Is it possible to love noise at first listen?

[BlackCavendish]

I don't know if this question fits another existing thread, I remember a "Describing noise" thread a few months ago... eventually moderator can merge the discussions.
A couple of background info that made me ask myself this question.

1) I remember a Boyd Rice interview (can't recall where I read it) where Mr. Rice was discussing how he discovered noise and he just said something like "I was more interested in sounds than music itself". For my youngest self, struggling to understand his albums and how he had the idea of recording something so unmusical, this was an illuminating sentence...

2) I recently read Rumors of Noizu, a really interesting reading because it provided a lot of info about the early days and the musical background of musicians involved. In thise case was mostly prog/freejazz/improvisation.
In Europe a lot of prime movers came instead from a punk background, in late years from black metal.
AS far as I know nobody moved from pop music to noise, all these people were already into "alternative sounds".

3) I was in my office listening to "Quietus" by Incapacitants. A colleague of mine came in and asked what the hell I was listening to. He's into normal rock music... I tried to explain what's noise (not an easy task) and how I came to that through a process (in my case: black metal>coldmeat>noise). He said something like "I think I'll never gonna get there".
That made me think that when I started listening to noise I could not stand Whitehouse, now I have no problem with that. I guess I built "mental instruments" to understand what I was listening to, but I had to make an effort (so to say) it was not love at first listen.

So, do you think that a common person, with no particular music knowledge must necessarily start from some kind of "alternative music" (like punk/metal/prog/jazz), and slowly move towards more extreme and challenging music?

Considering we're all exposed to "simple and melodic music" from our birthday on, is it possible to understand and really enjoy something like noise without a proper introduction and a gradual approaching path?
(I'm speaking about music not topics, explicit contents and all related noise subjects)

[HateSermon]

First time I heard noise was in a live setting and I thought it was the dumbest shit I've ever seen and heard. The guy just turned on a vacuum cleaner and played a broken guitar over it.
Fast forward several years and I started seeing more and more noise/hardcore/punk mixed gig lineups and my interest started to form. I started asking all of my noise friends where to start with the genre. One recommended the "At The End Of The Rope" compilation (Chondritic) and that was the turning point.
So, in my opinion, I do think you need some sort of gateway like punk/black metal/hardcore to be able to find and enjoy noise.

[impulse manslaughter]

Noise is for the curious types i guess. People who see abstract art as a challenge. When i hear something new, something i don't understand, i want to dig deeper and explore the unknown territory that lies beyond.

[Stipsi]

First exposure was venereology by merzbow.
I really didn't understand. And i was into Einstürzende neubauten, cabs, etc... first wave of industrial.
I was 18. I thought the CD was broken or scratched.
It took me a couple of years to understand noise and the process was slow and gradually.

[Cementimental]

I was somewhat seeking 'weird' / noisy music before I discovered noise but when I did hear some it never came as a shock to me, or something I had to learn to like. I was more like 'oh cool some people are actually releasing real CDs of the same kind of stuff I'm recording with this circuitbent voicechanger and a minidisk recorder'

[JLIAT]

It was probably sometime in the 90s, and a Merzbow piece.  He was "playing" a Synthi AKS, and I'd owned one some 20 years before. And my first impression was he wasn't really doing much with it at all, to say the least. And I just didn't get it, then I realized, there was nothing to get. Brilliant!

As for the question, and excuse my divergence please.  But on arriving at Art college as a painting student I didn't realize the college had a big interest in music, avant garde at that. Tilbury and Bailey played there &tc. But taking an interest, I liked the Floyd etc, Ha ha!  I spent best part of a day trying to get it, Stockhausen. (They had a music room you could play LPs from their collection). OK, so I sort of got it, but on walking past the tech studios, band saws, hammering etc. the listening experience I had, had been radically changed. Sounds became 'objects', an epiphany? Please! Too pseudo... And then some bas**rd played me Reich's Its Gonna Rain... I was like, dead meat? 

Oh - so "YES"

[FreakAnimalFinland]

It is probably possible, but when talking with people for several decades, the things they love the most, are the ones they needed to learn to love.
This may be partly phenomena of old days: You got your first recording of something, which was almost intolerable. It may be like hearing death metal for the first time, after AC/DC being hardest thing you ever heard. Or it may be hearing grindcore after you thought Metallica was brutal. First it is amazement of what the fuck is this, how can someone listen to this? Some sort of curiosity combined to the fact that you simply have no options. You got 1 new tape or one new LP that you got, rest is the old things you've been listening all year. So, listening first, not getting what it is. Soon listening out of curiosity, then being sort of enlightened, and eventually, album you listened few times a day, even when you didn't like it, became best thing you ever heard.
I think in current era, it is unlikely you'd give album a chance to impress you. You want to love at first listen. Many want pre-view to have appetizer to decide do they even bother.  A lot of releases don't really reveal themselves in 60 minutes sample or quick skipping. And is that love, anyways? Perhaps more like dating app of noise, hah. You just randomly skip and try out, but the noise you absolutely love, you love including with its mistakes and clumsy and awkward qualities included? Things that generally were reasons why you skipped getting release when sample didn't deliver instant gratification.

