10 minutes.”
Several mentioned Prince and I have to agree. His best songs were catchy but they were decades before his death. He put out dance music that felt like a waste of his talents. If he chose to he could have been a rock god. As it is I think that most people say he was great without ever buying anything after Purple Rain.
He’s practically a Legend, at this point. RiP But I never really got there with them, i just think it’s tooo stank emporium. All americana biff.
I don’t much care for Tom Petty.
I do, however, like the Traveling Willburys.
Diana Krall has often been mentioned to me with the expectation that I was gonna like it. She is precise without being crunchy in a mechanical sense. Hits her notes well. Plays a damn good piano. To me, it’s all a very calculated cold performance. To me, there’s no passion in it, be that passion misery, ardor, hope, hate, fear, connection, loneliness, or whatever. It’s just performance within a genre, like an A student who hasn’t questioned the curriculum, “I did what you asked me to do. How’d I do?”
my dad saw Santana and Hendrix on a double bill at one of the fillmores in SF (for 12 bucks ) while he had a weekend pass from fort ord …and he said it was excellent if you didn’t mind a pretty much a 4-hour guitar solo Although Santana did break out an acoustic Spanish guitar for a nice 20-minute set
I’ll be the umpeenth person to mention Rush. I have the “Chronicles” set, but I rarely listen to it and I don’t feel the need to ever own one of their actual albums.
On the pop front, I’d cite Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga as examples. I think both of them are enormously talented: Timberlake is an old-style multi-threat song-and-dance guy, and also can be a fantastic actor (he’s shockingly good in The Social Network). But I can’t stand a single track of his that I’ve heard. There’s no music in his music, as they say. As for Lady Gaga, terrific voice, great stage/screen presence, good songwriter…but most of her music gives me a headache.
Basically, if those two worked in different genres, I might be a big fan of them both. But they’ve chosen to work in overproduced boy-band-adjacent synthetic pop and thudding Eurodisco, respectively, and I just can’t be made to care. Not a knock on their talents, they just use those talents in horrible genres.
The legendary female vocalists like Adele, Celene Dion, Whitney Houston, etc.
No doubt they are talented vocal powerhouses, but I’m just not into listening to long emo ballads that find their way to adult contemporary easy listening radio stations. They might sound good over the closing credits of a summer blockbuster but you won’t find me cruising down the freeway blasting “Hello”.
Timberlake is a good one. I enjoy his acting and think his comedic senses are great. Can’t take a solid minute of his pop music. And, as you said, I can see the skill and talent in his music so it’s not like Eddie Murphy putting out an album, I just can’t deal with listening to it.
Whoa, time to get my eyes checked. Until the very end of your post I thought Hendrix was on a double bill with Sinatra.
mmm
You’ve never been to Peru, clearly.
Well, Kris has a terrible voice. However, I think it’s between he and Ani DiFranco as to who’s the greatest lyricist of the past sixty years. (I’d say Ani’s got the edge, for consistency; Kris has a couple of dull ones, like “Jody and the Kid”. But when he was on his game - “Casey’s Last Ride”, “Sunday Mornin’, Comin’ Down”, “The Pilgrim:
Chapter 33”; “Out Of Sight And Out Of Mind” - he is one of the great American poets.)
Which leads me into my choice for this list - Bob Dylan. Yes, I understand what a revolutionary he was, and what a towering figure in American folk music he is. And I’ll admit, I’m on familiar with a few of his songs, like “I Pity The Poor Immigrant”, “Blowin’ In The Wind”, and “Tangled Up And Blue.” But that’s because I just can’t stand to listen to him enough to hear more of his music (I only know “Blowin’ In The Wind” from Peter, Paul, and Mary, and “I Pity The Poor Immigrant” from Joan Baez). If I’m in the mood for some melancholy, introspective folky music sung by a man, I’ll turn on Kristofferson or Gordon Lightfoot.
Same thing with Neil Young. Recognize the talent, unmoved by the art.
Kanye West - Though I will accept and admit that BLKKK SKKKN HEAD slaps. Up there with Eye of the Tiger for opening running music choice. I have to make sure my honky middle aged self doesn’t sing along with the headphones on the treadmill at the YMCA at 8 in the morning.
Never been to Peru?
[whisper] Shhhh. It’s Alpaca. [/whisper]
When Lightfoot passed away a few weeks ago, my FB feed was filled with forlorn Canadian reminiscences. I had to bite my tongue, because I’ve never been able to stand him. To me, Lightfoot was the ultimate representative of utterly bland and passionless folk/pop music from late 60s Toronto.
Yesterday my son and I were working in the barn, and he was playing some music on Spotify. At one point he played a bunch of songs by Primus.
I mess around on the bass guitar, and it’s very obvious to me that Les Claypool is an incredibly skilled bassist. And the other band members are no slouches, either. But after four or five songs, I was sick of it. My son was, too. He mumbled something along the lines, “Ugh, I can only take so much of that,” and then played some Sonic Youth.
Agree with this! They are like Cavier. A little bit is fantastic, but a meal of it will make you sick.
Saw Primus in concert years ago. Somewhat repetitive, but I remember liking it. Haven’t thought about them in years.
I like both Sonic Youth and Primus quite a bit. But I’ll say that if i were to decide I was going to go off on a lengthy single-artist binge, SY is a far more likely candidate.
I’m with the OP. I absolutely loathe Rush. And it has nothing to do with their (inarguable) musical talent. It’s all down to how they’ve imposed upon my life.
You all know The Seven Deadly Rush Songs. Anyone who’s been alive for more than 30 years knows The Seven Deadly Rush Songs. List them with me:
…When I say that Rush has a lot of good music in their catalog, I’m talking about none of those songs. Those songs are tripe. If I were a member of Rush, I’d be ashamed that my creative output is distilled into that list of absolute dreck. The fact that record company marketing and popular opinion has anointed those particular selections as the “Rush hits” is an indictment of the entire human race.
Rush are the victims here, is what I’m saying. That being said, their crap music can fuck off, and I will still put my foot through a speaker before I’ll let it blast fucking “Closer to the Heart” at me ever again.
Never. Again!
Hehehe, I’m a Rush fan because I’m a rock bass player of a certain age. I could avoid being a Rush fan as much as I could avoid being a fan of Yes or Thin Lizzy. But I’m not the obsessive you describe. I’m certainly not the kind of person who thinks “Oh, you think you don’t like Rush, then you just need to listen to more Rush until you do!” Personally, that’s an attribute I associate with Phish fans.
Frankly, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve understood how silly a lot of Neil Peart’s lytrics are (and yeah, pretty much everyone else’s - Rock n’ Roll (and lyrics in general) isn’t about being smart), and I’ve learned that Geddy’s vocals are kinda off-putting (and yeah, I can recreate a great deal of them).
But in my defense, even with the bands (or even individual songs) I like I understand that the only real defense is “I like it”. I can come up with all kinds of theoretical bullshit about why I like this or don’t like that, but I’m retrospectively constructing that framework due to my preferences of “I like this” and “I don’t like that”
Oh, and those seven songs rock. Ok, maybe not “Lakeside Park”, I’d replace it with the Peart-less “Working Man”.