Does anything actually suck?

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Howdy. OK, now as a younger lad with more concretely defined notions of what was worthy and unworthy about music, I didn't have a hard time saying that some sort of specific technique or style just inherently blew. Drum machines were the classic example - I just couldn't stand the damn things and thought they were utterly lame. I now no longer think that.

As time goes on, I find myself more and more often ending a hyper-opinionated declarative statment (is there a better kind?) with "and not in a good way", so as to protect myself from allegations, both internal and external, of "but you really like (insert band/song/etc), and it does the exact same thing". It's pretty tough to come up with some musical quality that's just inherently bogus and irredeemable.

At the same time, I think it's a cop-out to approach this matter from the perspective of "everything is equally great". I mean, there have to be some things that just don't work, no matter what. I guess whatever artist utilizes them doesn't think so, but there's at least gotta be some things that are by and large totally lame.

So damn, what I'm asking is, what musical techniques/styles/tropes etc. are just plain worthless? Are any?

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm with Chuang-Tzu on this one: only that which is worthless is truly in harmony with the Tao.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Depends on what worthless is, if you want to get all Clintonian.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:27 (twenty-one years ago)

ILM

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:28 (twenty-one years ago)

ZING

― Riot Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:29 (twenty-one years ago)

All art is quite useless.

― A Million Talking Hot Dogs (AaronHz), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:35 (twenty-one years ago)

hey zack

― Mike Ouderkirk (Mike Ouderkirk), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Blueberry Boat by whatever that band is actually sucks.

― qualmsy, Friday, 22 October 2004 02:40 (twenty-one years ago)

what musical techniques/styles/tropes etc. are just plain worthless?
Aesthetically speaking though, I don't belive there are any worthless techniques, styles, etc. The stuff is either good or bad, and it's hard to put into words exactly why, for example, I think the Buzzcocks rule, Green Day is merely tolerable and Blink/GC/NFG et al totally fucking sucks, even though they are all (allegedly; nominally at least) playing the same "style" of music. Is it the production? The lyrics? The intentions behind it all? Why do I tolerate shameless MTV-whorism in some artists and not in others? I'm interested in exploring this...

― A Million Talking Hot Dogs (AaronHz), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:42 (twenty-one years ago)

slap bass is definitely veering in a sucktacular direction for me

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:45 (twenty-one years ago)

But in the hands of say, Bootsy Collins even?

― A Million Talking Hot Dogs (AaronHz), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:48 (twenty-one years ago)

(in truth I almost mentioned slapbass as worthless and then remembered the P-Funk)

― A Million Talking Hot Dogs (AaronHz), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Needlessly melismatic singing (ala Xtina and Mariah Carey) -- especially when accompanied by ridiculous gesticulation -- sucks beyond all manner of adequate description.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:50 (twenty-one years ago)

oh trance sucks too

― Mike Ouderkirk (Mike Ouderkirk), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:51 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm about to head to some overpriced club in downtown PDX to see the band that my ex-boss manages, along with two others. we'll see if i witness any examples of this.

― Sir Kingfish Beavis D'Azzmonch (Kingfish), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Needlessly melismatic singing (ala Xtina and Mariah Carey) -- especially when accompanied by ridiculous gesticulation

Yeah, there's one that needs to go.
In the hands of someone truly technically skilled and demented like Diamanda Galas, that kind of stuff kicks ass, but yes I realize that that's quite a different thing in the long run...

― A Million Talking Hot Dogs (AaronHz), Friday, 22 October 2004 02:55 (twenty-one years ago)

You suck.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

YANKEES SUCK

― mrjosh (mrjosh), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:12 (twenty-one years ago)

the vacuum cleaner that that guy in phish plays sucks.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Primus sucks.

― A Million Talking Hot Dogs (AaronHz), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:17 (twenty-one years ago)

liz phair sucks, according to her song "flower."

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:19 (twenty-one years ago)

(or at least she would LIKE to suck.)

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:20 (twenty-one years ago)

With the inevitable exceptions TPTR, the following set off my warning bells:
a) Tinkling bar chimes
b) Excessive technical details of instrumentation and recording techniques listed prominently on packaging, especially when
c) somebody credited with 'keybs'
d) Smooth jazz, as a genre, sucks. I say this having been required by my job to hear far more than I ever would have planned to. At its very best it is inoffensive new age music or lite funk/soul, but precious few records attain this level.

