Musical opinions that you just don't understand

[The Mollusk]

Aren't footwork and juke the same thing? Honestly.

new page, future bass is a big pile of shit!

[kngen]

Thinking that technical prowess makes music qualitatively better, an argument in all its various forms from "those punk bands couldn't even play their instruments" to the tedious "Yngie Malmsteen is a far better guitar player than Johnny Marr because he can scales play faster" arguments that seemed to dominate the letters pages of every guitar magazine from 1986 till Nirvana came along (and then it was Kurt Cobain vs ... I dunno ... Nuno Bettencourt or something) to "if you can't read music, you're not a real musician" classical snobbery.

I can understand it coming from teenage boys, where the Top Trumps mentality hasn't yet been eroded by the realities of life, but having these kinds of discussions with grown fucking men (including my dad) is wearying in the extreme. Yes, if you go to a harpsichord performance of fiddly baroque fugues, then someone slapping away at the keys like a performing seal is probably going to be a bit disappointing. But you're not, and they're not - so shut the fuck up.

[ASFTSN]

People that love krautrock but don't bother with other progressive rock (not slagging off that other thread, it just reminded me).

[sutin]

It always sounds to me like country music made by people who are embarrassed by country music. It always gets praised to the skies by serious music magazines and whatnot but it leaves me baffled.

It's always youngsters pretending to be old, whispering unmelodic gubbins through their big beards. Oh, and they're always wearing those fucking cowboy shirts that twats wear.

[chveik]

I bet you've never heard of Jay Munly and that whole Denver scene

[grainger]

Ah, you've never looked at Discogs entries for dance music 12"s then, people disagreeing with how they've been categorised. Threads full of people saying things like "How is this listed as Progressive House? It's definitely Hard Trance with a hint of Tech House but not even remotely Progressive House!"

Don't get me started on Wikipedia's insistence on using Allmusic as an authority on genres (and reviews). Who the hell are Allmusic? They can fuck off and their opinions are usually shit.

[sutin]

I bet you've never heard of Jay Munly and that whole Denver scene

Nope, not at all.

[MortSahlFan]

"drum machines" "auto-tune"

[Famous Mortimer]

"drum machines" "auto-tune"

How are they opinions?

[chveik]

Nope, not at all.

well, they're pretty good, the alt-country genre isn't completely worthless

[Sebastian Cobb]

"drum machines" "auto-tune"

I bet they'd explode if they found out some electronic people do just ram their drums through a harmonizer.

[jobotic]

I bet you've never heard of Jay Munly and that whole Denver scene

I have a friend who's a massive Slim Cessna's Auto Club fan. Never quite got into it myself but it's definitely not worthless. Would they be called alt-country though?

[Sin Agog]

I know Stewart Lee went through a phase of trying to push Alt-Country bands like Giant Sand every opportunity he got, but it rarely resonated much with me.  Country from (to quote Greil Marcus) 'the old, weird America' is just so fascinating and rich that I don't see the point.  That said, there are a few exceptions, like the Kiwi band The Renderers who made a nice, rheumy meld of noisy indie murk and country.  Love this single by them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7zLsQb5jfM

[purlieu]

Good point, I'd forgotten the slightly over subscribed 'Electronic' styles.

To be fair, it started out as an electronic music cataloguing website, so there were many years of building that up before other types were even allowed on there. But yes, it all gets a bit unnecessary past a certain point.

[timebug]

A former friend likes the Rolling Stones, and ONLY the Rolling Stones. Everything else to him, is crap. As one who grew up during the early years of the Stones (and the Beatles!) I liked the Stones music as much as anyone. Until about 1970, when Brian died and Mick started fucking around with disco style tracks. Since then, they have not amounted toanything, to me!
The rest of our 'old gang' all mates of a similar age, have diversified into many kinds of music; I don't claim to like them all, but I will give them a fair hearing, before dismissing them as shite.

[Sebastian Cobb]

A former friend likes the Rolling Stones, and ONLY the Rolling Stones. Everything else to him, is crap. As one who grew up during the early years of the Stones (and the Beatles!) I liked the Stones music as much as anyone. Until about 1970, when Brian died and Mick started fucking around with disco style tracks. Since then, they have not amounted toanything, to me!
The rest of our 'old gang' all mates of a similar age, have diversified into many kinds of music; I don't claim to like them all, but I will give them a fair hearing, before dismissing them as shite.

Right so you must be around my father's age. I don't really understand what happened to my dad's sense of taste after he bought a CD player. His LP collection is your fairly standard rock/blues/reggae, some alright stuff in there. The CD collection is all sorts of MOR wank. I wonder if some of it might've been because he joined Britannia to get the collection up without expending any effort and didn't send stuff back.

