Embarrassing gaps in musical knowledge

That's all, more or less!

I'll get to it all though, eventually.

I just started really understanding 70's rock and metal that for a long time I have ignored. My brother and I were on the same musical plane for quite some time (Early punk, the Ramones et al) and then along came Zepplin and I lost him. I just started to open up to that music and actually am quite sorry I wrote so much of it off for so long.

I think that is it though.

Things I'm sort of embarassed of not hearing... well, lots of pop music in general, particulary some old classics like The Hollies or post-beat Kinks.

Led Zeppelin beyond "II" (which I didn't like at all. But still, I feel like a freak for never having heard Stairway To Heaven. I must admit that I don't feel much like paying money to explore further though, hopefully I'll stumble upon supercheap copies or hear it at someones house some day)

Ives, Subotnick, Hindemith (though I plan to order Kammarmusik #1 soon), Partch

Terje Rypdal (I'm Norwegian, I like jazz, I like proggy stuff.. And I haven't ehard "Odyssey"!?)

Ivo Papasov and his orchestra

Not to mention just piles of the "ol' jazzclassics" like, say, Art Tatum.

It's pants!

(best derogatory word ever, btw!)

(plus I don't mind "Whole Lotta Love.")

Hm. "Odyssey" 's one of the very few Rypdal's that i have heard (yet don't remember a damn thing 'bout it, must admit - it was that long ago). But a coupla years back i saw Rypdal & Mikkelborg play a duo gig in Tallinn, and quite a good concert that was too. (Though Mikkelborg was the one who impressed me more then ...Rypdal seemed to be drunk like a skunk most of the time, at least off stage)

Thread wise: me got many gaps, certainly; but somehow, though wanting to know more 'bout different things, i don't feel particularly "embarrassed" by any of those gaps - except, perhaps, by the severe lack of knowledge as regards the varieties of actual birdsong. (Seriously) (So having heard too little Messiaen also figures, maybe)

ROTFLMAO!

And I've never heard any Talk Talk either.

I will go and boil my head now.

Link Wray, Pentangle, MC5, Soft Machine, Camel, Chameleons, June Brides, The Pop Group, Stockholm Monsters, 23 Skidoo, Monochrome Set, DAF, Silver Jews, Tallulah Gosh

there are lots of acts where I haven't anything except one track:

Fischer Z - never heard anything except "Perfect Day"

Section 25 - never heard anything except "View from a Hilltop"

Yellow Magic Orchestra - never heard anything except "Computer Game"

I have never heard in its entirety an album by the following: Oasis, Pulp, Elastica, The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Datsuns, Coldplay, The Stereophonics, The Verve, Richard Ashcroft, The Spice Girls, Missy Elliot, Marilyn Manson, Starsailor, Badly Drawn Boy, Take That, Robbie Williams, Paul McCartney, Killing Joke, Suede, Blur, Fatboy Slim... I mean, the list is endless, really, and I ignore it all quite blithely and with a certain sense of evasive triumph, like a kid who never showed up to gym class and was never missed by the teacher.

On the other hand, I've heard a lot of stuff that I know nobody else has even heard of. I think of the music I haven't heard (I mean the kind listed above) as BBC 1, and the stuff I have heard (the stuff I had to seek out and track down) as books or websites. It's the difference between push media and pull media, and I'm very much a pull media kind of guy. As soon as something's pushed, I hate and avoid it.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3922/five-disc_jazz_anthology.html

It's conspicuous consumption, Momus, and you know it.

But sure, what I'm talking about is conspicuous consumption, in that it incarnates a wish for the minnows to be able to co-exist in the capitalist river with the big GM snappers. The fear is that one day you might go to the quieter part of the river and find the minnows belly up, floating in white foam. (And that's your music project and mine, Kate. As far as capitalism is concerned, the music we make is as much 'despite' as 'because of'.)

Cue an Onion article about a man who wants to listen to Jazz to show how cosmopolitan and cultured he is, and never gets around to listening to it.

I don't have a music project. It went belly up ages ago. And that was nothing to do with machinations of GM fish and corporate monoculture, it was to do with the fact that I have no talent, end of story, quit bitching, Q.E.D.

I could give a rat's ass abut r+b

Momus I thought you liked D. Bowie?

I realised on Sunday that my lack of knowledge of Hoyt Axton is a terrible embarrassment.

Yes, he's one of those artists I like so much that I've deliberately left gaps in my knowledge about him -- those albums I refused to buy because I wanted to keep my high opinion of him (everything since 'Let's Dance', basically, excluding 'Outside'.)

Would I like D. Bowie more if he were on an indie label and only sold 5000 copies? To be honest, I probably would. I would like to hear a whole album full of stuff as 'uncommercial' as 'African Night Flight' or 'All Saints', for instance.

I mean... I'd like to own/hear more Bowie, more Stones, any Ramones at all, but then I feel that way about stuff being released now.

embarrassing thing 1: i was watching old family guys episodes. embarrassing thing 2: they had a running Billy Joel joke and it was only then that i realized he wrote "we didn't start the fire". for the longest time (aka my entire life) i though it was some one-hit-wonder from the 80s.

Your last sentence contains two additional Billy Joel songs

i know 1/2 of those references.

What’s the one other than “the longest time”??

"My (entire) Life"

most classic albums that fall into the category of Tropicalia. I own and like two Mutantes LPs, a few Gal Costas, a few Caetanos and Gilberto Gils, and that Arthur Verocai album everyone loves, but this is a scene / genre / style I have not explored very deeply at all, and have never felt super compelled to do so for whatever reason

I like how Hindemith appears in this thread. (I heart him, but it's fun to imagine any hype/societal pressure/embarassment/etc at all on that front in the 21st century. :) )

Greek music, I should be more familiar with since I've been aware of liking for decades. I know the names of a few artists but not much about ouevres.

Other stuff I gradually fill in knowledge over years. Picked up a lot of 30s and 40s jazz from charity shops last year then similar era blues this year. Maybe a little earlier.
Read Tony Russell's book on early country earlier this year.

Still filling out what I'm familiar with of late 60s/early 70s heavy psych/stoner/hard rock stuff though been aware of a comprehensive list of the stuff since the early 00ies. & had bits of it for years.
Somehow got to now without owning any Sleep though had High On Fire and one Om cd. Have Holy Mountain coming. Just replaced a couple of Kyuss cds I played a lot 20 years ago. But overall prefer the original era stuff I think.

I should be more familiar with free jazz. Have some material by several artists but not totally aware of what I'm missing. So still filling that in.

Could know more African stuff got basics of 70s stuff including several psych cds and a lot of the Ethiopiques series. But could know a lot more about Benga, mande, taraabs and other local musics.

Also with African stuff I only really know a certain era. Dj friend of mine plays more modern stuff I don't really know. I'm aware of Fela era Afrobeat but not it's later development.

I'm also aware of Nyege Nyege Tapes and a few other current labels but not very familiar with their releases.

good post josefa