Scheming Myself & Others

So, R.I.P. Beefheart. It’s interesting, because I’ve never had a strong affection/connection to the man and his work, though I will admit there’s always been a distant sort of “yeah, all right, good work” ghost-camaraderie.

But I will be the first to admit, I’m one of those people who has tried many, many, many times to listen to Trout Mask Replica, and I have never been able to successfully get through it. And I realize that pretty much every person who idolizes that work says “it takes like, eight listens before you don’t think it’s shit,” but I haven’t made it there yet. To be honest, I’d rather listen to Metal Machine Music (and I have, all the way through, more than once.) Is that weird?

Weirder still, I suppose, is the fact that the song of Beefheart’s that I remember enjoying the most (a friend of mine had a spurt of exclusive Beefheart listening once, and I remember telling him to play one song again and again), is off of the most derided and loathed album of his.

It seems like that happens often when I sort of “get into people without reading about it first.” Like, and I know this is a terrible example, but I swear by the fact that “Pop” is U2′s best album— people hate that shit! I mean, they hate it in a different way that they always hate U2. It seems like it should undergo a re-evaluation, since at the time, I feel like people hated it because it wasn’t Achtung Baby or Joshua Tree, it was something new, something too fresh or something. But what about now, when people hate the band for Bono’s sunglasses before they even hate the band for whatever music they’ve made?

I mean, U2 digression inside, it reminds me of some quote from John Peel that I can’t remember correctly and will totally bungle it probably. But he said something to the effect of “people send me music all the time, and I listen to it all, and if I don’t like it, the problem is with Me, not with the Band— they’re earnestly trying to convey something and it isn’t clicking with me, but that’s not their fault, it’s mine.”

I think that’s how everyone should listen to music, but obviously we can’t do that. It applies to how I feel about Trout Mask Replica, because I will immediately say that “i’m not ready for it yet.” To my ears now, yes, that album sounds like crap. But I know it isn’t crap, I’m just not yet in the place where I can honesty and fairly judge it. Though, I must say, I am looking forward to the day when I can.