A kung fu fighter in a disco

I was wrong when I decided that Mudhoney, Nirvana and Tad were somehow 'better' than metal. i.e. I discovered 'credibility' and I've never been quite right again since.

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

is this different to the recent question about turnarounds/change of minds?

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It's related but I was off the webs when that one got asked.

The way that thread panned out was more "stages in my musical development" though - whereas this is "opinions I forcefully held which I was wrong about".

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

btw i wasn't being critical - i was genuinely thinking if there was an important difference.

all these are going to be 'i said i hated it, and then decided it was great'. i'd like to see the reverse tho.

i always said oasis would never be popular. SO wrong.

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My first ever piece of published music writing (in my skool magazine) was a glowing review of the BLUE AEROPLANES, a record that even at the time I was aware wasn't very good :(

Things I hated first time I heard them on the radio as a nipper: Smiley Culture, MARRS, "Wham! Rap", 00s of other early dance and soul recs but those three in particular are timeless works of human endeavour.

Moving into adolescence and university years - REM's "Automatic For The People" is not the "best album ever made". It's not even much good.

The thing I was wrongest about as an 'adult' (i.e. post education) was probably that whole wave of damaged childish epic indie that Mercury Rev kind of started. I wasn't wrong about it for long, it was apparent from hearing Grandaddy and the Flaming Lips that the whole thing was a disaster, but I *adored* the 3rd Rev album and the first few tracks off Deserters Songs and I dunno if I could listen to them now.

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... when I slagged off the Garden Tools in same skool magazine. I may have been wrong about that second House of Love album mind.

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bengraham.livejournal.com

Grandaddy were no "disaster". You've just said that to wind me up haven't you?!!

Best band ever.

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Absolutely dreadful - that first record is probably the worst thing I've ever paid full price for. Nauseating voice, hackneyed ideas about humanity and technology, mimsy limp melodies, come across like a Ladybird Books abridged version of Radiohead (who themselves aren't that great).

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bengraham.livejournal.com

Beautiful vocal harmonies, witty lyrics, summery indie-pop melodies, sound pretty much unique (despite having clear similarities with Radiohead, Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips etc.)

You are wrong about being wrong. Or something.

Also, the new solo album by Grandaddy's guitarist is quite possibly my album of 2007 so far.

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I concur. I was suckered into paying for this by an unexpected phone call from a friend raving about it. It is rub!

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miss-newham.livejournal.com

"damaged childish epic indie" - thank you! You've just pinpointed my exact problem with those bands, which I couldn't encapsulate nearly so neatly!

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Well I guess the people who like it like it partly because of that! I think I probably did - I am sure I reached for all those awful Disney Songs on Drugs comparators too.

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i was wrong at the Great Lost Focus Group when i complained about Busted thusly:

BUT THEY CAN'T EVEN PLAY THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTS!

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The Great Lost Focus Group was WRONG WRONG WRONG all told and this is why it was lost.

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Which one was this? Was I there?

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it was the one upstairs in the BPNS, i don't think you were there...

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No, I don't think so. I will not ask why it was WRONG WRONG WRONG but I suspect that being upstairs in a pub may have something to do with it!

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awesomewells.livejournal.com

The Great Lost Focus Group was WRONG WRONG WRONG because it was won by Hey Ya by a massive margin.

It was actually upstairs at Chris and Vicky's although inordinate amounts of booze were consumed.

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nah mate that's the OTHER Great Lost Focus Group...

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I'm not 100% sure that one was actually lost. Obviously the Hey Ya results were suppressed (except that everyone knows them, we just mention it now and then to annoy

braisedbywolves)

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I was going to post this as my biggest wrong, too. Except obviously without focus group angle.

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Nobody has mentioned the PSBs yet = you are all still wrong (or in denial)

*winky face*

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I am pretty sure I have uttered the words "I hate reggae it all sounds the same" in my late teens. Boy, was I wrong about that.

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Things I thought* would leave a bigger mark on pop (read: would 'save' indie) than they in fact did: riot grrl, early 90s female-fronted indie bands in general.

*hoped more than thought, actually

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nicolars.livejournal.com

As a teenager I was wrong about hating country -- I think it was just a knee-jerk reactionary stance to take since I had to listen to so much of it as a kid.

To be honest I don't think I listen to enough new music now to think much about whether I'm wrong about any of it.

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blue-russian.livejournal.com

...or, well, you know what i mean. I still think there is/was something great about U2 even though the thought of them makes me cringe now. Or, even better, I do not regret all the hours I spent discussing Phil Collins and Genesis lyrics with Valerie, again, silly though it sounds now.

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blue-russian.livejournal.com

Oasis!

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chezghost.livejournal.com

adolescence is a LICENSE TO BE WRONG so it would be pointless for me to list all the bands i liked many songs by (Pearl Jam! RHCP! Stone Temple Pilots! Senser!) during my 'must ditch dying rave horse for new rockier thrills' period circa '93.

this decade i feel i was wrong to like Mercury Rev's 'All Is Dream' as much as I initially did - also the Flaming Lisp 'Do You Realise', but i still regret considerably less re Doves and Campag Velocet. and i was wrong to be as rockist as i was prior to ILM/popist baptism by fire, but then i would say that NOW wouldn't i.

probably wrong to rate 'Speakerboxxx/The Love Below' so much at the time (decided it was my fave album of 2003) - it'll be interesting to see how many end of decade top 50s or 100s it makes it onto.

