Unpopular views about music

[Un Platano]

I think jazz in general is looked down on because people don't listen to proper jazz musicians. Instead they hear studio music on TV and assume that all jazz is as uninteresting and mediocre, or if they have they've heard ancient music like Louis Armstrong and think that nothing has changed in 90 years because they haven't heard anything else. Anybody who likes rock oughta like jazz, especially fusion as mentioned above.

 

[GlassesWearingGenie]

Anybody who likes rock oughta like jazz, especially fusion as mentioned above.

Well, I like Chicago and Steely Dan if they count.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

This is going to be the most heretical shit ever but I think the blues is probably massively overplayed and there is very little creativity to it anymore.

If you hang around any guitar forum populated mostly by adults, 75% if not more of the people there will play blues of some description and will talk incessantly about getting the perfect tone, going so far as to obsess over $100k amplifiers that Stevie Ray Vaughan used and $1500 overdrive pedals and the right NOS capacitors to put into their guitar's tone control circuit to get THE RIGHT SOUND but then all they fucking play is the same shitty blues licks that everyone else has played.

There's only so much you can do with a fucking pentatonic scale.

It's just embarrassing as fuck to watch guys who are lawyers or whatever spend massive amounts of money on dumb bullshit to wank off to how much their soloing sounds like Jeff Beck, except not at all because they don't have his technical ability.

 

[DangerousGas]

This is going to be the most heretical shit ever but I think the blues is probably massively overplayed and there is very little creativity to it anymore.
...
There's only so much you can do with a fucking pentatonic scale.
.

^This. Pentatonic Blues is entry-level playing, and it's remarkably easy to play in such a way that it sounds 'right'. I tend to put it on about the same level as power-chording your way through a metal career. Sure, it's a valid technique, but it's not exactly all that compelling or prone to doing things that people haven't heard a million times before.

That said, I've grown to hate shredding. It's the most overblown form of showboating, and I'm pretty sure the planet's reserves of viable shred were tapped out by the early 80s.

 

[Positron]

This is going to be the most heretical shit ever but I think the blues is probably massively overplayed and there is very little creativity to it anymore.

If you hang around any guitar forum populated mostly by adults, 75% if not more of the people there will play blues of some description and will talk incessantly about getting the perfect tone, going so far as to obsess over $100k amplifiers that Stevie Ray Vaughan used and $1500 overdrive pedals and the right NOS capacitors to put into their guitar's tone control circuit to get THE RIGHT SOUND but then all they fucking play is the same shitty blues licks that everyone else has played.

There's only so much you can do with a fucking pentatonic scale.

It's just embarrassing as fuck to watch guys who are lawyers or whatever spend massive amounts of money on dumb bullshit to wank off to how much their soloing sounds like Jeff Beck, except not at all because they don't have his technical ability.

This is just like the behavior of some "audiophiles", spending obscene amount of money to play maybe a dozen records.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

This is going to be the most heretical shit ever but I think the blues is probably massively overplayed and there is very little creativity to it anymore.

If you hang around any guitar forum populated mostly by adults, 75% if not more of the people there will play blues of some description and will talk incessantly about getting the perfect tone, going so far as to obsess over $100k amplifiers that Stevie Ray Vaughan used and $1500 overdrive pedals and the right NOS capacitors to put into their guitar's tone control circuit to get THE RIGHT SOUND but then all they fucking play is the same shitty blues licks that everyone else has played.

There's only so much you can do with a fucking pentatonic scale.

It's just embarrassing as fuck to watch guys who are lawyers or whatever spend massive amounts of money on dumb bullshit to wank off to how much their soloing sounds like Jeff Beck, except not at all because they don't have his technical ability.

The blues really went downhill when the hippies got ahold of it.

 

[AnOminous]

If you hang around any guitar forum populated mostly by adults, 75% if not more of the people there will play blues of some description and will talk incessantly about getting the perfect tone, going so far as to obsess over $100k amplifiers that Stevie Ray Vaughan used and $1500 overdrive pedals and the right NOS capacitors to put into their guitar's tone control circuit to get THE RIGHT SOUND but then all they fucking play is the same shitty blues licks that everyone else has played.

Anyone who can afford that shit doesn't have the blues. Real bluesmen play the no name guitar they just got back from the hock shop with the last $20 their mom left them before she died.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Anyone who can afford that shit doesn't have the blues. Real bluesmen play the no name guitar they just got back from the hock shop with the last $20 their mom left them before she died.

Basically these people are all like:

 

[Raging Capybara]

As a prog fan, I hate "Emerson Lake and Palmer", they could play but could not write music, their best song isn't prog at all (Lucky Man).

Also, "Close to the Edge" by "Yes" is a horrible album (just like almost all of their discography, too much garbage fillers).

