Musical Pet Peeves

• Songs with too much white noise as filler...
• Vocals mixed ridiculously low into things
• Joke songs that are less than a minute

I actually tend to enjoy short "joke" songs... Enough so that I once made a 99 track, 80 minute mix cd of Miniscule Rocking (not all of the tracks were "jokes", but a lot were). But I do generally hate "skits" on albums (usually hip hop ones), which is sort of related. There are exceptions: Sometimes there's actually some interesting music going on in the background. Sometimes they kind of further the concept of the album *

When a band has song that's at least six minutes in length and most of it ends up being dumb silence/noise/filler.

Putting long songs way too early into an album.

"Bounce/groove" riffs put in to try to appear "heavy".

When a band tries to throw in as many differing influences as possible or focus on a particular set at the expense of songwriting.

When a band's music more or less is a giant technical exercise.

When there are no particularly strong chord/riff/tonal shapes to guide a song's movement.

Long, drawling, droning, flittery-fluttery "emotional" melodies.

Bad melodies. There's one Nashville songwriter, Casey Beathard, who writes everything in D Major, and seems to think there are only four notes on the scale.

Loudness War.

Songwriters who don't realize they're using clichés. I know a duo who used "every breath I breathe" in two songs spaced only a few months apart.

How must dance music does the st-st-st-st-st-st-st-st-stutter melody thing (e.g. Gangnam Style).

When a song has a huge buildup and no payoff (ex. Fatboy Slim - Talking About My Baby; wonderful song but arrrrrgh why are there no drums?) or the buildup takes up most of the song (ex. Skrillex - With You, Friends [Long Drive]).

Nothing BUT power chords up and down the scale as far as guitars go. It's lazy.

Not a big fan of punk rock, I guess?

Actually i do like punk rock. its songs with little to no variation on chords...like strumming at the same two chords the whole song that gets me...

I hate singers whose vocals go up and down their entire range in the course of a few seconds. The likes of Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston, and a whole lot of others. Yes, it's technically impressive. It's also annoying.

So, Melismatic Vocals?

Me, I could do without chugging/galloping guitars for an entire chorus or verse. Good for effect, tiresome over time.

Just find a riff and play it, I say.

edited 21st May '13 4:12:55 AM by Alucard

Melisma, when used properly, sounds great. The unfortunate thing is that ever since the Britney/Christina era, pop stars have a bad tendency to think that melisma is something you can whip out and flail around whenever you want.

I had no idea what it was called. But yes. Most of the time, that annoys the hell out of me. I've heard very few singers use it in a way that didn't annoy me.

Probably the most extreme example of melismatic vocals that I've ever encountered is Ev'ry valley shall be exalted from Handel's Messiah. There's so much melisma that it starts to get silly. When I took a survey of music class in college, my professor went so overboard whenever he talked about this piece that I ended up telling him to stop on multiple occasions.

Seriously though, that's more melisma than a pop star singing the Star Spangled Banner before a sporting event.

Melismatic vocals make me think of badly done overly expressive bluesy guitar solos. Now, replicated vocally.

edited 21st May '13 1:08:08 PM by StillbirthMachine

lo-fi sound.

edited 27th May '13 2:32:37 AM by dronepeanut2

One of my biggest musical pet peeves: When vocal filters are overused to the point where the singer sounds like an adult in Peanuts.

• Metalcore breakdowns. They normally don't work, and even when they do, they rarely add anything to the song.
• In a similar note, drops are the main (and pretty much the only) reason I dislike dubstep.
• Excessive vocal ham, it keeps me away from most power and heavy metal. Warrel Dane is an exception, he may (and must) be as hammy as he can.
• Whiny vocals (I can only stand Spencer Sotello cause he manages to compensate the timbre with skill)
• Lyrics are among the last thing I notice about a song, but when I strongly disagree with the message it tries to send I have a hard time liking even the best of songs... as a Christian metalhead, that's depressingly common. Damn you The Faceless, why can't you just sing in Simlish?
• Singing that just follows the instrumental pisses me off.

Stop-start riffs. Most of the time anyways. At the end of Slayer's "Raining Blood" or during Pestilence's "Chronic Infection" sure, but when a whole and not surprisingly completely artistically devoid style emerges out of it ("djent", thanks Mechugguh), it turns into some of the least creative and worst riffs ever since Dimebag Darrel thought he could actually be a semi-decent guitarist.

edited 2nd Jun '13 12:23:43 PM by StillbirthMachine

Another pet peeve of mine is rhyming "girl" with "world". Looking at you, Journey. Most overused rhyme ever.

When it comes to Electro House and the like, i'm getting really irritated with this technique where the music starts speeding up around the chorus.

It's like (pretend this is a sequencer), the beat goes from 4/4 (*—- *—- *—- *—-), to 8/4 (*-*- *-*- *-*- *-*-), and then just 16/4 (**** **** **** ****). I hear this EVERYWHERE. Does anyone know what it is?

I think it's just called a fill.

Digitally processed stuttered vocals, especially if it's in the chorus. I've heard it in a lot of pop songs recently. I thought of posting this after hearing it in a song on the radio yesterday, which I found out was Slow Down by Selena Gomez, which is fitting because her previous song Come and Get It is one of the worst offenders of this (the part "when you're re-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-dy").

I'm not really fond of vocal stuttering in general, though it can be used effectively (B-b-b-Bennie and the Jets), but the digitally altered stuttering in a lot of today's EDM-styled dance pop just sounds choppy and ugly. Plus it sound like filler because they couldn't think of a good melody.

I hate that too. Combining that with my pet peeve, you get something as annoying as The Black Eyed Peas "Dirty Bit": And I owe it all to you-you-you-you-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-ooooo

dirty bit

edited 11th Nov '13 8:51:04 AM by djbj

I hate, absolutely hate, long, drawn-out solos. This is why I've never liked much post-swing jazz. Somewhere down the line it just turned to an exercise in musical masturbation. The same happened to rock, but not as badly.

When music focuses purely on timbre and has no textural appeal.

edited 11th Nov '13 3:21:30 PM by porschelemans

Overly emotional power ballads. Wrecking Ball made me so damn angry. Oh, and insipid power songs with no beat or drive to back them up (yes, I mean you, Roar)