@unreceivedogma
Do these questions seem to generate answers that reply more to the question “what are your favorite LPs”, or is it me?
Not for me.
My entire music listening history is rife with: bands, musicians, composers, genres and subgenres of music, that took time and work to get into. Many, if not most of my favorites, did not immediately make sense to me, until I gave them multiple listens, in order to be able to wrap my mind around what they were doing.
My first example of this, would be the prog band, Gentle Giant. They were recommended to me because I was already listening to quite a bit of prog at the time (Yes, Genesis, Camel, King Crimson, etc), but I was not ready for what these guys were doing: the dissonance, the unique harmonies, the stop/start rhythms, etc.
A year later, after listening to a bunch of other prog, and I decided to take their LP’s off my shelf and give them another try. It was like a light went off in my head. What was I thinking?! They quickly became one of my favorite bands, and have more longevity than a lot of other bands of their time.
Same thing happened again with the entire subgenre of avant-prog. These bands use even more dissonance than GG, also use atonality, extremely complex and unpredictable song arrangements, free improv, complex time signatures, etc. Again, it tool me months to wrap my head around avant-prog, but the subgenre is my favorite prog subgenre.
Happened again very recently with post 1950’s (up through the current era) atonal, serial, avant-garde, experimental, classical music. Now, I can’t get enough.
So, for me, much of the music that takes time and "work" to get into, seems to have the most longevity, has emotional depth, and holds up to repeat listenings better.
