grae313 wrote:HappyQuark wrote:which, if I understood them correctly, talk about a relationship and the illusion of it feeling magical and perfect despite any imperfections.
"We're half awake in a fake empire" ... I interpreted it as commenting on the state of modern existence.
It certainly could be that. The multiple mentions of "you" and "our" indicated to me it was a couple, that the references "stay out super late picking apples, making pies" and "do our gay ballet on ice, bluebird on our shoulders" indicated that they were in a state of bliss and "no thinking for a little while, let's not try to figure out everything at once, It's hard to keep track of you falling through the sky" meant that to stop and over think it would ruin the moment.
grae313 wrote: Ah, now I see. I used to be a fan of musical complexity as well and turned up my nose at standard time signatures. I loved how Tool would lay different time signatures over each other and switch effortlessly from one to another. The chorus in their song Lateralus switches between 9/8, 8/8, 7/8 and the verses are sung to the beat of the Fibonacci sequence.
Then I got my head out of my ass
A little cheeky today, aren't we?
I was going to respond by saying that I do enjoy a lot of non-technical music and that in fact all three of the songs I provided as examples of music I particularly enjoy are 4/4 or some near derivative of it (e.g. 2/4). I was then going to explain that the specific example I reference, by The Nation, was bad because the chords and melody were mundane and highly derivative of an already restrictive musical style and, like a lot of poorly written music, features lyrics designed only to give the illusion of depth and quality when in fact, they write vague nonsense without context which forces you to form an interpretation around a song which, in all likelihood, has no specific meaning or story. Lastly, I was going to explain that while I acknowledge that some aspects of music are "visceral" and speak to us on a basic level, so too do the Harry Potter and Twilight books, both of which I might allow you describe as "entertaining" but never of quality or substance.
However, I decided not to say any of that because I don't want to come off as the forum snob and so what I have decided to actually say is.
"Dear Grae, I respect your right to hold an opinion on music. You are a wonderful person and a fantastic human being!"
grae313 wrote:You're listening to music with your head, you need to listen to it with your heart, body and soul. There's nothing wrong with feeling a 4/4 beat pulse with your heart and your two legs and those four chords are popular for a reason. They speak to something visceral inside us. Simple music can resonate just as profoundly, and I would argue perhaps even more profoundly, then complex music. It's just resonating on a different level.
FWIW, I have aphex twin, autechre, boards of canada, and about 30 GB of classical music in my collection. The popular music part of my collection contains classic rock, jazz, soul, oldies, pop, world, punk, progressive, death metal, folk, and lots and lots of indie rock.
Music is personal and your taste is just as valid as mine, but you shouldn't hate on the 4/4 time signatures. Music can be fully enjoyed on many different levels.
All joking aside, I never meant to suggest that the music I listen to was in any way superior to anybody elses, only that the music I listen to is the music I find to be extremely interesting, hence why I listen to it. I fully acknowledge that there exists good music within the other styles (with the obvious exception of country music
) but because I don't particularly enjoy those styles, I can't really comment on them. In responding to the question about whether I ever listen to music with lyrics, it may have seen as if I was suggesting that because I really enjoy highly complex music that I therefore thought simpler music was crap, which couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, one of my favorite types of music, both modern and classical, is minimalism (See my Arvo Part link from the music thread in off-topic or my references to Ratatat). I suppose what I'm ultimately saying is that nobody should treat what I'm saying as
prescriptive of how music should be but strictly as
descriptive of what music is to me.