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What makes a piece of music crappy? What are your all time least favorites?

10K views 70 replies 48 participants last post by  Beet131  
#1 ·
Besides, of course, not have any actual music notes.

This is half in jest, but half in seriousness. What makes a piece "shallow" or "flat" (to use a term recently thrown at modern music), lackluster or boring?

Personal opinions welcome.
 
#4 ·
The main thing that makes a piece of music "crappy" for me is the use of tired old cliches in the same tired old ways.

Cliches can actually be used interestingly, however, when employed ironically or for the purpose of deliberatlely making a comment on prior stylistic modes.
 
#5 ·
Personal opinions welcome.
Well, that's all you're going to get, unless crappiness can now be evaluated objectively.

I long ago gave up on trying to come up with "rules" about what makes me dislike something, because I found that no matter what rule I came up with, there was always something I really liked that broke that rule. There are too many uncontrollable external factors to why we like or dislike things.
 
#7 ·
Overuse of anything (which I suppose is about the same thing as cliche) can drive me away and make me feel a piece of music is -- "less than stellar" would be my preferred terminology.

I love the ideas and exploration of music in the 20th century, but especially in the latter half, suddenly all composers found the woodblock to be a real edgy modern sound. So almost all 20th century orchestral music from about 1950 onward has to have a clippy-clop percussive sound that just makes me roll my eyes. "Daaaaaaaa- da deee [Clippy clop!] Deeeeee da- dum [Clop tu-tock!]" Oh just knock if off for pity sake!

In a similar way, in the 19th century certain composers liked a kind of rah rah (usually nationalist, anthemic or martial) homophonic orchestration where everything is blasting away mostly on the same note accompanied by cymbal crashes at the beginning of almost every phrase. I love Dvorak's music but he is especially guilty of this. A little of it goes a long way, but unfortunately it's all over music from the romantic era.
 
#15 ·
Obviously there's Metastaseis and it crops up quite a bit in Messiaen, but are there some other notable woodblock examples I'm missing? Probably lots that would make me slap my forehead in dismay...
 
#16 ·
Having listened to a variety of composed art music that are considered as classical to modern contemporary composed music, I would say the critical element is whether it speaks to me or it does not. I can identify the artistic structure more often than not, but more importantly whether it was composed purely as its own sake to entertain the composer ONLY or whether the intention was a little or more broader than that.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Things that make a crappy piece of music? Let's see...I'm sure you all know by now that the only composer I know of that I seriously, actively dislike the music of is Karl Jenkins...:mad: Let's take a look at some of the qualities of his music that repel me like nothing else.

The hokey is strong with this one:


What is this? The genre of the Requiem meets cheesy action movie score?


Ya we get it, you heard the Waltz from Masquerade Suite and you wanted to make a version with "eerie" voices...


Ya know, come to think of it, in all seriousness, I think that's the thing that annoys me the most about Jenkin's music. Besides all the ridiculously comical attempts at drama or inspirational sounding tripe, it's the fact that all the music I've heard by him sounds like some other composer, but not nearly as deep or committed. It's like he only took the most superficial elements of all his inspirations and combined them together instead of digging around and really discovering what makes those composer's music great. Like, Palladio, an obvious nod to Vivaldi with none of the brilliance, just a hollow, superficial imitation.

After screening those three examples, I think I need to ask my doctor for an insulin shot, Blech.
 
#19 · (Edited)
I can't say that I have often the feeling that a piece of classical music sounds even semi-objectively "crappy" or "poorly done". However outside of classical, some "neoclassical" "shred" meta like this on the other hand...

"Uh, so I'm going to make this piece to show of my shred skillz, but guess I have to come up with a melody as well... Whatever, I'll just alternate between two notes and add much vibrato, so emotional, such feelz...." Then comes this mechanical, textbook type "neoclassical" scale pattern. After a while, a random tempo/key change out of nowhere with pointless arpeggios played up and down. More and more uninspired unrelated stuff arbitrarily strung together (mostly just ridiculously fast played scales and arpeggios) without anything to connect them naturally to each other. Literally sounds like my laziest guitar pro (a guitar tabulature program) experiments put one after another, the ones I had made to test what a scale/arpeggio/mode/whatever sounds like.

The main point of this is obviously to show off the technical skills of the performer, but if you're going to do just that and nothing more, I'd just upload a video to youtube with title "Me shredding around".
 
#20 · (Edited)
No development, the motifs leading nowhere, no perspective of the music going anywhere beyond the present sounds. While most music does not have this, some contemporary composers appear to enjoy placing 18 minutes of a non-evolving, almost static sound mass instead of an engaging musical structure.
 
#21 ·
What about Allevi and Einaudi? They're rather popular here in Italy...



The most disturbing thing is the high self-esteem these two guys show every time the are interviewed
(if I remember well once Allevi said that if Mozart had lived in XXI century he would probably have written pieces like the ones he writes... :()

pretentious useless music at best.
 
#22 ·
Cliches will reduce a piece of music to pastiche. If it acknowledges that then it is not crappy but if the music seems to take its cliches seriously then it is (very) crappy. And music that uses noisy and overtly emotional climaxes without the composer putting the work in to make the climax a genuine one (one that seems to resolve a tension or present a revelation) .. well, if it is just gratuitous climaxes for no real purpose then the music is crappy. I also have something about pretty or beautiful music but can't quite phrase what it has to do to avoid crappiness. And ideas?
 
#28 ·
I think it's all subjective and one could argue that there is no such thing as crappy music. Certainly some of the stuff my kids listen I consider crappy and vice versa. Also, I think tastes have a tendency to change and an appreciation can be acquired. Personally I do not have an ear for the likes of Xenakis. This doesn't mean I discredit the music or style. Certainly, I can understand why some would like this and I can appreciate the complexity but to my own ears it's too chaotic. I need less chaos in my life. I may go back at a future date and listen again or maybe someone with an appreciation for such can lead me...I never expected to enjoy some the music my kids listen to but I'll find myself turning up the volume and singing along if I'm in the mood.
 
#29 ·
There are too many kinds of crap for this question to be answered quickly. There's clicheed crap, incompetent crap, frivolous crap, pretentious crap, sentimental crap, boring crap, degenerate crap, and the very latest really important crap. Ninety-seven percent of everything is crap. Or is it ninety-eight now.
 
#33 ·
Aww Weston - you're being far too harsh on the humble wood-block when the real culprit of 20th century clipy-clop sound is the evil temple block!
Violadude - yes! Karl Jenkins is probably the worlds' leading exponent of utter pap.