Red Mosquito

Wasn't there band with Patton and a chinese guy where they just banged drums and screamed at each other in a bathroom? I can't remember the name, but I remember having it filed under jazz when I worked at the virgin megastore.

I would count Beefheart and Harry Partch under this title.

As a side note, as soon as 'experimental' became a word used to praise bands for reaching outside established comfort zones or for taking niche concepts (or original spins on existing concepts) and making them a part of the mainstream consciousness, people whose favorite artists either weren't that or had stopped being that began to decry it as a muddied and unclear descriptor. Over the last few decades, this has started to be seen as a very reasonable stance to take, when in fact it has all the inherent intellectual value of a degree from Kaplan University.

Initiation of a "what does 'experimental' even mean" debate in a diversely-populated musical circle is pretty much a key qualification for being accepted into the Kiss Army. I think that pretty much sums up how valuable that is.

Heathen wrote:'Experimental' is a word that has lost all meaning to me, kinda like 'indie'. Seems like everything is experimental now. At worst it's just another way to pretend you're cool, at best it's a very lazy and pointless descriptor. Plenty of stuff I listen to gets labeled as experimental, but I don't feel like any of it really is.

Listenable seems like a vague concept too but one's enough for now.

I get more annoyed with "listenable" than "experimental", personally. You try to argue why a band / song is interesting because it pushes boundaries, and someone will invariably say "Yes, but it's just not listenable."

McParadigm wrote:I would count Beefheart and Harry Partch under this title.

As a side note, as soon as 'experimental' became a word used to praise bands for reaching outside established comfort zones or for taking niche concepts (or original spins on existing concepts) and making them a part of the mainstream consciousness, people whose favorite artists either weren't that or had stopped being that began to decry it as a muddied and unclear descriptor. Over the last few decades, this has started to be seen as a very reasonable stance to take, when in fact it has all the inherent intellectual value of a degree from Kaplan University.

Initiation of a "what does 'experimental' even mean" debate in a diversely-populated musical circle is pretty much a key qualification for being accepted into the Kiss Army. I think that pretty much sums up how valuable that is.

It is an unclear descriptor mostly because it is used for just about anything. Oh, look, music without singing. EXPERIMENTAL. You have a 2 minutes ambient passage on your black metal record? EXPERIMENTAL. Wait this is just dance music, but no it's EXPERIMENTAL.

harmless wrote:

Heathen wrote:'Experimental' is a word that has lost all meaning to me, kinda like 'indie'. Seems like everything is experimental now. At worst it's just another way to pretend you're cool, at best it's a very lazy and pointless descriptor. Plenty of stuff I listen to gets labeled as experimental, but I don't feel like any of it really is.

Listenable seems like a vague concept too but one's enough for now.

I get more annoyed with "listenable" than "experimental", personally. You try to argue why a band / song is interesting because it pushes boundaries, and someone will invariably say "Yes, but it's just not listenable."

That was my point. It seems like it can't even exist to some people...if it's at all listenable there'll be someone decrying that it's just a change to the basic format and not even that experimental. A la, Mike Patton and a Chinese dude with pots, pans, drumsticks, and their voices yelling at each other in a bathroom. That sounds pretty unlistenable to me. It's the attitude that people take with bands that push their and other people's comfort zones but not far enough away that someone would never actually listen to the songs that they can't be experimental...that's what annoys me. There's a lot of fucking snobs when it comes to music discussion.

Gods' Die wrote:

harmless wrote:

Heathen wrote:'Experimental' is a word that has lost all meaning to me, kinda like 'indie'. Seems like everything is experimental now. At worst it's just another way to pretend you're cool, at best it's a very lazy and pointless descriptor. Plenty of stuff I listen to gets labeled as experimental, but I don't feel like any of it really is.

Listenable seems like a vague concept too but one's enough for now.

I get more annoyed with "listenable" than "experimental", personally. You try to argue why a band / song is interesting because it pushes boundaries, and someone will invariably say "Yes, but it's just not listenable."

That was my point. It seems like it can't even exist to some people...if it's at all listenable there'll be someone decrying that it's just a change to the basic format and not even that experimental. A la, Mike Patton and a Chinese dude with pots, pans, drumsticks, and their voices yelling at each other in a bathroom. That sounds pretty unlistenable to me. It's the attitude that people take with bands that push their and other people's comfort zones but not far enough away that someone would never actually listen to the songs that they can't be experimental...that's what annoys me. There's a lot of fucking snobs when it comes to music discussion.

But what do you mean by listenable though? Does it have to be mostly pop/rock? Because there's plenty of stuff that isn't that yet isn't some extremely bizarre and unlistenable music either. For instance you listed Brian Eno, if that's listenable then pretty much every ambient music ever made is listenable too and that's a TON of music. All neo-classical stuff as well. Truly unlistenable stuff seems quite rare, frankly.

