Post your unpopular music-related opinions here

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Outrider
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18 Mar 2016, 5:45 am

My unpopular opinion:

I value sound quality over artistry.

No matter how creative or original or interesting something may be, for me to like it, it has to have good sound quality and production firstly.

It doesn't have to be on the level of famous musicians, who have million-dollar studios and producers and sound engineers to make their stuff sound good, but it still has to be what I deem decent quality, better than amateurish.

And, even professional stuff is usually produced quite poorly - over-compressed, lacking in dynamic range, etc.

I'm a beginner electronic producer, specifically I make Trance with good dynamics and really try to take the time to give it good sound quality.

I'm an audiophile who only likes music that sounds as perfectly mixed and mastered as possible. I despise the MP3 format and only make my songs in WAV or AIFF, I dislike most commercial speakers and headphones as they are low quality and prefer EQ Neutral studio monitors and studio headphones that give an accurate idea of the sound, etc.

I accept genres such as 'lo-fi' or other such genres that don't care as much about sound quality, but it's not to my taste, and I will usually not like it. Heavy metal is an example of this and there was a debate I heavily joined in another thread about how I wish there was more metal of better sound quality and production techniques.

'Good' or 'bad' music is completely objective, but I subjectively dislike music of poorer sound quality.



mr_bigmouth_502
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18 Mar 2016, 8:49 pm

Jory wrote:
mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:
There was a thread about unpopular political opinions, so I figured "why not do one about music? I have plenty of unpopular opinions on that."

Anyway, to kick things off, I must be one of the only people on Earth who like the production on Metallica's seminal album "...And Justice For All". Yes, there's virtually no bass guitar on it, yes it's quite cold and compressed sounding, and yes, the drums are probably a bit louder than they should be. However, the overall audio quality is actually quite crisp and clear to my ears, and the cold, clinical sound they gave it suits the bleak subject matter well. This isn't an album about banging your head or partying all night. No, it's about political corruption, the horror of war, nuclear winter, loss, and childhood trauma. It is a very dark album that touches on a number of sad things. A lot of people don't care for this kind of music, but I do. Why? Because it's real. If more people listened to this and took its subject matter to heart, maybe we would work harder at making the world a better place, and not making the same mistakes as our forefathers.

Just listen to this and tell me it's not beautiful.


Yes! :D My favorite Metallica album, and I love how it sounds. Image

There are versions on YouTube that increase the bass volume, but they sound awful to me. :thumbdown:

Admittedly, the version of "To Live is to Die" that I linked wasn't in the best audio quality. It's alright, but the MP3s I ripped years ago from my CD sound better, and a FLAC rip of that album would probably be even better than that.


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Outrider
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18 Mar 2016, 11:12 pm

That sounds fine to me. It's metallica, and their production is actually quite pleasing.

It's more along the lines of garagebands using their Dad's electric guitar and bass and amp from '87, an old half-broken second-hand drum set they found at the dump, a cheap microphone for under $25, and, when it comes to mixing/mastering their music on the computer, use Audacity and playback their recordings through some Beats headphones. *Cringe*. And, yes, I do know of bands or musicians who go about creating their music in a similar process. It's prevalent in all genres, especially electronic, where the focus is loudness over dynamics and having a 'powerful bass'. So most electronic producers use bass or sub-bass headphones, overdrive the bass in their productions, and use cheap, 'bass' speakers themselves to make 'beats' and 'bangerz' and make something 'dope'. EDMbros are very common, listeners or producers.

The sound quality and engineering of your music depends on what equipment, how much time and effort you have invested into it and this shows.

And, you can still keep a raw, authentic and natural sound if that's what you're going for, using top-level technology - just don't go overboard with it.



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18 Mar 2016, 11:42 pm

George Harrison is my favorite Beatle



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19 Mar 2016, 2:35 pm

The trend of boy bands deserve a comeback.


