[Radio_head]

A large part of what genres one enjoys is linked to their upbringing.  My whole family was steeped in opera, classical music and musical theater from a young age, so we gravitate to it (even if we didn't always appreciate it.)  For someone who grows up playing classically, Jazz is just the next step in musical progression.  Even outside of the whole improvisational element, the music itself (especially chord progressions and simultaneous multiple keys, time signatures etc) make it the most interesting genre of the 20th century.  
 
Having said that, I do believe the main component in music is music.  That is, melody, harmony, and variety.  These three things are sorely lacking in a large swath of genres and those are the types I tend to shy away from.  A sample done right is Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.  The way he unravels something so deceptively simple is like seeing objects on a subatomic level.  
 
One postscript I'd like to add is that there is no reason to disparage people who enjoy the less musical genres of music.  A person with an acute sense of taste does should not lambast the person who is willing to eat at restaurant x, nor should one with a refined sense of style slight a wearer of the more mundane.  If others are satisfied leave them be unless they seek you out.  

 

[Redcarmoose]

 
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If you're not willing to say that corporate created soulless drivel is not a cancer on the creativity of our youth, then don't complain about a lack of quality music in 10 to 20 years.

I think it is a little deeper than that. Each type of music gets into our world on it's own.You can judge it in relation to your own taste and style but don't judge people as wrong or dumb just because they like a more simple musical form you than you do. Much of the corporate conditioned albums are art in their own way. Much of the crappy supermarket music became interesting 30 years later. Who knows why this happens with music.
 
Many of the corporate influenced sell-out albums are masterpieces of popular culture. What we have is many different world influences and they influence each other in ways that are at most times hard to understand.
 
 
In the 1960s you had band leaders which were in charge of putting old standards to a new beat. They had to look for a new sound and sell records. Rock showed up on the musical scene and things were groovy. The musical buying community was tired of pure classics and needed a South American tempo, or an Indian tempo. Much of the snobby musical elite excepted this music with complete disregard even though it became the hallmark sound of pop easy listening culture. Much of this stuff was dreamed up because people wanted something more exciting to listen to than straight Bach. The musical corporations made this soft classical pop music of both jazz standards and classical pieces. The Ray Conniff Singers, Hugo Montenegro were right along with everyone else taking music and trying to make it sell again. They placed beautiful gals on record covers, they added 2 tons of reverberation and all this was corporate art. The music was as fake as the vinyl leather they were sitting on at the time. It's still art, though.  
 
They went to every level to be cool. At times they would even bring a Moog into the studio. Anything to get the musical public going. They also produced a ton of records. Some arrangers ended up with 100 records produced in their lifetime as they were not writing music but arrangers who just redid the music. Conniff made a conscious choice to stick with a formula that guaranteed commercial success.
 
I think that music has stayed the same the last 20 years. I guess it is all up to your perspective.

 

[wind016]

I love most genres but some complaints:
 
Hip hop - Seriously, all the male voices sound the same. Everyone is trying so hard to sound hard that I can't differentiate who's who. They're all just deep voiced half-angry male voices. Variety + change is must. I'm not even going to bother commenting on mainstream hip hop. It's a lost cause.
 
Rock - Same as above for vocals. AND, less angry rock sub-genres. Rock is about peace and love, no?
 
Jazz - Bring some younger singers into the scene. This genre sounds like I'm supposed to be in retirement to enjoy this. I like what South Korea is doing with Jazz and it's amazing though not quite catching on yet. Everything seems to still be in experimental stage.
 
Classical - Is this genre just stuck in programme music now? I'm not really a fan of programme music, but true classical seems dead, unless someone can update me.

 

[FalconP]

Recently I took a hard look at why rap/hip-hop irritates me so much, having read in another forum where people argued that disliking rap/hip-hop is a sign of racism.  A silly charge, I know, but still I'd like to think myself in the clear.
 
What bothers me so much is that the vocal delivery of rap/hip-hop can never do justice to any text.  In traditional singing, or even normal speech, there are many ways to emphasize meanings, to make words count -- subtle inflections, lengthening or shortening of syllables, rise and fall of dynamics.  Such devices are by and large not available in rap, which is cast in a mechanical rhythm, and locked in one mode of vocal delivery: FAST and LOUD.  Such verbal bullet hail is never going to be an effective conveyer of meanings, or emotions more subtle than bestial rage or animal lust.  This is ironic -- rap is a genre where the text purportedly matters so much, yet the vocal style is precisely at odds with getting meanings across. 

