I want to be clear right off the bat: this thread is meant to include anything you find goofy or pretentious that detracts from your ability to enjoy a band or a song, but especially things you know you’re probably wrong to feel that way about, but can’t help yourself from thinking. It can be something about a band or song that makes you roll your eyes, or some weird personal annoyance that stops you enjoying something music-related altogether.
They can be about bands, they can be about fans, they can be about recording agencies and record companies, they can be about iPods and music players, they can be absolutely anything related to music.
I’ll go first to start us off:
[ul][li]Songs that are titled “Word (Actual Song Title)”, like “Today (Is the Last Day of Our Lives)”. I know it’s a silly thing to be turned off by, and who cares about song titles, but it just looks so damn precious.[/li][li]I can’t emotionally connect with and therefore don’t really enjoy or even want to listen to songs about drugs I’ve never done. It’s bullshit to be sure, but I end up thinking about my views on drug laws instead of focussing on music and I just frustrate myself. Doubly so if the band name is a reference to drugs. There is an old hardcore band from the 90s called Heroin that’s been recommended to me several times and I’ve been assured they’re right up my alley, but I can’t ever bring myself to enjoy them.[/li][li]I can’t listen to any song that reminds me of my family. Even if it’s something as simple as the song making use of a phrase my parents say a lot, but especially of the song is named or references someone with the same name as anyone in my family. Complete turn off.[/ul][/li]
All of those things are stupid reasons not to enjoy music, and therefore perfect examples to start this thread. The song titles thing is dumb because everything about songwriting is intensely personal: a friend of mine found the band Forward, Russia!'s habit of naming songs after numbers (track listing therefore looking something like 01 Thirteen, 02 Eleven, 03 Nine, 04 Five, and so on) pretentious, until it was revealed to him that all of their songs were originally untitled and those names were given to them by fans, so they made them the official names. It doesn’t seem so dumb anymore, and actually rather sweet. The drugs thing is stupid because I have no problems with any other subject matter in songs I haven’t or can’t experience. The family issue is equally stupid, since I have a billion songs that remind me of random people and my opinion of those people doesn’t influence my enjoyment in the least, but for some reason, family is another matter. It isn’t so bad anymore, but even into my late teens I went out of my way to avoid listening to any music my sister might’ve been playing in her room while I was walking down the hall, because if she was listening to something I liked, the song would be effectively ruined.
So there’s a good idea of what this thread’s about. Don’t be shy, it’s meant for goofy things that are probably your fault as much for things that really are genuinely pretentious in music or otherwise legitimate turn-offs.
I have a prejudice against “feat. music.” When I look at the popcharts and I see all those "feat."s, I think “WTF is this? In my day, there were no feat.s in music, and people made perfectly good music without them.” When I see “feat.” in the description of a song, I dismiss it, as being probably not my kind of music (because I’m too old—get off my lawn!)
For all the bombast rappers display, they seem to depend on others an awful lot. That’s what I get from all the “Someone featuring Someone Else” stuff.
Beyond general style of music, what’s most apt to turn me off is the singer(s)'s voice quality.
Extra-intrusive/histrionic singers intefere with my enjoyment of music. I used to like the prog. rock band Family, but Roger Chapman’s singing eventually made me want to drive nails into my ears. There currently seems to be a popular style of female singing that someone thinks is wistful and appealing (it is featured in a lot of TV ads) but inspires me to quickly hit the mute button. if not to throw objects at the screen).
There are good songwriters who cannot sing (Dylan) and people who have horribly grating voices in addition to churning out bad music (Yoko).
If you can’t sing like a human being, shaddup and let someone else do it (or concentrate on instrumentals).
When I hear TOO MUCH of a band member’s personal life. I know they’re musicians and are mostly a little nutty, but I don’t want to know that crap. I don’t go looking for the stuff, either I see a headline or it’s posted on Facebook or Twitter, but enough of it and I get completely disgusted.
I’d loved Journey since the 1980’s, but Neal Schon’s craziness with that woman and her whack job husband was everywhere. Totally turned me off Journey because of it. Every time I listen that’s what I remember. JERK.
When I used to listen to the radio in my car, I’d have at least one button set to a station that played heavy metal. Sadly, most of the bands they played all sounded the same at freeway volume; namely, it sounded like somebody just kicked a band down a flight of stairs. No particular beat, no particular melody, no particular cords… just “crash bwaaaaang thud rumble rumble WWWOOOOOO rawr grang blam”.
Also, death vox. What the hell? Whenever I hear that I think, “Do you actually believe there’s a melody in there?”
Mumford and Sons is more or less right up my alley except for the lead singer’s voice. It’s actually really good, but something about the tone of it makes me think he’s saying “My voice is amazing and you all need to hear it…listen to how awesome my awesome voice is, do you hear how awesome it is? Are you impressed by my awesome voice” Douche.
So, I’ll hear it on the radio, I’ll listen to it for a minute or two and then I have to change it. I can’t put my finger on what it is about it. I want to like it, but I just can’t get myself to like it. And it’s not like, say, Geddy Lee where his voice just grates at my nerves. It doesn’t annoy me, it just seems, well, pretentious.
I’m sure it’s his real voice, but it always feels like he’s changing it to make it sound more ‘awesome’ and it would sound less douchey if he would just sing in his regular voice. Does that make sense?
That totally makes sense, although I am also at a loss to explain why. But you can definitely tell the difference (or perceive a difference) between someone singing to accompany the entirety of the sound versus someone singing to be the star. It’s a weird distinction, a band like Bright Eyes is basically Conor Oberst plus some other people, and knowing that context I’d have no problem with any kind of “look at me” vocal quality, whereas a band that’s supposed to be a band and yet one member seems to be trying to outdo the others (even if it’s innocently, or accidental) is hard to warm up to.
I’m not the only one around who hates what Mariah Carey does to what could have been very nice songs? I can’t stand listening to her showoffy vocal gimmicks that basically destroy the actual song.
Sophomoric lyrics, that sound like they were written by an angsty teen with not even a rudimentary grasp of poetry (like Louie DePalma making up a poem). There are a lot of songs that are really catchy and fun, and yet have such awful lyrics they make me angry.
There is a lot of (usually) Scandinavian metal bands that have a lot of almost symphonic sound to their music that I really like, but at some point the vocals begin and it is all ragged death metal growl, like someone shredding their vocal cords with unintelligible lyrics.
Cannot stand the death grunt vocals.
I would love a lot of the music if it was available without the vocals.
I think I might have the same issue (well, among other issues) There’s been such a profusion of shitty hipster songs lately that anything (certain instruments, voices, certain chord progressions, etc) that sounds like it might be hipster-y predisposes me to hate a song. Among those are the ‘cutesy folksy white woman with an odd accent to some words’ voice, like this (although I do hate that song anyway). Is that it?
Near-rhymes, such as pairing “time” with “mind” or “hand” with “swam” or “rock” with “stop” or whatever … If the lyricist didn’t care enough to take the time to find actual rhymes, why should I care enough to listen?
I can’t stand the recording quality of '60s music. This bugs me so much that I can’t even listen to the Beatles without cringing. It’s stupid, but I just can’t make myself enjoy music through that odd sound quality that I can’t put my fingers on.