The Hater's Thread

[Landfill Elektronikz]

smallfish effing records types who suddenly got into 'real' music when they realised that everything they listened to was a watered down version of early autechre...

you got me there, bro'!

who's james blunt?

 

[Landfill Elektronikz]

i hate the adverts on rinse fm

 

[Mr H]

anyone who played at/went to Live 8

Does that include James Brown, who closed the show at Murrayfield???

 

[blissblogger]

You just went meta-hate! )

different kind of meta:

Q: why is people liking bad music a bad thing? They're only hurting themselves, right? and it's fairly easy to avoid the stuff you don't like

* * * *

If i could be bothered to hate music anymore I'd agree with most of the things nominated above

BUT

gotta disagree with:

"all metal"

nah, you'd be missing out a lot there. Especially 1970s. If you'd said "all contemporary metal" though...

and

"testosterone"

so much great music is fueled by testosterone. where would be without aggression, arrogance, will to power, predatorial lust, etc, eh? can't have yin without yang yunno

 

[soundslike1981]

"testosterone"

so much great music is fueled by testosterone. where would be without aggression, arrogance, will to power, predatorial lust, etc, eh? can't have yin without yang yunno

Re: testosterone, it seems like the problem usually arrises when testosterone becomes the point, when machismo outpaces any other concern. Phalocentric music always feels innately defensive and insecure---maybe it's why, say, Iggy Pop (at his height) seems menacing in a way that becomes almost beautiful, whereas Pantera or 50 Cent just seem like cartoon violence (even if, as is probably likely, they could probably have "beaten the shit" out of Iggy Pop, physically). Iggy fused testosterone with self-problematisation, imperfection--the violence always sounds like it's working against him as much as for him--which makes him sound, in a way, unafraid. The New York Dolls admitted to the "peacock" aspect of all braggadocio--the fact that much of what is attributed to women pejoratively is very much a part of the male desire to be sexually desired. 50 Cent sounds like he's afraid of being percieved as anything less than fearless (despite his own brutalist peacocking--cover after cover in shirtless glory); and if he is as fearless as he'd like to be seen, then he's basically thick. Metal gets a little tricky, because of the slight thread of comic book imagery/"Norse" pretenses/etc.--Kiss could be completely absurd and yet, it's hard to say whether the audience was in on the wink or whether it was just genuinely (comic-book-style) cool. So your point is correct: yin and yang. I think it's why I can't access 99% of indie rock--there's no danger (and the "danger" in most music I like isn't so much dealing with visceral violence, but musical or social or emotional risk-taking, the danger of admitting to complexity and imperfection--not necessarily requiring testosterone or "aggression, arrogance, will to power, predatorial lust").

It's not a big question, but it makes me wonder--why did it "work" when the New York Dolls or David Bowie or Brian Eno (think first three tracks of 'Warm Jets') et al combined "masculine" "aggression, arrogance, will to power, predatorial lust" with "feminine" mystique, physical imagery---and yet, by almost anyone's account, fail when it became Poison, hair-metal, etc? If anything, those bands had an even more gender-bent visual flair, but it seems arbitrary and completely disconnected from the music. I remember being seven years old and seeing Poison chasing "chicks" in those awful crotch-to-shoulder-"V" swimsuits on my older sister's MTV and being utterly confused--why did these guys look just like the women they were trying to catch? The possible sexual politics therein have been clarified (as mud) by becoming a sexual adult--I still don't get it. What drove them to that aesthetic, and more confusingly, why did the public (ostensibly--never seen any sales figures) embrace it? It certainly doesn't strike me as having been a "metrosexualisation"--it was decidedly misogynistic music. So what was the difference? Was it that even whilst the hair metal bands pranced in all their pink spandex glory, the imagery wasn't intended to confront or shock, made safe as it was with important (cock)Rockist signifiers (masturbation-stance guitar playing, a profusion of (even-more-hyper-feminine) bimbos, regular vows of allegience to unabated ultra-heterosexual "predatorial lust")? Ironically, or perhaps not, they became, like 50 cent or Korn, empty shells of danger, rather than the real thing.

 

[dominic]

Q: why is people liking bad music a bad thing? They're only hurting themselves, right? and it's fairly easy to avoid the stuff you don't like

that was my initial response to this thread

then i decided it'd be more fun to participate!

"all metal" -- nah, you'd be missing out a lot there. Especially 1970s. If you'd said "all contemporary metal" though...

that's my "considered" position -- and as i indicated above early Black Sabbath, Led Zep, etc, are within the scope of my all-too-narrow goodwill, even if i'm not an outright partisan of 70s metal -- and certainly I like AC/DC, is there anyone who doesn't like AC/DC?

