An album you love in a genre you know nothing about

Andre Popp & His Orchestra - Delirium in Hi Fi
Essentially a polka album filled with tape editing experiments. Tons of fun, and once I got over the "wow, this is crazy!" level, it was clear to me that I really, really liked those songs too.
Still, years after I bought this, I haven't dared to try to get further into the genre.

OK, [Meta-question?] please explain: if you there's an album you really love in a (viable, identifiable) genre that you know nothing about, what on earth prevents you from exploring that genre further in the hope of finding more of the same?

I mean - wild horses wouldn't stop me from doing so (my credit card limit possibly; wild horses definitely not)!

But Alex, isn't that like allowing yourself to put off from exploring pop / rock because of the proliferation of crap like Sting and Phil Collins that they too contain?

"Time Out is probably the safest, most conservative, most ubiquotous bit of jazz to be found. Maybe I'm way off here, but it seems to me like the jazz equivalent of, say, a Zeppelin album....pretty much everyone owns a copy of it."

I would guess it would come quite a way behind Kind Of Blue and A Love Supreme, but I take your point.

Why does it make a difference that it's a different genre to the one you normally operate in 'though? If you found an album you loved by a rock band wouldn't you find out if they'd recorded anything else and look at places like here and AMG to see what other people who liked that band also liked and give those a try?

But with polka, I just have NO idea where I'll find stuff that interests me.
Not quite as bad for klezmer, as I have found some recommendations, but not have had much chance of finding it at good prices (a lot of it is US-only releases etc, mad import prices)
I have found some interesting stuff that I can get hold of though, so I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I start ordering albums by the likes of Brave Old World.

But y'know, there's so many genres to explore, and not really possible to go everywhere at once. I want to check out progressive bluegrass as well, for that matter, but don't even have a token album so far...
But at the same time there's stuff I want like the Eric Dolphy box or Art Tatem complete solo box that I KNOW I will dig, which looks more tempting for my wallet.

I also have one Fela Kuti album and one gamelan album that I love. There's just something intimidating about a whole new world of music you nothing about, like starting from scratch.

I guess the availability of material on the internet that you can download is a factor here too for those less "viable, identifiable" genres.

I would have thought being able to download music would / should actually be helping people to explore the more established existing genres 'though.... or does it actually end up making the problem worse by providing too much choice within those genres and / or too many easy alternatives within (y)our existing musical "comfort zones"?

The album? John Coltrane's "Meditations"
A rather free live recording with him and Pharoah Sanders going BEEP EEP BEEP DOOODOODOODEEEDEEDEEEDIIIDIIDIIIDOOOO EBEP BIP BIP a lot.
Frankly, it scared me off jazz.
Only a couple of years later, when I decided to try some other artists, after having read an online review of the Trane that made it clear that it wasn't "normal jazz" (whatever I thought that meant)
So I tried some other things, this time a bit more guided (ie i had the internet to give me a few pointers, thanks Mr Internet!)
So I found Miles.
So I found Mingus!
So I found jazz.

It went slowly at first, a couple of Miles albums, a few more Mingus albums that I couldn't stop spinning (I'd say "Blues & Roots" is THE album that got me seriously into the genre) and things started making sense. I kept exploring, trying lots of similar jazz subgenres, and finding things I liked in all of them....
Eventually I went back to the Trane, and I'll be damned if that didn't open itself up to me too; though I sure can't figure out HOW! It's like what used to sound to me like guys being way too clever (or stupid and annoying) for me to figure out, suddenly was this really exciting recording.

Of course, that's not really a story that QUITE fits the thread, as that Coltrane album certainly WASN'T an "album I love[d] in a genre I [knew] nothing about"

[[[[[BOOGIE]]]]
Rambling on the internet > Productive work

Oh, and since this XPosted:
When I mentioned the polka thing, I DID mean polka in general, not some obscure "tape-editing experimental polka"... I know I will explore the genre eventually, but for the time being I'm peeking into other nooks of music.

As for the MP3 question, I must admit that I frankly find it offputting when trying to explore new genres, isntead of just taking a wild chance and buying an album or two and trying to get my head around that. In one hand it's safer (cheaper & more views of the genre), but on the other it's overwhelming, and you risk checking out all the hip stuff that's way too difficult to figure out anyway.

i wanted to learn more and i went out and bought a bunch of kompakt stuff.

I guess I'm at a similar stage with jazz myself Tom....

"I don't think it out of the question that I'll suddenly 'get it' in a few years and plunge my family into penury though."

I hope I wouldn't go that far - but then I'm not sure I see "getting it" (at least in terms of genres) as a black and white thing so much as infinite shades of grey.

(Individual bands / artists are a completely different matter altogether of course - I'm quite capable of going from total ignorance of a band / artist's existence to absolutely needing, desperately and urgently to own absolutely everything they've ever recorded within the time it takes to hear, say, a couple of tracks!)

I guess I am perpetually trying to achieve the right balance (for me) between depth in the genres I like a lot; and breadth in the ones I'm less passionate about; and, of course, bancruptcy.

I can relate to that completely, White Rabbit.

I'd like to think that - if I could just exercise a level of self-control equivalent to the constraints that were put on my spending at the time in my life when I did know every scratch and crackle on every record in my collection(!), I'd still strive to achieve that balance I was talking about earlier (e.g. instead of maybe buying 16 rock CD's and 4 jazz ones a month I'd buy 4 rock ones and 1 jazz one rather than just cutting out jazz completely).

originally released in 1959 under the name Elsa Popping and her Pixieland Band to distinguish it from Andre Popp's straighter stuff. this is such a bizarre and wonderful album. if it fits in any genre, it ain't polka, maybe other bizarre spaceage tapemusic-pop albums like Dean Elliot's 'Zounds What Sounds' and maybe the Perrey/Kingsley stuff. but 'Delirium' is so much further out than any of those other records.

http://www.317x.com/albums/s/ymasumac/enlargement.html

Does this mean it's not really a Jazz record? I had this conversation with a friend about 10 years ago. I tried to get into Bitches Brew but thought it was a load of arse.

(and this is assuming that owning Legend by Bob Marley doesn't qualify me for "knowing anything about" reggae)

I've got it if you'd like me to burn you a copy, Alex

I'm no fan of his work but I think Alex is being a bit disingenous in lumping Metheny in with Kenny G. He's shown a greater willingness to experiment and confound his fans expectations than most artists.

You could half expect Lou Reed to come up with Metal Machine Music knowing his background in the Velvet's, but nothing could prepare the ground for Metheny's Zero tolerance for silence.

Fwiw I think he'd probably be wrong on the first point (I don't question for a second his ability to recognise that Kenny G is crap!) but right on the second (Pat Metheny certainly isn't really something I'd recommend to someone who's just starting to explore jazz: I can remember picking up "Song X" when I was first starting to get into jazz, because IIRC it had been voted "Best New Jazz Album Of The Year" in NME, and loathing it!)

I love Steve Coleman's 'The Sign and the Seal', where he went to Cuba to record with musicians there. I don't own any other Cuban folkloric music (it's a far cry from salsa, which I expected this record to be when I originally got it) though or tried to seek it out, though I would imagine that recordings are pretty rare.

as i said above hip-hop is one of those things I have the odd record of but don't investigate further. I'd like to get more and I don't mind buying rubbish hip-hop bcz its the only way you'll learn but its something to do with having the time to devote myself to it as well as listening to the stuiff I'm into (rock, avant-garde jazz and composition, imporvisation...there are too many things out there).

But I do intend to getting round to as many things as i can: from 'world' music to reggae to ambient etc but it will take me years.