Music That Irritates Me

I like a lot of music.  I can even enjoy some dance, some rap (as long as they don't start the whole N thing I hate that), I like some classical, more and more jazz (shhh don't tell anyone, not that jazz is a bad thing to like but I've always made a big thing out of not liking it haha!).  I like country, indie, heavy metal (again not when they start grunting what is with that anyway?), pop etc etc etc.

I do not and will never ever ever EVER like opera.  It goes right through me and leaves me wanting to claw at something.  *shudders*.

But one style I loathe which is across multiple genres is what I call 'strum strum'.  It's that music where the instruments just play one single rhythm, all in time with each other all at the same time, going nowhere except to the next chord or in the case of the drums to the next borrrrring fill.  No melody, no funky rhythms, no break, no nothing.  It's in dance music, it's in rock it's everywhere and I HATE it. 

I was looking through Spotify this morning looking to see if there are any good new releases and you know when you hold down on the album you can preview the tracks (if you didn't you do now, go try it it's very useful).  Anyhoo I was doing that and album after album of this strum strum kept coming up even from bands I like.  What I mean by that is if you can go through the track previews one by one and it just sounds like you're skipping to another part of the same song it's strum strum.  Just one big song played in a different key with different words and a slightly different rhythm, it's lazy music and when it's one one or maybe two songs it can be cool but as an album it's ARGH.

Now yes this may be the muso talking but seriously I've always hated it.  My hubby used to be into loads of bands that play this way, he prefers listening to lyrics so it suited him but I wanted to scream by the fourteenth song that sounded exactly the same.  You hear it a lot when bands have lost their creative drive.  It's why I love everything Dangermouse (the producer not that cartoon character) has ever done.  He has a style yes which you can detect in what he does but he's never boring because he always takes what is there and works it, he doesn't rework it which is admirable but just teases out a bit more.  Just listen to the latest Chili Peppers album, it's far from their best but it does feel revitalised and a bit different.

I know people do like this so I'm not criticising in that regard, each to their own and all that, but I do hate it personally, I find it obvious and boring.  Many of Spotify's playlists are like this too, they take perfectly good songs and mix them with another 100 that sound the same so by the end my brain is numb.  I like to take great songs and compliment them with others based within the same genre but off to one side or another.  Again I get this is probably just me.

But there you go, a mini rant today :)  Why not!