Rock Albums People Who Don't Love Rock Like

would almost be tempted to start an opposing thread about the rock albums non-rock fans listen to, but i doubt it would be very interesting.
― www.perry.como (dog latin), Wednesday, 3 September 2014 09:02 (4 days ago) Permalink

― Tim F, Sunday, September 7, 2014 11:00 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Meant to say: actually I think that would be an interesting thread

― Tim F, Sunday, September 7, 2014 11:01 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I nominate the first Boston album and probably the second one

A music professor of mine despised all popular music, with one (and only one) exception:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/84/MarvinGayeWhat%27sGoingOnalbumcover.jpg

ASHLEE SIMPSON - I AM ME

Actually everything in the Hole lineage - Ashlee, Paramore, Sky

Actually everything in the Hole lineage - Ashlee, Paramore, Sky

I have absolutely no idea what this post means but it's kinda beautiful

What a bizarre kind of question. Because what kind of "non-rock fans" are we talking about?

Westerners who "only listen to Classical music" and don't like anything modern, rock or pop or whatever?
People who live in other countries with entire pop cultures of their own?
Kids who listen to pop, but not rock?
People who listen to hip-hop, or country, or dance, or literally any of the billion other genres which are not rock?

"non rock fans" is just such a weird conceit because it posits rock so centrally in this bizarro-ILM inversion.

I'm confused. Deeply. By this thread.

presumably a pisstake of Let's list all the token albums from non-rock genres that rock fans typically rate

I know that; but it's one of those questions where there inversion is just absurd.

I mean, the original thread was dumb to start with, but this isn't just dumb, it's nonsensical.

Ignore me; I've been running a fever for like 8 days straight and nothing makes sense any more.

Eagles Greatest Hits

Bat Out of Hell

mall punk

Is it so obvious?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/9/3/1378205008577/beatles-sgt-peppers-album-001.jpg

reminds me of when george steiner started listening to nirvana after kurt killed himself

mcr, fob

Eagles Greatest Hits

Well, yeah

bat out of hell

Purple Rain

Oasis - Be Here Now

at least in the UK. I don't even know why it's Be Here Now, it just is.

Dark Side of the Moon

OK Computer

What would the post-2000 answer to this question be? I'm drawing a bit of a blank.

^^Adele: 21

Yeah, I suppose Adele and Winehouse fit the bill. I'm trying to the think of a more classic rock band album that's had any real crossover appeal.

This thread might as well be called "Albums You Will Find In Everybody's Collection When You Visit Open Houses." STP, Lion King soundtrack, James Taylor hits, Police hits, Enya, Pearl Jam "Ten." Collective Soul something. Best of the Eagles.

hootie

lotta stretches re: classifications of "rock" itt

Yeah, Adele and Amy Winehouse and Enya and Lion King soundtrack and Marvin Gaye are not rock.

Adele and Amy Winehouse = rock now?

Coldplay - Rush of Blood to the Head is a definite

the original thread was concerned with the albums that show up as the token representatives of their genre in rock-centric lists/overviews, are their places where rock albums show up in the same way? I feel like I see Radiohead invoked sometimes by people writing about contemporary classical music as an example of 'interesting' rock music.

yeah, Radiohead are sort of the highbrow listener's rock band of choice. and I guess Amy Winehouse gets held up as man example of contemporary 'soul' music by people who want a generic non-rock, non-male entry in their list of canonical dead Britishers. Arctic Monkeys is the stock answer for politicians and Uni Challenge competitors alike when asked to name a band.

That's to do with Johnny Greenwood's work with classical musicians as well.

This is a disease in writing about contemporary classical music: Zappa, and so much prog, Pink Flloyd are other examples of this.

Although its more complicated: certainly in the UK a lot of people in contemporary classcial would like Radiohead but also find Portishead (and tri-hop) really great. xp

I nominate the first Boston album and probably the second one

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, September 7, 2014 3:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

First two Boston albums a given, but you forgot another famous band from Boston: Extreme - Pornograffiti.

It's amazing how many Paula Abdul fans accidentally bought that one for "Decadence Dance".

You need to have a v narrow def of rock to ask this question. I imagine 'rock' here would mean something like white bread classic rock and beatles/stones, mostly male blues-based rock only.

However so-called rock has undergone so many mutations with all kinds of music it would be v hard to find someone that disliked all of those mutations.

It's less about rock mutating than the pre-baby boom generation dying off. In 2014 even senior citizens grew up w/rock & roll whereas back in the day there was a real generational divide about rock (perhaps like rap). So Sgt Pepper is the choice that resonates here, at least w/me. My parents didn't like rock at all in the late 60s (tho my dad loved Hank Williams et al) until the Beatles came out w/ Yesterday and they were all like "hey this stuff is actual music." Typical reaction.