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Rockymntchris
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27 Mar 2016, 7:39 pm

My top five "overrated" list of "legendary" names in ROCK music.
1. Nirvana (I swear Cobain was out to sabotage and destroy rock as we knew it.)
2. Bruce Springsteen (should be considered pop and not rock.)
3. Chuck Berry (if you've heard one of his riffs, you've heard them all.)
4. The Yardbirds (although I'm a huge Zeppelin fan.)
5. David Lee Roth (Van Halen was better with him gone, Gigolo was worst video of a charted song ever.)


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27 Mar 2016, 9:00 pm

TheAP wrote:
I believe that there is no objectively good or bad music, just personal taste.

So, how do you define "objectively good" or "objectively bad"? Seems a little too broad and vague, if you ask me. If you're talking about "pleasant" versus "unpleasant," than I agree that music is largely subjective in that aspect. Some people like certain genres or types of music and dislike others, and they often change overtime. However, I also believe that people can be "musically intelligent," or "insightful" or "informed," or "musically unintelligent," "ignorant," or "insensible." As an avid musician, I constantly strive to be as musically intelligent as I can be, because just as Dr. Grandin "thinks in pictures," I think in music.
TheAP wrote:
I prefer music with lyrics to instrumental music. I like songs with a catchy chorus and/or meaningful, relatable lyrics. Guitar solos and repetitive choruses bore me. I like pop such as One Direction and old-fashioned folk.

So, would you consider yourself a "music-lover"? Because it seems to me that music is just something to entertain yourself with from time to time in a detached sort of way, which is all well and good - I'm not saying "Don't do that, it's wrong!" - it just seems a little saddening to me, because I love music more than almost anything and take it quite seriously.
TheAP wrote:
I like some sentimentality in music.

To me that's like saying "I like some math in physics," which I find quite amusing.


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27 Mar 2016, 9:09 pm

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:
There was a thread about unpopular political opinions, so I figured "why not do one about music? I have plenty of unpopular opinions on that."

Anyway, to kick things off, I must be one of the only people on Earth who like the production on Metallica's seminal album "...And Justice For All". Yes, there's virtually no bass guitar on it, yes it's quite cold and compressed sounding, and yes, the drums are probably a bit louder than they should be. However, the overall audio quality is actually quite crisp and clear to my ears, and the cold, clinical sound they gave it suits the bleak subject matter well. This isn't an album about banging your head or partying all night. No, it's about political corruption, the horror of war, nuclear winter, loss, and childhood trauma. It is a very dark album that touches on a number of sad things. A lot of people don't care for this kind of music, but I do. Why? Because it's real. If more people listened to this and took its subject matter to heart, maybe we would work harder at making the world a better place, and not making the same mistakes as our forefathers.

Just listen to this and tell me it's not beautiful.

That's my favorite Metallica album as well. The Bob Rock years kind of ruined them (except the "Black Album" was pretty good). I like the e minor/f-sharp minor relationships between sections on this song (as well as the chromatic mediant section in a minor that helps compliment the f-sharp section). Such soulful playing...I pity the fool who can't enjoy this stuff! :roll:


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deafghost52
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27 Mar 2016, 9:25 pm

beakybird wrote:
Music prior to 1990 sucked.

Lol - so remind me, beaky, how exactly did the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Hayden, Bach, Handel, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Dvorak, Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and a whole slew of other musicians well before 1990 suck? And that's not even considering anybody outside of classical music. Honestly, you wanna make a claim like that, back it up, don't just say "oh, it all sucked."


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27 Mar 2016, 11:44 pm

Pearl Jam has never been grunge. They play 70's styled hard rock.

Coldplay and Radiohead play progressive rock not alt rock.


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deafghost52
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28 Mar 2016, 6:39 am

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Pearl Jam has never been grunge. They play 70's styled hard rock.

I wouldn't exactly consider it to be "70's styled" (it definitely has a 90's vibe to it) - kind of more of a lighter alternative rock style, like Red Hot Chili Peppers in a way.
ASPartOfMe wrote:
Coldplay and Radiohead play progressive rock not alt rock.

Um...I fail to see how Coldplay is prog. Unless, of course, a lot of their stuff continues in the vein of 80's Rush-styled music, but then again that was a bit of a more "mainstream-sellout" period for those guys. I've heard Radiohead is considered somewhat proggy, but probably not one of the more experimental/avante-garde groups out there (next to, say, King Crimson).


