The Bands You Like Suck.

[msherwin]

but Ben
Why are you so mad? Try to understand that I do want
you as a friend.
I just don't want you to do some crazy shit.
I seen this one shit on the news a couple weeks ago
that made me sick.
Some dude was drunk and drove his car over a bridge
And had his girlfriend in the trunk and she was
pregnant with his kid
And in the car they found a tape but it didn't say who
it was to
Come to think about it...his name was...it was you.
DAMN!
[/quote]

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Well, Ben has managed to turn everyone against him in this thread, so I guess it was -- according to the opening post -- a success after all.

I mean, hell, I'm even thinking of taking a poke at him and he hasn't even gone after any of the bands I posted.

[Ben]

And if you want to talk about bands who adress issues what about REM?

No, I do not want to talk about bands who address issues. I don't care about issues. Issues are BORING. Quentin Tarantino said, if you have something to say, just come right out and say it. "WAR IS BAD". Don't need to spend an hours beating around that bush.

But I don't care about issues, and I rarely care about the lyrics. It's all about the MUSIC, man, and if your music is substandard, boring, uncreative and simplistic, like you just read "My First Book of Guitar Playing", then I'm going to TELL you.

(Well, not you, specifically, since I haven't heard any of your music.)

listen to your crap, I'll listen to mine.

Let's approach this from a different angle:

How about, YOU listen to MY crap, and I will also listen to my crap. That would be better.

[Ben]

Uh, you've never been to or watched a live REM concert or read an article about them in your life have you?

Of course not. Why would I do that?

Yes, they have done work for charitable orginizations, but not ONCE have I ever seen them use it for publicity, and never have I heard them say that they are all important.

They could be the Virgin Friggin' Mother Theresa for all I care. How about playing a song with a little groove to it?

Jesus, if you're going to pull shit out of your ass, at least research it.

Where's the fun in that?

[Ben]

but Ben
Why are you so mad? Try to understand that I do want
you as a friend.
I just don't want you to do some crazy shit.
I seen this one shit on the news a couple weeks ago
that made me sick.
Some dude was drunk and drove his car over a bridge
And had his girlfriend in the trunk and she was
pregnant with his kid
And in the car they found a tape but it didn't say who
it was to
Come to think about it...his name was...it was you.
DAMN!

I'm sorry msherwin.
I never meant to hurt you.
I never meant to make you cry, but tonight, I'm cleaning out my closet.

(One more time!)

[Ben]

Well, Ben has managed to turn everyone against him in this thread, so I guess it was -- according to the opening post -- a success after all.

Took a little longer than I would have liked, but such is life. I must be getting soft in my old age.

I mean, hell, I'm even thinking of taking a poke at him and he hasn't even gone after any of the bands I posted.

Well, the bands you posted were so obviously awful that I didn't think I needed to even point it out.

[Eric]

But I don't care about issues, and I rarely care about the lyrics. It's all about the MUSIC, man, and if your music is substandard, boring, uncreative and simplistic, like you just read "My First Book of Guitar Playing", then I'm going to TELL you.

"Substandard" ???

So is there some sort of government office of musical standards I missed out on? Where's the standards? Who sets them? You? Some critics you happen to agree with? Or maybe these standards can be measured like graviity or something, or proven to exist mathematically?

Show me these standards.

You might wish there was some real basis to elevate your opinion but there isn't.

General comment -- It seems to be a common fallacy that complexity is somehow closely related to quality or merit. Maybe it is the old Puritan work ethic, if it took more work - which it must've because there's more notes - then it has got to be "better." That's really just nonesense. If, for example, you look at the work of visual artists, usually, the older they get the more they simplify. The idea is to get at the essence of the work and lose the nonessential. And that is a lot more difficult, in the sense that fewer people probably have the facility to do that than to learn complicated techniques. To me, the genius of the Ramones is that they stripped rock down to its essentials.

Every sort of art has a variety of elements and an artist isn't obligated to give them all equal consideration or use them all. A modern painting might concentrate on color and ignore representation entirely. People who like representational stuff might not like it -- but that doesn't make it inferior to some trite Victorian painting of photographic accuracy.

I've got to say though, it is going to be pretty hard to offend me by insulting my musical tastes, especially since it is all just a matter of taste. Now someone going out of their way to make people mad, or pretedning to do so, for whatever obscure reasons, well, yeah, that might work...

