History FandomEnragingMisconception / Music

** Any assumptions based on GirlShowGhetto: that they're only popular because of their looks or social media, that their work has no depth whatsoever, or that their fanbase is made exclusively of teenage girls and fans of One Direction who jumped ship during their hiatus. There are fans of all ages, genders and music tastes, and the main reason they cite for liking BTS is their music, lyrics and message.
** Saying that they're puppets exploited by their company and that they have no creative input in their content. They're an unusual example of an idol group that has had creative control over their music since even before debut (with the only direction given by their CEO being "tell your own stories", [[https://kpopduck.com/post/168890283183/idol-maker-bang-shi-hyuk-ceo-a-company-that/amp?__twitter_impression=true making a point of not controlling them]]), and with things such as training schedules being self-imposed.
** Conflating them with the rest of the Korean idol industry and the Hallyu phenomenon, specifically treating them as nothing more than a government strategy to promote Korean media or values. Not only do they come from a small company, having to fight tooth-and-nail to achieve even a small amount of success, but their work has consistently ''criticized'' Korean society and dealt with topics that are stigmatized in the country, such as mental health. Moreover, their audience overseas was already established ''before'' they started actively promoting in the West, being more an accidental product of their work (which happened to resonate with a Western audience) than a pre-planned goal - [[https://ew.com/music/2019/03/28/bts-exclusive-cover-story/ making a point of not making an English album or otherwise devaluing their integrity solely for charts.]]
** The belief (more widespread in the West) that they lip-sync in live performances despite ample evidence to the contrary. Even ''Variety'' magazine accused them of lip-syncing in their ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' appearance, giving credit for doing "all the work" to back-up singer and "Boy With Luv" songwriter Melanie Fontana, [[https://twitter.com/MELANIEFONTANA/status/1118647767679684608 who vehemently]] [[https://twitter.com/MELANIEFONTANA/status/1118648962682982400 denied those claims.]] BTS is, in fact, one of the few Korean idol groups who ''always'' sing live even while doing complex choreography, and they have repeatedly been shown training hard to be able to do so (''Series/BurnTheStage'' being a big example); Suga famously [[https://youtu.be/k259rfFFAx8?t=78 stopped rapping mid-verse while looking at the camera to show it was live]] in their 2017 SBS year-end show performance.

* Even though it's impossible for two people to agree on what emo is, if you call a band {{emo|music}} and it isn't, you're bound to catch hell for it. Special mention goes to Music/MyChemicalRomance (who the mainstream considers the codifier for {{Emo|Music}}); the fanbase and the band itself are less than happy about the implication they are comprised of stereotypical wrist cutting, StrawNihilist {{Emo Teen}}s (Gerard Way has had a major rant about this). In reality they're pretty much the opposite, albeit in a very dark way.

** Saying your favorite song is "Dark Side of the Moon" will most likely make the fan you're talking to {{Facepalm}}. There is no actual song with that title. The penultimate song of the album, called Brain Damage, contains the line "I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon" and is often played together on the radio with the following song named Eclipse, leading some people to believe that it's one self-titled song. Or they might be talking about the singles from the album (Money, Time or Us And Them).

** Saying with a straight face that [[YokoOhNo Yoko]] was the sole cause of the break-up of The Beatles. At the very least, it will expose you as a newbie or casual Beatles fan, someone who hasn't spent a lot of time diving into their history. If you had, you would know it's clear that, while John focusing more on his relationship with Yoko and bringing her into the studio certainly exacerbated things, the biggest culprits were money problems, particularly the disagreement over whether Lee Eastman or Allen Klein should handle their finances, and the ever-common "CreativeDifferences".

* The genre is called "{{country music}}" or "country"; it hasn't been "country western" since the 1960s. Using the "western" tag automatically identifies you as a non-fan, and is nothing short of a BerserkButton for fans of the genre.

* Don't be surprised when someone bursts into a tirade that HipHop and {{Rap}} are ''completely and entirely different forms of music that have absolutely nothing to do with each other''. The [[SturgeonsLaw usual]] distinction? Hip-Hop is whatever that person happens to like, whereas Rap is whatever they don't like. In other words, [[FanMyopia Hip-Hop is the good stuff, while Rap is the bad stuff]]. Or the other way around, depending. For the record, the ''actual'' distinction is a technical one: rapping is something someone does with their mouth. Hip-hop is a genre of music. They are often paired (rapping over hip-hop beats), but you can have rap without hip-hop (''a capella'' or rap vocals over another genre like rock) and you can have hip-hop without rap (instrumental tracks, or singing instead of rapping over hip-hop beats).

