What are your ardently held controversial opinions on music?

[jakefromstatefarm]

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all those tracks are technically tight. You could also go with Jaz-O era rappity rap Jay and right before RD when he was essentially a Big L clone

[TakingBackSunday]

good kid maad city is incredibly overrated

[El Babua]

Admittedly never listened to much of early Jay. My intro to him was Reasonable Doubt and I'd say his flow/skillset was the best I've heard him. My favorite song from him is still Can't Knock the Hustle

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Jay Z has always been a ehh rapper

Nah. He's top tier in terms of skills/flow. Can't blame you if you've only heard famous album jay.

http://m.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

As often as people give nu metal shit (and for good reason), grunge was much worse.  Once Nirvana and Soundgarden blew up, record companies basically signed any asshole from Seattle who wore flannel and had a heroin addiction.  Most grunge from that era doesn't get played now.  If you get an opportunity to watch Beavis and Butthead, complete with music video commentary, you will often hear some of it.  Most of it is simply terrible and that is why nobody ever played that music again (outside of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains) after 1994.  4 bands out of a total of dozens that took a collective shit on the airwaves from 1991-1994.  I like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains so for me, it is two bands out of a total of dozens.

Jay-Z hasn't released one good post-retirement album.  I think he considers these albums to be a form of marketing as opposed to any kind of real revenue generator.  Although this opinion isn't really controversial.  Jay-Z's career is basically floating on the admiration of white hipsters who unfortunately still get taken seriously in the year of our lord 2014.

[Mupepe]

Michael Jackson Bad as an album is better than Thriller, but no individual song on Bad lives up to Billie Jean or Human Nature.  The song Thriller would be forgettable too if it wasn't for the incredible music video.

[kick51]

That era brought some pretty cool older artists into the spotlight.  Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr., Operation Ivy, off the top of my head. 

I don't think anything from that era sunk this low though:

[Cheddahz]

The only post retirement Jay-Z album anyone should listen to is American Gangster

[I'm a Puppy!]

Joseph Haydn didn't write much of anything good.

Mozart wrote some real gems, but a lot of his output sounds kind of same-y. You can often predict exactly how he's going to resolve a melody, exactly which chord changes he's going to use, etc.

Saxophone shredding is boring. Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane both did this too often.

Eric Clapton was never that great.

Agreed on all accounts.  But without Haydn there would be no Mozart and when Mozart is on his game he's untouchable

Okay, I don't know if this is controversial at all, but...

Peak Beethoven > Peak Mozart.

I dunno. To me it comes down to this:

Peak Bach = Peak Beethoven = Peak Mozart > everyone else.

Although, Beethoven's late quartets and Bach's St. Matthew's passion probably do put them ahead of Mozart as I can't think of a Mozart piece that can compare.

[Brehvolution]

The Wall is one of the worst Pink Floyd albums (some really good individual cuts, but it actually sucks balls as one whole piece)

As a big Pink Floyd stan I agree with this completely, some really great songs but the entire album is full of padding and filler.

I love Floyd, but The Wall is The Official Album of Depression.

[bluemax]

I don't think the Beatles were all that good.

I also think some bands are only still in the public conscious because their leads died before they could drag the band down. Ie Nirvana, Sublime, The Doors

- There hasn't been a decent alternative/rock/indie/whatever album in half a decade

fuck out of here

Titus Andronicus, the last 5 years, has written some of the best punk rock music in punk history.  They got a sire in Diarrhea Planet, as well.

I kind of agree with the premise. I think there have been some really good punk albums the last few years but any other variation of rock has been awful or worse since like before I graduated college. I hate living in a world where The Black Keys are considered one of the best rock bands around.

[nudemacusers]

that's simply not true


nobody thinks about sublime or blind melon anymore

[bluemax]

I saw a Sublime song on r/music today.

And they mislabeled it as ska which was doubly horrifying.

[Phoenix Dark]

Good to see we agree Jay-Z has been trash for nearly a decade.
 

