Exception to the rule . . .

Is there a band that you fundamentally and strongly dislike--loathe even--yet there is one (and only one) track by the group that you genuinely like and will go out of your way to listen to on occasion?

For me, the first one that leaps to mind is 311's "I'll Be Here a While." As a general rule of thumb, I can't stand this group, but this song has charmed me over the years . . .



Post Edited (04-12-14 20:30)

Funny you mention 311. The only song I like is "Beautiful Disaster," and I looked it up on Spotify the other day just to hear it.

I don't have much use for the Grateful Dead (though I have mellowed towards them over the years), but I'm very fond of "Ripple."

I've loathed most of what I've heard by Third Eye Blind, but I think "Never Let You Go" is a fairly likable pop song.

Let's set the wayback machine for 2006, and the "The Only Song I Like By..." thread:

[trouserpress.com]

(tho since then I've heard other Runaways songs I like.)



Post Edited (04-12-14 21:52)

We need to set a statute of limitations on these things ... I go back before 2006 around here. But I'm working with a middle-aged memory.

When I saw the thread description - "Is there a band that you fundamentally and strongly dislike--loathe even" - with that qualifier, it kinda sorta implied a fundamental difference from the other thread, as in: Why the artist would be loathed? (Example: Gary Glitter, Lostprophets, Michelle-Shocked circa 2013, etc.) My exception would be Negativland - bankrupting a truly legendary record label really isn't the smartest way to make friends and influence people, though there will be always be a place on my iPod for "Christianity Is Stupid."



Post Edited (04-13-14 09:57)

I've gotta say, having just watched "American Hustle" last weekend, that Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" was the one disco song that even in the "disco sucks" climate of 1978 [which was absolutely necessary, since disco had swallowed up our entire culture by that time] I had to make an exception for this frankly brilliant track! Even 37 years later I roll over like a puppy for the sequenced Moroder sound, which always sounds futuristic to me.



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Quote

My exception would be Negativland - bankrupting a truly legendary record label really isn't the smartest way to make friends and influence people

Well now, hold on there, pardner! SST was hugely important to me in the '80s, but Greg Ginn is a pretty indefensible figure - you don't sign a band known primarly for copyright-busting "culture jamming" sound collage, let them release a song that so blatently swipes from one of the most well-known bands in the universe, and then run away and point the finger when the lawyers show up. (And it was indeed U2's overzealous legal monkeys that were to blame for that malarky.) No-one put a gun to Ginn's head to make him release "U2." Ginn, as the current cliche goes, threw Negativland under the bus. As just about every SST act can tell you, Ginn's sleaziness rivals the major labels they were allegedly opposing.

Despite having one foot in 70s glam and a kneecap in heavy metal, I've never been able to stomach much hair metal. I've got a particular loathing for Motley Crue. But I do really like the song "Dr. Feelgood" - that one rocks pretty righteously, and it's not about doing blow off underage girls' boobs.

Hair metal was sort of maddening for me. There was so much about those bands to dislike, even loathe ... and yet so many of them came up with at least one song that's held up for me. Warrant's "Down Boys" and Poison's "Ride the Wind" come to mind.

I've actually softened a bit towards Poison over the years. I used to utterly despise them, but recently I realized that it's hard to justify my love for 70s glam and not admit that Poison, at least, had a lot more in common with that music than most of its peers. I hear "Nothin' But a Good Time" now and it sounds like it could've come in in 1973 on a Sweet record. I wouldn't even call it metal. I'm not realy to go buy the records, or even stay on the radio when a song comes on, but my stomach doesn't turn over anymore when a Poison song appears.

I've realized over the years that a lot of my antipathy toward hair metal comes from the videos. You know what I'm talking about - the band on a big, amphitheater-style stage, jumping around the pyro, mugging for the camera in a supremely obnoxious way. Egomania gone wild. Poison was particularly bad about it - those videos make me want to kick the TV.

I'm not saying most of this music is necessarily worthwhile - there's still that whiny sneer a la Vince Neil and Kip Winger to contend with, plus the terrible guitar solos and the relentless ersatz debauchery that makes Gene Simmons look like the Pope to contend with. It's easy to overlook the hooks in that environment.

