Somebody please explain it to me because it sounds terrible but everybody says it's good. Help.
Reply
don't make it the first album
you listen to.
I've listened to an album before.
It didn't sound like this. Maybe it's because I spend most of my day absent mindling twanging random notes on a guitar that this doesen't sound that special to me.
They aren't random notes though!
There are tons of little catchy melodies. They repeat them quite a lot too. Same with the drums. The beats are amazing! Great album. I didn't like it very much the first few times but then it clicked. They were forced to practice all those random notes for months on end before recording apparently. Crazy crazy crazy
is it totally unlistenable?
even like Moonlight in vermont?
Yeah I can listen to that
maybe I need to "concentrate" on it properly. Hmmm.
Don't worry about it
buy Safe As Milk instead, which I personally think is roughly a million times better (prepares to dodge the missiles)
^
Um, its good and you´re wrong?
Imagine it as like a mad musical dream, I found that helped. Plus, ´Steal Softly Thru Snow´ is one of the most beautiful things ever (¨the black paper between a mirror//breaks my heart that I can´t go,¨ etc) AND your hero Mr Waits probably listened to it far too much at one point. So yeah.
Death makes a convincing argument here
but you have to be careful of trusting someone with elongated apostrophes.
It's just that most of the time there's no rythm or melody
there's nothing I can latch onto, but it also seems so unatmospheric so I can't enjoy listening to it in the moment. Maybe I need to do the whole "listen the way through in the dark with headphones" thing or something. Maybe it will "click" one day, years after buying it.
It's odd cos I really love zappa and all that kind of stuff but I just dont "get" this.
just
try the odd track.
no one really likes it.
google Don Van Vliet and understand the guy first
knowing Don helps with appreciating his music. Barring that; you could PM Mr.JDTraynor about your plight- Nah, I wouldn't do that. Just check Don out and while your at it get into some Zappa too- there is tons of material between the two of them to keep you occupied till good new music arrives.
you need to focus on the drumming
do this for about ten listens.
Then when you become accustomed to this bring in the guitar also.
give it another ten listens
then it should begin to make sense.
It's the musical equivalent of a magic eye 3D picture
I just don't like Captain Beefheart.
Trout Mask Replica is one of those albums where you're glad someone made it
but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to listen it.
It will be forever touted by people trying 'out indie' eachother however.
No it won´t its too famous
Its just a very good album. That is also hard to get into. ¨She´s too much for mine, or anybodys mirror.¨
Horrible album
I enjoy a lot of so-called 'impenetrable music' but TMR is terrible. It has its moments, but the bulk of the album is simply a pretentious mess. Ironically, that's exactly why most people like it.
as the first person to use the word 'pretentious'
you lose at thread.
^
90% of 'pretentious' usage is made by people who are paranoid that art/music is mocking them in some way. It's FEAR.
'it sounds terrible but everyone says its good'
this happens all the time, just follow the crowd.
a pretentious reply
I guess if you have ever travelled to America and particularly across America and are a fan of American culture you might get more of an appreciation of it. To me it sounds very tribal and rootsy and hugely discordant and I love The Captain's voice. I got huge pleasure once to someone taking huge exception to me having The Fall on my Walkman so maybe being obtuse helps too.
what the hell
surely that was an unpretentious reply?
ive never heard the album, but its cool to like it in indie circles i think, which is what i was saying.
so do one.
uhm
i think John was maybe saying that his reply was about to sound pretentious. Chillax.
oh i see
sorry John
Fast and bulbous
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous.
Fast and bulbous.
That's right, the mascara snake! Fast and bublous.
How can you not love this record?
Squeegee your third eye.
Something about having a wank
Something funny in riposte
Post which suggests I'm too old to know what you kids are on about
SOmething about you being younger than me.
tits
WHERE
it is the all-time number one album which ignorant people namecheck when trying to sound cool
hi
; )
Allow me to retort
that's some fine retortin' there numptateous one
Troutmask is just one of several Beefheart albums that are essential to any rock oriented Scotsman's library. I find the backstory of Troutmask Replica and the actual srory of it's making of to be one of the most incredible sagas in the history of music.
Check it out.
actually, don't check it out, I did and couldn't find much but there is a new book that I think I'm going to get, I'm sure you'd enjoy it too:
'Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish' in particular. I don't know why I like that song, but I do.
it's good stuff!
don't try and understand. you either feel it or you don't, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Don't understand it??
So, you DO understand it, then...
Musical All Bran
Everyone needs a little roughage in their musical diet, TMR provides that. What I would say is it works a lot better over four sides of vinyl, rather than trying to sit through it in one CD sized sitting. 'Ella Guru' popped up on shuffle last week and it sounded genuinely out of this world.
^this
shuffle!
i run on...
...laser beans
what do "fartwashers" do?
