Album Rating: 3.5

i just feel like i would enjoy it a lot more than currently if i 'got it' ;-;

Album Rating: 4.5

eh i mean if you dont like something you shouldnt force yourself to like it. this was pretty instant for me and if something takes you 50 listens to enjoy you should just move on

Album Rating: 4.5

when i was younger i would devote a lot of time to shit i was never gonna enjoy and nowadays im less willing to do that cause im a bit more secure in my tastes now. like that 12th playthrough of american football just aint gonna do it for me, and thats fine

Album Rating: 4.5

wat sonic said yea m/

Album Rating: 4.5

or like when death grips came out and everyone i knew was amazed by them and it just sounded like ironic computer farts to me, well 10 years later it still sounds like a guy farting

Album Rating: 4.5

although i do think its good to leave your "comfort zone" sometimes, im still perfectly fine getting on national TV and telling everyone i like iron maiden more than neutral milk hotel. and the people who like that stuff but hate 80s metal should keep listening to that stuff, im not gonna be the guy who's like "oh you gotta hear this album, and this album, and..."

It's a tricky one... Sometimes, I find there will be records where I might like elements of songs or one or two singles from it but the whole record doesn't click right away. With enough time, those records can go on to become some of my favourites as their flavours become more and more enjoyable over time. It can also help to broaden your perspective; hear things you didn't hear before.

So, I am definitely in the camp of if you didn't like it at first but think there's something there? Maybe stick with it a little bit. I'll always remember something Hayden Thorpe of Wild Beasts once said, that when he was younger, he could only ever really afford to buy one record and so he would listen to that record religiously because that's all he had. These days, we have so much access to music but we can also be very quick to toss it out, too and maybe that's missing something or maybe not. Maybe life's too short to labour over things we may not like. XD

Album Rating: 4.5

trvth s0n1c trbth

Album Rating: 4.5

for me jazz aint really that hard to "get" but i think its a bit retarded when people talk about getting something or not anyway. its all subjective and you can understand an album but still think its crap, theres no hidden mysteries in most music



in my experience repeated listens will only strengthen my appreciation of something if i already like what im hearing. like theres been plenty of cases i went from a 3 or 3.5 to a 4.5 or 5, but ive never gone from a 1.5 on first listen to 5ing it later

Album Rating: 4.5

like i have a friend who keeps trying to get me to listen to stuff like korn and slipknot again, its simply not gonna happen. ive heard too much classic style metal to ever enjoy like, groovy dance club shit like that. and thats fine. same with new metallica, which my friend is a huge fan of. ive heard probably over a thousand thrash records so theres no way for me to have the same enthusiasm for death magnetic that i have for practically any 80s thrash record i like

Eh I don't think that's really true, to be honest.

It's not about mysteries but what you're ear is tuned to and what those sounds or those aesthetics draw on you. Sometimes they may not pair with you at a time but they might later. Like, I remember I used to fetishize over rounded, beating toms with a lot of wet sound left in. So much so that I wasn't really listening to a lot of dry percussion. Then, one day, that really changed and I found a real appreciate for tight, dry sounds. I didn't get it at first but then the appeal came to me.

The music itself doesn't change. It's static. But what your attention is drawn to and what experiences you've had may certainly change.

Album Rating: 4.5

yeah that can happen, ive just personally never had it happen with something unless i already found something to enjoy in it to begin with. i used to think phish, the grateful dead, ween, lots of music like that was annoying but now i like all those bands. but even when i disliked those groups i found worthwhile aspects that got me to keep occasionally listening to them anyway. i already enjoyed bands that were similar to those bands so there was at least something to latch on to



but if you take something like, idk, mudvayne's ld50. critically acclaimed, widely regarded as one of the best nu-metal records. theres just nothing really there for me to latch on to, no aspect i can relate to where im like "that part is really cool so while i might not dig the rest of it, im gonna keep listening." at a certain point i had to accept that my metal leanings were more rooted in the more triumphant sound of the 80s and spending more time on mudvayne just wasnt worth it to me. ive had the same experience with a lot of industrial stuff too, or post-metal, lot of the genres of metal that dont really rely on riffs but rely on "atmosphere" instead, most of it just doesnt really click for me even if i can vaguely appreciate what its doing artistically

Album Rating: 4.5

but there have been points in time where i was a bit too young or too angry or too inexperienced to appreciate certain sounds and i wrote off certain groups as maybe "too soft" and later on loved it. i wasnt really a prog fan until 9th grade and it was getting into rush that sort of bridged the gap between hard rock/heavy metal and the more floaty sounding keyboard based prog stuff im obsessed with today. but im almost 30 years old and that sort of transformation doesnt happen as often for me. the change between age 13 and age 16 is huge, and then 16 to 21 is huge. but you dont change a whole lot from 24 to 26

Oh I see what you mean. Yes, I certainly think it's hard to approach music that is very different from what you're comfortable or familiar with. It helps when there's some tangible element to latch onto. Like I said before, I've certainly bought records where I've like a couple songs but found the rest of them hard to approach; those records have gone on to become real favourites.