― max davenport (axehead), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Smooth jazz? Except I like it.

xpost!

― adam. (nordicskilla), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:31 (twenty-one years ago)

hm, i actually thought of one that works at least 99% of the time for me - shitty canned 80's drum sounds. this is probably a result of my anti-drum machine bias of days past. Ugh, drums that have that monstrously bad overcompressed, reverbed to hell "big" sheen on them - it sounds horrible. fucks up some pretty great records of the period.

hey mike!

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Friday, 22 October 2004 03:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Present day overkill of, as best as I can describe them, underwater guitar rifs (kinda like a hyper tremelo a la Baby Come Back) pretty much suck, or else they're comical.

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 22 October 2004 04:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Going up a key at the end of a song, and repeating the chorus in the new higher key. That sucks, no matter what. It's objectively trite.

― derrick (derrick), Friday, 22 October 2004 04:26 (twenty-one years ago)

kingfish, going to holocene?

what talking hot dogs said: does anything suck? no, if by 'anything' you mean technique/genre used by multiple artists on multiple songs, some of which are bound to be good no matter how many other bad examples there are

for example, i hate screamoey nu-hardcore a whole lot yet i don't doubt some truly bracing, great cuts in this genre exist *falls off the cliff of relativism*

― jake b. (cerybut), Friday, 22 October 2004 04:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't think of any techniques that suck, actually. If they are employed by hacks - yeah, they're gonna suck. But them some genious comes along and does something so totally fucked up and wonderful with said technique and there goes your argument.

All that said, I can't think of a single example to back it up ..

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 22 October 2004 10:45 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost --

Holocene is not downtown. I'm looking through the music listings here in Portland and I'm not really finding anything that I would consider as "sucking." Lots of stuff that I have no interest in going to see but nothing that actually "sucks" on all levels.

I do know of a band here in Portland that I think is the ultimate black hole of suck: Everybody I know who has heard them say they suck. I think even the band has an inkling that what they are doing is not totally kosher.

― righteousmaelstrom, Friday, 22 October 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

underwater guitar rifs (kinda like a hyper tremelo

I love that sound!

Saxophonists, and other horn players, with bad tone (thin, high-school sounding) objectively suck. See bad smooth jazz.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 22 October 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't think of any style or technique that by itself guarantees suckiness. For me, it always comes down to how it's used. But yes, there is lots of specific music out there that unequivocally sucks.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 22 October 2004 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, if nothing "actually" sucks, then paradoxically EVERYTHING sucks. And I don't think that's the case. So, something has to suck. I've certainly heard stuff I couldn't stand, but you (or somebody else) could make a case for that stuff's value. The only music I feel has ABSOLUTELY no reason to exist? Muzak.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 22 October 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

...meaning literal, textbook Muzak, (ie. way-softened instrumental recordings of well-known popular melodies) as opposed to "New Age" or "exotica" or "ambient" or "_____", all of which certainly sound like and can be mistaken/substituted for Muzak.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 22 October 2004 15:30 (twenty-one years ago)

If it's useless and not sports, it's art.

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Friday, 22 October 2004 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

im with max davenport.

i cant think of a good reason for tinkling chimes.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 22 October 2004 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

it wasn't holocene, it was Barracuda. apparently my ex-boss doesn't actually manage these guys per se, but just helps them out a lot.

the opening cover band fucking blew, but the main band & one before them were pretty good. they get my "non-offensive & competently played modern rock band" judgement.

― Sir Kingfish Beavis D'Azzmonch (Kingfish), Saturday, 23 October 2004 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

slap bass is definitely veering in a sucktacular direction for me

oo-er jim! i'm SO telling col.

― bulbs (bulbs), Saturday, 23 October 2004 00:07 (twenty-one years ago)

http://private.peterlink.ru/ryboltowsk/leech.jpg

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 23 October 2004 00:12 (twenty-one years ago)

while slap bass is almost unforgivable, it figures quite prominently in "thank you (falettin me be mice elf)" and certainly does not suck in that context. uh...hm...vocoder?

ok, pete told me to say that one just to piss everyone off. zapp and roger forever.

