Your Biggest Musical Disappointment.......

anybody ever had anything grow on them?

Or is it "that's that, another checkmark in the 1000 albums to listen to" book

Brimstead are you quoting Paul Stanley ?

Sorry bad joke, but your question had a Stanley-esque ring to it

I think upthread some have already mentioned things that grew on them

(I continue to chuckle like a doofus at how this sounds)

nah anybody ever had anything grow on them? deserved a joke, if not a direct percy quote

My biggest live concert disappointment was seeing GZA a couple of years ago on a tour where was (supposedly) doing the whole Liquid Swords album. He didn't actually stick with that, but that wasn't really the issue. The problem was that he seemed wasted and kind of out of it. He comes across on record, especially on LS, as this cerebral surveyor of street life, precise lyrical mastermind, etc. etc. so seeing him out of breath, slurring, losing the beat, and falling behind in the verses and having to hurry to catch up was a pretty big bummer. Plus his whole stage presence, even the way he moved around, just seemed off. Not the least bit commanding, but also weirdly shaky, like he'd just gotten a concussion backstage. It was the only show by a touring act I've ever walked out of.

Apparently I was more or less alone in my assessment, though. But you can judge for yourselves, since somebody took some video and put it on Youtube. The audio is bad, but I think it's good enough to get a sense for what I'm talking about. The show really starts around 1:50 here when he gets into "Duel of the Iron Mic".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KMe7cATKHM

Oh oh I know mine now - Boards of Canada's Campfire Headphase. It still for the most part sounds like Groove Armada or late 90s chill out stuff

daft punk - human after all

ILM

2005 - not a good year for third albums by crossover dance acts.

You Are the Quarry seconded, also from 2004 R.E.M.'s Around the Sun, such a lifeless record, I remember in interviews Stipe saying that the album would take people seven or eight listens to get into, after the third go I just thought "There is no way I'm listening to this seven times". Bonus annoyance: the CD packaging included a booklet that fell out every time you picked it up.

xpost Big Star: "Nice, pleasant little songs, I thought, sort of generic nice-guy power pop."

That's complete nonsense re: Radio City. I think you read some articles calling it a power pop album, maybe you heard September Gurls and that was it. Even on September Gurls the drummer pounds it. There's nothing "power pop" in the slightest about "Life is White" or "Daisy Glaze" or, really, most of the rest of the records. It's a crunching rock record with off-kilter bits all over.

Vic, that's precisely why it's my biggest musical disappointment bar none: because it's the one that most makes me feel like I've been equipped with a different set of ears than the rest of humanity. Your reaction to my post is exactly what I expect (Although you and I may have different notions of what constitutes "power pop": I don't at all see it as incompatible with "crunching rock").

Yeah, wtf? Radio City is a power pop album even if it's not as tightly wound as Cheap Trick or Shoes.

rafael toral gone "space" glove
post-90s, wanesome sonic youth
post-a promise xiu xiu
us maple's quiet terminus

such a good call on Rafael Toral!!

that record was so, so disappointing

post-a promise xiu xiu
otm

Radio City was one for me too - not that I disliked it but I had the same "was that it?" moment. Ditto for the first 3 Wire albums.

Prince live w/ 3rd Eye Blind or whatever the fuck the awful band he's playing with now is.

my humble opinions:

Radio City is Beatle-derived, but from "Sexy Sadie" & "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey."

It doesn't exactly remind me of The Raspberrys. It doesn't remind me of The Shoes either, who I admire. It doesn't remind me of The Buzzcocks or The Undertones, who are better than anybody regularly classified as "power pop" while being more pop, more power.

On the first album "When My Baby's Beside Me" --- that's some power pop though. And "September Gurls," sure fine, and some others too. But not the gist of the album. Not "Back of a Car," which is probably their greatest. Not most of Big Star's 3rd either.

"What's Goin Ahn" is a prototype of the metal ballad so far as I can hear. Is that a form of "power pop" too? If so, are Aerosmith & Guns&Roses power pop?

Big Star is the missing link between first gen Flamin Groovies and second gen Flamin Groovies, definitely more ghosts of the sixties in their music than many contemporaries (even though Cheap Trick are unabashed Beatles-worshippers, it only came out rarely in the songs they wrote). Big Star is sort of removed from their own generation of power pop and have more in common with the variety that emerged in the late 80s/throughout the 90s. All that said, #1 Record and Radio City are definitely power pop records. 3rd is its own thing.

Ditto for the first 3 Wire albums.

Yeah, Wire's best moments are all time for me, but I can't just sit down and listen to a Wire album

"I Want You To Want Me" struck more than one junior high schooler in 1979 as pretty Beatles ish right down to the screaming girls.

