I may have to give up on trying to like old music. I got Pet Sounds a few days ago and can't get into it at all. Some of the more upbeat songs are pretty good, but the slower ones are just so plodding and syrupy and dense that I can barely listen to them.

Are my ears ******ed? Why can't I like this?

but his lyrics were very often stories, words from a character that was clearly not himself. he had an affinity with the bums, the people at rock bottom.

That's a good point. And if Cash chose to cover a song like this, he had to have his reasons. It's probably the cranky old man in me that wants to resist so many new fans identifying him so closely with this recent song.

Landon, I think it's great you're trying...but no need to force it - your tastes in music will change and mature through the years...

Cash seemed to embrace a rather puritanical theology, in practicality if not dogma, that embraces existence as suffering. To Christians who embrace Calvinistic thought, there is only a sliver of joy and hope, a mindset as nihilistic as atheism, and even crueler in some respects. However, and it very well may be just personal taste, there is a certain strength I get from that version of the song that seems absent in the original. Cash saw the metaphor of Christ's suffering as redemption, a cleansing through suffering. "Hurt" is pretty well seeped in that ethic.

Or maybe he just liked the Trent Reznor's wardrobe.

Goddamn Taylor Swift, her catchy songs, and all of your comments in the NC thread that have inspired me not only to search while driving which radio station is playing her (after all, at least one station is ALWAYS playing a song by her), but to go to YouTube and find her latest music videos RIGHT! NOW!

Justice - A cross the Universe live album, so awesome!

Dom is right. Don't force it. Many of what are considered "classics" were not songs or albums or artists that I immediately took to. One of the things that makes them so durable is a depth that rewards repeated listening, not just ear candy gratification.

You don't have "******ed ears" just because you don't "get" Pet Sounds. It may never speak to you. And it may hit you. Who knows? I still don't "get" Billy Joel or Pearl Jam or Joy Division or the New York Dolls. I tried listening to Forever Changes by Love for about three weeks, and I still revisit it every now and then, and it still just leaves me cold. Hell, as much as I love the Stones, Exile still seems less a high mark than an enjoyably gritty water tread, to me, anyway. I was waaaaay behind the curve on REM and Nirvana. Every time I hear people talk about Joni Mitchell's genius, I scratch my head. I still find Richard Thompson more annoying than edifying. I am still trying to figure out why Kings of Leon are so damn acclaimed. And I will hate, with every fiber of my being, CSN, the Strokes, and James Taylor until the day I die.

Or maybe I won't. I may one day realize just how I missed the boat on the Strokes, or that I was looking for things in CSN or James Taylor that simply aren't there, and learn to be personally enriched by what they have to offer.

Objectively, all of these artists deserve their acclaim. They are, by and large, artists of substance. And I have given each a shot. At the moment, they ain't for me.

The important thing, is, you are exposing yourself to things that will expand your listening vocabulary, and allow you to pick up and enjoy things you may not have otherwise.

ugg

And the worst that happens is finding music you detest may teach you why you appreciate the music you adore.

hahahaha...i agree with the ones i bolded.

I can understand not liking Pearl Jam's later stuff due to the very different direction their music took. But really? You don't like their album Ten?

And CSN, thats just crazy.

Agreed.

You know..great minds, think alike, and all that... Not really. It's not bad, but it's all angst-ridden caterwaul and fuzzbox bedecked instrumental gimmickry to my ears. It was on constant rotation at the store I ran when it came out, and I have probably heard the damn thing a thousand times. I relistened to it last year, figuring I might glean something from it that I did not pick up before, thinking maybe some contempt had been unnecessarily bred by such familiarity.

Nope. Eddie Vedder still sounds less an impassioned soul than an auctioneer tweaking on Starbucks-infused meth. Still not impressed that disaffected poser Jeremy finally spoke, nor do I find any joy in how even it flows. Still sounds like second-hand Soundgarden to me, music for spoiled punks whose idea of revolution was spending all their time at the coffee shop, pondering the abyss and honing their tormented complexity while pissing away daddy's tuition money on triple lattes and muffins.

That said, they are a band I have a tremendous amount of respect for. First of all, they have been extremely fan-friendly, to the point of taking on a monolithic evil like TicketMaster, when it was far from in their best interests to do so.

And, after telling you what I think of them, in such fluent smartarsery, let me tell you about the night the store stayed open late for a midnight sale, to move some units of one of their later albums. This guy shows up about a half an hour beforehand. He's with his buddy, and he starts talking to us, mostly just standard music geek small talk. Then he starts talking about how anxious he is to get the new Pearl Jam album, and how much they mean to him. He teared up when he went into how they helped him through some tough times, and how they helped give him strength to actually enjoy life rather than just endure it.

Holy ****. Who am I to argue with that? I have to respect any band that can make that kind of connection; I mean, that is what it's all about. So if I still don't get it (I obviously don't), and I'll still tell you how I feel (you did, after all, ask my opinion), it doesn't, for one second, mean a thing. To me, they suck. To you, they're great. I can argue about why they shouldn't matter, or why they are aesthetically suspect, but, in the end, that means diddly squat. If they help you get through this life , they are valid in ways that are far more important, and, in fact, more in tune with what art is intended to be, than anything my silly intellectual posturing can posit.

What the hell does that mean? I'm not endorsing that belief system, but it did inform the man's art in the most personal fashion. That is a fact. If we're discussing artistic inspiration and interpretation, leave your irrelevant prejudices at the door. They added nothing except your derision, which is hardly salient to this discussion.

And as to CSN, they're nothing more than a bunch of buck-chasing opportunists whose empty suburban folkie pretension and hippy sloganeering mask their true identity as bubble gum music for stoners.

When Y joins in, that's another story.

I've been really getting back into guitar playing lately after buying my new Gibson. Lessons every week and practicing 2 hrs/day at least. That being the case I'm going thru a heavy Gilmour/Pink Floyd phase right about now.

These two songs I've been trying to learn the solo's for the last week. Good times!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSwpbHK7pQQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4c7DFP7U7c

But yea all Pink Floyd and Gilmour's solo albums just get more awesome with time for me and I'm in my mid-twenties.

Ya, ya, I know I don't have to like it, but I still really want to. It just feels like at some point the genius of all these old rock bands should hit me square in the face, but it never does. They just keep sounding dated and primitive and boring as hell.

I have to agree with Kudz on Pearl Jam and Ten...I recently downloaded after all the hoopla over its 15th anniversary...but it still escapes me.

Christal & Crack

The night
Cracknut

It means ugg, you have a large prejudicial paint brush.

I like bubble gum and pot sometimes.

And everyone who doesn't is "crazy"?

It was a joke. Music is like most things everyone has their own tastes. If you said you like the Jonas brothers its all good.

I may have mentioned this before, but for awhile, I heard the phrase "Jeremy spoke in..." as "Japanese spoken", which I though was pretty cool. Maybe I was just taken aback at how mundane the phrase really was.

Oh.

hahahaha.

ugg.