FYI: Truth Attack - All Genres Of Music That Have Ever Existed Contain Awesome Music In Them, And If You Write Off A Whole Genre Of Music You Are Being Closeminded And Dumb

ethan why are you bothering

There are some ways that punk ruined music but it wasn't because it killed McCartney-esque pop; it's because it gave people the idea that you could make consistently good music without knowing anything, either via study or osmosis, about music theory. It also gave the impression you didn't need to know how to sing or play an instrument to be in a decent band.

i kind of agree with this! as a kneejerk reaction, anyway, i assume there are all sorts of arguments and examples people could use to 'prove' that it doesn't hold up. but i agree with the spirit of it.

metal is my huge blind spot, everything about it is so alien to me...so much so that i'd never even diss it in passing, but i don't think i'm ever going to appreciate a metal track.

James Brown originally wasn't all that popular.

lolz

More melodic. There doesn't need to be an opposition between melody and rhythm. As, actually, a lot of 70s disco proved. Not to mention early 80s new pop.

James Brown originally wasn't all that popular.
Yeah, neither were the Beatles until Eric Idle came to the rescue.

geir, here's what you're saying sounds like to me -

"paintings that use lots of blue are the only good paintings, and paintings that use orange ruined painting. there are some paintings that use blue and orange, and they're good because of the blue parts. but you should really only enjoy paintings that are blue."

is this an unfair characterization? can you explain how what you're saying is different than this?

anyway the title of this thread should be ILMs motto/credo

geir, here's what you're saying sounds like to me -

"paintings that use lots of blue are the only good paintings, and paintings that use orange ruined painting. there are some paintings that use blue and orange, and they're good because of the blue parts. but you should really only enjoy paintings that are blue."

is this an unfair characterization? can you explain how what you're saying is different than this?

In the past, only paintings that looked like they "photographed" reality were considered worthy paintings. At the same time, only music with melody was considered real music. The people back then were right.

where's that thread where people went into geir's slsk folders and found a load of wu-tang and jay-z?

yes, one would think....but last week made me think a "stating the obvious" thread was, in fact, necessary.

so is this like an ilm reboot?

in...well, not defense of geir, but in defense of him not being quite the freakish monoimaniacal outlier he appears to be here, i know plenty of people who routinely write off whole genres -- not as being not of personal interest, or something they just don't get, but as being somehow objectively valueless. hip-hop and country are the two most common, but dance/disco/techno, jazz and metal aren't unusual targets. so i think this is one of those threads that's painfully well-duh in the ilm universe, but pretty challopsy at the corner bar. but since none of the corner-bar guys are here, except geir, there's only so much mileage we can get out of it.

it's because it gave people the idea that you could make consistently good music without knowing anything, either via study or osmosis, about music theory.

to be more detailed about the problem with this statement specifically, this means you either have to say that "uneducated" (ie not formally trained) musicians like tribal drummers or early blues musicians or appalachian folk musicians are incapable of making "consistently good music," or you just have to admit that everyone has some knowledge of music theory via osmosis (ie just because they have heard music through their lives).

(oops. monoimaniacal = only listens to cockney rejects)

In the past, only paintings that looked like they "photographed" reality were considered worthy paintings. At the same time, only music with melody was considered real music. The people back then were right.
Now you're saying that Picasso, Van Gogh and multitudes of others all suck?

I think you're underestimating the amount of practice and training and learning through watching/participating that even "tribal drummers" go through.

One doesn't need formal training, no. But an understanding of one's instrument and even an intuitive understanding of music as an entity, yes.

The people back then were right.

There's absolutely no reason why the first opinion should be considered the best! Why do you say they were right?! If your answer boils down to "they just were, I believe it's right because it's right," then FUCK YOU YOU'RE NOT IN CHARGE OF MUSIC ASDFJ;LKASJD;FLAKS JD;ASISUREPWQU9[JFMJKA834787034U!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, because he is an IGNORANT RETARD. You guys are getting this, right?

In a way, punk was the reason for boy/girl bands. I am sure the punks of the 70s never intended it that way, but boy/girl bands were pretty unthinkable in a time where you had to be a musical wiz way above average to even get a recording contract.

except these things are true

Yes, they are.

Not every person who knows how to sing sounds like a Celine Dion or a Clay Aiken and you can know very well how to play an instrument but decide to only play three chords on it; you can also "get" the way that music works or learn about it as you go with having any formal study or a degree in it. I submit that if you can't sing on any level, you don't know how to play your instrument at all and you don't know how to put a song together, your band will not be very good, and I defy you to point out ANY moderately successful band that doesn't do all three of these things.

xp: I would, in fact, argue that there is more than one way to study music and that not everything needs to be rooted in Western academia; I am reasonably certain that tribal drummers do not fall out of the womb knowing the drum patterns of their forefathers, for example.

