Don't Make Me Work To Like Your Music

This was going to be called the Top 5 bands I’ve listened to and haven’t really liked, but then I realized I probably hadn’t given them enough time. So I went back and listened to each of them and realized that I was wrong about a few of them. So this Top 5 List is going to be called the “Tasted Better on the Way Up” Top 5.

1. Sigur Ros – Didn’t like them the first time, didn’t like them the second time. Although I do think it’s ballsy to call your CD “untitiled” and then have all the tracks be called “untitled 1-8.” Sometimes you’re just looking for music to ignore, you want something playing, but you don’t want to pay attention to it of be moved by it in anyway. That is Sigur Ros for me. I’m not taking anything away from them as musicians, because some of the songs are absolutely beautiful, but I just crave more from my music. I want it to effect me, and this doesn’t.

2. The White Stripes – I know some of you will be offended by this but I can’t like the White Stripes no matter how much I listen to them. I’ve tried, I really have. And sometimes I can even get through a song or two, but I just don’t get them, I don’t get what they’re about and sometimes I feel like they’re just making noise for the sake of making noise. Some bands can pull this off (Modest Mouse) and some just can’t. I liked that video, and I liked it when they were on the Simpsons, I just don’t like their music. Here’s hoping the Racontuers are better.


3. Elliott Smith – I like Elliott, I wish that I had known him pre-mortem, and I like his music in the right mood or when I need something to ignore. That being said, I’m a happy person and I’ve never been sad enough to really enjoy his music. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse is up to you to decide.

4. Arcade Fire – These guys definitely took some time to grow into. They were one of those bands who came out of nowhere and people were instantly obsessed and buzzing about them and I looked them up on Wikipedia before I even listened to them. I noticed they were from Quebec (French-canadian) and that they were some internet phenomenon. Well when something gets picked up by a ton of people and I miss it, I have a tendency to just naturally hate it, you know, just because everyone else likes it (see: Titanic, Livestrong Bracelets, Reality TV). So when I finally listened to The Arcade Fire, all I could think of was sissy French music with no drive or destination. It occurs to me now that I had already decided not to like them and so it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have listened to them a few times now and they’re growing on me. But there’s still something that sticks with me and I’ll cover that more at the end of this post.

5. Radiohead – This one will probably piss more of you off than the others and deservedly so. I remember when I was in 7th grade and the “Creep” song came out and I loved it. It had just the requisite amount of angst and a nice crisply-edged guitar riff and I really liked it. I actually heard it on the radio a few nights back and was reminded about how much I had completely lost Radiohead in all of their reincarnations since that song. Fast forward a few years and I’m listening to Kid A and I just don’t get it. I like it, but I just don’t understand it. Some of the choices they made in the sound effects and vocal arrangements just don’t make any sense to me. It’s like they messed with some funky effect and pedals just for the sake of messing with it and I’ve never understood why bands do that. I think the bottom line for me is that there are so many people who are just obsessed with Radiohead and everything the band does just connects with these people so deeply and so powerfully and that just doesn’t happen with me (if you’re one of those people, PLEASE explain it to me in the comments. Am I missing something?). I like them, but they don’t unlock the secrets of the universe for me like they do for others. Who knows, maybe I’m jealous.

Alright, here’s the thing about my relationship with these bands and bands like them. To really like a CD or a band, I don’t feel like I should have to be in a certain mood for it. A band that really jives with what I’m into, I will like any time, anywhere, in any mood. I like 85% of all the music I hear, so when I have to really work at liking a band, it catches me by surprise and it instantly turns me off. Music has always been one of the only things in my life that has come completely without effort and I really like to keep it that way. So for those bands that are going to make me work to understand them, it’s probably not going to happen. I like my art to be effortless and sometimes it seems like these bands put so much effort into being different or ground breaking or they're so worried about being mainstream that they over-complicate their own music. They add all these effects and weird instruments and they make musical decisions that although they may come off as genius and unique to some, they just come off as smug and arrogant to me. It's like they said, "Well let's record a cat dying right in the middle of this song and a nail file in this one and a pipe bomb full of goldfish in this one and fuck them if nobody likes it, we're artists and we're better than them." And sometimes that arrogance transfers to their fans to, but hey, that's a whole other post.

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