Music Rant
Here’s the skinny: I could go for some new tunes. Please suggest some.
Something in English, and lyrical. Probably something rock, but I won’t snub my nose to other genres if the quality is good. I’m not being completely subjective here, you can have a good musical quality song about the sugar packet in your desk drawer. Good rap probably does exist somewhere. I have HEARD good country music… it just wasn’t written by a country artist.
Example of bad quality: The White Stripes suck ass, almost as bad as Nirvana. They are sloppy, they’ll miss chords or notes, he’ll go off key. The best way I can describe them is it’s as if someone decided to reinvent Led Zeppelin, except replace Robert Plant’s vocals with an angsty guy that WISHES he was still a teenager. Jimmy Page’s guitar skill is replaced by zombie Jimmy Page, please note his fingers are decomposing. That explains that. Ok so a couple of their songs are vaguely catchy, maybe they’d be good if they weren’t being performed by LIVING DEAD.
Nirvana sucked too. Yes I bought some of their cds too. I don’t regret it, you learn from your mistakes.
Further example of bad: Nickelback.
… What, did you except me to explain that one? On that exact same note, Creed. Though it’s mainly just the guy’s voice that bothers me.
Postal Service. They’re trying to be Savage Garden and doing an extremely poor job of it. It does have an 80’s synth pop appeal which tears at me, but I got a few tracks from a friend and I thought the mp3s had transfered wrong and become corrupt. No, it’s supposed to sound like that. Well crap! It reminds me of Ben Folds without the music writing talent, and more often on key.
You can go too far the other way too. Clinical perfection can eliminate emotion. You can hit the right note in a song but still suck because you’re a freaking robot, Evanescence for example, but I still like them anyway.
Now, I realize my tastes vary pretty far and wide in some respects so I’ll try to clarify more of what I’m looking for.
True Rock
I’m a big fan of B’z. Most of their songs are pretty “happy,” and don’t have much depth to them, but are technically pretty damn excellent. Their best songs of course have more depth, and there’s a variety of styles they cover so I appreciate them as artists.
Live. This band is often fabulous. Good singing, excellent and often clever lyrics, serious power and emotion in the majority of their songs. Please ignore the album “Secret Samadhi.”
Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi is good, shut up. Another good example of good lyrics and vocals creating powerful or emotional songs.
Goo Goo Dolls. Pretty damn good stuff, very limited in style variations but the quality is way up there.
Autopilot Off. I don’t like the lead singer’s voice very mutch, but I quite approve of their song writing. The 12th Day, and Divine Intervention are fine songs.
Angie Aparo is fabulous. He leans almost toward folk rock in several songs but he just KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING.
Kishidan is helaciously fun.
L’arc en Ciel is often quite good, especially the SMILE album.
STP - Plush is a good song.
Sponge - Plowed is also good.
Dishwalla - Counting blue cars.
Primitive Radio Gods - Standing outside a broken phonebooth with money in my hand.
Kansas, Eagles, Collective Soul, Fuel, U2, REM (the older stuff only)
Synth Heavy or Industrial
Depeche Mode is always welcome. Yes, I’m an 80’s child and that probably influences this. Dave Gahan’s vocals always please. Lyrical quality is good if sometimes limited in scope.
I’m a big Nine Inch Nails fan, few other artists approach the level of creativity that Trent has. Yes he uses strange noises and distortion on some albums for effect like a gazillion other artists do but underneath that he’s got some of the strangest chord progressions, melodies, and harmonies you could imagine… but it WORKS.
Gravity Kills had a fabulous debut album, and then some noteable singles from their following releases. Unfortunately most people never heard them, or even about them.
Stabbing Westward was great while they lasted. It took them a while to really come into their own, and they split up almost immediately afterwards, but I still like their old stuff as well. I’m waiting on more stuff from Chris Hall’s new band The Dreaming.
Apoptygma Berzerk. Wow. These guys can rock, or suck hard depending on the track. I freaking love “Eclipse.” They have a lot of good stuff, and then some that’s just so boring you fall asleep.
Sister Machine gun’s first 2 or 3 albums were dandy.
The Sneaker Pimps were great.
Filter’s first was pretty good.
Tool’s ok, very cleverly created but the powerful songs are few and far between.
VNV Nation has some really powerful tracks, I really like “Kingdom”
Other stuff
Yasunori Mitsuda is a freaking genius.
The stuff coming from the Beck Anime is surprisingly good.
Do As Infinity: mostly excellent.
I will admit that doesn’t really lead you ANYWHERE in specific. I’m just throwing shit out it seems. So what am I looking for? Crap, maybe I don’t know. The word “Powerful” keeps springing to mind. Some songs just have an innate power and energy to them. Sometimes that carries the song. Sometimes it’s just one aspect of it’s goodness.
Anytime I turn on the radio anymore I get flooded with what seems like filler, fluff. Things with no substance. Angsty teens whining about the highschools they haven’t even been in the same state as for 10 years should not be listened to, they won’t stop whining if you keep giving them attention! I didn’t like “emo” in the late 80’s, and I don’t now even though it doesn’t mean ANYTHING remotely approaching what it sued to.
The same thing can be said for punk I think. I don’t know what that means anymore either. It used to mean Iggy Pop and Billy Idol. Now I think it means any song with fast guitars? Heck.. who can say?
Alright, I think that gets the point across. Music Nazi signing off, and remember:
“I HATE YOU AND I HATE THE BAND YOU LIKE!” — Sarge from the RvB Guide to the Internet.
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