Eric

[Ben]

Where's the standards? Who sets them? You?

Yes.

Some critics you happen to agree with? Or maybe these standards can be measured like graviity or something, or proven to exist mathematically?

No, you had it right the first time.

General comment -- It seems to be a common fallacy that complexity is somehow closely related to quality or merit.

And, of course, that's not what I meant either. But tell me if this is great music:

Here I am, playing the guitar. It's a standard 4/4 track, and I am strumming my guitar once, directly on the quarter notes, and am changing the chord every measure. The chord progression goes like (and I'm just making this up for example's sake): C, F, G.

So, twelve quarter notes, four played at C, four at F, four at G, strummed out on our guitar, and then we repeat.

Is that great (or even acceptable) music? If your answer is, "Music is unqualitative. It is what it is, and it is up to the listener to decide," then all I can say is: go back to San Francisco, hippie. The song I just described is BORING, TIRESOME, WITHOUT SOUL, WITHOUT GROOVE, SUBSTANDARD, and SUCKS. Thank you.

the genius of the Ramones

Please, not while I'm eating.

I've got to say though, it is going to be pretty hard to offend me by insulting my musical tastes

Okay, you're ugly too.

[Eric]

Holy shit!

So Its you who set the "standards."

Wow, I am honored to know the man who sets the standards.

Me, I just have opinions, but this Ben guy, his opinions are standards.

As far as the audience deciding...well, yeah...in a way that's just how it is. If you're a working artist you gotta connect with an audience so, in fact, making that connection is more important than what somebody that knows about technique thinks about your technique. Its the communication with the audience that counts.

Mind you, I don't say that as setter of standards as per your most omnipotent self but just a poor schmuck who writes books and stories for an audience which actually buys them. Maybe if I were just some guy screwing around for his own amusement I'd be wanting to set standards and shit too because then you can be a big authority without any audience. So if you're validating your musical theories by finding an audience for your music I stand corrcted.

But, that's just my opinion and at least I can tell the difference between opinions and facts.

Eric

Only mildly annoyed.

[loafergirl]

Let's approach this from a different angle:

How about, YOU listen to MY crap, and I will also listen to my crap. That would be better.

Hmmm. No. How about you just eat some since you're full of enough of it it should keep you quiet for a while.

-LG

[Ben]

Christ, I just wanna be loved, is that so wrong?!?!?

[Ben]

Oh, you know, I could go on with this for weeks and months, building a thread which would make the original BBQ list look like a bad fart in the wind, but I just don't have the heart for it.

Truth is: I, of course, don't mean any of that crap that I said (other than I hate the bands that I mentioned). A wise man once said to me, the more things you can enjoy in life, the better off you are. And as Morgan Freeman said at the end of Shawshank Redemption, "Where that damn fool whitey go??"

No, wait... he said: "Absolutely goddamn right."

[Eric]

So I'll ditch the note I was gonna post saying, what the hell is going on here and why am I arguing about this.

But I gotta admit, getting irate about music -- makes me feel like a teenager again.

Eric

[loafergirl]

I never got irate,just annoyed.A good debate is fun, and when a quick comeback is open like that, it has to be taken =)

-LG

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Well, the bands you posted were so obviously awful that I didn't think I needed to even point it out.

I'm going to put my fist through your throat because of that wisecrack. I will then attempt to retract said hand and allow you to live your life as a traechiaed sideshow, only it won't be so easy due to my extreme amount of You-Pulping Punching Power that I possess and I'll have to throw your form around in a hasty attempt to cause your throat to let go. Eventually I'll get it right and allow you to live the rest of your life no longer nicknamed Ben "Pinback" Parrish but rather Ben "Pez" Parrish.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Holy shit!
So Its you who set the "standards."
Wow, I am honored to know the man who sets the standards.
Me, I just have opinions, but this Ben guy, his opinions are standards.

I'd like to step in here for a moment and state that this was probably another piece of performance art by our guy Ben here.

But what I think he was getting at was, when it comes to music, *each person* is the ultimate arbitrator when it comes to whether it's any good or not. I look at it like this -- I can sit down and watch a movie and dislike it, or at least have an indifferent reaction to it. It is possible that someone can then point out details that I have missed, someone can show me that certain scenes make up pieces of a larger narrative that I had not seen (perhaps the film is the second in a trilogy) and actually move my opinion of the film in a different direction.