"testosterone" -- so much great music is fueled by testosterone. where would be without aggression, arrogance, will to power, predatorial lust, etc, eh? can't have yin without yang yunno

this is the point where you and i tend to part ways

certainly human resource's "dominator" is a testosterone track and one of the greatest rave tracks ever (and, for whatever it's worth, dropped by dj Honeychild of Apollo Heights fame at the all-woman dj warehouse party last weekend)

but there's a huge difference b/w dropping one or two testosterone tracks in a set and devoting an entire set or genre to testosterone

this is why i've never been able to endure gabba

it's why i'm not down with the harder end of grime, the "monster movie theme" stuff

it's why i didn't like tech step and all that followed in its wake

NOW you have several obvious counter-arguments against me

(1) it's only by way of intensification that music moves forward -- and so many of the gains in music since time immemorial have been by way of upping the testosterone ante

(2) the really hurtful biographical argument: by allowing ourselves to be so repulsed by the testosterone factor of the hardcore rave scene, people like me missed out on many of the most interesting and dynamic moments of the 92-to-96 era (yes, it's sad but true, i spent more time in soundshaft or down in brighton than in heaven or labyrinth or the astoria during my year or so in england, and never once set foot in a jungle club out in the periphery of londontown)

(3) the look-how-sterile-music-gets-when-you-eliminate-testosterone argument, i.e., you can point to all the bland metro area stuff, etc

My replies are as follows:

(1) i'm not above turning your "fruitless intensification" argument against you

(2) what made the 92-to-96 era so great was not the testosterone but the wickedness of the music, and wickedness is a sexless quality, a demonic quality -- further, the best 93 stuff was not your beloved darkside but the really zany & wicked stuff put out by ibiza/kemet stable of labels, which typically had a lot more feminine pressure

(3) the best music of past 10 years has avoided sterility by upping the feminine quotient, e.g., gyal dancehall, Destiny's Child, Lady Sovereign (catchier than most grime), MIA (subtract the politics), Dinky, the band i've been pushing Kudu, etc, etc

 

[dominic]

Iggy fused testosterone with self-problematisation, imperfection--the violence always sounds like it's working against him as much as for him--which makes him sound, in a way, unafraid.

or more simply . . . .

(1) iggy was androgynous

(2) iggy was from detroit, informed by motown, had serious soul power and swing (i.e., iggy may have surrendered himself to anti- or non-human sonic energy, but he still had a soul)

The New York Dolls admitted to the "peacock" aspect of all braggadocio--the fact that much of what is attributed to women pejoratively is very much a part of the male desire to be sexually desired.

good point

So your point is correct: yin and yang.

except that I think blissblogger would mount a defense for gabba, tech step, the harder end of grime, the more belgian brutalist moments of the 91/92/93 sound -- and these were all scenes that could be quite extremist, lots of yin and very little yang (whereas i prefer a pinch of yin, a generous dollop of yang, and a surfeit of demonic wickedness)

I think it's why I can't access 99% of indie rock--there's no danger (and the "danger" in most music I like isn't so much dealing with visceral violence, but musical or social or emotional risk-taking, the danger of admitting to complexity and imperfection--not necessarily requiring testosterone or "aggression, arrogance, will to power, predatorial lust")

well, actually, when it comes to indie rock (REM, elvis costello) -- and especially emo -- the problem is precisely that these guys are so damn sensitive, so utterly neutered, and so willing to admit their imperfections

however, your argument holds when you move over to neo-garage rock or punk -- these are male musicians assuming the traditional gender roles, they try to project danger, violence, arrogance, aggression, etc -- and yet they fail b/c there is no musical or social risk-taking

It's not a big question, but it makes me wonder--why did it "work" when the New York Dolls or David Bowie or Brian Eno (think first three tracks of 'Warm Jets') et al combined "masculine" "aggression, arrogance, will to power, predatorial lust" with "feminine" mystique, physical imagery---and yet, by almost anyone's account, fail when it became Poison, hair-metal, etc? If anything, those bands had an even more gender-bent visual flair, but it seems arbitrary and completely disconnected from the music.

or perhaps they simply lacked style? -- which is to defer question, what constitutes "true" style? "true" glamour?

What drove them to that aesthetic, and more confusingly, why did the public (ostensibly--never seen any sales figures) embrace it?

very good question -- seems quite bizarre, doesn't it? -- and this during the 80s, when social conservatism was on the upswing

It certainly doesn't strike me as having been a "metrosexualisation"--it was decidedly misogynistic music. So what was the difference? Was it that even whilst the hair metal bands pranced in all their pink spandex glory, the imagery wasn't intended to confront or shock, made safe as it was with important (cock)Rockist signifiers (masturbation-stance guitar playing, a profusion of (even-more-hyper-feminine) bimbos, regular vows of allegience to unabated ultra-heterosexual "predatorial lust")? Ironically, or perhaps not, they became, like 50 cent or Korn, empty shells of danger, rather than the real thing.

a pretty good tentative answer -- but really, i think you've raised a difficult problem, and i hope to see other people comment on this (perhaps a new thread?) -- and i like the parallel you draw b/w 50 cent, Korn, Eminem on the one side, and the hair metal bands on the other

 

[soundslike1981]

(1) it's only by way of intensification that music moves forward -- and so many of the gains in music since time immemorial have been by way of upping the testosterone ante

In the context of Mr. Reynolds' recent book. . .

