Unpopular Opinions

In any topic, there tends to be a list of views that are too outlandish, controversial, or even blasphemous to say.  While there are many views in which there is a reason for this, a lot of times in entertainment these views are just outright unpopular.  I have a few of these types of views and I thought it would be fun to discuss for the blog.  I did not include anything that I find unjustifiable (I don’t think I have any of those opinions related to music).  I also did not have any opinions saying that one genre or subgenre is better than another because that is entirely subjective.

 

While not necessarily a direct influence on the genre, Billy Joel could inadvertently be considered a pre-emo musician.

This opinion isn’t particularly unpopular but rather not discussed.  While Emo music largely emerged from hardcore punk and post-hardcore, the lyrics tend to be emotional and are associated with teenage angst.  In particular, the Wikipedia page for Emo states that emo song lyrics “are typically emotional and often personal or confessional, dealing with topics such as failed romance, self-loathing, pain, insecurity, suicidal thoughts, love, and relationships”.  I would not consider Billy Joel’s music emo stylistically, but there are some songs that (in an ironic way) could be arguably be considered emo.  In particular, a listener could interpret “Captain Jack” as a song about a teen only being able to find comfort while high, “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” as a sad song to get away from the bright lights, “Angry Young Man” as an anthem for rebellious teens, “Moving Out (Anthony’s Song)” as a way to get out of a drag of a life, “Only the Good Die Young” as frustration for why people insist conformity or away from what might be considered good, “Big Shot” as complaining about someone who is full of themselves, and “You May Be Right” as an anthem for realizing who someone is.  In actuality, “Captain Jack” is a song criticizing suburban teens who turn to drugs, “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” was inspired by Joel’s move to New York to escape a record deal (and move somewhere he was more comfortable), “Angry Young Man” is from an adult’s perspective who no longer feels that way, “Moving Out (Anthony’s Song)” is a criticism for lower-class Americans longing for materialistic signs that they had made it, “Only the Good Die Young” is about a boy trying to seduce a Catholic girl, “Big Shot” is ridiculing a hungover women for drunk escapades, and “You May Be Right” is about a man who uses his craziness to try to pick up women.  Many of these songs could be akin to Beastie Boy’s “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)”, which turned into a party anthem by those the group was satirizing.  However, Joel’s songs “My Life” and “Don’t Ask Me Why” were an encouragement for individuals to be open to changing their lives if they weren’t enjoying their current path and to do what would make them most happy; alas, this message was targeted more towards adult listeners.

 

Disco music is making a comeback and it will last longer than the original prime of the genre.

Disco originally emerged in the mid-1970’s, but by the end of the decade it was ridiculed so much that it might make critics of post-grunge seem tame.  The death of disco was probably expediated by legendary baseball owner Bill Veeck’s Disco Demolition night, which ended as a disaster.  The promotion has often been called “the day disco died”, which means that it is arguable that disco’s prime ended on July 12, 1979.  There were several other factors that led to the death of disco, but I will say that this is when the prime of the genre ended, allowing its prime to last from 1974-1979.  However, by the 1980’s, dance music and electronic music (especially house music), and hits by artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Irene Cara, Queen, and Giorgio Moroder were influenced by disco.  This trend continued into the 1990’s and 2000’s when Daft Punk, U2, Blur, Kylie Minogue, Pulp Jamiroquai, and Deee-Lite each had at least one single that had disco influences.  Starting in 2013, there were sporadic hits that either incorporated disco or were influenced by the genre, including Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”, Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, Bruno Mars’ “Treasure”, Jackson’s “Love Never Felt So Good”, Justin Timberlake’s “Take Back the Night” and “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”, The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face”, Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk”, Maroon 5’s “Sugar”, Katy Perry’s “Birthday”, Jason Derulo’s “Want You to Want Me”, and many more.  Albums such as Lady Gaga’s Artpop, Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, Arcade Fire’s Reflektor, and Giorgio Moroder’s Deja Vu also incorporated disco.  Effectively, I wasn’t too surprising when it took off more in 2020 with hits like Doja Cat’s “Say So”, BTS’s “Dynamite”, Lady Gaga’s “Don’t Stop Now”, and Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” and roller blading became massive on social media.  The combination of the pandemic and the change in attitude towards disco seems to justify it.  I do not believe that this revival of disco will surpass the massive success of the original genre, but I think it will last longer.  There’s a case that it has if we were to focus on when the release of “Get Lucky”, “Blurred Lines”, and Random Access Memories were in 2013, but even if we consider the start in 2015, the current revival will last at least a couple more years.  Most of the disco releases are receiving critical acclaim and are being nominated from awards (in addition to their popularity), so there isn’t this backlash against the genre saying that “disco sucks”, which there was previously.  As such, I think the end of this revival is not in clear sight yet.

