Unpopular music opinions

[iLoveLamp]

Imo, The Beatles made better albums than The Stones did, and The Stones made better singles than The Beatles did. I have no problem listening to most of The Beatles' albums front to back, but I find myself skipping a lot of tracks if I listen to a Stones album.

[Itse]

Muse is pretty much the only relatively recent internationally succesful artists right now worth even discussing.

(And it's not like I'm a fan by any stretch of the term.)

[troutman]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I think you need to review the internet user's manual..........

Sure, in general. In an "unpopular" opinion thread of course most people aren't going to agree with those opinions. The point is to hear the unconventional wisdom. No point in trying to change their minds about it. That's in the internet user manual too.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Rush is the most overrated band of all time.

Foo Fighters peaked with The Colour and the Shape and every album since has been worse than the one that preceded it.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by troutman

Sure, in general. In an "unpopular" opinion thread of course most people aren't going to agree with those opinions. The point is to hear the unconventional wisdom. No point in trying to change their minds about it. That's in the internet user manual too.

He was being funny, but agreeing with you. Meaning you're right, but this is the Internet where "LOUD OPINION YOU'RE WRONG" happens all too often

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Endtroducing by DJ Shadow is the most remarkable album of the 90's. Not necessarily the best, but the level of creativity and effort and talent that went into that album is amazing.

That isn't an unpopular opinion at all, considering he pushed the Turtablism genre forward by a huge margin with just one (relatively short) album.

Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt always gives me goosebumps.

On topic:

AC/DC is friggin' terrible, have one drum beat, and are boring as hell.

[DuffMan]

Country Music sucks, All country music, old, new, whatever it all sucks.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

Country Music sucks, All country music, old, new, whatever it all sucks.

Terrible, awful, soul destroying, mind numbing, sappy, cheesy, and annoying are also suitable adjectives

[codynw]

Originally Posted by Matata

Green Day's "Dookie" is one of the greatest punk albums of all time.

Don't think this is unpopular.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Matata

Green Day's "Dookie" is one of the greatest punk albums of all time.

Green Day's "Dookie", while a good album, barely if at all qualifies as Punk.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

That isn't an unpopular opinion at all, considering he pushed the Turtablism genre forward by a huge margin with just one (relatively short) album.

Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt always gives me goosebumps.

On topic:

AC/DC is friggin' terrible, have one drum beat, and are boring as hell.

Yeah but I mean there's sort of the whole "Define unpopular" thing. Within music lovers and audiophiles, yeah it's not an unpopular opinion and maybe even a widely accepted opinion. If I asked 10 people on the street who DJ Shadow was, I'd be shocked if more than 1 person knew. So it's relatively a popular opinion, but overall most people would never think it.

Originally Posted by troutman

There are a few - Music of 2015, Music Festivals, What Are You Listening To Now?, Upcoming Concerts.

The old music drafts were good - time for another one?

Yeah and those are good, but for me I've spent most of my last few years in music listening seeking out the past. I mean I have as many albums from the 1950s on my iPod as I do the 2010s. I just think an all encompassing thread to simply discuss music would be kind of cool.

[troutman]

X 92.9 does not play "alternative" music, as it was originally defined.

In fact, I would say it is even worse than CJAY 92.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by troutman

There are a few - Music of 2015, Music Festivals, What Are You Listening To Now?, Upcoming Concerts.

The old music drafts were good - time for another one?

The second draft spreadsheet I did is here

And it hasn't been edited since April 2009 (I'm not even sure I fully finished entering all the pics since it kind of died at the end).

[Itse]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

Country Music sucks, All country music, old, new, whatever it all sucks.

Country is like the term nu-metal in the nineties.

The bad bands are called nu-metal. The good bands are called alternative metal. Even though they are obviously musically of the same genre.

Good bands that play country tend to be called something like roots influenced pop/rock, folk rock or what ever, even though really it's just country. If nothing else they get labeled something desperate such as "alternative country".

Oh, unpopular musical opinion:
The Trinity Session is not even a top three album for the Cowboy Junkies.

[Teh_Bandwagoner]

Originally Posted by Kiran403

I'm not a huge fan of super-talented rappers (Andre 3000 and Kendrick Lamar) singing when they could be rapping instead. I don't mind it occasionally but I definitely prefer them to be rapping instead of singing.

