Music: Unpopular Music Opinions

[Dipsy Doodle]

That's probably it. And yeah I really dislike this closed-mindedness among some music fans about what music is. I've had people tell me the song "Samurai Sword" by The Microphones isn't music

Everybody's a product of their environment to some degree, and if people are only exposed to different kinds of music as adults, they often just listen for certain aspects of a song and anything that doesn't fit the usual formula goes undetected. The things that make the new music unique and valuable are lost on them.

If you're a 30 year old who's grown up with singing being the only form of vocals, you're probably not going to identify what makes a good or bad rap. Vanilla Ice is basically on the same level as Rakim. What will stand out most is the stark difference between singing and talking over a beat.

It's tough to overcome if you didn't listen to a lot of varied music by your late teens, IMO.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I'd say Queens of the Stone Age is the best modern hard rock band, and again, not by a little.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

because 9/10 times it's the same basic beat, or one lifted from a more gifted artist, and then talked over ...usually about the most useless of subjects ...like getting hoes, booze, weed, etc.


that's just my unpopular opinion.

Wow this seems really easy, you should release a mixtape.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

Rappers change the tone of their voice?!?

(Note: speaking generally here)

Where did the point go...

 

[Zodiac]

Wow this seems really easy, you should release a mixtape.

of the musical genres, i'd fare considerably better releasing a rap demo than anything else. i wont waste my time on something i have no interest in, tho.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

of the musical genres, i'd fare considerably better releasing a rap demo than anything else. i wont waste my time on something i have no interest in, tho.

You mumbling one syllable rhymes would be equivalent to you banging randomly on a drum kit.

 

[Zodiac]

You mumbling one syllable rhymes would be equivalent to you banging randomly on a drum kit.

you might be surprised. i can talk over a basic beat about hoes and weed pretty darn well.

 

[BonMorrison]

lol at the idea that hip hop only talks about 'hoes and weed."

i can play too, metal only talks about death and suffering.

 

[Mikeaveli]

because 9/10 times it's the same basic beat, or one lifted from a more gifted artist, and then talked over ...usually about the most useless of subjects ...like getting hoes, booze, weed, etc.


that's just my unpopular opinion.

You're generalizing the genre in a way that makes it look worse than it really is. It's like if I said shoegaze is horrible because all you need to do is go buy 12 pedals and play 4 chords on your guitar.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

Here are more unpopular opinions: Lil Yachty makes excellent music.

Danny Brown albums best to worst:
XXX
Old
Atrocity Exhibition
Hot Soup
The Hybrid

Kraftwerk is more important to modern music than The Beatles.

Big Boi is on the same level as Andre 3000

 

[Leafsdude7]

Where did the point go...

If I missed the point, feel free to express it explicitly...

 

[Pharrell Williams]

If I missed the point, feel free to express it explicitly...

Reducing rap to "people talking over beats" is as dumb as saying all a singer is doing is talking while changing the tone of their voice.

 

[Leafsdude7]

Reducing rap to "people talking over beats" is as dumb as saying all a singer is doing is talking while changing the tone of their voice.

Ah, apologies. I thought your post was in response to mine.

IMO, a rapper is not a singer and the backing track is usually either minimalist or "sampled". These things put together is why I don't consider it music.

I consider it music as much as I consider They're Coming To Take Me Away or any dubstep music.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

Ah, apologies. I thought your post was in response to mine.

IMO, a rapper is not a singer and the backing track is usually either minimalist or "sampled". These things put together is why I don't consider it music.

I consider it music as much as I consider They're Coming To Take Me Away or any dubstep music.

does music have to have singing to be music? and pretty much everything is sampled to some extent in any genre. music evolves over time and newer musicians are influenced by older ones. do you consider a capella singing to be music? because there IS no backing track, making it quite minimalist as well. some hip hop instrumentals are masterpieces in their own right (flying lotus for example).

do you consider anything to be music

 

[Buckets and Gloves]

Lol

People dissing the Beatles just don't get the Beatles... one of the only bands to go from pop to experimental/outlier music.