** Conflating them with the rest of the Korean idol industry and the Hallyu phenomenon, specifically treating them as nothing more than a government strategy to promote Korean media or values. Not only do they come from a small company, having to fight tooth-and-nail to achieve even a small amount of success, but their work has consistently ''criticized'' Korean society and dealt with topics that are stigmatized in the country, such as mental health. Moreover, their audience overseas was already established ''before'' they started actively promoting in the West, being more an accidental product of their work (which happened to resonate with a Western audience) than a pre-planned goal - [[https://ew.com/music/2019/03/28/bts-exclusive-cover-story/ making a point of not making an English album or otherwise change their genuineness solely for charts]].
** The belief (more widespread in the West) that they lip-sync in live performances despite ample evidence to the contrary; even ''Variety'' magazine accused them of lip-syncing in their ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' appearance, giving credit for doing "all the work" to back-up singer and "Boy With Luv" songwriter Melanie Fontana, [[https://twitter.com/MELANIEFONTANA/status/1118647767679684608 who vehemently]] [[https://twitter.com/MELANIEFONTANA/status/1118648962682982400 denied those claims]]. BTS is, in fact, one of the few Korean idol groups who ''always'' sing live even while doing complex choreography, and they have repeatedly been shown training hard to do so (''Series/BurnTheStage'' being a big example); Suga famously [[https://youtu.be/k259rfFFAx8?t=78 stopped rapping mid-verse while looking at the camera to show it was live]] in their 2017 SBS year-end show performance.
** Accusing them of having gone through plastic surgery (or worse, being surgery "addicts") solely based on the fact that they're Korean and/or rumors created and spread by antis. Some fans even have counter-proof in the form of pictures of the members as children/teenagers in hand, just in case.
* Many, ''many'' fans of Music/TaylorSwift are utterly sick of the claims that Taylor "only writes {{breakup song}}s." Not only is it a bit of a DoubleStandard -- seeing as how almost every singer ''ever'' puts out a few breakup songs, but no one seems to mind when they do it -- it's also blatantly not true. She has a lot of songs about breakups, yes, but a quick look at her discography shows it's nowhere near her ''only'' topic. It's also similarly enraging to the fandom to dismiss either her or them as silly teenagers over a decade into her career. She's 29 now and her fanbase while still contains teens is more largely made up of 20-somethings and has been for a long time. When she endorsed Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterm elections ([[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment the merits of which we won't discuss here]]), she and her fans were dismissed by a couple of people because to quote former Governor Mike Huckabee , "13 year olds can't vote". People quickly jumped on it as patronizing and sexist as her fanbase has never really been 13 year olds and certainly wasn't at that point.
* Music/NineInchNails: Saying that Music/JohnnyCash wrote "Hurt" and Trent Reznor covered it rather than [[CoveredUp vice versa]] will get you mocked by the NIN fandom.

** Another good way to tick off Jarre fans used to be claiming that his concerts were all playback and miming. This ended rather abruptly in 2005 when the ''Space Of Freedom'' concert actually turned out mostly quite obvious and blatant miming to pre-recorded music from Jarre down to the orchestra that was inaudible itself. Further examination of his earlier concerts revealed that the shows after the ''Concerts In China'' weren't much different (justified with the big shows because syncing the massive light show with the music required absolutely reliable music, so what the audience heard was a few parts played live plus remixes of the original studio versions that could impossibly have been recreated identically live). All this changed with Jarre's smaller gigs from 2007 to 2011 which were played live as far as possible. Now do not claim that they were mimed, too!

** Referring to the characters as a "band" or "holograms." This will make fans assume you're too clueless to know that the concerts are only a tiny part of the fandom, ''and'' gullible enough to believe that the characters' concert appearances are actually holograms (they're just projections on a transparent screen, but at some point [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer a news article wrongly called them "holograms"]] and [[FollowTheLeader the misconception stuck]]).

* Naming Music/JohnWilliams as your favorite "modern music" composer is likely to get you dissed by most serious classical music fans on its own. Same with Danny Elfman, or Andrew Lloyd Webber, or any modern film/Broadway composer, but John Williams is a huge BerserkButton since so much of his music is directly-copied from, if not ''heavily'' influenced by, older works.

** Mispronunciations and even moreso misspellings of the man's name make many fans want to give the culprits intensive foreign language courses. It is not pronounced "Gene", "John", "Mitchell", "Michael" or "Jarray", nor is it spelled "Michael" or "[[GenderBlenderName Michelle]]".

* Never, ever make the common-but-ignorant (and for musicians, BerserkButton) error of using "crescendo" when what you mean is "climax", e.g. the egregious "It rose to a crescendo". NO. That is WRONG. And a musician within earshot may well give you a dope-slap for it (verbal or physical, depending on said musician's genre). ''Crescendo''[[note]] Italian: "I wax, I grow greater"[[/note]] refers to the '''process of getting louder''' - which may, but doesn't have to, culminate in a climax (it could instead fall away in a ''decrescendo.'') Ravel's well-known ''Bolero'' is one great twenty-minute crescendo. For you rock fans, "Stairway to Heaven" is pretty much one as well.

** If you don't want to be branded a clueless amateur, check the pronunciations of "Moog", "Buchla", "Serge", "Synclavier", "Cwejman" and the like before saying these names in the presence of other synth geeks. If you don't, you can consider yourself lucky if you just start a debate about the correct pronunciation.
** Calling all {{electronic music}} "{{techno}}" will earn you death in some circles. It's only swift if you're lucky.

* Even though it's impossible for two people to agree on what emo is, if you call a band {{emo}} and it isn't, you're bound to catch hell for it. Special mention goes to Music/MyChemicalRomance (who the mainstream considers the codifier for {{Emo}}); the fanbase and the band itself are less than happy about the implication they are comprised of stereotypical wrist cutting, StrawNihilist {{Emo Teen}}s (Gerard Way has had a major rant about this). In reality they're pretty much the opposite, albeit in a very dark way.

** There is no song called "The Wall" on [[Music/TheWall the album of that name]]. The song in question is called "Another Brick in the Wall (part 2)", and shares its names with two other songs (parts 1 and 3, natch). It's also often played with "The Happiest Days of our Lives" attached to the beginning, and playing the former without the latter can result in casual fans asking "Why did it start in the middle?"

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* Luca Turilli's first album is ''King of the Nordic Twilight''. The tenth track on said album is "Kings of the Nordic Twilight". Remember this if you do not wish to be set on fire.

** Refer to the band as "[[IAmNotShazam he]]" and prepare to be laughed at. This was actually referenced in their song "Have A Cigar":

** Saying your favorite song is "Dark Side of the Moon" will most likely make the fan you're talking to Face Palm. There is no actual song with that title. The penultimate song of the album, called Brain Damage, contains the line "I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon" and is often played together on the radio with the following song named Eclipse, leading some people to believe that it's one self-titled song. Or they might be talking about the singles from the album (Money, Time or Us And Them).

* If you're discussing [[Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart Mozart]] with any serious classical fan, don't make the mistake of mentioning how Salieri poisoned him. ''Film/{{Amadeus}}'' plays ''quite'' fast and loose with historical fact; it was never intended to be a Mozart biopic so much as just the film of Shaffer's play. No reputable Mozart scholar out there thinks Salieri poisoned him or plotted against him; in fact, the two men actually got along quite well (save for a brief dispute arising from an alleged attempt by Salieri to sabotage ''Theatre/TheMarriageOfFigaro'') and greatly respected each other. Salieri also had nothing to do with either the commission or the completion of Mozart's ''Requiem''. And by the way, Salieri wasn't the talentless hack portrayed in the movie. In fact, he taught Beethoven ''and'' Schubert and was one of the most successful composers of ''his'' time (even if his popularity died down after his death).

* Music/DragonForce's [[ThatOneLevel famed song from]] ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'' is "Through The Fire And Flames". "Through The Fire And ''The'' Flames" is a lyric from said song. Also, ZP was ZP's actual first name, not initials.

* Music/JethroTull is a band. Their lead singer and flutist is Ian Anderson. Get it straight. [[labelnote: Historical note]] there ''was'' a man named Jethro Tull in RealLife- an 18th-century agricultural reformer, whom the band was named after. [[/labelnote]]

** It's "YANK-oh-VICK," ''not'' "YANK-oh-VITCH." And his last name doesn't have an "h" on the end, either.
** The name of his parody of Music/AvrilLavigne's song "Complicated" is called "A Complicated Song," NOT "Constipated."

* It's probably not a good idea to refer to PostGrunge bands like Music/{{Creed}}, Music/{{Nickelback}}, Music/ThreeDoorsDown, and Music/{{Daughtry}} as actual {{Grunge}} in the presence of a grunge fan. You ''might'' be able to get away with referring to the Music/FooFighters as one due to their [[Music/{{Nirvana}} origin]] and that they're not considered to be "corporate-friendly" pop sellouts by anyone.

** Jarre has ''never'' collaborated with Music/{{Vangelis}} or Music/MikeOldfield. Whichever Website/{{YouTube}} video or whichever shady CD album or [=MP3=] download suggests otherwise is a ruse and actually made by neither of them. So don't claim it's legitimate.

