😡😤 LET’S ARGUE! 😤😡 (JANUARY 2025 Thread)

might not be a hot take but i was slightly disappointed with jpegmafia's initial release of ILDMLFY but the recent directors cut feels like a complete project and feels like a legitimate follow-up to LP! now. im typically not a huge fan of deluxe editions but i like the way jpegmafia does them with better versions of songs, completing unfinished things and "dlc packs" (that's adorable).

jimmy buzz

I'm pretty sick of constant GOAT lists in media and music magazines. Something that once had a certain amount of novelty and thrill has become a never-ending headache of re-ordering the same 50 or 100 albums songs and artists. Time to put the whole mess to bed for a decade or so and maybe list up more healthy and purposefully ephemeral options like favorite flowers, cloud shapes, sunsets, rainbows, rainstorms, idk, leave music alone for awhile and let it breathe

Flange Guitar

I know everyone's mad about it but Drake's lawsuit against UMG is the most interesting and controversial material he's put out in years. All he needs to do is get 40 to put a beat under it and rap the briefs.

Flange Guitar

It’s time everyone admits Kanye West has always been trash. In the beginning he was “so innovative” because he made soul samples sound like chipmunks? And had lyrics a little more social/vulnerable but nothing new or groundbreaking. Then he used auto tune. Wow. And Yeezes, imo, should easily be top 5 worst rap albums of all time yet it gets ridiculous praise. There isn’t a single bar on Yeezus that isn’t cringe/ick (“oohhh but that’s the point 😮”) - get out of here with BS the bars are terrible and production is rip off of Run the Jewls. Life of Pablo was fine lol everything else basically garbage. It is truly shocking he still has so much influence, such a large audience, and even creators I respect like Skye still obsessing over him

ripplingSun

You should do a re review of This is Happening.

Skullring27

Oh I'm sorry.

Herbieguy98

yeah sorry i'll be posting the episode over the weekend and making a new thread. past few weeks have been awful

The Needle Drop

Are you alright? Seems like you disappeared.

Herbieguy98

Man I want to party! Which Microphones album should I listen to: Don't Wake Me Up or We Stayed in the Water? 🤔

Flange Guitar

logic is overhated bc he is “corny”

jon

Real take (not to be confused with a fake take): Guns N' Roses have NOT aged well. They're a barely more aggressive cock rock hair metal band with some of the most weirdly insecure lyrics imaginable sung in a voice that's so shrill it would embarrass Fran Drescher. If any band has a "punchable face" musically, it's these guys. And they're a one-album wonder so how are they even in the Hall of Fame in the first place? It's weird. PS - Appetite for Destruction is a 7. At best. Eat it, Pitchfork.

Machine Gun Philly

Secret Life of Plants and Hotter Than July should be considered part of Stevie's classic period - SLoP needs its flowers as one of THE pioneering "left-turns" in an artist's discography, and HTJ is front-to-back jams like only Stevie could make em.

Alex Sim

For all the hate they get, a lot of the songs from John and Yoko's experimental album run in the late 60s (Two Virgins, Life With The Lions, Wedding Album, Fly, etc) are very user-friendly. There's lots of interesting ideas, risks being taken, and when they're inspired they can be devastatingly personal like on No Bed For Beatle John, or Baby's Heartbeat followed by Two Minutes Of Silence. Their stuff is all pretty heartwarming and also funny too.

Flange Guitar

What’s your opinion on intentionally censored lyrics? There were a couple on Wacced Out Murals, and acts like Brockhampton use them quite often. Do you feel like there is artistic merit to omission? Or is just mysterious fan service a la Taylor Swift mentioning a vague date in her lyrics to get fans going nuts about what it could mean…?

Tuck

ok maybe not the hottest take in the world, but IMHO the fact that the Vultures albums have (so far) managed to succeed on the charts and attract myriad cosigns from mainstream and underground rappers alike even as the project's mastermind Ye has emphatically declared himself to be a fucking Nazi is deeply troubling to me...

Swaggurai

WE NEED TO STOP LETTING ARTISTS GET AWAY WITH CALLING THEIR FEATURE-LENGTH MUSICAL ODYSSEYS "EPs"

Isabelle

You totally missed the point of the Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown. It’s based off a book, and leans into the personification of Bob Dylan rather than being 100% historical. I also don’t buy it as being that unflattering either. Sure he’s presented as antisocial and perhaps aloof, but that’s a persona/put-on that he himself manufactured. The Bob Dylan that the people know is not the man, but the character(s) he embodied, and Dylan himself cosigned the film, so clearly he doesn’t think it makes him look too bad. Furthermore, in my opinion, Walk the Line is considerably more paint-by-numbers in its approach, so much so that Walk Hard: A Dewey Cox Story immediately followed it up, and took the piss out of the whole thing

Reid Sweatt

I don't know why, but part of me feels that the new Weeknd album is not going to do quite good. Either commercially or critically depends on what fate chooses, but something about this entire era just feels so... off. Like, I think the biggest red alarm is that in a recent interview, Abel recently backtracked his definitive choice on retirement of the moniker, now saying that it may or may not happen. Not to mention the forthcoming movie out in May that has understandable doubts due to how The Idol panned out, and yeah, this next era may feel like a whimper. Maybe this will blow up on me if Hurry Up Tomorrow ends up doing well, but right now, the hype doesn't feel good at all.

ToadMan101

When judging the merit of lyrics - and other aspects of music - it is not possible to be objective, as it's impossible to draw the line between one's personal moral and aesthetic values, the influences of the current zeitgeist, and any "absolute" good that could be posed. The whole value of art is that there's no correct or incorrect; it's how winningly someone presents their view of the world. TLDR; critique and judgement are valid but should always be acknowledged as personally and socio-temporo-culturally relative.