[Atrophist]

Noise is definitely an acquired taste, much like alcohol, tobacco or coffee etc. I'm sure there are people who loved those things the very first time they've tried them, but they're surely in the minority.

I remember having been aware of noise from the 90's already. For a long time I retarded it more as an interesting curiosity, not something to devote any serious time and effort to. It was only attending live noise events when things finally clicked.

Like your nick btw, BlackCavendish. I used to puff Red Rapparee, Black Mallory and Peterson's Old Dublin like a bloody chimney, and these all contain your signature stuff. Too bad pipe smoking has been rendered effectively illegal in Finland.

[Zeno Marx]

hello, fellow pipers.

I think you could love noise at first listen, especially depending on what leads up to the first listen. Articles, catalogue descriptions, mentors, etc talking about it in a positive way, leading to enthusiastic curiosity.  Artwork or packaging that piques interest in a positive way.  Old school thank you lists from your heroes lending to interesting context.  All those variables that bring something to you with positive and open energies.  But then again, love is a strong word.  I'm not sure how well it suits the discussion.  When I've fallen for a music, it has come by way of more more more.  It creates an insatiable appetite and curiosity, and again, from a place of open minded enthusiasm.  I'm a romantic at heart, but I think love here is being confused for something other.

[BlackCavendish]

First it is amazement of what the fuck is this, how can someone listen to this? Some sort of curiosity combined to the fact that you simply have no options. You got 1 new tape or one new LP that you got, rest is the old things you've been listening all year. So, listening first, not getting what it is. Soon listening out of curiosity, then being sort of enlightened, and eventually, album you listened few times a day, even when you didn't like it, became best thing you ever heard.
I think in current era, it is unlikely you'd give album a chance to impress you. You want to love at first listen.

What you said about being stuck with 1 LP or one tape is true. When I was a teenager my limited budget allowed me to pick up 1 album every month, maybe 2 if I got lucky with 2nd hand options. This situation forced me to carefully explore every single album I got.

When I was attending university, in 2002 or something, I remember a philosphy professor told us that we were transitionig from something he called "age of possession" to something like "age of the access". At the beginning I was skeptical but it came out he was right, nowadays you don't need to buy anything, basically everything is accessible with some sort of subrscription and every one is just browsing stuff looking for something that grab his attention in the first 10 seconds. If you don't like something you can move on to something else, no second thoughts.

I'm wondering if this "evolution" in the way people approach music (but also movies and books) will render some form of arts completely inaccessible to some.

[BlackCavendish]

Like your nick btw, BlackCavendish. I used to puff Red Rapparee, Black Mallory and Peterson's Old Dublin like a bloody chimney, and these all contain your signature stuff. Too bad pipe smoking has been rendered effectively illegal in Finland.

Really? Do you mean you can't even sit on a bench in a park smoking a pipe of normal tobacco?!
In Italy is forbidden to smoke in closed spaces, but outside you can do pretty much watever you want.

[Atrophist]

Like your nick btw, BlackCavendish. I used to puff Red Rapparee, Black Mallory and Peterson's Old Dublin like a bloody chimney, and these all contain your signature stuff. Too bad pipe smoking has been rendered effectively illegal in Finland.

Really? Do you mean you can't even sit on a bench in a park smoking a pipe of normal tobacco?!
In Italy is forbidden to smoke in closed spaces, but outside you can do pretty much watever you want.

Smoking pipes or cigars is certainly technically legal here. The problem is that it's now no longer allowed to order pipe tobacco or cigars online. I used to order my tobacco and some cigars from Dan Pipe in Germany, but it's not possible any longer. So unless you live near a brick-and-mortar tobacconist (which are very rare these days), you're out of luck. That's what I mean by it being effectively illegal.

[practical life]

for me it wasn't my first first listen but i had already started craving non-musical but crunchy and detailed/visual sound as a teen from heavy listening to the quake 1 soundtrack and neurosis - tsib and ended up with a used copy of the east/west noise treaty very shortly after that. however long it took me to hear the crawl unit, daniel menche and incapacitants tracks on that and i was completely won over from there..

none of it was deliberate obviously but i think i just sort of accidentally primed myself for my own best introduction and set the table for my own first taste