Come Clean About Your Arty Pieces Of Sh*t
 

I was inspired to start this thread seeing the Trout Mask Replica / VU thread.

We all know that people get albums just to look cool, nobody can deny it and if you do you're a fucking liar.

Now it's time to come clean, which albums do you thing are a steaming pile of arty shit that's only in your music collection to make you look like you think you know what you're talking about. The kind of albums when people write words like Innovative, Groundbreaking, Complex, Idiosyncratic. Experimental or Daring because they can't find a single f*cking tune on the damn thing.

Don't be shy, come clean.

I've got a Captain Beefheart album. Safe as Milk I think.
I don't get it, but just keep it around coz a lot of forum members have a raging hard-on for the guy and maybe it'll pop up on a shuffle and it'll finally click.
I don't understand the hype or more likely it's just not my style of music considering I predominantly listen to hip-hop.

Ja, that's how I felt about Jandek when I first heard him, but I kept retrying him after hearing all of the hype amongst my friends. His electric era is crap but his solo acoustic stuff and Nancy Sings is pretty great.

Eh, I started getting into post punk just because of everybody going on about it, and it made **** all sense to me at first, but I've actually come to love a lot of it since, so, I don't know if that counts. The Fall still confuse me as to whether or not they're **** though.

Quite honestly, got nothing arty, at least nothing I don't listen to and enjoy. I take recommendations, but unless I like the music I don't buy/download/keep it. I'm not a poseur and don't buy albums to impress my friends, whether or not this is because I have no friends is beside the point. I believe music is meant to be listened to and enjoyed (or slagged off), not admired like a piece of art. You want art, go to a ****ing art gallery. I'm happy with all my music (that I've listened to, at any rate) and don't have any that's just for appearances.

Passion Pit's Manners. But I ended up selling it, because it really had no place in my collection at all.

Current 93 - Dogs Blood Rising

I just don't get it.

I wouldn't exactly classify Manners as "artsy crap"... although I guess whether you do or not sort of depends on what you listen to... maybe.

I'll freely admit that finding "arty pieces of ****" is one of the drives behind my desire to find new music. Out of everything in my library, there are two things that immediately jump to mind: this one musique concrète album consisting entirely of recordings of various models of copying machines, and... well, any zeuhl. Although I guess any of the musique concrète I have counts as well. But I genuinely like all of it, otherwise I wouldn't have it.

I like all the music i've acquired honestly. If I see an album that a person is talking about, i'll check it out and scrap it if I don't like it. My music collection has always been a process of elimination when new stuff is brought into it.

I wouldn't call Manners crap, either. Artsy and pretentious? Definitely.

That said, despite the fact the I liked it just fine, it wasn't worth owning. I like the new single, though.

I don't know who I would impress by buying something 'arty' that I don't like - that would presume 1) I've got people pawing through my record collection that I want to impress and 2) they've got the musical breadth of knowledge to appreciate the 'artiness' of whatever it is I'm trying to impress them with.

Much more common is having people wonder why the hell I've got Carmen Miranda or Elton Britt records and thinking I'm a frickin' weirdo because of it.

I will say this - I have bought records that are supposedly essential and then struggled to find a way in with them, but I do tend to keep those records because I know that they may take more than a few listens to really 'get' them. I remember the first few times I heard 'The Modern Dance' by Pere Ubu, I just didn't get it, then one day I had a hangover and put that record on and it suddenly made perfect sense. I have been a huge Ubu fan ever since. I can think of several instances like that.

Maybe those arty records that you have but you don't like are just waiting for the right moment to latch on to your brain. Everything happens for a reason.

Are we talking about the album itself, or the people who generally tend to like it? I mean, as far as I'm concerned, Manners is just another indie pop album. The whole nature of the genre falls a little to the pretentious side because of its fans (although that's a generalization if I ever saw one), but it doesn't stand out to me as being any more or less up in itself about its "craft" than any of its contemporaries.

For the record, I'm also not trying to be a "too deep for you" contrarian. I just feel like Manners had too many hooks and palatable melodies to really be considered genuine "arty sh*t".

The only right answer is Beefheart.

