Re: Bands I Loathe
 

And I thought that BOC stood for British Oxygen Company. :D

That article in the dentist's waiting room must have made a big impression on you to remember it 20 years later.

This is an especially lovesome artefact:


Note the good taste embodied in the juxtoposition of the cover picture and the title Look at the Hits on That!! The picture on the discs themselves embodies similar, but even more exquisite, taste. :rolleyes:

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I agree about Celine Dion except...

...well, she may make sufficient noise for several people, but there's only one of her (thank goodness!) so she's strictly speaking not a band.

On the thought of multiple Celine Dions... :eek:

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

To the bins with the diva clones!

"The sun was going down in a pumpkin-colored glaze when I arrived at the little one-story library. Some costumed kids were hanging around outside: a werewolf, a black cat with a long curling tail, and what looked like an Elvis Presley, or at least some teen idol of a bygone age. And coming up the walk were two identical Tinkerbells, who I later found out were Tracy and Trina Martin. I had forgotten about twins. So much for the comforting notion that there's only one of everybody."

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

oh, I think I never noticed this thread before...so, stricltly speaking, they're not a band, but being Italy's modern bubonic plague spreading everywhere, i'd add Eros Ramazzotti and Laura Pausini (I'm even scared to write it)......:eek:

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I have what is perhaps the great good fortune never to have heard of (let alone heard) either Eros Ramazzotti or Laura Pausin.

I won't be cruel enough to ask how they sound.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

This thread is pretty funny and informative. Thanks for the warning on some of these groups. I'm glad that Led Zepplin and the Grateful Dead were included. They're good musicians but they were and are so pretentious. Who wants to hear "Sugar Magnolia" for two hours straight? The Led and the Dead are right up there near the pinacle of pretentiousness.
However, the worst and most pretentious band that I ever heard was Bauhaus. I mean, Bauhaus for God's sake! They couldn't play either. In my third week of playing the guitar I could play better than their guitarist, and I wasn't playing very well myself. Trite lyrics, mediocre music, trendy clothes and hair, stupid cheorography and lots of lighting gimmicks. No talent and all pretense. In a strange way I actually enjoyed small doses of them, but not for the reasons that the band would appreciate.
"Bela Lugosi's Dead" had a certain minimalist kick to it, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if they hadn't been taking themselves so seriously.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Ouch this one hurts. I mention Celine Dion and you say somebody like Bauhaus who are one of my favorite bands. All the pretense comes from the glitter influences like Bowie and T-Rex, and Iggy. When you say that they can't play that to is part of the punk influence. They got better over time. When I saw them in 98 for Ressurection tour I was mesmerized. I always thought that Bauhaus was unique and that they were gifted musicians imo. I am always blown away by the Ash's guitar solo at the end of "Terror Couple Kill Colonel" as wel as "In Fear of Fear." Honestly, I don't think that they did take themselves so seriously. It was perception from the press like NME or Melody Maker. Bauhaus themselves even referred to whenever they played "Bela" as an encore as it is time play the Drunken Irishman, in reference to Stoker. The boys of Northhampton also only used stark white lights for their show. I don't know if that is too gimmicky. But, then again some of my other favorite bands are Skinny Puppy, the Cure, Cabaret Voltaire, the Sisters of Mercy, and Portion Control.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I will. How do they...? I could hazard a guess.

To those who despise Boards of Canada, I'll agree to disagree. As far as modern electronica goes, they're alright, if not anything truly exceptional.

However, 95% of all techno and Goa trance makes me cringe.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Silverchair had one really good song..Shade.. but otherwise agree with their disposal. I guess it brings up the question. Do you toss off an entire band's opus, without looking a bit more deeply? Can one song save them?

Can one song save you? From unimportance? (smile).

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I despise the (pop)ular interpretations of metal, especially the American variety, hey, you can't be patriotic about everything. This is especially so because when metal bands are talented like say Opeth was in their earlier days circa My Arms Your Hearse, they basically serve as the natural continuation of what classical orchestral or opera music was 'back in the day' so to speak. That is they don't rely on that dreary pop music formula of - verse/verse/chorus/verse/chorus, rather they approach songs as a series of progressing interrelated yet distinct movements, which no matter how sharp the transitions may be, are usually unified by some pervasive note or theme. That, and I love long songs. Come to think of it I also love it when when thrashy-type bands like Pig Destroyer and Naked City have albums with like forty wild and fast, but very short songs that blend seamlessly for kind of a convulsive stream-of-consciousness from hell.