 
Quote:

Classical - Is this genre just stuck in programme music now? I'm not really a fan of programme music, but true classical seems dead, unless someone can update me.

Well programme music sells, and those who commission new pieces seem happier if the composer attaches a meaningful label on the music (to commemorate this or that).  But no one is forced to listen to any piece of music programmatically, and the composers' pretext is often pretty filmsy anyway.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Check out De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest if you haven't yet. They use sampling but in creative ways, and the lyrics are inventive. Easily my two favorite hip hop groups. The Roots play real instruments, I can't say they're as lyrically complex though.
 
I'm not a fan of much metal besides alternative and progressive. I've tried to get into death metal. It doesn't engage me at all.

"3 Feet High and Rising" is in my library, as is early Public Enemy. I remember when they came out and I've owned and loved them since. Back then, there was some creativity and I was genuinely excited about the new genre. I listened to it on KDAY, which was an AM station at the time.

Then it went nowhere. How sad.

 

[Ynoskire]

Most of the popular dubstep out there. Dubstep in general is a genre with potential, and it saddens me to see a lot of artist make really, really generic stuff whilst dubstep itself was born out of artistical freedom once.

 

[Sarah]

Quote:

I was once in a CD store( when they existed ) and I was able to listen to two classical music snobs talk for 20 minutes about how they hated the guitar.

Reminds me of my dad, the classic "all rock music sounds the same" type of classical music snob. He also once told me that he doesn't like jazz, and "the more progressive it is, the less I like it." Wow

  Very smart man and the son (and father!) of a fanatic music lover. None of us is quite sure what happened there. We also think it's kind of hilarious when his two kids couldn't have more different taste in modern rock/pop music, that he could think it all sounds the same. One time he gave us both classical CDs in the hopes of getting us interested, I guess, and he gave us music that was completely antithetical to our tastes - my brother got something big and bombastic and more modern, and I got something quaint and delicate and antique. I suspect gender stereotype had more to do with that than anything else.
 
For my personal taste, boring genres are the ones without real (analog) instruments (I have nothing against mixing in some electronic/digital, but when it's wholly synthesized, meh). I rarely find interest in electronic music or spoken word (rap or otherwise). I can listen to one piece and think "yeah, that's pretty good" but I doubt it will ever be something I really sit down and listen to by choice. I also tend to get bored by older classical music and certain kinds of jazz (jazz is such a ridiculously varied genre, it may be both my least favorite and most favorite at the same time). But in most genres I can find something interesting to listen to, somewhere. It's hard for a genre to exist and have millions of people listening if there's really nothing redeeming about it. In the end it's personal taste.

 

[KneelJung]

I think I get at the essence of your question HC, but music is so subjective and mood dependent. I have a hard time with jazz too, rarely if ever listen to classical, could care less about ambient, hip hop, dub step, metal, and most country. Although are guys Johnny Cash country or rock & roll? The latter being an attitude more than a genre. Corporate crap isnt a genre necessarilly, but the crap they try to pass off as music and foisted on undiscerning listeners is more often than not just pathetic. Corporate country being perhaps the most twangy bunch of crap ever

 

[DJGeorgeT]

1) top 40 rap, hip-hop, r&b and electro. Just cant get into it. It actually most of that music grosses me out and I feel sick listening to it.
2) country. Never understood this music.
4) progressive house. How boring has this genre gotten? It used to be good.
5) chillout and ambient electronic music. I can only listen to it for 5 minutes.

 

[logwed]

Quote:

Most of the popular dubstep out there. Dubstep in general is a genre with potential, and it saddens me to see a lot of artist make really, really generic stuff whilst dubstep itself was born out of artistical freedom once.

 
VVVWUB VWUB VWUB-VWUB VWUUUUUBBB.
 
 
Personally, I don't really understand the appeal in most forms of metal, just seems like angsty grandiose teen music that is purely a test of ability to play fast and loud. Then again, I love prog rock, so I'm definitely guilty of loving grandiose music. It just seems to get monotonous, IMO, just listening to the same distorted guitars being played at the same volume while the drummer kicks his octuple pedals as fast as possible. Just not musical to me in any way. Metal just really gets me as being a phase that teenagers get into when they're all "Yeah, I pride myself on my ability to be unique and choose things for myself like this awesome metal that no one at my high school understands because they're not as unique as me." 
 
^^Those who love metal, please don't take offense to that, I'm trying to keep this light and fun.

