your LEAST favourite sound in music

I used to think p much anyone who enjoyed soprano saxophone had to be an asshole. I've sort of warmed to it though, and to being an asshole.

Too much Coltrane on soprano that kicks butt for me to write it off.

yeah I don't even count that, I'm talking like Wayne Shorter on Native Dancer soprano sax.

terry riley's gonna beat your ass!!

I wouldn't have a problem putting a timeline on when soprano sax becomes unacceptable.

Like, say, post-1973.

xylophone, vibraphone, glockenspiel

Vibraphone's like the greatest instrument ever. Slight exagg.

i FP'd him for that tbh

harpsichord mention otm

Centuries ago they at least accounted for its lack of dynamics, in a lot of Bach stuff I've heard the very deliberate use of the instrument takes on this shimmering hypnotic feel. Harpsichord can be pretty awesome I think

Metal Rhythm guitar playing - the sort of all down- stroke, heavily overdriven churn where you can hear the pointy headstock.

This is an incredible sound BTW. Though I don't know what pointy headstock is.

Oh and what's that otherwise dope Mike Oldfield song where there's this sudden terrible ringing phone and then what sounds like an insane giant answering it angrily? That's the vibe killer to end all vibe killers

maybe 'vibe-annihilating moments in otherwise awesome songs' should be its own thread

― Wimmels, Friday, August 26, 2016 1:21 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This sounds amazing??

never understood accordion hate. one of my favourite sounds.

This sounds amazing??

― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Friday, August 26, 2016 6:08 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it isn't (1:54)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9eaOWiB8wk

haha, that's pretty great actually.

Hmm. I don't actually think I dislike the natural sound of any instrument, really. It's usually the way the sound of the instruments get treated in the studio (engineering/production/mix) where I find myself saying "ah, I don't really like the sound of that"

haha, wimmels, and that's on THE BEST of Mike Oldfield.

never understood accordion hate. one of my favourite sounds.
Agreed. Whenever I see a band I don't know take the stage with an accordion (or upright bass), I get excited immediately.

upright bass too - my favourite instrument that I've always wanted to play. I dislike gypsy-swing music though.

I've probably talked about this in cringe threads, but I really hate the close-up sounds of like soda commercials where its like DRIBBLY POURING GUK GUK GUK GUK AHHHH and now every "lean" influenced rap album is like a fucking soda ad with all these terrible sloshing noises

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, August 25, 2016 6:46 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i really hate soda commercials on the radio or TV where you hear the sound effects
of

*PSSSSSH* --guk guk guk guk-- *AHHHHHHHHH*

― easter back, somebody call the binks truck (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, April 11, 2012 11:51 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, August 25, 2016 6:48 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

THIS FOREVER N EVER^^^

That vocal affectation on ballads in recent years in which the vocalist 'croaks' their way into almost every note, presumably to show added feeling.

― Daniel Giraffe, Friday, September 3, 2010 12:30 AM (five years ago)

I apparently loathed this at the time, but now I don't even remember what it sounds like. I think I've warmed somewhat to Joanna Newsom and Karen Dalton style vocals, and they are now on the same tier as flutes and Phil Collins' gated drums -- mostly but not always cringe-inducing.

Thanks for reading my opinions about music.

wide open hi-hat on a mid-tempo rock or funk beat

Not a fan of Agharta or Pangaea?

(the open hi-hat on those was disappointing to me initially, but I've grown to dig it -- but only on Miles records)

That vocal affectation on ballads in recent years in which the vocalist 'croaks' their way into almost every note, presumably to show added feeling.

― Daniel Giraffe, Friday, September 3, 2010 12:30 AM (five years ago)

Often followed by a kind of breathy sigh-singing through the same note. Like any affect it can have its uses, but as a default it just becomes canned insta-emotion.

examples, please! I hated it once, I will probably hate it again!

Tony Williams and Al Foster get the exception. In general '70s open hi-hat >>> '90s & '00s open hi-hat.

