THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: trr005 on 17 Mar 2010, 08:03
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Hello all,
I am currently in the process of writing an article covering the topic of what bad music is. I'm a looking for opinions from all different walks and areas and I figured this board would be a fair place to begin.
What specifically to you, is the epitome of bad music?
Also, if you could please, fill out this quick 10 question survey regarding music that would be greatly appreciated... http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HB7BV95 (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HB7BV95)
Thank you!
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Didn't we just do this?
Edit:
http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,24550.0.html
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I'm not looking at "The Worst Band of All Time" or "The Worst Song of All Time." What I want to hear from people is what they view as bad music...and why it's part of the media if it's so bad. I'm doing a case study of different genre's and of different demographics.
Or also just different bad practices of the industry in general.
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Your survey has a number of flaws that makes it hard to fill out.
First of all, your "education level" breakdown is flawed. You should change "professional degree" to "higher then masters" or "terminal degree." A PhD is higher then a masters, but is not considered a professional degree. Also, some people consider things like a certification in medical administration to be professional degrees, despite being equivalent to the bachelors or associates level. Basically, the term professional degree doesn't really mean what you think it does.
You left off the box for "other" under least favorite.
You should be more specific about how you wish to measure amount. If I listen to 5 albums over 3 hours, and then later listen to the radio for 10 minutes while driving to work, I could tell you that I listened to music for 3 hours and 10 minutes that day, or I could tell you that I listened to 5 albums, or I could say that I listened twice. I suggest amount of time as the most consistent metric.
Some of us still listen to music using CDs and record players. I probably have a few hundred songs on a computer hard-drive somewhere. I also own somewhere on the order of 500 albums. The first number implies that I don't own a lot of music, when I actually own a fair amount.
Your last question is going to produce biased results. First of all, the law is not the same everywhere, but more importantly, whether or not its true, if you label acquiring music via free-download or file sharing as "illegal" people are going to be less likely to respond that they do it often. While some people certainly don't care, others are less likely to respond positively if you actually list it as a crime even on anonymous survey.
For example, if an anonymous survey asks "how often do you smoke marijuana?" and a different survey asks "how often do you use illegal drugs?" you're likely to find that somehow more people smoke marijuana then use illegal drugs, even though smoking marijuana is using an illegal drug in almost all cases. This is because people see the word illegal and are automatically conditioned to deny wrongdoing.
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Okay, thank you very much for the response. I can't fix it right now as I'm off to class, but when I get a chance I will. Everything you said makes sense...I guess I just wasn't sure how to build my survey. Thanks!
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Inherently bad music doesn't exist, no matter how much you want to try and justify your tastes as objectively correct.
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I mean, except for Deerhoof.
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I mean, except for Deerhoof.
I put a stamp of approval on this post.
Not that I've ever heard of Deerhoof, but this forum went through like a year long face of constantly masturbating over them, so someone hating them amuses me for a moment or two.
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Turn on the top 40 radio.
It's probably gonna be bad music playing.
Though lets be fair, if you turn on the classic rock radio, that's got a more than even chance of being some pretty fucking terrible music as well.
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Jens I'm perplexed by the fact that you think Coil 'don't mean it'. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjhGXjSK4Ik)
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(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_R1VSW5-LAso/SZ0baUFqMuI/AAAAAAAAAIE/YvpqezNwuPw/s400/1101_hoobastank_d.jpg)
</thread>
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(http://www3.timeoutny.com/newyork/thevolume/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/brokencyde.jpg)
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I knew at least one of the things I wrote above was going to get a reaction like that - I dunno man, it just doesn't sound... right, somehow. I can't explain it and I expect lots of people will think I'm a right tit for saying something like "x artist doesn't mean it when they perform", but I'm just not convinced!
Similarly to what I'm saying about bad music, I can't really define good music either. It either sounds good or it doesn't, and while there are definitely genres I can run by as a general rule, I can see few similarities between, say, Nina Simone and Black Flag.
What do you mean by "don't mean it"? That they aren't sincere?
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(http://blogs.denverpost.com/reverb/files/2009/12/muse2.jpg)
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Not that I've ever heard of Deerhoof
For the record, that's really, really stupid. Also, you are assuming it's bad because "we" like it - fuck you too! You are a music snob with bad taste and no tact who has somehow decided that dissent is a good thing no matter how wrong it might be. Not that you would know.
