For me : Trippie Redd’s “!” Is actually a great album
Lyrics don’t add value to 99.99% of music and any notes from them should be from an actual instrument.
Baroque music sounds absolutely shit. Composers try to mix in so many different voices that it’s the musical equivalent of a TV panel show where everyone is shouting over one another.
On that note: harpsichords in ensembles are background noise at best and very few people would notice their absence.
Imagine Dragons is pretty good
How is that a unpopular opinion ? We were all rocking Believer as kid
Fuck I’m old.
I’ve never heard of this band but Wikipedia tells me Believer came out in 2017… lol how old can you possibly be?
I was definitely no longer a kid long before 2017
Ah my bad
Modern music slaps. Just gotta find the right albums.
There’s people on spotify with less than 5000 monthly listeners pumping out music so good it would have topped charts 10 years ago. The quality and talent of artists these days is insane.
These days? This has always been the case. I remember downloading mp3s from unknowns who offered their music for free in the internet on the early 2000s. Great music.
Care to share some of your favorites?
One of my favorites recently has been Djesse Vol. 4 by Jacob Collier
Depends on how new you want it, but Rime of Memory by Panopticon is great.
Johnny Cash’s Hurt is overrated.
Johnny Cash is great, and deserves his legacy, but that cover is mediocre.
The majority of both Drake’s and Kanye’s discographies are horrible. I’ve had this opinion since way before they’ve had their public drama.
90% of all radio songs lately have been horrendous covers of old songs, with some of them literally being just that old song, but with a cookie cutter beat under them. The other 10% are just said cookie cutter beats with some generic singer doing an annoying voice over them.
Popular music is becoming more creatively bankrupt than it ever has been.
When people complain about new music not living up to old, it just means they’ve quit exploring and form their prejudices on the pop genre they hear, which has always been the lowest hanging song on the tree.
Doesn’t this usually refer to music on the radio? I think most people understand that there’s lots of good music if you look for it, but the problem is the “popular” music is getting more and more formulaic
The thing is, I don’t want to have to look for it. Growing up I could turn on the radio and hear amazing music on pretty much any popular channel. Depeche Mode, Billy Idol, David Bowie, REM, XTC, Goo Goo Dolls, En Vogue, Green Day, Alanis Morrissette, Boyz II Men, Sarah MacLachlan, and so many others. It was a preponderance of great music with some shitty stuff interspersed.
Growing up, everything you heard was new to you. An experience. People older than you was saying the same shit about the music you were enjoying at the time. That’s how it goes.
absolute truth right here. I used to be like that, “Brehh Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and Queen were the last good bands”. Looking back I was such a tool. First because it’s such a douche thing to belittle people for their music preference, and second because there is a ton of a great music. Now I can say I’m honestly a huge swiftie and I like a ton of music across several decades.
We have the most variety of music in history right now. To say “I don’t like new music” is absurd, and you’re exactly right, just means they just don’t even try.
As an unpopular opinion on the other end, it’s ok to stop participating in pop culture. Pop music, Blockbuster movies, and TV are all meant to sell consumerism to young people with disposable incomes. Not to people who are bogged down by kids and mortgages.
New media isn’t made for your tastes, so unless you make an effort to change your tastes to those of the current generation of young people, new media will never be seen as good enough by you
I think there’s an important difference between “there is no new good music” and “I don’t like any new music”.
The former is making a broad proclamation. The latter is keeping it limited to your personal experience, even if phrased a little sloppily.
Though I guess you could argue people saying the former really mean the latter and are just communicating kind of badly.
I think survivorship bias plays into it as well. Yeah, most the stuff on the radio today is kinda meh. Most the stuff on the radio in those days was kinda meh too. All the meh songs got forgotten, and you only remember the bangers. You’ve already seen it happen to 00s music and we’re watching it happen with the 10s.
But yeah, it’s wild how many people look at how accessible different types of music are now and just… don’t go looking.
For so many artists, they’ll have a single hit that survived the test of time and most that didn’t. We hear the one song that not only topped the charts but continued to be remembered. I tried going back to the top 100 songs of the 50’s. Some of them are good (Hound Dog), but others frankly just aren’t very good. Contrast that with the modern day, I had a neighbor growing up who is a professional singer who has better original songs.
Then you just get the factor of time itself. Old includes all surviving music before the present day. When you have centuries of music (if not more),
Eric Clapton is wildly overrated
Cocaine is his only good song.
Now this is an unpopular opinion, mostly about Cocaine being good in any capacity.
I guess my unpopular opinion is that I don’t think that’s a very good song :)
YES! He’s a massive idiot too.
Old bands such as Joy Division are amazing and most new music doesn’t even get close to that.
Not a “good ol’ time” advocate but yeah, music was way better in past.
Separating the artist from the art is fine.