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Saturday, 23 October 2004 03:02 (twenty-one years ago)

i cant think of a good reason for tinkling chimes

Try this: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:v3820r3at48v

― o. nate (onate), Saturday, 23 October 2004 03:28 (twenty-one years ago)

The '80s synth sound - still used in r'n'b - of an electric piano with a pad-like trail to each note... sucks even when it's not used to play lite-jazz major 7ths, which it usually is.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Saturday, 23 October 2004 06:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Going up a key at the end of a song, and repeating the chorus in the new higher key. That sucks, no matter what. It's objectively trite.

Right, except it's totally and undeniably effective.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Saturday, 23 October 2004 06:54 (twenty-one years ago)

That's a wonderful trick. Yeah, always works. Most song tricks are objectively trite, I suppose we should listen to improv all day.

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Saturday, 23 October 2004 06:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Latebloomer...[gulp...tries to collect self]
please don't gross me out/disturb me like that. I do NOT want to KNOW what that is. Please don't tell me. No more pics like that. Please.

I'll tell you what sucks: this damn production technique of the way they mic vocals nowadays on all these damn 'rock star wannabe' bands. You know what I mean - the voice sounds like it came from a tin can or they're on a CB radio whatever the hell. Someone on this forum once described it much better than I am able to right now and yet I know you people know what I mean. I am SO TIRED of that. PLEASE just RECORD THE FUCKING VOCALS NATURALLY please. We could have a whole new genre in music if you would just please mic the vocals correctly. okaythxbye.

― Bimble (bimble), Saturday, 23 October 2004 08:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Ugh, drums that have that monstrously bad overcompressed, reverbed to hell "big" sheen on them - it sounds horrible. fucks up some pretty great records of the period.
- Zack Richardson

OTmotherfuckingM! I can't stress that enough. FAR inferior to actual drum machines, not to mention REAL "real" drums (if that makes any sense.)

Going up a key at the end of a song, and repeating the chorus in the new higher key. That sucks, no matter what. It's objectively trite
-- derrick

Even MORE OTM! And all this time I thought I was the only one who hated this practise, for many reasons, not least of which being that it makes it MUCH more difficult for a shitty guitarist (namely, me) to attempt to play along.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Saturday, 23 October 2004 09:23 (twenty-one years ago)

-- Myonga Von Bontee (scottyfield...), October 22nd, 2004.

But without Muzak, we wouldn't have the Verve - "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve!

And thirded on the suckage of the SUPER EMOTIONIAL CLIMACTIC WHOLESTEP UP KEY CHNAGE. Always sounds "wrong" melodically - and not in a good way, tee hee.

― Sansai, Sunday, 24 October 2004 01:31 (twenty-one years ago)

And thirded on the suckage of the SUPER EMOTIONIAL CLIMACTIC WHOLESTEP UP KEY CHNAGE. Always sounds "wrong" melodically - and not in a good way, tee hee.

I think it sounds alright in Orlando's "Here," but it's only because of context.

― Atnevon (Atnevon), Sunday, 24 October 2004 03:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's cool how if something goes up a whole step it's (too) obviously triumphant and climactic, but if it goes up a step+1/2 (three semitones) then it just sounds rueful and resigned, onward through the tears etc

― dave q, Sunday, 24 October 2004 04:00 (twenty-one years ago)

up with tritones

― W i l l (common_person), Sunday, 24 October 2004 06:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Anything involving the pan pipes.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 24 October 2004 07:26 (twenty-one years ago)

All this key changer hateration must stop!

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 24 October 2004 07:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Needlessly melismatic singing

Mostly sucks, but Nina Simone could pull it off beautifully from time to time.

― JimD (JimD), Sunday, 24 October 2004 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Needlessly melismatic singing

Mostly sucks, but Nina Simone could pull it off beautifully from time to time.

Well, in her case it wasn't "needless".

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 24 October 2004 13:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah come on, all music is basically needless. :)

― JimD (JimD), Sunday, 24 October 2004 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

True.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 24 October 2004 14:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Since we started talking about key changes and such, here's something that's more of a personal pet peeve: basic rock songs ending on a complicated Cole Porter chord. You know what I'm talking about: "She Loves You" is one song that did it well. But most of the time, it comes across as "look, we know this cool chord but have no idea what to do with it. Let's stick it at the end."

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Sunday, 24 October 2004 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

It's kind of the musical equivalent of saying "TA-DAAAA!"

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 24 October 2004 14:49 (twenty-one years ago)

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