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28 Mar 2016, 12:19 pm

deafghost52 wrote:
That's my favorite Metallica album as well. The Bob Rock years kind of ruined them (except the "Black Album" was pretty good). I like the e minor/f-sharp minor relationships between sections on this song (as well as the chromatic mediant section in a minor that helps compliment the f-sharp section). Such soulful playing...I pity the fool who can't enjoy this stuff! :roll:

I'm kind of torn when it comes to Metallica's Bob Rock era output myself. Some of it was pretty experimental, particularly "St. Anger" and "S&M", but much of it also comes off as radio-friendly dadrock. That's not to say it's bad music, I actually enjoy quite a bit of Metallica's work from this era, and at one time I considered "Load" one of my top Metallica albums, but it just doesn't approach the greatness that they reached in the mid-late 80s when they were still a highly technical thrash metal band.

Metallica never really managed to pick things back up after the critical panning "St. Anger" received (somewhat unfairly, I may add, though the album is definitely an acquired taste if you're not into 7 minute sololess tracks with strange production), and "Death Magnetic" was such an obvious attempt to cash in on their oldschool thrash roots that it wasn't even funny.

I've heard that they have a new album in the works, but I don't think it's going to be good. Metallica's members are just too old and worn out to play thrash, and they don't seem willing to really experiment anymore either. Now, if they fired Lars Ulrich and got someone who could actually play a double kick drumset... Maybe Slayer could lend them a hand? :twisted: Actually, just get Slayer to play the instrumentals, and James Hetfield to do the vocals. Then again, I don't think Slayer's playing style would mesh very well with James Hetfield's vocals. I'd almost say to get some assistance from Megadeth, but they're sounding pretty worn out nowadays too.


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28 Mar 2016, 12:57 pm

deafghost52 wrote:
So, how do you define "objectively good" or "objectively bad"? Seems a little too broad and vague, if you ask me. If you're talking about "pleasant" versus "unpleasant," than I agree that music is largely subjective in that aspect. Some people like certain genres or types of music and dislike others, and they often change overtime. However, I also believe that people can be "musically intelligent," or "insightful" or "informed," or "musically unintelligent," "ignorant," or "insensible." As an avid musician, I constantly strive to be as musically intelligent as I can be, because just as Dr. Grandin "thinks in pictures," I think in music.

What I'm basically saying is that we can develop a metric for measuring the quality of music, but really it's all subjective, and even the most musically knowledgeable people can differ on what they consider good music.
deafghost52 wrote:
So, would you consider yourself a "music-lover"? Because it seems to me that music is just something to entertain yourself with from time to time in a detached sort of way, which is all well and good - I'm not saying "Don't do that, it's wrong!" - it just seems a little saddening to me, because I love music more than almost anything and take it quite seriously.

In the past, music has been one of the most important things to me, and I have enjoyed listening to music I like more than anything. But I never really have sought out new music to listen to. These days I still enjoy music, but it feels like other thing are more important to me.
deafghost52 wrote:
To me that's like saying "I like some math in physics," which I find quite amusing.

Good point.



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28 Mar 2016, 3:28 pm

Here's some of mine:

I. I find Iggy Azalea to be really obnoxious and don't get why people are as crazy about her as they are.
II. I don't like Adele's singing voice. I'm sorry. I'm sure she's a nice person, but I can't stand her music.
III. I think that Coldplay is just a cheap ripoff of U2.
IV. I don't hate Miley Cyrus as much as other people do. I find her to be a decent person, if a little eccentric at times, but hey I know that I have my own eccentricities. I think everyone does to a certain level.



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28 Mar 2016, 3:45 pm

People who judge a singer based on his/her physical appearance are shallow. Although there are some singers who deserve to be judged based on physical appearance, most don't deserved to be judged.


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Kenya
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28 Mar 2016, 3:47 pm

AnonymousAnonymous wrote:
People who judge a singer based on his/her physical appearance are shallow. Although there are some singers who deserve to be judged based on physical appearance, most don't deserved to be judged.


Personally, that's the reason I like The Voice because it relies more on vocal talent than outward appearance.