Great bands/performers you just can't fall in love with.

daddyjt

I have broad musical tastes - pretty much everything with the exception of Rap and Opera can be found on my playlists. However, there are a few great - even legendary - bands that I just can't seem to fall in love with. For example, The Rolling Stones. I've tried, on numerous occasions, to really like them - and I come up empty every time. That being said, I have tremendous respect for the group and what they have accomplished, but outside of 4 or 5 songs, they just don't click with me.

Any of you have a similar experience with a group or performer that you feel like you should like, but you just don't?

motorhead43026

Eagles

lightman1

The Who

decal

Rush and Boston top my list.

[Deleted User]

U2, Guns and Roses, Green day (o.k. don't know about great)
Frank Sinatra

ken brydson

Doors

Nightfall

Doors, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Phish, Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic, Smashing Pumpkins, Dave Mathews Band... that's all i got for now.

[Deleted User]

That is strange in that those are the only artists I DO like.

Nightfall wrote: »

Doors, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Phish, Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic, Smashing Pumpkins, Dave Mathews Band... that's all i got for now.

nooshinjohn

Slim Whitman, Whoopee John and the Six Fat Dutchmen, , Lawrence Welk, and The Bay City Rollers...

Edit**** how could I have forgotten the incomparable Engelbert Humperdinck. Something about his last name always made me laugh like Bevis and Butthead.

mhardy6647

There are certainly renowned bands/performers I can only take in small doses.
Hendrix, Clapton (with or without "the Cream"), Rick Wakeman, the Doors, ELP, and U2 all come to mind.


Bands like REM and Rush I cannot in any sense of my own taste in music or performance consider "great". I find both very tedious. In the latter case nearly unlistenably so. There are a couple of REM songs I enjoy, but they always seemed too self-consciously portentous (and pretentious) to me.

Speaking of "pretentious", as a teen and very young adult, I really liked Yes. Now, there are only a few songs of theirs I ever actively feel like hearing. Having said this, I will admit that The Yes Album still sounds pretty good; goofy, juvenile lyrics notwithstanding

For me, Yes jumped the shark the moment after the track And You and I ended on the otherwise tedious (and oh-so-pretentious) album Close to the Edge. And the other Yes albums thereafter are of no interest at all to me. I do, in full disclosure, own a copy of Going for the One, which I did listen to back when it was new.

OleBoot

U2, Jeff Beck, Tiny Tim

mhardy6647

You know what? (FWIW) I don't think I have an opinion one way or another about Jeff Beck.

Oh, speaking of British "white boy plays the blooze" guitarists -- that band that guy Jimmy Page was in -- you know, the one after he was in the Yardbirds. That one that, supposedly, Keith Moon & John Entwistle named.

I recognize that that Lead Balloon band had members that were pretty talented, but I never much cared for them. Too much pretend teenage macho swagger for my tastes (much of it in the guise of ripped off blues songs).

Actually the only one I have any respect & admiration for is the guy who sang for 'em (even though he kinda looked like Roger Daltrey). He's still even got something of a viable career going, last I knew.

gce

The Stones are definitely a band I could never get into for some reason. I do like some of their songs but I don't own any of their music.

mhardy6647

FWIW: Well, I certainly used to feel fairly similarly to the post above vis-a-vis the Rolling Stones -- but their apex was (I'd even say unarguably) the trilogy Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. Worthy of the attention of anyone who likes, or effects to like, rock and roll, I'd opine.

I didn't own 'em then -- but I do now.

OleBoot

mhardy6647 wrote: »

You know what? (FWIW) I don't think I have an opinion one way or another about Jeff Beck.

Oh, speaking of British "white boy plays the blooze" guitarists -- that band that guy Jimmy Page was in -- you know, the one after he was in the Yardbirds. That one that, supposedly, Keith Moon & John Entwistle named.

I recognize that that Lead Balloon band had members that were pretty talented, but I never much cared for them. Too much pretend teenage macho swagger for my tastes (much of it in the guise of ripped off blues songs).

Actually the only one I have any respect & admiration for is the guy who sang for 'em (even though he kinda looked like Roger Daltrey). He's still even got something of a viable career going, last I knew.

Wouldn't have thought that Jeff Beck would be a "white boy that play the blooze guitarist" - to my ears he just makes a sort of discordant noise and always has since the Yardbirds. As to Lead Balloon, I did not actually like them at the time for pretty much the same reasons that you point out, but now have a greater appreciation - maybe time has made me forget the bare chested outfits.

teekay0007

Bob Dylan

mhardy6647

I am adding no value to this thread
but, for Dylan, I'd just say -- give a listen to

When I Paint My Masterpiece
Desolation Row
My Back Pages
and/or
Tangled Up in Blue

Had he never written any other songs, I'd probably still say he was Nobel-worthy.

