I've listened to Metal Box, and if I recall correctly it was pretty good. I'll listen to it again. I haven't heard any of PIL's other stuff though. Any recommendations? And I'm not familiar with what No Wave even is. Anything you can recommend there would be appreciated as well.
1. There are three ESSENTIAL PIL albums in my book. After that everything was just okay . Nothing amazing. Metal Box is obviously one of them, but you should also check out ...
PIL are easily one of the most import post-punk band and every bit as important as the Sex Pistols for an underground music fan such as myself.
No Wave started in New York in the late 70s and could probably be grouped under post-punk as sub sub genre. The most famous and important record was produced by Eno (who seemed to have his meddling hands in EVERYTHING in the late 70s) and is ...
Totally essential listening to understand the New York underground rock scene in the late 70s. Let me know what you think. Mars is my favorite band of this scene, but they're all great.
Another point in terms of listening to TMR is that it is less likely that you'll fall in love with it (though not impossible) if you (a) have little to no experience with experiemental jazz (particularly the likes of Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Anthony Braxton's best albums, Ornette Coleman's best albums, Albert Ayler's ... see my "Greatest Albums" list); (b) have little to no experience with modern Classical (such as Ives, Cage especially, and perhaps Carter, Bartok, Lutoslawski, Gerhard, at al, would help too); (c) do not listen to or assimilate experimental music to begin with (in looking over your chart it is mostly standard fare -- good albums but, for the most part, mainstream/standard albums that are very easy to grasp <-- nothing wrong with that, but if this is all/almost all of what you've been exposed to, TMR is likely to be a very difficult ride) ...
Additionally other Rock albums that would probably be easier to acclimate to, and probably help as "pre-requisites" would be:
-60s Howlin' Wolf songs (maybe not completely necessary, but mainly as a touchstone for the vocals)
-Frank Zappa's best albums (see my "Greatest Albums" list for various examples)
-Safe as Milk - Captain Beefheart (1967)
-Mirror Man - Captain Beefheart (1971)
-The Modern Dance - Pere Ubu (1978) (...and their other albums listed on my "Greatest Albums" list)
-Double Nickels on the Dime - Minutemen (1984)
-Y - The Pop Group (1979)
-For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? - The Pop Group (1980)
-From Her to Eternity - Nick Cave (1984)
-God - Rip, Rig & Panic (1981)
-Learning To Cope With Cowardice - Mark Stewart (1983)
-There's a Star Above the Manger Tonight - Red Red Meat (1997)
-Rain Dogs - Tom Waits (1985)
-Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits (1983)
-Buy - Contortions (1979)
-Whiskey for the Holy Ghost - Mark Lanegan (1994)
TMR can indeed be grasped on a pretty high level without any of the above, but much less likely (in a more thorough sense) and probably much less efficiently (meaning, it would almost certainly take longer).
What I wrote about it, though brief -- I intentionally kept it to the most salient emotional/conceptual, overall, points to think with while listening (plus I am heavily focusing on Classical atm, so don't necessarily have the time to revisit TMR in detail and cover the nuances with much exactitude right now) -- should be enough to get you pretty far, regardless of music experience, so long as this is "actively" observed while listening, throughout the experience. If so, there is a good chance it will eventually "happen" for you with TMR. Few artistic experiences are as worthwhile as the thorough awe one can experience upon grasping TMR. _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
Last edited by AfterHours on 11/16/2017 23:17; edited 1 time in total
And I do understand acquired tastes. Some things are worth acclimating to because they end up being very rewarding in the long run. It's happened for me before. That's why I've put up with Trout Mask Replica as long as I have. But I can't keep trying forever. At some point I'm going to give up and decide this is one taste that's not worth acquiring. Before I reach that point, is there anything you recommend that might help Trout Mask Replica click with me and become listenable?
Well, first off I don't think Trout Mask is even close to the best album to start with for Captain Beefheart. He has a ton of great albums. I recommend shelving Trout Mask completely for now and start checking out...
Lick My Decals Off Baby isn't far off from TMR in style(s) and difficulty, but while still excellent, it is far less successful emotionally (further proof of just how carefully composed TMR really is, not to mention Zappa's production work to bring out the proper balance/heft of instruments and voice) ... so I'm not sure I'd recommend it in terms of helping you (because it is almost as difficult but with far less rewards -- even though excellent).
The rest would probably help quite a bit though. Safe as Milk is probably the best start, a superb album, much easier to assimilate -- basically freakish/outrageous, semi-experimental blues caricatures, both satirical and powerful. _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
I will listen to every last thing mentioned. It will take some time--there's a lot--but I will get around to all of it eventually. I'm starting with the stuff that I'm already semi-familiar with, which basically means anything in BEA's top 1000 albums (all of which I have on my phone already):
Public Image Ltd - Metal Box
Eric Dolphy - 'Out to Lunch!'
Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats and Joe's Garage <---Neither of these are actually on any of your lists, AfterHours, so I don't know if you think they're any good, but I'll listen to them either way; I do have some Mothers albums that you've listed, though:
The Mothers of Invention - Freak Out! and We're Only in It for the Money
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Safe as Milk <---I have heard this one before, and there were at least a couple of songs I quite liked. I don't remember them by name so it will be fun revisiting it and finding out which ones they are.
Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance
Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
The Pop Group - Y
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones <---I do like Tom Waits quite a bit, and these are probably in my top four favorite albums of his. (Bone Machine is #1; the other in the top four would be Mule Variations.)
That right there is over ten hours of music. I've made a playlist of it that I'll work my way through over the next couple of days. And then I'll get to the stuff I don't already have easy access to. Meanwhile, I'll work on responding to comments in this thread. Tap, I watched that video, and I'm about to watch it again while taking notes. You can expect a response to it in an hour or so.
Oh hey, I don't exactly like Trout Mask Replica but I respect it and will try to add a bit on that perspective. But one thing that I can add here now, I haven't actually watched this yet but I will before posting next, but I've heard this is quite good. An in-depth, 30 minute analysis of the opening track, Frownland.
The narrator says critics rely too much on emotional descriptors of the experience of listening to Trout Mask Replica and right off the bat, I'm turned off. I don't listen to music because it's technically impressive or an amazing achievement when analyzed closely. I listen for the experience and what it does to me emotionally. So maybe this just isn't an album for me.
Re: everything he says about it being harsh, "not particularly well mixed", etc.: I don't have a problem with that necessarily, as long as the final result is good. I just don't think it is in this case.
Beefheart composed the album on piano without even knowing how to play piano, and then had really good musicians transcribe and play it for the record? I'm not surprised. That's exactly what the album sounds like--incompetently composed bits of music Frankensteined together and then performed expertly. As I said before, that's interesting and it's cool that it's a thing that exists, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable to listen to.
Re: the lyrics: meh. They're all right I guess. Some of the slightly off-kilter rhyming is pretty good, but nothing that special.
It's complex, the fruit of an enormous amount of labor, difficult to perform. I grant all of that. None of that means it's any good.
And then he goes into great detail about all the different "cells" that make up the "blocks" that make up the song. This just shows what a huge missed opportunity this was, what a colossal waste of all these people's time and skills. If they were going to do something this bizarre with all these jumbled rhythms and keys, couldn't they have made it good? That would have been cool. Instead we have this. I'm not saying it's terrible. It's just not good.
I don't think the point of saying that bit about emotion vs analysis was to say that this isn't an album for people looking for an emotional response, just that analysis is needed to dispel notions about the music being atonal or unstructured. but yeah this analysis is recent, the album has the status it does in very large part from the extreme emotional response it gets from people, on both ends of the spectrum. But I think the analysis shows that this is not arbitrary and is a result of some complex and well executed composition. like it's not just that it's complex, but the specific stuff with cells running at different tempos, I dunno if I fully grasped the concept but it seemed like there was a sort of phasing quality to it and so it's sort of like a thrill ride where it's designed to give you this sense of danger like it's all going to fall apart but it's all engineered to hold together.
I think when it comes to appreciating the significance of music like this, good and bad have to go out the window. I don't like it, don't want to listen to it. But I like that it's a part of the musical landscape.
Though I do have some problems with it re: abusive conditions in the recording and the whole Whiplash hypermasculine idea of the artist requiring brutality towards others to reach the greatest level of artistic achievement, but thats a whole other thing
AfterHours, I intend to respond to your Trout Mask Replica comments directly at some point, but the consensus seems to be that tackling the album right away isn't the best way to start, so I'm going to go ahead and listen to all of the recommended music first and post my thoughts on it.
Some questions though:
Are there any specific 60s Howlin' Wolf songs you recommend? If not, I'll just look for whatever seems to be the most popular.
Which Cage works do you recommend? I don't see any on any of your lists.
Should I listen to this stuff in any particular order? I'm leaning chronological, if it doesn't matter. On a related note, is there anything specific I should be paying attention to as I listen?
AfterHours, I intend to respond to your Trout Mask Replica comments directly at some point, but the consensus seems to be that tackling the album right away isn't the best way to start, so I'm going to go ahead and listen to all of the recommended music first and post my thoughts on it.
Some questions though:
Are there any specific 60s Howlin' Wolf songs you recommend? If not, I'll just look for whatever seems to be the most popular.
Which Cage works do you recommend? I don't see any on any of your lists.
Should I listen to this stuff in any particular order? I'm leaning chronological, if it doesn't matter. On a related note, is there anything specific I should be paying attention to as I listen?
I'm psyched you're approaching this so rigorously. Will be fun to see how this turns out.
I'm psyched you're approaching this so rigorously. Will be fun to see how this turns out.
I'm psyched that you're psyched about my approach. It makes me feel like I'm doing something right.
AfterHours wrote:
Another point in terms of listening to TMR is that it is less likely that you'll fall in love with it (though not impossible) if you...have little to no experience with modern Classical...such as Ives
I just listened to Symphony No. 3 "The Camp Meeting" by Charles Ives, #115 on your Greatest Classical Music list. I enjoyed it very much. Not sure how it will help me better acclimate to Trout Mask Replica, or even if this is what you had in mind when you mentioned Ives, but a worthwhile listen nonetheless!
You didn't have a favorite performance listed, so I just used a YouTube result that looked good. I can listen again if you have a particular recording you prefer. I'll probably listen to another recording either way, but if you want to guide me to an especially good one I would certainly appreciate it.
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