Probably not an unpopular opinion (or maybe it is given that it's a hit right now), but Kanye just completely ruins Four Five Seconds for me. Especially when singing alongside Rihanna. It would have been a good song otherwise, but his singing voice grates me to no end.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by Itse

Muse is pretty much the only relatively recent internationally succesful artists right now worth even discussing.

(And it's not like I'm a fan by any stretch of the term.)

Tool? They are similar to Muse in several ways and more prolific

[rogermexico]

I don’t know that the following are unpopular so much as they’re cranky and long-winded. I started thinking about my opinions and had too much free time today. The tl;dr version is: the music industry is stupid. But that’s not unpopular or groundbreaking or anything. Please note that I am completely ignorant of modern electronic music and don’t have opinions on it at all.

• Taylor Swift is better than most rock music from the last ten years because at least “Shake it Off” is fun, unlike anything by, say, Imagine Dragons. (I realize Imagine Dragons is an easy target but you get the point.)
• Streaming and outright stealing music has doomed us to a world where terrible bands like Fun and Imagine Dragons dominate “rock music” because the only source of income left to the recording industry as a whole is Nissan ads. If other words, if you download free music, Imagine Dragons is your fault.
• Conversely, we live in a weird time where the only artists actually capable of selling huge amounts of songs and records –Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift – are more experimental and sonically adventurous than any rock artists. I'm talking a lot about rock music because I want it to be good and I'm let down that it often isn't.
• Modern rock music and modern country music are essentially the same. They all sound kind of like U2 and sometimes there is rapping. Lyrically they’re more or less identical – a song on X929 is more likely to be in the first person and angsty whereas a song on Sun Country in High River is more likely to be in the third person and positive. Country songs are more likely to use “whiskey” and “’skirt” as an end rhyme. Although come to think of it though, so does Nicklelback.
• Speaking of which: Did you know that numerous country hits are written by a song writing team that includes Chad Kroeger from Nicklelback and Richard Marx? Yes, that Richard Marx. I do not make this stuff up.
• Radiohead, specifically OK Computer, was the single worst thing to happen to rock and roll music – narrowly edging out U2 (their entire career) and the Metallica Black Album. Everything boring, bland & stupid about rock music for the last twenty years –pretentiousness, drabness, glomming on to the stupid aspects of new technology - goes back to emulation of these three artists.
• Madonna is more interesting & subversive than Nirvana, at least musically. Nirvana was a really good band but the leap from “Like a Prayer” to “Heart Shaped Box” isn’t as substantial as the one from “Angel of the Morning” to “Like a Virgin”.
• Nirvana is mostly interesting for briefly proving and then utterly disproving Greg Ginn’s ideas about economics.
• The saddest thing about Nirvana (and Greg Ginn’s ideas about economics) is that while the idea that everyone who wanted to could be in their own band was inspiring, in practical terms since about 1996 (the busting of the (very) brief alternative rock radio bubble), only wealthy, attractive young people with trust funds who don’t need a regular income have been able to afford the hidden overhead costs of having their music heard by more than 1000 people over the course of their entire careers. The bands who “get buzz” at SXSW do so by investing tens of thousands of dollars in promotion & showcases. Depending on how much money they invest they can turn into Fun or Imagine Dragons.
• (For the record, I think that everyone who wants to should be in their own band, I just think they should have a very, very realistic upfront understanding of what exactly they’re getting themselves into.)
• These problems are exacerbated in Canada by the size of our population compared to the scarcity of and distances between live venues, and the cost to drive a van between them. As such we will never have an actually healthy music scene that isn’t totally dominated by trust-fund dilettantes and deformed by reliance on government grants and the unbelievable stupidity and conservatism of the Canadian music industry (who tend to be at least three years too late to every trend at best and would generally rather try and reissue the Chilliwack catalogue than have a new idea.) The year that Gord Downie released his first solo record, he received ALL of the funding from FACTOR for the ENTIRE YEAR.
• Speaking of conservatism in Canadian music, CBC Radio 2 has an outsized ability to determine which 4 or 5 new artists will get play in an industry can really only support 4 or 5 artists to the point of possibly making a living. Unfortunately their tastes are slightly less interesting than drying paint. I like the Weakerthans. I hate living in a country dominated by duller, subpar, more handsome versions of the Weakerthans.

[Grimbl420]

Originally Posted by troutman

X 92.9 does not play "alternative" music, as it was originally defined.

In fact, I would say it is even worse than CJAY 92.