 

The Grateful Dead are underrated.

I will start this disclaimer that I am not a big fan of jam music and listen to it infrequently.  Grateful Dead never achieved much commercial success (with only one top 40 hit and one top 10 album) and very few of their studio releases are as highly regarded as other artists among the list of top artists of all time.  They are probably more known now for live concerts, extensive jamming, Deadheads, and LSD.  The group was probably the first jam bands, as they were one of the inventors of the genre due to their extensive instrumental jams.  There are three reasons why I think this is important.  First, they changed the way concerts worked.  While many shows had started to increase in length, there were still several groups around that performed for less than an hour while headlining a show.  On the other hand, it was not surprising to see Grateful Dead shows clock in at over 2 hours.  Also, they would typically perform the songs one after the other and skip banter that most artists do between songs.  There are some artists who have mimicked this approach outside of traditional jam music; two that come to mind are Violent Femmes and Bullet for My Valentine.  Of course, now people expect to see bands jam during sets; in particular, I have left concerts disappointed if I expected a band to jam more and they didn’t.  The second reason is that it changed the way music festivals are set up.  Since the band encouraged community, a typical Grateful Dead show was filled with Deadheads that set up what became known as “Shakedown Street” (named after one of their songs).  This was effectively a marketplace set up by fans in order to sell various items, including food and drinks, homemade clothing, and bootleg recordings, the last of which became a major aspect of the genre as well.  From there, jam festivals became one of the more popular festivals and continue to be an important part of live music.  The final and most important reason is due to their eclectic influences of genres.  The band incorporated elements of rock, folk, country, bluegrass, jazz, psychedelic, blues, and sometimes gospel into their music when creating what jam music became.  The reason I consider this so important is because this list of genres is exactly the variety that is expected at a jam festival (the main genre that seems to be missing from this list is certain subgenres of electronic).  In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked them 57^th on their 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.  I’m not sure where they would rank on an all-time list if I were to rank them since that would depend on the other artists as well.  I doubt they would rank top 20 due to their lack of success from their studio releases that artists I expect ranked that high, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they ranked in my top 25.

 

Had One Direction stayed together, they would have created some wacky (and probably incredibly influential) albums.

Part of the reason I have always had this opinion is because One Direction reminded me of the early years of the Beatles; I did not expect the same experimentation from One Direction that the Beatles provided later in their career (1D might be kicked off their record label if they tried that), but I found there to be similarities in the musical development and fanfare at the beginning of their respective careers.  That said, a bigger reason that I think this is due to the differences in styles performed during the members’ solo careers.  Liam Payne’s first album, while generally pop, was more R&B/hip hop oriented (but considered largely unsuccessful by critics).  Louis Tomlinson’s first album was a Britpop album with Oasis influences that contained tracks that were more pop.  While Niall Horan’s first album was influenced by a variety of genres, it was largely pop songs that were folk-influenced; his second album, however, was more pop influenced.  Zayn Malik’s first album was largely an alternative R&B album with other influences, but his second album was a concept album that shifted into more of a pop direction; that said, both of his albums focused more on the construction of the album than the singles themselves.  Both of Harry Styles’ albums were more pop rock influenced, with the first album having influences including soft rock and Britpop while his second album even having a progressive pop and psychedelic pop sound at points.  The sound of Styles still consistently making singles a major point of the albums (while making the album sound good) and Zayn focusing more on the album than the singles is somewhat reminiscent of the Lennon/McCartney pairing.  In particular, Abbey Road consisted of two halves:  McCartney’s half contained most of the singles and Lennon’s half was a bunch of songs that flowed together but weren’t as strong on their own.  While the Tomlinson/Payne writing duo was more prominent in their later releases, I could only imagine what a Malik/Styles duo could create.

 

The labels of boy bands and girl groups are widely misused to the detriment of many careers.

There are two things that I will argue with this:  that the labels are misused and that the stigma surrounding the label is pointless.  The labels of boy band and girl groups have been used for years to typically classify pop vocal groups that are typically younger, good looking, and can largely appeal to young/teenage girls.  While there were several major vocal groups in the 50’s and 60’s performing styles such as doo-wop and R&B, groups performing the style most similar to the ones typically thought of today were largely began in the 80’s and 90’s.  For boy bands, several acts have spoken out against being classified as a boy band, including Backstreet Boys, LFO, and The Moffatts (interestingly enough, Brockhampton has tried to embrace the label at times).  That said, the biggest issue for boy bands is more exactly what is a boy band.  There is a case to be made that The Beatles were the first boy band (due to their early career style), in which case it would be safe to consider groups like The Jonas Brothers, Hanson, and 5 Seconds of Summer to be boy bands as well.  That said, I consider these four groups to be pop rock groups instead; while they meet most of the qualifications, they aren’t as much vocal groups due to the members playing instruments as well.  While that might have created a stigma for each of them, I would not necessarily say that their careers were affected.  I think the bigger issue with career being affected comes from girl groups.  Whenever a group composed of females has multiple individuals who can sing, they tend to be immediately labeled as a girl group.  I think the perfect example of this is Haim; in my opinion, they are obviously a pop rock or rock group, but early in their career they were consistently asked about being a girl group.  While promoting and touring their debut album, they were saddled with explaining that they were not actually a girl group but rather a rock band composed of females.  While their career has turned out fine since, this trend will not end anytime soon due to the lack of rock bands consisting of multiple females who can harmonize.

