"That's not music, it's just meaningless noise"

[Erana]

I enjoy chiptune, but even most gamers seem to dismiss it as nothing but NES nostalgia.

And even then, few people who acknowledge that chiptune outside of old games exists, its mostly chiptune trying to be something its not, or bad automated 8-bit covers.

What just kills me the most, though, is when people insist that no sounds produced by a computer can ever compare to an analogue instrument.

I'm sorry, but no. I'm not that musically inclined, but I'm into fine art, and even there, analog is not God.

Well obviously, how much you enjoy the music isn't based at all on how it was produced, so logically to the listener, it doesn't matter if it was an analogue instrument or a computer. But, what people could quite legitimately argue, is that it is much harder to put one's emotions into a computer based piece of music, than it is to express oneself through the articulations of their playing an analogue instrument.

Well, printmaking can get pretty damn technical too, but that doesn't stop the medium.

Different people have different minds for art- some can get really technical with overarching plans, and others just like to jump right in and be right in on the action.

And what about composers? There's only so much say they can have in the creation of the sound itself just through their written music.

 

[Hummmy]

I'm constantly told that the music I listen doesn't sound like anything, followed by said person trying to (horribly) recreate the vocals.. *shudders*


I think it just takes a fan of the music to hear the talent and meaning in it.

[youtube.com/t0oyCXSd02U]

 

[Kenbo Slice]

People have never talked bad about my music, good thing I can have intelligent conversations about music without it resorting to "Your music sucks!"..."No yours does!"

 

[Nyaliva]

Actually, when I was a kid I used to question the point of music. I used to ask my parents what was so special about music and why do people listen to it, it's just an assortment of noises organised in a particular way. Then I grew out of those childish philosophical questionings and got into classical music. Now I'm better than everyone and the only thing people can say about my music is that it's boring, to which I can reply that they're so dumbed down by today's music they can't comprehend the beauty of real music.

Seriously though, I don't think any music is just pointless noise, however there are some genres, who shall remain nameless, which either use the same four bars of chords for 5 mins along to the same three lines with the last word repeated for a whole bar, and then some which make cliches of once good musical techniques by, again, repeating them and robbing them of their depth.

 

[Polarity27]

Well, the first video may or may not be meaningless noise, but it really alarmed my cats.

(I admit, I just don't get the "loud guitar + RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!!" kind of metal at all. If a song has lyrics, I tend to prefer them comprehensible. But then, I love rap and trance, which a lot of other people hate. So as long as you're not living next door to me and blasting it into my wall, I don't really care.)

 

[jane.doe]

My favourite band is Converge so i get it pretty often, although my 'hardcore' friends think i'm strange because i also enjoy Bjork. I mean c'mon it's Bjork, everybody likes Bjork.

 

[JediMB]

The one I've been called out on the most would be Yersinia, a Swedish metalcore/hardcore punk band. I really enjoy them, and it's not like it takes anyone to make it, but people seem to think that there's no coherent thought or creative writing to it.

I don't have anything against the music, but personally I think it would be better without the... err... singing (screaming?).

It's also not anything I would be listening to casually, but I think the music style works well for certain soundtracks, among other things.

 

[Nouw]

There definitely is some kind of rhythm to it. It's not out of time and has a beat. Good enough for me.

 

[mikeybuthge]

One, there will never be an agreement between everyone on a genre of music, however, get everyone in the world drunk and play "Don't Stop Believin" guaranteed, that it'll be the only moment of total peace on earth.

Two, reading all of the comments on this thread reminds me of the South Park episode where all the parents listen to their children's music, and hear people shitting into a microphone and vice versa, just sayin

 

[Aragatory]

This is one band I absolutely love but not many others seem to really like oddly

[youtube=3qkwIEnrnKI&feature=related

 

[Aragatory]

Spoiler: Gojira, for example.

I listen to metal almost exclusively and I am so tired of listening to my friends bash the music I love.

Fucking Gojira. Love them. That is all.

 

[AlmightyRa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-PX2Z4r-e4

Don't know how to link but that is a guy i love and i get shit for it all the time... he's amazing. And those Van Canto guys.... omg they are so going on my ipod when i can find a CD. Amazing artists. To be able to do that... thats what i aspire to..