Really I just can't stand the mentioned pop music formula, it worked alright with older artists who were active in those crazy days where you actually had to be able to play an instrument competently in order to create music, but as of late it has been beaten to death. I've actually seen quite a few bands I really like for one reason or another listed here (Spotbowserfido), I am just glad no one has listed The Doors yet, though that probably just gave someone the incentive to, and Odalisque - have you heard their live stuff, how can you hate Zepplin?

Anyway, allow me to contribute;

- Kenny Chesney
- Gretchen Wilson
- Kenny G
- Almost 'any' so-called punk that has come out in the last decade
- Poison
- Cradle of Filth (go away, and let's not forget. . . )
- Dimmu Borgir (how gigantic is your inverted cross necklace?)
- Disturbed
- Nickleback
- Pat Benetar
- Skid Row (No, you're not Sebastian Bach)
- Garth Brooks (take the beanie off you old man)
- Whatever long haired Greek guy who was on American Idol who everyone thinks I look like.
- Whatever is playing in a lobby of any kind.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Thank you! I suspect that you somehow got your mitts on a bootleg copy of Howling in Helsinki which was recorded during the Spotbowserfido World Tour tour fiasco some time back. Some great material was recorded in Amsterdam and Antwerp, too. As for The Doors, they are a favorite band.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

As Oscar Wilde said, I can resist everything except temptation. The Doors? Damn, I can't quite name them as a band I loathe because they had too many songs that I really like. "The Crystal Ship," "Soul Kitchen," "Riders on the Storm," "Love Me Two Times." Good stuff. I could listen to any of those songs now for the 1,000th time with pleasure. So I'll have to narrow this down a bit and say I loathe Jim Morrison. The late, great rock critic Lester Bangs called Morrison "Bozo Dionysius," which is hilariously and precisely on the mark.

I was a big Jim Morrison fan when I was 16 or 17, but two things happened: I read No One Here Gets Out Alive, and I listened to An American Prayer. No One Here Gets Out Alive is a worshipful biography of Morrison that unintentionally reveals that he was far from the poetic genius he considered himself to be (the excerpts of his "poetry" are ridiculous); that he liked to be cruel to people just for kicks; that despite his pretensions he preferred drugs, booze, and celebrity to being any kind of artist; and that his increasing loathsomeness as a human being was increasingly affecting his music. Of course, none of this is unusual among rock stars, but Morrison took it to a repugnant level reminiscent of, say, Elvis Presley late in his life. I listened to An American Prayer twice. I can't explain why I listened to it the second time. This album contains pompous recitations of Morrison's mediocre poetry (such masterpieces as his lament for his cock) and way too much of Ray Manzarek's tinkly keyboards. 'Nuff said.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Except that Opeth has really become a parody of what they once were. Their last two albums I haven't even bothered with.

Also, have you looked much into the American metal scene beyond Mastodon and whatever nonsense graces the pages of Kerrang and those other junk metal magazines? The whole Pacific Northwestern region is producing some outstanding black metal acts (Agalloch, Wolves in the Throne Room to name a couple), and the east coast has one of the most highly regarded doom scenes in the world right now.

but I'll definitely agree with you on Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir...I forgot Cradle of Filth was even making albums still. Are they?

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Precisely, My Arms . . . and Blackwater Park were my favorite of their albums, but all that was released after Damnation were plagued by things like the changes in line-up, over-production, love of their own esoteric image and what-have-you.

Indeed I do know of and love Agalloch, in particular the Mantle, though that seems to be everyone's favorite of theirs.

When it comes to black metal my tastes are somewhat random, as they tend to be with most things. I really like the rough-around-the-edges folkish type material, like Opera IX's output back when Cadaveria was their singer like Sacro Culto and Black Opera, I am very partial to the incredibly harsh, dirty noiseyet technical- like various albums from Mayhem (De Mysteriis. . ., Mediolanum. . ., Ordo Ad Chao) and Khlyst's Chaos is my Name, but what I usually love most are those very unorthodox BM bands that really say to hell with conventional structure, such as Shining, Leviathan (preferrably his later releases) Deathspell Omega, and the like.