[Pickles the Firecat]

Sublime gets regular radio play and tons of respect in So. Cal, specifically among beach bros.

[Vizzys]

death grips was good

 

[Phoenix Dark]

Good to see we agree Jay-Z has been trash for nearly a decade.
 

Just like Nas. One good spot (American Gangster) sandwiched absolute garbage. Except Nas was also garbage from 1997-2000

and then garbage again from 2002-2012

[Yulwei]

Mainstream rock - went to shit almost as soon as the 80s ended (with a few exceptions here and there, ofc).
Indie rock  - Some of the most boring music I've ever heard (Tv On The Radio being the single exception i know of in this case.)

[nudemacusers]

beach bros.

aka nobody

[nudemacusers]

yeah they have some good chilljams.

however sublime fans are trashpersons. kind of people who listen to cypress hill.

[Himu]

Michael Jackson Bad as an album is better than Thriller, but no individual song on Bad lives up to Billie Jean or Human Nature.  The song Thriller would be forgettable too if it wasn't for the incredible music video.

Off The Wall is the best MJ album.

Thriller (the song) isn't that good beyond the music video, agreed.

I don't think Bad is that great aside from some singles but it's been a while. I prefer Dangerous over Bad.

The second half of Thriller (album) is, next to Off The Wall, the watermark of Michael's career.

Lady in my Life is a top 5 best of all time album closer.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Are you messing with me esse? Donchu know I'm loco?

[Barraco Barner]

As often as people give nu metal shit (and for good reason), grunge was much worse.  Once Nirvana and Soundgarden blew up, record companies basically signed any asshole from Seattle who wore flannel and had a heroin addiction.  Most grunge from that era doesn't get played now.  If you get an opportunity to watch Beavis and Butthead, complete with music video commentary, you will often hear some of it.

Sound of White Noise is the best Anthrax album.

[seagrams hotsauce]

Good to see we agree Jay-Z has been trash for nearly a decade.
 

Just like Nas. One good spot (American Gangster) sandwiched absolute garbage. Except Nas was also garbage from 1997-2000

and then garbage again from 2002-2012

This is off base.
Stillmatic is garbage too.

[seagrams hotsauce]

As far as my 'controversial' opinions go: Kendrick Lamar sucks

[Phoenix Dark]

Every movement spawns bad music though. Think about every big 90s album (whether it was a good album or not): The Chronic, The Black Album, Ok Computer, Jagged Little Pill, Nevermind...basically every album credited with "changing music" spawned a host of wack shit. In hindsight we look back and judge albums based on what happened afterwards, which isn't entirely fair. Nevermind is a dope album, period. It spawned some shit but tbh when I think of grunge I think about Soundgarden, Pearl Jam's first two albums, AiC, Nirvana, and a couple other bands. I'm not hung up on fucking Candlebox.

[Mupepe]

Michael Jackson Bad as an album is better than Thriller, but no individual song on Bad lives up to Billie Jean or Human Nature.  The song Thriller would be forgettable too if it wasn't for the incredible music video.

Off The Wall is the best MJ album.

Thriller (the song) isn't that good beyond the music video, agreed.

I don't think Bad is that great aside from some singles but it's been a while. I prefer Dangerous over Bad.

The second half of Thriller (album) is, next to Off The Wall, the watermark of Michael's career.

Lady in my Life is a top 5 best of all time album closer.

I love me some Off The Wall, but its style just isn't up my alley as much.  Still an incredible album by any measure. 

And yeah, agreed about the second half of Thriller.  But there's SO many great songs on Bad. 

1. Bad (Don't care for this at all really)
2. The Way You Make Me Feel (omg classic)
3. Speed Demon (omg awesome)
4. Liberian Girl (Good)
5. Just Good Friends (gag)
6. Another Part of Me (omg awesome)
7. Man in the Mirror (omg classic)
8. I Just Can't Stop Loving You (omg awesome)
9. Dirty Diana (omg awesome)
10. Smooth Criminal (omg classic)
11. Leave Me Alone (one of my favorite songs of all time)

It just feels like it has much more variety in styles.  And MJ really started his persona with Bad.  It was in full force throughout the album.