Beatles career starts at Rubber Soul for me.

 

[Mikeaveli]

Ah, apologies. I thought your post was in response to mine.

IMO, a rapper is not a singer and the backing track is usually either minimalist or "sampled". These things put together is why I don't consider it music.

I consider it music as much as I consider They're Coming To Take Me Away or any dubstep music.

How does any of that disqualify hip-hop as music? Also how is dubstep not music? None of this makes any sense lol.

 

[Pharrell Williams]

any music i don't like isn't music

 

[Leafsdude7]

does music have to have singing to be music? and pretty much everything is sampled to some extent in any genre. music evolves over time and newer musicians are influenced by older ones. do you consider a capella singing to be music? because there IS no backing track, making it quite minimalist as well. some hip hop instrumentals are masterpieces in their own right (flying lotus for example).

do you consider anything to be music

None of the bolded runs counter to my opinions. I neither suggested music needs to have singing nor did I suggest that a song cannot have minimalist qualities, just that minimalist backing tracks without singing is not music.

For the rest, I'd have to listen to instrumental hip hop to say whether it's music, but if it's like most hip hop that has a vocal component, I'd almost certainly say it's not.

 

[Shareefruck]

That definition of music is absolutely ridiculous. Are you suggesting that Ambient albums are not music either?

Regarding Pink Floyd, I've always found them very tame as far as progressive experimentation goes, personally, so I don't understand that criticism at all-- Unless we're talking about their less famous albums, like Ummagumma, they are very straightforward and clean when it comes to that stuff. I agree that I don't like how melodramatic, self-serious, and grandiose Roger Waters can get, but I think that has only negatively affected the band during The Wall, which I find massively overrated for that reason.

Regarding The Beatles, while I can understand thinking they're overrated if you're thinking along the lines of "pop music is limited and superficial and there are many other artists outside of the pop genre who are better", I can't make sense of anyone who doesn't think they're the greatest pure melodic/pop band of all time. So much so that I'm not even sure there's a distant second that I have in mind. I think that more than anything else, this is the reason why they're put on a higher pedestal than other greats-- because the domain that they've mastered is easily the most universally embraced genre world-wide. For me personally, I have an anti-pop/melody attitude, yet The Beatles are basically the sole exception for me. However, there are a few non-pop, less accessible, more eccentric bands who I think are better.

Regarding hip-hop, while it's obviously a credible form of music and art, and a lot of greatness comes out of it, I will say one unpopular thing along those lines-- I'm put off by this idea people seem to want to enforce that every genre is equally credible and that you're narrowminded if you don't think every genre has reached the same peaks as every other genre. While I love certain hip-hop albums, as a genre, I definitely don't think it has reached the same heights that some other genres have. There isn't a hip-hop artist who is nearly as good or better at creating music than Bob Dylan, for example, IMO. My two favorites are Eric B. and Rakim and Public Enemy, and I only have them in that fourth or fifth tier of all time greats, personally. That's not to say it can't happen in the future, though.

 

[crump]

Here are some older big ones

Elvis wasn't the King of RNR (Chuck Berry was)
Led Zeppelin ripped off Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart's sound off the Truth album (released a year before Zeppelin's first)
Mick Jagger can't sing (thank god)
Jimi Hendrix was a sloppy guitar player
Eagles suck

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

IMO, a rapper is not a singer and the backing track is usually either minimalist or "sampled". These things put together is why I don't consider it music.

Why is singing the only acceptable vocal in music?

Why is something minimalist or sampled not music?

 

[Aladyyn]

That definition of music is absolutely ridiculous. Are you suggesting that Ambient albums are not music either?

