Inscrutable

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I'm trying (and mostly failing so far) to work out why I like New Order for the review of their reissues I'm writing.

What are the bands you love but find hard to write about? (Or, if yr not a writer, love without being able to articulate why?).

Comments

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

All of them! (Musical deconstruction isn't my forte)

But I do think NO are especially tricky. Can't tell you why, though ;-)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

say stuff that's impenetrably oblique or cryptic!

[koganbot]

Danity Kane
Midi, Maxi & Efti
Boney M

Problem I have is that their best attribute is beauty... or should I say gorgeousness... or should I say beauty... well, anyway, I run out of adjectives pretty fast, and as for why something is beautiful... Also, Danity Kane is a problem in that I don't care enough about their sensibility to find out what it is (though maybe if I found it what it was, I'd discover something I cared about in it).

I can see how explaining why one loves New Order despite NO's utterly, completely enervatingly boring singing would be a task, but I'd think it would be a stimulating task that would unstop my words, if I did love New Order.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

My other answer - who I'm also reviewing next month - is the Smiths, in that particular case because they were too important to me, so in an attempt not to overrate them I'm tempted to be too harsh about their records.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I like New Order because True Faith was one of those slightly seminal musical moments for me when I heard it in my parents' car as a child. And 'Regret' is a choon. They're very good at that sort of 'emo without transcending the bounds of acceptable levels of angst to have in public,' much like the Pet Shop Boys only NO are less dignified than PSB.

I find it very hard to write about a lot of groups I like that are "classic." I always get neurotic about not knowing enough to avoid saying something offensively innaccurate. (these bands range from of Montreal to The Offspring, despite both of those being some of my absolute favourite bands)

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I tried very hard to explain to Ewan what I love about Prefab Sprout, and didn't manage it at all.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

also the answer is:

GILLIAN

obv ;)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I've never sat down and tried to write more than a sentence about Elastica - I'm sure I *could* but I'm too worried that I'll realise they're actually rubbish and look like a great big idiot. BLISSFUL IGNORANCE = KEY

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I do often feel as though I'm running out of vocab to describe the house and techno I love...there are only so many ways you can say the same thing. Which doesn't apply to the music at all.

I could write reams about why I love Tori Amos but feel unable to hear her music through the ears of a non-fan, so have no idea how much sense any of it makes.

The token indie stuff I like...Santogold, Yeah Yeah Yeahs for example, I don't think i could explain why I like them and not other similar indie bands. I'm not very bothered about this.

Oh yeah often awareness of the Boney Joan rule can be a disadvantage: being able to articulate why I like or dislike a band, then suddenly realising I've used exactly the same characteristic in the opposite direction, and so it isn't the answer at all and I have more thinking to do.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

anything ever, usually, but especially Anthony Braxton's stuff.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Sting's solo work, and old-rock-farts-doing-tasteful-adult-contemporary in general.

I always love this stuff to pieces, better than their early work, and I have no justification whatsoever.

[ex-al-ewing.livejournal.com]

The Pet Shop Boys are a difficult one to explain, especially since one of the things I find about them is that they're a very emotional band, and non-likers generally dismiss them as being emotionless. It's the restraint that makes something like 'Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Anymore' so powerful - the sense of what Tennant isn't saying, what he's keeping in. Unfortunately, armchair music critics seem to prefer vocalists wearing their emo on their sleeves, at least up north.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

also ALSO this is totes off topic but Tom! Someone bumped an ancient ILX thread which you started, hating on Carole King's Tapestry! Do you really hate it? Biggest sadface ever :(