You probably would hate Deerhoof though.
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The way someone feels and emotion and how they express it don't necessarily have to be identical, though, do they?
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For the record, that's really, really stupid. Also, you are assuming it's bad because "we" like it - fuck you too! You are a music snob with bad taste and no tact who has somehow decided that dissent is a good thing no matter how wrong it might be. Not that you would know.
You probably would hate Deerhoof though.
(http://www.scribbleoneverything.com/images/uploads/thumbs/thumb_pow.gif)
As much as I agree with this sentiment he is right about Deerhoof.
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I knew at least one of the things I wrote above was going to get a reaction like that - I dunno man, it just doesn't sound... right, somehow. I can't explain it and I expect lots of people will think I'm a right tit for saying something like "x artist doesn't mean it when they perform", but I'm just not convinced!
You're pretty much my opposite in terms of musical taste. I tend to view hardcore as a bunch of people who try really hard but suck anyway. Basically, the whole genre is a classical tragedy.
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(http://wknc.org/blog/post/wp-content/uploads/theMarsVolta1.jpg)
</thread>
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Also, I know what I posted doesn't have much to do with anything, it's just something I think pretty much whenever Jeans talks about music.
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Chris, I just want to point out that I hate you for making me actually save this picture.
(http://i42.tinypic.com/33agba0.jpg)
</thread>
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I'm not really feeling it in Coil at all.
Maybe it's because English ain't your mother tongue or something because I can pretty plainly hear how he is starting to crack up in the middle of Fire of the Mind.
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I dunno about that, I tend to agree with you on things far more often than not, particularly when people on the forums start lynching some guy. I just don't really feel the need to go "Hey, what that guy said," after most of your posts, so it doesn't come up often.
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Chris, I just want to point out that I hate you for making me actually save this picture.
(http://i42.tinypic.com/33agba0.jpg)
</thread>
as a trance fan I cannot endorse this post enough
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Mars Volta
hahahaha Cedric's hair hahaHAHAHA
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Autotuned music is pretty bad
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yeah there's really only one acceptable song (http://s0.ilike.com/play#The+Very+Best:Angonde:137977313:s55913953.13504781.4239232.0.2.193%2Cstd_3e52560f9a404b80a6826189a4fd507c) that uses autotune
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Not at all - Dance Music by The Mountain Goats, for instance. It doesn't have to be the same, but there has to be something, I think.
I get what you're saying now. That is one of my favourite Mountain Goats songs, I think.
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bad music is music that i don't approve of duhhh.
/thread
/forum
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(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/tommydski/kadanechart.jpg)
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(http://www.ectomo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/uffie.jpg)
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Matt Kadane is very handsome.
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Muse
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Why does the lead singer remind me of Stifler from the Naked Mile so much.
Edit:
(http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2009/10/25/entertainment/photos_stories/cropped/matthew_bellamy--300x300.jpg)
(http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/b/3/20/518/20518910_1205673504_kinopoiskruSteveTalley656789.jpg)
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It seems to me that bad music is entirely subjective - it can only be defined as music you don't like, even though somebody else does like it.
Except Creed. Even Jesus hates Creed (or so I hear).
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I put a stamp of approval on this post.
Please don't.
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Brokencyde
I just noticed that these four motherfuckers are wearing a total of five pairs of sunglasses
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yeah there's really only one acceptable song (http://s0.ilike.com/play#The+Very+Best:Angonde:137977313:s55913953.13504781.4239232.0.2.193%2Cstd_3e52560f9a404b80a6826189a4fd507c) that uses autotune
Even then that isn't my favorite song by them.
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Brokencyde
I just noticed that these four motherfuckers are wearing a total of five pairs of sunglasses
I only see 4.
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Brokencyde
I just noticed that these four motherfuckers are wearing a total of five pairs of sunglasses
I only see 4.
look closer
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On the green shirt on the far right
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You youngsters and your 20/20 vision.
(yeah I see it now)
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20/15 bitches
means i can see into your minds
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the in depth analysis of a brokencyde video indicates doooooom
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Except the guy on the right's shirt is clearly just a normal fucking skull, and since one of them isn't wearing real sunglasses there's only four pairs in the picture you dickweasels.
