Recent Disappointments or Help Me Understand These Records

[toby.d]

Not everyone likes the same things, one man's crust is another man's must. I do get that.

Sometimes though I'll read, hear or be told about a record which I should dig and end up thinking it kind of sucks. So the idea of the thread is to discuss recent disappointments which you thought you'd be into. Or for people to explain something about why they like these records or why they think they're considered classic, if they are, to help me appreciate them. That might not work but sometimes just getting a feel of someone else's enthusiasm for something can do the trick or maybe there's a vibe, instrument, story or performance I've missed.

I think for these I have given them at least one or two listens. That isn't enough to 'review' them but what I'm getting at is they're records I thought I'd love straight away and I didn't.

Please post why you like the records, post a record you've been disappointed by which you thought you'd like or if this is a dumb topic, ignore!




There are parts of this I do like (chorus and a bit more in Telegraph Tuesday, some instrumental and drum bits in other tracks) but overall I don't get the classic status. It's too messy and I thought I liked messy psych. People Of The Royal Parks, Mister Watchmaker... sounds like some excellent quaint British lifestyle tunes but nah.



Incredible cover, great label, rare folk classic (?). His voice grates on me and it's too hard to find any sort of melody in most of the tunes. This one makes me question whether I even like acid folk. I do.

[jb stanislas]

Someone I met, told me I would like Black Masses by Electric Wizard. He seemed to have the right credentials to make such a judgement, given his tattoos of large portraits of all 4 Black Sabbath members + 3 other Sabbath-related tatts. So I bought the cd without even listening to it on youtube and when I played it, I did indeed enjoy it very much. He was totally right and the riffs and lyrics he was talking about were infact as good as he said. No complaints. Similary, the recommendations I got from Plussers about what Stoner/doom metal to check out were mostly as per the youtube links. I bought some cd;s like Windhand - Soma, and I think it/they are great!

[treeboy]

Great idea for a thread. RE the Blossom Toes lp, It's one of my indispensable '67 lps. I don't think anyone can very easily convince you to like something you aren't feeling, via a forum like this. This was a difficult record to get hold of for years. I read about it a long time before I got to hear it via the German reissue in the 80s I think. I didn't get it at first, but it crept up on me and it's one I can still pull out at any time and find something to surprise me. And it has this on it....enough for me

And this, magnificent

I'd say persevere with it, but maybe it's just not for you. I like the "open" feel of some of the tracks (which I've posted) contrasted with the compressed, busier, angular, more whimsical type tunes. You are absolutely right, it's not everyones cup of tea, but it's great when you play a record to someone, and their jaw hits the floor. It has happened a couple of times with this one. Thinking about it, frame of mind may have had something to do with it too. Not that I'm advocating anything at all.

[jakartajive]

Ah man. Blossom Toes.
Where to even begin?

Essentially guided towards a lush post-Summer of Love vibe by Giorgio Gomelsky and later to more or less renounce this LP, which some of the more hardcore heads dismiss as lightweight pop confection or overt whimsy.

For me, it's everything I love about British psychedelic pop music in one record: wonderful lyrics about park keepers and old ladies' budgies, preposterous background noises and looning around, inventive guitar playing throughout, endless changes, and yet all underpinned by a keen ear for a pop music and meolody.

I first heard the band via Alan Duffy back in the Acid Tapes daze in the early 80s, when he stuck this on a tape for me.
Mangled my 15-year-old mind it did.

Personal fave is the album opener: loping backwards slices of sound filtered sideways through the ears whilst someone projects a slide show on your face; severe sonic dissonance and disturbance looming in the back of the track; choral mid-section that roams free into momentary pastoralism before remembering the chorus and the fact that you can never have too many 'Bah Bah Bahs' in a song; the condensation of all brass band melancholy into ten seconds; an outro that reinvents the song, speeds up time and then ends ascending the spiral staircase that takes us right back home to where it all began.

What's not to like?

[treeboy]

Fuck me Hugh, you've mangled my mind now.
Amen!

[toby.d]

That's what I'm talking about! Man, that's an amazing song. I do recall it but didn't register it as being that good, maybe I was too lost in my confusion. I think I will grow into the Blossom Toes, seems to be more than worth the time spent getting into it. Plus it did feel good to get some 60s sounds going on again. I do also wonder if having to wait to hear stuff like that endears you to it in some way and growing up on the internet with it all right there has killed that. Probably not as all the hype and info about stuff out there bigs records up too.. but a chat for another time maybe.

'Records that we listened to/ornaments on your shelf/the void I'm falling into'



And jb, sounds good! I don't know much about Electric Wizard beyond the S/T and Dopethrone but I should check out Black Masses from what you've said. Have you ever been recommended something by someone equally as qualified which you just couldn't hang with even though you "should" have?

[toby.d]

Delayed reaction to other posts: I think it's the severe dissonance which wasn't sitting right with me but reading your breakdown and listening to this album from the start, my list of things not to love is diminishing, though not disappearing. The Frozen Dog has just finished and it sort of reminds me why I'm still a bit shy of Syd Barrett. This is great though, I thank you.

Thinking about it, frame of mind may have had something to do with it too. Not that I'm advocating anything at all.

This part I have covered ✌️

[jakartajive]

I'm still a bit shy of Syd Barrett.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sort that out and right away if I were you, sir.

[Paul-K]

ive never got on with Syd Barrett either. dont know where to start.

[jakartajive]

Pretty much anywhere, I'd have thought.
Though maybe not with the STARS boots, on further reflection!!

How about here?

The loose fluid jazz-tinged drumming, the insane keyboard work, the keening guitar shards cutting in and out, the achingly raw vocal unfolding random cut-up fragments of pained visions from another place. Incredible.

[mr sayers]

'Piper at the gates of dawn' is perhaps the best place to start, then try the first two Floyd singles 'Arnold Lane' and 'See Emily play'. Then if your feeling brave, have a pop at his two solo LP's, both may take a bit of work to click!

[Mang]

I like the first Blossom Toes album. The second Blossom Toes album is donkey's cock however.

[emperor tomato ketchup]

ive never got on with Syd Barrett either. dont know where to start.

It's hardly that big a body of work. Solo albums are messier than Floyd stuff.

[LDJB]

toby.d - if you really can't take the Blossom Toes LP flog it (this will never present any problems) and buy the e.p. with 'Look at Me I'm You' on it instead!

...I love the LP and Syd too.

[SirSlim]

There are parts of this I do like (chorus and a bit more in Telegraph Tuesday, some instrumental and drum bits in other tracks) but overall I don't get the classic status. It's too messy and I thought I liked messy psych.

Prompted by this thread and JJ posting up those 2 tracks - I've just had my first listen to Blossom Toes and I have to say that I agree with your "too messy" assessment.

Now this one is just the right amount of messy for me: