Genres you'd like if it wasn't for...

I'm surprised you don't have a Copypasta explaining why that's wrong by now.

You know, that's not a bad idea.

Type out your response to that and save it on your troper page for when the need arises.

You're right, the "hos" thing was a bit inaccurate. But the dude sings about himself excessively. He's either whining about his upbringing or how life has screwed him over, and he goes on and on and on.

I don't wish to start a flamewar, but Eminem just... pisses me off. Music should be used to tell a story, not just recount your past. Sure, you can make one or two songs based around what's happened to you in the past, but you shouldn't fill the majority of an album with them.

I'm sorry if i'm being inaccurate, but seriously. From what I hear from the Eminem my stepfather blasts, he's just a 30-something emo.

EDIT: Redacted. Nothing to see here, carry on.

edited 16th Aug '11 6:54:04 PM by Saeglopur

^I was going to post something larger, but fuck it. I am not a clown, and this is not a circus.

edited 16th Aug '11 6:57:08 PM by SpainSun

Yeah, I regretted posting that almost as soon as I'd clicked 'send'. *Hits self in side of head*. Good work, asshat.

Anyway, on-topic...

Autobiographical albums, like most things, can be devastatingly powerful when done well, but lame and trite when done badly.

I can't really think of any genres that I don't like specifically for one element, and if there were any, it's probably just because I've not listened to enough and I'm making a horrible generalisation. The closest I can think of is my failure to appreciate Metal, no matter the sub-genre (horrible generalisation #1), being mostly down to the vocals (horrible generalisation #2). Yes, I understand that there are many different types of metal vocals. Unfortunately I prefer my singers subdued, understated and vulnerable sounding (read: whiny hipster bullshit). As far as I am aware, metal vocalists don't tend to be any of those things, but I'm open to being told otherwise.

edited 16th Aug '11 7:10:58 PM by Saeglopur

Try instrumental metal, maybe?

Anyway.

the main arguments I hear against hip-hop are thus:

• It is all about bling, money, or self-worship.
  • Counterexample: KRS-One (aka "Kris", "the Professor", "The Blastmaster"), who, aside from some very early work like "The Bridge is Over" and his later—and honestly rather shameful—feud with Nelly, raps mostly about politics, philosophy, and his opinions on the mainstream. Yes, the occasional battle MC line does figure into it. That's tied to the genre, you're never going to totally escape that. But KRS is more clever than most when he comes to those, and even when he does, it's pretty rare, and his targets are usually general.
  • Counterexample: Aesop Rock, Doseone, Illogic, etc. These are all Abstract Rappers, their lyrics are often so filled with metaphors that figuring out what they're actually saying is a real challenge. But it is not generally "I am boss".
• rappers are ignorant
  • Counterexample: Chuck D. Chuck might be seen as a radical by some, and indeed he sort of is, but you cannot deny he's intelligent. If you disagree, you can look up any of his interviews that deal with something other than his music.
  • Counterexample: Kanye West. Yes, I know what you're saying, and yes, I am indeed referring to Kanye "I'mma Let You Finish" West. His intelligence is different than Chuck's, he's not book smart, really, but he is an artistic genius. And I can say that without an ounce of irony or hipsterism. If you don't think so, listen to one of his productions sometime, not the rapping, the music behind it. I find "Power"'s instrumental is good for this, because it's as complex as it is. Likewise "All of the Lights".
• Hip-Hop is musically simplistic.
  • Counterexample: Bone Thugs 'N' Harmony. If anyone ever tells me that it is impossible to rap in melody, I point in these guys' general direction. It's easy to mistake "Tha Crossroads" for R&B, but rest assured, these guys are rappers.
  • Counterexample: DJ Shadow, J Dilla, DJ Spooky, Krush, etc. Pretty much any instrumental hip-hop artist has to make up for the lack of lyrics with dense musicality. Krush's Stepping Stones: The Self-Remixed Best, or rather, the Instrumental disc, is a good intro to this subgenre.
• Rappers cannot tell stories.
  • Counterexample, and I admit half the reason I'm saying this is because I am into him right now, but: Tyler the Creator. The (so far incomplete) Bastard trilogy is a rather complicated story about a fictionalized version of Tyler, his (also fictional) multiple personalities, and his (also fictional) therapist Dr. TC. There are a lot of other examples, however, and listing them all here would be a chore. Needless to say, Concept Albums are not new to rap.

Yeah, I already listen to a bit of Instru-Metal (*shudder*), such as Red Sparowes and... errrrrrm... actually, wait, that's pretty much it. And they're barely metal. Huh. Got some exploring to do.

Anyway, that's not so much the issue. I'm kinda annoyed that I can't get into Metal with vocals. I have friends who keep recommending me stuff which, from the sound of their description, seems ridiculously cool, but then I listen to it and think, "auugh, no, those vocals, heugh bleugh". Which is frustrating because the stuff behind the vocals is usually awesome.

If there was an instrumental version of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy It'd be one of my favorite albums of all time.

^^Thank me later.

edited 16th Aug '11 7:43:05 PM by SpainSun

Welp, that pretty much settles that then. Thanks for clearing that one up for me

It's kind of funny, but I was about to come in here and post this very paragraph, except replacing Metal with indie and stating that I have a tendency to dislike vocalists that sound whiny. There are of course exceptions to this (Snowmine), but if they have that style of vocals, it tends to just grate on my nerves.

As for instrumental metal, Shit, I' not sure. I don't listen to much stuff that's purely instrumental. Russian Circles, maybe?