This is possible with other forms of entertainment, I think. For instance, I used to read the occasional comic book drawn by Rob Leifeld ten years ago. Maybe one of his every fourth month or so. It was good enough at the time, but I later learned that the guy had like ten "stock" poses that he'd put his characters into, so that each comic ended up looking like the one that came before it. I wouldn't have noticed that, buying his stuff as infrequently as I did.

It's not like that with music. There is absolutely nothing anyone can say that will change my opinion on the song "Phoebe Cates" by FenixTX, for instance. I understand that someone could say that it's a trite piece of unfunny nostalgia pop and I would say, "maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that I like putting that CD and that track on in my car the instant I hit the highway home."

This is also why I think that music is inherently unreviewable, but that's another post.

Additionally, the criteria that we all subject music to is totally different. Ben has stated that he doesn't care about lyrics (thus, as final arbitrator for what Ben Likes, lyrics matter not). This isn't the case with me. Lyrics are very important. Sometimes for what they say, sometimes for what they imply, sometimes for the way they sound and sometimes for all of the above. Time and place is also very important to me. The CD "Wish" by the Cure will always be the second month of my freshman year. "Disintegration" by the same band also has a lot of scenario surrounding it.

But, that's just my opinion and at least I can tell the difference between opinions and facts.

This is true, but in my opinion (heh) I think music is subject to different rules. We can have a thread on whether or not Grand Theft Auto III was a decent game or not. I think a discussion of the album "Vapor Trails"'ll eventually come down to "Rush rocks" or "Rush blows." (Mind you, like-minded citizens can thrash out topics on a more detailed level... at least in theory. I'm guessing here. I've never been on alt.fan.rush or any of those Usenet groups, so I dunno.)

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Truth is: I, of course, don't mean any of that crap that I said (other than I hate the bands that I mentioned). A wise man once said to me, the more things you can enjoy in life, the better off you are.

What the hell is this GARBAGE? I didn't write the previous response only to see you trot this pathetic sack of sentiment out in front of everybody, ensuring that they all got a whiff of the pungent smell of a pussy backing down from the front-yard cross-burning that he so richly deserves.

You were onto something with the bile that you were slurping out onto the keys. They formed a more-or-less coherent semblance of human thought. This... this... foul backtracking does little else than give me pause to VOMIT.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Cause to vomit, too. First a pause. And then vomiting, due to his cause. Puking. Technicolor yawning. Selling of buicks. Etc.

[Ben]

Well, how about this:

How come it's you same uppity pseudo-intellectual pus-bags who, when YOUR music is attacked, instantly go all world-peace and start trotting out, "Well, nobody can judge any music because it's all in the eye of the flaming beholder, nyaaaaaeaeewwweewe", but you think nothing of sitting around in a giant sticky circle jerk going on and on about (and I'm just picking him as an example) how awful Eminem is, and how music has really devolved, and that "rap crap" is a load of garbage, and we are far, far too special and important to have our ears molested with that kind of noise?

Nobody ever says, "Well, I don't care for it, but to each their own!" If somebody says something SUCKS, and you AGREE, you'll pile on like the rest of us, you hypocritical, holier-than-shit sons of WHORES.

How you like me NOW?!??

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Because EACH PERSON is the ultimate Chief Examiner when it comes to musics that passes through *their* skulls and into their pea-brains. What happens is that people either forget this or are oblivious to it. If I am holier-than-thou (ALL of thou) about anything, it's just because I am able to engage in some simple human empathy.

There are individuals, though, involved with this music that none of us can judge for others. Saying that Eminem is a piece of crap for his rage-against-the-homosexuals agenda, or saying that he is a Comedy Kingpin for suggesting that himself, Carson Daly and Marky Mark ought to stand around in a "Fun Bunch" is wholly divorced from whatever tunes he manages to crank out.

You say that you hate REM because they are pretentious, but then you say that music and not lyrics are really the only thing that matters. I have a question for you, then. How can you perceive them as pretentious when you're just listening to the notes that make up their songs? Unless lyrics can have a negative effect on your perception of a group but not a positive one (which is entirely fair 'nuff if so).