Your Opinion on Mainstream Music

General Discussion
161

I am not referring to myself. I am making fun of everybody else.

But, what the hell. Here are a few things I’d consider genuinely non-mainstream, or at least in the margins of the mainstream.

Allan Holdsworth - “Road Games”

Holdsworth uses various tone-shaping technologies and fingering techniques to sculpt his sound into decidedly un-guitarlike textures, which would be enough to distinguish him. But his brain is a factory for dense synthetic chords and equally dense single-note modal lines. And he has no barrier of execution whatsoever.

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Charles Ives - “Country Band March”

This is literally a single ensemble, playing live, imitating the effect of several different compositions fading in and out of one another. It’s a deceptively painful thing to have to do. Ives also uses dissonant harmony and rubato in this piece to further send up the conventions of marching band music.

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Meshuggah - “Elastic”

This band uses the abrasive textures of the heavy metal genre as fuel for structural experimentation. While the compositions as a whole tend to revolve around the same basic pulse as more conventional music, their drummer weaves multiple simultaneous rhythms around it, giving the other instruments an almost crosshatched framework in which to fit all the parts together.

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Arnold Schoenberg - “Verklärte Nacht”

Schoenberg, in theory, composed his pieces such that each of the 12 tones was weighted equally within the composition. This practice leads to phrases that lean heavily on chromaticism and colorful chords in every imaginable inversion–and it all works, both on paper and in practice.

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Frank Zappa - “Bowling on Charon”

FZ composed in basically every genre from jazz to rock to avant garde orchestral music. One of his most idiosyncratic habits was recording nearly every show he ever played, including multiple long-form unprepared guitar solos per show. He has over 80 albums in publication and many more in his archives. Several of his published albums consist entirely of guitar solos culled from these tapes.

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162

The other day I heard greenday on a “classic rock” radio station. That made me feel old.

Anyway, I’m so real I only listen to hardcore remixes of anime intros
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163

Hip Hop/Rap: DJ Khaled - I’m On One
Rock/Metal: Disturbed - Another Way To Die

Those are the last two songs I’ve ever heard on TV or the radio. That tells you how bad it is these days.

164

Most mainstream music is completely unoriginal 100% true. I mean seriusly like 80% of the songs follow a 1-5-6-4 Chord progression! Its so cliche its dumb. But there is some good mainstream music. Just listen to Neon by John Mayer, now thats really well made.

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Most un-mainstream stuff is great too:

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165

This is all I have to say about top 40’s music.

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166

Fuck Schoenberg, Debussy and all those atonal assholes. Melody >>>> harmony all day every day.

While we’re at it fuck John cage too. Is that fucker trying to be clever sitting at the piano and playing nothing? Although I’d rather listen to that than Keisha

Sent from ur mom using my penisTalk

167

Basically.

But come now. Some points need to be made. And if it’s at the expense of making an audience full of pretentious classical music types sweat nervously in their eveningwear, so much the better.

168

I’m far more concerned with whether something is good then whether it’s mainstream or not.

169

Fuck anyone who has ever actually purchased a recording of 4’33

170

ok if you wanna troll snobs, haydns surprise symphony was genius. oh these fuckers are falling asleep during my music? ok i’ll lull em to sleep with a nice slow soft lyrical melody. and then BOOM fortissimo up in their asses

171

I’m violating nerd-to-nerd confidentiality by saying this, but either my girlfriend or I will start humming the melody to the surprise symphony, and we’ll both join in on the big “BOMB!” part.

172

People listen to music mostly for beats and the sound, no one gives a shit about lyrics.

173

Speak for yourself.

174

I should hope that people listen to something for its sound.

175

I’m a huge music fan, and I usually don’t listen to lyrics. I mean a tons of jazz don’t really have lyrics or a vocalist. But Jazz is about the most legit form of music you can get. Almost anyone who plays jazz is pretty technical musically. There are probably less fraudulent jazz players than any other genre other than classical.

176

While Blues is arguably the best modern storytelling form of music. Everyone gets something different out of music.

177

i listen to katy perry because i imagine myself fucking her furiously, not so much her sound. but her music is not bad. light years ahead of keisha. god i hate keisha.

178

White people already stole the blues once and it turned into a debacle (country), so it’s only fitting that we’d try again.

179

I’m black, and I can tell you the progression of blues isn’t that uniform. I would argue that blues itself came from Irish folk or German Waltz. As to how blacks ended up with blues, I think it’s due to Irish slave foremen somewhat passing the musical style onto slaves, who had their own interpretation of blues. Blues came mainly from old negro spirituals, and MANY old gospel songs has a blues feel to them. I personally think country is essentially the same form of music, but I think it was developed in parallel to blues, and not as result of blues.

180

The majority is people like myself. Stay free hipsters & underground artist.