mediocre music you love? (not total crap or guilty pleasure)

[willbo]

I was thinking because I quite like the band Pale Waves and I was thinking of getting their album when it came out in 2018. But all the reviews of it said it was just mediocre. Just too similar to better bands, from 80s post punk to The 1975 who they supported on tour (but I don't like The 1975 as much myself).

Noone was saying it was crap, just middling. And they made me feel embarrassed and put me off buying it, like I'd be wasting my time.  Now I kind of regret it and I want to get back into them.

I also quite like Ozzy's solo albums, I'm a big Black Sabbath fan and I love the cheekiness of Ozzy's voice, even though his later albums have been a bit derivative and trendy (like having djent-y riffs on Scream), I always find an album by him entertaining.

And I'll listen to ANY female fronted hard rock, from the cool and critic-endorsed (Windhand, Royal Thunder, Heron Oblivion) to the slightly cheesier (Halestorm, Pretty Reckless etc)

[Pauline Walnuts]

For me Clive it has to be, <Your favourite band>.


I quite like Sara Bareilles, but not in a ironic way.

[DrGreggles]

If you like an artist, surely that means that they're not mediocre to you.

In short, Crowded House - and you can all fuck off.

[the science eel]

Erasure

[willbo]

If you like an artist, surely that means that they're not mediocre to you.

I think a lot of it is stuff that you know is derivative (or know now as an older person) but discovered before the stuff it rips off. Like a lot of the 90s britpop/indie I like, I wouldn't have liked so much if I'd had a bigger education in rock at the time, and knew about David Bowie, The Jam, Smiths, Stone Roses etc. But for me it was the first music like that I'd ever heard.

[The Mollusk]

If you like an artist, surely that means that they're not mediocre to you.

In short, Crowded House - and you can all fuck off.

I like Crowded House! They are a nice summer breeze, nothing remarkable but just mmmm, that's nice, cheers for that lads, nice.

I recently rediscovered the band Casino Versus Japan and their album "Whole Numbers Play The Basics" which is the most run of the mill Boards of Canada by numbers stuff but somehow I don't find it annoyingly derivative like a lot of that stuff, it's just very pleasant. I'm so obsessive with music that even as a quiet background listening experience I find myself drawn to how much I'm not enjoying the music, but I don't get that with this album. It's very good enough.

Future Islands would be a good example of this as well I reckon. Sam Herring giving it the billy big bollocks on stage is amazing to watch and was the reason I was first drawn to them (I watched that Letterman video dozens of times), but on record they're really quite plain. But it's pleasant, his slightly rough edged crooning and the mild, woozy synths, nowt to complain about there from me.

[bgmnts]

Everything I like is either absolutely fantastic or utter gash. No kiddle ground here.

Maybe Carlos Santana?

[Astronaut Omens]

Loads of hip-hop B-side instrumental mixes- they're quite often somewhat blank and uneventful, and sometimes are little more than a loop, but they often fulfil a purpose for me when I'm after something backgroundy.

[willbo]

and for me there's always 80s pop rock - Sting, Genesis, Springsteen, Dire Straits etc

[Famous Mortimer]

My local classic rock station. Songs I'd never bother listening to on my own become sing-along bangers when they're on the radio.

[MrSerious]

The Lightning Seeds, isn't it.

It's essentially MOR adult pop, but there's something really pleasant about the combination of the production, smart chords/melodies and Broudie's weedy voice.

[Seedsy]

Loads of hip-hop B-side instrumental mixes- they're quite often somewhat blank and uneventful, and sometimes are little more than a loop, but they often fulfil a purpose for me when I'm after something backgroundy.

Futtermans Rule?
Always had a fantasy, that my Indie band would walk out on stage to that tune to a packed barrowlands once we had "made it"

[Kankurette]

Space. In fact, most of what I like would be considered mediocre here.

[pigamus]

Deacon Blue.