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I don't know anything anymore.
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Bad music to me constitutes a lack of passion.
If you don't believe in what you're doing or don't want to do it, or if you're just a shameless product of committee thinking then I'll likely have no interest. Manufactured pop music is not necessarily an example of this because a lot of people who end up in manufactured groups have a real passion for what they're doing and some of them even evolve into legitimate artists in their own right - Take That, for example.
The other example is when someone has such talent that they can just fart out amazing music. Like Tupac Shakur, who essentially tossed off arguably rap's greatest album in 1996.
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Dude Khar you are wrong about this. Look directly above the bridge of the nose on Mr. Greenskull
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Except the guy on the right's shirt is clearly just a normal fucking skull, and since one of them isn't wearing real sunglasses there's only four pairs in the picture you dickweasels.
I was waiting for someone to call me out on shutter shades not being real sunglasses but fuck you they're called shutter shades
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And you can get shades for windows too but they're not sunglasses either.
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what would you call them then? LET'S NOT SPLIT HAIRS HERE
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Not at all, no. Haha. But it's definitely interesting. I'm hoping more people will post some opinions before the end though.
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And I've actually gotten a decent amount of surveys filled out. I think the count is at 50 total with this thread and my friends. I'll be sure to post the results.
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I tried filling out that survey but it was so badly designed I had to give up. I don't use genre as my primary determining factor in whether I like or dislike a piece of music as the survey essentially presumes so I would have had to enter N/A for those two questions, nor do I listen to music exclusively on mp3 so I don't know how many individual tracks I have so that one was out too. It's not like I'm going to bother going through all my records counting them all, and since the number of tracks per release ranges from 1 to over 100 even coming to an average would be too much work. And the last question is broken, it won't let you enter the same value for both categories.
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What is bad surveys?
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Who ever said that bad music is soulless is, well, right.
The pinnacle of this, to me, is Celine Dion.
The songs that I've heard from her are all perfect, in the sense of them being in mint condition. Not a crack in the voice, not a bum note on any instrument, production awesome etc. etc.
And it feels deader than dead to me. There's never a crack in the voice to indicate that the singer meant it. Never a note which is slightly off that indicates that the feeling of the track was so awesome that the producer just kept that version in spite of the miss-cue.
I like a little passion, please.
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Bad music to me constitutes a lack of passion.
I don't know I think Ke$ha is really passionate about what she does but Tik Tok is still a crappy song.
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Bad music to me constitutes a lack of passion.
If you don't believe in what you're doing or don't want to do it, or if you're just a shameless product of committee thinking then I'll likely have no interest. Manufactured pop music is not necessarily an example of this because a lot of people who end up in manufactured groups have a real passion for what they're doing and some of them even evolve into legitimate artists in their own right - Take That, for example.
The other example is when someone has such talent that they can just fart out amazing music. Like Tupac Shakur, who essentially tossed off arguably rap's greatest album in 1996.
I have to disagree here, because I hear tons of crap music that I think is sincerely made by passionate people. People can be incredibly passionate and still come up with generic, rote garbage. (Think of how many shit, third-rate punk bands you've heard genuinely screaming their little hearts out, for example.)
If I had to come up with what makes bad music, I think I'd have to put it on a two-axis rating of Originality and Craftsmanship. Originality is the novelty of the music: how much the music presents sounds, concepts, production, etc. in manners that we haven't heard before. Craftsmanship more represents the technical skill of putting a track together: the appropriateness of the chord changes, the inherent poetry of the lyrics, and so on. Great music has high levels of both Originality and Craftsmanship. Bad music has neither.
That being said, I think the relative importance of Originality vs. Craftsmanship will vary wildly from person to person. For me the Originality axis is the more important of the two, which is to say I'd rather listen to a poorly-produced piece of music that has a unique vision than an exquisitely crafted piece of music that offers nothing new to the listener.
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I wasn't saying that lack of passion is the ONLY component of bad music. I just mean that is the key component to a lot of music that sucks as far as I'm concerned.
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Define 'bad'.
Frankly, most music sucks, doesn't it? The important thing is the reason why it sucks. It doesn't matter how much something sucks if it's sucking for the right reasons. I've spent some time trying to work out what those reasons aren't, but everytime I think I've found some 'rule', I've also found too many exceptions to make it plausible.
