Musical Pet Peeves

"Country Boy" isn't ringing a bell but "Where I Come From" doesn't fall victim to me...I'm thinking of songs like "Texas When I Die", "Lay You Down", or "Friends in Low Places".

On the rock end, the first one that comes to mind is "Shooting Star".

edited 21st Jan '14 9:15:08 AM by Willbyr

That's a big reason why I choose not to listen to "In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited" most of the time. The chorus playing without any variation over and over is really staggering, to say the least. Sure, the song technically ends with a random explosion created by tape saturation, but it takes what seems like forever to get there.

As for my personal pet peeves? I really don't like songs that take too long to start, which is a major factor in me never really getting into Pink Floyd.

There are good uses of the repeating-chorus-as-coda trope, but they tend to involve the chorus transforming as it is repeated. Take the ending of St. Vincent's "The Party" for example, in which the final repeating chorus slows and strips down until, in live versions, only voices are left.

But then, a lot of bands aren't that creative...

I'm amused by how The Swirling Eddies used it in "The Band That Won't Go Away". With each repetition of the chorus, the narrator's "advice" to the band (that won't go away) grows increasingly harsher: "Give up! Retire! Go to Nashville! Go to Hell!" Then at the very end, the very last bit of advice is "Fade out!" and the song does exactly that, as the backing singers continue repeating their part of the chorus.

#101: "Country Boy" is more recent. It's from 2008. It's full of Painful Rhymes and a disgusting "creepy old guy" vibe that is way out of character for A.J. Just take a look at the first verse and chorus:

#101 and #103: At least "I'd Love to Lay You Down" by Conway Twitty does some variation by repeating it in a lower and lower key, instead of going up.

Another pet peeve of mine: really long songs that end in a fade out rather than an actual final note. Examples: Telegraph Road by Dire Straits, The Best of Times by Dream Theater, The Outlaw Torn and Fade to Black by Metallica (though at least the former had an "Unencumbered by Manufacturing Restrictions" version). Songs like Hopelessly Human by Kansas are not as bothersome because it sort of ends with a clear set of ending chords being repeated instead of fading out in the middle of a regular series of notes.

The last track on Sonic Youth's SYR 9 does that, which given how strong the track is really frustrates me. It clearly continues, yet it simply fades out. How disappointing.

You'd hate a lot of George Clinton's P-Funk output.

Fade out intros have always come off to me as an artist's way of admitting they don't know how to properly end a song. One of the rare times I don't mind them is if after a while it fades out and then the actual conclusion to the song fades in, like in Dark Moor's "Hand in Hand".

edited 4th Feb '14 10:01:57 PM by StillbirthMachine

I'm not that bothered by fade out outros in general but I agree that they're more annoying on longer songs because long songs usually have a lot of buildup so the fade out feels more like a cop out. I find it most annoying when songs fades out during a guitar solo. I want to hear how the solo ends dammit! Both The Best of Times and Fade to Black mentioned above do this as does Comfortably Numb.

In the case of The Outlaw Torn, I feel that to make room on the CD they should have cut down one of the filler songs instead of this one, which is one of the more interesting songs on that album.

I've always felt fade-out outros were just the norm, so they never bothered me. More often than not, they just make me curious as to what there was after the fade-out.

In music videos, where the actual song is distorted at some point for the purposes of the music video (I'm using Santeria by Sublime as an example here). The music video is for the purposes of suiting the song! Also, when the music video takes too damn long to get to the actual music. Beverly Hills by Weezer is a good example of this.

Most dance music in general doesn't really appeal to me, and to a lesser extent, some songs with dance beats. I mainly listen to certain types of music that are mostly just for listening. Although Michael Jackson might be a slight exception, I've liked him because of nostalgia, and I'm not too keen of his songs nowadays.

Also, songs with aggressive screaming as the main vocals. Careful with That Axe type of screaming is fine as long as it doesn't show up throughout the whole song.

By the way, I've recalled someone mentioning bagpipes as an instrument for rock music, with the reason being that the genre is "supposed" to be loud. For one thing, that mostly just applies to hard rock in general and it's not always loud. Another thing is that bagpipes are more of a regional instrument (I've hardly seen anyone play it that didn't come Scotland). Those Celtic bands that were mentioned have already covered it. Otherwise if it was included, it would be my own pet peeve.