Right, but I don't own any of those contemporaries, and the thread was just asking about the records we happened to have owned. :)

That's fine. I consider myself to be an expert in terrible pop music, and Passion Pit's music stands in its own way. I can't say it's fully enjoyable, because it's trying VERY hard to not be typical pop music while... just being simple pop music. It just has a glossy, sleek production that throws it into the "artsy" subgroup. Again, I don't hate the album. I enjoyed quite a few songs. But generally speaking, they're just dressed up pop songs, and that to me makes them pretentious.

Essentially, it boils down to the differences between our definitions of "arty sh*t", which is really the entire point of this thread and makes our whole dialogue kind of redundant. Or demonstrative. I'm not sure which. But yeah, I totally agree with you about the production, it's very over-consciously engineered. People eat that stuff right up, but it makes you feel kind of dirty when you're listening to it if you know the game right from the get-go.

Seriously?? Someone actually put that on an album??? :confused:

It's like Rule 34 applied to music. No matter how weird it sounds, someone's probably done it.

It's actually surprisingly interesting, too, if you have an ear and the interest for that sort of thing. Each model has a distinct sound that's easier to pick up on if you know how to separate yourself from the whole "I'm listening to copying machines" deal. Very reminiscent of Étude aux chemins de fer, which kind of comes with the territory.

What's this album called? I might want to...check it out.:shycouch:

Was it released before Björk's Vespertine?

"Copying Machine Music" by Xerophonics (YouTube'd for convenience's sake)

About four years after it.

i could not agree more....out of the early stuff when he was basically trying to be a Nurse With Wound clone but failing....i do enjoy from time to time Live From Bar Maldoror

on that i own in one way or another every album Nurse With Wound has released...but probably listen to three or four on a regular basis

and i can admit that Nurse With Wound is the king of artsy crap pretending to be music

That's actually not that bad, I'm surprised that he could catch a rhythm.

I don't want to get into the position of defending Dogs Blood or Nature Unveiled - you either like them or you don't - but just wanted to point out those records were made by David Tibet and Steve Stapleton, and Stapleton pretty much IS Nurse with Wound, so that's why you hear those similarities. Not a clone so much as an extension of musical ideas from the same guys.

BTW - for fellow fans of those records, the Andrew Liles remixes are Amazing also....

oh i know that steven was very much involved in those albums.....just as david was on many NWW albums.....and in all honesty i don't dislike any of the early stuff but i do enjoy the fact that david found his own with Imperium....and please give me Thunder Perfect Mind and All The Pretty Little Horses over the early albums

Sorry - I posted that msg and then I looked at your avatar and realized - hey if bob is a Coptic Cat, he probably already knows this....

I'm the exact opposite when it comes to C93 - love the early scary concrete stuff, but when David became the pagan crooner, I pretty much lost interest. I know I am in the minority though.

And I just love NWW to death, arty farty or no. I think the addition of Andrew Liles has given Stapleton a real creative boost. The last few albums (Rupture, Salt, etc.) have been absolutely amazing.

Are there a lot of C93 fans in Northern Nevada? I'm from Tahoe, where I think everyone is still listening to Journey and Styx...

Mine is Twin Infinitives by Royal Trux
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg

I was (and am still) a big fan of their '93 album, Cats and Dogs, so I bought the CD reissue of their self-titled album from '90. Here's what allmusic has to say about it..

My opinion is the bolded part. But I won't get rid of the CD because I feel like it's worth keeping for some dumb arty reason.

You have just brought back one memory I did not want to have. I agree with you on that. Thankfully, it was bought used for a few dollars shortly after the release, obviously brought in by one very dissatisfied customer. They got better, but damn, what a waste of vinyl.

Bringing things back a bit to C93...There was (was?) an era in my life where I got into the whole Late 80's C93 and friends thing, back around '91-2, but I think the only real buzzkill I got from that time was buying something called The Church of Raism. Consider the facts...


1) It was on Creation. COOL!
2) It was rare, and before the 1990-1 super Primal Scream/Teenage Fanclub/MBV onslaught that brought the label to serious attention. Released in 1989. OOOOOH, I'm digging this already!
3) Besides James Havoc, who later formed Creations Books, it had ROSE! Maybe this will at least something worthy of her voice.

Then I put the damn thing in the CD Player. Skip Button a Go Go!