There has been a stigma that has surrounded boy bands and girl bands that they are not talented and are just there for commercial sake.  While this might have been the sole purpose of a group like Milli Vanilli (even though the members could actually sing when they weren’t forced to pretend), historically the members of boy bands and girl groups are typically able to sing and harmonize (in addition to the dancing that many have had to do historically).  There is still a sizeable sect that criticizes them for having a lack of musical ability since they do not play instruments or write their own songs.  If we were to apply this stigma to these groups, we should also apply them to most modern pop artists; many modern pop artists do not write their own music either, yet often avoid this same stigma.  Even when pop artists are listed as co-songwriters among with several others, the artist often didn’t participate in a substantial chunk of the writing (I’ve heard that there are some artists who are included as songwriters for their songs because they changed a few words).  While some complain that boy bands and girl groups don’t write their own music, there are some that take a substantial part in writing; for example, members of One Direction played a larger part in the writing process by their later releases (the Payne/Tomlinson duo especially took off in that time).  On top of that, there are also groups where the members are also able to play instruments; in particular, Niall Horan of One Direction can play guitar and the members of The Monkees learned to play the instruments they were portrayed to play.  This is more than many pop artists are able to say, helping show the stigma against boy bands and girl groups shouldn’t be applied to them if not applied to most pop artists as well.

 

Despite being the name that garnered the least attention in their class, Cheap Trick has a case to be considered the most influential group of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 2016.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 2016 included Cheap Trick, Chicago, Deep Purple, N.W.A., and Steve Miller; in my opinion, this class is one of the stronger recent classes.  Upon first glimpse, Cheap Trick might look like the weakest link, especially considering the popularity of the other four.  However, I am just looking at influence in this case.  I would say Cheap Trick was easily more influential than Miller, especially considering he was inducted as a solo artist instead of with Steve Miller Band.  While Chicago had a string of hits, I don’t regard them as highly as the other artists in this class from an influential standpoint.  The remaining artists (Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, and N.W.A.) each hold a strong case for them and a case against them.  The case for Deep Purple being the most influential group in this class is their massive influence on hard rock (considered among the big three for originating the genre with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath), metal, and, to a certain extent, progressive metal.  However, they didn’t have the same crossover success as other influential artists and there are many that would argue their greatest influence comes from one guitar riff.  N.W.A. were considered the forefathers of gangsta rap and were influential in their beats as well as their lyrics.  However, they generated much controversy for their career, didn’t have mainstream success during their career, and the presence of hip hop in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has not gone without its detractors. 

With Cheap Trick, many people don’t really take them seriously for a variety of reasons, whether people focus on their 80’s music which wasn’t particularly influential, a perceived lack of influence on any genre, or just because it’s convenient to not take their legacy seriously.  However, while they were not among the first power pop bands, there is the argument that they were the greatest as their commercial prime in the genre intersected with the commercial peak of the genre.  The reason this is so important is because this genre was so influential on alternative music.  While early alternative groups such as R.E.M. and the Replacements weren’t necessarily as influential as power pop, several non-grunge alternative and pop punk artists of the 90’s (when alternative hit its commercial prime) were heavily influenced by the genre.  Green Day, Weezer, Third Eye Blind, the Posies, Matthew Sweet, and Jellyfish are a few of the bands that have been cited as being influenced by Cheap Trick in some way.  While I think Deep Purple and N.W.A. have a strong case to be made for most influential band in that class, I argue that Cheap Trick is right there with them due to their influence on alternative, power pop, and pop punk.

 

Had the internet been invented around 10-20 years earlier, Bon Jovi would be regarded in the same realms as Nickelback.

