Unpopular Musical Opinions: What are Yours?

[zbd1960]

2 hours ago, BassTractor said:

Aye, and hence the smiley, but I hadn't expected them to even be mentioned, so the last pages brought a smile to my face.
As for unpopular opinions, I remain of the opinion that Vivaldi was a hack (for lack of a better word), and that Bach was one of the greatest composers ever ...
... greater even than people who get singles in the Top 40. 😄

Bach is certainly a great composer. Vivaldi is significantly more varied than many realise - but he's writing in a very different style to Bach (by definition Italian rather than German baroque). Vivaldi's cause has not been helped by excessive use of a small number of his works to the almost complete exclusion of anything else (I'm looking at you ClassicFM - the Four Seasons, concerto for 2 mandolins, and the concert in C for soprano recorder).

I'm currently working on Vivaldi's concerto in G minor to two cellos with my teacher. I play the cello 1 part. I've worked thorugh the first movement and just started on the second. The video includes the score. 

 

  

[SteveXFR]

40 minutes ago, shoulderpet said:

I like Duran Duran too

 

Reported for hate speech 

 

[Nail Soup]

Bob Dylan was a good singer.

[shoulderpet]

You don't need enough low end to make people s!!t themselves, the amount of bands I have seen where the bass is just a subsonic rumble with no definition.

 

Guitarists who boost there low end should be beaten with the item guitars, the amount of times I have played music with guitar players who seem to think the guitar should have as much low end as the bass.

 

Satin necks are awful, dreadful things and even worse when they are that awful deathly pale shade

 

A £500 bass is essentially a £250 bass with very marginally better quality control 

 

Fender player series basses are pretty much £250 Squiers with a Fender logo

[BassTractor]

2 hours ago, JottoSW1 said:

Oddly though Bach was a huge Vivaldi fan, hence the Italian Concerto.

They were as different as possible religiously and personally but both had to produce a lot of music in their (religious) working musician context.

Bach towers over all of his contemporaries, if you want a prolific "hack" of the same period Telemann sure churned music out

Yeah, and I've never understood Bach's reported enthusiasm. Then again, we don't know the details and are also looking at this from the comfort of centuries of further development as well as hindsight overview.
One of Bach's sons reported how Bach had seen or heard a fugue theme and had immediately commented on all the structural implications for the fugue of said theme (a story I have no trouble believing after having experienced the same from a good teacher).
I'd expect Bach to be quite able to look through the weaknesses in Vivaldi's structures, so can only assume he was enthusiastic about certain aspects of Vivaldi's music ...
... or was just happy Vivaldi was no Telemann!  😄

 

 

[Leonard Smalls]

1 hour ago, BassTractor said:

he was enthusiastic about certain aspects of Vivaldi's music ...

I love Vivaldi's bassoon concertos!

[BassTractor]

12 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

I love Vivaldi's bassoon concertos!

Ah. Don't know those and will check them out.
Thanks for mentioning them.

I do appreciate some of Vivaldi's music, mind, like some of those string concertos for everything between violins, lutes, celli and mandolins, and my use of the word "hack" was not entirely scientific.
That broad brush was about Vivaldi's tendency to set up a structure with some depth where, as soon as he got in trouble he'd run back to the main key at ticket-inducing illegal speed.
In basically identical circumstances, Bach would come up with his trademark physics-defying magic, never hurrying back to safe ground.
 

Not entirely unrelated, I'm reminded of an earlier thread on BC where people said things along the lines of "Derek Bailey can't play and just plays random emperor's-new-clothes notes". I'm sure you defended him, as did I.
The point is: Derek Bailey could play everything, and he mastered every style of jazz. He just didn't play that on record or during gigs, coz that was not Derek Bailey music. 
Like Bach was on another level than Vivaldi was, Bailey was on another level than most others are.


BTW, ClassicFM, as mentioned by @zbd1960 to me is evidence for the notion that my stating Bach was one of the greatest composers still is an unpopular opinion - though of course not unpopular amongst classical musicians, who are in a minority. ClassicFM never plays Bach's more demanding pieces, and never plays complete works.
One could well joke a little and say that ClassicFM is classical music for people who hate classical music. 😃
Another unpopular opinion, I gather. 😃

Edited May 29, 2022 by BassTractor

[Buddster]

2 hours ago, shoulderpet said:

 

Guitarists who boost there low end should be beaten with the item guitars, the amount of times I have played music with guitar players who seem to think the guitar should have as much low end as the bass.

Definitely 

Slip the sound guy £10 to roll off the bottom end (although a good un will do this anyway), £20 to accidentally knock the knob on the amp.... 

[JottoSW1]

17 minutes ago, Buddster said:

Definitely 

Slip the sound guy £10 to roll off the bottom end (although a good un will do this anyway), £20 to accidentally knock the knob on the amp.... 

The knob on the amps usually the geetard 🤣

[Buddster]

6 minutes ago, JottoSW1 said:

The knob on the amps usually the geetard 🤣

Glad that didn't go unnoticed 😁

[SteveXFR]

10 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

I love Vivaldi's bassoon concertos!

 

I'd rather hear a baboon concherto

[SteveXFR]

12 hours ago, Nail Soup said:

Bob Dylan was a good singer.

 

And his electric guitar era was his best.

I do think Dylan wrote some of the greatest rock songs of all time, they just didn't sound great until someone else covered them. Maggies Farm was both Dylan and Rage Against The Machines best song

[zbd1960]

11 hours ago, BassTractor said:

Ah. Don't know those and will check them out.
Thanks for mentioning them.