 

[Fishyash]

I am about to blow your mind with stupidity. Please take this as representative of the average intelligence level of my friends and regular associates:

One of my friends recently declared my music taste as shit because I was listening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue. His reasoning? "Anyone can make that noise, it doesn't even have lyrics!"

In retrospect I really should have slapped him.

I... I can't top that. I'm sorry... I think he's jokning. Seriously.

On topic; yes it is acctually stupid to dismiss music as 'meaningless' noise. Yes, music is noise, but none of it is meaningless. Sure I would rather listen to something that's less 'noisy' but that noise is there for a reason every time. Dismissing music in any form shows poor taste in music in my opinion.

 

[garjian]

firstly, im disappointed that this turned out to be effectively a metal thread.
either way, nobody seems to be able to understand stuff like these:

i dunno why, i suspect people cant understand anything that isnt mindless electric guitar drone, and that makes me just as bad as them eh?

there will never be an agreement between everyone on a genre of music, however, get everyone in the world drunk and play "Don't Stop Believin" guaranteed, that it'll be the only moment of total peace on earth.

right, because noone gets violent when theyre drunk... and eeeeeeeeeeeveryone loves that song.

 

[similar.squirrel]

I listen to a bit of black metal, as well as noise-rock, dubstep and glitchcore. They're al acquired tastes.

 

[Project_Omega]

Music is Objectively Subjective.

Nuff' Said

 

[Dark Knifer]

I'm surprised someone hasn't said these guys yet.


Worst stuff I've heard in my opinion, though some may like I suppose.

Some have said to me System of a Down is meaningless noise, ones like this.


But the lyrics all mean something. Hell, one of my favorite quotes of all time are in this song (beliefs, they are the bullets of the wicked). I love the rhythem in the instruments and the passion and sound of Serj's voice. But everyone to their own taste really, there will always be haters.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

-boing-

...it would be better if someone had secretly unplugged the mic. >.>

Different strokes for different folks, I quite enjoy his way of screaming. And I enjoy the parts where he simply talks, although it's maybe not something for the non-Swedish. ^^'

 

[Arkhangelsk]

A fairly common thing when listening to music you like is that not everyone agrees that it's as good as you proclaim. But then there's the nay-sayers that go as far as to say that what you listen to is in fact not music, but just pointless noise. This is mostly seen when talking about extreme metal genres and progressive music, but I've heard people say it about most genres.

To an American child, the Polish language is just pointless noise. To a Polish child, it is the language that holds all meaning.

The usual problem, as I see it, is that many proponents of the off-the-beaten-path musical languages don't make any attempt to teach people the language of their music. They change everything, and they do so all at once, and anyone that doesn't "get it" is written off as an idiot (at least within the medium). In these cases, you've got the "progressive" people treating others with contempt, so it's no wonder that those people are going to react strongly (and negatively)... but usually, that's what those "progressives" are looking for in order to feel unique and exclusive.

For a historical example of this (and its remedy) you can look at Arnold Schoenberg. He wanted to "liberate" music from the major/minor key system by fully chromaticizing harmony. And he had two well-known students: Alban Berg and Anton Webern.

Webern took Schoenberg's ideas and distilled them down to their purest form... and his music is intellectually quite interesting, but it's musically unintelligible without intense study.

Berg's music took Schoenberg's ideas and reconciled them with the world's current understanding of tonality. He challenged many of the norms, but he also left some of them alone (so that listeners had something familiar to latch onto). By and large, his music is far more accepted than Webern's, and it can serve as a gateway to understanding post-tonal music like that of Schoenberg, or even Webern.

(So, you can see that classical music follows similar patterns as popular music. And each can learn quite a lot from the other.)

This is probably one of the most well-written and correct posts I've read. I can do nothing but agree with you.

 

[ace_of_something]

I used to sing in an old school hardcore band. "Flip the Killing Switch" (circa 1996ish) if you can find anything floating around. (unlikely)
It's all opinion. I've heard people say 'it's just noise' about almost every genre.

I knew a guy who actually listened to [a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_(music)]'noise music'[/a] it was literally static/white noise/feedback constructed meticulously to have 'no pattern' for 5 minutes. Very avante garde. Very horrible.
I believe his favorite artist was from japan if that tells you anything.