No, I cannot understand what everyone finds so impressive about Mastadon at all. As far as I am concerned they are merely ripping off the styles of two more talented bands whose output has long been waning lower and lower, as Opeth's has, Tool and Meshugga, and then unsuccessfully attempting to marry the styles.

I think almost everyone just likes to drop names to an extent, and a lot of these metalheads who can't drag their love out of the closet want a gawdy and pretentious band to showcase how metal is high art as well, which is in and of itself is about the farthest thing from what one could call high art or whatever. I think most of the bands I've mention are in some way or occasionally, in all ways more talented than Mastadon, but they're simply not going to be accepted by most crowds for being as talented as they are because most people say they want something 'challenging' or 'intense' in a pretentious way without understanding what those word mean, or rather can mean. I am fine with that. Hellhammer is literally, a HELL of a drummer, but most don't want something that truely qualifies as heavy.

I've no idea if Cradle of Crap or Dimmu Booger (I am sorry, childish, but it was there) are still recording but I see a lot of skater kids, the type of people I was often with in college, wearing their shirts, which is kind of sad since I knew who both bands were when I was in seventh grade! If one says they like metal, people think you either like the mentioned names, or the meathead bull#### like . . . . I don't even want to grant them acknowledgement, but I am sure you've an idea who I might be talking about.

Another band I could add to the loathe list is -Nile-, since they embody this silly trend in parts of the whole little scene, again worried about the outside world making fun of them for liking something it doesn't like, instead of just enjoying their passion.

The trend being that a band is extremely talented, but they dedicate this vast talent to showcasing their vast talent by weighing down each line with a ridiculously overloaded polyrythm of notes on differing extremes of every imaginable scale until the songs become lost in their own complexity. Gorguts did that on Obscura, which a lot of others seemed to like but drove me nuts.

Yes, you are talented, but you don't have to go to such lengths to prove you are talented. This is too often the case with death metal.

Albums like Sol Niger Within by Frederick Thordenthal's Special Defects, Grand Guignol by Naked City, and very few others make very effective use of some of the measures exploited by the former, and they have that imaginative insight that allows them to weave in those dynamics and flexibility into the chaos to keep it from getting over-cluttered by itself the way Nile does, that is, in my opinion. Obviously they're still better that what is fairly well-known.

Are Ahab, Ghost, and Swallow the Sun part of the Northeast Doom scene you were talking about? I am even more picky with Doom but I do like much of it very much as well.

My apologies everyone who may have read this by mistake. I should have preceded this response with the message - to be read by unknown, since many of you probably don't have a clue what we're talking about.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

haha. nice

the New England Doom Scene consists of bands like Revelation, Hour of 13, Pale Divine, Orodruin and bands of that nature...real doom metal bands very much in the old school way.

I really couldn't agree with you more on pretty much every point. I'm too tired to write a point by point analysis. but on the metal board I co-moderate, somebody had posted a message by Averse Sefira talking about how awesome it was that all the metal gods were coming back and death to posers and all this other nonsense, and all I could really think to myself is, "Really? Averse Sefira? I mean yeah they're decent but they haven't been around for more than 13 or 14 years." And we proceeded into this huge debate about the pretentiousness and over-righteousness of metal, black metal in particular. It was a mess. I think that had to do with your name dropping and taking things too seriously points.

I agree with you on Nile. I really could care less about them. There isn't really a whole lot in the modern death metal scene that amazes me, and what's even funnier is that old school death metal and its ascetics are coming back into fashion (Teitanblood, Archgoat, etc...), which to me only means that many bands are eschewing taking a risk on originality and instead playing it safe, but playing safely very well. This is why I haven't really been following the death metal scene these past few years. Instead, I'm actually just checking out demos from death metal bands that were around in the 80s and early 90s whose style is being copied. Bands like Negura Bunget, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord, and many many others are furthering the sounds of black metal while many of the elitists are clinging to the old traditions. I don't know. I've had a bit to drink tonight. If you'd like, the metal board I co-moderate is here if you want to check it out: General Metal Discussion - Ultimate Metal Forum

