Growers

You know what I mean.
Songs that the word 'inflict' was ceated for!
You hear it once and you spend most of your time trying to avoid.
A lot pop songs work like that excpet they try to decieve you by pretending they're catchy (ooo-OOO who's feeling cynical tonight!).
Being OmniAural as I am I like to think I can listen to anything and sometimes once is all I'll give it.
Then again there are some songs you know that you SHOULD like and hate to admit that you don't.
As I liked to listen to a lot of experimental stuff in my early years I fond myself sitting through some atrocious garbage. Usually on the John Peel show. (I'd swear he sat there, off air, sniggering at all those people who thought that just because he played a song it made it cool!)
This usually meant 'inflicting' some songs on myself just because I felt I had to. This happened, more often than not, out of loyalty to a particular artist I had respect for.
Orbital are one of those artists.
There are some tracks that just set the standards for everyone else. Orbital have consistently done that. On the other hand you can get carried away with your own talent by setting standards of unlistenability (new word!).
All the top innovators are guilty of it. Any old noodle is thrown out and the fans lap it up, defending the indefensible.
For me 'The Box' was one of those tracks. After playing Lush 3.1 and associated remixes to death I was looking forward to more from them.
Instead I was more disappointed than Paris Hilton's cell mate. It was not what I expected from them at all.
I guess the fault is mine in that I had started to pigeon-hole their work. I had 'expectations' and those expectations weren't met.
Initially.
As it was Orbital I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt and I started to put in some time trying to determine whether I like the track or not.
Most songs would be lucky to get a second or third glance. The only other artists I would give similar leeway too are people like Bowie, Supergrass, The Chemical Brothers, The Beastie Boys and U2 (not an exhaustive list).
The process of a song growing on you is a strange one. The motivation is usually that you're missing out on something. With pop the X-factor is that you wonder why everyone else likes it and eventually you cave in.
With something like The Box its different. You do start to wonder whether you're stuck in your ways! Maybe its something to do with the need to feel you're always on the crest of the next wave whilst everyone is still enjoying the previous one.
So every now and then I'd give in to that nagging feeling when I came across it in the collection and I'd play it.
Then one day it just clicked! I found a vibe I liked in it and started to enjoy it. I think it was the creepy movie soundtrack element to it that hooked me in the end.
I was very much into either full on hardcore techno or tranced out bliss vibes at the time. I hadn't really hooked up to the atmospheric possibilities of electronica until this track. It had been a long time since the deep house tracks of the late eighties which had evoked similar feelings.
I think that singles are so short lived nowadays because there is so much niche broadcasting that the limited opportunities to listen to music in the past mean that its harder for tracks to 'grow' on you. Nobody listens to the same few radio stations anymore.
Its a double edged sword in that its easier to listen to music you like but harder to stretch yourself beyond that.
If your listening to Goth FM you're not sudddenly going to get the new Jazz-pop single dropped into the playlist to give you a different sort of melancholy are you?
The Box - Creaky floors and Creaky doors. A song that stalks you until you like it.
enjoy!