Regarding Pink Floyd, I've always found them very tame as far as progressive experimentation goes, personally, so I don't understand that criticism at all-- Unless we're talking about their less famous albums, like Ummagumma, they are very straightforward and clean when it comes to that stuff. I agree that I don't like how melodramatic, self-serious, and grandiose Roger Waters can get, but I think that has only negatively affected the band during The Wall, which I find massively overrated for that reason.

Regarding The Beatles, while I can understand thinking they're overrated if you're thinking along the lines of "pop music is limited and superficial and there are many other artists outside of the pop genre who are better", I can't make sense of anyone who doesn't think they're the greatest pure melodic/pop band of all time. So much so that I'm not even sure there's a distant second that I have in mind. I think that more than anything else, this is the reason why they're put on a higher pedestal than other greats-- because the domain that they've mastered is easily the most universally embraced genre world-wide. For me personally, I have an anti-pop/melody attitude, yet The Beatles are basically the sole exception for me. However, there are a few non-pop, less accessible, more eccentric bands who I think are better.

Regarding hip-hop, while it's obviously a credible form of music and art, and a lot of greatness comes out of it, I will say one unpopular thing along those lines-- I'm put off by this idea people seem to want to enforce that every genre is equally credible and that you're narrowminded if you don't think every genre has reached the same peaks as every other genre. While I love certain hip-hop albums, as a genre, I definitely don't think it has reached the same heights that some other genres have. There isn't a hip-hop artist who is nearly as good or better at creating music than Bob Dylan, for example, IMO. My two favorites are Eric B. and Rakim and Public Enemy, and I only have them in that fourth or fifth tier of all time greats, personally. That's not to say it can't happen in the future, though.

Madvillainy tho

I feel like the disconnect when it comes to hip hop is natural. It's different enough to what's universally appealing that it challenges outside listeners to "tune" their ears to it and listen for different things than usual.

 

[Shareefruck]

Madvillainy tho

I feel like the disconnect when it comes to hip hop is natural. It's different enough to what's universally appealing that it challenges outside listeners to "tune" their ears to it and listen for different things than usual.

Again, that falls under the same category for me. I love Madvillainy and think it's a great, fully-realized album (and I prefer it over several rock albums that are considered classics), but it's still quite a ways off from the best stuff from other genres that truly blow me away and feels transcendent, for me personally. It's in that fourth or fifth tier of great albums for me.

 

[Shareefruck]

I still haven't been able to get behind Metal as a genre, personally.

I realize that's a cliche thing to say that seems to be easily dismissable as ignorant, but while I love a lot of genres that are outside of most comfort zones and difficult to get into (I mean, if I can get into stuff like Free Jazz, Avant Garde Minimalism, and Beefheart, Metal should be easy, shouldn't it? Hell, I probably even have a better time with pure noise-rock like Merzbow for crying out loud.), but I still haven't managed to find anything that works for me.

I can concede that it can involve technically impressive and inventive talent, but I don't really care about those things in isolation-- the premise itself seems fundamentally broken to my ears. To me, aggressive music works best when it's raw, primitive, messy, and irreverent-- the way punk or hardcore is, for instance. Metal has this garrish machismo, theatrical melodrama, and technical grand-standing to it that seems anti-thetical to what makes noisy aggressive music work best, to my ears. It's not the typical criticism-- I love abrasive noises, I just can't get on board with most of the qualities that make Metal Metal and the things that separate it from punk and hardcore.

 

[Aladyyn]

I still haven't been able to get behind Metal as a genre, personally. I can concede that it can involve technically impressive and inventive talent, but I don't really care about those things in isolation-- the premise itself seems fundamentally broken to my ears. To me, aggressive music works best when it's raw, primitive, messy, and irreverent-- the way punk or hardcore does. Metal has this garrish machismo, theatrical melodrama, and technical grand-standing to it that seems anti-thetical to what makes noisy aggressive music work best, to my ears. It's not the typical criticism-- I love abrasive noises, I just can't get on board with most of the qualities that make Metal Metal.

You should try war metal.