My uncle, a culturally adventurous but politically conservative English prof in his late 40s, bought Sgt Pepper & Magical Mystery Tour upon release because he'd read about em and passed them on to ten-year old me after a few listens. I was like, score! Bet he wasn't the only one.

Token rock album

I won't say it's an affectation for people born post WW2 to dislike rock but it's pretty rare.

In the UK there's a specific strain of dance music, EDM or what have you, that seems to appeal to casual middle-aged listeners. I'm sort of semi-surprised how many people in their early-40s come up and request things like Disclosure or Rudimental when I'm playing casual DJ sets in pubs/social gatherings. But then like m coleman says, these are probably all ex-ravers who were dancing in the late-80s and to their children, the notion of 'rock' music is probably a quaint relic from their grandparents' days.

I'm surprised music professor above doesn't like Curtis Mayfield. Seems to me if you like only one thing, you'll seek out others like it.

i don't like rock music and the only albums itt that i like are:

ASHLEE SIMPSON - I AM ME

― prolego, Sunday, September 7, 2014 7:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually everything in the Hole lineage - Ashlee, Paramore, Sky

― prolego, Sunday, September 7, 2014 7:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also, yeah yeah yeahs

I don't know what kind of music Ashlee Simpson makes but you like PJ Harvey lex, so you like rock music to some extents.

I'm a "rocker", but I know lots of people who don't like rock - people besides "squares", I mean. I think it's probably common in cities?Also a lot of people I've encountered who like lounge and orchestral reject most rock unless it is stuff like The Moody Blues. Also alt / electronic types who only like Eno?

I don't know what kind of music Ashlee Simpson makes

― monoprix à dimanche (dog latin), Monday, September 8, 2014 11:52 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're always going on about how you want recommendations right? ashlee simpson's discography, in chronological order, go.

Dave Matthews Band - Under the Table and Dreaming

Oh that reminds me, I remember some Wu-Tang interview - RZA maybe? - from the 1990s where he said he was enjoying Blues Traveler's Four.

Well, he probably doesn't count as a guy who doesn't like rock, but Blues Traveler's Four regardless.

Maybe some Big Head Todd and the Monsters or something. I mean, even if you didn't like rock back in 94, we all went to H.O.R.D.E.

trying to decide which Dead album belongs here, but it's probably more like a shoebox full of cassette tapes

What a bizarre kind of question. Because what kind of "non-rock fans" are we talking about?

Westerners who "only listen to Classical music" and don't like anything modern, rock or pop or whatever?
People who live in other countries with entire pop cultures of their own?
Kids who listen to pop, but not rock?
People who listen to hip-hop, or country, or dance, or literally any of the billion other genres which are not rock?

"non rock fans" is just such a weird conceit because it posits rock so centrally in this bizarro-ILM inversion.

I'm confused. Deeply. By this thread.

― Shugazi (Branwell with an N), Sunday, September 7, 2014 3:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otfm

well, it is a sort of parody thread of the other thread which didn't make a lot of sense either so...

What would the post-2000 answer to this question be?
American Idiot?

Like, people who love non-rock and like rock don't like, love rock, what rock albums those people like.

^ ilm pre-covers the next Blur single

Dave Matthews Band

Cat Empire

Hole
Queen
Black Sabbath
The Who
The Rolling Stones

and that's all.

"yeah, Radiohead are sort of the highbrow listener's rock band of choice"

the definition of the word "highbrow" has changed over the years...

It's totally relative. Depends entirely on the "listeners" demographic you're talking about.

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u120/kingkonggodzilla/0469d218-6c41-476a-b9e0-0d8e7bc47e41_zpsa01e34c0.jpg

i just think of teens and college kids when i think of radiohead listeners. but, yeah, they can be highbrow too, i guess.

more high than brow

i just think of teens and college kids when i think of radiohead listeners. but, yeah, they can be highbrow too, i guess.

― scott seward, Monday, September 8, 2014 1:06 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Than yeah, if you compiled all of the music teens and college kids listen to I'd bet Radiohead is relatively on the highbrow end of that particular spectrum, proportionately.

teens 20 years ago can be middle aged high brow now

A tenure-track music theorist I know, a rising star in the field, is currently working on a book on Radiohead. His article "Kid Algebra: Radiohead's Euclidean and Maximally Even Rhythms" is forthcoming in Perspectives in New Music.

