Post a controversial music opinion

i actually find Belew's voice kind of beautiful when he's singing and not squawking on stuff like "Three of a Perfect Pair" and "Matte Kudasai"; the ones Sanpaku lists are definitely good examples. I realize it's my own issue but Byrne just annoys the heck out of me or leaves me cold a lot of the time.

― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Tuesday, October 30, 2018 2:31 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, basically this.

Drama is secretly one of the best records Yes ever made, and would be considered as such if Jon Anderson had been the singer on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMKfIXdxh-U

I watch this often. I really like it.

It occurred to me in a barely-awake state this morning that Belew's two main vocal approaches in KC mirror the two guitarists': the singing with long sustained swelling notes recalls Fripp's lyrical lead playing; the goofy squawk is like his own outlandish bursts of noise.

Most interesting. We should dedicate a thread to our semi-oneiric reflections on music before sleep or waking.

Lol, I'm in.

controversial halloween opinion: "Thriller" isnt that great a song, and really hard to buy into MJs performance on it if you didnt grow up in the 80s

Solange’s Don’t Touch My Hair is better than any of Beyoncé’s solo work.

Every song on that album is better than Beyoncé's entire solo work.

Every single album I have heard this year has been more interesting than the new Robyn.

now that's controversial

the nice > JH experience

I actually like the Nice but that's definitely controversial, yeah. Interesting, though.

David Byrne actually has a very nice melodious voice he’s grown into in the mid-90s, starting from the best Talking Head record, “Naked”. Just listen to the gorgeous ballads on his self-titled and the wonderful “Feelings”. Terrific melody writer. Yet all he’s ever championed for is the frigging early-to-midperiod Talking Heads.

THRAK contains Belew’s most melodious vocal work, and is the best King Crimson album overall.

This thread makes me feel good. I might become the new Geir.

Haha, I appreciate your stanning fir Naked. It isn't really the best, but it's pretty underrated. For at least a couple years after it was released, Naked was my favorite album by anyone, period.

Thriller is nowhere near MJ's best song, but it's a pretty solid album. For me Jackson's legacy was secured by the utter joy contained in his J5 vocals (ABC etc.), and anything he did as an "adult" is gravy. I barely paid attention to his post-Thriller work, and his consequent shenanigans.

THRAK feels like the one KC album that Belew utterly saves - not just in his vocal performances but in his songwriting. "Dinosaur" and "Walking on Air" are both really great. I've always thought of Belew as KC's "best" vocalist from a technical point of view (outside of maybe Lake on the first two albums), but you can see why they didn't have him cover the old material often.

Probably more bitchy than straight up controversial, but there's something satisfying in peeking into the TMBG poll thread, seeing Birdhouse at three - a track that makes me want to pull off my own ears and the ears of my family to save them the torment - and knowing I can safely tick them off the 'if only there was more time!' list.

sounds like you have a bee in your bonnet

Heh. Argh!

I agree the Robyn album is uninteresting 😑

Beyonce's "Don't Yourself" is more thrilling than Solange's work.

comparing them sucks

they don't really seem to be trying to do the same thing and i don't think anyone would compare them if they weren't related

or if they didn't have some kind of bone-deep hatred for beyoncé

DJs understand music better than musicians

circle of fifths vs moving the crowd FITE

DJs understand music better than musicians

― ogmor, Friday, November 2, 2018 8:30 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my problem this is the assumption that there's one way to understand music or better or worse ways to understand it

Only DJ kids will get this!

xp

do you think you understand music now any better than when you were born?

DJs have greater flexibility to understand music in different ways than a musician

i sorta appreciate the sentiment but as someone who's tried being both dj and musician i was more struck by their similarities than their differences re: understanding music / dj/musician is a false binary

I agree it's not a true binary and I got to this thought by thinking about the DJish qualities of certain musicians

do you think you understand music now any better than when you were born?

― ogmor, Friday, November 2, 2018 9:16 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's an interesting question! maybe? i *know* a lot more about music but i don't know if i understand really what the core of what makes it special is any more than i did, and maybe the knowledge gets in the way of understanding sometimes, or just reacting to it in a more real way

yeah, I think there's a Nietzschean point about understanding being overrated/in some ways a hindrance, but I also don't know if the inverse innocence/ineffability is the greatest ideal. it's not very flexible for one. I've definitely developed more modes of listening over time, and I think that's due to different types of understanding that inform each other.

but still, sometimes an album just seems like a DJ set where you are limited to tracks you've made yourself

eh I dunno just seems like the reverse of the older rockist idea that DJs aren't "real" musicians and a musicians understanding of theory etc gives them a bitter idea of how music works, i'm not sure if much is gained by turning that on its head and arguing the opposite, rather than just seeing them as two different ways of understanding music (curation/assemblage vs. theory/scales/circle of 5ths etc) that can inform each other

Yeah, I also think it understates the technical or rather technological dimension of DJ-ing, i.e. the fact that DJs are always working with recordings. Or is all painting ultimately photographic and/or cinematic?

what I'm thinking about is the relationship to the sound. it's more about the difference between how you relate as you play something and how you relate listening back afterwards. the difference between getting caught up in the intimate details of producing sound, which is both kind of subjective and also kind of selfless, and detaching yourself from it as your hear it as material.

I think it also represents a general long term shift in how ppl think about & relate to music. even the idea of having taste in music is quite modern and really depends on having recordings. my grandparents had a v different way of relating to music that was more limited

DJs have greater flexibility to understand music in different ways than a musician

I don't think it's greater flexibility so much as a different flexibility and I don't know why someone would understate the flexibility of musicians to actually put notes and sounds in different places to create music.

So DJs have a more 'critical' relationship with music than musicians? That doesn't sound right either.

djs understanding of music is still very context-specific though. i wanna say that like old-style session musicians = the gold standard of understanding music. djs who have regularly played a lot of different settings / are talented / have a lot of experience might be getting there, i think? musicians and bands can get to that level of understanding by exposing themselves to a lot of different live situations. i think this boils down to gaining a profound openness and level of technical proficiency that comes from being exposed to the social act of making music make meaning as much as possible.

Few famous session players made good songwriters or producers so their musical powers appear to be somewhat limited too.

i think part of the argument being made here is that songwriting and producing are too heavily weighted as indicators of musical powers in the first place.

Not a controversial music opinion: there are many different ways to "understand music" and none of them is the best one.

enjoying chewing this over.

I guess what I'm thinking about is that the more editorial ways of making music afforded by technology make it much easier to develop the detachment and distance necessary to have a sense of music as material, to be able to step outside of something and cast the same thing different ways. I think you can get it through composition, and if you have a high level of mastery of your instrument your performance of material can have that reflexive or ironic quality, gesturing outside itself, but you get this altering/slippage/transcendence of meaning all the time in DJ sets, everything is constantly in dialogue. some of my very favourite instrumentalists have that relational or materialist sense to their music as well, and I don't think it's a 'higher' or essential value, but I think it's only possible with a broad or flexible understanding and sympathy to different sorts of music, or different ways of hearing the same thing. it makes me think of hegel's idea of modern art as opposed to classical art but I don't want to read hegel again to confirm

I don't think there's a best way of listening or that all ways of listening are equal

"We've had 70 years of making records. Now, we sample them." = Mixmaster Morris

my problem this is the assumption that there's one way to understand music or better or worse ways to understand it

― Greta Van Fleek (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

otm

That assumption underlies a shitton of posts in this thread