Post a controversial music opinion

Yeah

Troye Sivan is a better guitarist than Jimmy Page.

LOL

there are more chords, key changes, and tempo changes in The Beths' "Future Hates Me" than there are in the Cardiacs' entire discography

king sucks

I don't want to think about this, fortunately I made a bot for it. let's see what it comes up with:

"Is This It is the sonic equivalent of ghosting."

There were, at minimum, a couple dozen albums released in '67 which are better than Sgt. Pepper.

That's not controversial.

R.E.M. is actually really boring

wow, thread finally delivers

I liked R.E.M. a lot in high school and they are all smart, nice guys with good taste but man, I just never want to listen to them anymore. Somewhere around Monster I lost all interest. the limited guitar playing and lack of sonic depth, the boring arrangements, the mewling vocals, the poor production choices and terrible mandolin playing and clunky videos, their catalog feels very inert to me.

like at best I can muster a "yeah that song's okay" for a number of tracks. but a whole album? ew, just never in the mood.

Most bands are boring tbh

all bands are excellent

^^^^

rt

not all bands

bandsplaining

All duos are terrible.

All bands except R.E.M. are excellent

more like blands amirite

Any musician who has not experienced - I do not say understood, but truly experienced - the necessity of dodecaphonic music is USELESS.

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

All duos are terrible.

All solo artists are cowards.

lol

All trios are Norwegian.

All ILM posters are liars

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 1:03 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have a constantly running loop of that lebowski clip in my head, but never more than last night when I was in a duane reade after hell commute that was playing take it easy

jmm otm

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 (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"i can't tell you why" is an amazing song but i can't join you here just yet

the eagles are good

i can't tell you why is really good

other eagles songs i like: hotel california, new kid in town, try and love again, take it easy, peaceful easy feeling, witchy woman

The High Llamas were (are?) a million times better than their 'parents', the Beach Boys.

that's not controversial, it's just wrong

the only good Beach Boy was/is Mike Love.

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

malkmus's best songs were with pavement but all those albums range from somewhat to wildly inconsistent, while real emotional trash is just great jams from start to finish

I still like "Losing My Edge" and "41:33" but meh to the rest of LCD

This is my camp. I quite honestly rate "Losing My Edge" as an all-time great single, I did so in 2002 and still do. I have little-to-no tolerance for all other LCD. I would probably prefer to leave a space than subject myself to "North American Scum" and/or "Daft Punk" and/or "All My Friends". Bad songs! The worst is when, too, people rated such terrible music so highly and I just didn't understand why they did so and still don't

My best friend has probably more adventurous tastes in music than I do, and generally is a few chapters ahead of me at all times in every genre except classical. He tried to convince me that LCD's third album is "actually terrific" and so I listened to it a few times and I can safely say that it is, without hyperbole, the worst album ever recorded in history, and competes with Schnittke's first symphony as the worst piece of music ever conceived

The most weirdly insulting thing about that album is the forthright "covers" of "White Light White Heat" and "Heroes", two songs I have never particularly rated that highly (but sure, they're good songs), and hearing them twisted and dis-improved as LCD did put me in this unbelievably awful position of multiple strains of feeling:

1. I hated the song I was listening to
2. I was finding that I liked the song the track was "covering" less, in addition to this
3. I found myself feeling weirdly 'protective' of the original material, like I was a docent asking James Murphy to please sir don't smear shit on the painting
4. I found myself feeling complicated in my feelings of 'protectiveness' because I'm not a huge fucking fan of either "Heroes" or "White Light White Heat", and it feels weird and bad when you're put into a position of having to care more about something than you actually do, like you've been drafted into a war that you don't want to fight

I do REALLY like "what DFA were trying to do", though. I love that Rayna and Delia album. I love that they signed planningtorock. I loved the shit out of their vol. 2 compilation. I literally actually cried a little bit when listening to the Liquid Liquid re-work, I loved it so much, and got so excited about the prospect of new Liquid Liquid material (which never came, but ah well).

it's also possible to like the first two albums and loathe "Losing My Edge" as a tired joke even in 2002.

And this is the opposite of my camp.

And the opposite of camp.

they have a fair few good songs but no great albums. by the third album he was largely out of ideas and settling for more directly ripping from others, instead of at least coming up with interesting combinations - "all my friends" being new order + eno was great. even the best track on it ("dance yrself clean") is a blatant rip, just of something much more obscure ("jaimaca running" by the pool) than most of his reference points.

it's a shame they ended up there because they do sound genuinely inspired on like, "beat connection", "yeah", etc. - shame they couldn't keep that up

afaic. the Juan MacLean were the only DFA group worth a shit in the long term. GMELT, particularly the Cajmere remix, are all time bangers

Nancy Whang brought the attractive blankness to her vocals that Murphy thought was beneath him or something.

I can't jettison 'All My Friends'; it means too much to me as a marker of a particular time in my life: I was mid-30s, coping with being a dad for the first (and second time); doing a poor job of it, in honesty; desperately trying to cling on to an older version of my life. As such, it's pretty much irony-proof for me; and the rush of the final few minutes is as real as it ever was, tinged with the same mixture of tainted euphoria, guilt and nostalgia.

And I'm with Brad on 'Something Great'. Love the version of it on 45:33 too.

