Controversial Music Opinions...

[onthewall2983]

We're still going to have our Disturbeds, Nickelbacks, Three Days Graces, Five Finger Death Punches, Cage the Elephants, Imagine Dragons and Breaking Benjamins so I wouldn't fully agree. Bad mainstream rock music will always be around.

When I say "culturally relevant", I mean something a bit bigger than just sales or radio play. I'd say it's pretty likely none of those bands will be as revered in 50 years like the Beatles and their contemporaries are, to this day. The same goes for lots of artists up until Nirvana. Kurt Cobain was the last rock musician to gain any sort of mainstream press that was directly related to the music (and more specifically about the effect his music was having on the younger generation of the time), and not attention-grabbing stage antics or other sorts of controversy.

[GulDukat]

When I say "culturally relevant", I mean something a bit bigger than just sales or radio play. I'd say it's pretty likely none of those bands will be as revered in 50 years like the Beatles and their contemporaries are, to this day. The same goes for lots of artists up until Nirvana. Kurt Cobain was the last rock musician to gain any sort of mainstream press that was directly related to the music (and more specifically about the effect his music was having on the younger generation of the time), and not attention-grabbing stage antics or other sorts of controversy.

I'd say Kurt's generation--meaning him, Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, Layne and Jerry, Billy Corgan, Trent, etc.

[Aladdinsanity]

Rock, rap, hip hop- it's all dead IMHO. They've all seen their better days as a whole. You'll get your exceptions here and there but I think the last renascence was the 90's.

I don't see how this applies to hip-hop at all. If Kendrick Lamar and Killer Mike are the first two I can think of off the top of my head when we talk about the here and now, then this assertion is just flat-out false.

[Krazy]

Just my opinion- I don't care for them. Don't think they're groundbreaking or even good. Personal preference I guess/to each their own.

[tony.parente]

I'm late on the MM voting but this should qualify:

1. Eat Me Drink Me
2. Mechanical Animals
3. Golden Age of Groteque
4. Holy Wood
5. Antichrist Superstar
6. The High End Of Low
7. Born Villain
8. Portrait of an American Family
9. The Pale Emperor
10. Smells Like Children

[GulDukat]

I'm late on the MM voting but this should qualify:

1. Eat Me Drink Me
2. Mechanical Animals
3. Golden Age of Groteque
4. Holy Wood
5. Antichrist Superstar
6. The High End Of Low
7. Born Villain
8. Portrait of an American Family
9. The Pale Emperor
10. Smells Like Children

I don't know if I would rank EMDM @1, but cool of you to do so. I love that album.

[onthewall2983]

I'd say Kurt's generation--meaning him, Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, Layne and Jerry, Billy Corgan, Trent, etc.

Yeah, but I think all of their attention only bloomed because of Nirvana's success. Except Trent, who I'd find it kind of hard to say he's a rock musician anyway.

[tony.parente]

I don't know if I would rank EMDM @1, but cool of you to do so. I love that album.

I think it's the raw emotion of EMDM and Mechanical Animals that I love so much, they switch spots for me constantly.

[blackholesun]

Rock, rap, hip hop- it's all dead IMHO. They've all seen their better days as a whole. You'll get your exceptions here and there but I think the last renascence was the 90's.

I I don't envy "new" musicians at all. There's only so many riffs and notes and stuff you can sing or rap about. That's a a tough gig to be good and or original.

No music style will ever be dead. Music won't sound exactly the same as it did in the 90s...or anytime. It's the nostalgia effect. Genres are constantly moving in new and interesting directions. There is a whole lot more music to sift through since more people make music now than ever. I'd argue that there is better music in every genre NOW (the last 5 years), than in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s combined. You just have to put in more legwork, which honestly isn't harder than typing in a few keywords into Google.

Originality isn't the definition of good music, IMO. I mean it's good to be original, but that is a topic that should be a thread of it's own. It's about connecting to the listener. You only have so many notes and progressions, but there is so much more than that. Texture, nuance, harmonics, velocity...I can go on and on. I'm sure someone will write a song I actually like (or maybe already has) with the same chord progression that Green Day's "Time of Your Life" (I song I abhor) uses, but it will sound so different that it wouldn't even compute that the same progression is being used.

TLDR: Genres don't die

[Krazy]

TLDR: Genres don't die

I understand this is going to be subjective, but please enlighten me on on all the great new rock acts (or any genre) that have come out in the past 3-5 years.