You can like music by someone who doesn’t share your social, political, or religious beliefs with.I’ll go a step further:
You have to separate the art from the artist because there is not a single artist I’ve ever encountered who wasn’t some kind of fucking trashhole of a person.
Artists spent their lives on being artists, not developing good interpersonal skills or understanding politics or philosophy.
Beleiving an artist is a “good person” is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Start out assuming they suck dogshit and you usually end up being right.
I think it’s reasonable to draw some lines that, when crossed, you’ll choose to disengage from their art.
The musician doesn’t have to be a saint. But if I find out they, I don’t know, love eating live puppies, I’m going to prefer spending my time and attention elsewhere.
I agree, but I like to start from a position of “this person probably sucks” because then I’m never disappointed.
This is a fair position to take.
I tend to avoid listening to interviews with bands I like in case they’re terrible.
Though weirdly I’ll chat with folks at merch tables.
Sam from Future Islands is a pretty dope guy.
Agreed. Show me a flawless human being, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t have anything interesting to share with the world.
I’m alright with this as long as you pirate it lol
This is actually really popular among my music students. I completely disagree on most case. X raped 300 kids but hey, he makes pretty good beats so let’s pay 200$ for a concert.
I guess it’s the same as buying Nestle Hot Chocolate knowing full well child labor was involved. It’s ok as long as your sweet tooth is satisfied.
You got downvoted by someone who didn’t understand sarcasm so I evened it back out.
Upvoted because this is the one I most strongly disagree with.
Hitlers art but ignore the holocaust?
Lost Prophets but ignore the lead singers horrifying SA of children?
Kanye West and his anti semitism insanity?
Chris Brown and beating the shit out of women?
R. Kelly and SA a child?
Rowling and her hatred of trans children?
Michael Jackson and his … weird child obsession?
Gary Glitter and his SA?
The Pianist is one of the best war movies I’ve ever seen… even though Polanski.
Separating the artist from the art is fine for me as long as you don’t support them. There is nothing inherently wrong with consuming media you like from a controversial figure.
Of course it’s hard to separate the artist and the art if you actively give them money for it.
I like some of Kanye West’s music but I would never spend a single cent on one of his albums, watch an ad on Youtube for his music videos or listen to his songs on streaming services.
I cant stand listening to someone singing, knowing full well they rape children 🤷♀️
each to their own I suppose
the examples you gave
Yes, that’s what separating the art from the artist means.
Well aware. I am listing examples of why I cant separate. Hence my “disagree” comment
🤨
My mind is telling me nooooo
But my body
My bodyyyyy is telling me yesss
Bomfunk MC’s Freestyler is the peak of musical creation. (Ok, prolly no but I love coming back to it.)
(Fwiw, initially I read “triple !” (i.e. !!! or ChkChkChk) in your op comment and thought why?, that’s a great band.)
Modern electronic music is the spiritual successor to classical music (and modern-day “classical” compositions are just rehashes).
I upvoted you, but you are not entirely right in my opinion.
Not all classical music is created equal. I am quite convinced that if J.S. Bach had lived today, he would make music like Squarepusher. However, somebody like Gustav Holst would probably be in some kind of doom metal or progressive metal.
Thoughts on Ummet Ozcan?
Modern electronic music is the spiritual successor to classical music
I don’t disagree, but can you explain your reasoning behind this?
Mostly because electronic music is made by a single composer and that the performance by the musicians itself is not as central to the composition.
And that Mozart would be probably making electronic music if he was born in this era.
performance by the musicians itself is not as central to the composition
Extremely debatable. With Renaissance and Romanticism came the cult of personality around celebrities. Lisztomania basically mirrored Beatlemania but for the virtuoso Hungarian pianist and composer, in the mid 1800s. Haydn and Paganini reportedly had a rather large female followings who weren’t really interested in their knack for musical harmony. IIRC, there are accounts of Mozart indulging in the lifestyle of a young royal composer with some renown.
I don’t know if he’d be making electronic music, honestly. Mozart broke so many of his contemporary musical rules, with all that has been invented since, I find it hard to believe he’d limit himself to it. Maybe progressive/experimental stuff ala Aphex Twin lol?
The composers are usually not the musicians though when it comes to classical music, especially since most of the composers are already dead 🤪
But just imagine a Beatles cover band becoming more famous than the Beatles themselves. Something like is common when it comes to orchestras that play classical music though.
Sure, there is some personality cult around famous conductors and so on, but that is really more comparable to DJs that remix but do not compose their own electronic music.
I mean, of course it’s gonna be interprets nowadays if the composers are dead, but composers were also often musicians or directors for their own music when they were alive 🤷♂️ It’s very difficult to play multiple instruments by yourself to hear your own composition when multitrack audio recording wasn’t a thing lol
A more accurate equivalence for the Beatles cover band would be if they were from year 2187 and all of The Beatles’ recordings were lost to time, which wouldn’t be particularly weird at this point, considering nobody alive in this year would remember what hearing The Beatles was like.
