I really only like Scenes for a Memory because of the fact that John Petrucci actually put soul into that album. They aren't even being close to one of my favorite bands so go ahead and say what you will.

AC is a good grindcore band. I mean, you obviously don't respect grindcore at all because I have heard you say Scum is a terrible album, so I really don't see why your input on grindcore should be taken seriously.

Mike Portnoy used to be in your signature I believe. Silly me.

Times are a changin'

I've never seen anyone admit to actually liking Branca's work. Admittedly I like roughly a fourth of the stuff I've heard from him. Sometimes its oddly mellow with a touch of unrest making an all around suspenseful sound.

[/QUOTE]


genocide organ
lol

To be honest with you: Unless I'm thinking of another MBV? they were(still are?) considered somewhat "Goth" as well? Unless of course, as I said, there's another "My Bloody Valentine" band out there?



Also, J&MC I would think would be more new wave-ish, or synthpop, than "pop"? I could be wrong, but I do believe that album(Psychocandy) is considered their landmark album, and I've heard their stuff played in goth/80s clubs before.

I would consider them more pop friendly, but I don't even know if thats the right word to call them anymore?

Good thread.

I'd say The Ascension by John Coltrane, which is more of a swirling mess than any no wave group I've ever heard, or Tod Dockstader's Quatermass, which has to be the most alienating record I own. AMM and Peter Brotzmann Octet are close contenders. There are also a lot of early modernist "tone cluster" compositions which are pretty damn obtuse.

I've found though that once you gain an appreciation for sound itself, detached from any melodic system, "inaccessible" music stops being the weird, noisy, droney stuff, and becomes rather what doesn't click with your personality. Like indie folk or soul music for me. I just can't get into it.

Oh, and Glenn Branca is a genius.

agreed

but,

khanate

might be the sort of thing you're looking for boo boo.

Your post is very much imo an implicit anti-indie/alt rant but we've had enough arguments about that already. I think you sum up the crux of the matter in that quote over there. Accessibility at the end of the day is REALLY relative. For example, I personally don't find Mariah Carey particularly accessible, whereas she's like the best selling artist ever or something?!

I think "accessible" is merely a synonym for "listenable". So if something is of the sort of thing that one enjoys listening to, then for that person it is accessible. Sigh. This sounds like stating the bleedin' obvious and I feel stupid writing it. I think I can probably take it a step further, though.

Perhaps "accessibility" could be defined in terms of what the general populace find accessible. That would allow it to be slightly more restricted in what it may encompass. In that case, the most of us on these boards, the proggies of us, the metalheads of us, the indie-kids of us, the hardcore rap fans, whatever, the lot of us listen to very inaccessible music - and that is the dividing line between casual music listeners and very serious well-researched diehard niche music fans. We're not chart whores. We look for something more out of what we listen to. So we're automatically listening, all the time, to music that is plainly inaccessible to the rest of the population. Hell, even the slightly more mainstream indie stuff like TV On The Radio for example is absolutely unbearable to your average listener, even a person who might've been a big fan of music throughout the 60s/70s (like my dad).

I remember when I first started listening to "niche" music: the band was Tool. At the time, I thought it was the sort of thing that few people would be able to listen to. From the perspective of considering a lot of the stuff I listen to presently, Tool is pretty accessible by comparison. I suppose it really depends what the music is, and what it is being compared to. I mean, boo boo can't listen to Deerhoof at all. To me, Deerhoof is some of the most listenable indie I've come across. I think something like Deerhoof is an awful lot more listenable than the likes of Neu or Can (both of whom I also like).

On the topic of pop, I'd like to address this too. Pop has a number of different meanings and uses. It could, on the one hand, simply be an umbrella term for anything that'd fall under "easy listening". This is the most common meaning for the word. Then, there is the broader meaning of "pop". In this latter meaning, pop refers more to an aesthetic. It means that the music gravitates towards melody, hooks, and bright arrangements, or at least one of those three things. Barring any of that, it would be weird to refer to music as "pop". I agree that Psychocandy isn't really all that poppy at all and am not sure why the band were labeled noise pop as opposed to noise rock.

I know, if you paid attention I never said anything negative about Branca as an artist, just stating the fact that he does have some really inaccessible material.