The Smiths … Morrissey.
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Seems most of the big name IDM artists in the 90s delighted in pushing the buttons of their listeners; I’d often find myself adoring one album only to be repelled by the next (but would grow to love that too with time). This was true for Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Autechre, Chris Clark and Mike Paradinas. Basically anybody who delighted in pushing boundries album to album.
It was so common I kind of took it for granted, but this seems to have shifted a bit in the modern age, and isn’t the norm in other genres (more commonly people have a sound, and stick with it more, like Boards of Canada who were young upstarts in my day).
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Oh no, what did Nico do?
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Bee Gees is a good shout.
They wrote about 30 of the best pop songs in history; every album has two or three all-time classics swimming in a sea of absolute corn syrup.
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She was pretty racist and said some terrible things about Black people, Jews, and others. Though given the humor of the time and the provocative circles she ran in, it’s hard in retrospect to tell what was actual racial animus and what was her just trying to be “edgy.” (Like saying she couldn’t date Jews after Lou Reed—it’s very hard to tell in print how that line was delivered, and as a Jew I can read it as either a gentle joke on Lou, or a truly poisonous comment, or even a bit of both.)
Along the same lines, she had major disagreements with Tom Wilson about the production of Chelsea Girl, and in some interviews it’s hard to tell how much of it was artistic differences and how much was her reaction to being told what to do by a Black person.
While I sort of agree with her aesthetically about the arrangements on Chelsea Girl (she was against all the flutes and strings and baroque pop and wanted it to sound more like a Velvets album with drums and guitars), the way she talked to and about Black people in general was pretty awful.
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Against all odds is a fucking tune.
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I hate the Bee Gees and think the vast majority of their music is slop.
At the same time, “I Started A Joke” is one of my favorite songs ever. I would like it played at my funeral. “Staying Alive” is an all-time banger.
This whole thread reminds me of when I saw Ivo Van Hove’s restaging of Network starring Bryan Cranston. I absolutely loved it, but I could’t figure out if it was a work of genius or an unwatchable disaster. Or somehow both at the same time.
One thing it was not was mediocre.
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if you like “I started a joke” and “Staying Alive”, I can almost guarantee there are other Bee Gees tracks you would love.
- New York Mining Disaster 1941
- Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You (genuinely weird, cool psych)
- How Can You Mend a Broken Heart
- Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)…
late 70s live footage is also bonkers, incredibly tight disco band, when I think about them operating at the same time as early Talking Heads/peak King Crimson/all the great punk & post-punk stuff/all the great reggae and dub bands of the time… seems like some kinda peak for live music
But this is not the thread for pure love, so yes: 90% of what the Bee Gees released is unlistenable sentimental slush (but they’re great)
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Also, IIRC, she didn’t behave exactly right with her son
Oh man, I hate most of my favorite bands if I’m being honest. Though I think every metal head is the same.
Children of Bodom’s first three albums are some of my favorite, and then they started incorporating this awful nu-metal style and it got really bad.
Metallica is the ur example. Everything after Puppets is rough.
Cemetery Gates by Pantera is stellar and I hate almost everything else they’ve ever done.
I think Savatage is the only band without an album that I hate. There are some duds, but they all have at least one song worth listening to
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I agree with every artist on your list, but… Air?
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Lords of Acid has to got to be on this list. A group that I love dearly and also think is just terrible. Feels so good. Feels so bad.
Danzig. His Elvis album is so much worse than I thought it could be, and I was expecting it to be pretty godawful. But also, I love GD and he can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned.
As @gonzodamus implied, Megadeth. Also Slayer, if I’m being honest with myself… and I liked World Painted Blood!
I was once in the car with my sister and she said “just don’t play that CD that French people listen to when they’re trying to fall asleep.” She meant Air.
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U2. I grew up with them in the 80’s and loved them. Their output in this century has been, well, something.
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While I’m at it, Gogol Bordello.
…So there’s this HBO st(r)eaming show called Creature Commandos that is not especially good. Actually it is just plain bad, but I watched it because I loved the Jeff Lemire/Matt Kindt comics it was (very loosely) based on.
Anyway, it’s a show about horror-based DC Comics superheroes, like Frankenstein and the Wolfman, getting into scrapes with various DC characters. It’s a bargain-bin Harley Quinn, with apparently zero production budget.
And for some reason I cannot possibly fathom, most of the music is by Gogol Bordello, who, for even less fathomable reasons, show up as characters in the show. A lot of the music is diegetic.
I adore Gogol Bordello and have seen them many times, but this is exactly as bad of an idea as it seems . . . Maybe worse.
Again, it is a cartoon about superheroes. So you’ll have a fight between Wonder Woman and the Bride of Frankenstein, and the entire time Eugene Hütz will be running around singing “Start Wearing Purple” like it’s 2010. For apparently no other reason than that James Gunn is a Gogol Bordello fan, I guess?
It sucks.
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Billy Corgan. Smashing Pumpkins are one of my favorite bands of all time and were hugely instrumental in my early music making days. Some of their albums are pure song writing and guitar playing genius. But as a person I really dislike almost everything about him, it’s so bad and cringey the stuff he says that part of me thinks he’s just pulling everyone’s chain.
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radiohead (formerly my favorite band)
explaining why has been the reason why my trust level has been permanently demoted to “basic user” lol
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Bring Me The Horizon - Post Human Survival Horror
Never listened to anything by them before or after, but they produced this album with Mick Gordon (the guy who composed the generative metal soundtracks to the Doom remakes) and its nuts. sounds like one of those hyperactive DJ sets where they only play each song for 8 or 16 bars before cutting to something else, except each part is a tribute to a classic moment of nu metal.
any one song will start with like a papa roach rap, the it’ll switch up into something that sounds like orgy, then cut to a slipknot breakdown, then a bit that sounds like a linkin park ambient section, before smashing into a deftones screaming thing. and it just keeps going like this for 40min.
its the dumbest, ugliest, most tasteless and embarrassing record, the lyrics are… not great… and yet also sort of incredible and brave and I love it?
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This sounds amazing.
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GG Allin obviously.
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I’ve honestly never heard their output of this century. And I think I’ll keep it that way. I want to remember them as they were, when they were young and spry. Joshua Tree. Man, I absolutely wore out that cassette tape.
I don’t think I’ve heard anything past Zooropa. Wait, I do remember that song Beautiful Day. That wasn’t bad. Released in 2001 according to wikipedia. So I’ve heard at least one U2 song this century!
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