I suppose it depends on what there is to 'get' about the music. I certainly love that feeling of having my ears opened to sounds I wasn't drawn to before. Having that eureka moment where they click is really satisfying.

Album Rating: 4.5

granted im not saying you should just listen to one or two genres forever and ever. but like, i love kate bush but i get that its not geared towards most people who might be into punk or metal, no matter how often they listen to it. and i dont think people necessarily dont "get" kate bush if her music doesnt appeal to them, i just think different shit is made for different people. back in 2011 when i was listening to kate bush, it was out of my "comfort zone" because its pop, but there were enough commonalities with the 70s rock stuff i enjoy that i was able to get into it and keep listening

Album Rating: 4.5

but yeah it is a good feeling to get into something you didnt think you'd ever like 10 years ago. i mean when i was like 13 i probably wouldve thought allan holdsworth was elevator music, now i think that stuff has more depth to it than virtually any metal. but now that im older those eureka moments are a bit more seldom because i have sort of settled into my tastes a bit more. which is why i never really bother to check out, say, emo or indie rock or post-hardcore stuff anymore. because id rather hear more of what i like and just let the people who are into that stuff keep listening to that while i listen to van halen again

I suppose it's a matter of understanding where the appeal comes from. As you said, it's entirely possibly not to like a certain sound or aesthetic but understand where the appeal is supposed to come from. I don't listen to very much metal music, though I appreciate a lot of the musicianship. I just don't have a preference towards the aesthetics and volume of metal. I might be the opposite to you in preferring more delicate sounds usually.

In some ways, I might say that I don't "get it" in a sense that I don't share the same emotional resonance with that genre and their sub-genre of music. I don't get those feelings or those emotions that may be necessary to enjoying it beyond appreciating it on a technical level.

Similarly, maybe people who like cool or smooth jazz might not get bebop because they don't share the appeal for its busier and looser style. I guess it depends on the context the word means but I think I share the worry that it's sometimes used in a manner of condescension. =(

Album Rating: 4.5

i think a good rule of getting into a genre is if you listen to like, a dozen or so classics and dont find anything to enjoy, its probably not for you. but if you listen to a dozen or so classics and dig at least a few of them, you should keep exploring the genre. and it is always good to maybe revisit stuff every few years to see if anythings changed for you



i probably wouldnt have gotten into jazz until i heard it within a rock framework, ie fusion and the jazzy elements of prog rock. i kinda had to hear that stuff and like it before i could go back and enjoy the more obvious jazz classics like this and all the davis/coltrane shit. its similar to how i had to get heavily into thrash before i was ready to really appreciate death metal or black metal. so sometimes its true you might not be ready to digest something yet

That's really interesting. Huh. Very cool. I got into jazz differently. It's probably misplaced romanticism more than anything. Well, my Uncle would listen to a lot of vocal jazz and big band records but not jazz records from Mingus and so on...

Instead, jazz for me probably came from video games and movies. Sim City, gangster films and so on since I always associated jazz music with the imagery of big, American cities like New York. And so buying my first jazz record (which was Mingus Ah Um) came with a strong affinity toward that imagery it invoked in me. I didn't actually much care for the technical aspects until I was in my 20's.

Although I think with genres, you can sometimes find outliers or find yourself in a roundabout way of learning you like something. Never particularly cared for 90's UK garage music when it was actually playing on the TV as a kid. However, nostalgia is a funny thing and now I quite like garage music as a result of that. XD

Album Rating: 4.5

metal is a weird one because its a very impersonal genre and most music fans tend to go for something that makes them feel good and they can relate to it. i love a lot of soft music in the jazz and prog world but its hard for me to listen to like, some acoustic singer/songwriter dude singing breakup poems. or stuff like most pop punk where its all emotion all the time and there usually isnt some type of interesting musical technique i can zero in on to help me appreciate it more. i mainly just find metal a lot of fun and it doesnt often concern itself with earthly affairs, so theres an escapist element there too. its really ridiculous music at its core and thats why it appeals to me in the same way horror films or fantasy novels do