Post a controversial music opinion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygO-ws6vUrQ

this is the place where the opinions come out once and for all!! if the thread is locked, 100 more will spring up in its place!!

― my hands are always in my pockets or gesturing. (Karl Malone), Monday, 13 December 2021 16:20 (two days ago) link

https://www.cnet.com/a/img/yynWxy2TZRt7YZxAFZ9FgHDEDLk=/1092x0/2021/07/14/a74a3822-ed85-4b10-a5f2-d9c47e0dba77/screenshot-2021-07-14-at-09-24-09.png

all christmas music is inherently bad . . . not just subjectively either. it ruins societies and i'm sure if pure evil manifested itself into human form, that would be pure evil's musical preference.

the real problem is radio programming

fair point, but why is spotify recommending it to me when i've never even searched for christmas music . . . ever?

sorry, spotify. i like good music.

hence pre-radio Christmas music and Christmas-adjacent music - like trad carols and Tallis and Handel and a few others - is okay.

but generally I would agree that Christmas music written post-1943* can die in fire

* = yes, that date is cherry-picked specifically to include the only two 20th-century Christmas songs that are acceptable in my ears

which are also the saddest

and also among the best

they are, of course "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "I'll Be Home for Christmas"

bittersweet sad Christmas songs are best

fuck Frosty and Rudolph and Santa 4evs

"Merry Christmas Baby" (1947) is one of the great standards of the 20th Century.

Well, for Charles Brown I think one can move the goalpost to 1947

The boundary can be fuzzy as long as we don't get into Whamistan

guys . . . no.

it's all evil.

idgaf what anyone says - "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney is a very pleasant song and I'm happy to have heard it three times so far this season.

it's dope, hate is performative

ffs!

hate is performative, and performance leads to pleasure, and pleasure leads to pain, and pain leads to hate.

yessss

christmas music good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMm9ltRpXWg

hate is performative, and performance leads to pleasure, and pleasure leads to pain, and pain leads to hate.

― my hands are always in my pockets or gesturing. (Karl Malone), Wednesday, December 15, 2021 3:52 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

and god is empty just like me

i don't like christmas, i don't participate in christmas. i don't like music that reminds me it's christmas. christmas lights are ok if they approach the ideal of 'abstractly bright and shiny things in a dark season.' not really hate, just i would prefer not to.

i like to imagine some huge outdoor bonfire on the solstice with massive subs playing kevin drumm albums for 24 hours, the winter holiday of my dreams.

i read a little bit about the pagan holiday that xmas stole from. honestly it sounds like a shitty holiday too! arbitrarily enforced merriment that is a self-conscious inversion of some of our nastiest tendencies, no thanks.

NP: "Goop on Ya Grinch"

John Fahey's The New Possibility is beautiful and I think transcends "Christmas music"

that i would listen to

I'm doing everything I can to take a break from Christmas this year. It won't be completely successful, but it is considerably scaled back.

I've hated Christmas and the music for most of my life but now I'm actively invested in created a magical month for my son. I've been playing lots of cartoon Christmas music and this record https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1b4Bp30OjY

📹

Lost the reply format there, but what’s better than Sonic Youth? Sonic Youth & Christmas!

idgaf what anyone says - "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney is a very pleasant song and I'm happy to have heard it three times so far this season.

― peace, man, Wednesday, 15 December 2021 22:21 (two days ago) link

My overactive imagination filmed a vine/tiktok/whatever today. I’ll try to describe it: music playing: “...the choir of children sing their song, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong” and then an old-timey cartoon character, a dumb farmer with big buggy eyes, starts ringing a cow bell and yells at the top of his lungs in double speed “DING-DONG-DING-DONG-DING-DONG-DING-DONG-DING-DONG-DING-DONG-DING-DONG-DONG-DING-DONG...”. As this repeats itself ad nauseam the camera zooms in on his face, the film roll flickers, and layered vocal “ding dong” melodies start to play at different tempos but still in time, and a layer of vocal chatter and cheering starts to play behind it (gradual volume fade-in for all the new layers playing on top of the farmer’s loud voice)... I’m trying to remember what else happened but I layed down in bed after having this thought and ultimately changed the subject.

“Wonderful Christmastime” is alright song though. I’m just not in the mood for any Christmas music this year. As usual.

I'm not religious in the slightest, and I love a great deal of Christmas music. "Lo, How a Rose E'er-Blooming," "Boar's Head Carol," and I mean the overture to Handel's Messiah makes me weep, y'all are crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EBjgiD9zZ4

Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming is beautiful imo, and I'm not religious either and never have been.

Thirded--those old carols do the job stirring the soul.

adding to my list of most overrated music makers ever (all of them suck a lot):

the replacements*
sonic youth*
the rolling stones
pixies
nirvana
elvis costello

maybe three good songs among the lot.

*previously mentioned entries

also i'd like to offer a partial retraction on my xmas music stance: duke ellington's nutcracker suite is good and listenable.

what are the three songs

yes, the crucial follow-up

The Stones would not be considered overrated if they had died in a fiery plane crash in 1978.

or even 1982, tbh

i've never really understood the idea that mediocre later work takes away from the work the artist did in their prime? you don't have to listen to steel wheels or whatever albums, the idea that they should have died and stopped making music and that would be a better legacy is so strange, they are musicians they want to make music so why begrudge them that?

eh, just playing along

some people see it like Jeopardy! - you amass an early lead due to phenomenal early performance, but then you get reckless and start getting lots of questions wrong so you wind up losing.

but I don't view it that way at alllllll. I mean - an act can become "irrelevant" now and still be legendary for their peak period work.

It's just when people want to work them into the conversation for present time ("they're actually still really amazing") when they've been coasting for years or outright terrible....that's the only time I object.

It's hard to watch an artist you love try to keep riding the same tired horse, or become a parody of him- or herself.

That said, I still listen to the Stones' late 60s - mid 70s albums and they are just as great as they always were, perhaps greater with perspective.

I admit that as much as I loved R.E.M. in their prime (which lasted a long time), their extended period of decline was a bit of a bummer from an "optics" standpoint.

(I never begrudge an act/artist for soldiering on, though)

the other bummer is live, like, if a band starts really incorporating a significant amount of 'bummer' era music in their set and you barely hear the stuff you liked about them. obviously a band is gonna play the new album, but key example is Goo Goo Dolls. I love their first five albums, then they decided to 'sell out' and did Dizzy Up the Girl, and now they pretty much play NOTHING prior to that album other than their hits from A Boy Named Goo. It's like the classic era didn't exist.

"This is from our new album"

"Hope you like our new direction."

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JtvGR8UX1L0/maxresdefault.jpg

what are the three songs

― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Friday, January 14, 2022 8:23 AM

definitely on the list:
into the groovey
sympathy for the devil

blanking on anything else. i can this for sure: neither the replacements, elvis, not nirvana have a song on the list.

hope this clarifies. have a great day. thanks for reading.

*and definitely not nirvana

alright. talk to you guys later.

the stones covered countless classic blues and r&b songs, i’m assuming/hoping you’re not counting those?

none for the DISGRACEments, L-vis, or NILvana!

I saw the Replacements in 1989 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. They were shambolically brilliant.

I kind of agree about Elvis Costello and the Replacements being overrated, or at least they were at one time in certain rock-crit circles. These days I'm not sure how people rate them.

I own 1 album by each, "This Years Model" and "Let It Be", and they're fine, but I don't really listen to them that much.