: 0
yeah it's a musical enima but it's also a bizzare little art project
about as bizzare as they get. Captain Beefheart used classic mind control tactics on "The Magic Band" to achieve their arrival on some weird music planet. He even got Frank Zappa to play along but only in a cursory technical capicity. Zappa desribed his amazement the realization that "Magic Band" had been "rehearsed to death"- and they nearly were- mainly due to a six month, exclusive diet of beans. Just an example of the weirdness that his band was exposed to during the making of TMR: Toward the end of the whole episode Captain Beefheart called a tree surgeon to come out to the "Band House" and examine the tress surrounding the house cause he was afraid that the music coming from the house during the months of rehearsals had damaged the tree- somehow. I guess the tree surgeon gave the trees a clean bill of health.
pimp!
its a great album! do some more drugs...or go buy Spotlight Kid.
I can appreciate it and all
I just don't think it'll ever be one of my favourite albums. I also don't like that from a few replies in this thread it is supposed you are either a person who "gets it" or "doesent get it", which is kind of a bad attitude for music to be made or consumed in.
It's also bloody long. An hour and 20 minutes is a long time for any album, never mind one that is intentionally difficult.
I don't think his intention was to make something difficult
even though it turned out that way. He really just had some new ideas about making music that he was bound to try.
I have to say
i'm listening to it a bit more commidetly (is that even a word?) now and it's pretty refreshing, considering i've been listening to tom waits and nick cave and leonard cohen and other such "troubadors" playing "proper songs" for the past few months.
I quite like it I guess but I'm not a fan of "music" i.e studying it, analysing things which were "groundbreaking" etc. I'm like it more in the "arty" sense.
Och I dont even know. I'm enjoying it a wee bit now so that's cool.
man
it's just fucking pop music. I'm afraid it really is a case of either liking it or not liking it. Do you sit around worrying about whether you get Celine Dion or not?
Most of the songs have loads of little melodies and rhythms popping up
which you can pick out and enjoy. Think of it as being like 'GCSE Bitesize'.
Trout mask update
My two year old little brother is proving that you CAN dance to this album. He seems to be enjoying himself.
unihibited dancers can dance to anything
sigh
Get Safe As Milk first
then come back to it. Safe as Milk is all kinds of brilliant, including the one where you actually enjoy it rather than thinking that you probably should.
me neither
I was expecting a kaleidoscope of fireworks and colour
and it is drab monotone slightly fiddly pub rock
yet another
'i want to like this album so as to fit in, so i'm going to keep listening to it until i get it, so we can all live in harmony and lick yogurt from our smug selves' post
It's the best anti acid advert I've ever heard, complete avante garde tosh.
...
i've never really got on with captain beefheart. It used to make me feel bad, but i've learned to live with myself.
don't make it the first album
you listen to.
I've listened to an album before.
It didn't sound like this. Maybe it's because I spend most of my day absent mindling twanging random notes on a guitar that this doesen't sound that special to me.
They aren't random notes though!
There are tons of little catchy melodies. They repeat them quite a lot too. Same with the drums. The beats are amazing! Great album. I didn't like it very much the first few times but then it clicked. They were forced to practice all those random notes for months on end before recording apparently. Crazy crazy crazy
is it totally unlistenable?
even like Moonlight in vermont?
Yeah I can listen to that
maybe I need to "concentrate" on it properly. Hmmm.
Don't worry about it
buy Safe As Milk instead, which I personally think is roughly a million times better (prepares to dodge the missiles)
^
Um, its good and you´re wrong?
Imagine it as like a mad musical dream, I found that helped. Plus, ´Steal Softly Thru Snow´ is one of the most beautiful things ever (¨the black paper between a mirror//breaks my heart that I can´t go,¨ etc) AND your hero Mr Waits probably listened to it far too much at one point. So yeah.
Death makes a convincing argument here
but you have to be careful of trusting someone with elongated apostrophes.
It's just that most of the time there's no rythm or melody
there's nothing I can latch onto, but it also seems so unatmospheric so I can't enjoy listening to it in the moment. Maybe I need to do the whole "listen the way through in the dark with headphones" thing or something. Maybe it will "click" one day, years after buying it.
It's odd cos I really love zappa and all that kind of stuff but I just dont "get" this.
just
try the odd track.
no one really likes it.
google Don Van Vliet and understand the guy first
knowing Don helps with appreciating his music. Barring that; you could PM Mr.JDTraynor about your plight- Nah, I wouldn't do that. Just check Don out and while your at it get into some Zappa too- there is tons of material between the two of them to keep you occupied till good new music arrives.
you need to focus on the drumming
do this for about ten listens.
Then when you become accustomed to this bring in the guitar also.
give it another ten listens
then it should begin to make sense.
It's the musical equivalent of a magic eye 3D picture
I just don't like Captain Beefheart.
Trout Mask Replica is one of those albums where you're glad someone made it
but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to listen it.
It will be forever touted by people trying 'out indie' eachother however.
No it won´t its too famous
Its just a very good album. That is also hard to get into. ¨She´s too much for mine, or anybodys mirror.¨
Horrible album
I enjoy a lot of so-called 'impenetrable music' but TMR is terrible. It has its moments, but the bulk of the album is simply a pretentious mess. Ironically, that's exactly why most people like it.
as the first person to use the word 'pretentious'
you lose at thread.
^
90% of 'pretentious' usage is made by people who are paranoid that art/music is mocking them in some way. It's FEAR.