A few more:

• Gratuitous belting (looking at you, Martina McBride). Belting is not inherently bad if it fits the song, but too many big-voiced singers think they have to go full throttle on everything. That's one thing I like about Carrie Underwood — she can belt when she wants to, but she knows when to tone it down. (She can also sing forcibly without belting, like on "Good Girl".)
• Similarly, any overwrought vocals. From stereotypical metal screaming to that belty, nasal whine that Gary LeVox does in the worst of Rascal Flatts' power ballads.
• Guitar solos that are just rapid-fire note spam without a discernible melody. Brad Paisley plays like this a lot, and it just seems show-y (to be fair, some of his solos aren't like this). That's why I think Keith Urban is a better guitarist, since he always brings out a true melody.
• I've said it before, but Cliché Storm songs bug me. How do you not realize that what you're writing is so unoriginal and dull? For instance, "See You Again" is one of the least original lyrics on the planet, and the "whoa oh oh"s (which I usually like) are way out of place on that kind of song. I mean, "I will see you again, whoa / This is not where it ends / I will carry you with me, oh / 'Til I see you again" just smacks of not even trying.
• Singers who are clearly phoning it in. Dierks Bentley has a few songs where he sounds half asleep. It's worst on "Am I the Only One", because it's supposed to be a party anthem, but his lethargic vocals and the muted production make it feel completely lifeless.
• I'm also getting tired of all the country songs about drinking beer with a hot girl on a tailgate and partying. It's not as egregious for an artist who's only 22, but an artist who's 37 and an artist who's FORTY-SIX are way, way too old for that. And it's all because everyone wants to copy Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise".

Gibberish lyrical clichés. I'm okay with gibberish lyrics overall, but the overuse of "la la la la" and similar doesn't destroy a song for me outright, but it does bug me a lot.

That 'Oo-wa-oooo-wawawawa-woaah' thing that Whitney Houston used to do and all her little clones continue to do. Just get on with the bloody song, already.

You mean Melismatic Vocals?

edited 14th Feb '14 4:14:38 AM by tropeslave

Yes. That. It should die in a fire. Preferably one I'm at, so that I can watch.

What about a singer like Gianni Neppi from Dark Quarterer?

Or the Fado singers?

• Boringly sad (or as I put it, faux-emotional) EDM songs which choruses just repeat the same melody lines with only slight variations. If EDM artists think this is a good idea to make a catchy song, they should think again. This applies to songs by Avicii and Zedd.
• Singing "whoa-oh-oh". This is blandest idea to make a song to resemble more of a sing-along. Examples are Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" and Fall Out Boy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)".
• Drop D tuning + sing-talk + distortion + senseless cymbal banging = everything wrong about Limp Bikzit
• Fading out at the end of the song. Unfortunately for me, this happens a lot in the 1960s, my favorite era in music. I don't understand why producers think this is a effective idea. Just end the song properly, alright!
• Playing a guitar solo which melodies are obviously copied from the melodies of the choruses. Plenty and plenty of post-grunge bands do this, of course. Most horrendous example goes to Creed's "With Arms Wide Open".
• I'm surprised no one mentioned the sparkly synth that is prominent in the 1990s. I mourn the death of ballads released in the era, crushed to death by the sparkly synth.

I just don't like EDM, period. It all sounds exactly the same to me.

Also, what's wrong with Drop D tuning?

Drop D tuning is totally fine, unless someone combines it with sing-talk, distortion and senseless cymbal banging which is what the people in Limp Bizkit did.

edited 16th Feb '14 4:10:48 AM by tropeslave

Gated Reverb. In other words, that trend in the 80s where, for whatever reason, many people decided, "Let's make our drums sound like cheap drum machines."

I just read that Wikipedia article you linked and then my mind went "Oh my God! How can I not realise this sooner? So this is what the effect is known as!". Seriously! Now I know why a lot of drum tracks in the 1980s rock songs sound so different.

It did make the drum tracks inferior. I prefer clearer drum tracks. But the Gated Reverb effect made the drum tracks overpowering to the extent of obscuring the other instrumental parts.

edited 16th Feb '14 8:29:12 AM by tropeslave