Bad opinions • Page 876

I’m kinda of two minds on August and Everything After so far. musically it’s 100% in my wheelhouse but I don’t think I like Adam’s vocals all that much. like, I don’t think he’s bad… his melodies are good, I just don’t think I care for his tone overall. I get why ppl love it for sure. on Anna Begins rn and I think it’s my fav so far tbh, snare sound is godly.

edit: so I am liking this album more as it goes on. pretty much from Anna Begins onward the album sinks into a vibe that I much prefer to the first few songs. not that they’re worlds apart or anything, just a slight shift that I greatly appreciated.

 

pretty close to a perfect album

 

Omaha is so good though

 

album is good but a little samey imo

 

I listened to August And Everything After a bunch recently, it’s kinda long and some of the lyrics are pretty cringey corny, but Duritz is a force. I could see not dialing in on their vibe right away, but it’s such a singular flavor even when the lyrics or vocal affects get a little too cheesy, it still works.

The band is great, not especially stand out but perfect support for the Duritz x factor

Omaha is probably my favorite right now

 

50 minutes is the wrong length for albums, tho I love a great many of em

 

Lyrics on August are great, love the writing on that record.

 

it sucks that Max's original point that cringe and earnestness are immediately seen as lesser or bad is being lost because he's 100% right

 

It’s not bad because it’s earnest, it’s cringey because it’s bad (Or so the argument goes)

I love Counting Crows, but like Max said, there’s a Slam Poetry Night At The Coffee Shop element to a lot of his lyrics that is not successful.

Personally I admire that he’s unafraid to reach for the bigguns and it’s okay that he misses sometimes cuz he has great lyrics too. But it’s not a takedown to say some of his lyrics are really bad

 

Bars

 

Small part of me thinks that they would be taken a lot more seriously if their singer wasn’t a white guy with dreads. I’m a fan though.

 

not just dreads fake dreads

 

What

 

I refuse to accept "cringe" as part of my lexicon. Especially given the way it's used to squash all sincerity these days by aesthetes and elites and alternately to denigrate anything with any artistic ambition by fucking rubes. Drives me fucking bananas.

Duritz's lyrics are amazing. Calling them coffee shop slam poetry is asinine.

Also, Razorblade Suitcase is the worst of the first 4 Bush albums by a good margin, which isn't even a knock. They just had a very strong start to their career.

 

Counting Crows are good

 

If we're talking things that drive us bananas, I'll throw out the "This music would play well in this space/setting/context or to this audience and therefore it is shit" argument. "Frat music," "coffee shop music," "Dad rock," "NASCAR music," "yacht rock," etc. All bullshit put-downs I hear all the fucking time from people who are usually turned off more by the listeners/fans of the music in question than they are by the music itself.

 

Im down with all those terms as long as they’re used in a positive sense

 

Yeah, same. They're just so often used as pejoratives.

 

Idk yacht rock sounds sick

 

Kayak rock

 

The position of Albini and whatever aesthetes and elites for whom he is a spokesperson though is not that the music is sincere and therefore bad, it’s that the music is bad and therefore bad.

He shared a list of great earnest and vulnerable 90’s alternatives:

I bet I mostly listen to AlbiniThinksIt’sBad-core, but his point is reasonable.

The tit-for-tat between supposed elite and common folk factions is tiresome. People upset by affronts to their trad taste should be more comfortable interrogating their preferences just like snobs gotta chill

im gonna go listen to reel big fish in one ear and the residents in the other

 

I've ranted alongside you on "dad rock" and solo on "yacht rock". So seconded.

 

I don’t get the appeal of Turnstile; got like four songs into their latest album and couldn’t be bothered to go any further

 

Same, I think I got halfway through and just wasn't really feeling anything about it much at all.

 

Had the same feeling honestly