Post your "UNPOPULAR" music opinions!

[Jigsaw9 6783]

Unpopular opinion: MEJIBRAY has nothing to do with the GazettE in terms of "rip-offness"

 

Sure, Tsuzuku is a fan of Ruki's and the GazettE's, admittedly. And this moderately shows in his visuals at times.

Sure, the band has some songs in their catalogue that seem to have some similarities to a few of GazettE's tunes.

...about 3 songs out of a total 48 (and counting).

...which usually only resemble GazettE stuff for like half a minute each.

(remember DIE KUSSE where everyone shouted "ripoff, hahaa!" only because of the introductory part that never ever repeats again? ;> )

 

So it's getting a bit weird and old to read all the "durrrr Gazetto copybando" stuff. Feels just like around 7-8 years ago when all I heard everywhere was "durrrr Gazetto sounds like Diru" (no they didn't, lol).

[Igyou_Hime 80]

My UNPOPULAR opinion: Miyavi is one of the worst musicacts ever heard.

He may be a talented guitarplayer but the guys music is awful. Whenever I've said this I've got hoards of fangirls going crazy but I just think he's one of those musicians who's gotten famous over nothing. Last year when I was at the Closet Child store in Ikebukuro and they played some live cd with Miyavi and he kept repeating "funky monkey", well, at that point I sort of realised nothing will change my mind about him being an awful songwriter ._.

[seikun 317]

No one seems to like Gazette, not many at least...

[TheBistroButcher666 228]

My UNPOPULAR opinion: Miyavi is one of the worst musicacts ever heard.

He may be a talented guitarplayer but the guys music is awful. Whenever I've said this I've got hoards of fangirls going crazy but I just think he's one of those musicians who's gotten famous over nothing. Last year when I was at the Closet Child store in Ikebukuro and they played some live cd with Miyavi and he kept repeating "funky monkey", well, at that point I sort of realised nothing will change my mind about him being an awful songwriter ._.

I agree, Miyavi's music has always been terrible but stupid terrible. I can listen to terrible music (see every Visual Kei band in my library) but not stupid terrible like Miyavi's music. It's also why I don't like Ensoku or Golden Bomber, except they're trying to be funny. Miyavi is actually trying to  be a taken for serious musician and I don't even...

[nullmoon 784]

I dunno, songs like Selfish Love are so goddamn cool though

[miyuu 40]

xDD ok i have to confess

to be honest i never listen to him now  and i find his new songs terrible.soooo terrible. but i liked him at the beggining.

he was the very first artist i listened from vkei and i remember i used to like him so much back then. he was my fav. that was way before selfish love though.

i remember people were saying since then they didn't like his voice. but i was finding it cool. i actually liked it

 

i never ever listen to him now. but i still think he was cool back then xD

 

edit: i have to agree  about the new songs though i found them awful. well unimportant at least

[nullmoon 784]

Haha, ohhhhhh I totally agree about the new stuff, it's bloody awful XD

[Pretsy 1343]

What just came to my mind (in fact, you might describe this as "an ode to self-criticism"):

 

Many music listeners base most of their critiques on "BAND/SONG X sounds like BAND/SONG Y - THAT'S WHY THEY ARE BAD!!!11!" - which is just plain dumb.

 

Oh yes, consider me a sinner in this case too - I have been way enthusiastic about "my essentials sounding like new essentials" and so on, BUT IN THE END:

 

It's execution (and consistency) what matters.

 

For instance, I could say that Gazette's Hyena is totally superior to Luna Sea's G. (the former takes a lot of traits off the latter, and thus it has caused some havoc among ripoff enthusiasts) due to the fact that latter

is not really that able to maintain listeners' interest for long (especially during chorus). Perhaps the execution wasn't that interesting? Eat your heart out, Luna Sea stans - the band itself is brilliant, I agree, but it doesn't mean that younger, influenced generation couldn't be better.

 

Also, Dir's Gauze album - no matter the fact that the whole album itself might be an "old school vk cover parade" (I can go on and on with "ripoffs" but who cares?), these "open covers" are much more "oomph-inducing" than their original, probably a bit lousier counterparts - because their execution and consistency was considered carefully and done well.

 

Let's cream the top with Sadie too - no matter how many years, releases and singles have passed by - there's always some enthusiastic Dir elitist bunch calling  to arms for them "sounding very DEG-ish" (at parts - yes, ONLY AT PARTS.). Well guess what, NO SHIT - they were heavily influenced by Dir, so of course their music might induce some odd "Dir nostalgia". The only problematic matter is that how messy and not carefully executed their releases were lately. From considered "build" in COLD BLOOD to sloppiness of BLACK DIAMONDS and MADRIGAL DE MARIA? The heck, Mao and co. - thus, they are faulty only on that matter.