[Clownbaby]

Good point, I'd forgotten the slightly over subscribed 'Electronic' styles.



I'm sure there's people out there arguing if this 12" is nerdcore or not.

There absolutely does not need to be this many categorisations for any type of music

[the]

Yeah because there's absolutely no meaningful distinction between styles and scenes, what with them all being produced 'Electronically', that should be good enough. Just like all music predominantly featuring guitars need only be descripted as 'Guitar'.

[Clownbaby]

Yeah because there's absolutely no meaningful distinction between styles and scenes, what with them all being produced 'Electronically', that should be good enough. Just like all music predominantly featuring guitars need only be descripted as 'Guitar'.

Oh ha ha yes because that's what I meant of course

[pigamus]

Somebody's touched a nerve with the editor of Gabber and Skweee Magazine

[the]

They're only attempts to usefully distinguish one style/scene from another based on what's going on in the music, for the benefit of people that are into that particular syle/scene. It's archaic and awkward and not exact, and never will be, but it's still a diplomatic attempt to be meaningfully useful to its audience.

So why does the length of that list make you uncomfortable? I suspect it's because you have little or no connection to anything listed on it, but why should that have any bearing.

Would you like to state the case for an onion limit

[Pauline Walnuts]

Somebody's touched a nerve with the editor of Gabber and Skweee Magazine

Boy, we cover both types of music here.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I always assumed that the reason there's so many sub-genres is electronica was because mixmag hacks needed to pull something out of their arse to fill the mag and inventing a new genre was a tried and tested way of phoning it in.

[the]

Ah disinterested suspicion, yeah that'll be the reason then deffo. That satisfies.

Loads of those genres/scenes are fucking ancient, 30, 40, 50 years old. Older in the case of Musique Concrète.

[Clownbaby]

They're only attempts to usefully distinguish one style/scene from another based on what's going on in the music, for the benefit of people that are into that particular syle/scene. It's archaic and awkward and not exact, and never will be, but it's still a diplomatic attempt to be meaningfully useful to its audience.

So why does the length of that list make you uncomfortable? I suspect it's because you have little or no connection to anything listed on it, but why should that have any bearing.

Would you like to state the case for an onion limit

I wasn't being deadly serious, I just find hair-splitty microgenres of any music a bit egregious when they get to a point and I read that list and, like the accompanying post with that list, thought about how many people have probably exhaustively debated which specific type of a type an electronic artist is and got in a pure barney about. It's not only a feeling I have about electronic music. There I've explained myself

[grainger]

Even in broad music categories like "new wave", people can't agree what category bands go into. And then there are different terms internationally (e.g. the US didn't really have an aventies post-punk scene).

I don't think we need genres beyond the big, obvious ones like "rock", "pop" (and even these are highly debatable), "reggae", "jazz", "ambient", "dance" etc. Within these you just say what artists (or labels) you like. Beyond this, it just leads to misunderstandings and you end up having to say what artists you like anyway. Surely the purpose of these labels is to clear up what you like or dislike? But they don't, really?

[the]

It should only ever be a guide (and most artists will disagree with any that get applied to them anyway). If some people insist on treating it not as a guide but as a set-in-stone database categorisation, well... we all know people like that are around.

[Clownbaby]

Even in broad music categories like "new wave", people can't agree what category bands go into. And then there are different terms internationally (e.g. the US didn't really have an aventies post-punk scene).

I don't think we need genres beyond the big, obvious ones like "rock", "pop" (and even these are highly debatable), "reggae", "jazz", "ambient", "dance" etc. Within these you just say what artists (or labels) you like. Beyond this, it just leads to misunderstandings and you end up having to say what artists you like anyway. Surely the purpose of these labels is to clear up what you like or dislike? But they don't, really?

Agree. My feelings about the list kind of come from people shouting me down for not referring to an artist that i like in the "correct'' exact subgenre and making it into a depressingly condescending argument about semantics when I only wanted to have bloody smalltalk at a gig. Many people in this thread have mentioned the link between musical opinions and personal experience and this is one of mine. Yes I get that there are people who find all those subgenres useful. Not me though

[Clownbaby]

It should only ever be a guide (and most artists will disagree with any that get applied to them anyway). If some people insist on treating it not as a guide but as a set-in-stone database categorisation, well... we all know people like that are around.

Aye well that's the people that came to mind when i saw the list

[The Mollusk]

Loads of those genres/scenes are fucking ancient, 30, 40, 50 years old. Older in the case of Musique Concrète.

Recording noises and manipulating them? Load of bollocks. Musique Granìte is all we listen to in this cave.