r/Music • u/no_longer_huhmann • 1d ago

article Hayley Williams Urges Sold-Out Crowd to Support Independent Music: “Go to Little Shows at Independent Venues. Find Your People, Find Your Favorite Music, and Support That.”

https://www.tvfandomlounge.com/hayley-williams-support-independent-music/
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u/FallingDiscontent 1d ago

Unpopular opinion: it's ok to be a Frank Zappian curmudgeon about music

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u/DigitalNecromancy 1d ago

To an extent. It's just important to keep in mind that the line between being a Frank Zappa and a Roger Waters is very, very thin.

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u/TheRealBaronOfMyr 1d ago

Frank fans are pretty open to different kinds of music and so was Frank. Not sure where you get that from.

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u/FallingDiscontent 1d ago

Did you not ever listen to his diatribes on the music industry? He was there when MTV became a thing, and he highly disapproved. IIRC he liked Tom Tom Club's Genius of Love video and that was one of the few.

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u/Western_Gift976 1d ago

To be fair, Frank wasn't a fan of much besides Frank Zappa. Although he did have nice things to say about Steely Dan.

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u/MFazio23 1d ago

I wonder if Frank was even a fan of Frank Zappa all the time.

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u/TheRealBaronOfMyr 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's not true at all. Where did you get that from?

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u/somethink 1d ago

Frank really cared about the intent of music. Most people relate this to disliking a genre because you don't like certain aspects of the commercial version, but the commercial part is the real problem. Even on a post about an artist telling you to support local/small music there's people acting like the commercial version is all that's offered. It's exactly what Frank was warning us about

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u/AOR6040 1d ago

Diatribes

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u/ihavemademistakes 1d ago

His relationship with MTV was a little more complicated than mere disapproval. One of his most famous interviews griping about MTV was with Nina Blackwell was actually broadcast on MTV. That's not to mention his stints co-hosting shows, VJ appearances, and his own shows being on the network.

Even Mojo Nixon, who famously loathed MTV, wasn't above a payday and made regular appearances.

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u/TheRealBaronOfMyr 1d ago

Did you not ever listen to his diatribes on the music industry?

You're talking to a hardcore fan. So yeah, i have and his "diatribes" about the music industry weren't "Hating on music you don't like" or all that curmudgeonly, when you try to see where he was coming from. He didn't complain that much, let alone go on outright diatribes about that. He made his point clear and didn't dwell on it (and he made his point WITH HUMOR, hardly curmudgeonly).

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u/FallingDiscontent 1d ago

"There’s very few people who ever went into pop music who did it because they went into it as an art form. They did it because they wanted to be a star. There is a strong desire to be famous, to be rich... and that's got nothing to do with music."

"There was literally no market for anything with a blues-based influence. It was all this flower power stupidity."

"New Age music... It's one of those things you get to experience at the dentist. I went to the dentist, he had his radio tuned to `The Wave,' and it was nauseating me. I couldn't tolerate it."

"I find it very difficult to play a guitar solo over a reggae rhythm, because it's just so rigid and... well, it's a very lazy rhythm. It's a nice rhythm to sit down and listen to if you want to be put to sleep, but it doesn't give you much inspiration to play a line against."

"I'm not really fond of commercial cowboy music or contemporary country - the 'Slick Willy' type of shit. And lounge music I don't enjoy."

There are countless quotes of this dude having hot opinions on music. Dude if someone talked like that nowadays, they would get lambasted for having such opinions. That first quote alone would trigger so many people. I've kind of accepted in this type of climate that if you feel the need to ever be a critic, it's just better that you keep your mouth closed. But that's going back to my first point of it being an unpopular opinion that we should be ok with people having these types of hot takes on music.

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u/TheRealBaronOfMyr 11h ago

"I find it very difficult to play a guitar solo over a reggae rhythm, because it's just so rigid and... well, it's a very lazy rhythm. It's a nice rhythm to sit down and listen to if you want to be put to sleep, but it doesn't give you much inspiration to play a line against."

hmmm he played a lot of solos in the 80s over reggae rhythms. where and when did he say that?

(also i still don't think he was that curmudgeonly about it, even if he called himself one)

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u/user_account_deleted 1d ago

It is fine to dislike music. Wading in to do nothing but shit on a band is not.

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u/FallingDiscontent 1d ago

But therein lies the problem: most people can't tolerate genres such as punk, metal, country (bluegrass and roots), gospel, jazz, opera, etc. and they'll be the first to let you know. This "shitting on music" attitude is often attributed to the pretentious pitchfork reading (or /mu dwelling) type of character, but most often that very style of behavior is a trait of the casual listening person, and that always goes overlooked. How many times have you heard "that screaming isn't music!" and a person just completely discarding a band's sound as invalid.

Of course we have metal heads, edgy punks, pretentious jazz musicians, etc. who will "shit on music". But I would argue that a person who is open-minded to all sounds does not discard an artist or music style as invalid. So, it always makes me chuckle a little bit when someone brings up this type of character without considering the reality of how music functions in our society. People are literally characterized as weirdos for liking sounds that appear to be esoteric (and it doesn't even necessarily have to be something counterculture). I find that so unfair. We've been so commercialized to the point that our very primal instincts for music have dissipated. You find this with people who don't "get" jazz music as if there is something to "get". Maybe it would help to understand jazz as the cross bread of African rhythms with European song structures. Is it so hard to imagine a world in which our ancestors sat around the campfire and were entranced listening to the random doodling of a flute, or a polyrhythmic beat of a drum? It seems for the casual listener that for music to be valid it needs to follow an intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus (maybe they've up the octave here)-outro, and that not only does it need to follow this formulaic pattern, but the production must be pristine. Anything else gets criticized and "shit on" and I would argue that's much more common than the person who has rounded their music taste. And what a shame that is!

So next time you envision this person who "shits on music" try not to default to the person who believes they have the greatest taste, as that responsibility is equally shared between the casual listener and the hardcore elitists (although I would argue more so for the former than the latter).

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u/Fraegtgaortd 23h ago

Frank Zappa made music for people who jerk off to music theory textbooks

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u/TheRealBaronOfMyr 10h ago

It's true, we don't actually enjoy his music and it doesn't tickle our heads at all, no we don't listen to it because of that. It's to feel smug and superior. That's all. Couldn't be because we get something out of it that you don't. People keep saying what you said and it's just silly.