I like the ending rockout section of "new body rhumba" because it sounds kind of like early Stereolab with that bassline (and the rock instrumentation)

We set controls for the heart of the sun

they have a fair few good songs but no great albums.

I still love Sound of Silver.

Gave Sound of Silver a try yesterday, which I mostly loved at the time, though the final track bothered me then even. So many highs and lows. Couldn't stomach "North American Scum" which felt genuinely witty at the time.

This Is Happening is the best LCD album.

The best New Order albums are Movement, Technique, and Waiting For The Sirens’ Call.

I won't argue.

Satanic Majesties is the best Stones album.

lol

it's not the best but I really love it, my pet crackpot take being that "2000 Light Years from Home" feels like the first krautrock song

Satanic Majesties is the best Stones album.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, March 21, 2023

i don't know the stones well enough to say such things, but i will say this: that's the only one of theirs that i have chosen to listen to in full on numerous occasions. "citadel" is a top 5 stones jam.

Ozzmosis is a fun album with agreeably melodic songs, hilarious production choices and the most undead vocal performances of his career. Everything corny about it just underscores the creepiness of his vocals. If this is Ozzy's worst album I don't think he's made any bad albums.

I do really really like that album, more than a few stones classics.. “citadel” and “light years” are both magic.

it's not the best but I really love it, my pet crackpot take being that "2000 Light Years from Home" feels like the first krautrock song

t's not the best but I really love it, my pet crackpot take being that "2000 Light Years from Home" feels like the first krautrock song

It does sound like a hairy ancestor of a Can track on Future Days.

Nothing controversial here until you start defending the jams on "Sing This All Together" and "Gomper".

i agree about SMJ— also the only Stones record I have a first vinyl pressing of, a gift from a friend

xpost thx brimstead!

np

the circle and the herd are both better than the first three wipers albums

dance yrself clean's wordless vocal line in the intro in the beginning sounds a lot like this chorus (around 1:18):

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

that's a great tune!

here's his supervillain origin story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYCz06bS380

kinda seems like a nice guy who'd be a valuable poster

I don't always sleep unshavenly in a dress shirt

But when I do I aspire to sleep in a dress shirt with the same unshaven aplomb as James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem

xpost to "Use other words please." maybe?

cheesy, corny, sappy

^^^can be complimentary and should be used in such a way more frequently; if not at least in a more "neutral description" sort of way. reclaim these the same way as "dated." because for some listeners, they are not negative qualities. i like a dumb gimmick and a big crescendo. that stuff sells the song sometimes and seals the deal for me. sure some people go too far and become afroman, but with the right amount you're basically bowie or prince.

(and let's not forget all those corny personas stevie wonder would conjure. has that ever been properly addressed? what were those songs about anyhow?)

I'd say this topic needs its own thread and would be surprised if it doesn't already have at least one.

"corny"

I hate the adjective "Corny".

Cheesy

gr8 post from Tom Ewing in that last one re: Emotionally Maniupulative vs. Intellectually Manipulative

"real good, real nice"

Most music on the broader pop spectrum takes a stance on this unavoidably and usually shows some process of deliberation on this question, I think.

Not just pop but i mean this isn't something e.g. carnatic music has to address.

Fela sounds better without sax solos

I don't know that that's so controversial, I don't think many people rate Fela's sax playing!

does he have a lot of tracks where he doesn't play sax? (I assume so, but I also just imagined that he did a little sax solo on each one)

I prefer his keyboard playing, but have never really had any issue with his sax honking.

I can't think of many where he doesn't play sax at some point. He isn't very good but I'm not that bothered about that.

Sun Ra's discovery of the synthesizer, though responsible for producing some sublime music, was ultimately a net loss for the discography

fela’s opening solo on “gentleman” is pretty badass imo

i'm accepting i'm really uncertified for my controversial opinion. opinion rescinded. going back to just listening and enjoying.

the other horns on fela tracks are sublime enough for me not to notice the subpar sax

(i do agree the horn sections generally are awesome to my ears all the way)

I love "corny", the word that is, and people using it when it's required, I don't like things that are corny.

"Cheesy" and "sappy" can kick rocks

Have to agree

the other horns on fela tracks are sublime enough for me not to notice the subpar sax

the other horns on fela tracks are sublime enough for me not to notice the subpar sax

Mmmm, the horn parts themselves are iconic and oft-imitated, but the trumpets are often pretty weak, you don't really want to hear any of them solo for too long.

right but solo isn't what the horns do -- imo the horns punctuate rather than take center stage. i like it!

Are we talking technical proficiency ? The horns are maybe not essential to the funk groove but they bring energy and personality and are integral to the melodic themes. Colonial mentality, Expensive Shit, Water no Get Enemy, Go Slow, Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am, Why Black Man Dey Suffer, Alu Jon Jonki Jon ... all the most glorious Kuti songs have soaring sax / horns lines. They don't have a clean sound like James Brown, but that's also part of Fela's live feel.

sorry to interrupt this with a total random thing—

—i don't have any thoughts because i always figured horns were such an integral part of fela's sound and he was the band leader and a better sax player than at least half the audience, so why the hell not just ride the groove a bit? i like neil young riffing on the theme for "cortez the killer" so fela honkin along to "water no get enemy" isn't much of a stretch—

—and now, to my very unrelated point:

jamiriquai : r+b :: the eagles : classic rock

and to quote a very cliched thing, i fucken hate the eagles, man.