You know, I have to be completely honest with you. I've been a member of this forum for something like 7 years. When I first joined I was pretty compelled to find an avatar that was a great representation of my personality and also looked pretty cool. The Residents' logo with the eyeball, top hat, and a tuxedo conveyed a sense of mysterious eccentricity with a touch of sophistication which I thought was perfect for me, (for the first five years my logo was just the torso), but when I first chose it I had know idea who The Residents were. Well, no, that's not entirely true. I knew that they were an obscure band form the bay area of San Francisco whose song Making Plans for Nigel Primus had covered about 20 years ago on a short EP called Miscellaneous Debris. I know I've heard Primus' version of that song, but since it's been roughly 20 years since I listened to the album I have no idea how the song goes.

As you can probably imagine, being an active music forum member with an avatar of The Residents' logo eventually will spawn attempts at conversation with me regarding the band, and it has, which also created a dilemna: Do I lie and tell people how into the band I am when I'm actually not? Do I give the deflective smile and nod when someone asks about me with a casual eyeball reference? Do I create complex and controversial arguments about the bands music based on research culled from the rest of the internet, or do you make it a point to get to know The Resident's material as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, so as to more accurately and honestly represent the music behind the band behind my avatar?

To tell the truth, I've done all except for the latter. Why? I just didn't really feel like getting into them and you know lying and being an all around fakety-fake is really what the internet is all about, and I would tell you that I wrestled a water buffalo naked--which, incidentally, is true in the figurative sense-- if it meant you being my e-friend.

As a matter of fact, at some point I made it my intention to never listen to The Residents' music ever. On top of that, with the exception of perusing Google image for a new variation of the top hat avatar occasionally, I've managed to remain as ignorant of the band as I possibly could with quite a huge degree of success. I think I can easily say that I am the biggest fan of never hearing The Residents' music that has ever existed.

If that's not the epitome of the ...Arty Piece of **** flushed down a wormhole, then I don't know what is.

Actually, that song was 'Sinister Exaggerator' from the 'Duck Stab' LP. 'Making Plans for Nigel' is an XTC song and couldn't be more different.

I love your post. Yet another variation on the proposed theme. Still, if you like the Residents iconography, you might like their music, because those elements of artifice and artifact are very deliberately intertwined; especially evident when you see some of their early videos, like 'Third Reich/Land of a Thousand Dances'.

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Tubular Bells, I find it tedious and always did, I like some aspects of it. But when I was building my cd collection up years ago always felt that I should have it.

The Wall I've yet the sit through a complete listen without nodding off which I always seems to do by side three. Everybody that sees my album collection always remarks when they see my Pink Floyd section and says "Ah you've got the Wall"

I'm sure I have more but those two come to mind.

Everything I listen to that isn't classic rock is music I listen to just to look cool. Or so I've been lead to believe.

Interesting haha. I've checked out The Residents at various points in the past, never found a full album I liked from start to finish but there are always at least 1-2 tracks that really stand out.

Either way, the biggest piece of artsy sh1t in my collection has to be this one

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Autechre - Confield

I picked it up back in the early 2000s when IDM was still new and snare rushes sounded fresh. I'd heard some Autechre prior to this, mainly remixes, and enjoyed it, reviews pegged this one as their most complex and challenging release at the time. Being a pretentious douche I took those comments as points of pride, only someone with an ear as refined as mine could handle that challenging complexity...

Yeah, no, it just sucks.

^ Yes, Holerbot, that`s exactly why I`ve wasted money on Dylan, Beefheart and Bowie low-point albums. Also Tangerine Dream, although in their case the problem with the new album was that it sounded too much like the last one.

As I became a more canny purchaser, I adopted a policy of borrow, listen and tape the best bits; that was how I avoided both of these pitfalls :-

But when I was younger, I bought a few albums unheard, on the basis of their reputation, which turned out to be too artsy for me : Bitches Brew and one by Ornette Colman come to mind. At that time I was guilty of hoping that my aesthetic tastes would be higher than they actually turned out to be. But I`m innocent on the charge of hanging on to material to impress people ; after all, who`s going to be impressed when you say, "Hey, look at this album I don`t like like - it cost me $20 "

You crazy man. That album is great.

Oh man, when Bowie came out with 'Let's Dance', that had to be THE heart breaker for me. 80's Bowie was just a nightmare of betrayal.

But Bowie had constantly evolved throughout the 70s with different styles and had already done soul and dance on Young Americans. His Lets Dance period wasn't really unexpected.

^ True.

:laughing:

Marc Bolan also embarrassed a lot of his earlier fans; I remember a couple of my friends becoming very apologetic/defensive about having "My people were fair..." in their record collections.

Although I'm not the big fan of Let's Dance, to be fair, it was his attempt to be mega after getting a big deal with EMI America. Although he has been strong in The UK and Europe, his US fame at the time was not much to write home about - a couple of big sellers here and there, a strong cult following but not anything massive. It was a strong gamble, so I think that things had to be that calculated being one of the innovators of Rock Video in the MTV generation. What followed was a series of albums that sounded like that they tried to follow up on the Big 80's Sound and the huge surprising success of Let's Dance, but with very little that sounded committed and other styles and bands that eclipsed him by the end of the decade ending what was a strong hit album.

I think that I got my Hipster-loved album burn through getting records at the Library when I was a young Teenager. Laurie Anderson's Big Science comes to mind right away - I respect the originality, but it just did not connect with me. Kind of put me to sleep.

A lot of the Experimental stuff that I got a little later on in The 80's is still with me, but mainly for being connected to a chapter of my life today although I still enjoy them. Still, there are a couple of discs that I got trying to fit into the more Hip Industrial scene of the Late 90's, coming off as all arty and sometimes ugly for the sake of being ugly.