There are some ways that punk ruined music but it wasn't because it killed McCartney-esque pop; it's because it gave people the idea that you could make consistently good music without knowing anything, either via study or osmosis, about music theory. It also gave the impression you didn't need to know how to sing or play an instrument to be in a decent band.,

^^^strongly strongly disagree..that's the problem with these types of discussions, ppl just cherry pick examples to go with what ever thing they want to think....in all honesty, i don't think bands that are "great musicians" are any better on the whole than weirdo amateurs....like for every band, like say, king crimson, who were on the high scale of being super adept musicians and are great...there's a bad phish oriented local jam band that is just horrid....the same...for every bad shitty punk band bashing it out and sucking there's a band like young marble giants or early wire that make rudimentary chops a plus.

n/a I agree (see the David Fair guitar thread e.g.) but I think HI DERE put "consistently" in there to imply that the idea of quality control sometimes goes out the window in those situations, not to mean that nothing of worth comes out of it.

many xposts!

ethan you are very patient and I admire yr geir outreach program

but remember that story about the german jazz fan who ran up front and started banging on the stage at a sonny sharrock concert yelling "THIS IS NOT JAZZ! THIS IS NOT JAZZ!"

discussing this w/ geir is like talking jazz w/ that guy

Now you're saying that Picasso, Van Gogh and multitudes of others all suck?

There are others that are considerably worse. Picasso and Van Gogh do at least give an idea of what they are painting. I also accept painters like Dali and Andy Warhol, because they are figurative, only "hallucinating" the reality rather than "photographing" it. A bit like painting's answer to 1967 psych pop.

McCartney encouraged complacency and stagnation in melodic pop rock by persisting for as long he has, causing more damage to it than any 'opposing' genre.

I want to hear some of his Fireman stuff tho.

basically GENUINELY talented and special people will make special music whether they are dropped off a conservatory at age 8 to study composition, or dropped in a shithole suburban garage with a crappy drum kit and a $150 kramer guitar....

I submit that if you can't sing on any level, you don't know how to play your instrument at all and you don't know how to put a song together

uh i counterdefy you to name a band, unsuccessful or not, that meets these strawman criteria

But it takes years of practice to learn.

The prog musicians of the early 70s started out in the 60s, but they weren't as excellent then.

x-post to HI DERE--But how do you define can't sing, can't play, can't put a song together? That could mean anything to anybody.

M@tt with the realness

Geir's problem is that he ascribes some kind of Platonic ideal authority to his weirdly myopic worldview. There are plenty of people who are casual fans of music that write off entire genres as not being interesting to them, but they don't act like their opinions should be written in stone as scientific fact the way geir does.

but they don't act like their opinions should be written in stone as scientific fact the way geir does.

OTM.

Geir: there is no correlation between the strength and the correctness of your, or anybody's, opinions!

but especially his

Multiple xposts:

1. I agree with M@tt's statement re: talented people with an affinity for music.

2. How many metal acts can you name with frontmen who sing like Kenny Chesney? Someone who sounds like that is not going to be very successful in the metal genre because he's not suited to what people are expecting from it unless he hits some major right-place/right-time karma. Nothing is impossible but COME THE FUCK ON everyone knows what is likely to succeed within a genre and what is likely to fail, and one of the most annoying parts of the way ILM talks about music is this moon-eyed "everything is possible and amazing and magic and unknowable" bullshit when practically everything we talk about here can be broken down to quantifiable criteria within and across genres that can speak to what makes it unique, what makes it derivative and how that sets an aural palette to which you can react based on your personal tastes.

3. This is subjective topic because the appeals are different for every person, I agree.

4. lol at a lot of you

uh i counterdefy you to name a band, unsuccessful or not, that meets these strawman criteria

the problem is that those criteria are subjective to start with. i know people i could play dna for and they would totally say "those guys can't sing, play or write music on any level" -- because if they could, why would they sound like that? me responding that they're actually sort of genius innovators would carry no weight at all.

I can't think of a single gospel song that I like.

There are probably genres of religious music I don't know of that I also don't like.

It's OK to not be "into" some musics, ppls. Open up yr minds!

My position, regardless of my personal subjective opinions on specific performers, is that anyone who is a successful musician has become one because of the three criteria I stated (delete where necessary for people who only sing/rap or people who only play instruments) and that anyone who has a sustained career in music has mastered them.

i love a good Buddhist chantalong

I mean, if you really love everything, aren't you kind of devoid of taste altogether? (xp)

It's like you are afraid of missing some bandwagon so you get on all of them.

I can't think of a single gospel song that I like.

Oh Happy Day
Jesus is on the Mainline
early Staple Singers
?

I said I couldn't think of one that I like, not one that you like, Shakey.

A big (gospel) choir is always potentially incredible.

How many metal acts can you name with frontmen who sing like Kenny Chesney?

^^want to hear this!

There's this universalist tendency here, like everyone wants to be a music critic. Music critics aren't allowed to dis any partic genre, hence thus qed. But music lovers? They can love and hate anything they want! There's nothing unfair at all about it!

Lol, this whole thing here with Geir is like when you make a cat chase after a laser pointer, but we've got one that leaps drastically in the exact same direction no matter where you point the thing.

Yes, the implication I'm making is that music critics aren't music lovers. (xp)

Sure M@tt, but that still plays to my basic point, which is that genres pop up because people like to categorize things and, when you stray too far outside of your category, unless you are extremely lucky no one will know how to react to you.

("no one" being rhetorical overstatement, since I now actually have to say this to keep people from being pedantic dickheads and misunderstanding my point which is actually INCLUSIVE and not EXCLUSIVE)

genre itself is a non-scientific measure

anything beyond the mechanical objective measurement of notes and rhythms is opinion

discuss