Your Biggest Musical Disappointment.......

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.

I also called for positive type disappointment-with-a-happy-ending stories a while back in this thread, none of which have materialized, so you can step off on the stuff about me bringing all the negativity.

one time I bought a Danielson Family CD (used), listened to half of it once & then immediately gave it away to somebody I met that night

xp dude it's one thing to say "hey I disagree, I think the first three Wire albums are great", and another thing to say "your direct personal experience is complete nonsense and here's why" or "the way you expressed your disappointment in that record was precious and irritating" (obviously paraphrasing there)

if you don't see the difference there, I don't know what to tell you.

Drive-By Truckers show in Sacramento earlier this year. We took my BiL for his birthday, he's a fan but hadnt seen them live.

We've seen them four or five times over the last 5 years or so, each show was like a huge party, just fun & jubilant & awesome every time.

This show was...not that. Setlist was uneven, weird mix of slow contemplative stuff right into a barn burner, never really establishing a mood either way. All of us sat for most of the show because it was just so average & boring. and they didnt even sound that good, which surprised me.

and i can't stand the new bass player. he stood smack bang in the middle of the stage grinning like a loon the whole time, annoyed the shit out of me. why am i forced into watching YOU? i dont even know who you are

I didnt go to any of their Fillmore shows in SF this month bc I'm still kind of mad about how boring they were :(

i love them so much but i feel like this really soured me. i'm not usually so fickle but they felt like a completely different band to me & i dont think i like what they are now

..like, life is too short to blindly follow a band that may or may not put on a good show anymore.

:(

I do see the difference.....between what I said and what you are saying I said. And this is so boring to explain at length and I apologize to everybody else:

brimstead did NOT express disappointment in a "precious and irritating" way; nor did I claim so!!! This is not that hard. brimstead HAD expressed disapproval, saying 'really really drags'. Had brimstead been putting the same judgment as 'this just isn't for me', THEN it would have been precious. But brimstead didn't. Christ, I was expressing hypothetical disapproval by way of supporting a more assertive manner of expressing opinions. Which as I've pointed out, everybody here does anyway already.

And why shouldn't I call some aesthetic opinion "nonsense"? Note this is a bit different than what you claimed I did, which was to say "your direct personal experience is complete nonsense." Which would be hysterically melodramatic bullshit to say. If I did. But I didn't. Neither did anybody else.

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.

― Vic Perry, Friday, December 5, 2014 7:58 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post

It's the whole "listening to an artist once and offering a hot take" bullshit that walks a fine line. Like reading a lot about Big Star and then being not all that into what you hear at first...is fine... but people act like they've been put upon sometimes and it irritates me is all. I Know, I'm probably just projecting.

like being disappointed by a favorite artist's new album is not the same as being disappointed when you hear a critically acclaimed legendary myth-laden artist for the first time. But i do it all the time probably.

In any case, I apologize for my holier-than-holier-than thou tone, it's not really any better than the attitude i'm decrying

Sleeve in all fairness I didn't take Vic's "complete nonsense" phrase to be aimed at my disappointment per se, but at my characterization of that album's musical style (as power pop). I disagree with him, but have no problem with his objection.

As for the whole "precious/irritating" comment re brimstead's post, are you sure you're reading it correctly? I don't thing Vic is saying that b's post was precious etc, but that it would have been, had he added the type of qualifier he seemed to be advocating (to emphasize the subjective nature of one's pronouncements itt).

Lol entire treatises have been written while I composed that

brimstead -- you haven't been a bit holier-than-thou

I wonder if there is as much buildup now when it's easier to hear things quickly. I don't read about things for long any more before I go hear them, so there isn't as much chance to be strongly disappointed. But wow, when you had to plunk down nine bucks and get the shrinkwrap off....

As for favorite artists, I did develop a weird tendency to just expect to be disappointed after a few albums by everybody, to kind of a chilling extent. I'm not a very loyal fan. I nearly feel bad about this.

Multiple xp's iow

xps if y'all are cool with it then I have no right to complain on yr behalf, just thought Vic's tone was excessive (not that I am one to point fingers there, but w/e)

when you had to plunk down nine bucks and get the shrinkwrap off....

OTM

sorry for taking offense, carry on.