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.

Yeah, it's all about taste really. I know it's funny that I call anything inaccessible when I'm constantly raving about great these guys are.



:laughing:

has anyone mentioned metal machine music by Lou Reed yet?
even Lou doesn't understand how anyone could sit through the entire thing...
mmm...meandering atonal feedback

Has anyone mentioned Adult Themes for Voice by Mike Patton yet? I've owned that one since it first came out and though I love the idea that this album exists I bet I've only ever made it all the way through the thing twice in the past twelve years.

Also, Yes Sir, I Will by Crass is also a pretty tough listen. If you listen to bits and pieces of it, it doesn't sound like it would be, but the album as a whole feels like you're listening to the stuff that happened in between songs and they never got around to actually making the album.

Crass was the precursor to modern political punk, and Yes Sir, I Will was the defining pinnacle of their career. They aren't much harder on the ears than any other hardcore punk act.

I'd say that alotta Grindcore is pretty inaccessible, but that's just because it sounds like everything I hate about punk and everything I hate about metal at the same time. =p

Other stuff I've heard by Crass doesn't sound like Yes Sir, I Will and I'd say that album is far less accessible than other hardcore. It's not that it's noisy that makes it inaccessible, it's that it never seems to go anywhere. Hence my comment about it sounding like they never got around to making the album.

I'm actually kind of curious what hardcore bands you're thinking of that you feel have a similar level of accessibility/non-accessibility to the sound Crass had on that album because most hardcore I can think of is much easier to digest than Yes Sir, I Will. I do like challenging myself with "difficult" music so: Suggestions?

I dunno. Crass were very unique, not so much hard to digest but really strange. I consider Black Flag, Minor Threat, and Suicidal Tendencies my limits of punk music...

I dunno either. :) I've been listening to bands like Black Flag and Suicidal Tendencies (I've always liked Minor Threat too but for whatever reason never got around to buying anything by them) since I was in my early teens, along with quite a few other hardcore and hardcore-related bands, but for whatever reason I find this particular Crass album inaccessible in a way the others aren't.

I'm actually listening to Yes Sir, I Will as type this. I hadn't listened to it in a while and this thread inspired me to throw it in the old CD player again. My feelings about it haven't changed much since last time I listened to it. It's not louder than other hardcore albums, it's not noisier, it's not faster, but it does seem more directionless. It has some decent moments here and there but overall I do still find it pretty inaccessible.

I really have trouble getting into the unintelligible guttural screaming vocals in alot of metal stuff. Often I'll be listening to the intro and really digging the music and then the singing starts and it just puts me off.

Albums I love but wouldn't dare play if anyone was around.

http://www.bunglefever.com/images/Di...e_CD_Cover.jpg

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8...ntcoverxr7.jpg

http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/images/HC-WC.jpg

http://www.recordstore.co.uk/images/...UMM295-300.jpg

My father's a Yes-man and I was surprised - he's got virtually the same taste as you. When I went to borrow his Close to the Edge album to rip it onto my computer, he told me that it wasn't nearly as good as Relayer or Fragile.

Well I disagree there, I rate CTTE and Fragile just a tad higher than Relayer.

Anyway, some ones missed.

http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/images/KC-LTiA.jpg

http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/images/Yes-TfTO.jpg

http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/images/JT-aPP.jpg

73 was a crazy year.

Musically Crass are almost closer to noise rock than to punk, so I would recommend bands like Big Black, Unwound, Melt Banana and The Boredoms if you're looking for something along the same lines. Yes Sir, I Will is pretty much a long political diatribe with the music coming in a far second, so yes, the music itself is completely directionless, but the lyrics are so pointed that it gets unbearable to listen to. Penis Envy is a much, much better album, where the message takes second seat to the music. Of course a lot of people (read: punks) don't like it because of the female vocals and probably prefer hearing about anarchy than feminism, something that is actually relevant to their misogynistic lives.

i don't think i personally know anyone besides myself who can get into joy division...

No? I'd consider Joy Division one of the best bands of all time.

Yeah, I like Big Black, Unwound and Melt Banana. The Boredoms are yet another of those bands for me that I've wanted to check out for a long time but never got around to getting anything by. Any recommendations on a good album to start with?

I'll have to check out Penis Envy, it sounds like it would be up my alley. I certainly don't mind music having a message, but it does annoy me when the political screeds (or religious screeds or whatever) are placed ahead of making good music.

That's weird. It seems like most people at least like "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

yeah well most people i know can't get over how "good" jack's mannequin is... i actually played Love Will Tear Us Apart at work and ppl thought i was a weirdo or something haha

AIDS wolf are pretty "inaccessible"

*seizing*

Where you went wrong:

1. Bjork isn't Swedish
2. Racism is silly
3. Sexism is silly
4. Bjork isn't inaccessible; not liking something isn't the same as inaccessible

called out by a noob

I'd call Medulla pretty inaccessible.

Well, my fourth point was an opinion dressed up as a fact, just because. Of course, there's some empirical evidence in favour of my claim, which is that Bjork is considered pretty mainstream and is highly popular, neither of which support her being "inaccessible" as music goes.

Yeah, but Frank Zappa was a big celebrity too. I certainly wouldn't call all his music accessible.

Where you went wrong:

1) Sweden isn't a race, it's a nationality. If I were, I'd be xenophobic, not racist.
2) "bitches be crazy" isn't sexist.
3) "Swedish" isn't xenophobic.
4) And some of (admittedly not all) of her music is pretty fuckin' out there. So yeh, I consider her to be a little inaccessible.

So what, she's Icelandic, not Swedish. Bitches still be crazy.

"Race" has no specific definition and virtually any attempt to specify exactly what race is is doomed to failure. "Racism" colloquially refers quite broadly to applying qualities to groups based on nationality and ethnicity.

This is very, very weak. Singling Swedes out is racist. Among Swedes, singling females out (and calling them "bitches") is sexist.

The racism wasn't calling Bjork "Swedish" (that was simply misinformed). The racism was calling women of Swedish nationality "crazy." The sexism was calling Swedes who are women "crazy."

Saying "African bitches are aggressive" would be a similar example of racism and sexism.

Dude, shut the fuck up. If you seriously think I was being racist and sexist, you have no sense of humor whatsoever.

Get the fuck out if you want to start making senseless accusations.

grammar wars are incredibly immature, contribute nothing to a thread, and are 100% unrelated to any topic...

Translation: "I can't defend my racism and sexism, so I'll resort to obscenity-laden ranting."

Fair enough.

Somehow they are even worse then their name.

Metal Machine Music is probably the hardest album to get into, for me.

Either it's an elaborate joke, or it's like Ulysses by Joyce...a purely academic endeavour, an achievement to understand rather than an entertainment to be enjoyed. ;)