 

And in examples below, there isn't really any "note-to-note" action  - so no reasons for suing the shit out of them!

 

I really hope that whole "ripoff ripoff ripoff!!!"-fad is just a phase, just like it was for me. I carefully rethought my actions on how I should see music from now on, and this kind of view freed me from "musical limits", which I am really happy about.

[Wonrei 108]

^

One of the only bands that I could see getting some suing action would be grieva

But no one cares about the 10 yen they got selling their cover albums and no one wants to sue poor vk bandmen that probably live under tokyo bridges

 

Sadie are bad because they are bad. It's not even a matter of how many songs they copy, they just suck. The first three songs on the new album do sound awfully like their compositors spent 3 months closed in a room with only Dum Spiro Spero to listen to, but I wouldn't call it straight rip-offing. It's the modern deg process of playing I guess, it's also noticeable on 12012's the swan

 

About the thread:

 

Don't really have many unpopular opinions, maybe just that I listen to current Mucc more than old mucc. Or how I don't really care about Gauze or Macabre Dir en grey and think there are lots of better old visual kei bands.

[miyuu 40]

What just came to my mind (in fact, you might describe this as "an ode to self-criticism"):

 

Many music listeners base most of their critiques on "BAND/SONG X sounds like BAND/SONG Y - THAT'S WHY THEY ARE BAD!!!11!" - which is just plain dumb.

 

 

i agree

 

there is a huge difference between influence and copying

and i think people don't understand the difference sometimes

 

about influence

i was fucking 15 when  we learn at schooll famous quote:

"Our words are the children of many people"

(that means if it's not obvious: art.philosophy or  poetry  is not borned from nothing, is not borned from void but is a continuous and uninterrupted communication with  the words of past)

 

also  (i think copying is stupid but) i am sure even if you are  copying but you still have good music people are going to listen to you

than if you had bad music and copying

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

I think the issue of copying vs. being influenced by derives from competition and time frame.

 

 

Wouldn't all of the songs that takes 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' technically be copying Grieg? Why is that 'classically influenced' instead of a rip off? Probably because the Kiryu throwing it in a guitar solo isn't competing with modern symphony orchestras.

[TheBistroButcher666 228]

I agree that there is a difference between copying and influence.

I just just think the problem in VK is that bands (and fans) are fickle and will change styles and direction at the drop of a hat to jump on whatever is trending.

There's definitely big names that set the trends and style of the VK scene and it's fine when artists take influence. That's normal across any artistic medium, whether it's music, painting, movie making etc. I just think that the relatively small size of the VK scene and talentless novice musicians that don't have an identity of their own and just playing music so they can go major and make animus theme songs.

There seems that at any given time, there's a handful of mildly talented guys that know what kind of music they want to do and they do it well and stand out and shine. But for every talented musician there's 10 or 20 fucking baddies.

To continue my crazy ranting, an example outside of VK and Japan is Folk Metal. The genre is fairly young, as in there wasn't a defined Folk Metal genre until around the 2000s. Sure there were bands in the 90s and earlier taking on folk influences but usually they weren't called folk metal and usually identified with another genre (NWOBHM, Black Metal, Power Metal etc). Ever since it's rise in popularity thanks to groups like Finntroll, Einsferium, Turisas and so forth. There's been a shit ton of awful bands that have sprung up trying to jump on the folk metal trend.

It's not unique to VK, there's plenty of retarded mouth breathing Folk Metal fans that are either just too dumb or in denial to acknowledge their unique unknown folk band is pretty awful and just recycling everything Finntroll has done already. Just way more mediocre.

And so basically I feel that's what we are seeing with VK. A genre with a few decently talented groups doing what they do well and a ton of awful groups just trying to jump on whatever cool new thing the big names are doing.

 

*edit for grammar* I am so bad at writing

[miyuu 40]

ugh i don't know either what is it with trends .
 i don't get it. because i thought  in rock the mentality was:
do not follow trends . be unique or different.

anyway maybe the problem is not the copying or influence or whatever.maybe the problem is that their music sucks so bad.
if they had good music they could evolve . if they had so good music maybe it wouldn't matter.

[Pandabear 414]

I think One Ok Rock is crap. They don't even make good and listenable pop. I don't understand why they get praised by so many people and why people treat them like they are the next big thing. OK, I understand if these fans are 13 year-olds who missed the era of early to mid-2000s Western "emo" band boom. Conclusion: they need this type of music for their teen life. You can't blame them.

