Unpopular opinions
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@Tago-Mago Right there with you. Woof.
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I have no major issues with the B-52s but seeing them listed as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame candidates tickles an old grievance of mine: who the fuck does the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame think they are and what is the logic behind their inclusions and exclusions? If they want to call it the Popular Music Hall of Fame it makes more sense for them to include stuff from unrelated genres, but even so they have really bad taste, knowledge, and judgment.
It’s just an arbitrary, self-anointed circle jerk and they can all fuck right off.
See also: The Grammys
Think it, be it.
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@mclaincausey You're not wrong. But I guess it begs the question, what is rock and roll? Where is the line drawn? And if there's a band that's dead-center on the rock and roll spectrum, who is it? And how far away from that band at the center can we go before we start getting into pop music or other genres?
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@GardenState Led Zeppelin is mediocre? See what I mean? Where is the line?
“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible” - Don Norman
@zeebeeleather
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@mclaincausey the Hall of Fame used to be a personal pet project for a small group of people playing favourites for the bands they like. It was never about objectively looking at the merits of any band, regardless of the genre they're playing.
It’s just an arbitrary, self-anointed circle jerk and they can all fuck right off.
This summarizes it perfectly
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Related, popular music can fuck right off. It's music designed in a lab and it lacks soul. I'm not saying pop music is easy to write. It's not. Writing a catchy song and engineering it to sound exactly right takes a lot of skill and talent. But it sounds like music written for the sole purpose of making money, and the billions of people who rely heavily on pop music baffle me.
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@seawolf You have a point but I wouldn't call them rock and roll they're more like hard rock and the precursor to heavy metal. I think rock and roll is kind of an antiquated term that probably thematically died after the 50s.
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@GardenState Interesting take! I always think of Black Sabbath as the precursor to heavy metal. But I guess that's why this conversation is in the Unpopular Opinions thread
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Yeah rock and roll is a very specific genre mostly from the 40s and 50s that seeded a number of genres.
Rock Music as a genre would incorporate things like rockabilly, R&B, hard rock, metal, etc. it’s just not an accurate name and indicative that these aren’t really serious music people regardless of being serious music industry people. However how do you handle Run DMC and Aerosmith or Anthrax and Public Enemy or Herbie Hancock Rockit under that banner? My answer is you don’t. You call it popular music and then you include the mainstream popular artists of the time regardless of genre.
I completely agree that it is difficult to determine the boundaries of genres, which is one reason why I think it was stupid for them to attach a narrow genre to the project. Also, probably hard to believe based on what I’ve said here, I don’t think genre is really important in terms of labeling things. I do think the traditions underlying musical genres are important and to be preserved. I love artists who confound genre and can incorporate various genres seamlessly, or even distinctly, into what they do.
My issue is being perhaps too particular about semantics. I like truth in advertising.