He talks in maths.

can we spend some time on this thread talking about how Chester Bennington is now singing with Stone Temple Pilots or is that too much of a digression

thread's got nothing else going on tbf

Radiohead seem to crop up in 'classical music is not just for squares' type pieces in broadsheets where people make the case for contemporary classical music, I don't know to what extent they are rock music that contemporary classical stans like or if they want some of Radiohead's rock 'n' roll glamour to rub off on them (Radiohead possessing rock 'n' roll glamour seems odd idea, but I get the impression people writing these articles think they do?)

i actually sold radiohead CDs to an old classical guy! he bought ligeti and some other classical and radiohead. maybe they heard that steve reich was a fan.

too bad steve reich's radiohead tribute is so limp

maybe it isn't a tribute

That'll be the radiohead xp

FORM A QUEUE PLEASE

the only people i know that turn their noses up at rock are classical ppl. i think they make exceptions for more NPR-ish stuff and karaoke "guilty pleasures."

they pooh-pooh all the "hipster" music i'm into but they get super jazzed up for disney soundtracks.

glad to learn the term "maximally even rhythms" to describe a thing i have been thinking about

it's weird -- i know music fans that are into really out-there experimental stuff, and even they ride hard for zz top and early van halen. the jazz guys like rock, the folk guys like rock (newport was a long time ago). it's only the classical people that are all "eww" about it -- unless it's some new amsterdam crossover act that the new york times approves of, and those acts are never guitar-centric.

so everyone is by default a rock fan..? reminds me of that old Momus blog post about how literally everyone in America wears jeans

(Guy I mentioned is a total rock fan, to be clear.)

(But appreciates Radiohead in a highbrow sort of way or something?)

"by default" is where critics of rockism come in -- combatting the idea that rock is the default setting and everything else orbits around it (mixed metaphor, sorry). there is no default.

I've known a couple of classical guys who came close to fitting get bent's description. They both liked the Beatles. One also liked Queen and Radiohead. The other disliked most other rock but liked AC divas like Celine Dion.

whenever people call me about selling their records and they say they have lots of classical i'm always happy to have them bring stuff in. they often have good prog, weird avant/electronic, and cool world music records mixed in. (especially if they were buying in the late 60's and 70's. boomer classical fans had the biggest ears. 50's and early 60's classical fans were pretty trad in my experience.)

(boomers in general though have become the most trad music fans since the fans of the four lads and the ames brothers...in other words, their parents...)

There are also people heavy into ambient and ethereal and maybe some soundtracks, but no rock. Clearly the most fruitful genre is electronic - people who won't listen to anything with guitars or drums ( unless they are "ethnic" drums). Ethereal fans I don't get - it's a genre that surely has rock influences.

I've always suspected hardcore ambient/ethereal fans suffer from some sort of nervous disorders

my experience with ethereal/ambient is that that sort of music was very popular among the fisting community in the '90s.

:D lock thread

Ethereal fistings, truly a genre unto itself

i own this record. it's my token gay lashing record:

http://hansonrecords.bigcartel.com/product/whipsmen-the-sounds-of-discipline-lp-zorro

everyone should at least own alternate-timeline universe dicaprio record...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/1610798_10153317432587137_2985780421934300814_n.jpg?oh=7bfbe79c99977a75ef08fab14b51d82a&oe=54A60F77&__gda__=1418806600_2c7279c4b5eedec8a6a1152c3cc71205

i can't stop staring at that cover...

it's weird -- i know music fans that are into really out-there experimental stuff, and even they ride hard for zz top and early van halen. the jazz guys like rock, the folk guys like rock (newport was a long time ago). it's only the classical people that are all "eww" about it -- unless it's some new amsterdam crossover act that the new york times approves of, and those acts are never guitar-centric

I come from and electronic and dance music background (though nowadays I listen to all sort of stuff, including classical music, but I wouldn't call myself a "classical person" in any way), and I've never really liked rock. I'm sure there many others about the same age as me or younger who are like this: we grew up with electronic music, and rock never felt that relevant to us, it was the music of earlier generations, not of ours. Kinda like swing and bebop were to the boomer generation.

Me suggesting that this thread happen was prompted by reading Simon Reynolds' Wire piece on Radiohead circa 2001, where he suggested that in the late 90s lots of UK dance fans started using certain rock albums as "comedown" albums - OK Computer, Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space, etc.

Assuming that this is true, I'm interested in the idea that certain "rock" albums work well with listening modes that are not centered on rock music. It's the inverse of tendency for non-rock music with rock friendly values or signifiers to be embraced by rock-centric listeners.

Certainly there seems to be a certain consensus about good rock music amongst the goon crew, though I'd struggle to explain its underlying basis.

Beardo and balearic revivalism obv gave rise to several instances of music that was superficially rock but was really designed for dance audiences.

Or that might be going too far: post-dance audiences who also like rock

plenty of people on ILM don't listen to rock music. i see what Tim's saying though, although if the thread title had been more specifically about rock albums that dance fans like, or as you say, the opposite of the token dance album rock fans like, I'd also be interested in that. Is there a hypothetical genre here? I've never heard their music but Doves always struck me as a possible example of this, considering their earlier incarnation as Sub Sub.

Yeah I was thinking about the comedown rock album thing - there were a rash of quieter, gentler albums that gained a lot of traction in publications like Mixmag around 2000. Lambchop's Nixon, Kings of Convenience, etc. In fact Erland Oye has basically made a career out of walking this line.

