You can't like everything

Posted by Johnny at 9:09 a.m.

Whenever I ask someone what kind of music they enjoy, I occasionally get the response "Oh, I like pretty much everything." This raises some flags. You can't like everything - it's just not possible. When I dig deeper, they usually say, "yeah, I'll listen to rock, country, rap, hip-hop... you know... everything." Ah, yes, everything.

If I had more free time, I would continue these conversation by challenging them on their umbrella statement - the surprisingly narrow "everything." I know for a fact that amongst the ~800 albums I have scattered around my hard drive, I will find something that they will hate. Ideally, it will be something that causes them physical pain to listen to, but I would also accept moderate discomfort.

Many pop music aficionados will grimace when they hear heavy metal, stare blankly when they hear some jazz fusion, or yawn when they hear classical orchestral art music; this isn't enough. I want them at the very least to scratch their heads and at the very most to plug their ears. If my iPod had more capacity, I would carry around a collection of weird music, listed below, in order to help people avoid using the word "everything" due to naivety.

On the off-chance that they enjoy the music the first time they hear it, I would question their aural comprehension abilities, because even a slut for the musically bizarre like me didn't enjoy most of the following list upon first listen, and there is some stuff that I respect more than I enjoy. Without further ado, here is a list of some music I have, much of which I own, ordered by increasing strangeness. Bonus points if you can guess the artist/album names.

1. An eclectic outing by the guitarist of the recently dubbed, "biggest band in the world," that is low fidelity cross between folk and post-punk. It was apparently recorded on his living room floor.
2. A record of film music as interpreted by an avant metal band named after the anti-hero of a series of legendary French crime novels.
3. An infamous and non-famous California "rock" band (now defunct) recorded an album that experimented with genres from death metal to free jazz to surf music. One song was a ten minute lo-fi masterpiece that ended with 20-30 seconds of ear-splitting static. In another song, the singer invented a new phonetic vocabulary/language for the lyrics.
   
4. A record by the same avant metal band as in #2 in which they composed one song per day in April 2005, titled the songs accordingly, and arranged it such that it sounds like someone channel surfing through cartoons with a heavy metal soundtrack. Oh, and there aren't any lyrics, per se.
5. A record of compositions created from the complete destruction and rearrangement of existing pop music by the father of sampling (who took it 50x farther than anyone would ever go).
6. A 70s album that covers pop music from the 60s, but conceptualizes its mind numbing catchiness as fascism in disguise. Thus, the songs are torn up, chewed, and spit out and arranged into two side length pieces. The cover has a picture of Dick Clark dressed as Hitler holding a carrot.
7. Three albums by a New Jersey hardcore band that pushes the genre farther than anyone else. Seemingly random tempo/time signature changes, shockingly technical guitar and drum lines, screamed lyrics - they have it all. This is not screamo.
8. A record of live jam sessions by the prog outing for one of the worlds most inventive guitarists, edited in such a way that the album plays out as a single composition. No vocals, just a heavy, moody, and exhilarating oddity of instrumentals.
9. A 20 minute composition with an ever-increasing tempo (starting at 40 bpm and ending at >400 bpm) comprised of split second samples from 1001 pop songs that were available from the introduction of the CD until 1993. The samples are arranged such that they create an entirely new piece of music with often intriguing lyrics.
10. A record of hell-inspired noisecore by an avant-garde free jazz saxophonist with the help of some Californian experimental types. Apparently the vocalist suffered a migraine after the 8 hour recording session.
11. A double-album of live Japanese noise sludgecore.
12. A 45 minute song consisting of a single guitar/drum metal riff that undergoes a slight transformation every few minutes. Virtuoso musicianship aside, it is almost entirely unlistenable.
    
13. An album that contains both the studio and live versions of a 30 minute piece that sees concert A (440 Hz) undergoing slow transformations, occasionally adding octaves, harmonics, and other sound effects. Yes, you read that right: 30 minutes of concert A.