What was the last classic album you got and weren't knocked out by?

It's a pretty good album, it's not awesome. It's like "Tusk", it couldn't possibly live up to the hyperbole it receives on ILM and in other quarters, and that annoys people so much they dismiss out of hand.

lol that was an xpost to my MJ's Thriller post, sorry

Oh, ha ha. Now that album is awesome!

I keep giving Trout Mask Replica a chance, but every time I do I dislike it. I like a lot of noisy/experimental music, so I feel like this should be right up my alley. For whatever reason, it's not.

The Slits - Cut

― ilxor, Friday, January 9, 2009 7:52 AM (1 year ago)

A year and a half later I've come around v. nicely to this album, it's great!

Hotel California. Always loved the title track and wanted to hear the rest of the album to see if it matched up. Boy was I mistaken, what a load of crud.

wasted time is worth a listen just to hear were i believe i can fly comes from.

where

I hate the Eagles.

Here's my current addition to this thread (sorry, Gary):

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BR-l63C-2iA/R-ZYBRjA4GI/AAAAAAAAB2k/SDsMhTmIRJ4/s320/Gary+Numan+ThePleasurePrinciple1.jpg

I love "Hotel California" and "Take It To The Limit" but otherwise I'm with you on that one.

xp

You've gotta be kidding ilxor, TPP is a masterpiece.

Trans-Europe Express. I love Kraftwerk lots, but this is the opposite of Radioactivity in that all the songs are long and lumpen.

LOL, it's uncanny how we don't agree about anything.

Going back a bit now, but "What Goes On", always struck me as a bit prissy and pretentious.

Have you listened to Vs.? It's their masterpiece, and much more interesting than Signals, Calls and Marches. Probably my favorite album from that early 80's post-punk/art-rock era.

I would second that. Scott, iirc you're a Throwing Muses fan - have a listen to 'Mica' cos it's sort of a blueprint for their early stuff as far as my ears can tell.

its not to everyone's tastes, but i'd argue the album hardly celebrates misogyny, and is focused instead upon dissecting/presenting fucked up male sexuality, with criticism of said sexuality implied.

I didn't read it as an endorsement of misogyny, I just thought it was a very trite treatment of the subject. In some ways it's certainly a subjective/taste thing as lyrics that deal directly with sex/sexual frustration never really do much for me, except for, like, Prince. I was really surprised how whiny Dulli's voice was considering he's spawned his own subgenre/cottage industry. There is some nice, moody guitar work, etc. going on but the whole thing comes off as a humorless bore of self-loathing. I'm sure the exact same criticism, with a few modifications, could be made of Mark Kozelek's work, but I adore the man. So yeah, subjectivity.

As far as classic albums: anything by Pink Floyd except Piper. I don't even know where to begin. This is a piece of the classic rock canon I will never understand.

I was really surprised how whiny Dulli's voice was considering he's spawned his own subgenre/cottage industry. There is some nice, moody guitar work, etc. going on but the whole thing comes off as a humorless bore of self-loathing.

Really? I'd describe Dulli's work as a lot of things but "humorless" is definitely NOT one of them!

the whole thing comes off as a humorless bore of self-loathing.

Oh man, seriously Dulli can be the funniest fucker in the world sometimes imo. xp

Well like I said, I'm not getting it. Keep in mind Gentlemen is my only exposure.

i dunno how anyone can hear "what jail is like" and not hear a dumptruck-sized dose of self-loathing. i'm not saying dulli's *not* a misogynist -- getting a woman to sing the album's most self-debasing song? -- but he is more complex than being *just* a misogynist.

I wouldn't say Dulli's a misogynist at all. There's a mean humorous streak running through a ton of his work. Everything from "Be Sweet" to "John the Baptist" to his cover of Mary J. Blige's "Real Love" is filled with it.

He does do a lot of the obnoxious tough-guy asshole act, but underneath you can tell that he's really secretly an obnoxious weak-guy asshole. I do love him though.

http://www.kalamu.com/bol/wp-content/content/images/maggot%20brain%20cover.jpg

I have to confess I never understood why "Maggot Brain" was considered such a classic. It starts with a nice enough guitar solo, and ends with a decent groove and some funny sound effects, and between them are several vignettes of funk songs which haven't got the time to develop properly, and which have some bland group vocals. Didn't this band a have proper vocalist, or why does it sound like the whole band is shouting (pretty discordantly) on every tune with vocals?

Okay, I do understand why the guitar solo is considered great by those people who care a lot about guitar solos, but is one solo plus the funny noises enough to make an album classic?

one solo plus the funny noises

Most hilarious reduction of an entire album I've ever read.