* Many, ''many'' fans of Music/TaylorSwift are utterly sick of the claims that Taylor "only writes {{breakup song}}s." Not only is it a bit of a DoubleStandard -- seeing as how almost every singer ''ever'' puts out a few breakup songs, but no one seems to mind when they do it -- it's also blatantly not true. She has a lot of songs about breakups, yes, but a quick look at her discography shows it's nowhere near her ''only'' topic. It's also similarly enraging to the fandom to dismiss either her or them as silly teenagers over a decade into her career. She's 29 now and her fanbase while still contains teens is more largely made up of 20 somethings and has been for a long time. When she endorsed Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterm elections ([[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment the merits of which we won't discuss here]]), she and her fans were dismissed by a couple of people because to quote former Governor Mike Huckabee , "13 year olds can't vote". People quickly jumped on it as patronizing and sexist as her fanbase has never really been 13 year olds and certainly wasn't at that point.

* Calling Music/RichardWagner a Nazi or his music "Nazi music". While Richard Wagner was a virulent anti-Semite and his music was beloved by and used as propaganda by the Nazis, Wagner himself died before Hitler was even ''born''. There was no way he could ever have been a Nazi. (The Nazi stuff, and how much Wagner's anti-Semitism influenced his music tends to be controversial territory among Wagnerian opera lovers anyway, so they are touchy about it.) Also, don't confuse valkyries with Vikings, whatever you do. Creator/FriedrichNietzsche, who had been an anti-Semite himself before he reformed and had been Wagner's friend, eventually renounced him as well.

** Do not call the band Nazis or fascists. Not only will you mark yourself as an idiot who can't even go and look up the lyrics if you don't speak German, but one who also is likely just racist towards Germans in general. Especially because they're rather more conventional left wingers (although most of their songs are apolitical), which is quite different from Nazis, who would typically fall under the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum lowest quadrant of the political spectrum]]. Oh, and don't mispronounce the band's name, the fangirls and Creator/DavidLynch will rip your limbs off.

* When listening to Music/{{Yuki Kajiura}}'s music, saying that it's in a familiar language will get you a facepalm. It's her own [[ConLang made up language]]. And don't ask for a translation either, because the individual words don't actually mean anything. It's essentially just gibberish. Even worse than asking is ''answering'' the question with "it's in English/Japanese/Latin/any combination thereof". Dozens of angry Kajiura fans will rush to correct you.

** Like ''{{VideoGame/Touhou}}'', there's the classic "what anime is this from?" The Vocaloids are just characters on the software's packaging, and don't come from an anime. Composers and artists are expected to come up with their own personalities for the characters, and having an official anime or any other kind of canon would make this harder. At this point, though, it's [[DeadHorseTrope happened so many times]] (both [[{{Troll}} intentionally]] and not) that it's usually just laughed off.

* Calling Music/RichardWagner a Nazi or his music "Nazi music". While Richard Wagner was a virulent anti-Semite and his music was beloved by and used as propaganda by the Nazis, Wagner himself died before Hitler was even ''born''. There was no way he could ever have been a Nazi. (The Nazi stuff, and how much Wagner's anti-Semitism influenced his music tends to be InternetBackdraft territory among Wagnerian opera lovers anyway, so they are touchy about it.) Also, don't confuse valkyries with Vikings, whatever you do. Creator/FriedrichNietzsche, who had been an anti-Semite himself before he reformed and had been Wagner's friend, eventually renounced him as well.

* Eve of Destiny are Goth. Not VisualKei. [[SeriousBusiness This point is nowhere near as trivial as it seems]]. Anyone who calls [=EoD=] visual runs a significant risk of being [[InternetBackdraft shot down and stamped on]] by an indignant fan/fans. It doesn't help that having [=EoD=]'s genre mistaken in this manner has become something of a BerserkButton for frontman Haruhiko Ash, to the point where he has severed ties with promoters who sold Eve of Destiny as a Visual band.

* Many, ''many'' fans of Music/TaylorSwift are utterly sick of the claims that Taylor "only writes {{breakup song}}s." Not only is it a bit of a DoubleStandard -- seeing as how almost every singer ''ever'' puts out a few breakup songs, but no one seems to mind when they do it -- it's also blatantly not true. She has a lot of songs about breakups, yes, but a quick look at her discography shows it's nowhere near her ''only'' topic.

** Conflating them with the rest of the Korean idol industry and the Hallyu phenomenon, specifically treating them as nothing more than a government strategy to promote Korean media or values. Not only do they come from a small company, having to fight tooth-and-nail to achieve even a small amount of success, but their work has consistently ''criticized'' Korean society and dealt with topics that are stigmatized in the country, such as mental health. Moreover, their success overseas was already established ''before'' they started actively promoting in the West, being more an accidental product of their work (which happened to resonate with a Western audience) than a pre-planned goal.

* NineInchNails: Saying that Music/JohnnyCash wrote "Hurt" and Trent Reznor covered it rather than [[CoveredUp vice versa]] will get you mocked by the NIN fandom.