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

On BBC 4 tonight, there are several programmes about prog rock. :eek: My housemate intends to watch them. If I'm in the living room while they're on, they should give me plenty of fuel for posting to this thread.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Another good thread I discovered way too late. Anyhow, while I agree with many of the bands mentioned I need to add Weezer. *shudder*

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Weezer, another band I don't know at all. Maybe I'm lucky not to know them.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I don't think anyone has mentioned Nickelback yet. If it is trendy to cast hate and derision upon them, then for once I am trendy.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

This is going to date me like an expired carton of milk, and probably temporarily damage my psyche, not to mention making kittens cry and toddlers #### their Huggies, but what the ehll, anything for a few kicks and grins, eh 'govner? Here goes... John Cougar Mellencamp, Heuy Lewis and the News, Madonna <gulmp>, Cher, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince <I can do this....Tsathoggua help me!....Can do...Can do!!!>, Barbara Striesand, Falco <whine...>, He-of-the-Sequined-Glove-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that is to say, He-Who-Walks-Yet-Does-Not-Walk-And-Floats-Instead, aka The Dick-Grabbing-"He Heeeee"-er.

They say the most foul of these hath perished from this world, but I do not believe it is true. J.P.B. was wrong to say evil always ends. For some evils are so vile, so utterly heinous, so egregious in the fathomless depths of their through-and-through rotted squamous corruption of sheer reeking villainy, that they cannot ever be completely destroyed... until the last nauseous memory of them has been scrubbed from the minds of, er, everybody - preferably with Brillo pads steeped in a holy tincture distilled from the blood of Angus Young and a bucket of sweat from Jimmy Page (actually not that difficult to acquire, there is still at least a couple inches stagnating around the stage where Led Zep -={{{ Hail! All bow at the mention of the Masters of all Music! |m| *...* |m| All non-believers must die! Thus you are now subconciously programmed by the hypnogeist. i.e. you have no will of your own! Hail! }}}=- last performed (the faithful know where =8-P ).

Made it, whew! Knew I would, though ( 'cause I'm the best there is, baby... :cool: Just to prove what a badass I am, I'll even go one further. Ready? Watch me...: Mmmm... Mm..uh. Mm..uh, Mmmuh...orris, Mmmmmuhhh..horrisss...eeeeeeeeek! No!! This is so wrong! You people don't know what you're doing! Do not call up that witch ye canst put down <or something to that effect, I forget>!

Wait!.... You hear that....
<__<
>__>
<_>

It was only an owl, yeah? It couldn't be... AAAaaiiieee!!! The Sequined Glove!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

<Another one bites the dust>

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

When visiting my parents' with the purpose of writing a paper on Ligotti and the company as disease metaphor in corporate horror, I found myself in a situation more horrific than anything Ligotti could have thought out. I found out that I actually liked The Eagles very much. I should have seen it coming: Over the past five years, I have started LOVING CCR, ZZ Top, and such, but I had always thought I should come away free of The Eagles. But now, I seriously think "Hotel California" a brilliant song and album.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Look here, ya'll better quit dissen on Black Sabbath's "Mob Rules" and "Heaven & Hell" albums. Tie your punk asses up, make you wear 3-terabyte iPods filled only with ABBA's "Dancing Queen" and assorted songs from The B52s until smoke boils out the top of yer heads like that dude from "Latchkey's Lament". See if I don't <grumble, grouse...>

No, seriously, I can empathise with those who don't like these BS albums (wait a minute, that doesn't sound right. fuggit, you know what I mean.) because of their lyrics. Dio's melodramatic howls and growls only serve to intensify the high humor of his lyrics, granted, but the bass and drums are decent, and Iommi's guitar is superb; some of best heavy metal riffs and solos ever produced. The sophistication and polished style Iommi displays in H&H and MR far outstrip what he did previously, making his earlier work (which, although it has a certain nostalgic appeal, by and large does not otherwise particularly appeal to me except for sporadic spots here and there) seem crude and sophomoric by comparison. Can't speak for any album more recent than MR, haven't kept up. One more BS observation: Although I detest Dio's lyrics, just as I detest 99% of all song lyrics (Music allows for infinitely greater imaginative scope and cognitive interaction on the part of the listener when lyrics aren't continually telling you what thoughts you should be having while hearing the instrumental music. They are obnoxiously restrictive, like a kind of Mayan skull binding for the imagination. At least, that is how they are for me.), his vocal ability easily surpasses Ozzy's nasal whinings. Still, would have been more palatable if Dio had sung in a language other than English (the only one I know). Better yet, too bad they weren't left out entirely.

