Pretty much, yeah. I try to steer clear of anything opinion-oriented because everyone (myself included) has some level of bias behind things. I'd much rather just stay silent haha.
I suppose what your professor meant to say with that is that the reality never is as great as what we can picture in our minds. Maybe you're paraphrasing but the way that is worded makes it sound like his ideas in and of themself are greater than those of the entirety of Hollywood. I'm sure he posed it as a personal opinion however and I generally agree with it. Not all surrealism is based on writing however and I would like surrealism to be impossible to have a narrative counterpart.
It's ironic we started this discussion before the new Twin Peaks episode. I don't know if you've seen it so I won't spoil anything, but I find it hard to believe that anyone could fit most of what happened there into coherent writing. I feel like I'm going on too long about this subject though, I perfectly understand where you are coming from.
I guess the thing with Sonic Youth that kind of rubs me the wrong way a little bit is their forced air of 'cool', if you will. An album like Daydream Nation also isn't as experimental as I want it to be and the noise outbursts kind of clash with the straightforward Alt Rock bits at times, something I didn't feel was the case a few years ago.
I will listen to pretty much everything Mike Patton is involved in but he hasn't been relevant or very entertaining for me for more than a decade now. The idea of Mike Patton doing Hardcore Punk at this stage of his career just spells disaster to me. I listened to the song Grave Slave just now and it really just met all my expectations. I will listen to the album still but I'm expecting to dislike it. I wasn't aware of this at all though so thanks for that.
F'real, you'd think anything hentai would be anti-Trump.
And I wouldn't say "not nearly as good" as Endtroducing. I like Endtroducing, but I don't love it and Psyence Fiction is pretty good. As of now, not as good, but you never know. Wasn't expecting it to be amazing, though.
I think you're kind of twisting the Surrealism debate into a 'which media is better' debate, which is something completely different. I think that with Surrealism its just that different rules apply. Just like you wouldn't criticize Hip Hop for a lack of guitar solo's you are not going to criticize Surrealism for a lack of coherent plot. To me, Surrealism boils down to 'does this manage to make me stop and think in a way that a regular piece of work in its artform couldn't' and 'is this visually stimulating to me. I know that you don't know either of these films but Angel's Egg and Cat Soup are both highly respected Surrealistic Anime movies that get similar ratings on this site and while I love Angel's Egg for its dark apocalyptic vibes I don't take much of anything from Cat Soup, which plays out like a demented children's story.
I don't think I could possibly agree more on what you said about sacred cows, though. I tend to read a lot of criticism on my favorite music and films, while debating counterpoints for myself in my head a lot as to why the critique is wrong in my opinion or doesn't affect my enjoyment of the piece in question. When I tend to be able to prefectly debate that is when I can finally say to myself that I am a proper fan of a piece of work and that my opinion is valid. Maybe this is just a nerdy dumb thing that only I do, but I feel it is important. On a site like RYM it's easy to praise all the highly rated work because no one is going to look at you funny for liking it. It's a great tool to help discover great music, but I feel like it makes us lazy and unopinionated if we just blindly take everything is offers us. So this routine of looking up negative criticism is a way of dueling that.
Regarding "The" Nine Inch Nails in the credits of the recent Twin Peaks episode credits, I hadn't even noticed that myself. It feels to me like whoever wrote the credits is poking fun at the fact that the announcer in the show called them The Nine Inch Nails as well.
I am honestly very surprised that you like 6ix Commandments as much as you do, to me its a far cry from the original Three Six Mafia material. It feels like a bunch of old Hip Hop guys trying to be hip and cool involving themselves in the Hip Hop culture. It wasn't that bad but I had to take a half star off purely for those horrible DJ cuts. There is only so many times that I can listen to that 'Damn Son, Where did you find this' sample and every time I heard it I was taken out of whichever song I was on at that time.
I wasn't really listening to music when Korn was big, but I wonder if they are really as respected as you say they were back in the 90s because I honestly think they got a bad rep from Metal purists from the outset. I am on the complete opposite fence when it comes to the Death Grips thing. If anything I've seen them get more and more respect as the years went by. No one in Hip Hop took them seriously when they first came out but they persevered and have a massive output by now and I see Hip Hop fans that aren't a fan of them at least giving them modest nods. I also don't think we'll ever see Industrial Hip Hop getting as big as Nu Metal and if the massive amount of memes and mashups with Death Grips haven't harmed their reputation enough at this point then I think nothing will.