One more: This was also the time I loved Coil - The Hellraiser stuff, Gold is the Metal, "Windowpane," and the all-time favorite downer that was Horse Rotovator. Then...How to Destroy Angels Remixed. Er, no.They did some pretty cool stuff after that, but that CD got me off the interest for a while. I returned a few years back, trying to gather up the sounds I missed, but still feeling the major disappointment of spending a New Import CD amount of money on that one disc which warned me that I would not bat 1000 on these things like I was. That and a couple of Acid House era PTV discs brought that score down a hell of a lot.

Yeah. I worked in an office for almost thirty years, and the photocopiers were ALWAYS getting jammed, stuck or being used by about ten people before me at the EXACT moment I HAD to have that important document for the driver! I don't think I'd be interested in hearing them humming to each other, or trying to separate the sound of a Xerox from a Bizquip, thanks...

As much as I like the early C93, today those works sound more of a very well-read artist, so I can understand your point. Still, they remain more interesting to me. A lot of the 80's stuff brings me back to a very interesting time in my life.

I never really viewed NWW as anything to do with music, but more with creating nightmares and dementia I love to hear from time to time at best. Still, I do have to admit that I'm not too much of a fan of the first two albums. Stapleton got very good by the time of Merzbild Schwet and Homotopy to Marie, which was a favorite night time car tape (fact!). Still, Chance Meeting... may have it's raves, but I'm still trying to hear what I'm missing.

Well okay you got me with Royal Trux - There is a band that gets a lot more cred than they deserve sometimes. I like them and I like some of their records a lot but at the same time, I think some of their stuff is just complete self-indulgent BS clearly produced by two people on the nod who don't really give a crap about what they're doing. It's not a movement and it's not a statement, it's just very stoned people making very half-assed music and getting a free pass from the hipper-than-thou music press because most of those people get their records for free.

Probably, this is a separate subject (Music Press BS) and I've had a couple of beers, so my sincerest apologies to Royal Trux fans for spouting off. I still think Jennifer Herrema is kinda hot in a cruddy, junkie chick kinda way.

Haha, I doubt you're offending anybody.
I think the two were proud heroin users in the early-90s. Oddly, I kind of feel the same way about Herrema. Storytime: Some friends of mine in college shared a rented house with a huge basement where they booked bands to play. Once in 92 or 93 they got Pavement to play there with Royal Trux opening. Naturally, most people were there for Pavement. Herrema was a lot taller than I expected and she kind of attacked her microphone while she sang/snarled and her gut was hanging over her jeans. It was heroin-chic without much chic. One guy who was there asked "Who is this disgusting bitch and what is this music?"

I own lots of albums that are hipster essentials, but I like near enough everything I own in that regard.

As a general rule, I try not to hold on to anything I don't have a desire to listen to again. That said, I've got a few albums kicking around that I find interesting, but have nearly 0 desire to listen to, which I think qualifies as having for the sake of having.

The Drift by Scott Walker is the most glaring example I can think of.

I'm almost tempted to put Blueberry Boat (2004) by the Fiery Furnaces on it, but I know it's really one of those polarizing albums that you either love or hate. I really only listened to it once and it was an interesting experience, but one I never really felt the need to repeat. If I want to listen to them I'll take EP (2005) over anything else, so yeah... I guess Blueberry Boat can be put on my list.

I like Blueberry Boat to be honest, though Gallowsbird's Bark is my favourite.

I've got some stuff by Periphery, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, The Porcupine Tree, and The Butterfly Effect that I don't listen to, not because I don't like it but because I don't think I would like it. I haven't actually listened to any of them.

Please don't kill me.

You should probably give these a listen, especially PT. Steven Wilson is an incredible guitarist and vocalist.

Much to the dismay of just about anyone on here, I'd have to say Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children, a pretty heavily lauded album, but I don't particularly like it, and I think it's far from being their best effort.

Your Residents avatar reminds me that the only time I might have been guilty of this is when bands you dearly love start putting out records you don't like very much. You want to give them the benefit of the doubt and you want to like that new stuff, but it just doesn't ring your bell, but you can feel like you're betraying your band if you ultimately turn your back.

I dearly dearly loved the Residents early stuff but after the Mole show, when two of the original four guys left, it just wasn't the same. I think God in Three Persons was the record where I finally had to say, this wasn't the band I fell in love with, and I was still buying these albums out of sheer loyalty. It can be hard to let go, but at least we'll always have 'Walter Westinghouse'...