Bad opinions • Page 120

Nor am I, man.

 

Yeah but think about what post-rock means. Post-anything means you're reinventing the structure, approach, and sometimes even values of a specific music genre. Post-rock therefore to me means eschewing melodies and songwriting structures that are common to rock music -- which is a much grander scale of change than post-subgenres like post hardcore or whatever. I'm not going to say that EITS doesn't do that at all, but at a certain point trying to be accessible and make safe, recognizable artistic decisions in that genre tends to tip you back toward rock and away from post rock.

My perspective is that subversiveness is part of that genre by definition. It's a movement of totally rethinking the necessity of popular music structure.

 

There is a lot of post-rock I'd hardly call subversive

 

There's been a lot of criticism here lately about it's lyrical content being sexist

 

You've been a music fan long enough to know that genre names rarely have that precision. If you have electric guitars and don't sing or scream, you're post rock. Like all genres, there's room for infinite variation.

 

I also wouldn't say all rock contains safe, recognizable artistic decisions

 

Really? Can you mention a few lines that create that kind of discomfort?

It comes across bitter but I don't remember any examples of chastising behavior by gender, except maybe Adam being far overconfident and assumptive about what makes men desirable to women on "Timberwolves at Jersey"

 

I don't understand how Spotify has retained its popularity now that Apple Music exists. Apple Music is so much better for organising the artists you listen to, recently added albums, etc. I can almost understand using Spotify if you're a more casual listener (I would still ultimately recommend using Apple Music over Spotify though), but for the hardcore music fans, Apple Music is the way to go. I used Spotify for over a year, and in comparison to Apple Music, it genuinely feels subpar and primitive.

This counts as an unpopular opinion seeing as Spotify currently has double the amount of paid subscribers.

 

With or without the sexism, TAYF is to music what the state of Louisiana is to education.

 

Mehhhh. While I agree that genre lines get blurred by subjective parameters, I think you're turning the pegs way too loose on this one. I can play a 1-4-5 blues progression and not add vocals and that's still blues, not even close to post rock

Traditional rock music structure has become safe and recognizable because it's had a giant impact on basically all music for nearly a century. That's where verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge comes from (when you take into account rock was initially directly derived from blues). Rock music is where pentatonic scales became the focus, which dominate popular music today because of how easy it is to harmonize and ad lib in pentatonic scales without veering off course melodically.

 

But there are also "rock" bands that subvert that as well

 

Okay now you're just trying to be contrarian. Haha. You know my point is that the genre is broad. It can be subversive. It also is able to, perhaps more purely than any other guitar-based genre, be beautiful. Both are valid.

 

WYWTB holds up

 

Also why is the post-rock thread not more active? My unpopular opinion is it should be thousands of pages long.

 

" If you could slit my throat and with one last dying gasp I'd apologize for bleeding on your shirt "

And the similar imagery in Cute Without The E

 

Well, those are usually bands that get called something else like indie rock or alternative rock or some offshoot of punk rock though. Like, if you handt heard Death Cab For Cutie and I just told you they were a rock band with no further classication you'd be expecting something far more confident and loud sounding that what you got.

 

Hmm. I always saw the above line as more self depreciating, like chastising himself for having so little self respect. But then again thinking back on "Cute Without the E" yeah, it's not hard to interpret that song as misogynistic.

 

Metal
Is
Sick

 

Yup

 

I think people have a hard time drawing the line between petty and sexist. But I know that's a minority opinion at this point.

 

Uhhhh things can be petty and sexist it's not mutually exclusive

 

Never said they were mutually exclusive.

 

Oh I mean yeah, I don't necessarily think that just because something is beautiful that it's accessible though. Kid A is gorgeous and a lot of people can't stand that record for the weird things it does.

I'm not trying to say post rock is supposed to be hard to listen to, just that it's a genre with a lot of boundaries being pushed and a lot of ideas being tested. Which plays into what Zac Djamoos was saying, that being accessible in a genre like that comes at the expense of watering it's possibilities down and not necessarily being as interesting as others who made more of a commitment to that musical direction. (Which is still an opinion of course, im just explaining my reasoning.)

 

Hell yeah. I've really been digging Sodom, Dark Angel, and Death.

Ripper, Destroyer 666, and Vektor are all modern thrash bands who have put out good albums this year (especially Vektor).

 

For some musicians yeah.

Some other musicians like to challenge themselves to write music that they themselves consider excellent and then hope that other people appreciate the same thing. Which is kinda what I do. I wouldn't be nearly as passionate or dedicated about getting every detail of my songs to come across if I was trying to fit the preferences of others, especially in circumstances where I don't agree that the expected direction the song should go in is the best thing for the song. Making myself my own harshest critic is how I take ownership of my songwriting and establish standards for it.

And on top of that, how do you intentionally make accessible music? No one is in the minds of their fans. If you wanted to make music that you were SURE was going to catch on, your best strategy would be to mimic the formula of other popular songs, but that takes the fun out of it for me.

So the main goal isn't always to satisfy other people, an artist might find it easier to get invested in a project and demand quality from him/herself if they try to satisfy themselves first. Any loss in translation when it comes to accessibility is circumstantial to me, but thats typically because I haven't really had a problem with people getting positive impact from my songs, it might be a bigger deal if most people didn't like or "get" my music.