The “Berthoud Goes Bohemian” thread here picqued my interest because it took an interesting detour: the discussion turned to the topic of virtuosos that people don’t enjoy listening to.
This topic has been on my mind recently since watching a documentary ("the, if you will, ‘rockumentary’ ”) about Rush. In the past, whenever they came on the radio, I changed the station. I never thought much about them. I just didn’t connect with music. After watching the documentary, I came away with a HUGE amount of respect for them; particularly the late Neil Peart. But I still don’t enjoy listening to them. They are just too damn technical and intricate, and I can’t just relax and listen to them. I feel the need to try to dissect what they are doing, and get frustrated by the experience.
I guess the biggest change for me is that in my teens and twenties, if I heard something I didn’t enjoy, my insightful critique consisted of “they suck”.
At least I can now listen to something I don’t personally enjoy and appreciate the work and talent that went into it.
Curious about other examples from the Buzz community.
My experience with Neil Young…cannot stand the nasally vocals. Also, Roger Waters…I love love love PF but Roger has turned into a whiny blue haired English lady. He tends to think everything in the world is bad and only he is able to rise above. Just a miserable, whiny old coot.
Roger Waters, as an old man, is just bitter, bitter, bitter. He has been described as an insufferable twat. And the thing is, I loved his PF songs and concepts. I am probably one of the few that think PF, “The Final Cut” is a brilliant album. But after listening to him in interviews, he has turned into, among other things, an anti-semite and tends to dislike the US deeply.
Yeah, this actually gets into a related but different area: musicians whose talent you respect, whose music you like, but whose personalities or views you find repugnant.
Lord knows I have plenty of those, too.
Interesting topic. I hope that expressing heartfelt personal opinions here stays free of recriminations.
We each come to listening/appreciating popular music from individual generational/geographical/sociological perspectives, and as Steve Stills sagely wrote all those years ago, “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.”
As for musicians I respect but can’t stand…
I am way on board with having no use for Rush. Talented? Definitely. Do they do a single thing for me? Not at all.
Ditto for Journey. I like a couple of their tunes, but I can’t stand the whiny vocals.
As for others mentioned already, IMO,…
Creedence was/is a musical phenom led by John Fogerty. I dig them. Always have.
Cream. Absolutely timeless. Jack Bruce, Cream’s bassist, has called the band “Two jazz musicians and a blues guitarist.” They tore up England with their unique take on popular music. Lennon and McCartney and other movers and shakers of the day would go listen to them for their originality. More than good enough for me.
Neil Young is a great songwriter and passionate member of several groundbreaking bands. His solo singer/songwriter work is often cited by some as not their favorite. That’s fine by me. Doesn’t change my opinion.
Pink Floyd is outstanding. Waters is a fool on many fronts. I’m nowhere near jingoistic, but that doesn’t preclude me from not giving a damn about who does/doesn’t like the US.
it’s difficult to say if he is anti-semetic as there is a milliion conflicting reports on this. he is highly against the treatment of palestinians by the israeli state. and we have entered into a world so polarized that being against a government’s action can get you labeled all sorts of derogatory things. however he has also done things like showing the star of david next to dollar signs, which is tasteless. so who knows.
So… long story short, when I first got into bass in the early 90s, I went through a “maybe guitar will be better” phase. Part of that was diving headfirst into all the guitar heroes of the day… Vai, Satriani, Clapton, you name it. I figured I’d have to give Malmsteen a try.
I picked up Fire & Ice. Over about 8 attempts, I think the furthest I made it was about half-way through the second song.
I can totally relate to this.
The band that I have this problem with is System of a Down. They might have good songs, but the voice of the singer is really unpleasant to my ears.
Rush - though for Rush it’s different reasons. I had a roommate in college who was a Rush otaku and would play Tom Sawyer 30-40 times in a row at 2:00 in the morning the night before a test. It’s a Pavlov reaction. I used to like them.
The big one is Davie504. He’s not authentic. He acts like a jerk, but Mina made some very nice comments about working with him, and the fact that he is a really sweet guy underneath makes it worse.