Intensification, perhaps so--but necessarily an intensification of testosterone/masculinity/certitude?

As an example, to my ears, PiL moved music forward far more than the Sex Pistols. Likewise, Scritti Politti seemed to intensify uncertainty (the great un-cowboy quality) more than anything--but were able to advance a musical vocabulary (if not a philosophical/political/pedantic vocabulary). Or the Slits--certainly anything but tentative, certainly anything but macho: and yet BAM. James Brown, Fela Kuti--more amvibalent; definitly macho, but in a weirdly . . . spread out way? Masculine, but not "heavy"--also sort of intensivication through deconstruction. . . Even Led Zep might be fitted to that. . .

Whereas, perhaps, testosterone-laden "intensification" often seems to lead to dogmatism, ossification, maybe the most negative, dumbed-down sort of "rockism"?

 

[Ness Rowlah]

- pointless and clueless cover versions (Eva effing Cassidy anyone?)
- Joy Divison covers (see above - even Cadence Weapon can't resist trying)
- Swedish dance bands ("svensktoppar") - my greatest hate of all: there are NO
redeeming features in any song I have ever heard
- "happy music" - like "Red, red wine"
- boybands and especially Robbie Williams
- Live Aid, Live 8
- trad-jazz (supposed to make me happy, it just fills me with vitriol)
- "silly-dance hits" (ie the bird dance or whatever it was called)
- ELP
- new jangly "indie" music - what IS the point? (Felt was ok though)
- journos like Julie Burchill, that woman in the Guardian and Peter Paphides who have
all disowned their past and said that they did not really mean what they were writing
back then, but just bigged up certain bands to be cool.
A dangerous attitude, specially if every music writer does the same
(no wonder mediocracy is hailed as greatness - ie Coldplay, Harry Potter etc).

--

on country: bollox to you Woebot ;-) Gillian Welch is great and so was Townes Van Zandt.

on heavy: nothing wrong with the early Motorhead stuff? same for early Alice Cooper
[biased: just before punk - AC's were my second and third LP purchases, the first was Redbone:
no wonder punk hit me: Siouxsie played Redbone when she stood in for John Peel and
John Lydon did a one hour documentary on Alice on the Beeb a year or so ago -
cheekily saying that without the Sex Pistols there would have been no Alice ...
(John singing along to "Eighteen" when he was "discovered")]

--
and why always this "early stuff" - who are the acts whose "late stuff" is their greatest?
say their tenth release?

 

[mms]

all shades of trance -
whether its goa, psy, uplifting etc it all sounds like slightly musical helicopter blades set to a beat, but not even that good.
the people that like it are usually toffs, trustafrians or otherwise, the clothes are terrible and it's everywhere without any criticism at all.

the only good thing about it is that you get tracks that pause every 8 bars when another drum line or noise comes in, which is quite a handy reminder of how you are supposed to react.

 

[dominic]

and why always this "early stuff" - who are the acts whose "late stuff" is their greatest? say their tenth release?

we're talking bands that make it past 3 or 4 albums? making it to 10 albums is pretty damn rare

(and really, you're gonna suck me into talking about bands i'd rather not mention, if you insist on longevity!)

consensus opinion says pulp

also, i kinda prefer throwing muses' "university" (1995) over their early stuff (although on another day i might say the "Real ramona" in 1991 is their best)

the stones for me peak with "beggar's banquet," decline in the early through mid 70s, bounce back in late 70s, and then decline again after 1980

(beatles peak in 65/66 -- though i've heard some amazing stuff by wings which i'm unable to name)

took a while for radiohead to peak, if you consider "kid a" their best

miles davis peaked with "in a silent way" -- his sixth or seventh effort

or take a guy like dave roback, doing the paisley underground thing since 1980 or so, he definitely peaked with mazzy star project -- so perhaps five albums into the game?

