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

"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?