Your Most Hated Music,.or music that grates or you simply just can't stand

  • How could I have forgotten to Angels by Robbie Williams on my list. Should been number 1 . I heard it again the other day.. Can't stand anything by him but that one drives me mad. Designed to to be sung by drunken people too loudly out of tune waving arms around at the end of every wedding. I have similar feelings toward s Don't Look Back In Anger , Oasis , although really like almost everything they did.

  • While there is music I dislike or don't care for, I can't say I hate much. There are narrow subgenres where I have yet to find something to like. But I find I cannot dismiss broader genres (e.g., country, hip hop) because there is so much diversity and I always find some artists and songs that I really like.


    Many of the comments above mention songs that get overplayed. I too can get tired of some songs that I have heard a 1000 times or more, but it has never resulted in strong dislike, just a waning of enthusiasm. I know every single note of songs like Sweet Home Alabama, Stairway to Heaven, Hotel California, etc., but don't think less of them as songs. I can just listen to them less, to keep them fresher for me.


    Some people really don't like ABBA and I echo the comment above about the hidden complexity of these songs. As much as people might perceive a super slick, sugary pop veneer, the music is quite skillful. Dancing Queen has some great harmony structures over the chord progression that are not the "obvious" notes and the bassline is pretty challenging.


    If I were to pick a song I find particularly grating, it is Bryan Adams's Summer of '69. I find every single line so incredibly trite. In fact, it is hard to find a line that isn't a cliche.

  • Bit controversial this but I have always hated Brian May's guitar tone. May always plays the same screechy tone so I have steered well away from Queen as a result. I understand the brilliance of some of Queen's records in some people's eyes so I don't admit this in public very much.

    If Oasis and Queen had a supergroup together I would have to leave the country.

  • Bit controversial this but I have always hated Brian May's guitar tone. May always plays the same screechy tone so I have steered well away from Queen as a result. I understand the brilliance of some of Queen's records in some people's eyes so I don't admit this in public very much.

    If Oasis and Queen had a supergroup together I would have to leave the country.

    I know what you mean, the same happens to me with Steve Howe, while I rate him very high as a guitarist, I just don't like his tone and sound and the fact he plays too much sometimes.

  • I don't particularly like ABBA, but I certainly don't hate them. IMO they got better as the years passed, culminating in one of the finest pop songs ever: The Day Before You Came. The arrangement is sublime, the choir effects haunting, and the lyrics, written in English, a second language for them, tell us everything about the protagonists future by telling of her past. It's a masterclass of intelligent, emotional pop, and sung perfectly by one of the finest female vocalists.


    It's true that Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston have no concept of less-is-more, (I always say Mariah will never use 2 notes when 10000 will do!), and they would have killed this song stone dead. Celine Dion, however, is not so guilty. She may have moved into this area more recently, but take a listen to the albums The Colour of my Love, and Falling Into You, and you'll find some excellent songs done superbly. Think Twice, from the first album, was a great song, and Call the Man (Same writers as Think Twice: Andy Hill, Peter Sinfield of King Crimson fame) and Fly are great performances of great songs.

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • I do admire creative people , what would we do without them , so even I have to admire even those that produce music that grates on me . The point that many people make about overplayed stuff is true , it s the music to that you just cant get away from that becomes the most irratating . I'm not asking about anything objective here . There is stuff that drives me mad and I still can't help being convinced that Abba were formed deliberately just to upset me. They have not once denied it.

    A great deal of country music bugs me partly for the surgery sweet sentimentality of it all and the regular references to how we should live . Men should be men ,rough tough free willed while women should be women dutifully obedient , the three songs I picked at the top of the thread show the worst of this.

  • I hate bands who use satanic growling; Death Metal in general. Immediate turnoff. I also hate front men who think they are the element missing in every teenage girl's life. Cant stand Justin Bieber, all Rap and Hip-hop, Mariah Carey, Dave Matthews, Yoko Ono, Katy Perry, Gwen Stefani, Pat Monahan, John Mayer, and so many more.

  • I hate rap, metal, hard rock. i was also not so fan of hip-hop.


    Unlike many peoples, Céline Dion was my favorite singer, i saw him in concert in 2009, one of my best memories, she was a great person and her voice was in great condition. She recording french albums since 1981 and she learn english in the late of 80's (before the first english album, Unison) to prepare her international career. She have many incredible albums in her career in english or french, included D'eux, a masterpiece this album. My favorites of her was Celine Dion, D'elles, The Colour of My Love, Falling Into You, D'eux, S'il suffisait d'aimer, A New Day Has come and Courage. Her last album Courage was incredible, she lived a very personal album, about her feeling of the last years. The authors of the songs capted her feeling of the last years since the died of her husband René. The only album of him then i not like at all was One Heart, a deception this album.

  • Regarding Whitney, Mariah, and Celine, all have great pipes and there are a number of examples where they didn't let their melisma run wild. For example, Whitney's early singles such as Saving All My Love For You and How Will I Know are darn good pop without the excess that ruins many of her other songs.


    Although definitely some country music reinforces gender stereotypes, there is plenty of great intelligent songwriting that provides a portrait of (primarily white) American culture over the last 100 years. For every "Stand By Your Man", there's many Loretta Lynn songs or many Dolly Parton songs (I disagree a bit with thefarmer's take on Jolene) that define very different positions and perspectives.


