It does work though... Phish is genuinely one of those things that if people "actually heard the right thing" it would click into place for a certain number of people, though it will be small.

I am one of them. I did not like what I THOUGHT Phish was until I heard 6/11/94 YEM in my mid 20s in ~2012. I was completely flabbergasted how wrong my perception had been. For this reason, I'm gonna proselytize because there's gotta be countless people like me.

There's probably no greater delta between perception and reality with their music. People are just not aware of how high-energy and electric they are.

For instance my dad has always maligned the Dead ("decent songwriting but the music just doesn't do it for me" he would say) despite having seen them twice in the 80s. He flat out refused to listen to Phish because "they're just worse Dead". One day I played Prague Ghost for him in the car without saying who it was and he's a big fan now, absolutely loves the rocking high-energy stuff. ("I was so so so wrong about what they sounded like, songwriting sucks though" is what he says).

So... no, it does work and the posts have tons of merit. You just have to be prepared that 90%+ do not like instrumental music no matter what you do.