Dangerous is fucking great too though.

[I'm a Puppy!]

90% of shredding is just going fast. Anyone with patience and time can do it.

[seagrams hotsauce]

90% of shredding is just going fast. Anyone with patience and time can do it.

WHERE IS THE CONTROVERSY HERE

[jakefromstatefarm]

Every movement spawns bad music though. In hindsight we look back and judge albums based on what happened afterwards, which isn't entirely fair.

I agree with this 100%. My beef with grunge is that it sucks. Everything you just listed sans-AiC is garbage. Anthrax did grunge better than anyone out of Seattle.

Thrash Metal is my favorite genre. And it definitely ended up inspiring some of the worst cac whine, PG-13 metal out there.

favorite genre is thrash metal

does not address the Slayer content in the OP

[jakefromstatefarm]

4 out of their first 5 are classics (Haunting the Chapel's right there too) so to me it's kinda splitting hairs. I like Seasons because they finally found their comfort zone with slower tempos; it's what South of Heaven should've been imo.

[Phoenix Dark]

On one hand I automatically say MBTDF is dope despite being a sonic mess; after all there are plenty of scattered brained dope albums out there. But when I look at it track by track...

01 Dark Fantasy best thing RZA has done in a decade
2 Gorgeous f. KiD CuDi & Raekwon dope
3 Power f. Dwele not bad
4 All Of the Lights (Interlude)
5 All Of the Lights laughable lyrics, mess of a song but not bad
6 Monster f. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver Ok
7 So Appalled f. Jay-Z, Pusha T, CyHi Da Prynce, Swizz Beatz & RZA one giant MEH
8 Devil In A New Dress feat. Rick Ross Classic
9 Runaway f. Pusha T LOL
10 Hell Of A Life I've listened to this song like 3 times. Forgettable
11 Blame Game f. John Legend Dope
12 Lost In The World Ok I guess
13 Who Will Survive In America Cool

That kinda adds up to a high 7 brehs. I don't want to give it a 7 because it has a lot of individual parts that I like, but as a whole...

Yeezus is a solid 8.

[Himu]

Michael Jackson Bad as an album is better than Thriller, but no individual song on Bad lives up to Billie Jean or Human Nature.  The song Thriller would be forgettable too if it wasn't for the incredible music video.

Off The Wall is the best MJ album.

Thriller (the song) isn't that good beyond the music video, agreed.

I don't think Bad is that great aside from some singles but it's been a while. I prefer Dangerous over Bad.

The second half of Thriller (album) is, next to Off The Wall, the watermark of Michael's career.

Lady in my Life is a top 5 best of all time album closer.

I love me some Off The Wall, but its style just isn't up my alley as much.  Still an incredible album by any measure. 

And yeah, agreed about the second half of Thriller.  But there's SO many great songs on Bad. 

1. Bad (Don't care for this at all really)
2. The Way You Make Me Feel (omg classic)
3. Speed Demon (omg awesome)
4. Liberian Girl (Good)
5. Just Good Friends (gag)
6. Another Part of Me (omg awesome)
7. Man in the Mirror (omg classic)
8. I Just Can't Stop Loving You (omg awesome)
9. Dirty Diana (omg awesome)
10. Smooth Criminal (omg classic)
11. Leave Me Alone (one of my favorite songs of all time)

It just feels like it has much more variety in styles.  And MJ really started his persona with Bad.  It was in full force throughout the album.

Dangerous is fucking great too though.

I don't like Bad (the song) much anymore.

But I can't disagree with that. Leave Me Alone is one of my faves too. I'll give it another listen. By all estimations, thriller wasn't full on pop. Neither was Off The Wall. They were rnb/funk in style. Bad is definitely where Michael opened up to more pop fare.

