Music: Unpopular Music Opinions

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Yeezus is critically acclaimed. I'm not big on Kanye West, but I love the instrumental beat, sample and vocal tone on Bound 2 but Kanye's lyrics just ruin the song completely for me. They're so goddamn bad.

Hey, careful now. Jerome's in the house, watch your mouth!

Speaking of Kanye, I never liked Jay-Z in the slightest.

 

[WhoozYerrDaddy]

What CCR (John Fogerty) did during just a handful of years is probably the most impressive peak by a band ever. Out of this world.

And CCR had exactly zero number 1 songs.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I agree that Sunday Morning is a better song than I'll Be Your Mirror, but Nico's voice is just strange enough that it kind of works a bit better with the more experimental stuff, to my ears-- To some degree, I feel that way about I'll Be Your Mirror as well, though. I would have preferred if the entire album had that wild experimental feel to it.

For some reason Here She Comes Now doesn't feel out of place on White Light White Heat to me, though.

---

Regarding live VU performances, The Complete Live at the Matrix was released a few years ago in remastered near-studio quality, and the performances are fantastic, IMO.

It is a more laid-back, loose, and rough-around-the-edges feel than the studio recordings, but I would argue that there's a really beautiful charm to it that's lacking in the studio recordings-- Sweet Jane in particular is superior to the studio version, IMO. Waiting For the Man sounds fantastic with the teeth removed, and there's also a 30 minute laid back version of Sister Ray that I find fascinating.

It's at the very least better than Loaded, IMO.




I think a big part of why their live recordings are generally underwhelming is due to them being a band that nobody gave a rat's *** about at the time. Most bands with great live recordings are famous enough that virtually every live performance gets recorded and only the cream of the crop end up getting released. With VU, it's more like.... once in a blue moon, someone with a tape recorder happens to have the foresight to record a random live performance, and everyone ends up treating it like it's the holy grail even if it's a near-unlistenable recording of a sub-par performance because hey, it's better than nothing. Unfortunate that there aren't really any great live recordings with John Cale still around, though.

Just got around to them. Thanks, they were great. Nice to hear some live stuff that isn't badly recorded from the early 70s or with an old Lou Reed with his voice shot. Although, I think my favorite live versions of VU songs are those Candy Says covers by Anohni. They're so damn beautiful and perfect, particularly the first one, although ironically, I don't care for Lou Reed's performance in that one. I would have just let Anohni sing the whole song.





The original one is still the best version to me, though. Damn, I love that song.

 

[kook10]

Just got around to them. Thanks, they were great. Nice to hear some live stuff that isn't badly recorded from the early 70s or with an old Lou Reed with his voice shot. Although, I think my favorite live versions of VU songs are those Candy Says covers by Anohni. They're so damn beautiful and perfect, particularly the first one, although ironically, I don't care for Lou Reed's performance in that one. I would have just let Anohni sing the whole song.

The original one is still the best version to me, though. Damn, I love that song.

Lou Reed's American Poet bootleg is my favorite.
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[Shareefruck]

Just got around to them. Thanks, they were great. Nice to hear some live stuff that isn't badly recorded from the early 70s or with an old Lou Reed with his voice shot. Although, I think my favorite live versions of VU songs are those Candy Says covers by Anohni. They're so damn beautiful and perfect, particularly the first one, although ironically, I don't care for Lou Reed's performance in that one. I would have just let Anohni sing the whole song.





The original one is still the best version to me, though. Damn, I love that song.

Not a fan of that guy's singing style, but I agree that Candy Says is just an achingly beautiful song.

By the way, have you heard the Closet Mix of that album? There doesn't seem to be a consensus on which version is better, both have their merits, but personally, I largely prefer the Closet Mix. The officially released version feels more like a polished rock album, but there's a really raw, warm, intimate, personal and organic feeling to the Closet Mix that I think fits the album better and makes it feel more cohesive-- I can't get enough of it.



Some Kinda Love is also a completely different version, and it's another favorite of mine off that album.



I think I actually like this album more than the Banana album, now that I think about it.

 

[Sniped]

Travis Scott's Rodeo is one of the best produced hip-hop albums of all time.

Love this. Rodeo is an amazing ****ing album. Hopefully Astroworld can be at least on par with it.

Yeezus is the best album of the 21st century so far.

MBDTF says hi.

 

[Mikeaveli]

I listened to those albums on your recommendation and could not for the life of me figure out what the appeal was. It's definitely not for lack of exposure to avant-garde music either. Struck me as pretty humourless grating racket.

Yeezus blew it away in terms of the quality of ideas IMO, and when we spoke about originality earlier I didn't get a lot of specifics. Which Yeezus songs are derivative, and of what? What are songs like Black Skinhead, Guilt Trip, or I'm In It aping? The only thing Death Grips has on it is extremity, but that's hardly a determining factor in what's better.

I gave it a shot haha. But if Death Grips is the best that the rest of industrial rap has to offer, I think that while Yeezus was far from the first on the block, it's definitely the album that took a lot of uninspiring dreck and formed it into something worthwhile.