Regarding Led Zeppelin: Seems like in recent years it has become fashionable to try and tear down LZ, pigeonhole them as pretentious hacks because they stole material from other artists. Did LZ steal material? Yeah, they did. Upwards of ten songs, including some of their most famous (Stairway, Dazed and Confused, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, et al) contain either lyrics or guitar that were clearly taken from other artists. LZ failed to credit the original artists in these cases and had the crass temerity to explicitly credit the songs to themselves. There can be no doubt LZ's image and respectability is marred by these digressions from honor and creative originality. Whatever monetary losses LZ has been, or will be, hit with resulting from lawsuits filed by artists who have been victims of LZ's plagarism are well deserved.

So that's it then, end of story. LZ can be safely dismissed as pretentious, plagarising hacks with no talent, right? Not by a long shot. At least not by anyone who strives for honesty in their musical appraisals and judgements.

First off, even in the songs containing the worst plagarism, i.e. where the ripped material is completely obvious and lasts for more than a few seconds, there is always also a substantial amount of original material invented solely by LZ - no song of LZ's is a 100% rip off from start to finish. Except for 2 songs that I know of, none of the stolen material is anywhere close percentagewise to the original material in any given song.

For example, the intro motif on acoustic guitar on "Stairway to Heaven" was stolen from the song "Spirit" by Taurus (contrary to what you might hear, it is not a note-for-note rip, but close enough). But what about the rest of the song? Is Page's electric guitar solo on STH stolen? No, it is 100% original. In fact, of all Page's heavy rock guitar solos; of which there were many, 15 songs at least, I'd guess; I've never heard of one being suspect - Page's heavier hard rock solos are 100% original. What about the rest of STH, aside from the intro motif rip and Page's original solo? That's right, it's all LZ. LZ's rips, except for a few songs (like "Dazed and Confused" and "Black Mountain Side". holy crow, they mined the hell out of those two!), were almost never note-for-note thefts to any great degree, they were brilliant covers that sounded way better to my ears than the originals. The real stinker of the matter was they rarely gave credit to their inspirational sources. Should the thefts be excused because they manifested in songs that were better than the originals? Not at all. The higher quality is relavant, however, in disproving the shallow opinion that LZ had no ingenuity. More proof of their inventiveness to follow below.

Actually, now that I think of it, all of LZ's uncredited covers are not better sounding than the originals. Mostly on their first album, they covered a bunch of blues classics by such legendary bluesmen as Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf. In these songs the thefts are largely in the area of lyrics. Page's guitar sound and composition is very different from the source blues guitar, though still clearly inspired in many instances by the blues masters. The sound is so different that they cannot be classified in the same musical category - one is classic blues, the other rock. If you like both of these types of music then it is noncupatory to try and compare songs from the two categories for relative quality because the sound and attitude is so different. Which leads to one of LZ's greatest acheivements: More than any other band, LZ laid the groundwork for the sound of modern hard rock, heavy metal, and their many offspring, with their use of distortion, hard rock/heavy metal riffs (most 100% original), and high energy solos (again, by far mostly original material).

Additionally, it is worth noting LZ's "Achilles Last Stand" (100% original) is widely acknowledged as the seminal progenitor of the long-form rock/metal ballad. Every hard rock and metal band (death metal, speed metal, heavy metal, etc.) owes a huge debt to LZ for their pioneering creativity in the field of hard rock. I'll end this endless LZ justificatory monologue by stating I can't stand LZ's lyrics; original or stolen, the music would have been much better without them.

Spotbowserfido2: Good to hear you enjoyed Reznor's voiceless work from the Ghosts album. The dark ambient soundtrack to the video game Quake 1 was also by him, little known outside the gaming community. Very highly recommended.