I was actually just about to message you right before I got your new comment, so I had to edit it a little bit, lol
I will agree with that. Surrealism does lend itself to a lack of films that are being considered abominable because theres always gonna be a select few people who will see something deeper in everything. Granted, I have a limited knowledge when it comes to stuff like Surrealism. The closest thing I can think of as far as Surrealism that is panned goes is Antichrist by Lars Von Trier and even that I don't completely hate and there are plenty people that seem to love that movie. I'm not even sure if you could consider a movie like that Surrealistic but I find the deep meanings so flimsy and weak, not to mention the movie itself so edgy and overwrought that I cannot take it seriously.
"I've always believed the "how does this make me feel" approach is too subjective to be accurate, but then again, everything is subjective in a sense."
It is true that everything is subjective and I feel that people who critique subjectivity too much usually tend to overthink stuff too much. It happens in music a lot too. There was a heated debate all over the internet about David Bowie's Blackstar, whether it was as good as everybody says it is or if people are just overrating it because of Bowie's death. I think that people who debate the latter tend to ironically showcase just as well how affected they are by subjectivity because they tend to make Bowie's death have them judge the album harder.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think when you spend too much actively dissecting something you're not sitting down and letting something come to you as it is. This is why I have to roll my eyes when people try to look for deep intellectual meanings in the works of stuff like Radiohead, Tool and The Mars Volta. All bands that I like, but that all have fanbases who are insufferable at times. I tend to hate people who invoke their feelings into everything as well, especially in the current political climate, but that is because it is often inserted in areas where feelings really don't apply. But isn't the point of art to evoke a feeling? Or at least to entertain? I guess everyone has their own way of enjoying something however and I'm not saying any way is wrong, this is just my take on it.
"I apologize if this sounds like I'm being argumentative for the sake of it. I just thought it would be an interesting topic is all."
Don't be, I love arguments and heated debates like these and I don't mean to attack you in any way here at all. I totally understand your opinions and greatly respect them. I usually tend to agree with you on most topics so it's fun to be on the opposite end for a change.
Also you're right, this did start as a 'which genre is better' debate, but I don't think your Batman analogy is that accurate because with that we are talking about literal adaptations and there is a source material to consider. I don't think I've ever seen an experimental musical adaptation of a Surrealistic movie or vice versa. I think this really boils down to media preference. Also, I know that you too consider The Dark Knight to be a great film. I don't know if you would consider it better than the Batman comics but I'm sure plenty people would. I tend to prefer the Goldeneye video game over the original movie and I also prefer the Clockwork Orange film over the book, so a piece of media can definitely beat its source material if you were to ask me, but granted this is a whole different discussion altogether.
I guess there is no good way of telling how well respected Korn was back in the day because if there was a backlash then it has already kind of drained away that since Korn got big before the popular inception of the internet. Also I don't know if I would trust something like the Los Angeles Times since its a big newspaper company with an agenda, its not a clear image of the general conception of people at the time, though I respect your effort for digging deeper.
Obviously we can't tell right now if Industrial Hip Hop will get bigger but it seems to me like XXXTENTACION will be nothing more but a one day fly in hindsight as he appears to be considered a joke already. Though I suppose we all thought the same of bands like Slipknot back in the day, so again, who knows.
I didn't know there was a version of the 6ix Commandments album that didn't have the DJ cuts but I will definitely look that up now. I hate it when trivial dumb shit like that ruins an album experience for me so I would gladly tackle the version that doesn't have those. I still don't think I would like it as much as the old Three Six Mafia material but I will let you know how it went when I get to it.
I hope you'll get to listening to the Cardiacs one day by the way. I recently upped one of their albums to a 5 star rating and another to a 4.5 rating. I also added Ween's The Mollusk to my 5 stars and I now have Quebec and White Pepper in my 4.5 stars. I feel like my tastes are slowly changing a bit again. I always loved these album but upon attentive relistening I became obsessed with these albums. White Pepper is an album I only very recently first listened to however and I don't get why it gets a significantly lower ratings than albums like Chocolate and Cheese or Quebec. It reminds me of The Beatles and Mr. Bungle's California in the best way possible. It also was a huge influence on Devin Townsend's Terria album apparently and I can totally hear that as well.