Not trying to sound ignorant or anything but there haven't been too many IMO. Kind of curious to see what people's list look like and will be more than happy to revisit some of that music

[blackholesun]

I understand this is going to be subjective, but please enlighten me on on all the great new rock acts (or any genre) that have come out in the past 3-5 years.

Not trying to sound ignorant or anything but there haven't been too many IMO. Kind of curious to see what people's list look like and will be more than happy to revisit some of that music

I understand it is subjective as well, but there is so much out there that I find it impossible for anyone to say that there isn't a good album in x-genre.

I trust the Rate Your Music charts - http://rateyourmusic.com/customchart...one&countries= - That's the best rated rock albums since 2010, so 5-6 years. I just searched rock. I haven't even heard all of those albums, but I would consider many of them to be classics already....Swans, The National, Converge, Sigur Ros...I think if someone listened to all top 100 albums and didn't find at least 10 albums liked or enjoyed in some capacity, then we shouldn't be trusting their judgment in music. They either have some type of bias when they hear new music or the nostalgia factor kicks in. Doesn't sound like the 90s? Then it's shit. That's a little harsh, but but there's so much there to sift through. No one is spoon fed the best music anymore. The shittiest bands could have the best connections. There's so much great music in that top 100 alone, yet there's so much more stuff that didn't make that list. Like I said, it takes effort with the amount of music released. I find it impossible to believe that someone into rap music can't find a rap album they like in this year, 2015.

I must restate that the nostalgia effect is a huge thing. We like what reminds of good times, even bad times...anything to feel. We live in an over saturated world. We resort to familiarity.

Sorry for the novella, but I feel very strongly about this. The association of a certain time period and music needs to be brought down. I think it's great for categorization, but comparing two different time periods is futile.

[BRoswell]

Rock, rap, hip hop- it's all dead IMHO. They've all seen their better days as a whole.

Sure, if all you're listening to is what's in the mainstream.

[GulDukat]

I understand this is going to be subjective, but please enlighten me on on all the great new rock acts (or any genre) that have come out in the past 3-5 years.

Some people try to make Jack White out to be his generation's Dylan or John Lennon. He's very talented, but his music doesn't do a whole lot for me.

[GulDukat]

I'd take Rex Manning over most of the modern pop music that I've heard:

[Sutekh]

just to chip in on the rock/rap being dead discussion, I think the internet's capacity for letting fans network and recommend stuff, downloading stuff, the ability to check out a band in 2 seconds on youtube etc etc is having a profound effect on the popularity of bands and the nature of audiences & scenes. Things can really gain momentum without any mainstream support - looking at metal for example, the days of million selling GNRs and van halens is probably over, but what you've got now is a myriad sub genre scenes that are way more vibrant than they were before... doom metal is particularly big, with its own stages at big festivals and small festivals of its own - this is basically all down to people chatting and downloading stuff online.

so while metal is past its prime and seen as kind of gauche, hundreds of thousands of people still go to metal festivals because the accumulative effect of all these metal scenes is that metal in general has a huge fanbase that isnt concentrated in any one area enough to be that visible to the mainstream

and i think in time it will spread to most other genres of popular music and the mega mega million seller billboard type artists will become broader and sell less.

[Dr Channard]

I'd say Kurt's generation--meaning him, Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, Layne and Jerry, Billy Corgan, Trent, etc.

Yeah, but I think all of their attention only bloomed because of Nirvana's success. Except Trent, who I'd find it kind of hard to say he's a rock musician anyway.

If we are being honest, Alice in Chains hit mainstream success and relevance before Nirvana. Nirvana’s 1989 Bleach wasn’t initially a breakthrough success. Alice in Chains debut 1990 album Facelift went gold by the end of 1990 and was first grunge album to be certified platinum, while Nevermind (Nirvana’s first big success) wasn’t even in the picture until near the 4^th quarter of 1991. Pearl Jam’s Ten dropped about a month before Nevermind. It took Ten some time to build momentum, but to this day it has outpaced Nevermind in terms sales*.

Nirvana did takeoff like a rocket once Smells Like Teen Spirit got some momentum going for them, and they were important to what was going on in the early 90‘s, but I think that the attention of each of these other groups would have bloomed just fine on their own without Nirvana because on their own merit they were also important groups.



*Domestic sales. Globally Nevermind has more sales.