Goon-friendly rock seems to mostly be emoish punk pop (My Chemical Romance/Green Day/Fall Out Boy), some metal, and the kind of brawny modern rock bands that veer closer to classic rock (the Gaslight Anthem etc). Although I can't imagine the Gaslight Anthem possibly appealing to anyone who doesn't identify as liking rock music in some way.

My experience of African radio stations is that they play no rock music at all except Coldplay, U2 and and Oasis.

has a rock band ever actively tried to do this?
We've had failed attempts like the Klaxxon's nu-rave thing I suppose. But is there a rock equivalent of, say, U.F.Orb? I'd genuinely love to hear a rock band's take on post-club chill out music.

Hole is interesting as a bona fide rock act whose second and third albums definitely work as confessional teen pop avant la lettre

Have to say, I know very few 'rock fans' who listened to Hole beyond the first album.

what I mean is, the only time I really remember hearing much Hole discussion lately is through the ILM pop/dance crew.

I have to say, I know loads of rock fans who listened to a lot more than the first Hole album. But, like, lots of them were gurls.

Just thought - Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf strikes me as a key example of a rock album adored by non-rock fans.

the hole => ashlee => paramore lineage is definitely the most interesting thing touched on itt so far, if only because the connections are pretty straightforward and explicit, but it's actually harder to tell which elements are "bona fide rock" and which are not. i'd put kelly clarkson's second and third albums in there too.

sky probably reveals that the constant is in lyrical voice rather than specific sonics, given that her album seems to draw on pre-90s rock (that i'm not v familiar with) rather than hole/courtney (apart from image-wise!).

xpost Wasn't Hole's second album the one that broke them with a larger rock audience? It seemed like only indie people paid much attention to the first album.

the hole => ashlee => paramore lineage is definitely the most interesting thing touched on itt so far, if only because the connections are pretty straightforward and explicit, but it's actually harder to tell which elements are "bona fide rock" and which are not. i'd put kelly clarkson's second and third albums in there too.

Of course most rock fans would argue that this is technically pop music with a heavy reliance on rock instrumentation. You could kind of hedge in everything from Pink to the 1975 into this bracket without too much trouble. The first Hole album strikes me as bonafide rock without a doubt, but then we're in danger of getting bogged down in semantics.

xpost, maybe my own (UK, indie-based) experiences are off but every little grunge/punk/indie kid I knew was into the first Hole album in the mid-90s and 'Violet' got a load of rotation on UK radio whereas I just don't remember a whole heap of enthusiasm for subsequent releases. YMMV.

"Violet" was on the 2nd album, the one that came out right after KC's death. The first album was the one Kim Gordon produced.

There were three modern rock hits, including a #1 and #3, on Celebrity Skin.

(http://www.billboard.com/artist/303552/hole/chart?f=377)

LOL you guys always focus on the most boring issues. Question is not "is it rock or not" but whether/how it's heard diferently by different audiences.

Is a goon who listens to Fall Out Boy hearing something different to the ordinary Fall Out Boy fan? And, if not, does the reverse also hold: that any ordinary Fall Out Boy fan would probably make a decent goon?

wtf is a goon in this context?

Rap fan who posts in the rolling rap threads.

is Fall Out Boy really a goon consensus band, or is it Whiney's cheerleading?

Shit! Forgot Live Through This wasn't a debut. Sorry for confusion

Of course, there are always people who are convinced that "rock" doesn't necessarily come from the blues. Yes, those pains in the ass who think "classical" affectations redeem a rock work.

Other people are put off by something they feel is too "macho".

What about post-grunge and NU-mentalists from the late 1990's? Are they "not rock" because they pander to an anti-50's / 60's / blues mentality?

Off topic, perhaps, but what are the true roots of EDM, since many EDM fans shun guitars and drums? Does it annoy anyone besides me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-xUwDARVb4#t=35

i would say i have a certain style of rock im into but it's kind of soulstrut-ish, kind of dahnce-ish, but prioritizing songcraft and originality more than the latter, while de-emphasizing the canonical focus / received wisdom of the former

latin pop music

So albums by Chayanne, Ricky Martin, David Bisbal, Marc Anthony, Alejandro Sanz.... if you see any of those in someone's collection, I'm positive you wont see any rock albums (safe for a couple of token ones, if any).

Refer to this thread for Token rock albums. Pick any. Token rock album

Lol sorry I misread the title as "Albums people who don't love rock like"

For the real question in this thread I would say the real answer would be the best selling ones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums

Creedence is missing in there, though, I guess it's because they don't have a real iconic album (Cosmo's Factory?) and most people opt for their compilations but it seems to me like almost every house I visit has a CCR album.

That's not the real question in this thread.

