Your Music pet peeves

[Alluos]

I just find it annoying when a band writes a song with too many layered guitars than they could actually play without hiring a butt-load of touring members, I can still enjoy the song but the thought that a live performance would never live up to the recording saddens me.

 

[angryfish]

I just realised I have a lot of these. In no particular order:

Whiny vocalists. Only example I can think of from the top of my head is the singer for Placebo. I quite like the music without the vocals, and I don't mind the lyrics (that i've heard anyway), but dear god I can't stand his voice.

Related - songs that have really good music but the vocals suck. So for example I really like that music they use in the end credits of every Bourne Identity film (I think it's called extreme ways), but the vocals - while in this case actually not being awful - are just nowhere near as good.

Songs with really cheesy, cliched, or just crap lyrics. So most songs, therefore... All the ones about "heart" and partying and stuff...

Screaming when there are no "normal" vocals, when it's painful to listen to, or when it sounds silly... I don't have a problem with screaming in theory, and I do actually tend to really like songs where the singer uses both, even if there's relatively little of one compared to the other. I can sometimes put up with only screaming if the music is exceptionally good though.

Example of a song with both screaming and normal vocals (also really like the guitar riff):
Example of a song where the screaming is painful to listen to: The albanian entry to this years eurovision (can't believe it came 5th, it was so bloody awful)

Example of a song where the screaming sounds silly (helped alot by the muppets):
...Yeah I think that's it for pet peeves. There are some entire genres that I don't like most of, but don't think that counts as OT.

 

[Vault101]

For me, sampling (unless the song being sampled is referenced within the lyrics)


This I don't mind:
]

I love some sampling

in fact here a song composed of nothing BUT sampling

I prefer the first song to the second..at least the first is a tolerable dumb party song

I hate hate HATE the second...its also an awful rip off of werewolf's in London (though it seems both borrow heavyly from sweet home Alabama)

 

[Squidbulb]

Music about sad/depressing stuff, or basically any overly serious music.

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

Bad production/hooks in Hip-Hop music.

Seriously, that can ruin the tracks of the best MCs. One of my favourite artists has fallen prey to this far too often - Nas. I think one of the reasons that he never made an album close to being as good as Illmatic was that Illmatic had producers like Q-Tip, Large Pro, DJ Premiere, and Pete Rock. On top of this the choruses of the songs were made up of scratched samples, like in Memory Lane and NY State of Mind, or, when there were hooks - The World is Yours - they were good! They weren't obnoxious, with some psuedo-melody that contrasted with the beat as a whole.

I think that this - combined with his unfortunate yet inevitable commercialisation - was the main reason that he fell off so badly, well, until Stillmatic - which was excellent. Apart from that, there were only 3 or 4 tracks on his second, third, and fourth album that I'd listen to. The Message, for example, probably the best song on 'It Was Written,' had samples from 'NY State of Mind' in the chorus as opposed to the boring singing of Lauryn Hill.

I'm using Nas as an example but this really applies to most Hip-Hop - that I listen to, none of that Lil Wayne/50 Cent shit or whatever.

I apologise for the tangent though, especially on a site like this where most people don't even like Hip-Hop/Rap.

 

[repeating integers]

I made a long post about this, but then accidentally refreshed and it all went away. Now that I've recovered and stopped punching myself very hard in the head repeatedly, here's the basic summary: Those hard/punk rock fans who dismiss anything that isn't straightforward commercial hard rock as "pretentious". The fact that they exist is my pet peeve about music.

 

[EeveeElectro]

When they use auto-tune to make their voices go stupidly deep or high pitched.
That shitty Ke$ha song is a good example. I think there's a Nicki Minaj one called Spaceships that does it too. They keep playing them at work.
It's probably to drown out the fact that they're are possibly the most talentless people in music, but it just annoys me.

Also when Rihanna makes that stupid 'Eyyy ehh, eyy eyy' moneky noise in every song. I seriously can't stand her, ugk!

 

[halfeclipse]

Screaming, because 90% of song writers just can't mesh it with the instruments, making the whole thing discordant (Assuming one doesn't drown out the other)

 

[Vault101]

When they use auto-tune to make their voices go stupidly deep or high pitched.
That shitty Ke$ha song is a good example. I think there's a Nicki Minaj one called Spaceships that does it too. They keep playing them at work.
It's probably to drown out the fact that they're are possibly the most talentless people in music, but it just annoys me.

Also when Rihanna makes that stupid 'Eyyy ehh, eyy eyy' moneky noise in every song. I seriously can't stand her, ugk!

I actually like Niki Minaj when she does her thing...which is crazy rapping, not such a fan of her "pop" stuff (though I will admit starships is pretty catchy)

I don't believe she's talentless... definitely polarizing...but then again rap/hip-hop itself is

Bad production/hooks in Hip-Hop music.

Seriously, that can ruin the tracks of the best MCs. One of my favourite artists has fallen prey to this far too often - Nas.

