Unpopular album opinions

[Strange Tales]

Fuck Deafheaven. That poser ass bullshit is lamer than Emo...almost

This isn't an unpopular opinion to anyone who has ears.

My old band was compared to Deafheaven like 3 years ago. I'm still mad about it today. We didn't sound like fucking Deafheaven jesus fucking CHRIST YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

[D.o.S.]

It is though.

Note that I didn't say 'better', because that's subjective. I said 'listenable'. It's not subjective, because that first wave of BM sounds awful. Like it was recorded on an answering machine.

Fidelity is how you win production.

[the raytownian]

2010-to-present super slick super polished American BM is infinitely more listenable than the original wave of Nordic BM.

I wouldn't even care about this opinion (though I do disagree with it entirely), except I cannot understand why anyone finds "super slick super polished (and super-fucking loud, brickwalled to fuck)" modern production "good" or "better" in any context outside of perhaps harsh noise music, which seems to me like one of the few styles that isn't necessarily crippled by it.

I hate how "good production" today basically means making all your mastered tracks into big fat, claustrophobic bricks of death and being so crystalline as to sound completely unnatural... Why do I need to feel like I'm being hit by a train when it comes to production on everything from pop/dance to extreme metal music these days?

[D.o.S.]

because volume knobs are hard dude.

[the raytownian]

So is getting dynamic range back when it's all been squashed out of a mix.

[D.o.S.]

Ayyyyy

[Inconuucl]

your favorite album sucks.

[More_Divebombs]

2010-to-present super slick super polished American BM is infinitely more listenable than the original wave of Nordic BM.

I wouldn't even care about this opinion (though I do disagree with it entirely), except I cannot understand why anyone finds "super slick super polished (and super-fucking loud, brickwalled to fuck)" modern production "good" or "better" in any context outside of perhaps harsh noise music, which seems to me like one of the few styles that isn't necessarily crippled by it.

I hate how "good production" today basically means making all your mastered tracks into big fat, claustrophobic bricks of death and being so crystalline as to sound completely unnatural... Why do I need to feel like I'm being hit by a train when it comes to production on everything from pop/dance to extreme metal music these days?

Not sure where what I said fits in to that. I don't consider brickwalled, distorted clipping to be good production either. I just like drums and guitars to sound like drums and guitars. I find in a lot of the early years of extreme music (hardcore punk and black metal especially) the drums sound like bean cans and bin lids, what is most probably decent guitar gear is reduced to sound like 10watt bedroom amps, and quite often the bass is MIA. To my ears and my preferences, modern BM, as possibly ingenuous and insincere as it possibly is (it has become oddly hip, out of nowhere) just sounds better to me than the old stuff.

But really, what it probably means is, I'm not particularly a fan of black metal.

[D.o.S.]

So you went from saying that it wasn't to subjective to admitting that it is subjective. Nice.

[More_Divebombs]

I guess I assumed it was universal that music that sounds better just, y'know, sounds better. It's weird to me that there are people who prefer badly recorded music to well recorded music.

[gnomethrone]

Some bands hide behind lofi, some shine that way. I get kinda bored with modern tech death bands spewing precise quantized riff salad. Its impressive for a minute and then I just want trash can snare and toilet vocals.

[tremolo3]

This might sound hipster and pretentious as fvck but it's not about well or bad recorded music, it's most about the "feeling" of it. IMO, YMMV, etcétera.

I'd rather listen to the shitty recorded 90s BM stuff than the hi-fi pristine in-your-brain compressed-as-fuck modern black metal.

Having said that, I like Krallice and WITTR but I couldn't care less about how "good" they studio stuff sounds. Live performance of WITTR is one of the best things I've experienced so far.

[DarkAxel]

Some bands hide behind lofi, some shine that way. I get kinda bored with modern tech death bands spewing precise quantized riff salad. Its impressive for a minute and then I just want trash can snare and toilet vocals.

great example of the latter: Portal

this is not a putdown

[the raytownian]

Some bands hide behind lofi

I won't deny that, but I will add that I think loads of bands hide behind modern production as well... When everything's "LOUD AS FUCK" and "IN YOUR FACE" all the time, it tends to make listeners focus more on the production than the actual music (Hello, numetal. Hello, bar skank/mom-rock bands. hello, brostep...).

I want to be bowled over by the music, not the production... For this reason, I feel that production which dominates and overpowers everything more often than not detracts from music more than enhancing it.

[Iommic Pope]

Hipster black metal can be great, it just suffers from the same hype problems that a lot, if not most doom/stoner/metal/heavy whatever acts all do these days in that if someone talks it the fuck up, there are massive expectations given the landmarks and monuments we have to navigate those fields at this stage, so the sense of regurgitation or revisionism can be overwhelming and result in disappointment.

Plus there are just too many fucking bands now, doing niche genre worship.....says the guy obsessed with generica sabbatia and making New Year's resolutions to start an Om-core project.