Category: Jam Session
Hey, I just thought since I've been feeling this way when new songs come out I might as well write (read: whine) about it. I'm not going to talk about the shallowness of bubble gum pop, selling sex, bla bla bla all things have been seen before. WHat I mean, and a lot of people on the zone seem to like these people too, are the musicians and groups who just sing about how hard things are for them and whine about shallow things or jumble words together which people think has some kind of inspiring hidden message, when in reality means absolutely nothing. I mean, let's get real here. So many bands now are coming out with whiney sort of songs about how we could "leave this town and rock forever'r'r'r'r'r'r"(sorry for those who hate apostrophies or don't use eloq but I had to do it) or about depressing topics (Evenessents anyone?). Using the later example as an example, they do have a good sound and everything, but all the songs are depressed-type goth songs about going nowhere and waking me up, and wounds not healing. I don't own any of their albums (if there is in fact more than one) but I get the idea. Another example is Lincoln Park, who admitably has a good sound but who's lyrics are almost exclusively concerned with teenage rage (tm) and healing, and not belonging. I'm getting sick of this teenage mentality in songs, and this coming from a teenager, I don't know it just annoys me for some reason. It also annoys me that bands that I used to think were origianl and cool (Staind, System of a Down) have even began to format their songs in that style. System of a Down is a band I still enjoy listening to, but even they have gone from sounding totally different to being more sort of mainstream (they, thank god, have not entered the relm of teenage befudlment) and staind, god when do they not make a song that doesn't sound exactly like the one before? It's been a while, that other one I don't know the name of,"the one with I'm afraid to come back home"in it, ugh you get the picture I hope).
I'm open to cryticism and stuff, and if anyone has any different opinion or anything please post; I don't want to bash and offend.
James
If you want something that doesn't have all that crap in it, may I suggest falconer, and you'll wanna try their album Chapters From A Vale Forlorn. Also you can't go wrong with Iced Earth, wile their subject matter is dark, it's not all that teenage mentality crap, and a good one to try of them is Days Of Purgatory. I've got many more titles, too many to list in this one message! and the nice thing with the artists I menchoned is that you'll never ever hear them on normal comercial radio at all.
I'm really an outsider as far as any current music goes. Most of what I listen to is well over fifteen years old. I think most music, at least hte stuff that gets the most press, is a product meant to be sold and probably has nothing to do with self-expression. You may want to investigate any college radio stations in your area or start looking on the net for interesting radio stations that play a lot more independent music. If you're open to styles that aren't necessarily new, try things like folk or world music, progressive rock if you like songs that are long and complex, jazz and blues, classical, or even any of the independently-produced modern rock and pop that's on college radio. You might find something interesting and refreshing in there.
You know, I would much rather listen to someting i can relate to, rather than bullshit sex addict "Im so cool cuz i think i can rap and i pick up random women and devalue them". At least these people, who have had sucky lives, know that life isn't about sex and drugs, ok maybe to a certain extent they do, but its in a different way. Let me elaborate. By these rappers going around being all gangsta, picking up women, getting involved in shootings etc., this is giving black people such a bad name. Its fueling racism in people who probably were already racist. For example...A few years ago I went through a phase where i liked this stuff.....My dad, who is racist, immediately assumed that i was trying to be black and that i was gonna become one of them.....And even now, i have a very close friend who's black, and my dad constantly bitches about him and how i shouldn't talk to him because according to him, my friend will "take advantage of me" just cuz he's black. See what kind of message these rappers are sending to hatred-filled people who dont know a damned thing to begin with?
Now, back to rock, as you mentioned, such as Evanessence and Staind. Do you have a problem with people who can relate to teenagers? I read on this website (the unofficial Staind faq) that this guy's point specifically in the song "For You" was "for the kids to turn up real loud, because their parents dont understand them" or something along those lines. So you see, these bands expect teens with sucky and pointless lives to relate to them, because they're underground people who were never understood, never listened to, as kids, which caused them to become what they are today. They want kids to feel less alone by providing a haven for them to say to themselves, "Someone, somewhere, does understand. Though I will never know them, i know they're out there, and this person would not try to lock me up."
Most people are very closeminded. Why do you think this type of music (alternative, metal, etc.) is so frowned upon? Society suppressed them just as much as it does outsider teens today.
Ok, I think I've let off enough steam for one night, and Im definitely expecting to recieve a lot of angry responses, so fire away for all i care.
