Post a controversial music opinion

High Llamas relationship to the Beach Boys was always tangential at best (and related to a very brief period/narrow slice of their catalog) and was way over-emphasized in their press materials.

I would take even the low points of M.I.U. over the High Llamas tbh

No artist at all has a "New Jersey" - a huge event album that ultimately feels a bit hollow & signals a career decline

You could say that about any band that has the opportunity to develop someone else's idea further, if it works for you.

xps

There are a bunch of good Eagles songs. Every one of them was released as a single, so a compilation is all you need. There's not one Eagles album worth listening to all the way through. The Long Run comes closest.

The Beach Boys have, like, two good songs ("Good Vibrations" and "Don't Worry Baby"), and I could happily go the rest of my life without hearing either one of them ever again.

Can't think of any.

Black metal sucks. Even the "good" stuff is bad enough that it's worth handing the whole genre over to the Nazis and walking away. Let 'em have it.

Does it have to be a controversial opinion that we actually hold or are we allowed to just say something we think might wind people up?

Saying a band or genre you don't like sucks isn't controversial or even a wind-up tbh.

that late-90s Brian Wilson worship was so tiresome

Counterpoint: at a Silver Jews show, D. Berman did a sneering routine of saying, "What's the big deal with Brian Wilson? He's so overrated," etc.; which was equally annoying.

It could have been John Prine who wrote "Margaritaville."

Here's an (actually held) controversial opinion: while I've been into the Silver Jews since I first ran across "The Arizona Record" (filed under Pavement on a rack), and I think they have some terrific records, I also think Berman is significantly overvalued as a lyricist by most fans. He has some good one-liners, but his lyrics tend to be strings of "clever" non-sequiturs that only sometimes land. He's seen as some kind of rock poet.

I feel like the Eagles worm has been turning for years now, but still no one is ready to say the Eagles are good. Until now folks. The Eagles are Pretty Good

― strong deutan (rip van wanko), Friday, September 7, 2018 10:03 AM

We have a daily listening thread that'll prove you wrong.

you could make a dud list for most anybody

i remember Howard Stern once had a guy on who claimed it was ok to drink your own urine and he did it daily, so they had the guy pee in a cup and drink it to prove it. it was pretty clear he was not very used to drinking his own urine.

music is a fine hobbie for kids and teenagers but should be outgrown (outside of casual interest) early in adulthood

yes

99% of the music criticism on ILM is actually bad sociology

music is a fine hobbie for kids and teenagers but should be outgrown (outside of casual interest) early in adulthood

There's music for adults and music for children/teenagers. Many adults refuse to a) admit this and b) learn the difference.

apollonian >>> dionysian

xp - rude

90% of piano ballads suck

I heard "Take It to the Limit" on the radio last night and man that song sounds great, I'm pro-Eagles now

This is very, very good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqhYXLVYQJ8

controversial opinion: randy meisner sings "take it to the limit" better than etta james

Retro soul covers of rock songs (Charles Bradley's version of Black Sabbath's "Changes" comes immediately to mind) frequently suck, and are mostly championed by people who don't want to be seen liking the original version.

we definitely need another one of these threads

lots of opinions about people here instead of music what a surprise

*falls off high horse into trough of metallica blackened whiskey*

Probably not controversial, but have just realised that most of the music I don't really get, from The Eagles and Steely Dan through to 80s hardcore punk, yacht rock, hair metal, grunge and most of the US indie music of the last 25 years, it's all straight white American guys with guitars.

Kenny G and Chuck Mangione are the two most influential and important jazz artists of the 20th century and it isn't close.

Yeah, but only if you consider 'important' and 'influential' to be synonyms.

xxp humblebrag much, lol

didn't mean it that way, honest! I listen to a lot of music by straight non-American white guys with guitars for example.

man i love Steely Dan so much

Probably not controversial, but have just realised that most of the music I don't really get, from The Eagles and Steely Dan through to 80s hardcore punk, yacht rock, hair metal, grunge and most of the US indie music of the last 25 years, it's all straight white American guys with guitars.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, September 7, 2018 5:02 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed 100%, but I've known this basically all my life

three chords and the truth, that's all you really need

that's a quote about classic country songwriting, tbf

Joy Division was the best band of all times. In the early days of ILM this was less controversial, I think.

what is "yacht rock"

http://www.yachtrock.com/yacht-or-nyacht-jay-gradient/

iirc early ilm was full of very clever ppl saying ian curtis sounded like kermit the frog and that their lyrics were bad. it would prob be hard to find a single "challenging opinion" that hasn't been aired on ilm at least once over the years.

there's always a dumber take

Everything ever recorded by The Clash is absolute garbage until Cut The Crap

I think we had trouble finding someone who disliked Joy Division in the early ILM days!

I heard "Take It to the Limit" on the radio last night and man that song sounds great, I'm pro-Eagles now

Jesus Christ, no, that song is an outrage.

phish are better than the grateful dead

Björk's voice is horrendous

phish are better than the grateful dead

I'm willing to accept this as long as I don't have to listen to find out.

Post Malone got tunes, man

Björk's voice is horrendous

― flappy bird, Friday, September 7, 2018 6:44 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this take gains some heat coming from ilm's biggest smashing pumpkins fan

Björk's voice is horrendous

This isn't controversial because I came close to posting the same, or similar, earlier today.

so back where i'm from, there's a very outspoken subgenre of smiths fans who will argue that the band is clearly brilliant (because of marr's playing+arranging), despite its obvious flaws (morrissey).

as soon as i became familiar with that dynamic, it immediately hit me: hey david byrne is that, all-in-one, for talking heads! i've always thought his guitaring was pretty substantial, mainly for that super compressed jangle on the first few albums. that's a sound whose side i'm on, regardless of who's playing it. definitely prefer vampy heads, and extended jams.

all that being said, and this being the thread that it is, man f'kn talking heads are one of the most overrated bands of alltime. they don't suck, but they never made a front-to-back classic album. some classic singles for sure, but inconsistent as hell.

Both Tina and Chris are lovely people. My fave TH is that “Live In Rome” performance and I listen to “The Catherine Wheel” more than any of their band or other solo records.

nope; naked.

(song titles also begat the better band)

― austinato (Austin), Sunday, October 19, 2025 4:37 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ok, i give up trying to figure out what band named themselves after one of the tracks on Naked?

The classic family quartet Mommy Daddy You and I.

Let's not forget Big Daddy (Kane).

xxp I'm guessing that's a reference to Radiohead rather than a derivative of Naked titles

https://www.discogs.com/artist/256669-Blind-Mr-Jones

early material produced by neil from slowdive. dreampop flute ― recommended!

i'm mistaken! i guess slowdive was just a loose affiliation, no formal connection. band is still good.

i love music.

50% of the ECM catalog is the aural equivalent of watching paint dry.

The other 50% is THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER

surely some portion is both

Yes, but every ECM album, including and sometimes especially the super boring ones, has a "holy shit - what the fuck just happened?" moment about 2/3 of the way through.

haha otm

a controversial music prediction: confessions 2 will become a classic and a return to form, while inferno will be considered a done by the numbers disappointment

.. i'm probably wrong