Something that holds true for my own music library and tastes, but almost certainly not everybody elses, is the intent. Why the music came into existence. Who is the target audience, why was it written and who made it. Again, there are exceptions, some fantastic pop songs came into existence due to the wants of some very unscrupulous people. For the overwhelming majority though, what I think 'sucks' is largely inspired by who's selling and profitting from it. Not because of the artist. I believe that in most circumstances, musicians are actually working againsts their labels to make a good album. You find, with major record companies especially, that there's a lot compromise involved. The artists can write an absolutely fantastic album, only to have it handed back to them and be told to restructure it, re-record the drums, remove some tracks, and add a few marketable singles.
I didn't want to believe any of this was true, but I began working with people who'd actually found themselves in those exact circumstances, and not just with major record companies.
A lot of music sucks because it's the music that a record company wants it's musicians to manufacture. Not because it's what the musicians want to create.
Of course, musicians are perfectly capable of making shitty records on their own, but it's much easier to do so when they have a ridiculous budget and a manifesto handed down to them by people who want to force the band onto a particular target market. I don't think it's too unlikely that a lot of musicians who suck have the same mentality and approach as the major record companies anyway.
Remember that popular music now is made to be disposable. It's not about creating a lasting work of art. It's all about the immediate profit. Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of how major record companies operate will have a hard time denying this. Even the best pop songs these days are ruined by the practice of manifacturing immediate pop hits. Entire albums can be ruined by shameless production techniques and cheap sales tactics.
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Remember that popular music now is made to be disposable.
I take issue with your use of the word "now."
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alex, i am concerned about yr lack of commitment to the revival of proto-cuddle-core.
very concerned.
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I'll cuddle your core
If by
core
you mean
enormous phallus
and cuddle you mean
suckle upon like 'twere the teat of the primal godcow
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i have no idea what niche make believe genre box those lyrics would fit into at all.
splendid.
keep up the strong boarding khar.
<3
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Remember that popular music now is made to be disposable.
I take issue with your use of the word "now."
Planned Disposability is not an indicator of quality anyway. I doubt that many people in the Brill Building or Motown wrote pieces with timelessness in mind and yet they crafted songs that are better than most.
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It is difficult being singlemindedly dedicated to cuddlecore revivalism when I am being continually distracted by The Birthday Party, Björk, and witch house.
@Emilio
Right. Music made with no thought for the future can be brilliant, and it has been for a long time. Of course, it can easily be shite, but that's the nature of things.
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I'll cuddle your core
If by
core
you mean
enormous phallus
and cuddle you mean
suckle upon like 'twere the teat of the primal godcow
fuckin' sigged
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though not a music aficionado, i think bad music is music that you didn't even perform, write, produce or in anyway create.
(http://parkerdonat.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/milli-vanilli.jpg)
everything else really just boils down to taste and preference. I hate Deerhoof too but i bet there are plenty of people out there that love them and ever other band i can't stand.
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I take issue with your use of the word "now."
Mass production of bands is a fairly recent phenomenon that's only come about in the last maybe 40 years, and truly peaked in the 90s. There was once a time before thousands upon thousands of bands were being worked upon simultaneously by record companies all going through the same process of creating the same album through the exact same template with a different name and face. Even just twenty years ago, things were a little looser and artists were given a lot more creative freedom. Music has always been made to sell, but it used to be chosen based on more criteria than 'can we market this to casual music listeners aged 13 to 28'.
The face of popular music has definitely changed over the decades, and it's not because of rose tinted glasses, bad bands slipping through the cracks of time, and the need of the older generation to dislike what the kids are up to. While people who consume music grow older, the market itself doesn't change. Music is made to cater to a certain audience, and once you age past that, you're past it. So essentially, popular music has always been made for young people.
Compare the music for the young people of yesterday to the music for the young people today, and there's a clear difference in terms of recording and production. The quality of a song and the quality of the recording/production aren't mutually exclusive. Good songs are still being written all the time, but are often ruined by poor performances, rushed recording and illinformed production techniques. Yet, these songs cost millions of pounds.