I have mentioned on a couple occasions that I’m not a big fan of Bon Jovi on my podcast, Groupie and Harmony, because I consider most of their music to sound the same and I don’t typically look for that when I’m interested in listening to some music.  That said, I do have respect for them due to their continued success; while many artists originating in the same era with stylistic origins in some blend of arena rock/hard rock/hair metal (while often attempting a similar formula), very few were able to accomplish the continued success that Bon Jovi has.  That said, I think if the internet had been bigger as Bon Jovi was at their popularity prime, they would not be held in such high regard.  As I implied in the opinion I listed above, I think that there are several bands that I would allude to in my opinion, but the easiest example to go with is Nickelback.  Nickelback had continued success throughout the 2000’s by effectively realizing their post-grunge sound that worked with their audiences and capitalizing on that to make most of their songs use a similar sound.  To their credit, several post-grunge bands in the same era as the group tried similar strategies, but Nickelback was consistently the most successful of the bunch.  They still have a solid fanbase and could certainly be a bigger group at hard rock festivals, but they also have a high number of detractors and have been a laughingstock online for several years.  I think reutilizing a similar sound played a major part in that and I think Bon Jovi would have had a similar fate if the internet had been around earlier.  One big argument against this viewpoint is to point out the differences in styles, as post-grunge has been consistently panned by critics outside of a few groups.  However, the other artists from the same time period in similar genres (especially hair metal) haven’t always held up regarding critical acclaim, so I wonder if this would be a similar result had the internet been more prevalent during its prime.

 

Sublime did not make one of the two greatest ska punk albums.

I will start this with a disclaimer:  I am not a huge fan of ska punk by any means.  In fact, I often joke that if I wanted the easiest job in the world, I would become the rhythm guitarist of a ska punk band because all the riffs are so similar (or identical).  However, I do enjoy two ska punk bands in particular:  No Doubt and Sublime.  It feels easy to consider Sublime one of the (if not the) greatest ska punk band of all time and to consider their eponymous final album to be near the top as well.  While I wouldn’t necessarily argue against Sublime being the greatest band in the genre due to what they were able to do in the genre, I would strongly argue there are two ska punk albums that are greater than Sublime.  I feel inclined to consider …And Out Came the Wolves by Rancid the greatest and Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt the second greatest.  I think that Rancid’s album is a masterpiece that is truly able to blend traditional punk and ska punk like very few artists could, creating a well written and often catchy album.  I think No Doubt’s album masterfully blended ska punk and pop while also incorporating other genres such as new wave, which is something that a lot of artists in the genre don’t necessarily dare to.  After that, I would say that there is a strong case for Energy by Operation Ivy due to how influential it was on the genre, but that is not guaranteed.  Even if I rank Sublime number four, I still consider …And Out Came the Wolves, Tragic Kingdom, Energy, Sublime, and Sublime’s 40oz. to Freedom a strong top five for any genre.

 

Metallica is not one of the two greatest metal groups of all time.

This might come as a shock upon first glimpse, but I do have some reasons that led me to reach this conclusion.  One topic I have been working on sporadically for the blog and for my podcast, Groupie and Harmony, is a list of greatest metal bands of all time.  While there are several surprises on that list, I thought this would be the most shocking.  The most important thing to me with ranking the greatest is the level of influence; I focus on this more than commercial success, which I have found many consider more.  As such, I thought Black Sabbath was the obvious choice for number one because I’m not sure metal would exist as we know it without them.  When ranking for the influence for a particular genre’s list, I focus almost exclusively on their influence in the genre and not as much on their influence outside of the genre; in this case, I did not highly consider influence on hard rock and focused solely on metal.  Thus, I deemed Iron Maiden’s influence on metal greater than Metallica’s; had Metallica not strayed more into hard rock in the 90’s, they probably would be number two on my list.  However, if I were considering hard rock and metal, Metallica would be ahead of Iron Maiden.

 

There will be a U.S. music festival by March 2021.

I saved this one for last for two reasons:  I expect it will strike a nerve with many people and I am less sure about this one.  This opinion is largely based on the fact that there is a festival that almost occurred in March last year in a state that has been lax with Covid-19:  Ultra Music Festival in Miami, FL.  Last year, Ultra appeared resistant to cancel the festival until Miami’s mayor stepped in and forced them to when they did not have an adequate plan to combat Covid-19.  The reasons I think they might hold the festival is because Florida’s governor has stated that he wanted to have the Miami Dolphin’s stadiums filled for games and Ultra probably will not want to have to cancel again.  The reasons that I am resistant are because the mayor expressed concern as recently as a couple weeks ago regarding a spike in cases, there will be difficulties bringing in international artists, and Joe Biden was elected president, which probably will result in stricter regulations.  While they could also try a smaller festival, many big-name electronic artists are European, so it would probably be beneficial to try to get at least one.  If they can get multiple European artists and can get the approval from the governor, they might be able to hold this festival at near normal capacity.

What do you think of these opinions?  Do you have any unpopular music opinions?  Please share them in the comments!