 

[C4rl]

[size=10.0pt]Rap and Hip Hop. I must have approaching 4,000 CDs collected over the last two decades encompassing most genres in some way or another but not a single Rap or Hip Hop album.[/size]

 

[Redcarmoose]

Quote:

 
VVVWUB VWUB VWUB-VWUB VWUUUUUBBB.
 
 
Personally, I don't really understand the appeal in most forms of metal, just seems like angsty grandiose teen music that is purely a test of ability to play fast and loud. Then again, I love prog rock, so I'm definitely guilty of loving grandiose music. It just seems to get monotonous, IMO, just listening to the same distorted guitars being played at the same volume while the drummer kicks his octuple pedals as fast as possible. Just not musical to me in any way. Metal just really gets me as being a phase that teenagers get into when they're all "Yeah, I pride myself on my ability to be unique and choose things for myself like this awesome metal that no one at my high school understands because they're not as unique as me." 
 
^^Those who love metal, please don't take offense to that, I'm trying to keep this light and fun.

Metal always risks that time when it falls out of fashion and becomes folded in on itself, just like Spinal Tap. Guys in leotards screaming super high as flames bolt out from across the stage. The sheer bombastic pranks will always fall out of style to changes like the t-shirts of Grunge. Extreme Metal is maybe even more of a style of music that alienates most. Grunting, roaring and the swaying of your four foot hair in a circle is a total step back down the evolutionary ladder of mankind! But metal is forever.
 
We have all seen Rocker Jim at the Judas Priest concert. He is wearing his Painkiller T-shirt from the early 90s, when he was at his first Judas Priest show. He was able to get out of his carpenter job a little early just to make it to the show. He had a couple of beers and is having the time of his life. That's what I like about metal, the total blue collar of it all.

 

[Ouspensky]

Quote:

 
VVVWUB VWUB VWUB-VWUB VWUUUUUBBB.
 
 
Personally, I don't really understand the appeal in most forms of metal, just seems like angsty grandiose teen music that is purely a test of ability to play fast and loud. Then again, I love prog rock, so I'm definitely guilty of loving grandiose music. It just seems to get monotonous, IMO, just listening to the same distorted guitars being played at the same volume while the drummer kicks his octuple pedals as fast as possible. Just not musical to me in any way. Metal just really gets me as being a phase that teenagers get into when they're all "Yeah, I pride myself on my ability to be unique and choose things for myself like this awesome metal that no one at my high school understands because they're not as unique as me." 
 
^^Those who love metal, please don't take offense to that, I'm trying to keep this light and fun.

No offense taken, but it seems rather ironic that the only way prog rock or art rock as some call it, only managed to survive the ashes of oblivion where it was buried in the 80's is thanks to those angsty teens you seem to think metal is all about

. A large amount of what people now call prog rock is basically a metal sub genre.
Prog masters King Crimson are some of the biggest supporters of the metal scene in general. I don't think Robert Fripp himself would have anyone to play with anymore without metal influenced new blood musicians joining his pack in the last 20 years.
 
Even hip hop (which I hate) has come up with noteworthy music, like the ones uncle erik mentioned.
 
 
 

 

[logwed]

Quote:

No offense taken, but it seems rather ironic that the only way prog rock or art rock as some call it, only managed to survive the ashes of oblivion where it was buried in the 80's is thanks to those angsty teens you seem to think metal is all about

. A large amount of what people now call prog rock is basically a metal sub genre.
Prog masters King Crimson are some of the biggest supporters of the metal scene in general. I don't think Robert Fripp himself would have anyone to play with anymore without metal influenced new blood musicians joining his pack in the last 20 years.
 
Even hip hop (which I hate) has come up with noteworthy music, like the ones uncle erik mentioned.
 
 
 

Prog metal is one of those weird mixes, it's not really prog, and it's not quite metal. I'll stick to my Zeuhl and symphonic all day long My other beef with metal is the gross overclassification.
 
Hip hop means nothing to me, I just don't see the point in listening to it.
 

 

[BotByte]

Quote:

Most of the popular dubstep out there. Dubstep in general is a genre with potential, and it saddens me to see a lot of artist make really, really generic stuff whilst dubstep itself was born out of artistical freedom once.

I can understand that because most Dubstep has no musical purpose. No beat, melody or anything. Just pointless sound.
 
Some stuff like:
 

 
 
This actually sounds good to me.
 
But I don't see myself listening to it like I would with Rock. I can listen to Led Zeppelin as long as my Cowon S9 will allow me to. But Dubstep, there's not much there for me to enjoy