The Decemberists.

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Ah yes, a fine example. I can't get enough of them myself, but I can see how the indie-reverence afforded them could be baffling. They're a strange phenomenon.

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Dar Williams. Imogen Heap. Feist. OK, have to barf now.

I sort of want to lump Tori in there, too, but what I'm reacting to is people thinking I like her because they think I must be all into the culture. And then I realize it's just her culture I can't stand, not her music. I think she's talented and interesting. But I don't like seeing musicians lionized the way she is. It's bad for them and makes them get these weird beatified yet smug Oprah-like facial expressions.

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I have trouble with Tori just because of her "best friends forever, smooch smooch" relationship with Neil Gaiman. He's been unduly lionized too, of course, in his capacity as global spokesperson for Goths who don't like dancing everywhere.

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Last.fm has a horrible habit of recommending over-produced wanky neo-prog tosh like Dream Theater and Spock's Beard to me. Of course some would argue that it's only right and proper and karmic what with my fondness for Frippertronics, mellotrons, and odd time signatures. They would be wrong.

I remember Felt; saw them supporting the Jesus and Mary Chain on the '85 tour. Lawrence was a cheerful little bugger.

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Well, there's Pink Floyd. At least based on the kind of dinosaur music I enjoy the most. I didn't know that there was a rule that if you like jazzy-ish rock and prog, you must to worship the Floyd.

But what the hell do I know? I listen to freaking Asia!

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See my post above. The Floyd and Asia are two more regular "recommendations" that I wouldn't bother seeing even if they were playing in Bradford Moor Park with the stewards handing out £20 notes on the gate.

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I love Antony and the Johnsons, but Last.fm seems certain I should like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, when in fact I find them incredibly annoying.

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I just don't like frontmen who can genuinely sing, probably.

Antony & The Johnsons are one of those bands that I have no idea why they end up appearing on the playlists and at the festivals I go to, they seem such a completely different kettle of fish to me. I can however cope with the likes of, e.g. Joanna Newsom. Maybe because she's hot.

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Dunno about Last.fm but based on what people with similar musical tastes enjoy, I should be a fan of the White Stripes and Radiohead.

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Both of those are bands that I want to like more than I actually like. Both have some killer songs in their back catalogue, but Radiohead headed off on an extended voyage of musical experimentation/alienation that has left me cold more often than not for over a decade now. And The White Stripes are just too damn bluesy, no matter how good they *look*.

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Last.fm maintains its insistence that I must like Bruce Springsteen, in the face of overwhelming resistance from me.

It was dead right about Jackson Browne, though.

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You just weren't sufficiently born in the USA!

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Oasis and the White Stripes are two bands that the world insists that I should like, and yet make me want to shove icepicks through my eardrums.

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Oasis are a band I want to hate, on every intellectual and moral level, but can't really help but feel cheered up by whenever they come on. They may have been The Enemy during my Britpop days, but at least they were MY enemy. I feel like Sherlock Holmes looking wistfully at a framed portrait of Moriarty in his wheelchair at the retirement home.

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The Police rock!

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FIGHT!

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I love New Order, and so the world at large assumes I must love Joy Division. Now, I do not hate Joy Division, and I can see their appeal, and I am aware of how influential they were on the post-punk music scene at large. But. I just don't feel like jumping up and down with my handz in the air to "Isolation" or "She's Lost Control", whatever The Wombats may suggest.

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("Digital", however, I might consider a bit of a shuffle to.)

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b52's or Concrete Blonde.
ICK!

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or admitedly- depeche mode. I can only handle VERY SMALL amounts of them at a time although everyone thinks I love them.

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Yes, it's one of the big problems of recommender systems in general. eg: The way that the LJ trustflow thing perpetually suggests that one would like all those people that are not on one's friends-list for a very good reason.

It would be nice if Last.FM tuned its algorithm to exclude "Things that other people who like X like but that you have marked as 'Bag o'shite', or that people who like things that you like have marked as such". Or even use one of those things that analyses the content of the music, rather than just join band names together in groups. (ie: You like European techno in the region of 130-145bpm) You could then weight your (dis)likes, too. That would be neat.

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Pandora.com attempts to analyse the content of the music - they call it the Musical Genome Project or some such.

Unfortunately, their license to play music outside of the US got pulled about 6 months ago and now the only way you can play is if you have (or spoof) a US based IP address.

A real shame, because it's a far more interesting system than Last.FM.