[Archive_Reports]

just to chip in on the rock/rap being dead discussion, I think the internet's capacity for letting fans network and recommend stuff, downloading stuff, the ability to check out a band in 2 seconds on youtube etc etc is having a profound effect on the popularity of bands and the nature of audiences & scenes. Things can really gain momentum without any mainstream support - looking at metal for example, the days of million selling GNRs and van halens is probably over, but what you've got now is a myriad sub genre scenes that are way more vibrant than they were before... doom metal is particularly big, with its own stages at big festivals and small festivals of its own - this is basically all down to people chatting and downloading stuff online.

so while metal is past its prime and seen as kind of gauche, hundreds of thousands of people still go to metal festivals because the accumulative effect of all these metal scenes is that metal in general has a huge fanbase that isnt concentrated in any one area enough to be that visible to the mainstream

and i think in time it will spread to most other genres of popular music and the mega mega million seller billboard type artists will become broader and sell less.

My opinion is that people see metal as "dead" because it isn't as accessible as it once was. The mainstream "metal" bands consist of stuff like Disturbed instead of the stuff that's actually interesting and well done. Joe Music Consumer doesn't want to hear a bunch of technical shredding over double bass, blast beats, and death metal growls. There are some killer metal bands pushing their respective sub-genres or just dialing in and perfecting what they do.

[Kunstmord]

...And the Circus Leaves Town > Welcome to Sky Valley. They're both brilliant albums, but Circus has a certain melancholy vibe to it and is more diverse. Spaceship Landing is probably the best thing Kyuss has ever done.

Late on the MM voting, too, but anyway:
1. Antichrist Superstar
2. The Golden Age of Grotesque
3. The High End of Low
4. Eat Me, Drink Me
5. Mechanical Animals
6. The Pale Emperor
7. Holy Wood
8. Born Villain
9. POAFF

[Sutekh]

golden age and HIGH END (?!) better than mechanical animals...aaaaaaaarrggggggggh

(fair play)

[allegro]

WHOOOOO CARRRRES, YOU GUYS PLEASE QUIT TAKING OVER THIS THREAD with more MANSON crap omg jesus h christ. You have a whole THREAD for that!

[Khrz]

Well it sorta overlaps... Or does it... With Manson I don't even know anymore if liking his stuff is controversial or if it's the other way around...
Same as for Tool now that I think of it...

[allegro]

Well it sorta overlaps... Or does it... With Manson I don't even know anymore if liking his stuff is controversial or if it's the other way around...
Same as for Tool now that I think of it...

oh please do not say TOOL! TAKE IT BACK TAKE IT BACK!

Manson and Tool on a NIN board ... ho hum ... soooooooo "controversial."

[aggroculture]

I've been listening to rock since the early 90s, and I've never seen it so bad as it is now. Rock is pathetic at the moment: the last exciting rock scene was emo, and that peaked about 10 years ago. What have we had since then? Half-baked retro rock, indie, corporate Nickelrock, pop-rock, just the pits, really. Yes Kanye is more rock'n'roll than all of today's rock bands put together.

Metal is even worse, purely underground at this point, no cultural relevance at all. Slipknot is basically the public face of metal: a Halloween pantomime. And metal is also totally retro right now: in the 90s metal was exciting, it mixed with other genres to produce new sounds; now metal goes back to cannibalize only other metal or punk bands. So tired of this dumb Sabbath/Neurosis sound (hello Mastodon, probably the best of a boring bunch), and even djent is Meshuggah + emo. I do have hope that metal will come back strong soon: bands need to start writings songs for that to happen; for some reason, about 10 or so years ago, metal bands stopped writing songs, and thought that just jamming and riffing was a good way to go. Stupid decision. Now metal is culturally insignificant except as some hipster retro fashion statement.

Pop and hip-hop on the other hand are pretty awesome right now.

[allegro]

Sirius XM's OCTANE plays "New Hard Rock" but I really don't know who any of these bands are and most of it sounds the same to me, although I know I sound like MY MOM when I say that LOL.

[Sutekh]

I've been listening to rock since the early 90s, and I've never seen it so bad as it is now. Rock is pathetic at the moment: the last exciting rock scene was emo, and that peaked about 10 years ago. What have we had since then? Half-baked retro rock, indie, corporate Nickelrock, pop-rock, just the pits, really. Yes Kanye is more rock'n'roll than all of today's rock bands put together.

Metal is even worse, purely underground at this point, no cultural relevance at all. Slipknot is basically the public face of metal: a Halloween pantomime. And metal is also totally retro right now: in the 90s metal was exciting, it mixed with other genres to produce new sounds; now metal goes back to cannibalize only other metal or punk bands. So tired of this dumb Sabbath/Neurosis sound (hello Mastodon, probably the best of a boring bunch), and even djent is Meshuggah + emo. I do have hope that metal will come back strong soon: bands need to start writings songs for that to happen; for some reason, about 10 or so years ago, metal bands stopped writing songs, and thought that just jamming and riffing was a good way to go. Stupid decision. Now metal is culturally insignificant except as some hipster retro fashion statement.