If you didn't like the albums I suggested it's probably because Yeezus is basically mislabeled as an industrial rap album, and I kind of messed up comparing it to those records. Only the first two tracks really fit into the genre. I see the rest as more hip-hop mixed with electronics and club music with some industrial rap elements thrown in (Ye's delivery on Black Skinhead, screaming on I Am a God, glitches/retriggering on I Am a God and I'm In It, some sounds on Hold My Liquor and Send It Up, etc.). I went too far saying it wasn't original, as you're right in that there isn't really an album that sounds like Yeezus. What I mean is that compared to the other artists I mentioned the album (sonically) stays well within the lane of popular music. Listen to "loud" by clipping. and Blood on the Leaves back to back to get what I mean. Like you mentioned this doesn't inherently make the music better, but it does makes it more interesting imo.

If you like Yeezus more than Death Grips or whatever then obviously I'm not going to convince you otherwise because it's all subjective in the end, but here's my opinion on it right now.

On an album like The Money Store, Death Grips bring awesome, busy drums (live and programmed) by Zach Hill, some extremely unorthodox sampling, very infectious hooks, and an overall blood-pumping nature to their music that makes it a more interesting listen than Yeezus imo. The Money Store brings aggressive banger after aggressive banger while still mixing it up by using different sounds, rhythms (**** That and Hacker in particular), and vocal delivery to keep things from becoming stale. IMO Yeezus starts off great but kind of fizzles out after New Slaves into bad autotune and uninteresting tracks like Hold My Liquor and Guilt Trip. The two albums are almost the same length but Yeezus feels much longer when I'm listening to it.

Love this. Rodeo is an amazing ****ing album. Hopefully Astroworld can be at least on par with it.

Yeah I thought Birds was a step down in pretty much every single way so I hope Travis can pull it together for this next one.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

the best kendrick lamar song isn't a kendrick lamar song (it's never catch me by flying lotus)

 

[Big Poppa Puck]

Love this. Rodeo is an amazing ****ing album. Hopefully Astroworld can be at least on par with it.

Rodeo is amazing. There might be only one or two songs I skip.

I liked BITTSM too, but it doesn't come anywhere close to Rodeo, which is just on another level. Rodeo might be in a tier that can't be topped that's how good it is. If Astroworld is at least better than Birds that'll be good enough for me.

 

[Sombastate]

I love Nas - specifically Illmatic and It Was Written... - but AZ stole the show every time he rapped on either of those albums. His flow is melodically perfect.

AZ is fantastic, he just can't really hold down a record himself.

He has some quality songs, though

 

[donkshow]

Bruno Mars is incredibly talented. Justin Bieber is incredibly talented.

 

[Shareefruck]

Unpopular opinion along those lines-- Whether or not a musician is talented has nothing to do with whether or not their music is any good or whether or not the product is hacky, IMO.

Musicians who aren't super talented (at least in terms of physical abilities) can make great music, and musicians who are super talented (at least in terms of physical abilities) can make **** music.

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

Unpopular opinion along those lines-- Whether or not a musician is talented has nothing to do with whether or not their music is any good or whether or not the product is hacky, IMO.

Musicians who aren't super talented (at least in terms of physical abilities) can make great music, and musicians who are super talented (at least in terms of physical abilities) can make **** music.

Is that that unpopular? I think that's totally true.

 

[Behn Wilson]

Is that that unpopular? I think that's totally true.

​

I think that was responding to a prior post more than stating an unpopular opinion.

 

[Shareefruck]

Is that that unpopular? I think that's totally true.

Maybe not. I definitely think that some people do feel that if you're talented, then you shouldn't be criticized or be considered a hack, though.

 

[Moskau]

It's weird Yeezus gets singled out for bad lyrics. They're no better or worse than they were in MBDTF and at least there aren't any terrible Jay or Nicki verses.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Well, personally, I wasn't singling out Yeezus in particular for bad lyrics. He has his moments but he's always been a pretty bad lyricists and has gotten particularly worse this decade.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

harsh noise is good

 

[Aladyyn]

It's weird Yeezus gets singled out for bad lyrics. They're no better or worse than they were in MBDTF and at least there aren't any terrible Jay or Nicki verses.

Nicki's verse on Monster is the best part of MBDTF though.

 

[kingsholygrail]

The Police sucks and I have no idea why they are played so ****ing much on the radio.

 

[CptxMorgan]

Nicki's verse on Monster is the best part of MBDTF though.

Actually, my unpopular opinion is that that verse is overrated.

 

[Player big P]

harsh noise is good

For what?

 

[Whiplash27]

There's a ton of awesome country music out there and it's just as legitimate as Rap or Rock.

*In the time I've posted here and on a lot of musical sites it seems like people write off country music and I don't know why.

I've just started getting into country music. Much more enjoyable than I previously gave it credit for. Main band I've gotten into is Zac Brown Band.

 

[Xelebes]

For what?

For lonesome brooding.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

For lonesome brooding.

exactly.