 

Haha I kinda feel the same way. Although perhaps not as passionately as you do.

 

And on the topic of bands being influenced and copying each other, it does seem at times that people don't know the difference.

 

To me a rip-off is a piece of music that steals heavily from another song for nearly if not all the entire song. Take for example Deathgaze's Forsaken and Breaking Benjamin's Diary of Jane.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C1rUo20vUw

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoXo36YNQ2U

 

I mean it's clear Deathgaze ripped of Breaking Benjamin. The guitar riffs, the melody and the chorus are exactly the same. It's no coincidence and it's not an influence. They pretty much blatantly stole the musical components of Diary of Jane. They would have been better off doing a cover of the song. I'll never understand why an artist or band would go through the trouble of recording the near exact song and pass it off as their own original work when they could have taken all that effort and made something original.  

 

To me, an Influence can be a number of things and isn't always obvious. A similar guitar riff from another song for a few seconds or a melody for example. There are many bands that give nods to their influence by playing certain riffs, melodies, drumming parts or what have you during their songs for a few seconds and then move on. It's done tastefully and doesn't mean they ripped of whatever band their influenced by. Likewise similar chords or chord progressions can be used by numerous bands to create certain moods and at times may sound similar, but  that doesn't mean they're ripping each other off. They simply might be using similar established chords or chord progressions. 

 

Of course, there are bands and artist who are influenced by other musicians and put out material that sounds nothing like what they were originally influenced by. It's really about execution. It's cool if bands want to pay tribute to their influence or have a similar sound because they love it, but they should try to be as original as possible. For example, writing entirely new original melodies that were inspired by other melodies, but that do not have any similarities.

 

To be honest I don't bother with people who don't know the difference between bands copying and influencing each other. They usually tend to have a rabid fangirl/fanboy mentality or are musically immature. Sometimes both.

[Champ213 1858]

There's definitely big names that set the trends and style of the VK scene and it's fine when artists take influence. That's normal across any artistic medium, whether it's music, painting, movie making etc. I just think that the relatively small size of the VK scene and talentless novice musicians that don't have an identity of their own and just playing music so they can go major and make animus theme songs.

There seems that at any given time, a handful of mildly talented guys that know what kind of music they want to do and they do it well and stand out and shine. But for every talented musician there's 10 or 20 fucking baddies.

 

 

 

That's the case with almost all genres, I would say. For every good band in each given genre, there are 10 mediocre bands that only have 2 or 3 good songs, and 20 more bands that are just plain bad.

 

 

Also, and this may be a bit of an unpopular opinion, I think that originality is overrated. There isn't really that much in music that hasn't been done before. You can mix things up, change a bit here and there, but in essence there is very little stuff that is truly original (and much of that is just plain weird in their attempts to create something new).

 

But I don't think music always has to be original. There is a good amount of bands I enjoy that are completely unoriginal - but they just do it damn well. And sometimes that's just enough.

[DogManX 179]

I'll dig what Arithmetica says. And that's why the gazette are just so bad. They are! And i'll fully agree that I only say that because they are popular, because everyone from my ex-girlfriend to any fucking site i'm on advertises this shit band. They don't deserve the fame! The music they do is forgettable! I bet their fans buy their music, turn off the volume and just stare at the booklet instead. Because that's all they're good for!

 

Ok quit the joking, I actually wanted to give my unpopular music opinion on a band that is just a little bit worse than the gazette..which means as bad as the smell of a dead skunk's ass: UNSRAW. This is another band which gained a strange amount of hype. People told me "they're great, bc they're soo brutal and shit. Kinda like Dir en grey!" So I gave them a listen and I found absolutely no comparison to ANY VK band I heard until now. On one hand there are bands like Deathgaze who are fairly brutal for a VK band, but put enough thought into it to make listens enjoyable. On the other hand, there's Unsraw. The musicians sound like they just learned to play their instruments right before their first recording, the vocalist has a HORRIBLE singing voice (try to sing while drinking lemon juice, that's the best way to imitate him) and the songs are nothing but a soulless bunch of uninspired shit. The whole band concept seemed to be "BRUTAL, BRUUTAAL" with all they got (nothing) and that's it. It astonishes me that some people actually liked that. Too good the band isn't anymore. Split up bc of creative differences, yeah guess why's that. There are only two songs of they I liked and ironically they were both ballads.

 

 

@Pandabear Deathgaze copied quite a lot. Undead fact is a total ripoff of Bullet for my valentine's waking the demon f.e.

