Guilty displeasures

[Knotted]

Are there any bands you feel you should like but just don't? Do you feel you're missing out on something and just don't get it? I don't really have any guilty pleasures, but I have some real needling guilty displeasures.

I'm listening to MC5's High Time right now and it's doing everything I like - manic chaotic guitar driven but solid rock and roll songs. But I'm just not enjoying it, it sounds like a monotone racket to me. And it's not that I'm averse to that American hard rock/garage style - I like The Stooges and The Flaming Groovies and I've come round to the New York Dolls but ... just but.

I like Talking Heads hits Psycho Killer and Once in a Lifetime and Road to Nowhere. I can't get into their albums though.

I'm going through a 70's English folk phase, I like the Albion Band, Dando Shaft, Tudor Lodge, Pentangle, (early) Steeleye Span, Fresh Maggots, Anne Briggs. You know, all this twee nonsense - don't judge me! But for reasons I can't articulate, I just don't enjoy Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson or Sandy Denny who kickstarted all this. It's like they are too sophisticated and not twee enough for me. I feel like a right numbskull pixie, but that's the way it is.

I feel that there is something wrong with me, like I need a therapist or something. Have a go at talking me round on any of these or give me the good hard slap that I'm deserving. Because I know I'm wrong.

What's wrong with you? Or are guilty displeasures as silly as guilty pleasures?

 

[Petcha]

Led Zeppelin. And Kate Bush.

I can't abide either but all my friends love both.

 

[ska invita]

I feel that there is something wrong with me, like I need a therapist or something.

nothing wrong with that at all. the only time it becomes a problem is when people wear their dislike as a virtue

my current biggest dislike is ALL pop songs. In particular i hate the affected way people sing. I hate the X Factor style arrangements. Simon Cowell is literally the most influential person in 21st century pop music and it makes me tut furiously.

 

[A380]

EL fucking O . What’s the point? I just don’t get it.

 

[Knotted]

I'll admit to finding a lot of modern pop difficult. Taylor Swift is hard work for me. If I'm at the point where I'm having to listen carefully and think hard and concede certain things are well done then I'm really not getting it. It's Taylor Swift not Stockhausen. I happily lap up Billie Eilish's music though.

 

[maomao]

my current biggest dislike is ALL pop songs. In particular i hate the affected way people sing.

I hate the over affected vocals of modern pop music but when I listen to 90s music everyone is really whiny; I don't know how I ever liked some of it. But I struggle to find stuff I like and always have really.

My Bloody Valentine is the band I should like but never managed to get into. Also Spacemen 3. I'll find a track I like and then the next song's just a big pile of wank.

 

[killer b]

the only time it becomes a problem is when people wear their dislike as a virtue

What's this?

 

[ska invita]

I'll admit to finding a lot of modern pop difficult. Taylor Swift is hard work

its all horrible unpleasant difficult clock watching work
sing properly

I hate the over affected vocals of modern pop music but when I listen to 90s music everyone is really whiny; I don't know how I ever liked some of it.

Name names!

My Bloody Valentine is the band I should like but never managed to get into.

Loveless is amazing, i cant rate it more highly, but everything else of theres doesn't do it for me

Sometimes the trick to get into something is to play it a lot louder!! This could work with Loveless which is designed as an audio assault. The clever thing about it is it simultaneously works as quiet and wistful cocteau-twin like folk-whipsering

 

[ska invita]

What's this?

its when people are proud of not liking something and think by announcing it it sends signals out about their superior taste

 

[killer b]

Fwiw, there's absolutely shitloads of seminal work that's never really gelled with me. Sometimes I'll try it every now and then, but mostly I can't even be arsed doing that. Either way there's nothing to feel any guilt about. There's always more music than you'll ever be able to listen to.

With loads of bands I'm also very happy to just listen to one of their albums, and feel no need to look any further, even if I really like the one album...

 

[danny la rouge]

It’s fine to like or dislike whatever you like or dislike. It’s just taste.

I have always disliked heavy autotune. It sets my teeth on edge. I would like that fashion to end.

 

[danny la rouge]

Oh right, seminal bands I can’t get into. Loads. I couldn’t begin to list them.

 

[Sweet FA]

I'll admit to finding a lot of modern pop difficult. Taylor Swift is hard work for me. If I'm at the point where I'm having to listen carefully and think hard and concede certain things are well done then I'm really not getting it. It's Taylor Swift not Stockhausen. I happily lap up Billie Eilish's music though.

