Author Topic: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to  (Read 8203 times)

Redlight

  • Enjoying life in the slow lane
Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« on: 25 January, 2018, 09:58:05 am »
Spinning off from Ian's comment on the thread about Mark E Smith...

"The Fall were one of those bands that it was cool to like without actually having to listen to"

What artists / bands / albums / songs etc would fit into our personal lists of cool but unlikeable? The criteria is that whatever you nominate has to be "critically acclaimed", "classic" etc., but, to you, either unfathomable or just plain crap.

I'll start by taunting the prog-rockers and nominating Yes.  I loved a lot of prog and still play imaginary drums to early Genesis records (yes, I know  :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: ) but I could never get Yes.  It always sounded to me as though five people had all turned up in the recording studio on different days, had a noodle for a couple of hours, and then gone home again without ever listening to what the others had done.
Why should anybody steal a watch when they can steal a bicycle?

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #1 on: 25 January, 2018, 10:30:45 am »
can I nominate the Beatles, with a range from the sublimely excellent to the absolutely tedious and sublimely awful.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #2 on: 25 January, 2018, 10:37:35 am »
can I nominate the Beatles, with a range from the sublimely excellent to the absolutely tedious and sublimely awful.

+1

They had their moments, but I've always preferred the Rolling Stones.

I'm mostly on the same page as Redlight regarding Yes, though I do have the 90125 and Big Generator albums, which were somewhat more commercial/accessible.
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Basil

  • Um....err......oh bugger!
  • Help me!
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #3 on: 25 January, 2018, 10:57:28 am »
The Greatfull Dead.
Rather cool, but actually rather tedious.
Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #4 on: 25 January, 2018, 11:12:18 am »
The Smiths - winey adolescent rubbish. Johnny Marr is a pretty good guitarist though.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #5 on: 25 January, 2018, 11:14:33 am »
The Smiths - winey adolescent rubbish. Johnny Marr is a pretty good guitarist though.

He was awesome when with The The.

Yeah the Smiths were for self-interest but awkward teenagers. 

hillbilly

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #6 on: 25 January, 2018, 12:03:19 pm »
Let’s just summarise this as "Pretty much anything that was promoted by the late great John Peel".

I’ll slip in my suggestions of:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.  I can probably deliver a poor recollection of Red Right Hand and that one he did with Kylie on Murder Ballads.  Anything else, not so much.

PJ Harvey.  I can belt out Sheena an Gig's chorus, but the rest of her ouvre I probably couldn’t even bring to mind.

The Pogues. Led by Mark O’Smith (aka a drunk with fucked up features and a surly attitude, real name Shane McGowan) I’m impressed by anyone who can recall more than Fairytale in New York and maybe the chorus of Dirty Old Town.

I rebut the Smiths. Great band. People who don’t like them probably think Boner of U2 is a genius.

cygnet

  • I'm part of the association
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #7 on: 25 January, 2018, 12:51:36 pm »
I'm rubbish at album/track-listings, but will quite happily stick on an album by PJ Harvey or Nick Cave.

Surely the obvious one is The Ramones - Cool to like (judging by the T-shirts), but I've never listened to an album.  :o
I Said, I've Got A Big Stick

PaulF

  • "World's Scariest Barman"
  • It's only impossible if you stop to think about it
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #8 on: 25 January, 2018, 01:32:06 pm »
Was about to start a similar thread a few weeks back prompted by hearing the Fall on the radio. In no particular order:

The Fall
Morrissey
The Smiths after about the second or third album
The Beatles
The Verve

I'm sure more will come to mind later

nicknack

  • Hornblower
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #9 on: 25 January, 2018, 01:42:15 pm »
The Greatfull Dead.
Rather cool, but actually rather tedious.
I've always thought that the Dead ought to be my kind of band (freaky, psychedelic stuff), but every time I try to listen to them I have to turn them off because I can't stand that country shit.
There's no vibrations, but wait.

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #10 on: 25 January, 2018, 02:09:13 pm »
The Greatfull Dead.
Rather cool, but actually rather tedious.
I've always thought that the Dead ought to be my kind of band (freaky, psychedelic stuff), but every time I try to listen to them I have to turn them off because I can't stand that country shit.