Pop and hip-hop on the other hand are pretty awesome right now.

I still love metal but good analysis, it is too inward & backward looking these days. TBH I do wonder if it has basically hit the end of the line. Lots of stuff I really love from the last 20 years but ultimately the last great metal band (in a sort of sabbath-motorhead-metallica type pantheon) was pantera

we've had very fast, extremely fast, slow, very slow, drone, industrial, thrash/nwobhm, stoner/doom, operatic, black, blackened death, death, christian, glam, nu metal, groove metal, power metal, folk metal... what is there left to cover that would actually be any good?

[aggroculture]

Here's what I want more of:

Metal bands writing pop songs again (like Metallica, Nirvana, Korn, Rammstein, Pantera, Kyuss, Sabbath, Zeppelin). I want metal to dare to appeal to the masses again. I want big production not lo-fi rumbling.

Metal + hip-hop: yes, it ended badly with nu-metal, but I think this genre could rise again; think of Kanye's creativity + metal riffs (he already has some metal riffs): hip-hop's rapping + sampling + metal + operatic grandiosity. Death Grips-style mania, but with metal. Shabazz Palaces trippy weirdness with space rock. Trip-hop doom metal. The possibilities are endless.

Metal + electronica: why does it have to end with NIN, Broadrick, and Rammstein? Let's hear some hulking beats meshed with massive riffs again; throw a big pop chorus on there and you're in business. Let's look beyond djent and dubstep as both are stuck in their ruts.

Groove: metal needs to "get its groove back," get funky again, stop trying to be this macho bullshit pose and bring sexy back. Jazz is fine: let's put down the avant-skronk for a minute, and go big band, Duke Ellington and Count Basie rather than Miles Davis and John Zorn.

Basically I'd like metal to start talking to the other genres again. Merely talking to itself has become totally boring.

[onthewall2983]

Reaching out to other seemingly disparate genres is good, but another way forward would be if some bands looked as much back into the roots the genre has in blues and jazz. Those elements have largely been missing ever since the Priests and Maidens just focused on the heaviness.

[Archive_Reports]

Here's what I want more of:

Metal bands writing pop songs again (like Metallica, Nirvana, Korn, Rammstein, Pantera, Kyuss, Sabbath, Zeppelin). I want metal to dare to appeal to the masses again. I want big production not lo-fi rumbling.

Metal + hip-hop: yes, it ended badly with nu-metal, but I think this genre could rise again; think of Kanye's creativity + metal riffs (he already has some metal riffs): hip-hop's rapping + sampling + metal + operatic grandiosity. Death Grips-style mania, but with metal. Shabazz Palaces trippy weirdness with space rock. Trip-hop doom metal. The possibilities are endless.

Metal + electronica: why does it have to end with NIN, Broadrick, and Rammstein? Let's hear some hulking beats meshed with massive riffs again; throw a big pop chorus on there and you're in business. Let's look beyond djent and dubstep as both are stuck in their ruts.

Groove: metal needs to "get its groove back," get funky again, stop trying to be this macho bullshit pose and bring sexy back. Jazz is fine: let's put down the avant-skronk for a minute, and go big band, Duke Ellington and Count Basie rather than Miles Davis and John Zorn.

Basically I'd like metal to start talking to the other genres again. Merely talking to itself has become totally boring.

The last time metal bands started writing hooks metalcore was born. And don't get me wrong, I'm a big metalcore fan, but it got over-saturated and shitty just like anything else that catches on.

As far as metal and electronic music, there are a handful of bands that are using electronic elements and doing it very well. Anaal Nathrakh, for example.

[Jinsai]

I've heard a lot of people in here say that they hate the Grateful Dead, but maybe if people checked out the live show they streamed yesterday they might change their minds. The second set was super psychedelic and awesome. It's hard to believe there's not something in there for everyone.

[Dr Channard]

Metal + hip-hop: yes, it ended badly with nu-metal, but I think this genre could rise again;

So, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, at the end of the film do you remember what happened to the Nazis when they opened the ark? Well… god needs to employ that same angel of death to prevent anyone from somehow reviving nu-metal. It belongs in a museum, or better yet, sealed in a crate, locked in a government vault, buried far, far underground. Forever.