Though I find the default assumption that non-rock fans necessarily = 12 CD people amusing.

i definitely don't find myself in either dahnce or soulstrut camps ... in some ways, i'd say, i'm actually closer to the traditional unexamined rockist just in terms of taste, although for different reasons. I'm also more interested in a lot of stuff that has been forgotten, but not to the extent of creating an alternative canon (like soulstrut type dudes) as much as discovering a personal one; treating it as a journey or experience, a kind of 'the records find me' sort of thing. Which I think has an element of dahnce crate digging to it more than record collector crate digging (obv there's overlap but).

But I think dahnce folks often value texture and superficial elements of style ... nothing wrong with that per se, but I probably put songcraft on more of a pedestal, personally, than the kind of stylistic costume changes I detect as being at the core of dahnce-appreciated rock music. (I also tend to not be all that interested in retro albums in this vein, give or take a single or two)

I think i get your point but I'm not sure. Do you mean, like, the belearic/beardo veneration of dennis wilson despite him not being a terribly great songwriter?

"superficial elements of style" - presumably this + texture = "vibe"?

That's not the real question in this thread.

― Tim F

The opening post seems to ask what are the token rock albums (and we have that thread already)?

I think i get your point but I'm not sure. Do you mean, like, the belearic/beardo veneration of dennis wilson despite him not being a terribly great songwriter?

― Tim F, Monday, November 10, 2014 3:02 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's a hard one to explain bc i kind of think he is a good songwriter lol although maybe not traditionally so

texture & vibe is a better way of putting it? i mean ... i never really 'got' map of africa, is another way

def radiohead. realised this when hip hop connection had ok computer in their top 20 albums of whatever year it came out and people who mostly listened to black music or dance music i know were checking it out ('its soulful' etc). but def since then, its weird how people i know who dont 'do' rock like thom yorke. radiohead kind of represent a cool alternative, sophistication, adventurous taste, for people who arent reading the wire. theyre like a benchmark of progressive, cerebral music. also a way to show you listen to other types of music. i suppose their interest in sonics and production helps a lot too. 'its not just noisy guitars!' (never heard anyone say this, but im guessing they might think it).

Moka the point of this thread is "what are rock albums embraced by people who don't identify as fans of rock (but as fans of other types of music) and why" - lots of people maybe struggle with this basic concept because, idk, ilx people are dumb sometimes, but it is what it is.

texture & vibe is a better way of putting it? i mean ... i never really 'got' map of africa, is another way

― deej loaf (D-40), Monday, November 10, 2014 11:19 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah okay cool but this rubs 'n' tugs against another divide which is album listening vs dj set listening. Thinking "heeeeeey this heavy Equals cover is kinda cool b/c context" is one thing, but idk anyone other than beardo obsessives who bothered listening to the whole map of africa album. Texture / vibe / superficial style is enough to coast on for four minutes in a DJ set but I think across an entire artist-album rock fans and dance fans are both looking for some sort of deeper engagement however it's wrought.

I'm not sure Harvey should have been trying to make actual rock music as an extended ~project~, I haven't really been able to make it through the Wildest Dreams albums for e.g.

Vampire Weekend

the 1975, Paramore

lol this thread isn't "name bands that ilxors other than me like." There are no non-rock fans on iLX who like either of those bands to my knowledge and probably very few relatively speaking outside of ILX either.

I hate macho rock music so maybe predictably my favourite male rock bands are The Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, The Stooges, Royal Trux, US Maple, The Strokes and the occasional song by The Who

xpost sorry, i tried to parse that sentence 3 times and i'm still a bit confused tbh.

What is macho rock? Like G'n'R?

like, on what evidence do you say non-rock fans like vampire weekend, paramore or 1975 other than that they're big ilx bands who are quite popular.

well paramore is huge on pop radio lately! and the 1975 at least have a bunch of famous ppl (esp twifty) tweeting their love so i imagine

if you like the Stooges you basically like the Stones

xp well obv yeah but in general I am allergic to any sort of rock-music-made-by-men extending from aggressively destructive (GnR, Genesis, Mott The Hoople, Styx, Nazareth, Zeppelin, Floyd, Faith No More, RHCP) to the passively complicit (The Beatles, Meat Loaf, Neil Young, most Sonic Youth).

The aforementioned bands get a pass because for whatever reason the sound of men-punching-walls and/or men-living-in-fear appeals to me; other square bands that get a pass round here are Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and Motorhead. For whatever fucking reason yes I love the Stones. This allergy does carry over to punk, post-punk, new wave, krautrock, HC and post-HC, and whatever Jesus Lizard are.

*does not carry over, that is.

as a non-rock fan i think thin lizzy is the greatest band in the world

just kidding i'm probably a rock fan

i also fucking love genesis but i don't think anything they've done codes precisely as "rock" to me

There are of course ~tonnes~ of non-square rock bands I love: Sparks, Hole, Queen, Heart, Electrelane, Sleater-Kinney, etc. And prog too, Magma are my favourite band, if that's rock then I'm a rock fan.

xp: or "aggressive" for that matter.

uhhhhhhh keep it dark

I teach a lot of kids who barely have any reference points beyond hip-hop, but DSOTM comes up as the great exception.

