The Smiley Smile Message Board

From the Straight Dope message board. Thoroughly engrossing discussion - without the customary 'it sucks' hyperbole. A simple debate amongst enlightened gentlemen.

A few people mention Smile as well!

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=611028 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=611028)

For me, pretty much any critically-acclaimed rap is going to be unlistenable. :-\

Trout Mask Replica- I like what the captain is doing breaking all the music composition rules, its just hard on ears to listen to the whole album.

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Lester Bangs wrote in 1975 that his two favorite albums of the preceding 12 months were Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and Having Fun With Elvis On Stage. Have never listened to both in one sitting. I have been able to get thru 16 minutes of MMM at a stretch (ie, the length of each of its four vinyl sides) but I never have gotten past the 8 minute mark with the Elvis record. (Side One of both albums can be found on Youtube if you wanna take a try.)

No rap or hip-hop at all although I used to kinda like The Chronic by Dr. Dre. Can't get into Velvet Underground or Lou Reed much.

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if you liked the Chronic there's probably several other rap albums that you would really enjoy.  Ice Cube's first couple albums were great and very similar to that, and then there was a ton of albums by guys like Warren G and The Twinz, or Del the funky Homosapien... or Scarface, or LL Cool J.  Lots of awesome hiphop.  De La Soul!  Lots of horrible sh*t too. 

Any thing that Joanna Newsom puts out. I don't get the hype.

There's really a band named Trout Mask Replica, and people really listen to them?  Come on.  You guys are just elaborately fucking with me, and waited around a couple months until I wandered into this thread, right? 

Pretty much any album by Bob Dylan :lol

There's A Riot Goin' On

Half pop bliss, half meandering jams

anything by Pearl Jam

Anything by the Smashing Pumpkins.

anything by the stone roses

anything by most of those Britpop bands, with a few exceptions

wat exceptions?

anything by anyone

Pale Saints, Slowdive, Ride, ...... Hmmm, but those are mainly shoegaze bands....

Boo Radlys and Primal Scream had some good stuff

slowdive, boo radleys? wicked! :hat

I much like most of Scott Walker's work, apart from his very early and generally hideous 45s from his pre-Walker Brothers days. The last album of his I played a lot was Tilt; after he got started on "sound art" or whatever it is with The Drift and Bish Bosch, I kinda dropped out though there are a couple of tracks on both albums I like.

That said, I found the post at the Straight Dope board - "his later albums sound like a herd of cats going through a meat grinder" - absolutely hilarious.

A lot of records regarded as classics I don't find unlistenable, but they just bore me. A leading example is Astral Weeks. A couple later things of Van's like Moondance I like, but I just don't think of AW as an untouchable masterpiece.  However, Lester Bangs thought it was great so I guess it's my ears that are not working right where that record goes.

Anything by Adele. Seems like everybody loves her, from serious critics and well-respected musicians to their moms, but I absolutely HATE her voice and way of singing, and dislike most her song material.

I think it's brilliant what he did and I'm fascinated by the story behind the album...but, for me, to actually listen to it is impossible...a tremendously unenjoyable experience.

For those who haven't heard it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5I-Xq54FT4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5I-Xq54FT4)

Her first album is better than her second, in which she went REALLY overboard with her singing. I too hate the female oversinging trend.

Well, I'm just going to come out and say that I love Trout Mask Replica and that I also enjoy listening to it.

But, apparently a lot of people find quite a bit of my favorite music unlistenable.

I listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion recently, and I have to admit, I despised it. I especially hated the excessive use of reverb on that album; I think it was supposed to help give it a wider soundscape, but it just made it feel all the more squished and nasty.

I also can't really get into Dylan, despite how much I want to. I like some of his stuff though.

I fucking LOVE Trout Mask, and I've never found it to be a hard listen. Maybe it's because I listened to it all the time when I was just a lad. It definitely warped me and changed how I thought about music and it's function.

Every time I've tried listening to it I get really uncomfortable. Maybe I'll give it another go one of these days.

The first Scott album is a masterpiece in my opinion. Nothing beats Montague Terrace (In Blue). I think The Drift and Bish Bosch are great albums, but they're not something I put on regularly.

Very interesting to say the least.  :lol

Anything with Thom Yorke wailing away self-pityingly throughout it.

Regarding Trout Mask, I'm with those who don't find it especially difficult to listen to. It would be difficult to play, don't get me wrong. But I think it feels natural as long as you aren't trying to count the meter in one instrument, noticing it's different from another, etc. Unusual, sure. Difficult, no.

  Captain Beefheart was essentially an avant garde blues singer IMO. The guitars are Delta Blues and the singing recalls Howlin' Wolf, maybe Charlie Patton. Liked Ice Cream for Crow.

I tried to like beef heart, really wanted to as it seemed to be a very cool thing in its day.   but it seemed to lack something I needed to appreciate a piece of music.  As I recall, it seemed like boring noise posing as cool.  Loved the album cover of the trout album, though.

I've disliked every person I've met in real life before they told me they liked the band. That's not to say I dislike anyone who likes the band, but y'know what I mean.

I try to shy from being negative these days (TRY), but man, I'm pretty sure people who compare Animal Collective/Panda Bear to The Beach Boys/Brian Wilson have a second anus in their ear canal instead of a functioning ear drum. It do.

(Someone gonna get mad over this. Sorry. I just sincerely barely hear a resemblance beyond both artists making sound.)

"Unlistenable" is a strong word -- it's more about taste from my standpoint.  I just don't care to listen to anything by Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen who have been held in very high critical  esteem (and popularity) at various points of their careers.  A little Bob Dylan or Neil Young go a long way for me.  "Astral Weeks" never made me want to play it again.  And right now I'm listening (not "unlistening") to the heralded "Paul's Boutique" by the Beastie Boys for the 3rd or 4th time in my life.  I hear the creativity and craft, but just not my thing.  Unless I start smoking weed maybe.

 :hat

I remember reading a letter to the editor of Melody Maker in 1970 from someone who said that the first person able to give him a very good reason for not sending his brand-new copy of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica spinning into outer space could have it. Evidently some dude who bought it expecting to hear a John Mayall clone or some MOR psychedelia. 

My opinion then and now is that one of the best things one could do with TMR----one of the most extraordinary collections of songs and instrumentals ever committed to wax----would be just that: to send it spinning into outer space, as any extra-terrestrial thinking that Planet Earth is a pushover would on hearing it turn tail and head back to its own galaxy.

 :lol  I hope they have extra-absorbent cotton buds at hand

Eminem.  Green Day.  Morrissey.

Tommy by The Who.