Obfuscating

Some musicians are just too Spartan in their practices to offer mere enjoyment to the people who buy their CDs. Some musicians have dedicated entire careers to producing overthought exercises in the unlistenable (Venetian Snares) while others think it makes them more serious in their art (Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, Miles Davis' Gemini/Double Image and everybody has their own personal pet peeve to add to the party). I think Matthew Herbert can sometimes be a bit like this, but never actually dedicates whole albums to ridiculous noise noodling, so I reckon that you can have about three Herbert CDs in your collection. Lou Reed would be any number of Velvet Underground studio releases because there aren't so many, but probably only a maximum of four solo LPs, not including Metal Machine Music. Miles Davis: remember the coefficient, and avoid the overdone crap.

Venetian Snares: no. Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV/Genesis P Orridge: Is there really a need?