Difficult To Get Into Bands

I´m just curious if there are other people here who find these bands difficult to get into?

Still find TMV difficult to listen to.
    

Edited by alias10mr - September 06 2006 at 20:46

TMV is one of those bands that I want to get into, but I haven't yet. It may take some time for it to click. Although Gentle Giant took me many years to appreciate, now they are one of my favorites.

I actually put them in order

I voted for The Mars Volta... I quite enjoy them, but I really never developed a taste for them.  There's so much stuff I find great out there that I haven't made much effort.  Still, they intrigue me.  So I will go back at some time, but as there's such a  huge amount of prog that I hardly know or don't know that I wish to discover that I don't know when I'll bother.

As for Gentle Giant, it was love at first REAL listen.  It just took one downloaded song to do it.  After seeing Gentle Giant listed so highly in the top 100 list of this site, and reading the rave reviews, I decided to download a song for testing purposes (the mp3s at this site didn't show up due to a very aggressive program I was always running at that time).  The song happened to be Free Hand.  On first half-listen I was just expecting something quite different, so I was a little taken aback (it being listed under Symphonic Prog at the time, and well, it was very different from the stuff I was listening to like ELP, Genesis, Yes, Camel, and others).  But a little jazzy  bit of the song stuck in my head, and I felt I just had to listen to it again.   Next time I heard it it clicked in a big way, and a Gentle Giant fan was born.  Subsequently I immediately 'got' all their songs off their first eight studio albums (okay some of those songs I consider a little weak).  Never did develop a taste for the final studio albums, and don't really want to.  I just don't think those post-Interview studio albums are that good (though I enjoy some songs off them).

As for King Crimson, I liked them right away.  Again, it wasn't quite what I was expecting.  I happened to download "21st Century Schizoid Man", (MUCH harder than most of the stuff I was listening to at the time) and by the second listen it was blowing me away.  Then on to other mellower KC stuff, and not so mellow stuff.

Actually, I started with all three bands at just about the same time -- when I decided I'd let myself be music deprived for too long.  Always liked prog, though my knowledge was limited to a fairly small group of bands (ELP, Genesis, Yes, Rush, Jethro Tull, Pink FLoyd, Alan Parson's Project, Frank Zappa, and Focus), and a smattering of prog songs by quite a few other bands.

The bands I tried to get into but gave up on are Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings, UK, and a host of neo-prog and prog metal bands.  Another one I bought due to the rave reviews at this site that disappointed me was Porcupine Tree's "In Absentia."  I just found it a little boring, and not so proggy (as I thought of Prog) compared to the other prog bands I was discovering at the time (like Anglagard's Hybris).  Actually bought that along with Djam Karet's Recollection Harvest (was looking to update my tastes at the time from predominantly 70's prog) -- found Djam Karet's considerably more satisfying.

EDIT: VDGG, though I love some of their songs, is not one I particularly wish to pursue due to the singer's histrionics.  To each his or her own.


Edited by Logan - September 06 2006 at 22:28

I never listened to The Mars Volta, but I easily got into King Crimson and Gentle Giant. As soon as I heard one of their songs, I loved the band.

Same with other, hum, "difficult" bands, like VdGG.

Judging from this track record of mine... I should try out Mars Volta. :P

Well, I for some reason or another don't have trouble "getting into" bands.....I liked Mr. Bungle and The Mars Volta from minute one, and KC's "Red" I got into instantly.....

I was gonna go with The Mars Volta and then I realized that they were the first prog band that I listened to regulary, and given what I was listening to at the time, for me to make that transition must say something about TMV's accessibility, no matter how covered it may be. The other 2 I liked instantly.

I'd say the hardest band to get in to that I got in to would be Godspeed You! Black Emperor, but oh how it's worth it

I won`t bore you with my thoughts perhaps it gets down to personal taste ... I can get into the strangest music at times  that others dismiss as garbage ... I can`t explain why

mukster wrote: Those bands were all ok to get into. I am having a tought time with VDGG, having recently purchased Pawn Hearts.  I have now read here that its not the "easiest" listen of their albums.

Pawn Hearts seems to be the only album by them in which I got into fairly quickly. Still working on the others.
    

Edited by KeleCableII - September 07 2006 at 00:26