Oh wow, I've been a fan of the Stalker album as well as the Tarkovsky film, but I never put one and two together. Upon further reading it seems to be based on the Stalker film rather than being an adaption, but still I'll admit that I was wrong.
I was in a very similar situation with Ween. I had The Mollusk in my 4.5 for quite a while but I never listened to it. Relistening to the album a while back made me obsessed with it and urged me to check and re-evaluate their entire discography. They're kind of a hard act to trudge through since they change their style with every single song they play, but I tend to love acts like that a lot to begin with (Mr. Bungle, Ulver, etc.)
Yes he's pretty great, I just discovered him on YouTube recently and watched quite a few of his videos, definitely one of the smartest and most motivational people around.
It's ironic we started this discussion before the new Twin Peaks episode. I don't know if you've seen it so I won't spoil anything, but I find it hard to believe that anyone could fit most of what happened there into coherent writing. I feel like I'm going on too long about this subject though, I perfectly understand where you are coming from.
I guess the thing with Sonic Youth that kind of rubs me the wrong way a little bit is their forced air of 'cool', if you will. An album like Daydream Nation also isn't as experimental as I want it to be and the noise outbursts kind of clash with the straightforward Alt Rock bits at times, something I didn't feel was the case a few years ago.
I will listen to pretty much everything Mike Patton is involved in but he hasn't been relevant or very entertaining for me for more than a decade now. The idea of Mike Patton doing Hardcore Punk at this stage of his career just spells disaster to me. I listened to the song Grave Slave just now and it really just met all my expectations. I will listen to the album still but I'm expecting to dislike it. I wasn't aware of this at all though so thanks for that.
And I wouldn't say "not nearly as good" as Endtroducing. I like Endtroducing, but I don't love it and Psyence Fiction is pretty good. As of now, not as good, but you never know. Wasn't expecting it to be amazing, though.
I don't think I could possibly agree more on what you said about sacred cows, though. I tend to read a lot of criticism on my favorite music and films, while debating counterpoints for myself in my head a lot as to why the critique is wrong in my opinion or doesn't affect my enjoyment of the piece in question. When I tend to be able to prefectly debate that is when I can finally say to myself that I am a proper fan of a piece of work and that my opinion is valid. Maybe this is just a nerdy dumb thing that only I do, but I feel it is important. On a site like RYM it's easy to praise all the highly rated work because no one is going to look at you funny for liking it. It's a great tool to help discover great music, but I feel like it makes us lazy and unopinionated if we just blindly take everything is offers us. So this routine of looking up negative criticism is a way of dueling that.
Regarding "The" Nine Inch Nails in the credits of the recent Twin Peaks episode credits, I hadn't even noticed that myself. It feels to me like whoever wrote the credits is poking fun at the fact that the announcer in the show called them The Nine Inch Nails as well.
I am honestly very surprised that you like 6ix Commandments as much as you do, to me its a far cry from the original Three Six Mafia material. It feels like a bunch of old Hip Hop guys trying to be hip and cool involving themselves in the Hip Hop culture. It wasn't that bad but I had to take a half star off purely for those horrible DJ cuts. There is only so many times that I can listen to that 'Damn Son, Where did you find this' sample and every time I heard it I was taken out of whichever song I was on at that time.
I wasn't really listening to music when Korn was big, but I wonder if they are really as respected as you say they were back in the 90s because I honestly think they got a bad rep from Metal purists from the outset. I am on the complete opposite fence when it comes to the Death Grips thing. If anything I've seen them get more and more respect as the years went by. No one in Hip Hop took them seriously when they first came out but they persevered and have a massive output by now and I see Hip Hop fans that aren't a fan of them at least giving them modest nods. I also don't think we'll ever see Industrial Hip Hop getting as big as Nu Metal and if the massive amount of memes and mashups with Death Grips haven't harmed their reputation enough at this point then I think nothing will.
