I like these!
1. Tool
2. Deftones
3. Smashing Pumpkins
4. Puscifer
5. Nine Inch Nails
6. The Smiths
7. Stabbing Westard
8. Snot
9. Strait Up (posthumous tribute album to Lynn Strait of Snot)
The crunk core stuff I couldn't stand and vented my spleen about it when it was getting popular on Youtube. I like music with meaning, even when it crosses all genre lines. Music is supposed to be emotionally affecting and most pop music is overproduced, cloyingly Disney-esque, digitally slick garbage. That's my opinion, but I defy anyone to find value in throw-away lyrics like "We're dancin' like we're dumb, dumb, d-d-dumb". Meanwhile, Puscifer is writing "what do you know" (probably addressed to whoever wrote the latter) like it's a not a question, but an accusation of ignorance and a demand for an explanation.
Of course, the lyrics of 1938 were not much better... ""Oh, the flat foot floogie with a floy, floy". I don't blame pop, so much as the tasteless songwriters who find something mindless to write about with five other friends and then sell it to a guy who makes "beats".
I like songs or albums that challenge the listener to feel something. Radiohead does that for me... Some of their songs like "Last Flowers Till The Hospital" open an emotional wellspring in me. I think of a friend who killed herself at the start of the global recession, leaving behind her nine year old son. I get nothing out of hearing Ke$ha drunkenly belch the names of her favorite rappers before the chorus kicks in early because she clogged her mic with vomit. Although, if it were a punk band doing that, it would only add to their mystique and appeal. But then, punk is punk and pop is pop. Punk can try to be pop if it's an attempt to subvert the system, but pop should never try to be punk. Every attempt so far has fallen on its face. Pop should also not try to be grunge, for the same reasons.
Okay, I've opined enough for one thread... Sorry.
Anyway, I hope someone else's taste will intersect in this mess of influences. I'm picky about what I listen to because it takes time to hear it, and that's time I can't get back. You have literally aged 3 minutes after hearing a song. Might as well be something you like.
Last edited by Pram on 04 Jul 2011, 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.