I was thinking about this on one of my last drives home (I'm on the road a ton and listen to a lot of music). I was listening to the Animal Collective Album Merriweather Post Pavilion and consistently throughout the album, the band just manages to ruin a song that I otherwise love. A good example of this is in the song "Brother Sport". It wouldn't be one of my favorites by them without this section, but I found the song rather enjoyable until about the 1:40 mark (in the linked video), when the song becomes repetitious with an irritating noise in the background and continues on for almost two minutes like this. This happens in many places during the album and in songs from other albums of theirs I've listened to. The band is capable of complex yet catchy pop tunes (see: "What Would I Want? Sky"), but often successfully sabotages them.
I understand that other bands have dabbled in an attempt to "sabotage" their songs. My all-time favorite album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco, features much of this. In this album the sabotage never fully happens, but lingers in the background, providing a contrast to the folksy tunes that enhances the experience. It's a familiar style of music, but with a certain underlying destruction and paranoia underlying, threatening to overtake the music, but never really overwhelming the melody (mostly). I love this kind of use in contrast in music, but Animal Collective often takes this method to an extreme, making some of their songs grating and annoying in the process.
So what are some of the bands who frustrate you and why? This isn't a thread to say what bands you just don't like, but those that you do sometimes enjoy or at least see great potential in.
I understand that other bands have dabbled in an attempt to "sabotage" their songs. My all-time favorite album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco, features much of this. In this album the sabotage never fully happens, but lingers in the background, providing a contrast to the folksy tunes that enhances the experience. It's a familiar style of music, but with a certain underlying destruction and paranoia underlying, threatening to overtake the music, but never really overwhelming the melody (mostly). I love this kind of use in contrast in music, but Animal Collective often takes this method to an extreme, making some of their songs grating and annoying in the process.
So what are some of the bands who frustrate you and why? This isn't a thread to say what bands you just don't like, but those that you do sometimes enjoy or at least see great potential in.