I am allergic to any sort of rock-music-made-by-men extending from aggressively destructive (GnR, Genesis, Mott The Hoople, Styx, Nazareth, Zeppelin, Floyd, Faith No More, RHCP) to the passively complicit (The Beatles, Meat Loaf, Neil Young, most Sonic Youth).

somewhat baffled by what 'aggressively destructive' and 'passively complicit' mean in this context.

"somewhat":P

(Thought you liked Yes and Rush, fgti?)

Oh, you made a sort-of-exception for prog.

Oh c'mon, you know, music that sounds like oppression and money making and raping women and spitting on poor people and kicking immigrants and running gays over in your car

that's basically an anal cunt tracklist! clink

*clink!*

I mean, you asked *shrug* The first time I heard INXS and Def Leppard at age 9 I was like "omg this is terrible" and now I have the words to explain why
An entire genre of music based on playground bullying

Whenever I see a car full of jocks cranking Mott the Hoople tunes, I run

trying to think of any aggressively masculine music i carry over residually from younger days

am listening to marina and the diamonds rn so it's hard, might need to pause this

xp I'm not talking about the context in which the music appears, I'm talking about actively going out and purchasing rock records and finding that they sound like excess and shittiness

I love The Cramps and Gun Club and hate Nick Cave

Was cool on Modern Lovers until I heard "She'd eat garbage, eat shit, get stoned. I stay alone, eat health food at home" now they're one of my favourites, that's probably a good indication of where my head is at?

Aggression isn't really what it's about, either, I love aggressive masculine music, it's more macho posturing

you put faith no more in that list; i'd argue that there's a lot more to mike patton's music, on the whole - it's slier & more self-deconstructive than that - witness his famously disgusted reaction on hearing wolfmother (a true cock-rock regressive pile of shit) at a festival

and yet i can see exactly why you've listed them as well; they're definitely playing with the idea of forceful, posturing masculinity. it's a fine line.

back in college in knew a lot of people who listened mostly to Norteno or Bachata music, and sometimes Hip Hop. But they all also loved Nirvana.

If you're applying a 'cock rock' formula to a sort of underground/alternative context there's going to be a whole load of arguments one way or another.

I'm not talking about the context in which the music appears, I'm talking about actively going out and purchasing rock records and finding that they sound like excess and shittiness

Only, you ARE talking about the context in which the music appears.

I have the exact same reaction you described to most metal pre-1990 with a few exceptions (mainly Iron Maiden and Anthrax) as well as most country because the vast majority of the people I grew up with who actively listened to it were the type of people who parsed the lines "Are there any queers in the theatre tonight?/Get them up against the wall" as 100% earnest endorsement of fascist oppression and used this as a mantra for how they lived their lives. In this context, INXS was an escape to something a lot more progressive than what everyone else around me was listening to, plus it was a lot more fun to dance to.

excess and shittiness

Immediately heard this to the tune of "Incense and Peppermints. "

Yeah I'm actually far less interested in typing about why I don't like rock music and volunteering myself as somebody who doesn't, but rides hard for those listed exceptions as well as non-square rock like Queen, Heart, Hole, Bowie, etc

I'm inclined to think there may be as much correlation with bullying (or lack thereof) in your exceptions as there is in your offenders.

Same with posturing, macho or otherwise.

Also a little resentful of the "square" vs. "non-square" characterizations, honestly.

My favorite Dance Music is Square

"it's like those hip musicians with their complicated shoes!' -- george costanza

much more interesting to hear what music sounds like macho posturing to people than to hear lux aeterna rush-in of "that's not objective" from rock's wounded warriors

Listening to the guitars on INXS' "Original Sin" at 15 probably turned me gay.

no one actually said "that's not objective" and that wasn't the point of my comment, which was the assertion that you can't judge anything outside of your perceived context with a counter-example of how my context gave me a completely different perception of how fgti described INXS

I wanted to ask how many exceptions to your rule can you list and have your rule still be valid but given fgti's response to me, it felt unnecessarily antagonistic

An entire genre of music based on playground bullying

trying to think of what kind of music the people who bullied me in school were listening to and the #1 answer my brain can come up with is Lyte Funky Ones

My "entire genre of music based on playground bullying" is probably like, Tone Loc, MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, Paula Abdul.

Lol xp

I missed the experience of someone bullying me by blasting "Animal" or "Hysteria" or "Armageddon It."

#notallrock

Ha, that's the closest thing I can think of too, how's life. Maybe bhangra/Bollywood in high school.

xpost

@DJP you can be antagonistic! I mean, don't worry abt coming off as antagonistic. INXS are I guess a weird one for me, I'm what, 3-5 years younger than Alfo and DJP? So I didn't really fully "get" INXS as an alternative to anything except what I was listening to at home (classical music and kid-rap).