Heathen wrote:

Gods' Die wrote:

harmless wrote:

Heathen wrote:'Experimental' is a word that has lost all meaning to me, kinda like 'indie'. Seems like everything is experimental now. At worst it's just another way to pretend you're cool, at best it's a very lazy and pointless descriptor. Plenty of stuff I listen to gets labeled as experimental, but I don't feel like any of it really is.

Listenable seems like a vague concept too but one's enough for now.

I get more annoyed with "listenable" than "experimental", personally. You try to argue why a band / song is interesting because it pushes boundaries, and someone will invariably say "Yes, but it's just not listenable."

That was my point. It seems like it can't even exist to some people...if it's at all listenable there'll be someone decrying that it's just a change to the basic format and not even that experimental. A la, Mike Patton and a Chinese dude with pots, pans, drumsticks, and their voices yelling at each other in a bathroom. That sounds pretty unlistenable to me. It's the attitude that people take with bands that push their and other people's comfort zones but not far enough away that someone would never actually listen to the songs that they can't be experimental...that's what annoys me. There's a lot of fucking snobs when it comes to music discussion.

But what do you mean by listenable though? Does it have to be mostly pop/rock? Because there's plenty of stuff that isn't that yet isn't some extremely bizarre and unlistenable music either. For instance you listed Brian Eno, if that's listenable then pretty much every ambient music ever made is listenable too and that's a TON of music. All neo-classical stuff as well. Truly unlistenable stuff seems quite rare, frankly.

It's incredibly subjective; I wasn't really looking for bands to discover...I wanted to start a discussion on whether there's anyone out there that is "experimental" or really just a discussion on what it means. I'm not looking to definitively cut out genres or define where some line is that on one side you're experimental and on the other you're not. I was really just looking to talk about it.

Let's talk about it then. What are some of these bands that "the experts" think are experimental and that you think aren't tolerable to listen to?

Heathen wrote:Let's talk about it then. What are some of these bands that "the experts" think are experimental and that you think aren't tolerable to listen to?

I don't know of a single one.

Brett wrote:

Soma. wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:Battles?

Oh, yes. Very clever band. Whatever happened to those guys?

They most recently released an album called Gloss Drop in 2011, and followed it with a compilation of remixes called, appropriately, Dross Glop last year.

Only heard a little bit of Gloss Drop, but wasn't crazy about it.

I liked a fair bit of Gloss Drop, but I thought it was overlong. I think they could have done without the guest vocals and focused on just the instrumental material. It seems like a more suitable path to take without Tyondai Braxton's presence haunting them.

Gods' Die wrote:

harmless wrote:

Heathen wrote:'Experimental' is a word that has lost all meaning to me, kinda like 'indie'. Seems like everything is experimental now. At worst it's just another way to pretend you're cool, at best it's a very lazy and pointless descriptor. Plenty of stuff I listen to gets labeled as experimental, but I don't feel like any of it really is.

Listenable seems like a vague concept too but one's enough for now.

I get more annoyed with "listenable" than "experimental", personally. You try to argue why a band / song is interesting because it pushes boundaries, and someone will invariably say "Yes, but it's just not listenable."

That was my point. It seems like it can't even exist to some people...if it's at all listenable there'll be someone decrying that it's just a change to the basic format and not even that experimental. A la, Mike Patton and a Chinese dude with pots, pans, drumsticks, and their voices yelling at each other in a bathroom. That sounds pretty unlistenable to me. It's the attitude that people take with bands that push their and other people's comfort zones but not far enough away that someone would never actually listen to the songs that they can't be experimental...that's what annoys me. There's a lot of fucking snobs when it comes to music discussion.

Actually I think you're approaching your argument from the opposite direction. I know what 'experimental' is, in my mind. I don't know what 'listenable' is except for 'stuff you like'. To argue that someone farting into a microphone and then banging pots and pans with a chicken leg is just objectively not 'listenable' is ridiculous, if there's someone out there who likes it. Similarly, there are people out there who say that Vitalogy isn't a great album because the four 'non-songs' are apparently 'unlistenable', and I find those opinions just lazy. Everything on Vitalogy is very listenable, to me. Or Radiohead, some will say they're 'unlistenable'. It's not a helpful word at all, and usually is some kind of anti-snobbery, which can be equally as annoying as snobbery.

harmless wrote:

Gods' Die wrote:

harmless wrote:

Heathen wrote:'Experimental' is a word that has lost all meaning to me, kinda like 'indie'. Seems like everything is experimental now. At worst it's just another way to pretend you're cool, at best it's a very lazy and pointless descriptor. Plenty of stuff I listen to gets labeled as experimental, but I don't feel like any of it really is.

Listenable seems like a vague concept too but one's enough for now.

I get more annoyed with "listenable" than "experimental", personally. You try to argue why a band / song is interesting because it pushes boundaries, and someone will invariably say "Yes, but it's just not listenable."