Oh, I can't agree there (xpost ,re Wire) but my theory re Big Star is that there has been too much like it since for them to be as much of a revelation as they would have been in the mid seventies

whoever said Ancient Melodies of the Future above is OTM.

also: the first Belle & Sebastian show in Athens, GA in 1998 was so bad that it basically killed my interest in 'em.

wouldn't know about hearing Big Star in the 70s because like almost everybody I didn't

I love Big Star, but I always felt that the mythmaking was due to the boring (and sad) logistics of shitty distribution. The few who heard the records at the time naturally raved about them, but they were pretty much unobtainable (I don't think Radio City even left the warehouse), so the myth snowballed. For myself, when I first heard them, I was immediately reminded of Badfinger and the Raspberries -- nothing about #1 Record seemed the least bit anachronistic to 1973 (though tbf, I wasn't really around at the time).

Wayne Coyne

even #1 Record has "Feel" and "Try Again" but it's comparatively trite

I just read the AV club thing on power pop and the author calls "Thank You Friends" 'transcendent'. Do people not get the sarcasm in that number?

god, yes. Used to love that guy, now I wish he'd be shot into the depths of space. xp

I love Big Star, but I always felt that the mythmaking was due to the boring (and sad) logistics of shitty distribution. The few who heard the records at the time naturally raved about them, but they were pretty much unobtainable (I don't think Radio City even left the warehouse), so the myth snowballed.

otm

it transcends its own sarcasm imo xxp

god, yes. Used to love that guy, now I wish he'd be shot into the depths of space. xp

― Johnny Fever, Friday, December 5, 2014 7:07 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh no he would probably make an album about it.

i was just re-listening to broken social scene and wow that band had a shitty singer who wrote shitty lyrics.

i'm talking about kevin drew here. they transcendent it sometimes by having good hooks but still a lot of unforgivable stuff on these records

"texico bitches" really?

I remember being disappointed by Scritti Politti's Anomie & Bonhomie when it was released, as a teenager who had recently become obsessed with their 80s material I have to say that 'the best rap-rock record'/'the best foo fighters record' was really not what I was looking for from the new Scritti album. I do like it a lot more now, though.

I know we all like to flatter ourselves at being ultra discerning expert consumers but it's ok to just be all "this is just not for me" instead of acting like our standards for music are in any way objective or more enlightened than "people who don't appreciate music as well as us".

Everything after the first 3 Jacula/Antonius Rex albums is a huge disappointment. I worshipped those first three and then bought a stack of the remaining albums and it was a terrible comedown.

Morrissey from Southpaw Grammar onwards.

Quite a lot of Frank Black albums were disappointing but there was usually something good going on but I haven't kept up with him in years.

That new age "music is the center" comp everyone raved about last year.. I was expecting more home studio synth stuff but i recall it being very "organic" sounding. Not in a bad way, though, I'm sure it's lovely music.

it is, but knowing a bit about your tastes I can see why it would disappoint (I like your tastes fwiw)

the first 3 and last 4 on Good Humor are great but its middle really really drags.

― brimstead, Monday, December 1, 2014 10:53 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thinking about what you said a few posts ago: how would the expression of this sentiment have been improved by your writing "but its middle is just not for me." ? Even if you were sincere, it would come off as somehow much more precious & irritating than the straightforward assessment you actually gave.

what the hell is your beef with people on this thread and their opinions

?

I.....like opinions? I have them....too? Others.....presumably have them? They.........are not all the same?

What exactly is going to happen on a thread about "musical disappointments," we're all going to agree about what is "disappointing"?

you have asserted that people who were disappointed by Radio City are somehow incorrect ("complete nonsense", like you have any authority there), and brimstead's opinion was not "precious and irritating", it was a specific reference to the gear used/overall sound on that comp.

stop criticizing other people's personal aesthetic experiences and tell another story about how some artist crushed your hopes, that's what's going on itt.

i.e you have confused this for a debate thread, it's a "tell a story thread"

the most recent GY~BE was a pretty big disappointment imo (altho I got a lotta mileage outta the drone tracks)

long repetitive post-rock crescendos sans interludes or spooky disembodied voices is, like... less than half of what I like about Lift Yr Skinny Fists

Look, my post to brimstead was friendly. brimstead's post noted that "we" act like we are objective but that it is ok to just say something is "not for me".

I pointed out, hardly in some kind of mean way, that brimstead had just recently posted something that was had "objective" sounding opinions in it. I then said maybe it wouldn't be better to change that post to some kind of "hey we're all just subjective" type post, because basically writing that way is incredibly boring.

Also nobody here does it, and if you are really serious about this "tell a story thread" thing you should probably whip out the citation book with some other people on the thread. This thread, if you haven't noticed, is full of opinions. Rather strongly stated opinions. And there have been some arguments. Arguments I wasn't involved with.