I deliberately avoided citing just obv cock-rock examples and tried to go broad.

I could make a list of rock bands I like and explain why! Stooges and Sonics that stuff just sounds aggro and new and fun and fantastic. Never liked "Raw Power" tho. Most of the bands I listed kind of come from that realm of rock. I like Big Star because it sounds wimpy. I like Black Sabbath because Ozzy sounds genuinely scared of Satan and that is very powerful and beautiful.

Also @ Tim I've been using "square" for years when talking about music with fellow musicians to avoid running into "not all cswm" territory. It works because it doesn't necessarily include cool cswms (not does it let uncool not-cswms off the hook).

"Bullying" I mentioned in the larger sense, the sound of accruing capital, life of excess, patriarchal oppression, and I don't like stoner rock or hippie rock either

don't know why you're bringing the Cowtown Society of Western Music into this

music that sounds like oppression and money making and raping women and spitting on poor people and kicking immigrants and running gays over in your car

this deserves it's own thre - oh wait GnR already have a thread

I don't know what a cswm is.

certified social work manager

I think it's Crosby, Stills, White & Man

Oh c'mon, you know, music that sounds like oppression and money making and raping women and spitting on poor people and kicking immigrants and running gays over in your car

― fgti, Monday, November 10, 2014 8:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Walking across the sitting room / I run gays over in my car...

Obv I'm not indicting rock fans or rock musicians of anything. There's a sound and it sounds like something terrible. Same as like classical choral music sounds "holy" and rap sounds like "a party" and twee-rock sounds like "impotence" and math-rock sounds like "body odour"

LOL @ body odour.

I do see what you're getting at (i think?), but you've placed your markers rather wide here if you're going to include Genesis and, like, FNM under the same 'bigoted (just typoed 'bigtoed'!), aggressive' music and then everything from Meatloaf to Sonic Youth into another category, which I don't really understand. And yeah like you say, it's the equivalent of a non-rap fan boiling that genre down to 'It's all just bragging about money and bitches etc...'

I'm not a fan of all these bands, especially not RHCP (because, get this, I was once bullied by a kid who listened to them a lot) - but didn't this band have songs that were actively about anti-homophobia? Same as FNM. Both bands had gay members.

The only band mentioned who had outwardly aggressive views expressed in their lyrics were Guns'n'Roses AFAIK. Maybe it depends on where you're from but going back 20 years, most rock fans at my school were bookish/nerd types whereas generally the more aggressive kids listened to dance and chart music.

I keep saying "context has nothing to do with it" and I mean it. Gay members? don't care. My ears politicize everything that I hear, the way one person mics and mixes a kick drum sounds like "bwow" and suggests comedy and fun and being social and going to house shows, the way another person mics and mixes a kick drum sounds like "thuck" and suggests radio rock and money-making working out at the gym over a guitar solo.

"Rap music is all bragging about money and bitches" is something my mom would say. "The sound of rock music makes me feel like I want to see civilization crumble and fail" is what I'm saying.

So it's the actual 'sound' you don't like and/or has certain negative connotations, as opposed to the overall message/look/aesthetic. Guess that makes sense. One of the key anti-popist arguments that I can get behind is the homogenised nature of pop radio production and how similar a lot of it sounds thanks to this.
That said, I'm not sure where money-making comes into it. Do people really listen to rock music at the gym? Is rock music designed, primarily, over other styles to make money? Or even to oppress people? Or to appeal to aggressive masculine tropes? Many would argue they find the rock sound liberating in exactly the opposite way.

fgti: I don't understand the "context has nothing to do with this" argument because I don't understand how you can assign emotional value to a sound without placing it into some kind of context. I think I would express your position as "intent has nothing to do with it"?

Yeah! there we go. That's what I mean.

But I mean, obv, it doesn't seem that preferring Black Sabbath to Led Zeppelin and Magma to Genesis and Jesus Lizard to Sonic Youth makes you a non-rock-fan. I would think that it makes you a rock fan who has preferences, like any fan does. I like PJ Harvey and hate Sleater-Kinney (and could explain this by saying something about how Sleater-Kinney sounds like privileged coastal groupthink and snobbery or somesuch) but I don't think that would make me a good example of someone who doesn't appreciate modern rock or indie.

xp DL: "The sound of money-making" is something everybody hears, when they use words like "slick" or "overproduced", which don't actually describe the content of recorded material, but rather an impression that a series of choices were made to try and make a piece of music more digestible + widely consumable.

Well, this is veering dangerously into a good old fashioned ILM debate about what constitutes 'selling out' so I'll stay off the point. Some overall sounds/frequencies/timbres just don't appeal to people. I know there are couple of particular production 'things' I find I can't stand e.g. that wispy, impressionistic vibe you get on Grizzly Bear and War On Drugs records where there's evidently loads going on but you can't quite make out any of the individual sounds. To me it just reeks of laziness, like they couldn't be bothered to sing their lines properly so they just chucked on a load of extra vocal layers and smothered it in churchy reverb to cover it up.