    And yes, now that I am reminded, I have great difficulty listening to anything by Yoko Ono.

  • For examples of good Country, try Nanci Griffith before she lost her way, which Hearts in Mind very much exposes. Lone Star State of Mind and Little Love Affairs are good examples, and the next 2, Storms and Late Night Grand Hotel, though veering into pop are also very, very good!

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • For examples of good Country, try Nanci Griffith before she lost her way, which Hearts in Mind very much exposes. Lone Star State of Mind and Little Love Affairs are good examples, and the next 2, Storms and Late Night Grand Hotel, though veering into pop are also very, very good!

    I agree Nanci Griffith has some incredible songs, I think albums such as Storms and Late Night Grand Hotel contain some very good song writing, but suffer from some serious over production.

  • I too can't say I hate much stuff so the 'grating' aspect is probably more apt. When I really dislike something it's usually more that I find it really dull and boring and it holds no interest for me. There have been too many grating songs for me to remember them, especially recently with countless tracks by people singing miserably and self-pityingly apparently through their noses.


    Sometimes it's grating when there's some repetitive thing in it, like that very high violin phrase in Toxic by Britney Spears. It's like someone came up with that and they thought, that's good let's put it ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE F***ING SONG COS IT WON'T ANNOY ANYONE. Ditto that late 80s/early 90s dance track thing with seemingly the exact same voices going 'woo' 'yeah' all the way though. There's a Jennifer Lopez one with a saxophone phrase midway through that's repeated what feels like 549 times and which makes me want to smash the radio to the floor and stamp on its remains.


    Some here are mentioning genres they dislike. While I am open to anything, there are some types of music that always leave me cold and yes, a lot of c&w and country rock does so, but there are occasional songs that are ok. Various rap genres tend to make me feel like I'm being cornered and finger-jabbingly shoutingly hectored. It's frustrating as many rap songs start off with very promising backbeats and rhythm tracks and my interest is piqued but then this yabbering voice kicks in and it all sours. I agree about the guttural death metal shite, which seems to have absolutely no variation to it - unless of course I'm missing the subtle nuances of it amid all the growling about satan and various categories of pain and mayhem etc. I think we are all pretty well unanimous about the multi-syllabled melismatic R&B wailing of certain artists, count me in.


    A lot of current prog is utterly tedious, sounding like they dug stuff out from the bottom of Genesis's dustbin, made it go fast and slow a lot, followed the quiet middle bit with a widdly keyboard solo, slapped thick layers of mellotron choir all over it and topped it off with badly impassioned vocals singing cringe-inducingly crap lyrics about space and time. Predictable unimaginative derivative junk-by-numbers.

    M people have always grated on me in a particularly severe way.

    The singer sounds too much like Fozzie Bear and I can't bear those cynical "empowerment" songs they're known for. It's as though having had irritating success with that "search for the hero inside yourself" one they thought, hmmm we'd better do sort of another one of those, kind of thing, like. So they did that godawful "what have you done today to make yourself proud". Well they can just mind their own business and piss off.


    I used to hate Whitney Houston but I heard 'I have nothing' and now I really respect her. She really sings that one so well.


    Bit controversial this but I have always hated Brian May's guitar tone. May always plays the same screechy tone so I have steered well away from Queen as a result. I understand the brilliance of some of Queen's records in some people's eyes so I don't admit this in public very much.

    WH irritated me (that quivering mouth - grrrr) but I really liked It's Not Right which had a great rhythm track. I agree about May's guitar, it sounds horrible. It being home-made is no excuse - make one that sounds much better, Dr May. Queen did some good stuff, there's some great rock music on Sheer Heart Attack but they weren't that good. They benefited from having a flamboyant front man who died. A bit like Floyd having a front man who went strange and reclusive, then died. Both bands are okay but overrated and overpraised having gained some weird/dead front-man kudos points. If Gabriel had gone full-on weird reclusive then 'joined the choir invisible' Genesis would be really high up on the coolometer.


    But never waste an opportunity to diss Queen in public. The righteously outraged reactions of their more pompous fans can be absolutely hilarious.

    Abandon all reason

  • Thank you Backdrifter.

    Those Queen thoughts mirror mine.

    Excellent flamboyant singer and terrible songs.

    I have not even heard the first few albums due to the awful School disco 'we are the champions' . Some relative bought me Hot Space on cassette. Just awful.

    Hated everything they did apart from Innuendo which I bought. On cassette again ironically.

    In the last few years I loved Those were the days of your life. But I get to thinking that might have been a Freddie tune, not Brian May.

    Brian May seems like a lovely bloke with a lookalike wife though.

  • I'll keep mine very short, I don't actually hate any music, we all have different tastes and that's how it should be. However, for me personally, can't stand rap, hip-hop, gospel or reggae. Regarding artists, I've always felt the most overrated band ever was U2. Never liked Oasis, Nirvana, REM. Not into boy bands or girl bands, though I can see why they appeal to some people and I do have a grudging respect for Take That, simply because they've stood the test of time and can at least have a laugh over things and not take themselves too seriously.

    Generally though, I can tolerate most things in music and if I don't like it I won't listen to it again! :)