aethereddy

ok, like many of you, i have strong opinions about music. let me get this out of the way first: i maintain that rap is almost universally misspelled. it requires a c. also: remember, rap music isn't as bad as it sounds.

as far as old pop goes, ever wonder where the term 'one-hit wonder' comes from? given, there were some decent artists to come out of that genre of music, such as the beatles, but a large portion of pop music from the 60's was by bands that barely were together long enough to make an album. the beatles, on the other hand, dropped acid after they became immensely popular, and produced some truly wonderful music.

led zeppelin also achieved great fame, but with something many seem to lack nowadays: talent. john bonham wrote practically every even-metered beat and fill rock drummers use today, jimmy page is among the top 5 guitarists of all time (by my reckoning), and john paul jones was an all-around good musician.

then there's jimi hendrix, who was a musical genius. 'nuff said.

after that comes the deluge of british prog-rock, most notably, pink floyd, emerson lake and palmer, king crimson, et cetera ad nauseum. don't get me wrong, i like those bands, but they all sound the same.

going on on top of that was disco, and then glam metal. i won't even touch that.

then there's punk. punk is, as fat mike of nofx puts it "a bunch of guys who don't know how to play instruments playing together, and people like them even though they totally suck." in other works, all attitude and minimal talent. jumping ahead a decade, we get emo punk. emo punk is what you get if you take the skimmings off the top of the great vat that is punk, and add a lot of water, so in other words, no attitude and no talent. i'm suprised no one has bitched about it yet here. if this is what they're talking about when they say that pop music has shifted back to rock, then that's sad.

jumping back again, punk inspired two genres of music: grunge and metal. grunge is the dark qualities of punk, but with talent this time, i.e. nirvana, alice in chains, melvins, et cetera. metal, however defunct it is now, has had its gems, such as cliff burton and 'dimebag' darrel.

numetal i don't particularly care for. korn did start the genre, however much you wish to bash them, and they still do define and control it now. biz limpkit became popular because of them, and now, they are nobodys (except wes borland, he saw it was a sinking boat and got out) because they pissed off jonathan davis. Their music may sound all the same, but nobody plays tuned down 7-string guitars and 5-string bass better than korn.

that is not to say i despise the entire genre. system of a down's lyrics are intelligent and thought provoking, and their drummer impresses me with what he can do with a single pedal (try the song 'ddevil'). the amount of work put into mocking the bible deserves some recognition from disturbed, even if their first album blew big-time donkey balls.

indie-rock bands like the hives and the presidents and the white stripes are good, in my opinion, not for their musical talent, but for their quirkly lyrics. same goes for they might be giants and beck.

i guess my entire problem with the music industry is that it lends itself to manufactured music that has no redeeming value. which is why, in part, i like tool so much.