I will agree with that. Surrealism does lend itself to a lack of films that are being considered abominable because theres always gonna be a select few people who will see something deeper in everything. Granted, I have a limited knowledge when it comes to stuff like Surrealism. The closest thing I can think of as far as Surrealism that is panned goes is Antichrist by Lars Von Trier and even that I don't completely hate and there are plenty people that seem to love that movie. I'm not even sure if you could consider a movie like that Surrealistic but I find the deep meanings so flimsy and weak, not to mention the movie itself so edgy and overwrought that I cannot take it seriously.
"I've always believed the "how does this make me feel" approach is too subjective to be accurate, but then again, everything is subjective in a sense."
It is true that everything is subjective and I feel that people who critique subjectivity too much usually tend to overthink stuff too much. It happens in music a lot too. There was a heated debate all over the internet about David Bowie's Blackstar, whether it was as good as everybody says it is or if people are just overrating it because of Bowie's death. I think that people who debate the latter tend to ironically showcase just as well how affected they are by subjectivity because they tend to make Bowie's death have them judge the album harder.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think when you spend too much actively dissecting something you're not sitting down and letting something come to you as it is. This is why I have to roll my eyes when people try to look for deep intellectual meanings in the works of stuff like Radiohead, Tool and The Mars Volta. All bands that I like, but that all have fanbases who are insufferable at times. I tend to hate people who invoke their feelings into everything as well, especially in the current political climate, but that is because it is often inserted in areas where feelings really don't apply. But isn't the point of art to evoke a feeling? Or at least to entertain? I guess everyone has their own way of enjoying something however and I'm not saying any way is wrong, this is just my take on it.
"I apologize if this sounds like I'm being argumentative for the sake of it. I just thought it would be an interesting topic is all."
Don't be, I love arguments and heated debates like these and I don't mean to attack you in any way here at all. I totally understand your opinions and greatly respect them. I usually tend to agree with you on most topics so it's fun to be on the opposite end for a change.
Also you're right, this did start as a 'which genre is better' debate, but I don't think your Batman analogy is that accurate because with that we are talking about literal adaptations and there is a source material to consider. I don't think I've ever seen an experimental musical adaptation of a Surrealistic movie or vice versa. I think this really boils down to media preference. Also, I know that you too consider The Dark Knight to be a great film. I don't know if you would consider it better than the Batman comics but I'm sure plenty people would. I tend to prefer the Goldeneye video game over the original movie and I also prefer the Clockwork Orange film over the book, so a piece of media can definitely beat its source material if you were to ask me, but granted this is a whole different discussion altogether.
I guess there is no good way of telling how well respected Korn was back in the day because if there was a backlash then it has already kind of drained away that since Korn got big before the popular inception of the internet. Also I don't know if I would trust something like the Los Angeles Times since its a big newspaper company with an agenda, its not a clear image of the general conception of people at the time, though I respect your effort for digging deeper.
Obviously we can't tell right now if Industrial Hip Hop will get bigger but it seems to me like XXXTENTACION will be nothing more but a one day fly in hindsight as he appears to be considered a joke already. Though I suppose we all thought the same of bands like Slipknot back in the day, so again, who knows.
I didn't know there was a version of the 6ix Commandments album that didn't have the DJ cuts but I will definitely look that up now. I hate it when trivial dumb shit like that ruins an album experience for me so I would gladly tackle the version that doesn't have those. I still don't think I would like it as much as the old Three Six Mafia material but I will let you know how it went when I get to it.
I hope you'll get to listening to the Cardiacs one day by the way. I recently upped one of their albums to a 5 star rating and another to a 4.5 rating. I also added Ween's The Mollusk to my 5 stars and I now have Quebec and White Pepper in my 4.5 stars. I feel like my tastes are slowly changing a bit again. I always loved these album but upon attentive relistening I became obsessed with these albums. White Pepper is an album I only very recently first listened to however and I don't get why it gets a significantly lower ratings than albums like Chocolate and Cheese or Quebec. It reminds me of The Beatles and Mr. Bungle's California in the best way possible. It also was a huge influence on Devin Townsend's Terria album apparently and I can totally hear that as well.
I was in a very similar situation with Ween. I had The Mollusk in my 4.5 for quite a while but I never listened to it. Relistening to the album a while back made me obsessed with it and urged me to check and re-evaluate their entire discography. They're kind of a hard act to trudge through since they change their style with every single song they play, but I tend to love acts like that a lot to begin with (Mr. Bungle, Ulver, etc.)