Calgary's Synth Pop Alternative!

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by rogermexico

I don’t know that the following are unpopular so much as they’re cranky and long-winded. I started thinking about my opinions and had too much free time today. The tl;dr version is: the music industry is stupid. But that’s not unpopular or groundbreaking or anything. Please note that I am completely ignorant of modern electronic music and don’t have opinions on it at all.

• Taylor Swift is better than most rock music from the last ten years because at least “Shake it Off” is fun, unlike anything by, say, Imagine Dragons. (I realize Imagine Dragons is an easy target but you get the point.)
• Streaming and outright stealing music has doomed us to a world where terrible bands like Fun and Imagine Dragons dominate “rock music” because the only source of income left to the recording industry as a whole is Nissan ads. If other words, if you download free music, Imagine Dragons is your fault.
• Conversely, we live in a weird time where the only artists actually capable of selling huge amounts of songs and records –Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift – are more experimental and sonically adventurous than any rock artists. I'm talking a lot about rock music because I want it to be good and I'm let down that it often isn't.
• Modern rock music and modern country music are essentially the same. They all sound kind of like U2 and sometimes there is rapping. Lyrically they’re more or less identical – a song on X929 is more likely to be in the first person and angsty whereas a song on Sun Country in High River is more likely to be in the third person and positive. Country songs are more likely to use “whiskey” and “’skirt” as an end rhyme. Although come to think of it though, so does Nicklelback.
• Speaking of which: Did you know that numerous country hits are written by a song writing team that includes Chad Kroeger from Nicklelback and Richard Marx? Yes, that Richard Marx. I do not make this stuff up.
• Radiohead, specifically OK Computer, was the single worst thing to happen to rock and roll music – narrowly edging out U2 (their entire career) and the Metallica Black Album. Everything boring, bland & stupid about rock music for the last twenty years –pretentiousness, drabness, glomming on to the stupid aspects of new technology - goes back to emulation of these three artists.
• Madonna is more interesting & subversive than Nirvana, at least musically. Nirvana was a really good band but the leap from “Like a Prayer” to “Heart Shaped Box” isn’t as substantial as the one from “Angel of the Morning” to “Like a Virgin”.
• Nirvana is mostly interesting for briefly proving and then utterly disproving Greg Ginn’s ideas about economics.
• The saddest thing about Nirvana (and Greg Ginn’s ideas about economics) is that while the idea that everyone who wanted to could be in their own band was inspiring, in practical terms since about 1996 (the busting of the (very) brief alternative rock radio bubble), only wealthy, attractive young people with trust funds who don’t need a regular income have been able to afford the hidden overhead costs of having their music heard by more than 1000 people over the course of their entire careers. The bands who “get buzz” at SXSW do so by investing tens of thousands of dollars in promotion & showcases. Depending on how much money they invest they can turn into Fun or Imagine Dragons.
• (For the record, I think that everyone who wants to should be in their own band, I just think they should have a very, very realistic upfront understanding of what exactly they’re getting themselves into.)
• These problems are exacerbated in Canada by the size of our population compared to the scarcity of and distances between live venues, and the cost to drive a van between them. As such we will never have an actually healthy music scene that isn’t totally dominated by trust-fund dilettantes and deformed by reliance on government grants and the unbelievable stupidity and conservatism of the Canadian music industry (who tend to be at least three years too late to every trend at best and would generally rather try and reissue the Chilliwack catalogue than have a new idea.) The year that Gord Downie released his first solo record, he received ALL of the funding from FACTOR for the ENTIRE YEAR.
• Speaking of conservatism in Canadian music, CBC Radio 2 has an outsized ability to determine which 4 or 5 new artists will get play in an industry can really only support 4 or 5 artists to the point of possibly making a living. Unfortunately their tastes are slightly less interesting than drying paint. I like the Weakerthans. I hate living in a country dominated by duller, subpar, more handsome versions of the Weakerthans.

[troutman]

If other words, if you download free music, Imagine Dragons is your fault.

You win the internets!

Along the lines of what Roger is saying - music should usually be fun to listen to. I appreciate artistic experimentation, but there needs to be songs there - hooks and melodies that stay in your brain.

Bjork is a world class talent - the most distinctive voice of her generation. But, critics are afraid to say her new record is unlistenable. So dreary, with nothing to hold your attention. Critics have given it an average score of 87.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/vulnicura/bjork