Selling out = delivering your fan base to suppliers of incidental products, goods or services.

Or charging $6 a ticket for your shows

or releasing a hand-pressed debut EP

It's not the same as "selling out" though. Selling out is cool. Reverb can be awful, though. That music will work great at a wedding or something, you'll see, one day it'll sneak up on you and you'll be like "oh I actually love Beach House".

xp to something imago posted way upthread but there is no difference between Jet and Wolfmother and something like "Carry On My Wayward Son". I played Guitar Hero 2, I know Jet and Wolfmother songs and played them right next to so-called rock canon classics. (The only songs worth shit in that game were Pretenders, Heart and Lamb Of God imho.) But the way that rock discussion will fuck with one thing and not another when they are functionally identical is mysterious to me. When you say "Mike Patton is cool" I know he's cool! you think I don't have all his records? Love Mike Patton, Mr. Bungle is the only zany music in my record collection. Ween and Zappa came and got kicked to the curb but Mr. Bungle stays. But yeah, the only time when I've thought "oh? maybe Mike Patton is ~not~ so cool" are those moments when he turns and addresses the camera and tells RHCP or whoever to suck his dick. Or that situation you're describing with Wolfmother. Or when Nick Cave said the same thing about RHCP, that infamous dis, "whenever something shitty is on the radio it's always RHCP." That kind of talk doesn't make me think any better of anybody. And weirdly is exactly what I think of when I hear the sound of a guitar solo: competition, this-is-cool-but-not-that, band beefs, impermeable monoculture, men pushing each other around, etc.

that's a fair point - when it becomes expressively a dick-measuring contest, nobody wins.

i'd like to try you out with potential exceptions to that guitar solo pavlovian abreaction, but that's probably for another thread!

I think that the more interesting way to approach this debate is what qualities people hear in the rock music they DO like that redeem it, or set it apart from the rest of the genre. Otherwise you're going "yeah but there's essentially no difference between that and xyz bands".

Like, I get what it is that the Lex gets out of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or early PJ Harvey. I don't necessarily understand what redeeming qualities he hears in, say, Queens of the Stone Age or Sonic Youth.

>_< that was the thread I kepf trying to have but everyone is annoying >_<

Hey! That's what I wanted to talk about too!

Lex likes QOTSA and Sonic Youth?

it was pretty obvious this thread would be bad the minute everyone ignored non-rock fans bringing up ashlee simpson

xp i don't especially like sonic youth and i like one QOTSA song

The idea that Paramore Ashlee et al are in the lineage of Hole is a strange concept that I don't get at all

Try as I might, I still can't help but feel that at this stage the 'All rock music is essentially the same' opinion is as much of a challop as 'all jazz music is the same' or 'all dance music is the same' or 'all Chinese people look the same'. It reminds me of when my dad used to tell me that Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter II were essentially the same game, and 13 y/o me just couldn't work it out until I lost interest in video games and they all started to look exactly like variations on 'man with gun, runs round maze, shoots baddies'. If you distance yourself from something enough, it's all going to blur into one. Spend enough time with it and those narcissistic differences become cavernous. And yeah, I don't think it's possible or fair to separate physical sonics from the intent behind them. You may as well be saying 'all paintings are the same because it's paint on a canvas' as far as I'm concerned.

xp: Heh, I got all three Ashlee albums out from my library based on lex's "part of the lineage from hole to paramore" post and it felt like the time xhuck eddy convinced me to buy a Foghat album.

Not "the same" but not functionally different enough for lines and swords to be drawn

it's really the second album where ashlee really sounds like she's channelling the courtney rasp (rather than just her confessionalism)

xpost, but can you see why someone might LOVE Faith No More and really dislike the Chili Peppers, for example?

My favourite Hole song is that comp version of "Olympia" where Courtney overdubbed her rasp 20 times. (Seriously) I'd love to pass that track to Ashlee

xp of course yes, I was specifically referring to the ""vast gulf"" between Wolfmother and any other song I hear on classic rock radio

Try as I might, I still can't help but feel that at this stage the 'All rock music is essentially the same' opinion is as much of a challop as 'all jazz music is the same' or 'all dance music is the same' or 'all Chinese people look the same'. It reminds me of when my dad used to tell me that Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter II were essentially the same game

Ladies and gentlemen... Dog Latin!

i think a lot of the time the reason bands like Wolfmother suck is because they produce a recycled version of a 40-year-old idea without improving on it in any way whatsoever.

That is completely irrelevant if you don't think the 40-year old idea was any good in the first place though.

fine you don't have to like Led Zep, of course, but that's where the line in the sand comes from, and it does boil down to historical context and intent as with all art and music.

"The sound of rock music makes me feel like I want to see civilization crumble and fail" is what I'm saying.

Isn't that what it sounds like to good rockers too?