[coffee000 14]

ugh i don't know either what is it with trends .

 i don't get it. because i thought  in rock the mentality was:

do not follow trends . be unique or different.

 

That's "rock critic's mentality" not necessarily bands' mentality. Most bands are trend followers, no matter what "scene" they are in. There are lots of examples from the 1960s to today, mainstream music or not. And the bands themselves don't care what the critics say at all. They get fans - that's what matters to them. I can understand if they actually make good music no matter to what extent they follow a trend. I personally think a lot of fans follow the bad bands for no reason. OK, some bad bands just didn't have any luck. That happens.

 

And I think the vk scene has less of this type of hang-ups. They care even less. This rock critic's mentality came from the West and may not work in Japan.

[miyuu 40]

but i didn't mean it as critic of music . more like an attitude or way of thinking . do not be conventional . you don't have to follow the mass.

be yourself. following trends is for pop music. isn't this like rock mentality?

 

edit: i still  can go with your answer though. i mean it answers this too.

[seikun 317]

Hmm, I kind of used to like Duel Jewel until... 2008. Not a fan of the band, but there were some songs I liked. Well, lately I have searched for some of their newest music and all I can think of is that it's AWFUL. I mean for a band that can now be considered old and experienced their recent releases seem a step back in terms of projecting their experience through their music.

 

It's just love. The very title makes me...   (hope I chose the right emoticon...)

[coffee000 14]

but i didn't mean it as critic of music . more like an attitude or way of thinking . do not be conventional . you don't have to follow the mass.

be yourself. following trends is for pop music. isn't this like rock mentality?

 

edit: i still  can go with your answer though. i mean it answers this too.

 

Most bands follow trends. It's a fact. Of course they sometimes don't follow pop music trends. Because they don't follow trends in pop music, but trends in "scene" music, they can trick rebellious teenager fans into believing that they are not conventional, or they are unique, etc. Some people might take this so-called rock mentality too seriously while many bands don't. It is sometimes as simple as "if you don't sound like the pop artists most friends of teenagers listen to, you are unconventional and you don't follow the mass".

 

And I don't believe Japanese bands tend to have this rock mentality like in the West. And I am not talking about just vk bands, but non-vk J-rock bands and J-pop artists (J-pop is a huge genre) as well. And their fans don't care either.

[CAT5 9075]

And I don't believe Japanese bands tend to have this rock mentality like in the West. And I am not talking about just vk bands, but non-vk J-rock bands and J-pop artists (J-pop is a huge genre) as well. And their fans don't care either.

 

You might have to rephrase this for me, as I believe I might be misinterpreting it. But are you saying that jpop groups and non-vk bands DON'T follow trends like bands in the west?

[DogManX 179]

They have their own trends, obviously. I cannot see how one can't see the patterns in clothing or making music, especially in VK. I mean most of the new neo-VK bands are hardly distinguishable from each other in both ways.

[JukaForever 758]

They have their own trends, obviously. I cannot see how one can't see the patterns in clothing or making music, especially in VK. I mean most of the new neo-VK bands are hardly distinguishable from each other in both ways.

 

 

Works for me as it makes it easier to filter out the crappy-unoriginal ones. Although some bands just don't seem to be inspired for drastic styles or they seem to want to be overly dressed up in the first place.

[coffee000 14]

You might have to rephrase this for me, as I believe I might be misinterpreting it. But are you saying that jpop groups and non-vk bands DON'T follow trends like bands in the west?

 

You probably didn't read the whole conversation. All J-rock and J-pop groups are the same, no matter they are vk or not. Most follow trends while some don't.

 

They don't have the same "rock mentality" of "if you don't follow trends, you are superior" believed by some Western people. They just don't care. They can follow trends (including trends in "scene" music). People won't think they are no good because of that. Japanese seem to apply the same mentality to all popular music. However, some people in the West tend to treat rock music differently.

[CAT5 9075]

You probably didn't read the whole conversation. All J-rock and J-pop groups are the same, no matter they are vk or not. Most follow trends while some don't.

 

They don't have the same "rock mentality" of "if you don't follow trends, you are superior" believed by some Western people. They just don't care. They can follow trends. People won't think they are no good because of that. Japanese seem to apply the same mentality to all popular music. However, some people in the West tend to treat rock music differently.

 

That's a pretty broad generalization to make, though - as I'm sure there are plenty of Japanese musicians that feel disdain towards trendy/popular music. Although given how uniform Japanese society can be, I wouldn't say that your observation is entirely invalid either - since following trends is probably more agreeable for them.