(plus i think a whole cluster of american indie acts of the "super group" variety got better with age -- queens of the stone age, heroine sheiks, the make up, royal trux -- i.e., the bands were a second or third go for most participants (who were generally same generation as sonic youth) -- peaking in the late 90s -- though i'd be reluctant to endorse any of these bands -- and yeah, one of the sheiks was ex-swans, and so i guess he doesn't count for this example)

moving outside of rock music, you could say that guy called gerald's latest effort was pretty damn good, better than "humanity" and even "black secret tech" in my book -- though doubtful he'll ever be able to top "28 gun bad boy"

norman cook got better with age

cabaret voltaire's "code" is probably their best -- and that's what, six or seven albums in?

depeche mode's "violator"

the cure's "kiss me, kiss me, kiss me" or "disintegration" -- not that i'm a big cure fan, but that's about 10 years and 5 albums into their career

psychic tv were kinda relevant with the "jack the tab" and "infinite beat" -- not as good as throbbing gristle, but a peak of sorts for pyschic tv after several predecessor albums

but the general rule is that most artists and bands have at most one or two albums in them -- and then it's a steady, if not steep, decline

 

[Melchior]

I don't think I can add anny new hates really. I hate hare krishnas, and so any music they make I'm tempted to hate, but I always quite liked that hardcore band 108, so that doesn't even count.

I suspect I hate jazz. Which seems a little sad, but what can I do?

the funny thing is that I actually like any number of things that were mentioned in this thread.


Ohhhh... I hate close-harmony australian pop punk bands. Hate them.

 

[zhao]

beatles peak in 65/66

__arguable.

miles davis peaked with "in a silent way" -- his sixth or seventh effort

__dissagree: the Bop period peaked with Green Dolphin Street, Blues period peaked with Kind of Blue, Fusion period peaked with Live Evil, and went downhill after that. and as lovely and definately a personal favorite as In A Silent Way is, it is a transitional album which kicked off the Fusion period.

cabaret voltaire's "code" is probably their best -- and that's what, six or seven albums in?

__disagree. the Nag Nag Nag period, around 1975-1977, is the best for me.

depeche mode's "violator"

__yeah I'll give you that one...

the cure's "kiss me, kiss me, kiss me" or "disintegration" -- not that i'm a big cure fan, but that's about 10 years and 5 albums into their career

__my favorite Cure is 17 Seconds and Faith.

but the general rule is that most artists and bands have at most one or two albums in them -- and then it's a steady, if not steep, decline

__absolutely.

 

[simon silverdollar]

makosi from big brother & irn bru.

makosi is the most boring person in the world.

oh, and i hate the music industry- i saw a glimpse of the inner workings at a music video conference at Channel 4 last week and it was just hugely depressing. bunch of stupid cunts. and with rubbish hairstyles too.

 

[Landfill Elektronikz]

beatles peak in 65/66

_
cabaret voltaire's "code" is probably their best -- and that's what, six or seven albums in?

__disagree. the Nag Nag Nag period, around 1975-1977, is the best for me.

The cabs started out great and then maintained that greatness for 20-odd years. Untouchable.

beatles peak in 65/66
depeche mode's "violator"

__yeah I'll give you that one...

So will I.

 

[dominic]

The cabs started out great and then maintained that greatness for 20-odd years. Untouchable.

i suppose

as i said, i didn't really want to talk about artists with "longevity" -- except that somebody upthread grumbled about how people always endorse the early albums by artists, but never the later ones -- and so i entered the fray -- but it's hard to think of bands with longevity aside from the painfully well known and well marketed

 

[Dubquixote]

I tried my best not to dive into the muck here, but alas the hater's thread shows no sign of abating from the top of the list so I just want to go on the record and say that there is no artist in music today who I loathe and despise as fully and completely as

THE BLACK EYED PEAS

 

[gabriel]

i'm highly skeptical of young djs doing the trend-spotting reggaeton/grime/ragga/bhangra thing -- but skepticism isn't the same as hate

what exactly are you sceptical about?

 

[dHarry]

miles davis peaked with "in a silent way" -- his sixth or seventh effort

(gasp, choke, splutter, cough) slightly off-topic, but I couldn't let this go:

http://www.jazzdisco.org/miles/cat/a/#450424 is an exhaustive list including everything he played on, posthumous releases of studio takes from the 40's etc, but skimming over the 100's of releases, there's maybe 20-30 "real" albums before "in a silent way"... his sixth or seventh effort?!? only in that decade, thus far. And who's to say he peaked on it? Birth Of The Cool, Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet , Milestones, Porgy and Bess, Round About Midnight, Kind Of Blue, My Funny Valentine, ESP, Miles Smiles, Filles De Kiliminjaro, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, On The Corner, Live Evil, Agartha, Pangaea, are all arguably seminal in different ways - between 1949 & 1974-ish... OK, "in a silent way" was another peak, but did spawn an unfortunate John Surman--Jan Garbarek continuum of ambient jazz-lite... and maybe even the "celtic moods"-style relaxation muzak genre... maybe the Cocteau Twins' beautiful Victorialands was the only successful progeny.

BTW, there must be plenty of Cocteau Twins haters around here, they're an easy target, but remain for me a beacon of uncompromising beauty in the face of banality, but they've escaped the bile-lists so far.

 

[jd_]

Marduk keeps getting better.