Music cliches that you hate

I don't understand this post at all. a lot of the things you mention simply are what they are. How can a remix or a track or a remaster or an opener or a closer be a cliche? There's no debating whether a song is a closer or not, whether it is remastered or not, so how could it be a cliche? Is a chair a cliche?

 

For me, it's live, when the drummer insists on ending the song with a buh bumm tish after the song has ended.

I adore Marillion but Ian Mosley does it a lot.

 

some examples of this that come to mind:
Guns N’ Roses - Patience (the opening D chord and it happens throughout)
David Bowie - London Bye Ta-Ta (the opening chord)

I use it a lot when messing about on the acoustic

 

The way in which they are used is cliche.

 

Or how about when one person singing by themself goes "Ok everybody..." to start a fake singalong, like in Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz", it makes them sound so lonely/desperate

 

How about all those 60s anti-drug songs when you just know that the group was probably taking lots of drugs anyway - Steppenwolf, Paul Revere, etc.?

Paul Revere/Raiders, "Kicks"

 

5 or 6-string bass. Jaco did everything revolutionary with just four strings.

 

I think this is needlessly (and frustratingly) uncharitable towards @SlacktoryRecords . It's possible to dislike something -- or more accurately, to be irritated by something -- not because it's easy or common, but because it's lazy and often tends to show up in association with disappointing, low-effort work.

When I hear music on a TV show that's just a few default loops from GarageBand, it communicates to me that it wasn't made with particular care or effort. It followed the path of least resistance, and probably indicates that the producers don't put much of a priority on making the music as good as it can be.

When I hear a guitarist sit down and play the same D-chord clichés I've heard in dozens of songs -- many of which I absolutely love, like "Thank You" and Pink Floyd's "The Narrow Way" -- then it potentially tells me something about the amount of effort they've put into their craft.

If they follow it up with something awesome and creative that wins me over, great, I love that! But a lot of the time it doesn't -- a lot of the time it's associated with people who see music mainly as a vehicle for their confessional lyrics or social commentary, and don't put a lot of effort into making the instrumental side of things as distinctive and special as it can be. That's not usually music for me.

You don't need to be a magician, amateur or otherwise, to spot a corny trick -- any more than you need to be a chef to spot food made with lots of salt and fat to mask poor-quality ingredients. Neither my wife nor I have ever tried to become amateur magicians, but when we watch Penn & Teller's show Fool Us, we still get irritated when someone gets up and does some lame-ass trick where we either know how it's done, or have seen it a thousand times before.

And a great magician can play on those expectations, just as a great musician can -- in this piece by Debussy, he deliberately opens with something very banal, the most basic of basics, to then delight us by leading into much wilder terrain:



But a lot of them don't, and that's why a thread like this exists. Being irritated by clichés doesn't mean you don't have an open mind, or are a snob. It just means you're irritated by laziness and predictability -- and clichés are, almost by definition, lazy and predictable.

 

A refreshing change from all the songs about doing drugs, alcoholic or otherwise. THAT is what I call a cliche.

 

I see this as exactly the point of difference between our viewpoints. I'll make one last effort to try and explain myself to you and Slacktory, though I feel it's a losing battle.

You are arguing from the perspective of the musician. You play guitar, so you know that such-and-such is easy to play, perhaps that the construction of the instrument almost invites you to play it - therefore you call it a cliche, and one that you dislike.

I am coming from the perspective of the listener, who may or may not have musical training but in any case cares more about how the music sounds to them. I am the consumer in this situation; I am not analysing the process of music creation to say this part was easy to do, and this other part must have been more clever and shows talent. I do not play guitar, but I used to play piano reasonably well, and some of the most beautiful piano music to listen to is also quite easy to play. In the case of the Debussy clip you posted, it's true that the piece would be boring if it were just those first few notes extended throughout the piece, but that's not because they are easy to play, it's because repetition of same would make the piece sound banal.

 

It bothers you that someone does something natural for the instrument being played because they are having too much fun doing it? Because that makes them a bad student of music?

What about the argument that if keyboard players could do that stuff they would, and that actually they do. Guitarists arent the only ones ornamenting songs with sus2 sus4.

Here are two more in D: The Song remains the same, American Girl.

I thnk You'll like this one:



Neil Young - Don't Cry No Tears

 

You're getting it backwards, I think: we call something a cliché because we hear it all the time and are tired of it.

It's true that musical training allows you to name what you hear -- just as using GarageBand means you recognize loops. And that also helps you to understand why you hear it all the time, which is typically (but not always) because it's easy.

But you don't have to be a musician to recognize "Oh, not that again". We do that in films without being directors; we do that in books without being authors. Tons of consumers recognize clichés and are irritated by them, with or without training in that field.

Why should music be any different -- and why is it somehow elitist to know what something is? That seems to be the crux of your argument: that knowing what you're hearing = automatically thinking you're better than other people.

There's this really weird belief, sometimes seen on the Forums, that only musically non-literate people have "real" responses that are raw and unmediated by the oppression of knowledge -- whereas people with substantial musical training (however you choose to define it) are automatically cerebral, cold, and only care about flashy, technically perfect music.

But the people I know who are most passionate, insightful, and open-minded about music come from all walks of life, and all levels of musicianship. And honestly, it's not the serious musicians who care about flash and perfection, but the burnouts who hang out around places like Guitar Center (or did, before the pandemic).

For the serious musicians I've known (again, for whatever definition of "serious" you prefer) the value of virtuosity and technical knowledge is as a means to an end; it's the result that counts.

It's not about "being clever and showing talent", at least for me. It's about music that's the equivalent of a murder mystery where you already know whodunit after 10-15 minutes, because the film or book is being so freakin' obvious about it. You don't need to know how the music was made to know you're hearing something you've heard a thousand times before, and five hundred too many.

 

As opposed to Van Morrison's "OK, let's get this over with".

 

The new one...just "dropped" the new album

 

Oh, and the lyric "pray the lord my soul to keep" or any mention of "DJ" in the lyrics

 

David Johansen?

 

Paul Revere was definitely not taking drugs... and I respect him for that.

 

none I only own music I love and have no interest in those I do not...so I wouldn't know the answer to this question because your s may not be mine and vise versa

 

Rock is about proper grammer, correct speling and not trying to get caught up in the moment.

 

Kelsey Grammer?

 

Never liked his clichéd saxomophone riffing. Another one to add to the list, for sure.

 

I think the dreaded D chord debate is winding down, but I just realized I never mentioned one of the biggest examples is Free Falling. And that is actually a perfect example along with a good portion of Full Moon Fever. Too simple, or just simple enough? Obviously opinions vary. I'm a bit in the middle of the two sides myself.

 

I'm a needles and pinza pro D guy, but after Listen to her heart and shadow of a doubt I check out on Tom. Too simple and not clever. I was listening to the 'Mats by then.

 

Yes. I have a bad adverse reaction to too much repetition. I can't stand it. It makes me angry.

I was shopping in a supermarket about 15 years ago and they were playing Donna Summer's "She Works Hard for the Money". It took sooooooo long to end, repeating the same lines over and over and over and over again, I came very close to leaving my full cart there and walking out the door. Ten more seconds and I would have been out of there.

 

I watched an old TV recording of a Stax revue. Lots of legends, each only had 10-15 minutes, but spent half their time asking the audience "do you feel alright?"

"Yes we do, we said so the first time. Now stop asking and play us a song"