What are you listening to at the present? (genres helpful)

[BoneSnapDeez]

I can dig some Smashing Pumpkins. Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie are pretty solid. And this is coming from someone who can't stand most alternative rock and popular rock music of that era.

Taylor Swift rules too. This is just indisputable.

[Luke]

I feel like your grasp on the nuances of rock music is quite limited...

Oh. It is more than fair to say that my feelings on rock music is narrow. Very narrow. Limited, however, would be the wrong word.

"Listen to all of it, like very little of it" would be my mantra.

I'm a weird-o that way to most of my peers. I expect a reaction from music. Does ZZ Top play four chords over and over? Shit yeah, but it gets my toes tapping. In my ears, TSP is whiny angst teenage bullshit sung by a grown man. I don't dig it. I don't know how anyone would. The lyrics are empty, the music dull. To me it is the American Dad of music, as I don't know why anyone would like it.

"Fucking A", and "Gung-ho" if you like TSP (even the band's name is fucking horrible in my eyes and ears). Liking stuff is awesome, and it actually takes a lot (a whole lot) for me to not like something. I even love Mozgus and japan1. But as soon as I hear "Today's the greatest..." I want to punch that whiny bald bitch in the throat. The fuck is he whinging about?

Props for the band making fun of themselves in an episode of The Simpsons, but at the same time the commentary of that episode summed up the marketing of 90's rock bands.

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"I don't know anymore."

[Luke]

Taylor Swift rules too. This is just indisputable.

Taylor is like the 2014 version of Dolly Parton.

I honestly root for her success although she is beyond successful.

[dsheinem]

In my ears, TSP is whiny angst teenage bullshit sung by a grown man. I don't dig it. I don't know how anyone would. The lyrics are empty, the music dull.

"Fucking A", and "Gung-ho" if you like TSP (even the band's name is fucking horrible in my eyes and ears)...as soon as I hear "Today's the greatest..." I want to punch that whiny bald bitch in the throat. The fuck is he whinging about?

I get not liking TSP - Corgan's voice, the lyrical themes, their sound, the band's various images, etc. - that's a lot to digest for a lot of people and certainly disliking any/all of them are fair grounds for not liking the band...but all that's a very different position than suggesting they were an untalented, uninspired, commercial-thinking "punk" band. There's no support for those claims, and pointing to their popularity (where, certainly, they found commercial success for a while) isn't grounds for writing them off as some kind of cliche-ridden bunch of hacks.

I mean, there's lots of music that I don't like that I still recognize as the product of talented, inspired artists. There's also some music that I like that is pretty indefensible on grounds of the quality of the talent as well. I'd like to think I have the ability and the ear to differentiate these kinds of issues...

[Luke]

... There's no support for those claims, and pointing to their popularity (where, certainly, they found commercial success for a while) isn't grounds for writing them off as some kind of cliche-ridden bunch of hacks.

I mean, there's lots of music that I don't like that I still recognize as the product of talented, inspired artists. There's also some music that I like that is pretty indefensible on grounds of the quality of the talent as well. I'd like to think I have the ability and the ear to differentiate these kinds of issues...

Here is where the rubber meets the road.

I hate that phrase, but I'm building a bridge here.

Music is an art, and with art, skill is not necessarily needed. If Bob Dylan and Picasso didn't prove this, I stand corrected. Art is subjective and actual "talent" is debatable, if not open to mass criticism of what dictates actual talent.

Not that my ears are better than yours, but they are mine. Here is where the rubber meets the road.

Intonation. Inconsistency in one's voice. Not being on key.

Can't fucking stand it.

A symphony warming up with anything other than GABC drives me nuts. Does that make me a dick? Probably. Among other things.

TSP, not to be confused with The Soul Patrol, sounds like ass. They're like an onion grater to my ears.

And sure, I'm hyper critical, because, well, I'm hyper critical. That said I can easily stand by the fact I love Nirvana because at least they knew they sounded like shit.

Shit sandwich and so forth.

[dsheinem]

Music is an art, and with art, skill is not necessarily needed. If Bob Dylan and Picasso didn't prove this, I stand corrected. Art is subjective and actual "talent" is debatable, if not open to mass criticism of what dictates actual talent.

If you don't think Dylan has skills/talent, I don't know that we can really talk about music at all.

Intonation. Inconsistency in one's voice. Not being on key.

Can't fucking stand it.

A symphony warming up with anything other than GABC drives me nuts. Does that make me a dick? Probably. Among other things.

You do realize that there's a long, rich tradition of intonation, vocal inconsistency, and deliberately "off-key" singing in multiple genres of rock music, and that each of these things themselves have various levels of skill/talent associated with them? That's fine that you don't like these musical choices - but you've "built a bridge" too far to write them off as not being defined skills.

I love Nirvana because at least they knew they sounded like shit.

Except they didn't and they didn't. Again, they perfected a certain kind of sound working within genre conventions - it takes a particular set of skills to pull off the sound Nirvana pulled off (thus why so many imitators never quite got it - even if they worked with Steve Albini (see Razorblade Suitcase)).

I'd also argue that both Cobain and Corgan are exceptional songwriters in how they pair lyrics with emotional cues in the music (e.g. crescendo, tempo, etc.). Perhaps writing angsty words is easy enough, but there's something to be said for the fact that only a few bands that dabble in that lyrical material actually find an audience the size of the ones Nirvana and TSP have...

[J T]

I love Nirvana because at least they knew they sounded like shit.

Except they didn't and they didn't. Again, they perfected a certain kind of sound working within genre conventions - it takes a particular set of skills to pull off the sound Nirvana pulled off (thus why so many imitators never quite got it.

At least they kinda got the hair right.

[Luke]

Music is an art, and with art, skill is not necessarily needed. If Bob Dylan and Picasso didn't prove this, I stand corrected. Art is subjective and actual "talent" is debatable, if not open to mass criticism of what dictates actual talent.

If you don't think Dylan has skills/talent, I don't know that we can really talk about music at all.

I know we can really talk about anything, I think.

By skilled, I mean classically trained. Not that neither Picasso or Dylan were uneducated. Don't dump Talent with skill. I made it a point to separate the two.

[Forlorn Drifter]

Taylor Swift rules too. This is just indisputable.

Taylor is like the 2014 version of Dolly Parton.

I honestly root for her success although she is beyond successful.

No, Taylor Swift is not the 2014 version of Dolly Parton. That's unfair to both. I'm not a Dolly fan, but she pulled more towards country than Taylor does. Taylor did it for a while on the pop country line, but she has moved much more towards pop now. Its different music for different people. (Although Dolly edged on pop quite a bit, she always had enough elements to stay country. Still dislike her though.)

If I'd argue anyone was the 2014 Dolly Parton, I'd go with Kacey Musgraves, although I'm not inclined to compare those two either.

I'm also not sure what you are going for in the whole Smashing Pumpkins argument. If you don't like that, that's your deal, good for you. But I don't understand the criticism otherwise- singing that is viewed as bad in most other cases is a large part of rock. Mix that with alt rock's weirdness and some general 90's pissed at everything but pissed at no one feeling and that's what you get.

[AppleQueso]

Nirvana were influenced by Celtic Frost and that makes them a-ok in my book