I can't think of any instances where I truly loathe a band and can only stand a single song. If I truly loathe them (I'm looking at you, Blind Melon and Spin Doctors), then there's no song that I can bear. And if I mostly just think they're shit (Eagles, Seger, Grateful Dead), there are handful of songs that won't make me change the radio station.

I will say that I have revised my opinion of Thin Lizzy since 2006.

This isn't at all a bad song, but watch some other screen while it's playing - it'll sear your eyeballs to the optic nerve.

I own exactly one hair metal song… a 1-track promo CD of "Good Thing" by Enuff Z'nuff. The glam force is strong in that one, but I'm trepidatious. Should I hear more?



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You know, I gave E'nuff Z'nuff a shot a few years ago due to their reputation in the power pop underground. Songs are decent, though not as spectacular as I'd been lead to believe. Vocals were good. The guitar solos, however, were atrocious. It sounded like Cheap Trick if Nielsen had been replaced by a drunk CC DeVille (from Poison).

I should probably give them another shot (I actually bought their first two records at once, as they were dirt cheap), but at the time (and this would be maybe 3-4 years ago) I came away unimpressed. A genuine hybrid of power pop and glam metal might work (maybe that's what the Wildhearts did?), but, to my ears, EZ sounded like they couldn't decide whether or not they wanted to drop acid or do cocaine, if you catch my meaning.



Post Edited (04-16-14 15:02)

"Dangerous" – Roxette

I love that song. It's complete and utter nonsense. And genius. They pronounce extremely with 4 syllables! The remainder of Roxette's catalog...eeww.

"Why Pt. 2" – Collective Soul

Okay, there are some serious grammar issues. These guys kind of define trend-chasing schmuckiness. And I guess not many people were listening to Collective Soul at this point, but this is just fun.

"Down Together" – The Refreshments

All the things that irritate me (i.e., everything) in every other Refreshments/Roger Clyne tune I've ever heard? They've all become irresistible just this one time.

I really hate Paul Simon for no rational reason, and I always have, but admit "The Boxer" is a good song.

I'm of the opinion that every band has at least one good song and every genre has at least one good band (of course there are extreme exceptions like Vanilla Ice and those Juggalo guys, etc.) I will say mainstream Country-Pop is an especially loathsome genre to me but if I had to pick a song that is decent, it would be Small Town Saturday Night but Hal Ketchum.

I should also mention that I despise the Eagles, but dig the song "Already Gone."

@MrFab - Well, yes and no. I still haven't heard anything really good by Negativland ever since that time. And besides: in the laptop era, Girl Talk has basically out-Negativland'd Negativland. (Though I may reconsider if/when they get a tribute album.)

Hey, this morning at the gym, I heard two exceptions to the rule on the sound system of 80s CHR.

WHITNEY HOUSTON - How Will I Know
Hardly TP fodder, I know, but it shocked even me when I actually liked the third single from Houston's inescapable album. I think the track worked for me because it reminded me a lot of "Who's Zoomin' Who" by Aretha Franklin. The fact that Narada Michael Walden produced and arranged both tracks wasn't lost on me. I like both of those cuts, but nothing else that Houston or Walden ever produced.

MISSING PERSONS - Destination Unknown
The hateful Dale Bozzio couldn't even spike the heart of this appealing number. The synth bass pulls me in and the hi-hat slays me. I can overlook the vocals… this time!



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

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I can understand the hate towards glam. I still listen to G'n'R and have a certain affection for the Crëw. Something about E'nuff just doesn't do it for me. The hair metal pool is especially shallow. After the top few bands, I think it gets bad pretty quick.
Another genre I find pretty abhorrent, and I know its a cliche, is that strain of grunge/hard rock that Pearl Jam brought upon the world that includes Nickleback and Creed, etc. From that whole mess I always kinda, sorta liked that "I'm going hungry" song. Or at least I won't turn it off.

I wouldn't lump G'N R (who I also still listen to - well, the first album, at least) in with the hair metal bands - indeed, they were often seen as a reaction to that kind of metal. Then again, there's "November Rain"...

I hate to blame Pearl Jam and the original grunge wave (which I also still listen to) for Creed, but, well, I did think the first Creed song I ever heard was PJ gone rancid, so there's no way 'round it.

