[porkmarras]

The Charalambides thread inspired this thread.I'm sure that i'm not alone in having been let down a few times by what you had heard/read/eavesdropped about a band. That irritating feeling of finding out that their music just didn't live up to your highly set expectations.The same thread also reminded me of something that Thurston Moore said just before the release of Daydream Nation.When the interviewer's questions turned to how the album was going to sound like he responded along the line of :'I can't tell you exactly how it's going to sound but it will make your head spin'.First time i listened to that record it did just that:it made my head spin and without the help of any chemicals or else.Now,that's what i call a proper,well packaged delivery.

[Glice]

There's an additional problem of when you hear a record that's influenced everyone. I couldn't get VU for a while because it sounded pretty average. It did click eventually, but I think if I hadn't've bothered listening to it loads because of the kudos it has, I mightn't like it as I do. Funnily enough though, the Monks and the Shaggs were instantaneous 'fuck me, why don't more people do this?'.

I've been let down by loads of bands. I managed to completely bypass Nirvana in my youth... I never watched a great deal of TV, and I don't remember Lamo and Whiley or Peely playing them when I was growing up... when I finally got to hear them at 17, it just sounded like a complete let down especially as by that point I was into Merzbow and had got bored of Pavement. All in the days before t'interknob, I might add. There're still bands I scratch my head at... pretty much any of the legion of boys with guitars-type 'influential' bands, apart from Beck-era Yardbirds and very ocassionally Led Zep. Hendrix really doesn't make any sense to me.

I don't think it's a problem though. It's not really going to affect my life any if I don't get any of that lot. Not as important as every home worldwide owning a copy of philosophy of the world.