{"id":170,"date":"2011-04-22T09:30:57","date_gmt":"2011-04-22T13:30:57","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-04-22T09:31:23","modified_gmt":"2011-04-22T13:31:23","slug":"workin-overtime-or-acquired-taste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/workin-overtime-or-acquired-taste\/","title":{"rendered":"Workin&#8217; Overtime or Acquired Taste?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"150\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"data\" value=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/flashback425x150.swf\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/flashback425x150.swf\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/flashback425x150.swf\" data=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/flashback425x150.swf\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>\n<p><em>Wow, here&#8217;s an oldie-but-goodie that many of our current daily participants have not had a crack at. For veterans, look at some of these never-forgotten, always-missed names. This thread is so old that I think I&#8217;ve actually had time to change my mind about my stance on a band or two. Enjoy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><code>This post initially appeared 1\/27\/07.<\/code><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/udLOPLhUiJo?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Think about it Rock Snobs: the sound of many cult artists you likely didn&#8217;t hear until your late-teen years and later probably would have sounded foreign or just&#8230;<em>wrong<\/em> to your prepubescent ears. Surely, some of you will object to this characterization, claiming a hip older sibling who turned you onto <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.headheritage.co.uk\/unsung\/albumofthemonth\/766\" target=\"_blank\">Van Der Graaf Generator<\/a><\/strong> or even hipper parents who conceived you while cranking up <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Karlheinz_Stockhausen\" target=\"_blank\">Stockhausen&#8217;s<\/a><\/strong> latest. Hey, maybe you had &#8220;visionary&#8221; ears, fully formed, from birth. Who am I to argue? And more power to you!<\/p>\n<p>For the rest of us, there was some work involved. We could have played it safe with a string of good-enough <strong>Steve Miller Band<\/strong> albums, or for younger <strong>Townspeople<\/strong> &#8211; what &#8211; U2&#8217;s forays into irrelevance? Instead, we pressed forward, past the cool, beyond the cutting edge, into <em>the vaults<\/em>, where an overweight, ill-groomed older guy with Coke bottle lenses made us magic mix tapes of sounds from the underground.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nSome of the underground artists we discovered got us <em>Workin&#8217; Overtime<\/em>. That is, something about their music captured an essence of familiar sounds from our youth, but we had to work past the loose ends and lack of polish. For instance, a kid who finished high school in the late-&#8217;70s\/early-&#8217;80s might come across <strong>The Move<\/strong> for the first time in college. (American kids, that is &#8211; <em>nerdlingers<\/em> &#8211; their records were not played on commercial FM radio at that time.) This kid might have already made the connection to <strong>ELO<\/strong>, and tunes like the original &#8220;Do Ya&#8221; and &#8220;California Man&#8221; would be a cause for wonder. However, any young rock nerd with ears was faced with the fact that the recordings of The Move sounded a little ragged, maybe not all there, a little <em>off<\/em>. Few of us talked about &#8220;mastering&#8221; as teens in the early &#8217;80s, but that standard-issue, double-album Move greatest hits collection (with the cartoon drawing of a moving van) sounded like it was mastered on the cardboard gatefold sleeve. It lacked the polish that <strong>Jeff Lynne<\/strong> would give to ELO&#8217;s music, especially after goofball <strong>Roy Wood<\/strong> left for screwier pastures. After a matter of time and hard work (workin&#8217; overtime) the weird vibe of The Move would hint at a more fully realized sound. I stress <em>hint<\/em> because The Move was one sloppy, unfocused band that earned its perennial cult status.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, there are <em>Acquired Tastes<\/em>. Often, the music of these bands is completely foreign to one&#8217;s musical background, but over time one cracks the code and finds the necessary patterns and humanity that lead toward enjoyment.<\/p>\n<p>At this point, I&#8217;m confident we&#8217;re clear. So how do you characterize your initial experiences with some of the following artists in terms of Workin&#8217; Overtime or Acquired Taste?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Left Banke<\/li>\n<li>Pere Ubu<\/li>\n<li>Kate Bush<\/li>\n<li>Love, <em>Forever Changes<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Wire<\/li>\n<li>Shoes, <em>Black Vinyl Shoes<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Randy Newman<\/li>\n<li>Pavement<\/li>\n<li>The Fall<\/li>\n<li>The Smiths<\/li>\n<li>Can<\/li>\n<li>Patti Smith<\/li>\n<li>Psychic TV<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You get the idea, right? Feel free to discuss an artist of your own choosing. <em>The key is to explain why you characterize your efforts at loving this artist and\/or specific work the way you do.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I look forward to your responses!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wow, here&#8217;s an oldie-but-goodie that many of our current daily participants have not had a crack at. For veterans, look at some of these never-forgotten, always-missed names. This thread is so old that I think I&#8217;ve actually had time to change my mind about my stance on a band or two. Enjoy. This post initially <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/workin-overtime-or-acquired-taste\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}