This I did not see coming Rob especially not from you. :(
SWANS is fucking raw energy.

I definitely think bands are worth working at, for the simple reason that there is a good chance you'll like them. If I only listened to music I immediately liked, I would only listen to hardcore. Thank fuck I worked on that.

As for bands I just can't get after trying very hard: Skinny Puppy, Andrew Bird, The Cure, Husker Du...There are a ton really. But these are all bands I still listen to on occassion because I don't dislike them quite enough to give up. I've almost got Skinny Puppy, I think. I can feel it.

It took me a very long time to finally admit I had started to enjoy Zeppelin. I didn't want to.

I don't like Led Zeppelin at all. I tried a few times, but it never worked out. Stairway to heaven has to be one of the most annoying songs I've ever heard.

I'm the same. I've given them so many tries but it's just like. I don't get anything.

The "Raping A Slave" 12" and "Cop" LP truly kill. The Jarboe-goth stuff makes my lungs ache. Gira solo live is great. Hmm, let's call it a draw, eh?

Yes, admittedly, I can't criticise cop at all.

I'm going to listen to that later on.

Abba+Swans = Win.

Stairway to Heaven is fucking horrible. So is Kashmir. Those were probably the sole reasons I resisted, though, as I mostly like anything else by them now.

If you don't like something, you don't like something, I don't understand why you would try to force yourself to "get" something. I guess some people just don't realize that, hey, it's okay to dislike things other people like. It doesn't mean anything.

Some of these threads lately are so silly......

just because your first or second reaction is "I do not like it" does not mena that is the correct reaction.
you must be a skeptic even to your own feelings and thoughts.

There are a ton of bands that I love dearly, that I consider fantastic in the extreme, which, upon my first or second listen sounded horrible, but I forced mysef to listen again and again, and the greatness of the music dawned on me slowly.
this happens to each of us, for various reasons.

I love Morphine. when I first heard cure for pain when it came out I could not STAND IT. I could not understand it's instrumentation (no guitar, just saxophone and bass), why the production sounded that way (not rough "punk sounding"), why he sang about topics a 36 year old sings about (I was just 22) etc.
Repeated listens opened my ears and my mind.

The same thing can be said by me for Bob Marley and all reggae music, for delta blues, for Phish, for original ska music, for most jazz,

hell! for sonic youth themselves! at the age of 16, a thrash metal/hardcore headbanger in the extreme, I could not grasp nor like daydream nation, but I forced, yes, forced myself o listen to it over and over again (a by product of having to pay full price for an album with your chores allowance, something you freeloading download thieves will never understand) and it was an epiphany!

sonic youth is my all time fave band, and daydream nation is my all time fave record.

if a band is EASY to get/like it ussually means they are easy to get bored with.

If it's apparent shit on first listen, I'm not going to bother listening to it over and over. However, there are a few albums that I didn't like at all on first listen, but saw some potential worth in them. A good example with me is Trout Mask Replica. I first listened to it three years ago (I was sixteen) and found the thing to be somewhat interesting, though kinda painful to sit through. I put it on sporadically over the next two years seeing if it would click, and it finally did last year. I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that my tastes have significantly shifted from when I was sixteen to where I am now that helped me appreciate it more. I can say the same thing for a few other albums in my collection too.

I've never felt like that. I hear bands right away that I find interesting to some degree even if I don't like their music completely. From there, I hear more and eventually reach a decision on them. I can at least walk away from them and go, "Oh, well that wasn't my kind of music but it was decent." If a band is shitty from the get-go, I highly doubt I'll ever appreciate their shittiness. The thing is, I can walk away from most music and find something to like about it -- that doesn't mean I'm going to waste my time constantly listening to shit.

I've never heard a band and thought "man this is completely terrible" and then listened later and realized I loved them or something... unless I hear, like in the case of the Markers, that they're going to release something completely different than their usual output...

I've never kept listening to a band I liked, hoping to eventually "get" it... that just makes no sense to me. I can tell pretty much immediately whether I like something or not.

Well, me and supercreep posted pretty much the same thing.

Trout Mask Replica is a perfect example. When I first heard it 6 years ago (I was 16 too!), I thought it was interesting though the production gave me a headache (and still does -- songs are great, but the trebly dry production with overloud mixing on vocals makes me feel weird). Of course, I pretty quickly realized it was a masterpiece even though it took many listens to fully understand the depth of it all.

However, if it had been complete shit with nothing redeeming or interesting about it, I never would have bothered listening to it again. I dunno, I think it's pretty easy to tell...

but do you not see that that may be just a "shallow" first impression?

we are always changing and sometimes a band can make you change your musical brain, and sometimes your musical brain needs to be changed by life itself before a band or a band's music is enjoyable to you.

both the swans and captain beefheart seemed boring and kind of shitty on first listen but now i really like both. it took me 3 or 4 listens though. same with joy division.

Everyone grasps music in different ways I guess.

When I first listened to Daydream Nation I thought it was boring, and when I warmed up to it with repeated listens, it became my favourite album of all time.

Rob, if I'm ever proven wrong about a great band that I initially hated, I'll let everyone know. However, even music I didn't LOVE back in the day, I STILL could find it interesting -- I may not have been crazy about Stars of the Lid 5 years ago but I could tell one day I'd love them. And now I do. I'm just saying, there are some bands that are COMPLETE shit and I'll never force myself through them. And there are bands I recognize the musicality of.. like say.. fuck OPETH or something... but I don't necassarily enjoy them... but I will probably listen to them a bit in order to appreciate them better. I just realize that some things I will never like. EVERY type of music, every awful band, has something of value contained within it... but why waste your time listening to bad shit when there are hundreds of thousands of great bands? I guess that's what I'm saying.

Also, uhler, Captain Beefheart seemed boring on first listen? Eh?! I could see "annoying" "mindless" etc but BORING? That's interesting.

Actually, that just made me think of something, I almost have never described a band as boring. Music has almost never bored me, except in a live setting.

The Fall. I know people round here love em'. i have about 4 or 5 of their records too over the years. I like Kurious Oranj the best but I think musically they're just not developed enough or something. When will i learn..

Fear not. In time it will happen.