[Himu]

College Dropout - 4 stars
Late Registration - 5 stars
Graduation - 2 and a half stars
808s - 4 stars
MBDTF - 4 stars
Yeezus - 2 and a half stars

[Mupepe]

Michael Jackson Bad as an album is better than Thriller, but no individual song on Bad lives up to Billie Jean or Human Nature.  The song Thriller would be forgettable too if it wasn't for the incredible music video.

Off The Wall is the best MJ album.

Thriller (the song) isn't that good beyond the music video, agreed.

I don't think Bad is that great aside from some singles but it's been a while. I prefer Dangerous over Bad.

The second half of Thriller (album) is, next to Off The Wall, the watermark of Michael's career.

Lady in my Life is a top 5 best of all time album closer.

I love me some Off The Wall, but its style just isn't up my alley as much.  Still an incredible album by any measure. 

And yeah, agreed about the second half of Thriller.  But there's SO many great songs on Bad. 

1. Bad (Don't care for this at all really)
2. The Way You Make Me Feel (omg classic)
3. Speed Demon (omg awesome)
4. Liberian Girl (Good)
5. Just Good Friends (gag)
6. Another Part of Me (omg awesome)
7. Man in the Mirror (omg classic)
8. I Just Can't Stop Loving You (omg awesome)
9. Dirty Diana (omg awesome)
10. Smooth Criminal (omg classic)
11. Leave Me Alone (one of my favorite songs of all time)

It just feels like it has much more variety in styles.  And MJ really started his persona with Bad.  It was in full force throughout the album.

Dangerous is fucking great too though.

I don't like Bad (the song) much anymore.

But I can't disagree with that. Leave Me Alone is one of my faves too. I'll give it another listen. By all estimations, thriller wasn't full on pop. Neither was Off The Wall. They were rnb/funk in style. Bad is definitely where Michael opened up to more pop fare.

Those horns on Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'   Oh lawd.  So good

[jakefromstatefarm]

my man

I think SitA and SoH are just not that interesting all the way through. I agree with you on the classics thing pretty much tho; they were one of those bands that ran the extreme metal gamut. I like Hell Awaits best because i think the songs are the best thought out overall. The guitar portions are well thought out.

guitarwork on Seasons is WAY less intricate than their previous LP's, I think the best moments on that one are when Lombardo's double bass gets into a groove with the riff, intro to Expendable Youth is some shit

but yeah there's a lot of filler, Blood Red, Temptation, title track are all

[TakingBackSunday]

nope MBDTF is fantastic

[Pickles the Firecat]

MBDTF 6/10
Yeezus 8/10

MBDTF is a good album with a lot of moments like this:



That don't coalesce into something greater. There is something undeniably dope being held back by mediocre verses, poor sequencing, half-baked ideas, and one of the worst masters of all time. Did nobody check the sound levels/staging on this record at all? Because it sounds like mud. But it will always have moments like 'Ye going multi-spatial sadboy demon summoner/shockingly insightful relationship analyst on Blame Game that are just...Goddamn.

Yeezus lost a lot of luster as the people Kanye worked with steadily dropped music doper than Yeezus. Almost everyone involved with that album has released solo material darker, more intimate, more focused, more forward thinking, and straight up better than it. You can listen to something like Xen and immediately hear the difference between an artist bringing a personal inner-vision to life and a dude making a pastiche of dope beats. Makes Yeezus feel like a hanger-on in a lot of ways. But if you're an aging, increasingly creatively bankrupt musician, you could do worse than building a record on the backs of talented young producers.

[dkdk]

nope MBDTF is fantastic

yep time will only strengthen that.

[El Babua]

I can't unhear MBDTF's bad mixing cause of y'all. 

Still my fav album from Kanye, either that or LR.

[fistfulofmetal]

iron maiden is trash.

influential, and important to the genre

still trash.

