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Originally Posted by djchameleon
I just asked because that's what the OP asks of people. To post reasons for why they hate songs but I guess you didn't read the first post.
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Yes, dj, I was hoping people could put into words what they don't like about a song. I think that sometimes the reasons for distaste are hard to pinpoint because they may have deeper, amorphous emotional causes.
For example, Dayvan posted a Nickleback cover of a song, and when I heard it and the phlegmy, growly way the man sings in a tepid instrumental background, I didn't like his cover either. His singing feels over-emotional to me and I don't like phlegm. But then I think, why do I feel this way? Maybe because for myself I sometimes value being able to control my emotions and show little weakness and so I look down on it when someone else violates the way I feel I 'have' to act. Maybe when I feel I have to be strongest, a 'weak' song irritates me because someone else isn't constrained like I constrain myself. Maybe I'm angry at myself for constraining *my* emotional repertoire.
As for phlegm, I never liked getting spit on, so hearing it in a singer's voice bugs me. Can't he just swallow it down? Can't he just control his own body? Maybe it bugs me that he isn't bothered by what would bother me in myself.
Meanwhile, Whitney Houston's lovey-dovey song may irritate me because her profession of love reminds me of times I felt loving and the relationships tanked, and so I feel the song encourages self-delusion by singing so glowingly of the strength and power of love that 'lasts forever.' But maybe what really bothers me is that when I first heard the song I *did* want an overwhelming, sure love like it describes, and I felt sad that mine didn't work out, and so I felt bitter if other people's love relationships did. Maybe the song makes me envious.
I don't expect people to go THAT deep
but a simple description of why they think they don't like a song would suffice. People's negative reactions to songs so far do make me wonder, though, why they are often so violent...because it is 'just music'...and yet obviously music rouses deeper emotions in us than those I'd expect in a simple critique of aesthetics. Music can get us to the state where we feel like beating something (or someone) up because of a song!! It's interesting to me that our responses to music can be so strong.
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Originally Posted by djchameleon
/yawn
the video was sort of funny but BEP can do no wrong in my eyes. They "lost" their hip hop credibility two albums earlier so I have no idea why he's still bringing that up. They decided to change over to hip-pop when they added Fergie to the group.
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You make a valid point about why the critic's complaint is like chopping up an already chopped salad (as opposed to beating a dead horse). I actually don't mind the song that much...it is what it is, a happy dance song...but hip-pop isn't my thing (usually), for some of the reasons that critic points out.
I think they did wrong when they said over and over "let's do it, let's do it, let's do it do it do it..."
I agree with some of what the critic mocks: floating people in the air in a video doesn't make up for unoriginality and repetitiveness in a song.
Why do the unoriginal and repetitive lyrics bother me? Maybe because I realize the Black Eyed Peas are famous and presumably wealthy for singing songs with lyrics so simple that I could have written them, if I'd wanted to, in just a few minutes. So I feel an indignant '*I*could have done that!' feeling...yet the point is I *didn't* and they *did*...and so I have to face my own fears about whether I fail to take the initiative to use my abilities as thoroughly as I could.
Whatever else they may lack aesthetically, the BEPs have confidence in themselves and they bravely state their Nike triteness of "let's do it, let's do it, let's do it do it do it." I can't help but admire their confidence, energy, and drive as musicians even as I dislike their songs.