Well, that's pretty much all I remember of the album (I haven't listened to it since I bought it). Nothing else on it was that memorable.

i'm not like hugely crazy about the album but "can you get to that" is top ten songs ever.

joni mitchell
tom waits

there must be an obvious classic album for each of these but the stuff ive heard is distinctly not knocking me out one jot.
i like some tom waits but a whole album? oyyyy.

I would agree with you on Joni Mitchell's Blue but it clicked recently after 10 years of trying.

if at first you don't succeed...

i'm not like hugely crazy about the album but "can you get to that" is top ten songs ever.

― difficult listening hour, Monday, January 17, 2011 11:34 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

^yes.

Tom Waits though. Still haven't managed to get to that.

I don't want to derail the thread (as mentioning this album often does) but I don't see what seperates In the Aeroplane over the Sea from like a dozen other indie/folk/pop/whatever albums. To me it's a solid album with some great tracks ("Holland 1945", "Ghost", and "Untitled") but as a whole I don't get the whole aethestic of acoustic guitar over VERY LOUD SINGING.

dude i know aerosmith is banned but have a heart

i don't get My Bloody Valentine, Neutral Milk Hotel, or Pavement -- basically the 90s indie canon is totally unremarkable to me

Whoa, aerosmith is banned? How come?

The Geffen Records years

self-banned iirc

Ah.

And major lolz at that x-post.

You can add me to the NMH-not-getters tbh. I even like a few other E6 bands, but not them.

is there a 'What happened to ________?' thread?

Count me in the not getting the NMH cult camp too. I mean, both albums are pretty solid (though I think the first one is slightly better), but I don't understand how especially that second record garners all this "OMG Jeff Mangum is a GENIUS and AEROPLANE is the BEST RECORD EVER" gushing.

i'm usually always knocked out by classic records when i hear them

i respect the canon more than anyone i think

xpost in my experience, once you accept the love for Jesus K.Rist it's all gold

and Tom Waits - Rain Dogs ftw imo

PS im Nick Canon too. totally respect the context/history along with the sound and feel like it's a personal challenge to expand my taste if I don't 'get' something that's considered classic. not so much w/ other mediums but def music

what I hate is the moment you admit you don't like an album in the canon to someone who is a huge fan, and they go "wtf? you need to listen to it again!"

thanks, never considered that was the problem all along, not listening to an album I don't like enough.

I like NMH but I am curious as to how Aeroplane took off into this massive cult classic 5+ years after release - I know it was pretty well thought of among US indie fans in the late 90s but they were never even the most known E6 band in my gang of UK indie friends (Olivia Tremor Control and Apples In Stereo got a lot more press over here, by which I mean "still not that much really")

so I was pretty baffled in around 2006 when I was at a festival and they played it over the PA in one of the smaller tents and a big group of people younger than me were making a big show of singing and swaying along, because I had apparently totally missed it becoming canonised while OTC were gently forgotten about

there's shit i totally love that took me, jeez, probably 10 years to like...

i couldn't stand bitches brew by miles when i heard it in college, just didn't get it at all, tons of stuff i love now...actually jazz in general, so glad i have some sorta weird sense of obligation cuz i would have just given up and missed so much beauty

I just don't like it when people take it as a personal challenge to MAKE you like their canonical favorite.
Because if history is any indicator, I'll come around to liking it on my own, eventually. Or not.

yeah that sux

but i guess i always figure -- to a point -- if ppl whose opinions i respect like stuff there must be something to it...even like non-canon stuff like the goons on ilx have made me check out way more no-nyc rap than i ever would have and a lot of it has been great

for sure there's a few like that for me as well, but sometimes an album just won't ever click with me, too. I just dislike that someone won't accept that someone disliking an album is an invalid opinion!

xxpost -- lol dammit

well rap IS a good example of where that has happened for me, 3 years ago I couldn't stand slow southern club rap, but it's more or less because I'd barely heard any of it and hadn't listened real closely.

compared with like the eagles, whom I know I'll never like, regardless of what you put in my baloney sandwich

I didn't like so many of my favorite albums on first listen (Aeroplane included for same reasons, Magnum's whiny nasal yawlp was the worst). by now I figure if something really affects me it's at least worth further exploration.

but everyone's different

...posting about...

I love DSOTM but don't care for 'Wish You Were Here'.

I just recently found a CD of Animals on the curb and listened to that for the first time, and think I prefer it to Wish, maybe even Dark Side. But I guess that's for the other thread.

Speaking of long crawls: daaamn that guitar in "Europe is Our Playground"

(I gotta get home and blast it)

wrong thread alfred

oddly wish is the only one that does it for me

wish you weren't here, last classic album that i got and wasn't knocked out by!!!

The concept-era Pink Floyd records are all very different in terms of pacing and structure, and if that doesn't appeal to the listener they can feel torpid. I got bored of Dark Side for that reason, but Wish You Were Here and Animals especially build in very satisfying ways for me.

"Animals" is my pick for this thread tbh