# Ugly music...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 28, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799 "2014-10-28T22:16:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/1 "2014-10-28T22:16:01Z")
Just for a topic to investigate. There must be some examples out there.
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### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/2 "2014-10-28T22:35:06Z")
Skyrillex? It’s not technically music and it’s ugly (though I don’t hate it and can see how they have hordes of fans).
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### Author:  [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/3 "2014-10-28T22:45:32Z")
Eh, what I’ve heard of Skrillex I don’t mind. Of course it’s music.
My choice would be the completely nonmelodic, screamy, Cookie-Monster-vocalized end of the death metal spectrum. Stuff like Lamb of God and Slayer.
I still won’t say it’s not music because obviously there are a lot of people out there who like it. But I will say it’s ugly music.
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### Author:  [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/4 "2014-10-28T22:45:34Z")
There’s a genre called “[noise music](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_music),” although it’s not what most people would call music. [Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMo3Uviv-PY)
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/5 "2014-10-28T22:53:21Z")
[Diamanda Galas and John Paul Jones in 1994](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0AIjnQ8t30).
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### Author:  [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/6 "2014-10-28T22:53:53Z")
[The Shaggs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shaggs)
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/7 "2014-10-28T22:54:59Z")
> [@EmilyG](#):
>
> There’s a genre called “[noise music](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_music),” although it’s not what most people would call music. [Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMo3Uviv-PY)
Man, that [sho is ugly](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXE7TFD93s0)!
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### Author:  [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/8 "2014-10-28T23:07:02Z")
Philip Glass.
Yoko Ono.
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### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/9 "2014-10-28T23:32:02Z")
Feeble attempts, all of you!!! 😉
For the win, I give you Penderecki’s **Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima** : [Penderecki: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima - YouTube](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp3BlFZWJNA)
It was written to evoke the feeling of skin crisping off bodies…and succeeds.
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### Author:  [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/10 "2014-10-28T23:52:03Z")
The new Flaming Lips cover album of Sgt. Pepper. Awful.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/11 "2014-10-28T23:59:37Z")
I don’t think ugly music has to mean bad music, or that bad music is necessarily ugly. Sometimes you want ugly. I would say most heavy metal is ugly, especially _Black Sabbath_. Much of it is good too, though, and, in certain moods, it can be what I want to listen to.
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### Author:  [@neofishboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neofishboy)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/12 "2014-10-29T00:21:14Z")
[Butthole Surfers. U.S.S.A](http://tinyurl.com/oh3chvz)
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### Author:  [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/13 "2014-10-29T01:33:47Z")
My usual choice for these kind of threads: [German free jazz musician Peter Brotzmann’s 1968 album “Machine Gun”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wgA9L5TN5M).
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/14 "2014-10-29T01:43:48Z")
> [@installLSC](#):
>
> My usual choice for these kind of threads: [German free jazz musician Peter Brotzmann’s 1968 album “Machine Gun”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wgA9L5TN5M).
Okay, that makes me want to bomb Dresden and Berlin again. :mad:
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### Author:  [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/15 "2014-10-29T01:55:28Z")
Apparently they’re a big deal in the metal world, but Gwar’s cover of the Pet shop Boys _West End Girls_ is horrendous. I’d heard it just today (the original) and trending on Facebook was that this band Gwar had done a cover. So I checked it out. I wish I could un-listen and un-see.
> **[Watch GWAR Thrash Through Pet Shop Boys' 'West End Girls' - SPIN](https://www.spin.com/2014/10/gwar-pet-shop-boys-cover-west-end-girls/)**
>
> As part of the A.V. Club's ongoing cover series, metal legends GWAR dropped by to cover the Pet Shop Boys' 1984 track "West End Girls," albeit with a very
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/16 "2014-10-29T02:02:54Z")
Captain Beefheart. It’s great music, but it _is_ ugly.
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### Author:  [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/17 "2014-10-29T02:08:12Z")
> [@Helena330](#):
>
> Apparently they’re a big deal in the metal world, but Gwar’s cover of the Pet shop Boys _West End Girls_ is horrendous. I’d heard it just today (the original) and trending on Facebook was that this band Gwar had done a cover. So I checked it out. I wish I could un-listen and un-see.
>
> [http://www.spin.com/articles/gwar-pet-shop-boys-cover-west-end-girls/](http://www.spin.com/articles/gwar-pet-shop-boys-cover-west-end-girls/)
Wow, that was…um…interesting.
In other news, I think I saw those guys in my last WoW raid.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/18 "2014-10-29T02:08:58Z")
So, since the topic is “Bo’s Favorite Music”, would y’all just like to browse my collection, or did someone have a question?
😃
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/19 "2014-10-29T02:25:39Z")
William Bolcom, “[12 New Etudes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1e8TV6CG5c).” To me, it’s just random notes, like Bugs Bunny chasing Pepe Le Pew over the keyboard.
Allow me to present William Bolcom at his finest, with [Three Ghost Rags](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brLYkFt2WBE). The man can compose wonderful music…but somewhere along the line he experimented with…well, whatever the hell it is those etudes are supposed to be.
(“You call it wonderful, I call it crass.”)
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-music/702799/20 "2014-10-29T03:14:55Z")
[Semi-recent Cracked](http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-pieces-experimental-music-that-will-drive-you-insane/). I have #3, but I don’t think it’s his most difficult album nor that bad.
Metal gets kind of pedantic: “This is blackened death metal, not black metal! No, I think it’s extreme technical viking death metal!” Nevertheless, Slayer is not death metal by almost all standards.
Dubstep is often listenable, I just don’t get why there needs to be a new genre that doesn’t offer much of anything new. As far as electronic music goes, I can think of less accessible genres.
> [@EmilyG](#):
>
> There’s a genre called “[noise music](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_music),” although it’s not what most people would call music. [Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMo3Uviv-PY)
I successfully guessed what you linked to! Where’s my prize? A lot of noise is somewhat listenable; Merzbow is the extreme end of the spectrum.
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