Waffles: Got around to giving The Velvet Underground a listen. I can see Lou Reed had talent, that he was an original from early on. No doubt VU has influenced a lot of bands. Unfortunately for me, VU's music relies more on lyrics than it does on instrumental virtuosity. Not my style. Thanks anyway for the recommendation. By the by, haven't noticed your presence in the arcade for a while now. Dude, you gotta drop by more often, put up some competition. It's getting as dead in there as Ligotti's faith in anything meaningful in this world <rim shot>. <Gasp... The sacriledge!> C'mon, I kid Ligotti! I know he's the best horror writer alive. Just wish he would get off the non-fiction kick and start writing more of that stellar fiction. Like my music views, that's just me though. Don't expect anyone else to buy into it ;)

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I agree with you about lyrics vs instrumental virtuosity. Most of the bands I listen to, I listen for the players and not the singers (e.g. I love 1960s honky tonk because of virtuosic guitar playing and the pedal steels). Ever since the Off the Radar Metal thread came to life, I've been digging lots of black/death metal - mostly for the instrumental insanity (I can't believe 1349's drummer is not a drum machine).

Thanks for giving the Velvet Underground a shot. I like VU for their instrumentation - John Cale created some terrific atmospheres with his viola.

BTW, here's an old article on Lou Reed's undeserved status as a literary icon - enjoy

Birdbrained | TRG | Chicago Reader

I haven't had time to go on the game board - don't worry, I'll show up kick your @$$ at something.

Cheers!

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I don't understand all of that but Black Sabbath are a band I loath. (And I once had the misfortune to hear them live.) I have Abba's "Dancing Queen" and a number of B-52's track on my ipod.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I've been a big fan of Led Zeppelin ever since I was in high school. But I'd rather listen to Abba than Black Sabbath any day.

Brian Eno has interesting things to say about Abba:

"In the 70s, no one would admit that they liked Abba. Now it's fine. It's so kitsch. Kitsch is an excuse to defend the fact that they feel a common emotion. If it is kitsch. you put a sort of frame around something – to suggest you are being ironic. Actually, you aren't. You are really enjoying it. I like Abba. I did then and I didn't admit it. The snobbery of the time wouldn't allow it. I did admit it when I heard 'Fernando'; I could not bear to keep the secret to myself anymore and also because I think there is a difference between Swedish sentimentality and LA sentimentality because the Swedish are so restrained emotionally. When they get sentimental it's rather sweet and charming. What we really got me with "Fernando" was what the lower singer was doing, I don't know her name. I spent months trying to learn that. It's so obscure what she's doing and very hard to sing. And then from being a sceptic I went over the top in the other direction. I really fell for them." (From this interview.)

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

waffles: Cool to hear you also primarily enjoy music for the instruments. Perhaps one day no voices will infect the airwaves, and the minds of all who hear will be aswarm with reveries of strange, individualistic, phantasmagoric imagining - as opposed to the mundane, herd-oriented, trite images common to most lyrics.

Haven't had the time for the 'ol arcade lately, eh? Glad you let me know that. Was beginning to think maybe I'd scared you away. Be looking forward to seeing what you can bring my friend. When you find the time, of course ;)

Odalisque: That was my lame attempt at using humor as a vehicle to facilitate defense of two Black Sabbath albums I like. The jab was intended for my friends Spotbowserfido2 and waffles, who had already mentioned their revulsion for post-4th-album BS, and whom I felt confident would not take umbrage at the disparaging references to ABBA and The B52s. It did not occur to me that I might be belittling bands favored by someone here at TLO, since those bands were so exceedingly cheerful, positive, and mainstream. Just goes to show my lack of intuition in fathoming the eclectic scope of tastes among TLO's members. My apologies, sir. Let me know if there is something you yet do not understand about my post, and have a great evening :)

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

On the subject of Black Sabbath:

Every so often, the world in general and the countries of the Pacific Ocean in particular are ravaged by the effects of that periodic weather system, the dreaded El Nino. Associated with floods, droughts, and other disaster-level weather events, El Nino can cause carnage and suffering to large numbers of people.

The redoubtable Henry Rollins has suggested that the name El Nino - Spanish for "the boy" - seems insufficient for an event of such devastation and carnage. He has suggested renaming it The First Four Black Sabbath Albums, and that does not sound like a bad idea to me.