I like country but The Dead were not very good at it. Give me Gram Parsons or Johnny Cash any day.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #11 on: 25 January, 2018, 03:06:55 pm »
Frank Zappa / Mothers Of Invention  ::-)

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #12 on: 25 January, 2018, 03:25:55 pm »
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Pink Floyd yet, so I will. 

On the positive side, for prog-rock stuff, I still enjoy the Moody Blues - 50 years since Days of Future Past - arguably the first concept album.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #13 on: 25 January, 2018, 03:55:47 pm »
erm, I've listened to whole Floyd albums, more than once.

Can't make it through more than one Rolling Stones song though.

Frank Zappa - cool to claim you really dig the music (but how much did you actually listen to)?

Jazz. Especially free jazz. All of it.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #14 on: 25 January, 2018, 04:05:30 pm »
FFS, when has any prog rock been "cool"?!

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #15 on: 25 January, 2018, 04:20:46 pm »
Can't make it through more than one Rolling Stones song though.

Burn the heretic! Any fool knows Exile is the best rock album ever.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #16 on: 25 January, 2018, 04:55:30 pm »
I'm rubbish at album/track-listings, but will quite happily stick on an album by PJ Harvey or Nick Cave.

Surely the obvious one is The Ramones - Cool to like (judging by the T-shirts), but I've never listened to an album.  :o
The great thing about the Ramones is that if you don't like the track currently playing you only have to wait about two minutes for the next one to come along.
Rust never sleeps

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #17 on: 25 January, 2018, 07:31:10 pm »
Captain Beefheart, Can, any krautrock, a lot of grunge (it wasn't all as tuneful as Nevermind), about 90% of 4AD bands, anything by Nick Cave.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #18 on: 25 January, 2018, 07:44:03 pm »
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Pink Floyd yet, so I will. 
I was actually thinking of Pink Floyd in relation to this thread. I'm not quite old enough to have been into them when they were cool but I did listen to one of their albums the other day (the one with the Bicycle song). Alternately lovely and excruciating. But they don't really count because they haven't been cool for 40 years and I don't like them.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #19 on: 25 January, 2018, 07:48:09 pm »
The thing about Pink Floyd is that the Syd era was so radically different from the disgruntled outpourings of Roger Waters that they might just as well have been two different bands.  But anyway:

  • The Smiths
  • Radiohead
  • The Beautiful South
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #20 on: 25 January, 2018, 07:54:02 pm »
Frank Zappa / Mothers Of Invention  ::-)

Best understood as a live band. They were well rehearsed and had a repertoire of covers, admittedly always with one of Frank's solos in the middle. Whipping Post was one such.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufb6vuYhpKw

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #21 on: 25 January, 2018, 08:14:04 pm »
I like Pink Floyd from Atom Heart Mother to Animals, a lot.  The Wall is hit and miss.  I like all The Smiths albums although the first album is badly produced.  So there.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #22 on: 25 January, 2018, 08:38:26 pm »
Frank Zappa / Mothers Of Invention  ::-)

Best understood as a live band. They were well rehearsed and had a repertoire of covers, admittedly always with one of Frank's solos in the middle. Whipping Post was one such.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufb6vuYhpKw

I didn't know Whipping Post was one of theirs, I've heard a Plant/Page version of that

How about Oasis and Blur ? Never liked either of them
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #23 on: 25 January, 2018, 09:35:43 pm »
Whipping Post was an Allman Brothers tune. It became a ritual to request it from any band. So Zappa obliged. Has anyone mentioned the Velvet Underground, or Henry Cow?

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Bands it was cool to like without actually having to listen to
« Reply #24 on: 25 January, 2018, 10:43:53 pm »
Glad the Ramones have been mentioned. I can’t stand them but I thought I was the only one. Is it just their punk pioneer status that people like them for or do they actually listen to those terrible songs?

I never really got Nirvana. I kind of understood why they were cool but the music did nothing for me. I had a friend who was very into them from the early days. She tried to drag me along to a gig at a tiny venue, just a few months before Teen Spirit catapulted them to megastardom. I turned it down. One of those gigs that would earn you much cred for being able to say ‘I was there’ but... meh.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."