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Unpopular music opinions

HepKitty

One Too Many
Messages
1,156
Location
Idaho
ouch. I didn't think that "unpopular" should mean "hateful." And I just wanted to know if anyone can explain what a "huckleberry friend" is...
 

vitanola

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,254
Location
Gopher Prairie, MI
Show off. You lost me early on. I intended to put together a serious answer to fletch's post, but you just kinda hacked me off with this. Clearly I don't have a music major's understanding of what is included in the classification of "jazz." And I don't care. So, from my uneducated and subjective personal perspective,

this to me this is jazz, and I don't like it:

[video=youtube;SmhP1RgbrrY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmhP1RgbrrY[/video]

You may say it has some connection to old time or country or bluegrass, but I don't buy it. You beat that monkey hard enough and he'll tell you anything you want to hear (get that?). I can't hear what connection it has with this

[video=youtube;bDJPnG3RDxU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDJPnG3RDxU&feature=related[/video]


That caterwauling is jazz, I suppose. To the "experts" it appears to be the only jazz that counts as such, but there is so much more to to the music. Swing music IS jazz, so is Dixieland, much pop frome the 'Twenties. Western Swing (think Bob Wills & hs Texas Playboys) is yet anoyher form of jazz, as are jump blues, ans several other precursors to Rock & Roll. Rock itself adopts
many of the conventions of small group jazz.

Please accept my apologies if you felt "hacked off". I

I suggested two specific songs, both of which are on YouTube, that might have introduced you to a jazz that you wou.d fid to be more congenial. I could not post them here as I am currently using an I-pad, and I cannot how to post a youtube video to this forum using this instrument.

There is an aowful lot more to jazz than Monk. Not all will be toeveryone's taste, of course, but we can hopefully avoid too narrow a cahracterisation.
 
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scotrace

Head Bartender
Staff member
Messages
14,393
Location
Small Town Ohio, USA
This thread got big before I read it! Yeesh.

I like the Beatles. Sinatra too. Springsteen OK, but I lost all interest when I found that the R&R HOF in Cleveland gave him an entire floor. Ridiculous. He just ain't that much. Elvis was a game changer just because he was white. I also like Queen.
Mills Brothers - LOVE.
I think of the "Rock" era, Peter Frampton probably did the most inventive stuff out there. But he was inventive with noise.
There's not much music, besides the current crop of rehashed claptrap, that I dislike. I mean, every piece of music is an expression of the artist's desire to say something important to them (even if it's "gotta pay the mortgage and this guitar is the only way."). I respect their drive to get their work recorded and into the eternal collective consciousness.

Still, Coleman Hawkins "Body and Soul" may be the finest piece of music I've ever heard. Or watching this... my God, to be able to feel music like that! Pops was probably THE game changer.

[video=youtube;BhVdLd43bDI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhVdLd43bDI[/video]
 

Bourbon Guy

A-List Customer
Messages
374
Location
Chicago
That caterwauling is jazz, I suppose. To the "experts" it appears to be the only jazz that counts as such, but there is so much more to to the music. Swing music IS jazz, so is Dixieland, much pop frome the 'Twenties. Western Swing (think Bob Wills & hs Texas Playboys) is yet anoyher form of jazz, as are jump blues, ans several other precursors to Rock & Roll. Rock itself adopts
many of the conventions of small group jazz.

Please accept my apologies if you felt "hacked off". I

I suggested two specific songs, both of which are on YouTube, that might have introduced you to a jazz that you wou.d fid to be more congenial. I could not post them here as I am currently using an I-pad, and I cannot how to post a youtube video to this forum using this instrument.

There is an aowful lot more to jazz than Monk. Not all will be toeveryone's taste, of course, but we can hopefully avoid too narrow a cahracterisation.

No apology necessary. I just get cranky sometimes. Kindly overlook it when I do.

I found the Beiderbeck you mentioned, and like it very much. So, I suppose it is just a certain subgenre (like Monk) that sounds like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

Here's Bix

[video=youtube;rHUCo_dJOng]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHUCo_dJOng[/video]

And I agree with you completely about Coleman. Found it and couldn't get through it. It is precisely what I don't like, and I refuse to post it.

So, what would you call the abstract, dissonant, non-musical doodling (or caterwauling, if you prefer) that I have been conditioned to think of when I think "jazz"?

Uh oh. Been rummaging around on youtube, google, and wiki, and it appears that the music I particularly dislike was produced by musicians considered the "jazz greats." Case in point, (I don't like this guy, either):

[video=youtube;8j_TDoOPnIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j_TDoOPnIA&feature=related[/video]
 

Bourbon Guy

A-List Customer
Messages
374
Location
Chicago
I mean, every piece of music is an expression of the artist's desire to say something important to them (even if it's "gotta pay the mortgage and this guitar is the only way.").