(No way do Crowded House qualify. I had the tune for Four Seasons in One Day randomly in my head a few weeks back, what a gorgeous song that is.)

[the science eel]

Deacon Blue.

(No way do Crowded House qualify. I had the tune for Four Seasons in One Day randomly in my head a few weeks back, what a gorgeous song that is.)

Agree on both counts. 'Real Gone Kid' is a stormer (which no music critic or 'serious music fan' would ever say a good word about), and Crowded House put out some lovely stuff. 'Distant Sun' knocks me out every time.

[Brundle-Fly]

Readers Digest easy listening LP box sets 1969 -1975.

Second-tier 1990s ambient house music.

Many, many film soundtracks and library music albums.

The albums of late 1970s to mid 1980s one-hit wonders.

[sevendaughters]

I don't think Erasure qualify at all, certainly not their 80s imperial phase.

I was in a pub yesterday and there was a lot of landfill indie from the mid-late 00s on and I found myself singing along under my breath in a way I never would at the time. All songs brickwalled to fuck and sung with social class pitched down two tax bands but melodic.

[Neomod]

I'm always partial to a bit of the jangly stuff and these bands aren't/weren't gonna set the world alight but bring me pleasure. So could the following please stand up..

Real Estate
East Village
American Football

oh and Fiona Richmond's Frankly Fiona

[Ferris]

All of Bob Dylan's output from the '70s and '80s (except the 3 good ones). Two decades (15 albums?) of completely fine music, and a real comfort listen for me.

(Ferris considers mentioning his guilty enjoyment of Blur, then thinks better of it.)

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Having experienced my musical awakening during the Britpop years, this probably describes half the bands I like. Kula Shaker seemed to be declared naff by many, even at the time, but I recently gave their first album a listen and it still sounded good to me.

[rue the polywhirl]

Tend to think most music that people like is mediocre so nearly all artists and groups will tend to fit this bill. Toro Y Moi however seems to be the most average of averagely received artists that I think is fantastic (for what it is). Anything In Return and What For? are easily his masterpieces in magnificent, mid-paced, mellifluous mediocrity.

[willbo]

another one for me is Idlewild's debut, Hope is Important. Dismissed by the band themselves, many fans, and critics as a noisy, immature grungey album,  overshadowed by their later work, but it's the sound of late 90s emotional alt-rock to me, it has important memories for me and it's way superior than the likes of Feeder that were doing similar stuff IMO.

[Rizla]

Crowded House are mediocre compared to Split Enz,  without a doubt.

I'll nominate Uriah Heep (at least the first two albums) - along with a lot of other sub-Sabs "heavy" stuff from that era, it's hilarious, it rocks and I love listening to it, but it's not "good". You could maybe make a mediocrity case for bands like The Troggs but they arguably veer into the sublime, at their best.

[willbo]

I had a bunch of Heep's songs on various heavy rock compilations when I was younger and I always loved blasting them. I loved the organ on songs on "Easy Livin", and how cheesily deep and Tom Jones-ish the vocals were. I get the impression they were already a bit behind and a bit old hat even then, like they were a few years behind Purple and Led Zep in innovations.

I always think though... the worse and cheesier the rock, the more it captures the time. Like with 80s thrash metal. The worst bands capture the time best. Because they sound like the regular dudes you'd know from then.

[Bongo_Christ]

[EDIT: done a wrong thing, sorry]

[sutin]

Ropey old c86/Sound Of Leamington Spa jangle stuff.

[willbo]

There was a Sound Of Leamington Spa...?

[sutin]

There was a Sound Of Leamington Spa...?

Yeah... John Rivers' studio was there where a lot of late '80s jangle was recorded.

https://www.twee.net/spa/

[willbo]

Joan Rivers had a comedy studio there...? oh...you said John.

I feel like as a connoisseur of Coventry/West Midlands music I should know more about all that really. Thanks.

[Icehaven]

Heron Oblivion

Good to see Chris Morris is keeping busy naming bands.