Emlyn

There are a lot of bands/performers that I initially did not appreciate when I first heard them. I would put the Beatles and Led Zeppelin in that crowd. The Beatles struck me as bubble gum pop poseurs and Led Zeppelin overhyped and poorly recorded. I thought the Rolling Stones and Black Sabbath were contemporaries who blew them away. I also disliked Crosby, Stills & Nash, Willie Nelson, and Neal Young for many years. I have grown to appreciate all them as I've got older though. But, there are still two that stick out as things I will turn off immediately: Grateful Dead and WINGER.

daddyjt

I have to agree with quite a few of these.

U2 - a little goes a long way, and I could vomit coat hangers when people mention The Edge in the context of greatest guitarists.

Rush - quite possibly the most over hyped band of all time, IMHO.

Greatful Dead - I just don't get it...

Nightfall

daddyjt wrote: »

Rush - quite possibly the most over hyped band of all time, IMHO.

That stings! Peart is widely regarded as one of the best drummers of all time. Very talented trio. I can understand Geddy's voice being a turn off though.

daddyjt

Nightfall wrote: »

daddyjt wrote: »

Rush - quite possibly the most over hyped band of all time, IMHO.

That stings! Peart is widely regarded as one of the best drummers of all time. Very talented trio. I can understand Geddy's voice being a turn off though.

Agreed, Peart is awesome, but I just can't get past Geddy. As much as I'm not a Rush fan, I do have to say that Brother Where You Bound is one of my go-to test tracks.

Nightfall

Perhaps you like YYZ? No vocals.

lightman1

Nightfall wrote: »

Perhaps you like YYZ? No vocals.

He makes a valid point, daddyj.....

treitz3

I think the Grateful Dead would top my list. Lots and lots of followers but I never really dug their style.

Tom

Toolfan66

The Who
U2

Are my top 2, I have mad respect for them but I can do without them. With that said I wouldn't mind seeing U2 live..

DollarDave

The Beatles and the Dave Mathews Band. Nirvana is pretty close to being on the list.

[Deleted User]

Bob Dylan is Jehovah. Clapton was a poser.

mhardy6647

Of the 'OO I will say -- from my perspective, the band for all intents and purposes ceased to exist when Keith Moon died. The chemistry (no pun intended) between Moon & Townshend was phenomenal.

Something about the other three boys I reckon must have kept Townshend's huuuuuuuuuuge ego in check. But John's gone, too. Townshend & Daltrey's recent antics as the "Who" (c'mon? Really!?), to me, are just embarrassing.

Cue up the extended version of Live at Leeds and hear the group that was, for a couple of years, the best thing rock & roll had to offer (from my perspective)

- and, yeah, unfortunately, you can skip most of the rest

PS Townshend's first 'real' solo album Who Came First is very good, and his album with the late Ronnie Lane, Rough Mix is simply outstanding. I would still classify myself as a Townshend fan (even more than a Who fan), but he got sucked under by his own pretentiousness quite a few years ago.

mhardy6647

Oh -- could I put in a half-vote for Pink Floyd, too?

I really admire Pink Floyd. Heck, I even have a lot of admiration for Roger Waters -- but his obsession (not inexcusably, given his own life story) with the past (specifically WWII), for me, sank the band.

I do (did) like Gilmour's work, both as a guitarist & as a vocalist, though.

I really enjoyed their soft side: Grantchester Meadows, San Tropez, Wish You Were Here. Heck, I played Fearless the morning of my dissertation defense to psych myself up! I occasionally enjoy their more serious work (e.g., Shine On You Crazy Diamond), too, but on the whole -- I've kind of lost my taste for and interest in the band & its work (especially past Wish You Were Here).

I will say, though, that Comfortably Numb was phenomenal.

And then there was Syd. Of course, Pink Floyd's other big obsession with the past seemed to be its own past, and particularly with the fate their lost comrade. While it was, and is, fashionable to consider the Syd Barrett era PF as "the actual Pink Floyd", quaint, charming and weird as their early output was, I am, by and large, not a big fan. I do quite like Arnold Layne (don't read too much into that! ) and See Emily Play, though, and Bike is bizarrely fun. I find Jugband Blues almost painful to listen to given poor Syds descent into madness and ultimate irrelevance.

As to The Dark Side of the Moon, even in the 1970s I realized that, as long as there are teenagers, stereos, and marijuana, that album will be popular.

I know all y'all needed to know all that!

stones89

Elvis Costello - voice brings me to tears, The Boss, except for Nebraska and Darkness, The Eagles…..any of it.

daddyjt

lightman1 wrote: »

Nightfall wrote: »

Perhaps you like YYZ? No vocals.

He makes a valid point, daddyj.....

I gave YYZ another listen last night (gave me an excuse to fire up the TT, as I only have that album on vinyl), and it actually wasn't too bad...