That was my point. It seems like it can't even exist to some people...if it's at all listenable there'll be someone decrying that it's just a change to the basic format and not even that experimental. A la, Mike Patton and a Chinese dude with pots, pans, drumsticks, and their voices yelling at each other in a bathroom. That sounds pretty unlistenable to me. It's the attitude that people take with bands that push their and other people's comfort zones but not far enough away that someone would never actually listen to the songs that they can't be experimental...that's what annoys me. There's a lot of fucking snobs when it comes to music discussion.

Actually I think you're approaching your argument from the opposite direction. I know what 'experimental' is, in my mind. I don't know what 'listenable' is except for 'stuff you like'. To argue that someone farting into a microphone and then banging pots and pans with a chicken leg is just objectively not 'listenable' is ridiculous, if there's someone out there who likes it. Similarly, there are people out there who say that Vitalogy isn't a great album because the four 'non-songs' are apparently 'unlistenable', and I find those opinions just lazy. Everything on Vitalogy is very listenable, to me. Or Radiohead, some will say they're 'unlistenable'. It's not a helpful word at all, and usually is some kind of anti-snobbery, which can be equally as annoying as snobbery.

Who said this was an argument?

Gods' Die wrote:

harmless wrote:

Gods' Die wrote:

harmless wrote:

Heathen wrote:'Experimental' is a word that has lost all meaning to me, kinda like 'indie'. Seems like everything is experimental now. At worst it's just another way to pretend you're cool, at best it's a very lazy and pointless descriptor. Plenty of stuff I listen to gets labeled as experimental, but I don't feel like any of it really is.

Listenable seems like a vague concept too but one's enough for now.

I get more annoyed with "listenable" than "experimental", personally. You try to argue why a band / song is interesting because it pushes boundaries, and someone will invariably say "Yes, but it's just not listenable."

That was my point. It seems like it can't even exist to some people...if it's at all listenable there'll be someone decrying that it's just a change to the basic format and not even that experimental. A la, Mike Patton and a Chinese dude with pots, pans, drumsticks, and their voices yelling at each other in a bathroom. That sounds pretty unlistenable to me. It's the attitude that people take with bands that push their and other people's comfort zones but not far enough away that someone would never actually listen to the songs that they can't be experimental...that's what annoys me. There's a lot of fucking snobs when it comes to music discussion.

Actually I think you're approaching your argument from the opposite direction. I know what 'experimental' is, in my mind. I don't know what 'listenable' is except for 'stuff you like'. To argue that someone farting into a microphone and then banging pots and pans with a chicken leg is just objectively not 'listenable' is ridiculous, if there's someone out there who likes it. Similarly, there are people out there who say that Vitalogy isn't a great album because the four 'non-songs' are apparently 'unlistenable', and I find those opinions just lazy. Everything on Vitalogy is very listenable, to me. Or Radiohead, some will say they're 'unlistenable'. It's not a helpful word at all, and usually is some kind of anti-snobbery, which can be equally as annoying as snobbery.

Who said this was an argument?

I think you're confusing "making an argument" with "having an argument" with someone. You made an implied argument (i.e. put forward an idea) in your first post, by asking for songs which were experimental "and actually listenable". I'm not talking about what you said anyway, just expanding on it. When someone says they want their experimental music to still be "listenable" I don't know what they mean.

I was kidding...I just didn't want the tone of the thread to sour based on people taking offense to either the word "listenable" or "experimental".

I was just wanting to see what people's views were on the subject of where experimentation lies; trying to define something that's subjective, which is why I didn't want definition but discussion. I threw the word listenable in because there's some things that would be really difficult for someone like myself to ever really embrace, but people are open to having their favorite record be "someone farting into a microphone and then banging pots and pans with a chicken leg", apparently they're out there and are genuine about it. Fine, it's listenable, forget I threw that word in.

Edit:
To add, I'm not looking to discover listenable and experimental bands...I was looking to discuss where this elastic line lies with people. And if you're not being facetious I was looking for things that generally fall within the same universe of "popular" music. It's a pretty wide band...universes are pretty big things.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to be a dick. Sorry if you felt I was.

So anyway, I tend to think of a "listenable but experimental" band as one which fits somewhere in the ballpark of a genre, but pushes its boundaries. At random, Squarepusher for DnB, Dillinger Escape Plan for Hardcore, Meshuggah for metal. That kinda thing.

kreng wrote:Mr bungle - California is probably my favorite "experimental" album. It's all over the place yet cohesive and even catchy at times.

The funny thing is, I remember when California came out and all of the Mr. Bungle fans I knew were shocked at how conventional and traditionally-structured it was compared to the previous two records (especially Disco Volante). I remember one of my friends saying something along the lines of "It's weird. It's like they're all "real" songs."

I love California so much. It brings back so many memories.

I went and saw them on that tour. It was a pretty good show.