tgpo

How do you picture the various genres of music? Tell us here.

Here's how I see some of them:

Metal: I see metal as putting more importance on playing fast than having meaning. Guys who favor looking "hard" and "satanic" put fashion above message.

Pop: Corporate swill. Mindless music for mindless people who are okay being told what to like.

Electronic Music: Beeps and Bops. Computer music with no emotion and heart.

Punk: Rapid music with a message that is easy to break into, but easy to mistake pop for.

Rap: Music with a message that is easy to break into, but easy to mistake pop for.

Indie: Trying to do a lot with a little and failing 90% of the time. Anyone with a recorder and a guitar can label themselves Indie, and all it does it hurt the genre as a whole. There's a lot of crap you have to search through to find the good stuff.

Classical: Old music to fall asleep to or use royalty free in the background of a PBS special.

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Rickenbacker

Funny joke.

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Talk About the Passion - R.E.M.'s Discography Reviewed

CanwllCorfe

Metal: Anger, aggression, and speed. Some have more of an epic vibe like the 80s bands and some go for an extremely dark and raw feeling like Nargaroth. There's quite a variety and something for everyone! Folk metal, viking metal, black metal, heavy metal, death metal, etc.

Pop: Accessible, happy, and catchy. I don't listen to it really so I can't say much about it.

Electronic Music: Easily the most overlooked genre ever. The main types are Drum & Bass, Dubstep, Trance, Techno, Electronica, House, Dance, and Hardcore. There may even be more and there's a HUGE amount of offshoots off of THOSE types. It can range from uplifting and beautiful like epic trance or progressive house to in your face speed and aggression like terrorcore. I mainly deal with Electro and trance and can really only go into detail with those two.

Punk: Unfortunately I don't know a lot about it but I do thoroughly enjoy it. It has a long and fascinating history and some pretty crazy fans.

Rap: Used to be good, now it's ****.

Indie: Beards, plaid, flip flops. Did someone say Starbucks?

Classic: Very often overlooked and used to be the ONLY music there was for a long time there. Some of it just sounds elegant and pretentious but not always. My personal favorite: Dmitri Shostakovitch.

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music_phantom13

I think you might be joking but I'm going to respond anyway because I'm bored.

Metal: Places an emphasis on being heavy as much as fast. Most bands try to have the most br00tal distortion, screams, and so on. Usually gets annoying as fast as they can play the guitar.

Pop: The mainstream stuff is music for the mindless masses. If you mean indie pop, there's some good cheery bubblegum pop; I like Belle & Sebastian, Melpo Mene, a bit of Seabear here and there, and a few other random things. Not so into this one.

Electronic Music: A lot of it is made quickly as producers try to crank out hit after hit. There is some really cool experimental stuff and all sorts of interesting genres, but usually only a handful of good bands playing each.

Punk: A genre that was initially based more on the scene than the actual music. Musicians commonly did a lot of drugs, and it was about speed and beating the **** out of people. Now it's evolved and is often about either stupid stuff or has a political message. Still fast, relatively simple to play music. Pretty good, but a lot of the original stuff sounds almost exactly the same.

Rap: Music with a dominant beat that often involves "gangstas" that want to be ghetto talking over crappy music. The good stuff has an interesting message, or just really good beats or a really good flow. Some artists tell a story. It's been going really downhill lately.

Hip-Hop: I'm adding this because I think all rap is hip-hop, but not all hip-hop is rap. Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you can have "instrumental rap". There's some really good artists making instrumental tracks and beats; the ninja tunes label makes good stuff. For the most part, a lot of this is also crap these days, but the underground stuff tends to be a lot better than with rap (very few good rappers these days imo, but plenty of good instrumental hip-hop if you dig). Trip-hop is a really cool genre.

Indie: There's so many different genres that fit in here, if you count independent artists like Lightning Bolt, The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective, Of Montreal, The Strokes, older stuff like Pavement, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, The Pixies... I can't really say anything about this as a whole genre in so few words because it's really not one genre. Kind of like what canwll said about electronic.

Oh, and I am hugely generalizing. I listen to some metal, I wouldn't say for example Opeth or Killswitch Engage would fall into the description I wrote for metal.

333

Wow, and here I thought you were going to be a decent poster. I hope this is just a joke, but I've my doubts.

If you think metal is all about being "hard" and "satanic", then I don't think you've listened to enough metal. Not to say I listen to nearly enough, but there are brilliant metal albums out there with more behind it than just satanism and death. Your views on this genre seems to be steered solely on your perception of the stereotypical metalheads. What a shame.

I've not much to say about the recent day pop because well, I can agree with you in a few aspects. It is indeed corporate and heartless. Though it's not always my cup of tea, I do see some talent out there in the modern day pop industry. As for later pop music, I dig it even if it might have been corporate and overrated back then. I see more passion and more talent in older pop musicians.

I cannot say much about electronica because I'm not too familiar with it, but that doesn't mean I completely despise it and denounce it of all emotion and heart. I try to give a piece of music a chance before I completely shut it down. Not to say you haven't done this, but something about your tone leads me to believe you haven't ...


I'm unsure what you mean by "easy to mistake for pop" because you've said that about punk and rap. I already knew you dig punk, and I do too, so there's some common ground.

I think that rap is definitely a genre that takes some hard work in order to find some good shit. Let's face it. There are new rappers everyday and most of the mainstream music leaks directly from some corporate producers ass. Half of the rap and hip/hop I listen to is the product of me searching for something that moves me, challenges me, or inspires me. The other half stems from my awesome music junkie friends (including the MB ones). If any genre deserves it, I think this one is most deserving of second chances.

I still consider myself very uneducated in the realm of Indie music. What I've heard, I don't personally like, but don't necessarily hate either. I think I have to be in the mood for it.

Now, for classical music. Not all of it is old, you know? I love neoclassical music and have tried to talk about it on here, but not too many MBers have responded. Just because it's softer than say, punk music, doesn't necessarily mean the only few things you can do while listening to this genre is sleep or stand in an elevator. Have you actually sat down to listen to ... I don't know, Beethoven's Piano sonatas or Faure's sonatas? Or Mozart's symphonies? The complexities of these pieces, of these minds, no matter when the date, easily surpass (now this is only my opinion) 50% of today's music. There's much more to it than what it is typically used for, or how it's typically viewed. You've got to realize that what we listen to nowadays would not be here if it weren't for these musicians, as well as the pioneers before them.

Lastly, you've failed to mention a few genres including jazz, blues, bluegrass, and country. I'm almost scared to see what you've to say about those genres, but it'll all be in good discussion, I'm sure.

Alfred

Punk for me when looked at as a genre has lost a lot of its meaning. I used to look at it as being purely stylistic, but there's a certain vibe and energy a band gives off when they're within the punk spectrum. A lot of your garden variety classic punk fans will say that punk is dead and that x isn't punk because it doesn't sound like y, but that's because they're Luddites who have an extremely hypocritical, narrow-minded, and ignorant view of what the genre and scene mean.

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tgpo

A few notes: This is no means intended to be a full scale review of entire genres. I meant for this to me a skin deep perception of genres. Y'all don't have to follow the same genre list I used, that was only to get things started and to show what I meant.

I didn't intend my one sentence perceptions to in anyway describe everything about the genres, but rather answer the question "When I think of this genre, this is the first thing that pops in my head"

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