Have you heard folklore - Taylor Swift's most recent? Made with that bloke out of the National. I like TS anyway but it's slightly different to pop Tay-Tay.





Miss Americana, the doc about her on Netflix is excellent by the way.

 

[Knotted]

Disliking heavy autotune and/or overly affecting vocals are an age thing I think. But yeah me too on both of those.

Is it all fine and all just taste though? Taste isn't a static given and you work at it.

 

[killer b]

its when people are proud of not liking something and think by announcing it it sends signals out about their superior taste

I feel like this kind of thing is what a lot of people think when someone simply expresses (sometimes forcefully) a dislike for a band they like.

Over on twitter today, a lot of people in my orbit are upset about 'edgelords' shitting on Daft Punk, as if it's not actually possible to dislike Daft Punk, or bad taste to say you don't like them now, when their fans are grieving or something.

I'm having to bite my tongue cause I don't tend to get stuck in over there, so I'm going to take it out on you instead. I think having strident - and sometimes uninformed - opinions about music is great and it helps give colour and life to music discourse, especially when most journalism on the topic has become so relentlessly positive only.

 

[danny la rouge]

Disliking heavy autotune and/or overly affecting vocals are an age thing I think. But yeah me too on both of those.

Is it all fine and all just taste though? Taste isn't a static given and you work at it.

Taste isn’t static. But it’s still taste.

 

[Idaho]

Van Morrison. It's all pleasant enough, but really just ok, middle of the road stuff. No idea why he attracts such reverence.

 

[Petcha]

Have you heard folklore - Taylor Swift's most recent? Made with that bloke out of the National. I like TS anyway but it's slightly different to pop Tay-Tay.





Miss Americana, the doc about her on Netflix is excellent by the way.

I like that. It's recognisably a National song. Her only input would appear to be the vocal.

 

[killer b]

I've been working on autotune lately - seeing as it doesn't seem to be going away - and don't hate it as much as I did.

 

[Lucy Fur]

Wire, a band cited as influential by loads of bands I love, but I just can't get into it. Even went to see them live in the hope that might tip the balance. It didn't. Same goes for Suicide.

 

[Knotted]

Have you heard folklore - Taylor Swift's most recent? Made with that bloke out of the National. I like TS anyway but it's slightly different to pop Tay-Tay.





Miss Americana, the doc about her on Netflix is excellent by the way.

Yeah, it was mainly Folklore that I was thinking of. I'm not saying it's bad or anything. Tell you what, I will give it another go.

 

[ska invita]

Tell you what, I will give it another go.

working from home

 

[killer b]

I love Taylor Swift's pop stuff, but haven't found much to enjoy about her new serious direction

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Loveless is amazing, i cant rate it more highly, but everything else of theres doesn't do it for me

Opposite here. Hated loveless bar two passable tracks, loved isn't anything and pretty much all that went before, even the deep voice David Conway stuff.
Same perhaps with spacemen 3. Much prefer the sound of confusion period to the later dreamy relaxing shit (bar big city and hypnotized).

 

[ska invita]

Disliking heavy autotune and/or overly affecting vocals are an age thing I think. But yeah me too on both of those.

it was st lucian independence day yesterday - caught a really fun all st lucian soca set on the radio - this tune really stood out to me - got some good restrained use of autotone on it (kicks in more the longer the tune goes on) - suits the tune and the singers accent/voice i think

autotune should be a fun effect i think

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

In the garage punk scene it's probably ok to say I don't like the sex pistols or the clash etc, but while I respect their style and inspiration, I don't think I like anything by the cramps. I kind of feel this is something I'm not supposed to mention out loud.

 

[mod]

Van Morrison. It's all pleasant enough, but really just ok, middle of the road stuff. No idea why he attracts such reverence.

You ought to see him live and that might change your mind.

 

[Saunders]

Johnny Cash and Tom Waits.

 

[Knotted]

I love Taylor Swift's pop stuff, but haven't found much to enjoy about her new serious direction

I might be better off with her more poppy songs. What are her big hits?

 

[killer b]

I've only ever found a couple of Nurse With Wound tracks enjoyable, most of it is dull as fuck. I enjoy post rock bands live, but have never listened to any of the albums more than once, and most of them not even that.

Tom Waits is a good shout - I enjoyed swordfishtrombones the one time I listened to it, but I've never been moved to put it on again. Everything else I've heard by him leaves me cold.