Nib
Well, you got some points but basically these bands are (and I claim deliberately) utilizing the teenager suffering cyndrum to make lots of cash, they're basically making money out of the general misery that is around. I can't speak for all the bands (and I wouldn't dream of it) but I've read about some of those bands and there is nothing in their biography to suggest that, in fact, they had particularly difficult lives, Hoobastank e.g. were rich and pretty happy high school kids who struck up on this sound and it's selling. Then again everyone's free to talk about whatever they want in their songs so I'm not saying you dn't have a valid point, and I agree with you about the whole cool gangster image. But I also have problems with Korn e.g. who are so over the top angry they're almost rage inducing. All that being said I like all music, when I'm depressed (thank God it deoesn't happen often) I sometimes listen to Staind, I find Evenessence to depressing even if Amy does have a great voice. Generally speaking I agree with James, I look for other stuff. For rap I really really would like people to check out "the Streets" it's a British guy who raps about every day things, broken tvs, his cell phone not working, going to the club, drinking, partying and yeah, about drugs too, but he doesn't glorify them, he's just talking about life as it is and he uses hardly any bad words (I don't care if people use the f word but some rappers basically replace any lyrical content with the f word and the word "bitch" for good measure). :)
So, the Streets, lots of other good undersground (or not so underground stuff) hmm I mean Green Day, I think, have great lyrics and are not subjected to this whiny thing, just sometimes, I ythink e.g. "Time of Your Life" is genuinely a sad song and it feels like he means everything. British bands like Suede, Placebo, Lost Prophets (it's a little comercial but I think they're great, sound kind of like Staind a litle bit but much more meolodica nd, yes, they have happy songs too), Portishead, Massive Attack .. if you want triphop and lots of the heavy metal bands (although I'm not the expert, :) but I know renegade rocker is, I definitely mean to check some of those out).
So, yeah, there's tons of music out there, if you're interested in a specific style and especially if you're intersted in British stuff you can message me and I can give you tons of suggestions. :)
cheers
-B
Yes, some of those bands are whiny and i cant stand them (Simple Plan, Yellow Card, basically all those new ones that all sound the same). The reason you dont hear about these people having hard lives is because they would never have exposed such things as kids, let alone as adults. All I'm saying is that I think its comforting to kids who do have hard lives to have a sense of hope and of being understood. Whether its a false sense of hope, we can't really say for sure, but sometimes we need something to keep us from going over the edge, right?
P.S. Korn sucks, as a side note.
Hmmm. Those underground bands sound interesting. I've never even really listened to the college station where I live. But yeah, I'm not putting the newer stuff down, but that's why I'm not much into a lot of the newer rock and especially most of the rap, because of a lot of the subject matter. A lot of the rock seems either too whiny, to angry (sometimes to where you can't even understand them, and the rap stuff rarely seems to be able to go without talking about describing how they want to do a girl and what they want to do, or how they're so cool and gangster stuff, and swearing every few lines. I like a few rap songs because of their style of rapping and occasionally when they have a real message, and I like some rock (like Creed and Avril Lavigne), but that's mostly it. I'm more into 80/early90's music because of the music and because I could get a lot of their songs and I guess a lot of them make sense to me. And I like classic rock because, I guess a lot of it seems more positive. I mean, if some songs do complain about something, it still doesn't sound like it but you can still get the point by the words themselves. So a lot of their music sounds cool, and even how they sing and I can pay attention to both without getting annoyed that they sound whiny, are constantly screaming, or (with the exception of some bands like AC-DC) talking about sex and stuff. So anyways, that's my opinion on the music. *smiles*
Leilani
I agree with most of you. I’m a bigger fan of stuff that’s from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Partly because that’s what I grew up listening to; mainly 80’s and onward. Secondly, because I think both instrumentally and lyrically they were more interesting than the stuff produced today. As for what bands or musical stars sing, I think a lot of that has to do with producers and recording labels. There in business to make money so they push what’s popular. As for why kids like the stuff that’s coming out today I couldn’t tell you?
Well, let's be honest. I think the music industry either understands or has decided that most people over, let's say, thirty, don't care about much current music that's out unless it's by a band they got to know earlier in their lives. The exceptions to this might be your light rock format, country, or smooth jazz. I don't really go for any of that kind of thing, so I'm left with either finding quirky new music or discovering older things I never heard before. I think I'm more interested in discovering older stuff I am not familiar with, rather than the ten-thousandth recycling of stuff I've already heard and have probably grown tired of.
As for current lyrics, they do seem gloomier than they used to be, but then again we had lots of songs about fear of being nuked and all that Cold War stuff after the hippies and idealists discovered that people weren't going to just all change overnight. Yes, I love the hope of the lyrics of those songs from the late Sixties, but I guess people realized what they wanted was a long time coming. Now it seems it's on the opposite end, where people are saying we're all just doomed and there's no escape and everything's miserable and they offer no solutions but wallowing in the misery.
Let me tell you right now that garbage {and you would do better to listen to them} is NOT Goth.
Goth deals solely with the mind and its tricks and pain they do NOT go on about how shitty life is ect because Goths are entirely aware of their postition on life's ladder somewhere near the bottom.
Pure Goth is a thing of dark drama theatre decadence beauty twisted sarcastic lyrics and a bit of vampirism thrown in for good measure {Sopor Aeternus}What you portray as Goth is nothing more than a b*st*rd child of nu metal and such a creature should never have seen the light of day.
This is the last time I'm posting to this topic, and you can interpret this however you want: life is a shithole. There. I'm done.
Well, I guess I'm one of the few under 30, who like older rock. *smiles* Actually, I had started off when I was younger, listening to first rap and R&B, and then I guess alternative ore Top 40, and then mostly today, rock, and then I just started listening to classic rock and 80's/early 90's stuff. *smiles* But anyways.
Leilani
Life is what you make of it!
Well said Goblin.