I'm using Nas as an example but this really applies to most Hip-Hop - that I listen to, none of that Lil Wayne/50 Cent shit or whatever. - combined with his unfortunate yet inevitable

I apologise for the tangent though, especially on a site like this where most people don't even like Hip-Hop/Rap.

huh... interesting....and yeah I agree...(sometimes the production alone can almost make the song for me..)

example

I still don't even know what the song is actually about

also Kid Cudi often has good production even though I don't think he;s the best rapper..in terms of "rapping" alone (if that makes sense)

anyway...just because everyone here is a metal-head doesn't mean we can't talk about anything else...as soon as someone becomes a music elitist then they really miss out

 

[piinyouri]

Technicality without a purpose.
(Later Dream Theater...I'M LOOKING AT YOU)

 

[Vault101]

Country - Rap...nuff said. heres and example perhaps you've heard it.

re.

you mean like a combination of the two?.. something like....


but thats awsome

 

[Scrubiii]

Really heavy dubstep that has noises instead of notes. Stuff like this
This genuinely has that 'nails down a blackboard' effect on me, it sounds more like the noise from a broken speaker than actual music. I'd love to know what it is that people enjoy about this music, because I can't listen to it without wincing.

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

Snip

Nah I get your point! Some of my favourite songs are just instrumentals!

Spoiler

And when I mentioned most people not liking Hip-Hop I was more referring to the fact that I had gone into wayy to much detail about one relatively unknown artist (if you're not into the genre that is).

 

[Mysterious Druid]

When singers rhyme words with the same word.

Stupid artists, be more clever!

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

When singers rhyme words with the same word.

Stupid artists, be more clever!

Sometimes it can work! Mainly if it's a repeated line, or if the rhyme is before the last word of the line in both lines (if that makes any sense)

Spoiler: A couple of decent examples in this song.

The rhyming of 'NY' at the start of the second verse and the 'us' bit in the first verse.

 

[Mysterious Druid]

When singers rhyme words with the same word.

Stupid artists, be more clever!

Sometimes it can work! Mainly if it's a repeated line, or if the rhyme is before the last word of the line in both lines (if that makes any sense)

Spoiler: A couple of decent examples in this song.

The rhyming of 'NY' at the start of the second verse and the 'us' bit in the first verse.

Bookmarked. I'll make sure to listen to it when my net speeds up again. I don't know how, but I managed to use 100GB in the course of ten days.

 

[Vault101]

When singers rhyme words with the same word.

Stupid artists, be more clever!

[i/] cause I am, whatever you SAY I am
if I wasnt, then why would I SAY I am
in the paper, the news everday I am
I dunno,..its just the way I am [/i]

I dunno.. sometimes it works

 

[Vivi22]

There are two main things I can think of right now:

Screaming - if it's just here and there for effect then cool. No problem. Maynard James Keenan has let out some pretty epic screams in his day and I loved it. But when it's the whole damn song? No thanks. It's usually so bad that the lyrics, assuming there are any, are completely lost, and I've heard some damn fine songs ruined because there was some guy just letting out the most annoying, harsh, discordant scream every five seconds. Discordant probably isn't the right word since it's not strictly true, but it is how it comes off sounding. It just stands out all of the time, even when you don't want one thing standing out prominently all of the time.

Blast Beats - ok, I get it. You spent a lot of those drum lessons and practice sessions in your younger days learning how to play some of the most mind numbingly repetitive shit really really fast. It's not that your speed doesn't impress me, because it does. But it's about as musical as replacing the drum track with a machine gun (which I admit could be interesting in the right circumstances). Maybe that last part bothers me more because I'm a drummer though. I simply don't find what gets played frequently in a lot of metal very interesting, and even the good players are guilty of falling into blast beats pretty often. And it's not that they don't fit the song I guess. It's just that they sound terrible.

People can probably guess from this which genres I tend to shy away from, even if there is stuff from a variety of metal sub-genres that I do like.

 

[M0rp43vs]

While I do love Death-style screaming when used sparingly(Think Judas Priest's Painkiller or Pantera stuff) I really hate growling, especially when it makes up the whole of the song's vocals. Used for effect, I suppose it's fine but most of the time, it's unmelodic and is just a way for the singer to hide the fact that he can't really sing.

Boring Breakdowns in metal songs. You know the drill, Blast beats, headbanging, binary riffing (Tabs:low e-0.0.0.0.0.1.0.0). When done right, it can be powerful and aggressive. Other times, they come out of nowhere, breaks the flow of the song and are over done and pretty damn boring to play.

Hard autotune, unless used to effect(Joe Satriani's "Wind in the trees" uses it to get that unique melody line, and Glados uses it to show how robotic she is in her singing). I just really dislike the sound. I don't mind using auto tune to get rid of minor imperfections in vocals but when over used... bleergh

Now, I'll be first to say I like remixes(well some, they are pretty damn hit-and-miss) but I rarely hear a good Dubstep remix(ok, though the inspector gadget theme one is an exceptions). Even Remixes of Dubstep songs! Dubstep can be good if they create a song to fit the genre. It'll sound like shit if you just take a popular song, slow it down to plodding levels and add dial up modem sounds to it

When solo parts are "written" and played the same every time... I dunno... but to me it betrays the idea of a solo when it's not made up on the spot... that's why I like J Mascis... cause he plays his guitar solos different literally every time... though there might occasionally be a little part that's the same...<.<

To each their own, I suppose. If a solo is written before hand,(or better yet, just planned) they often have the potential to be mind-blowing because you have time to work out just how to let your music weave into the backing music. Also I thought the idea of solos is to give the spotlight to one musician and making up something on the spot is the idea of improvisation but I suppose I'm just being pedantic

 

[The Funslinger]

The only thing that really bugs me is rhyming a word with itself. Except when it's a whole line repeated, since that's not really rhyming as much as just repeating.

Oh, that's just the worst.

Not really a pet peeve with music, but it annoys me when people call Glados' songs at the ends of the portal games auto tuned when they aren't.