 

[Randy Lahey]

The Beatles suck

 

[Telefunken]

I enjoy classical music. It is actually really good.

Bob Marley is overrated and 90% of his material is crap.
The Dark Side of the Moon is overrated, and so is Abby Road.

Classic rock is overrated: most top 40 songs from the 50's, 60's and 70's were forgettable radio garbage, just like today, and all the people who say they were "born in the wrong generation" because of classic rock have no idea what they are wishing for.

Also, buying a expensive turntable (record player) does not give you better sound. 200 gram vinyl is also overrated. Hating on cheap turntables is contemptible and pathetically stupid.

 

[ShittyRecolor]

This is going to be the most heretical shit ever but I think the blues is probably massively overplayed and there is very little creativity to it anymore.

If you hang around any guitar forum populated mostly by adults, 75% if not more of the people there will play blues of some description and will talk incessantly about getting the perfect tone, going so far as to obsess over $100k amplifiers that Stevie Ray Vaughan used and $1500 overdrive pedals and the right NOS capacitors to put into their guitar's tone control circuit to get THE RIGHT SOUND but then all they fucking play is the same shitty blues licks that everyone else has played.

There's only so much you can do with a fucking pentatonic scale.

It's just embarrassing as fuck to watch guys who are lawyers or whatever spend massive amounts of money on dumb bullshit to wank off to how much their soloing sounds like Jeff Beck, except not at all because they don't have his technical ability.

This might sound banal as fuck, but the most important part of a great guitar tone are the guitarist's hands themselves. A few months ago I happened to jam together with a friend of mine who's been casually playing on the guitar for roughly five years. He had a sweet Fender Strat with Hot Rails pickups with a Fender halfstack, and I still sounded better with my cheap Peavey Raptor and Marshall 15CD. Not because I'm some kind of guitar god, far from it, but simply because I've been playing the guitar for more than ten years. Hell, during my teens there were years when I would practice 4-6 hours daily, so I had plenty time to practice having a nice sounding vibrato, and developing the muscle memory so I can focus on being musical rather than having to stress on playing my scales properly. The guy wasn't even that bad technically, but he had no dynamic variation, barely used any grace notes, would occasionally bend out of tune, and the way he picked has disrupted the vibration of his strings way too much.

As for unpopular opinion: I think mainstream pop music would be a lot cooler if they didn't shy away from using dissonance so much. They might sound commonplace for the more musically seasoned, but I barely hear them in charts anymore. It's not like dissonance is only for Jazz experts and Metalheads:

 

[Potatomongrel]

I don't like dancehall. It's so... crude. I don't know how it comes across as crude since I listen to metal but I don't understand it. I know of zero "hidden gems" in dancehall. It's so fucking awful, man. It's impossible to listen to. When I say "dancehall," I'm referring to modern dancehall like Popcaan and Alkaline. Even typing the names of those "musicians" is painful. I don't give a shit about old dancehall.

 

[sbm1990]

I think that melodic death metal is better than brutal death metal.

 

[Big Nasty]

Vanilla Ice made better use of that baseline than Queen and David Bowie.

 

[Oh Long Johnson]

Nirvana killed the hair band era? Bullshit. Five straight years of listening to the radio or watching MTV and saying, "It just keeps getting gayer," killed the hair bands.

U2 was pretty cool. In 1985.

I really connect with Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees. Everything else I've heard is intolerable.

De La Soul represents the high water mark for hip hop.

The music industry is famous for its thieves, but there will never be one as brazen as the Stones.

People who pay money to see Phish are brain damaged. Every time a friend of mine queues up one of their live recordings, I ask if it was an open mic night.

 

[ShittyRecolor]

I know he is considered quite the wordsmith, and I couldn't rap like him even if I had 10 years to practice nothing but flowing and rhyming, but I could never take Eminem's more thoughtful songs seriously because of his voice. It's okay for his more humorous material, but to me he sounds too much like a mid-pubescence Mandark from Dexter's Laboratory. It just ruins the whole tough-as-nails-white-gangsta image for me. Rap God is pretty fun though.

 

[ZepFloyd94]

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are such a disappointing live act.

 

[ShittyRecolor]

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are such a disappointing live act.

Huh, really? Usually I prefer the live versions of their songs, since during concerts they have more room for improvising and just jamming out. Then again I haven't listened to them perform live in a decade. I'd imagine the magic is somewhat missing without the chemistry between Flea and Frusciante.

 

[ZepFloyd94]

Huh, really? Usually I prefer the live versions of their songs, since during concerts they have more room for improvising and just jamming out. Then again I haven't listened to them perform live in a decade. I'd imagine the magic is somewhat missing without the chemistry between Flea and Frusciante.

I only saw them with the new guy on guitar. I bet the shows were better with Fruciante and even Navarro.