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dude, you totally weren't wrong about senser, as you shall find out next friday ;)

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There is a follow-up question on this coming tomorrow - remind me if I forget. If I've forgotten what it is I will make one up.

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koganbot

WRONG
--The Vietnam War (supported it originally)
--The Beatles (thought they were the epitome of stupidity; changed mind in late '66; mind change also rehabilitated their earlier work, most especially "She Loves You," which I'd originally taken to epitomize their being the epitome of stupidity)

JURY STILL OUT
--Sometime in early 1988 I wrote in Swellsville that girl-twirl stuff like freestyle and Stacey Q* was the only possible future for punk; this statement can be taken in several ways, but what I meant was a bit metaphorical, that only something rooted totally outside of punk and new wave but inside the dance-joy-party of disco (or something like it) could possibly be the future of punk; that is, eventually dance-party-music would grow within itself something punk-like without actually deriving at all from anything called "punk rock." One could argue that a number of things prove me very wrong, e.g., that Guns N' Roses were punk rock and so was Hole; at least it's easier to argue for that than to argue that Guns N' Roses and Hole were actually freestyle/disco bands that didn't derive at all from punk rock.

Of course Britney may turn out to be more punk rock than all of 'em. I'm still astonished and enthralled by her Name My Album poll.

*Actually, I don't think I'd heard Hard Machine yet, and am pretty sure I didn't mention Stacey Q by name, but she gives you an idea of the sort of thing I meant.

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Of course Britney may turn out to be more punk rock than all of 'em. I'm still astonished and enthralled by her Name My Album poll.

I was wondering what you'd think about that. I love how everyone's like 'BRITNEY IS MENTALIST REALLY THIS TIME' and it seems like one of the sanest things I've ever witnessed her doing, right up there with the head-shaving.

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koganbot

Well, AOL decided she was mocking Lindsay, which is totally wrong: she's actually mocking AOL media types (and Hilary). I think she was being flat-out smart, totally nailing and satirizing a kind of sensibility... not even sure how to describe what it is that she's satirizing. I tried to talk about this on the teenpop thread but didn't really know what to say, was only able to enthuse. But she nailed everything - the fact that it's a poll so supposedly the fans can choose (oh, we are so in touch with our fans) and let's watch celebs crack up (isn't it weird that these strange celeb beings behave in such freaky screwed-up ways), and then, finally, at the end, INTEGRITY! DIGNITY! I can't explain it, why those titles are so brilliant, but it's like watching a basketball player pull a perfect fake, freeze the opposing players in their tracks, glide right by them for an emphatic basket.

Matt Armstrong on Rolling Teenpop is also with us on this, but like me is essentially speechless: "I'm still struggling to process the brilliance of that Britney poll. All would be great song titles too."

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skyecaptain.livejournal.com

Pearl Jam! RHCP! Stone Temple Pilots!

Wrong is tricky -- I pretty firmly believe that I will never go back to actively dislike anything I once liked (because I can always remember having liked it, even if I don't like it in the same way anymore), so maybe a better way of putting it might be "which music lets you know just how much you've changed in X number of years."

In which case, all children's faves and pop-of-the-moment until I was 16 probably get a free pass -- because I go right back to liking it (starting with the Muppets and working my way up to Rage Against the Machine!). Adolescence is the tricky part I guess. But really, I imagine it has to come somewhere from my 2004 year-end ballot -- and then I look at said ballot and realize that even that was pretty accurate!

So basically my point is I've never been wrong (re: liking music)(?!). This can't be true...ummmm...OH! Eminem, "Just Lose It." Never been wronger! Review from 2004, HA.

Generally I think post-adolescence (18-21?) makes for rockier "let's re-examine what I liked and WHY" terrain than adolescence (unfortunately this also coincides with first stabs at publishable music crit for many writers -- college mags, webzines, etc.), (maybe) hence many Poptimists having similar gag-reflex reactions to certain kindsa music (that appeals mostly to 18-21 year olds)? (But I sort of agree with Lex that most Poptimists are to this day irredeemable INDIES, including me!)

Besides, according to this cartoon (http://images.ucomics.com/comics/td/2007/td070616.gif), you'll always defend what you liked when you were twelve!

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I pretty firmly believe that I will never go back to actively dislike anything I once liked (because I can always remember having liked it, even if I don't like it in the same way anymore)

This is what I believe too (and c.20 years older, if not wiser, belief system seems to be holding up just fine).

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zenith.livejournal.com

I used to hate nothing as much as I hated male-vocal r&b. Even when I got into hip hop at first I used to take people like Jeru and the RZA seriously, even though the latter always contradicted himself by making r&b influenced songs and the former was a bit of a bore. And even when I got into female-vocal r&b I resisted the boys' stuff for a while. I think it was Sisqo who cured me of this.

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-"Busted and McFly can't even play their instruments and they are shit and cheesy HAR HAR HAR I AM SO ROCK"
-Staind. It shames me to say I have 'Break The Cycle' and played it INTO THE GROUND WHERE IT SHOULD STAY for about a year of my short life which I can never regain. :(
-The usual "Girls Aloud don't even write their own songs, ewwww!" stupidity.
-"Phil Anselmo is really fit" -what was wrong in my head?
-Cascada not really being music. Actually I am not entirely sure they are music still, more a sort of weird experience but a good one at that.

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