I guess if you’re talking about classical music as we live it now the comparison kind of makes sense, but “classical music” means so many things, spanning a couple centuries through multiple countries and waves - e.g. Bach, Mozart and Glass barely have anything to do with each other.
Mozart would probably go fucking nuts looking at modern notation software like Sibelius/MuseScore/Dorico tho lol
Upvoted because of bad/unpopular opinion, don’t agree at all.
I can get down with this.
The vast majority of music without lyrics sucks.
Classical music and the entire lo-fi genre would like a word with you. (And I’m forgetting a lot of them, like bossa)
Or do you mean removing voices from songs ?
Either way, there are music with absolutely legendary instrumentals that would be bangers with or without voices.
Nah, classical music is one example. Another big one is techno/electronic stuff.
Contemplate Clair de Lune from Debussy, take a gander at Gwyn, Lord of Cinder’s theme from the Dark souls OST, let your mind wander at Time from the Inception OST. And that’s only the most mainstream I could think of.
Beautiful music is everywhere, from every media, in every genre, you just just have to listen.
I kind of agree with you, there is a lot of great soundtracks. However, for me a soundtrack is part of a larger medium, which it underscores or sublements. Most of them make medicore songs at best when listend to in isolation.
Can’t you say that of everything though ? Take rap for example, doesn’t it fit in a larger medium that is the rapper’s life ? You cant have a piece of art existing in a vacuum. If I listen to Gwyn’s theme, am I liking it because I played the game or because it’s intrinsically beautiful ? Does it make it less beautiful to me ? Does it matter ?
Take rap for example, doesn’t it fit in a larger medium that is the rapper’s life ?
Maybe. I don’t really care about artists and usually know nothing about them, so that aspect is usually irrelevant to me.
I didn’t mean that the life of the artist is relevant, but lyrics are the reflection of an artist’s existence, so even if you don’t care about the artist themselves you’re still listening to their lyrics.
That’s why I say pieces don’t just exist in a vacuum.
Imo it depend what the instrumental is.If it’s some aggresive guitar riffs that bands like Mayhem or Siculicidium could drop, i will love it. It’s just some weird noises made by a computer i will find it boring.
There is definitely exceptions. Though guitar instrumentals don’t do it for me, even though I generally listen to the rock/metal genre.
But for example I really like violin covers by this one artist/youtuber of movie and game soundtracks (especially the Zelda games). But that’s some of the only instrumental music I listen to and only when I’m in a specific mood.
And even there I think nostalgia is doing most of the heavy lifting for me enjoying the songs.
What about some post rock? I find it very nice relaxing music and being without lyrics is also part of that. Bands like God Is an Astronaut, Explosions in the Sky, Mono, Mogwai, etc. Even Sigur Ros which technically include singing, but it’s just gibberish to have “another instrument”.
I’ll save this comment, because I’m not going to check those suggestions out right now.
Maybe in a few weeks you’ll get a random reply to this comment. I’ve done it before, but no promise.
For me it’s the opposite. The song start and the music is a banger but as soon as the lyrics comes, it’s ruined.
Trash lyrics fucking up an otherwise good song. It happens far too often.
That’s why I’m just a bit of a fan of Thom Yorke’s whole “using my voice as an instrument, the words don’t mean anything” vibe because at least he purposefully isn’t trying to make meaningful lyrics and instead is just trying to add another instrument to the music.
I’m with you on this one. There are lyrics on almost every single track for crying out loud. Throw us instrumental lovers a bone won’t you? Songs that are lyrically driven but are otherwise super-repetitive instrumentally tend to put me to sleep.
What I love about concerts is when the band goes off script and just starts jamming. Even a 5-minute drum solo will have me grinning ear to ear, and that’s what I’ll be remembering on the way home.
Repetitive instrumental pattern is my #1 skip reason xD that “Aight I’m bored” moment when you realize the song has nothing more to give is a sad waste of time.
I love 21 pilots and Foo fighters for their great instrumental + vocal balance
The beatles are vastly overrated. They may have been trailblazers at the time but their music really doesn’t hold up
Decade or two ago I would agree with you.
Nowadays not that much. Ofc those radio songs you’ve heard more than billion times are awful and helps nobody to appreciate Beatles. But if you dig a bit deeper into songs that are ignored by radios, there are quite some good songs.
For one, I can’t believe Helter Skelter was made by the same Beatles as e.g. Help. Or whole Sgt. Pepper album is nice too.
Maybe I should specify, I don’t like typical radio music.
Metal head etc etc.
Go listen Helter Skelter then. That’s some Beatles I can appreciate.