Delvin's going to deny knowing me for this, but I have always liked "Goodbye Stranger" by Supertramp, and I won't even claim that it's due to its use in Magnolia as a cover story.

And I don't hate (though I would stop short of saying "like") "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" by Journey, but I chalk that one up more to nostalgia for high school than anything else. Same with "Point of Know Return" - hated it at the time, mellow towards it now because it reminds of the days back when I was a promising young man, rather than a middle-aged lard ass.

I rationalize liking "Waiting for a Girl Like You" by Foreigner with the fact that Thomas Dolby was responsible for all the good parts of it.

> Delvin's going to deny knowing me for this, but I have always liked "Goodbye Stranger" by
> Supertramp ...

I'm sorry, have we met? Verstaen sie Englisch?

And while I'm physically incapable of liking Styx, I have to admit that I very much enjoyed Aimee Mann's cover of "Come Sail Away" on Community a few weeks back.

breno wrote:

> And while I'm physically incapable of liking Styx, I have to
> admit that I very much enjoyed Aimee Mann's cover of "Come Sail
> Away" on Community a few weeks back.

Aimee Mann can't help but improve anything she touches. Anybody been listening to her new album with Ted Leo? Pretty good.

[www.youtube.com]

> Aimee Mann can't help but improve anything she touches.

My dad always said, "You can put icing on a turd, but that don't make it a cake."

Pearl Jam "Black", but I think it's because I associate it with my post-school youth - in the early '90s it was a frequent club/bar DJ last-song-of-the-night, signaling the end of another night well (mis)spent. I don't believe I've ever heard that song sober. It may sound as uninteresting as everything else I'd ever heard by PJ, but in a drunken 2:00am haze, it was just right.

Michael, I sorta put Pearl Jam on one side of grunge and Nirvana and Mudhoney on the other side (the good one.) Mudhoney was really the only grunge band I listened to frequently, and yet I would have never put them in my top echelon of musical acts. During the grunge hayday, I listened to much more Dischord and NY post hardcore.
I am 100% with Brad on Goodbye Stranger (and The Logic Song) from Magnolia. I dearly loved that movie and it gave me a special affection for those songs.

That Magnolia soundtrack is weird. I love love the first couple Aimee Mann songs, especially Build That Wall, but find it unbelievably jarring when it switches to Supertramp songs about half way through.

hi erik,
i'm no masochist. i either love or hate a band. but with mates like you in upstate NY around, i try to stay open minded.



Post Edited (04-17-14 23:02)

OOPS



Post Edited (04-17-14 23:05)

anita bryant

And since I'm kind of enjoying making everyone doubt my sanity (even more than usual), I'll declare that if Tommy Shaw's "Girls With Guns" had been recorded by some fly-by-night new wave band called Tom Katt and the Felines or something instead of the guitarist from Styx, it would be remembered as a disposable but fun little late new wave nugget.

I wouldn't have cared much for it at the time, since by 1984 I believed myself already sufficiently sophisticated to turn up my nose at such a passé 1982-sounding thing. For the most part I had already moved on to college rock, though I grandfathered in already existing new wave bands, of course. (This is why it took me until Everything's Different Now to recognize Aimee Mann's greatness - that first 'Til Tuesday album was just so behind the times to my ears in 1985.)

Anyhow, I wouldn't have given "Girls With Guns" the time of day in 1984 even if it had been by an obscure late-period new wave band, but now I would probably happily add it to my 80s playlist on Spotify.

But I won't, because it wasn't by some obscure new wave band. It was by the guitarist from fucking Styx, and there are some lines I still won't cross, no matter how much my sanity wavers.

That was definitely one of the more blatant attempts to be "with it" by an older, established artist. (I was gonna say "major artist," but I doubt even Shaw would argue that his solo career deserves to be called that.) I seem to recall a certain windblown shorthaired look to the album cover as well. That tune pretty ridiculous in a lot of ways, starting with the hyperactive synth lick, but it's not a bad little number as 80s ear candy goes.

I understand the part about associating a song with a particularly good movie. Flight gave me fresh insight into Joe Cocker's "Feelin' Alright." I realized that, if that song is playing as you leave your house first thing in the morning, it's going to be a really terrible day.

Speaking of artists I loathe... and yet this is an epic power pop song

[www.youtube.com]