I myself am not really a fan of post-Osbourne Sabbath, but those early recordings still resonate with delicious dread, anxiety, and bombastic power. "Symptom of the Universe" still gives me goosebumps whenever I hear it.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Oh, I see... :o

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Not only do I enjoy some cheerful music, but Charles Penrose's classic "The Laughing Policeman" (1926) is amongst the 2,173 songs on my ipod. A recording artist growing more cheerful than "The Laughing Policeman" would probably die from the cheeriness overdose.

As to Black Sabbath... Around 1970, I was living in Lancaster. Every week the local university put on a band. Every week I'd go to see whoever they provided. One week, it was Deep Purple, and I didn't enjoy the gig at all. My dislike for the evening was more for the unpleasant pervading atmosphere than for the music, although the latter was certainly not enjoyable. Next week it was Black Sabbath, who were much worse. The unpleasant atmosphere of the previous (Deep Purple) performance spilt out into violence. I wasn't personally caught up in the mayhem, but left feeling thoroughly shaken, and stopped going to see the bands at the university.

These days, in spite of a few exceptions on my ipod (such as Charles Penrose) I generally prefer female artists, or bands with female members. Not all of these represent sweetness and light -- Bikini Kill, for example is amongst the bands on my ipod. My feelings here are, at least partially, religious. Ideally, I'm listening for women who -- in the act of performance -- become avatars of the goddess. She may be a gentle or a savage goddess, or a combination of the two. And, returning to the B-52's, I think that Kate Pierson could sometimes become such an avatar.

And, on the subject of bands I loath, it's probably fair to say that I dislike the whole of testosterone-driven rock. It seems to me that the world is dying from testosterone poisoning.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Too many Boards of Canada mentions. Their last album was pants, admittedly, but they were the first electronic band I was ever heavily into, and Geogaddi is still one of my favourite albums.

And before Jhonn Balance died, Coil were going to do a collaboration with them due to "intense mutual appreciation", so they must have been doing something right.

Eh, I can't think of any, other than just the usuals. And Guns n' Roses.

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Ouch! Two bands that I like have been mentioned, Nine Inch Nails and Opeth. No biggie, though.

Although I do agree about Trent Reznor's angsty lyrics. I do like 90% of his music, but some of the lyrics are too much.

Bands that I dislike, well, there's plenty, but then again no time. Off the tip of my head, I can think of Guns and Roses and Smashing Pumpkins, two bands that I actually tried to like but couldn't for the life of me. G&R, for all practical reasons, is just a "tought" glam rock band, and SP, well, Billy Corgan's voice just slams me. It funny how somebody's voice can actually lower your opinion/expectations of a band.

Sonic Youth is another band I have never been able to get into, even though Blixa Bargeld, frontman of one of my favorite bands, Einstürzende Neubauten, cites them as a kind of influence.

All of these "nu-metal" from the mid/late 1990's, like "Korn"... god damn, how do I loathe them.

Pretty much most of the late 90's black metal such as Cradle of Filth, Dimu Borgir, et al. Say anything you want about the musical skills of early 90's black metal acts like Burzum and Darkthrone, they had a certain something that these other bands miss. Maybe the lack of interest in shocking for shock's sake(those guys were actually quite violent and disturbed) and no interest in big media outlets...?

But then there are the bands/musicians that I didn't like but as I grew up got to really like. A good example is Nick Cave. Back when I was younger I really couldn't get my head around him; I actually got to know about him and the Bad Seeds through the first X-Files soundtrack that was issued around 1993 or 1994, which included the song "Red Right Hand" (Now one of my favorite songs). Years latter I heard him again as guest vocalist in Current 93's "All the pretty little horses", and that's when I though that maybe I should check this guy out. I didn't like him right away, but right now he is one of my top favorite musicians. I am actually listening to the Birthday Party (his first, post-punk, band before the Bad Seeds) as I write this.

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I hate the band Seether. They are a fifth generation Nirvana. It's beyond offensive and almost hilarious.

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I don't dislike many bands or musical acts, but off the top of my head: Weezer I can't stand... Weird Al annoys me. Ditto for Barenaked Ladies. Cee Lo Green. Taylor Swift as well, though (I hate to say it) I kind of like her new single.