(Hi Verlaine - here via lisekit - hope you don't mind me weighing in ....)

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Try telling people you like country music and watching the eight million assumptions melt their faces in horror. That's fun. You indie kids don't know you're born. Blah mutter.

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I like Ballboy's song "I Lost You, But I Found Country Music", if that counts?

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Which musical acts does everyone assume that you must like, when in fact you'd rather eat boiling tar?

Far too many to list. The trouble being that I like Faster Pussycat and Aerosmith, which leads people (and machines) to recommend every bad metal band who ever released a track in the 80s. And some of them are really, really bad.

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The thing with Aerosmith, is that if you say Aerosmith, 90% of people will summon up memories of Love in an Elevator and Janie's Got A Gun, like Pump was their first album. A further 7% who consider themselves in the know, will think back to Aerosmith's real debut, Permanent Vacation.

Hence, what with Aerosmith having had a very different style for most of their career previous to that, if you tell people you like Aerosmith, they probably go away with the wrong impression.

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Ah an interesting question, indeed. My music collection is littered with 7"s (for that is the format I buy when I want to know what a band is like, before I commit to albums etc) of bands I'm supposed to like, but really can't get excited about. I'd have to look through them to remember most of them, but I think #1 in that esteemed list of not-quite-rans is the Arcade Fire. There's nothing I really dislike about them: I just don't feel it.

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Interestingly, one of the bands for whom I just don't feel it, and I can't really tell why, is The Mountain Goats. I class them with The Arcade Fire in that "listenable, but not quite lovable" category :-/

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I've no idea who people think I'd like. Name me some bands, and I'll tell you HOW VERY WRONG YOU ARE, perhaps.

I, for one, by the way, am not the slightest bit surprised that you don't like The Police.

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Name me some bands

Gary Glitter!

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i saw a picture of dickon edwards recently and he had brown hair and was wearing a t-shirt.

last.fm....you should add me.

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Feh, bloody weekend dandies.

I'll look for you!

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You need to add Dean and myself to your flist!

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How do I find you? I am a last.fm neonate.

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Friend me on Last.fm! :)
(gosh I love listening to last.fm's ecclectic mix of recommendations, though occasionally I have to remember to throw in some CDs and whatnot to shift the recommendations to more Francophone hits or other bizarre categories that it's likely to miss!)
*shrugs* Now if only I could get it to play LESS (not none, just less) of particular songs!

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Ahem. ;)

People think I like classic rock, especially since my grandfather was head of security of Woodstock and my mom toured with Led Zeppelin. But, in fact, I HATE classic rock. If it was made before 1981, I probably detest it. Unless it's The Police or U2.

Sorry, but I HATE those old sounds. They're all so 70s or 60s or 50s. Bleh. Meh. And this INCLUDES me disliking: The Beatles, Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who, Boston, Iron Maiden, etc.

And it doesn't help that I have to play those stupid damn songs on "RockBand", which makes me detest them even more. If I have to sing "Run To The Hills" one more damn fucking time I'm going to put someone in an iron maiden for real.

Ahem. Sorry. I just really, really don't like classic rock and everyone always pushes it on me. They think their musical tastes are all refined because they like old rock when really it's just some weird obsession with bizarre distortion of electric guitar. ;)

OH! And the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" soundtrack. Call me a heathen all you wish, I freaking HATE HATE HATE "Time Warp" and all those other utterly stupid rubbish songs I was forced to endure OVER and OVER and OVER by my high school friends who were obsessed with that utterly stupid, campy B movie.

Hahahaha, now I bet I have a fight on my hands... XD

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Actually I totally respect you for not liking the RHPS songs! The only one I have time for is "Science Fiction Double Feature", or whatever the opening credits song is called. Generally speaking the soundtrack is full of music for people who don't really like music, as far as I'm concerned.

"Run For The Hills" has achieved a certain level of groan-inducing notoriety in my Rock Band-playing household too :)

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I remember last.fm used to play me a lot of Cake, despite me repeatedly hammering "never again!". I haven't been using it much recently so I don't know who else.

In a more general answer to your question, Pixies. And the Smiths. I don't actually abominate them, but they do get right on my tits.

The Velvet Underground I actually do hate, but I doubt anyone would expect me to like them, other than in a general "OMG Teh Velvet Undergroundz are amazing, anyone who likes music must love them" kind of way.

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What, in the end, is the difference between Cake and The Barenaked Ladies? That's what I want to know.

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you should be my last.fm friend. i'm fadedcrushes.

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