I think this may be the key to it for me. The jazz I object to just seems too self-conscious and egocentric. Less an attempt to communicate than to impress. Speaking a message in a self-invented style in which you omit every third word, and speak every fifth word in aramaic, well.... real quick I don't care.

But to get positive, I don't have to work to appreciate this. It communicates its message musically, and reinforces the emotion contained in the lyric. It just washes over me. I get it. I like it.

[video=youtube;s6P-szrdBaA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6P-szrdBaA&feature=PlayList&p=3747AF9939F96C84&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=18[/video]
 

Romy Overdorp

One of the Regulars
Messages
275
Location
The Netherlands
Not an international artist, but for the Dutch/Belgian who might know her:
I can't STAND Caro Emerald!! She annoys the crap out of me with her lame wannabe retro sound.
Plus I think that Micheal Buble is way overrated.... Okay, don't shoot me now :p
 
Messages
13,473
Location
Orange County, CA
Not an international artist, but for the Dutch/Belgian who might know her:
I can't STAND Caro Emerald!! She annoys the crap out of me with her lame wannabe retro sound.
Plus I think that Micheal Buble is way overrated.... Okay, don't shoot me now :p

It piqued my curiosity enough to check it out. She's not that bad but I do see your point.

[video=youtube;HNLOugYS1lo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNLOugYS1lo&feature=related[/video]
 
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Romy Overdorp

One of the Regulars
Messages
275
Location
The Netherlands
It piqued my curiosity enough to check it out. She's not that bad but I do see your point.

Argh! I hear this song like 6 times a day, since they keep playing it over and over again at the supermarket. (I work there) She is just not selling it at all. No power, no feeling, nothing. Yeah, I am a hater :p

Edit: The guy who plays the sax used to be in a band called Torello's Jive bugs (check them out, they're better than Caro), but I guess he just went for the money.

[video=youtube;Bpj_Y8gPgdA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpj_Y8gPgdA[/video]
 
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martinsantos

Practically Family
Messages
595
Location
São Paulo, Brazil
Romy, the song you posted is infinitely superior than the one I'm putting here. My neighbour (a teenager girl) at those days hearded this ALL DAY LONG. Almost drove me crazy! I had to go to the public library to study - because it's absolutely impossible to read anything with this "music track".

(and CAUTION. After listening this you will need a lot of Cole Porter to desintoxicate).

[video=youtube;6FBT577aHKo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FBT577aHKo[/video]
 

Romy Overdorp

One of the Regulars
Messages
275
Location
The Netherlands
Well I can imagine what it's about... Weird music is always a success because there are too many dimwits on this planet. A few years ago we had the Schnappi song, sung by a CHILD. It was a number one hit, no kidding.
 

Rundquist

A-List Customer
Messages
431
Hey, thanks for answering in such detail. It seems you have very catholic tastes (Presbyterian tho you may be lol).

So here's the thing. As a jazz player, I always ask people who don't like jazz, "What kind of jazz don't you like?" Most of the jazz I listen to is big band, with '20s and '30s small group right behind. 3 1/2 minute mini-essays, meant for dancing and happiness, with little time to noodle away.

So I guess the next question is: what is jazz to you?

I agree that much of the most critically acclaimed jazz is intellectual more than rhythmic or mood in appeal. I don't listen to it much, except to appreciate the musicianship. Some I respect more than love. A lot of it, I, like you, don't dig at all.

Jazz has really suffered with the public because the critics and musicians look down on the old styles, and the new styles offer little to even a niche fandom of non-musicians.

Just to add my two cents to the discussion…..

Some people will never get jazz, period. They just aren’t wired for it. That’s just the way it is. Others can develop a taste for it. But as a jazz fan, you just have to accept that many, many people will never get it.

On top of that, some people only appreciate certain sub-genera’s. To each his own I guess. It’s easy to put down music that you don’t like, let alone understand. And there is pretension in jazz (just like there is in classical or any other types of music). And Jazz can be a complicated affair. Trying to decipher good from bad when you don’t get it to begin with is futile (it all sounds bad from that vantage point).

But somebody like Monk (for instance) was genuine as could be. There was nothing pretentious in his music. That music was him. He didn’t write music with making people scratch their heads in mind. He just wrote music. Nobody has to like it or appreciate it. But you can’t call it pretentious. Is every music that is not played on a jug or comes out of a beat box pretentious? lol
 
Messages
13,473
Location
Orange County, CA
I know. The very worst about videoclip "music". Pop music in its worst. People at their worst. Happilly you don't understand the "lyrics". But made a huge sucess those days (2001).

Heck, I don't understand the lyrics of most of today's pop songs that are in English! I had to scroll back up to Caro Emerald to flush Baba Baby out of my head.
 
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