Major record companies don't spend millions of pounds to ruin the production because they're stupid. They do it because those techniques provide an immediate 'hit' for the listener. These aren't neccessarily 'bad' producers, they're just a whole different breed of producer. While over time, it begins to sound horrible and grating, upon first listen it sticks far better than a more faithful/realistic recording of music. These same techniques are applied to countless records released all for the same purpose. The people involved aren't paid to record music. They're paid to record a disposable product, and that, they are very very good at. Why pay somebody to make something sound good, when you can get away with making a cheaper, more immediate, product?
Thirty years ago, that didn't matter. Recordings were still faithful and realistic. They were made to sell, sure, but weren't made to be disposable. Not in the same way I'm talking about.
Back when, it was about creating a product that would be good enough to be popular and sell by the thousands. Gradually, practices changed as companies realised that products didn't have to stand up to the test of time or sound good in order to generate a profit.
Popular music now is about selling people a product before they realise how poor the quality is.
So yes, popular music is disposable 'now'.
You use it, you're done with it, you throw it away. The aural equivalent of toilet paper.
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I don't know about you, but when I buy toilet paper I make sure it doesn't come with the shit already on it.
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How about this:
Bad music is music that never evolves, never tries new things. Every album they produce sounds exactly they same.
(Nickelback amirite?)
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Depends on what you think of Iron Maiden and AC/DC :wink:
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Good call on the AC/DC thing (I happen to like them and Iron Maiden) but there's no denying they're not exactly redefining themselves.
Nickelback does suck, though. Surprised they hadn't come up before now.
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It's usually not very drastic but I'd say that Iron Maiden do change from album to album, at least as much as most bands.
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Depends on what you think of Iron Maiden and AC/DC :wink:
Never listened to them actually.
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(http://www3.timeoutny.com/newyork/thevolume/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/brokencyde.jpg)
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Agree 1000x
Worst
Band
Of
All
Time
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But they just wanna get freakky now
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I think Iron Maiden have alot more sort of moody and low key songs (or song parts) these days than they used to. if that counts. As compared to Powerslave and Piece of Mind, anyway.
Certainly their production sounds quite different now, at least.
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A Matter of Life and Death also had a lot of epic tunes with long instrumental sections and (canned) string sections and wotnot, almost bordering on "prog", dare I say it.
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Iron Maiden evolve as much from album to album as any other rock band. They don't suddenly switch genres, but, for example, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is demonstrably different to Killers. A band like Iron Maiden can't really be said to be formulaic in the same way as Nickelback or AC/DC, who both just write the same fucking song over and over again; they're largely centred around one idea, yes, but that idea is an unstoppable guitar duo/trio backed up by arguably one of the best rhythm sections in heavy metal, or just in rock in general, and, ideally Bruce motherfucking Dickinson wailing over the top. They don't need to change their fundamental formula because they are actually a great song-writing team who write consistently interesting, if immediately identifiable, music.
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Agreed. I am a lot less experienced with Iron Maiden than I am with AC/DC, but I would say that you're right.
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He is.
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Bad Religion hasn't evolved at all. Their music today sounds the same as it did in the 80's and i would never consider it to be bad music.
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Or rather, when they wrongheadedly tried to evolve (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjtyxaLi9uE) they got reamed for it and never made that mistake again.
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That is actually the best Bad Religion song I've ever heard.
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Also, The Process of Belief, which for most of the album's runtime is also quite a lot different that the standard melodic hardcore template BR practice, is by far the best thing the band have ever put out.
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i used to know a guy that liked br at some point. what the fuck happened to that dude.
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My guess? His 16th birthday.
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I am reading a collection of essays by musicologist Simon Frith right now and as it turns out one of them has exactly the same title as this thread. And it's on Google Books!
here: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=GKVPHXHlgoEC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=simon+frith+bad+music&source=bl&ots=VzzemkyJ2O&sig=2vKZJ8ECAJqyUG8dLDfISk0DQeY&hl=en&ei=CZewS4-zO4W-sgORkJTQDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=simon%20frith%20bad%20music&f=false
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It is bad music, if this woman is in any way involved:
(http://theoscarsite.com/whoswho7/warren_d.jpg)
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Oh hey, Dovey, isn't that dude like, Fred Frith's brother.
If so, he is probably pretty awesome.
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Interesting stuff.