Karnos, I hear you on Smashing Pumpkins. When it comes to lead singers for bands, I can usually tell how much I like a singer by thinking, "How would they sound if you stripped all their music away and all that was left was their voice? Would it still sound good?" Imagine Smashing Pumpkins with all the music stripped away and nothing but Corgan's voice remaining. Yikes.

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Almost all so-called indie-bands of 21 century upper-middle-class rock lookalikes, 90% of all metal music in its all genres and sub-genres, hip-hop of course and basically everything before Never Mind the Bollocks. There you go.
One particular band ? maybe Muse, mostly because I used to like them for some reason. And yes, Pink Floyd - I F-hate them.

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I like quite a lot of these bands. I don't think there is any musician or band I hate, only specific songs I dislike.

I do hate radio shows that mostly play songs that are or once were hit singles, because overplaying music is a deadly torture and an abuse of the music. It's actually a blessing that these radio shows mostly play music I'm not really into because it would destroy it for me.
What makes it all the more horrible is that so many people have no choice in hearing the radio, whether it's at work, at the shops, on public transport or blasting from a neighbours house. It can make life far more unpleasant and deserves to be taken more seriously as a source of unhappiness.

Sorry to say that I really dislike threads like this. What made it worthwhile were the defenses. There's way too much dwelling unconstructively on things we dislike on the internet.

What is nice though is despite all the aggression and mocking on the internet, music tastes are more free, diverse and less prone to tribal boundaries than ever.
It's amazing to look even 10 years ago to see how much that has changed.
Also, there is more sense that people understand the differences in taste and that polarizing music is often the most powerful.

As for great bands named after places: Idaho, Earth and American Music Club.

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nil

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I do dislike the idea of songs being put on a playlist out of their context. That's in large part because so much of my favourite music is conceived as part of a sequence. Many tracks sound awkward in isolation because they were meant to blend into other tracks.

That whole "social event" element at live music? That definitely seems true at music festivals but I'm not sure the reverence for the bands have changed at regular concerts. It probably depends on the type of band.
I rarely go to concerts anymore because I tend to prioritise getting more albums. So maybe things have changed more than I know. The last few things I've seen were Melt Banana, HTRK and The Enid. I think that's all I've seen in the last 3 years!

You should probably know better than I about young people but I'm often impressed by young folks picking up music respectfully and exploring far and wide.
I'm 28 but I don't know if I'd qualify as part of the young generation. I remember the mocking, scathing era of magazine journalism very well and the open-minded attitude of online music maniacs was a breath of fresh air to me.
For all the legitimate concerns about where music is headed, I don't have much time for the idea that the main magazine and newspaper journalists were better gatekeepers, because for the most part they were very conservative and had to keep in mind the popularity of who they were writing about or the bias of the publication. Whereas the internet music nuts generally aren't restrained by commercial concerns and I feel more passion and adventurousness from them.

I don't know what to make of the idea of music no longer being a revolutionary force.
I've seen some arguments that people are jaded by political statements in any art/entertainment. People fully expect it in pop culture for decades and some think the sheer number of such signals has diminished the appeal it once had. Also the general political apathy of modern people.

Is it crazy to think that maybe pop stars have more political impact than some are willing to give them credit? Or maybe people are inspired to make subtle but meaningful changes that don't get recognised?
The number of openly transgender people online seems to have skyrocketed and maybe Lady Gaga had a part in that?

I understand the way people feel about Bono and the cynicism about his seeming messiah complex but I also think people don't want to believe that he really cares and don't want to think about how many lives might have been improved by his charity work. That perhaps Bono has done more good for people than loads of better sounding rigidly ethical bands with more revolutionary ideas.

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Oh, I'm sure that pop stars such as Lady Gaga have at least a small part to play with, say, younger people being more open about their sexual orientation at an earlier age these days. Of course, I'm a biased fan, so I'd probably be the wrong person to ask about that.

Last year I briefly befriended a 20 year old and I was surprised to see how much he knew about somewhat obscure British noise bands from the late 1970's/early 1980's. Of course, he got most of this from reading and listening online, and was amused that I had a CD collection, as he had almost no CDs himself, preferring to just use iTunes. Still, when a time came where he had to write an article about Coil, he still had to ask me if he could borrow the booklet that came with the CD for Horse Rotorvator.

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Alvin and the Chipmunks PISS ME OFF!!!





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