Bad opinions • Page 831

You are in the right thread indeed

 

I’m still 100% convinced that 100gecs make purposely bad music just to see if there’s anyone out there who would actually enjoy it.

 

but it's great music tho.

 

Definitely a social experiment

 

I read someone say that every 100gecs fan starts off by hating them and since then I have half wondered if I'll fall for them at some point, despite there being no reason for me to think so.

 

Kind of similar to Yung Lean/Drain Gang

I happen to love all of those artists lol

 

100 gecs are shaping the music scene and will never be escaped

no choice but to stan!

 

100 gecs is really cool

 

They’re definitely intentionally abrasive most of the time but when listening, it’s very purposeful and well done

 

i cannot believe this. you are the person who got me into them lmao

andrew,

this is 100% true, but the music also happens to be accidentally really fucking good

 

It's incredible how every song now is Gucci Gucci

 

Very curious as to what you mean by this, because the way I'm reading it, I'm not sure that's true at all

 

I don't post in this thread because reading it makes me Mad Online but I think saying gecs music is purposely bad and/or accidentally good is doing a wild disservice to both artists' incredible pop sensibility. As already said, it's filtered through abrasive or unfashionable styles, but their other work has proven that both laura and dylan (probably more so dylan, because he does a lot more high profile stuff) are exceptionally talented at writing/producing of pop music.

 

Agreed— why I use language like “abrasive” instead. They know what they’re doing and it rules, and while I get that it’s not for everyone I hope people can be open to it and appreciate it, rather than dismiss it, if they aren’t into it

 

Dude's mad John likes Dungeons and Dragons and wrestling along with his passionate knowledge of classical music and great literature, it would appear?

 

cshadows some hefty assumptions you are making there :P

I'm not sure it's true either lol

would need to go into sensitive territory to further explain what I mean and I don't feel like hashing it out here just to get dunked on

heel turn 2

 

I don’t know if I would choose the word “juvenile” but I can see how the preciousness of TMG songs might not connect for some folks.

Like Bruce, John Darnielle writes with a sort of romantic simulacra style, an imitation of life, where every line is wet with cheap meaning.

I dig TMG alright, and I like Bruce Springsteen a lot, but Bruce, his songs detail a simplified reality where you work hard til your brow is beaded with sweat just so and your girl’s hair dances in the wind from the passenger seat of your Chevy and it’s magic hour all the time.

Like Bruce, John Darnielle tends to press substance into his songs instead of letting the substance come around on its own.

A song like “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton” does all the work for you, it tells you the moral of the story, as opposed to a kind of similar song like say, “Coney Island Baby”, which paints the picture but doesn’t tell you how to feel about it.

 

plenty of mountain goats songs paint a picture and don't tell you how to feel about it imo... like, almost every song on tallahassee, or my favorite mountain goats song ever, "against pollution." i don't think he resembles springsteen as a writer in the slightest except for a few songs on tunnel of love which are all really direct and about an extremely unsimplified reality

 

or, like, another one of my favorite mountain goats songs ever, "crows," which depicts a situation full of ambiguity and dread without really going out of its way to do that

 

“Coney Island Baby” rules but...the verses are pretty on the nose in what they mean? I don’t think it’s any less explicit than Bruce in what he means.

It also seems odd to me to class Reed, one of the artists most consciously aiming for a place among the great writers and poets, as, what, less deliberately imbuing his lyrics with clear meaning? I’m confused

 

I’m not sure I agree about Coney Island Baby...what would you say is going on in those verses?

The divergence between Bruce n Lou I see is a matter of abstraction,

Bruce tunes are pretty linear in their meaning, juicy images that are easy to make sense of, a homie to Frank O’Hara and Ferlinghetti, like Howl with a haircut.

Which is why they’re such affecting anthems

As opposed to Lou, whose translucense lends flexibility, less “clear meaning”, less fixed meaning, but many meanings. Abstract possibilities. A great Lou Reed song is about nothing and everything

 

All of which is to say, I like all those tones, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable if a person doesn’t respond to one or the other.

“different people have peculiar tastes” like Coney Island Baby says

 

Lou is more abstract, and much of Bruce’s lyricism is what you’re saying it is, but he can and does take alternate approaches to lyricism as well. He’s got some diversity in his lyrical stylings

 

Just like Lou had his abstract stuff but then had his really direct stuff

 

I’m not saying Lou can’t be ambiguous. But then he does like The Blue Mask, which might be philosophical at times, but is pretty unambiguous. He was a poet who tried a whole lot of modes.