Jac

El-P: hard agree Eminem: Pushing water uphill here

Jac

Not an argument but if you could interview any artist during their prime who would it be?

Benjamin Lisboa

“Mediocre” is a cooler descriptor than “mid” and we should collectively remove “mid” from our lingo

Drake Parker

Melon, you avoided it all of 2024, but it's time you give the people your take on ROQ. I'm talking about the "Royel Otis Question" of course. Over the past 2 years, they've been blowing up in popularity, selling out both the U.S. & European dates of their tour this year. Their debut album "Pratts & Payne" at minimum deserved an honorable mention, if not surely worth being ranked in the Top 50 best albums this year. One might even argue they are one of the most popular emerging indie acts out right now. And yet, from what I've seen in your content, you've not even spoken their name let alone reviewed the album or even one track. I get that you probably get overwhelmed with the amount of music you have to review, but I just can't believe you would overlook them entirely, even if you thought they were mid. So what's the deal? Royel Otis: Dope, Mid, or Trash? We need answers! You can't avoid it forever! Peace.

Chazz Darby AKA Martine Garbagio

The other week I was trying to explain post-punk to my wife and I could not do it without branching off into 5 different tangents about the multiple genre fusions and evolution of the entire punk genre. I was curious how you would explain post-punk to someone who is unfamiliar with the genre or punk music as a whole. Especially with so many modern bands blending elements of jazz and dance music into it as well.

Josh Brown

Melon have you seen the clip of thom yorke walking off stage? I’ve seen a video of you discussing if Radiohead should perform in Israel and I pretty much agree with you. Recently the band’s social media is packed with comments asking them to talk about Gaza. I’m just wondering your thoughts now . And why does it matter so much to people? Cause Radiohead has been a band who frequently talk about politics?

Htkkk

while The Blood Brothers are recognised within their small scene, they deserve to be ranked amongst the all-time punk/hardcore greats.

Daniel Segal

Despite being in a video that probably flew under the radar for most, your take on The Japanese House’s In the End It Always Does is horrendous

nieves 🌙

Green Day’s “father of all” is not as bad as people make it out to be.

Zach S

Congratulations! You were just hired to curate a new radio station for the upcoming GTA game! It can be up to 20 songs and any theme or genre of your choosing. What theme do you go for? What songs do you pick? Overall, what's the station going to look (or sound) like?

Herbieguy98

ajsfdlksakjfl

The idea that hip-hop is in some great renaissance right now is largely being over exaggerated. Wow, there was a big beef between 2 top rappers. That produced 2 good songs at best. It did get tons of YouTubers money/recognition which is fine. Feels like now there’s way more discourse about hip-hop than any real, actual good music coming out. The hip hop landscape is still mostly trash imo with gnx, Chromakopia and Thief Next to Jesus being the only listenable hip hop albums of 2024.

ripplingSun

Camila Cabello’s album C, XOXO should have been number 1 on everyone’s worst albums of 2024 lists. It does not get enough credit for how bad it is. The album is Camila just trying to copy Charli xcx and Lana Del Rey but doing it poorly. Plus TWO Drake features that were immediately after losing the beef to Kendrick. The entire album was an absolute disaster.

Mist

Just listened to Afternoon of the Faun. And I’ve come to the conclusion that we need more music inspired by weird folklore!

Jill Johnson

The production on gnx is MID compared to kendricks standard The late 80s/early 90s inspired production on 'wacced out' and 'squabble up' sound hollow and flat compared to the rich, layered, 70s inspired instrumentals of tpab or late 60 influenced stuff on gkmc. the sampling on the project is lackluster, nearly copy-pasting entire beats on 'reincarnated' and 'heart pt 6' and lacking the transformative sample flips of cuts like 'duckworth' or 'sing about me' one of the only full, vibrant sounding beats on the album, 'gloria', re-uses the chord progression from a better song on his last album, 'father time' While 'tv off' sounds like an attempt to recapture the magic of 'not like us' It seems like people are just glazing the album because of the amazing run dots been on this year but it has none of the musciality and artistry we should expect from him

seranas_choker

Rage take: The Battle of Los Angeles is a pretty mediocre, disappointing album. Zach is clearly out of love with the project and mailing in his worst lyrics up to that point, and a lot Tom’s work, like the dishwasher guitar solo on “Testify” or the ungodly kazoo in “Guerrilla Radio,” is baffling and points towards his almost meme-level guitar work on crap like Prophets of Rage. It feels like the album was released RIGHT before they started to actively suck.

Machine Gun Philly

The early Japanese jazz fusion and city pop from the 70s and 80s that influenced various Nintendo soundtracks has a wealth of great bands - Casiopea, T-Square, etc - just begging to be rediscovered and turned viral in the internet era

bressig

Post rock bands are DOOMED TO FAIL Looking at the histories of bands like BC,NR, Sprain, Slint, Talk Talk, Swans, Sigur Ros, and Godspeed, they either had creative conflicts, band members leaving, band dissolution/hiatus, or them running out of ideas artistically. While there have been bands that have somehow outlasted the commercial peak in the 90s/2000s (Swans, Godspeed, BC,NR), most of the bands from that era are either done or don’t even make post rock anymore And newer bands aren’t making as big of an impact because they can’t even make it past 2 albums without switching their sound or breaking up This isn’t to dismiss any of these newer bands, but I worry for any newer and relevant post rock band in the 2020s not lasting past 4-5 years

Kyle Cahill

Spoon is the most consistent rock band ever. 🚬

Jim 🤘

Gaming

Justin