'it sounds terrible but everyone says its good'
this happens all the time, just follow the crowd.
a pretentious reply
I guess if you have ever travelled to America and particularly across America and are a fan of American culture you might get more of an appreciation of it. To me it sounds very tribal and rootsy and hugely discordant and I love The Captain's voice. I got huge pleasure once to someone taking huge exception to me having The Fall on my Walkman so maybe being obtuse helps too.
what the hell
surely that was an unpretentious reply?
ive never heard the album, but its cool to like it in indie circles i think, which is what i was saying.
so do one.
uhm
i think John was maybe saying that his reply was about to sound pretentious. Chillax.
oh i see
sorry John
Fast and bulbous
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous.
Fast and bulbous.
That's right, the mascara snake! Fast and bublous.
How can you not love this record?
Squeegee your third eye.
Something about having a wank
Something funny in riposte
Post which suggests I'm too old to know what you kids are on about
SOmething about you being younger than me.
tits
WHERE
it is the all-time number one album which ignorant people namecheck when trying to sound cool
hi
; )
Allow me to retort
that's some fine retortin' there numptateous one
Troutmask is just one of several Beefheart albums that are essential to any rock oriented Scotsman's library. I find the backstory of Troutmask Replica and the actual srory of it's making of to be one of the most incredible sagas in the history of music.
Check it out.
actually, don't check it out, I did and couldn't find much but there is a new book that I think I'm going to get, I'm sure you'd enjoy it too:
http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/books/troutmask33.htm
when you get on to it, check these out:
in no particular order cause they're all gems
Safe As Milk
Lick My Decals Off Baby
Bongo Fury (live with Zappa)
Clear Spot
Bat Chain Puller/The Shiny Beast
Doc At The Radar Station
Grow Fins (the unofficial box set)
keep pluggin away; the reward will be rich.
I think the beauty is in the lyrics.
'Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish' in particular. I don't know why I like that song, but I do.
it's good stuff!
don't try and understand. you either feel it or you don't, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Don't understand it??
So, you DO understand it, then...
Musical All Bran
Everyone needs a little roughage in their musical diet, TMR provides that. What I would say is it works a lot better over four sides of vinyl, rather than trying to sit through it in one CD sized sitting. 'Ella Guru' popped up on shuffle last week and it sounded genuinely out of this world.
^this
shuffle!
i run on...
...laser beans
what do "fartwashers" do?
: 0
yeah it's a musical enima but it's also a bizzare little art project
about as bizzare as they get. Captain Beefheart used classic mind control tactics on "The Magic Band" to achieve their arrival on some weird music planet. He even got Frank Zappa to play along but only in a cursory technical capicity. Zappa desribed his amazement the realization that "Magic Band" had been "rehearsed to death"- and they nearly were- mainly due to a six month, exclusive diet of beans. Just an example of the weirdness that his band was exposed to during the making of TMR: Toward the end of the whole episode Captain Beefheart called a tree surgeon to come out to the "Band House" and examine the tress surrounding the house cause he was afraid that the music coming from the house during the months of rehearsals had damaged the tree- somehow. I guess the tree surgeon gave the trees a clean bill of health.
pimp!
its a great album! do some more drugs...or go buy Spotlight Kid.
I can appreciate it and all
I just don't think it'll ever be one of my favourite albums. I also don't like that from a few replies in this thread it is supposed you are either a person who "gets it" or "doesent get it", which is kind of a bad attitude for music to be made or consumed in.
It's also bloody long. An hour and 20 minutes is a long time for any album, never mind one that is intentionally difficult.
I don't think his intention was to make something difficult
even though it turned out that way. He really just had some new ideas about making music that he was bound to try.
I have to say
i'm listening to it a bit more commidetly (is that even a word?) now and it's pretty refreshing, considering i've been listening to tom waits and nick cave and leonard cohen and other such "troubadors" playing "proper songs" for the past few months.
I quite like it I guess but I'm not a fan of "music" i.e studying it, analysing things which were "groundbreaking" etc. I'm like it more in the "arty" sense.
Och I dont even know. I'm enjoying it a wee bit now so that's cool.
man
it's just fucking pop music. I'm afraid it really is a case of either liking it or not liking it. Do you sit around worrying about whether you get Celine Dion or not?
Most of the songs have loads of little melodies and rhythms popping up
which you can pick out and enjoy. Think of it as being like 'GCSE Bitesize'.
Trout mask update
My two year old little brother is proving that you CAN dance to this album. He seems to be enjoying himself.
unihibited dancers can dance to anything
sigh
Get Safe As Milk first
then come back to it. Safe as Milk is all kinds of brilliant, including the one where you actually enjoy it rather than thinking that you probably should.
me neither
I was expecting a kaleidoscope of fireworks and colour
and it is drab monotone slightly fiddly pub rock
yet another
'i want to like this album so as to fit in, so i'm going to keep listening to it until i get it, so we can all live in harmony and lick yogurt from our smug selves' post
It's the best anti acid advert I've ever heard, complete avante garde tosh.
...
i've never really got on with captain beefheart. It used to make me feel bad, but i've learned to live with myself.
I don't think
this record has much to do with acid.
ur stupid