Ok I just went through some random Spotify lists and I feel like Charlotte OC is a good generic example of the throaty/croaky/breathy formula:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihgLAm5i9pM

I think it may be a generational thing but I cannot stand the aound of autotuned vocals. It's like nails on a chalkboard. This makes it difficult for me to enjoy about 99% of popular music.

Pretty much all big budget music is autotuned at least a little now, right? Because I feel like the perfection of pitch in the average singer can't have risen as much as it seems to have in the last couple decades. And yes there is something just a little bit grating and tiring to my ear about it.

Yea autotune has become fairly commonplace on any album, not just pop. It's mostly a "well we have it, would be a crime not to use it". Like you all, I just dislike it (as a singer myself) just because it creates a robotic smoothing that makes singing sound plastic. The "authenticity" argument though can go fuck itself,studio trickery to improve vocal mediocrity has existed since almost the advent of recorded music.

Autotune of the T-Pain variety i generally am ok with though.

Yeah it's less of an "authenticity" thing for me and more of a sameyness thing, where it feels like studio engineering has actually gotten its formula down so perfectly, has gotten so good at what it does, that there aren't as many surprises because no one wants to deviate from that formula where you let the low notes waver just a little bit (yet stay perfectly in tune) and have the high notes bell-clear. Autotune usage has definitely become more sophisticated and subtle in recent years, it used to produce much more of a noticeable robo-voice effect (I don't even mean T-Pain I just mean regular badly masked autotune) and now it just produces a kind of uber-human effect. But there's still something unplaceably bad about it in most cases.

I don't mean subtle uses to correct pitch, I'm talking about the Kanye West, T-Pain effect.

I've probably talked about this in cringe threads, but I really hate the close-up sounds of like soda commercials where its like DRIBBLY POURING GUK GUK GUK GUK AHHHH and now every "lean" influenced rap album is like a fucking soda ad with all these terrible sloshing noises

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, August 25, 2016 2:46 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

1:12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk-WWT6IwPA

That squidgy synth in Donald Fagen's 'IGY'. Like it seriously makes me feel vaguely ill.

how did Michael Chion get a recording of me reading ILX

studies music theory for decades --> makes musical diarrhea

I think it may be a generational thing but I cannot stand the aound of autotuned vocals. It's like nails on a chalkboard.

luckily my ears are shot so I have a hard time spotting autotune if it's relatively subtle but obviously-autotuned stuff is the worst of all sounds for sure

i really, really hate the part two thirds of the way through every single action movie trailer when the music reaches a frenzied shepard-tone climax, then everything cuts out to dead silence for half a second, then the SUBSONIC boom that is so completely fucking predictable, followed by the frenzied music quickly fading back in and resuming pace.

and that's why I don't go to the movies anymore.

KM otm

I think the first sound in every trailer for a film that's not a comedy is the same muffled boom, it sounds like a distant depth charge. Or it's a single sinister mid-high note.

i really, really hate the part two thirds of the way through every single action movie trailer when the music reaches a frenzied shepard-tone climax, then everything cuts out to dead silence for half a second, then the SUBSONIC boom that is so completely fucking predictable, followed by the frenzied music quickly fading back in and resuming pace.

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, January 3, 2018 11:48 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah.

Usually: dead silence -> line of dialogue -> a clip of any character reacting/getting punched (often not actually part of the scene in question) -> SUBSONIC boom (low bass drop?) -> follow up dialogue/punchline -> normal music resumes

I realized during the WKCR bach festival that I really, really hate the english horn and similar instruments, they have this awful, guttural, goose-like sound that also reminds me a little bit of milk being whipped with a utencil.

I don't mind the oboe as much although it's the same family.

Especially bad when played stacatto

are you talking about crumhorns?
i like the sound of crumhorns/honking instruments
to each their own!

English horn = cor anglais.

It's just a low oboe, really, a loboe in fact.

there's one busdriver song where he raps fast against a flute doing a similar melody to his cadence, and that makes me physically ill...not sure that's a "sound" as much as doubling down on annoying fast-paced rap with an even more annoying flute

florence welch

like a sheep trapped in a fence