I do appreciate some of Vivaldi's music, mind, like some of those string concertos for everything between violins, lutes, celli and mandolins, and my use of the word "hack" was not entirely scientific.
That broad brush was about Vivaldi's tendency to set up a structure with some depth where, as soon as he got in trouble he'd run back to the main key at ticket-inducing illegal speed.
In basically identical circumstances, Bach would come up with his trademark physics-defying magic, never hurrying back to safe ground.
 

Not entirely unrelated, I'm reminded of an earlier thread on BC where people said things along the lines of "Derek Bailey can't play and just plays random emperor's-new-clothes notes". I'm sure you defended him, as did I.
The point is: Derek Bailey could play everything, and he mastered every style of jazz. He just didn't play that on record or during gigs, coz that was not Derek Bailey music. 
Like Bach was on another level than Vivaldi was, Bailey was on another level than most others are.


BTW, ClassicFM, as mentioned by @zbd1960 to me is the very essence of the evidence that my stating Bach was one of the greatest composers still is an unpopular opinion - though of course not amongst classical musicians. ClassicFM would never ever play Bach's more demanding pieces, and never play complete works.
One could well joke a little and say that ClassicFM is classical music for people who hate classical music. 😃
Another unpopular opinion, I gather. 😃

Most serious classical music aficionados that I know are not particularly big fans of ClassicFM... it serve a purpose, but... there's only so many times you can take Rach2... 

[Newfoundfreedom]

I could never figure out why Classic FM has a much stronger broadcast signal than anything else on the planet. You could get it in your car, in a cave underground, with the aerial snapped off. Yet Radio 1, which has 6 times as many listeners, you have to re-tune every three streets, and if you drive past a wasp you lose the signal. 

[MacDaddy]

To put forth a seemingly unpopular opinion, I like Classic FM.

I find it delightfully un-elitist.

[Mykesbass]

7 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

To put forth a seemingly unpopular opinion, I like Classic FM.

I find it delightfully un-elitist.

Now you have put me in a quandary. I know I should oppose elitism, but I hate populism even more 😟

[jazzyvee]

Any polls regarding musicians, singers, bands as being the greatest of all time or even their generation, genre…. Etc, are a complete waste of time and have no merit. 
There, i said it now where’s my coat. 

[Bunion]

10 minutes ago, jazzyvee said:

Any polls regarding musicians, singers, bands as being the greatest of all time or even their generation, genre…. Etc, are a complete waste of time and have no merit. 
There, i said it now where’s my coat. 

I take it you didn’t get on the list this year? 😳

 

 

 

 

just teasing you 😂🤣

I completely agree about the lists 

[zbd1960]

47 minutes ago, jazzyvee said:

Any polls regarding musicians, singers, bands as being the greatest of all time or even their generation, genre…. Etc, are a complete waste of time and have no merit. 
There, i said it now where’s my coat. 

Entirely true as it's all highly subjective. 

[MacDaddy]

1 hour ago, jazzyvee said:

Any polls regarding musicians, singers, bands as being the greatest of all time or even their generation, genre…. Etc, are a complete waste of time and have no merit. 
There, i said it now where’s my coat. 

 

But they fill copy in (print) magazines and engage readership online.

[Stub Mandrel]

16 hours ago, BassTractor said:

Yeah, and I've never understood Bach's reported enthusiasm. Then again, we don't know the details and are also looking at this from the comfort of centuries of further development as well as hindsight overview.
One of Bach's sons reported how Bach had seen or heard a fugue theme and had immediately commented on all the structural implications for the fugue of said theme (a story I have no trouble believing after having experienced the same from a good teacher).
I'd expect Bach to be quite able to look through the weaknesses in Vivaldi's structures, so can only assume he was enthusiastic about certain aspects of Vivaldi's music ...
... or was just happy Vivaldi was no Telemann!  😄

 

 

 

Maybe he just enjoyed the music and didn't expectvhis own mathematical precision firm others.  Indeed he may have appreciated the differences as z good thing.

[JottoSW1]

25 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

 

But they fill copy in (print) magazines and engage readership online.

Clique/Clacque bait.

Edited May 29, 2022 by JottoSW1

[BassTractor]

2 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

To put forth a seemingly unpopular opinion, I like Classic FM.

I find it delightfully un-elitist.

Ah, but there are several aspects in this.
I do like that they exist and that they provide a service to people like me mom who has it on the whole day. However, I can't listen to it myself.

Also, the elitist vs populist thing is another aspect altogether again, and sadly often has a lot to do with how people wish to place themselves in their social circles and what they want to communicate about it to others.
From a personal perspective, I've loved electronic classical music and the like since I was a kid, and have been met with distrust and accusations for six decades because of it: I can't possibly love that noise, so I must have ulterior motives. 

Right.
That's six decades of time and money spent at lying. I'm almost impressed with myself for having the stamina! 😄

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by BassTractor

[BassTractor]

Coincidentally, a music producer on tv just referred producer, songwriter and singer Espen Lind's comment about pop music:

"Good pop music is like a sausage: it tastes lovely, but you prefer not knowing what's inside..."
😄

[leftybassman392]

I feel I should thank the OP for starting this thread. In following it I have been reminded of some of the music and musicians I listend to as a much younger man, most of which almost certainly wouldn't be popular around these parts. For example:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXJWO2FQ16c

 

or perhaps

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hPkJW95jsw&t=147s

 

 

I've posted them as links, partly for brevity and partly because I feel fairly sure most around here won't have the stomach for them (they're both over an hour long). No offence intended, but they require plenty of commitment to get through.

 

Thank you @Mykesbass.