Apart from a couple of Genesis P'Orridge discs of the day which showed that the ideas were turning too erratic for me to follow (PTV lost me with the Acid House stuff), there the Low Fibre Collection released on Invisible (Martin Atkins' label). Got it used and cheap, but still feeling like that I wasted money on a disc I don't listen to. Lo-Fiber was a label ran by Justin K Broadrick that had a line in beat-driven but still rather non-listenable stuff that posed as arty but still not that impressive with me. I never really knew that Broaderick was pretty known in the Industrial Underground scene at the time, but it just failed to make any kind of impression with me. It's cool that he's been making a mark, but that collection sounded like a bunch of Arty Beat Driven projects that just went nowhere.

I have to respectfully disagree about Let's Dance. It wasn't that Bowie was making dance music again, it was that he was making bad, bloated, bland 80's AOR dance music that was the issue. If Let's Dance had been another Young Americans, that would have been okay. In fact, when Bowie finally started coming around in the early 90's, his first album after Tin Machine was Black Tie White Noise, which was a dance album and a pretty darn good one. At least he sounded like he cared again.

I know I'm in the minority because I think most of Bowie's 80's albums were hugely successful, but as a serious fan, I felt they were bereft of any meaningful content. DB was just as entitled to chase a buck as anyone else, but after that steady progression of amazing 70's records, it was a stone bummer to witness. To be fair though, I think he was pretty burned out by that point. The fact that he came back so much stronger in the 90's is a testament to that. Like he finally got his second wind or something.

I've never listened to anything just to look cool (at least not in my adult life...there were a few choices in my middle school days that would count, but not in the context of the thread). There have been a few albums that I've convinced myself are good when they probably aren't, but then I actually ended up liking most of them. Some of my first forays into Noise Rock could be counted like that. Afrirampo, Lighting Bolt, the Boredoms. I actually spent a lot of time convincing myself I liked it. Melt Banana were probably the only group I really enjoyed from the beginning. Now I like all those bands, though.

I guess I can throw in that Autechre album as well.

Oh, and Satch...the Campfire Headphase is my personal favorite BOC album, so I agree with you but Music Has the Right to Children is still brilliant.

Hours (1999) is actually a great album in my view. One of the final buys of the Millennium, and a damn good one too. Somehow, it was a very fitting choice for me.

I fully understand your view. When something like Let's Dance comes after Scary Monsters, it's easy to go "Damn it, WHY?!!!" after years of some very innovative work.The bloated videos (although the one to China Girl was alright) were the top of the iceberg.

I'll confess it's been years since I tried it. It did not leave a good impression. Maybe I'll try it this weekend and see what it says now.

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Gonna have to agree to disagree because I still think the funky jazzy DnB on Bricolage is great though not really as rewarding or as diverse as his future albums.

Give it another try. I remember the first time I heard Autechre, they didn't click with me at all. Then a few years later I couldn't even understand what was not to like.

Exactly. Plus it has "Chomp Samba" on it, which is one of the best tracks he's ever done.

I lov'em and get most of their albums, but this. Talk about sprawling double CDs. I have to cheat to get through this one. If the my phone rings, while I'm listening, I won't put the cd on pause. If I go into the kitchen to fix something to eat, I'll just let it play in the background. I'll even do chores outside the house, then come back inside to catch a little bit of it, then go back out and finish what I was doing. In hind-sight, maybe that's the way you have to treat this one.

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This time, I am Trollheart's ally.

I don't buy music to look cool. I'm very private about my collection. To me, buying music because it's high-brow or underground is pretension, and I loathe that. Usually if music is good and not too far from mainstream genres, it will bubble up to 'normal' people and me. I am not going to spend time and energy sifting through junk for possible social cred via being one of the first to discover so-and-so. I like to think I can contribute to the world in more meaningful ways.

I avoid music which people describe using these terms.

Seriously I ****ing hate art*** rock.

I think Satchmo wins the thread :laughing:

I can name a whole host of albums that I've checked out because it seemed "cool" on Musicbanter or RYM. I'd say about 25% of the time I delete the ones I dislike after a spin, and the other 75% I hang onto in the vain hope of "understanding" them one day. Such as

In the Aeroplane over the Sea
VU and Nico
A Love Supreme
Rain Dogs
Ágætis byrjun

etc

^hm you dont like a love supreme?

Or Rain Dogs or Ágætis Byrjun?

A lot of interesting perspectives here.

In my mind, music is browless. I tend to put all music on the same level, and determine its "worth" based on whether or not I happen to enjoy it. Part of me enjoying an artist's music is identifying with their approach. As an artist who likes to play with concepts in my art, I just find "arty music" enjoyable. For me, there's no line between music to be admired and music to be enjoyed. Trying to understand an artist working with a "high concept" is an enjoyable pursuit as far as I'm concerned, and I don't think it's always meant to be pretentious (although sometimes it is, but that doesn't matter much to me).

So I'm trying more 'subliminal' listening with Confield and I think I might actually like it now. I've been queuing it up on my iPod before going to bed and while I'm not actively listening I've noticed that I've had better sleeps over the last few days...

I really love art rock/weird **** but I'm kind of glad I got rid of my Elvis Costello records.

... However, I'll keep holding on to my DEVO records and I'm actually kind of proud of my nice copy of The Turtles' "Battle of the Bands".

I had trouble liking Melt Banana right off, although it wasn't a far cry from what I liked. I kept it because all the other house-mates REALLY hated it. It was good ammo. But I came to understand the singer better and really like the instrumentation. So yeah, I actually like their music now.

Saw someone with a Melt Banana shirt at the store I work at. Struck up a casual nice shirt conversation, turns out he didn't even know it was a band shirt. He just bought it at the goodwill because it looked crazy and had funny words on it. Told him to look it up and be blown away.