[seagrams hotsauce]

Didn't MBDTF have like 4 engineers working on the master? No wonder that shit was a mess.

My main sticking points with MBDTF are that a) half the album was out, for free, via GOOD fridays, and b) this is the first (and so far only, thank god) Kanye album where every song sounds like arena rock.

[ToxicAdam]

Queen is the Creed of the 70's. They only became cool because of Freddie's death.

[Himu]

Queen is the Creed of the 70's. They only became cool because of Freddie's death.

[Human Snorenado]

Queen is the Creed of the 70's. They only became cool because of Freddie's death.

YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH

[ToxicAdam]

Arena rock with shit lyrics that even AC-DC and KISS would scoff at.

[El Babua]

Queen was a showtime band, but a damn good one. And Brian May alone > those troglodytes from AC/DC and Kiss

[El Babua]

As for a controversial opinion, this album might retroactively supersede Dear Science as my 2008 album of the year.

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Aside from the ironic novelty aspect, there's something so damn warm and inviting to this. 

[El Babua]

Angus is a great guitarist no doubt, but the band never appealed to me.

In fact, I really disliked a lot of what was coming out of rock around that time other than punk and what spawned from it.

[El Babua]

Angus is a great guitarist no doubt, but the band never appealed to me.

In fact, I really disliked a lot of what was coming out of rock around that time other than punk and what spawned from it.

Understood, I love that stuff too. I think what changed a lot of how I approached some of the most overplayed songs and bands in a more favorable view is the fact that I didn't have a lot of the exposure to them without it being of my choosing. I definitely heard about the bigger bands before, and I got to choose who I like and who I don't like, as well as songs I do like way before I moved here and realized how overplayed they are.

I love Freebird, mostly because I didn't hear a lick of it till I chose to when I was 15 and learning how to play guitar. Helps out a lot to also not have met crazy fanboys in the land without that many rock dustheads aside from my father who's usually just like "I like this and I don't like this" without force.

Haha, I really wasn't exposed to Freebird (or basically any classic Rock) either until I was a teenager since I went to predominately black schools. Growing up, we had this cable channel called The Box that aired nothing but music videos all day (until 10 when it switched to scrambled Playboy anyways). I believe it had callers in the area requesting songs so it was nothing but hip hop and pop with a little bit of nu-metal and pop punk thrown in.

[Himu]

I only heard freebird through Forrest gump growing up. Great song.

I think ACDC is a great band. One of the best, really. It's just that white people overplay certain rock music to the point where you hate it even if it's good.

[Rufus]

ACDC wears out quick. I liked them well enough for a short while though. Motorhead is more my speed (hurr-durr), but I can name maybe five songs of their's that I like.

[Himu]

give this black woman a course on motorhead. who the fuck is motorhead and how in the world are they better than ac/dc

[TakingBackSunday]

thats literally the only thing I know from motorhead, but its a tits song

[Himu]

you realize that's a cover, and not the actual band, right?

[Sausage]

Nickelback is a fucking terrible band.

[TakingBackSunday]

...yes?  And Lemmy is the lead singer of Motorhead, so...not really a cover?

[Phoenix Dark]

It's hard to hate AC/DC tbh. Album for album they have a very good catalog. Might not have a bunch of classics per se but when you're constantly putting out solid 8 albums in between a couple classics (Back In Black, Highway To Hell) that's perfectly fine.

[TakingBackSunday]

Might not have a bunch of classics

- Highway to Hell
- TNT
- Hells Bells
- Thunderstruck
- Shook Me All Night Long
- Back in Black
- Shoot to Thrill
- Let There Be Rock
- Its a Long Way to the Top
- For Those About to Rock
- Dirty Deeds

[Himu]

...yes?  And Lemmy is the lead singer of Motorhead, so...not really a cover?

its still not Motorhead though. It's more like Lemmy and some famous and great musicians who aren't the rest of Motorhead

Didn't think the song was good anyways.