Maybe you should give Vintersorg a try. He still does the black metal growls on his earlier albums, but some of my friends describe his voice as whiny. Then again, They might be the best judges of that honestly.

You might try Alcest, which is basically Black Metal with significant shoegaze/post-rock influence and a bizarrely happy sound. The vocals are mainly very high-pitched/effeminate tenor vocals, usually somewhat buried in the mix, with occasional Black Metal screams.

Eminem doesn't tell stories? Okay, so we're gonna skip past "Stan"—which is about an obsessive fan getting progressively more unhinged until he eventually drives himself off a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend trapped in the trunk—"My Fault", in which Eminem gets invited to a party, accidentally gives a girl an entire bag of shrooms, freaks out as he details the shit that happens to her and expresses remorse after she dies (or that he's going to jail for this stunt); "Brain Damage", a humorous reimagining of a childhood incident with a bully that almost killed him; "Kim", a back-and-forth between himself and his impression of his wife as he drives out her to the woods to slit her throat after murdering her boyfriend and love child; or "Lose Yourself" which pretty much is 8 Mile summarized with a distant epilogue inserted into the second verse. Yeah, Eminem doesn't tell st—seriously what the fuck. Do you listen to music or do you just skim through it?

More counterpoints to hip-hop not having story tellers.

• Mike Shinoda. Yes, the rapper from Linkin Park. He had a hip-hop side project named Fort Minor. "Kenji". It's a song about his family being locked up in Manzanar during WWII. "Right Now" is heavily inspired by Short Cuts. "Spraypaint & Ink Pens" has three different stories told by three different rappers. While Mike's verse is about a guy stealing the wedding ring he pawned off so he could melt it down to a bullet to shoot himself with, Ghostface's verse deals with a kid who got mixed up in drug dealing and got killed far away from home and Lupe retells a scene from Gundam. Speaking of...
• Lupe Fiasco. "Hip Hop Saved My Life" is about an up-and-coming rapper—confirmed to be Slim Thug—struggling to write songs, get known and feed his kid so he doesn't have to sell crack anymore. "Kick, Push" tells the story of a kid becoming increasingly skilled in skateboarding through the years while the sequel gives the backstories of each member of his crew to explain why they need skating and each other. "Little Weapon" is told from the perspective of a child soldier while the subjects of "Intruder Alert" are a rape victim becoming able to love someone, a drug addict letting himself succumb to his condition and an immigrant trying to get into the States without dying.
• Deltron 3030. From Wikipedia, "The album's story casts Del in the role of Deltron Zero, a disillusioned mech soldier and interplanetary computer prodigy rebelling against a 31st century New World Order. In a world where evil oligarchs suppress both human rights and hip-hop, Del fights rap battles against a series of foes, becoming Galactic Rhyme Federation Champion."

edited 21st Aug '11 4:21:49 PM by KitsuneInferno

I already love Russian Circles - never really thought of them as metal, per-se. I guess the are though. I'll check out that other band though.

Indie bands sans whining = The National, British Sea Power and especially The Twilight Sad, who are a) Scottish as hell, and b) Angry about everything. Especially the running theme throughout their work, characters with traumatic and ruined childhoods.

Alcest sound insteresting. I am hopeful. Thanks!

Metal would be a pretty good break from the pattern if it weren't for the singers.

But metal has just about the widest variety of singers in any musical genre, from death metal growling to operatic singing.

Saeglopur: You might like Devin Townsend, I always find that he manages to put a lot of emotion into his vocals even if they aren't necessarily subdued (he goes all over the place it terms of volume and vocal style). Try this.

edited 17th Aug '11 10:29:28 AM by pagad

You might want to give Solefald a shot; I'm not familiar with them, but they do a lot of things differently, especially as far as vocals. (I was going to recommend post-Nattens Madrigal Ulver, but then I realized that was when they stopped playing metal. D'oh.)

I'm certain that Devin Townsend is the exact opposite of what Saeg is looking for.

I guess you have listened to Isis; if you haven't, Aaron Turner's singing voice is very nasally and indie-sounding. Also try Traced in Air by Cynic (or, if you're feeling daring, Focus) and German instrumental post-metal band Omega Massif.

And yeah, Alcest are a pretty good suggestion, even though they're not black metal at all. They're more comparable to Jesu (another suggestion if you haven't), only with a more positive vibe.

edited 17th Aug '11 11:36:37 AM by Litis

Actually, as rap was mentioned earlier, I will try and explain my problems with it (hopefully without bringing down the wrath of Spain Sun). I think my complaints are legit, if totally subjective.

1) I have a bias towards instrumentally interesting music. I think it is fair to say that rap is not instrumentally orientated, as the focus is on the beat and the lyrics.

2) Secondly, and I think this is going to be more controversial, sampling annoys the fuck out of me. Specifically, sampling other music and inserting it into your song, rather than film quotations or sound effects or whatever - the reason being that I think if you want a killer guitar riff or something in your song, write and record it yourself, don't simply lift from another artist. The first time I heard that Kanye West song that sampled "21st Century Schizoid Man" I was filled with raeg.

His music is often atmospheric and I find his voice to be astonishingly emotional at times, so I thought he might be worth bringing up.

edited 17th Aug '11 11:34:23 AM by pagad

Just a question: Do you mind if a band samples a song, provided they actually play the part when they're live?

And what about non-musical vocal samples?

That's an improvement, but I'd still rather they play something they came up with.

Non-musical samples are fine, as I mentioned. It's sampling other music that hacks me off.

edited 17th Aug '11 11:39:19 AM by pagad

So what do you think about this: