Generally though, I can tolerate most things in music and if I don't like it I won't listen to it again!
I think that s the point .Fact is that a lot of stuff is very difficult to avoid so it's very reason that certain music drives us / me to the edge of insanity. I must have heard everything on my list a hundred times. Or at least it feels like it.
Display MoreI 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.
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.
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.
I think o agree with almost everything you say apart the Floyd and Queen stuff. I don't like an awful lot Queen stuff and WATC has to be added to my list. I don't think the front men dying has a lot to with their cred though in Queens case we will never know how cool or uncool they might have ended up .
The Gabriel comment is interesting , and probably true. Though at the same time if he had died and not left the post Gabriel era may have collapsed in an even bigger "you're so uncool " anti Collins Tsnami. The death metal stuff doesn't bother me . See below
1/ "...... Toxic by Britney Spears...…"
unanimous about the multi-syllabled melismatic R&B wailing of certain artists, count me in.
2. 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.
1/ Little known factoid about "Toxic" - It was allegedly inspired by Noel Fitzpatrick, the supervet. He also has a short acting career few knew about.
2/ I was a very early Queen fan, as I've mentioned elsewhere. Queen 2 is, to me, their best work, followed by the debut album, which isn't quite as consistent, though it doesn't sag at the end like Q2, where "Funny How Love Is" and "7 Seas of Rhye" let it down. SHA does have some very good songs on it, but also more than 1 or 2 that fall flat. the decline continued with the next 2, ironically the big sellers, but it was after that when they really lost it, presumably knee-jerk reacting to punk. Not sure why they felt the need to follow a trend, but they weren't alone in that. Rock bottom moments were Hot Space as mentioned elsewhere, simply dire, and Freddie's solo stuff. Happily, they got back on track with "The Works" which is a reference to going back to what they do disregarding fashion, though for me they never hit the heights of Q2 again. As for Brian's guitar, don't see the issue, it's likely as much down to effects pedals etc. as to the tone of the guitar itself. Take a listen to "Some Day, One Day" off Q2, the closing section is a superb guitar fest. My personal favourite Queen track.
As I've also said before, Queen are one of those bands whose sum is greater than the parts. Freddie was awful solo, Brian's prone to heavy metal excess, which he's not good at, and which is reigned in by the others, although Roger's albums are pretty good, esp. "Happiness?" from 1994, which is better than most Queen albums.
At this point I may as well mention another grating musical thing: Singers who can only sing by virtue of being able to hit the notes correctly (and we have to assume auto-tune isn't the reason!) but who actually have unpleasant voices. 2 examples: Rhianna, that bloody awful "Shine bright like a diamond" for example, listen to the backing vox in the chorus singing the title, could she sound anymore annoying. I pacify myself by imagining she is singing "Shite Brine Like A Diamond" Another is that "Darling Hold My Hand" song, not sure of the actual title, but we in the UK had to endure it during several TV adverts, most notably for holidays, at least Coronavirus (or "Coronafeirus" as the Welsh say) put paid to that. I think it's Jess Glynne. I'm sure she's a lovely person, but please, stop "singing"!!!
Probably Neil Young. And Status Quo...
I guess I'm not in the minority when I say I can't bear today's so-called "popular" music for too long. Interestingly, here's a video a friend of mine passed me which actually gives a valid proof why today's charts pop songs got so boring and so samey. You think that ubiquitous four chords pattern was the death of creativity? Hell no, pop music can do much worse, meanwhile it's all about one note.
Madonna, of course, I can't believe I forgot her, she's just a talentless, although hard-working opportunist and a poor excuse for an artist. There's very few I'm willing to put up with when coming from her. Ironically, the only song a girl ever dedicated to me, well over 30 years ago, was a Madonna's one.....Tragic....
The death metal stuff doesn't bother me
To some extent I agree it's so comically bad it's funny. An extension of that is the presence on Twitter of some of its fans who adopt ludicrously would-be macho names like WOLFSTEEL or IRON DRAGON or TITANIUM BEAST or OSMIUM MINOTAUR etc. Sadly they too often have very dodgy views, which isn't so funny.
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!
Completey agree about U2.
I love Queen but I'n not here to defend them.
Just watching Annie Lennox now on BBC live . TEDIOUS.
She irritates the hell out of me. And her voice is so cold and clinical.
She irritates the hell out of me. And her voice is so cold and clinical.
Me too, and she ruins existing songs. Whiter Shade of Pale, No More I Love You's (Cover of a song by unknown band The Lover Speaks) while thinking she's "an ARTIST"!
Agree U2 are overrated, early stuff was good, then they wandered off-piste.
Taylor Swift's name came up, I quite like her, she has done some very good songs (liked the last one, I'm the Man), yes some of her stuff is not that good, but given the standards of today, she's doing OK.
Agree U2 are overrated, early stuff was good, then they wandered off-piste.
i find them incredibly bland. Not Michael bolton bland, but almost.
Me too, and she ruins existing songs. Whiter Shade of Pale, No More I Love You's (Cover of a song by unknown band The Lover Speaks) while thinking she's "an ARTIST"!
Agree U2 are overrated, early stuff was good, then they wandered off-piste.
Taylor Swift's name came up, I quite like her, she has done some very good songs (liked the last one, I'm the Man), yes some of her stuff is not that good, but given the standards of today, she's doing OK.
Lennox also drained the life from Blue Nile's darkly beautiful The Downtown Lights, one of my favourite ever songs. For that crime alone she's forever condemned in my mind. Yes, people seem to default to her version of No More while the original is all but forgotten.
I'm the opposite with U2. I only started to like them from Achtung onwards and was blown away by their Zoo TV show which for me completely redefined stadium shows. I still love the mid 90s stuff and have recently enjoyed listening again to the Passengers album, I liked and admired a major high-profile band going so far off their own beaten track. However, if the new direction doesn't appeal then fair enough. Sadly they soon returned to more familiar and less inventive territory though still did some good stuff. They got a bit more adventurous again with No Line which I still like a lot so I obviously prefer them going off-piste.
I agree some of Swift's stuff isn't bad and even when it is there's still her beautiful legs to admire.
I will add just a couple more things to this discussion. Regarding all the comments about Queen. I was a fan from when they released Seven Seas Of Rhye, which I bought. Thought their first four albums were exellent, with some interesting and, at times, funny lyrics and I personally always like Brian May's guitar tone. Thought their fifth and sixth albums were good too, but from their seventh, Jazz, I felt they went downhill rapidly. Apart from those first six albums, the only other album by them that I really like is Innuendo. Got to say though, although Freddie was a good frontman, I would much rather have Plant or Gillan as front men.
Regarding overplayed songs, I too am totally sick of hearing Bohemian Rhapsody, We Are The Champions and We Will Rock You - all songs I liked when I first bought the albums. I think the worst single they ever did was Another One Bites The Dust, yet that seems to be their most popular with some people. What makes me laugh about some Queen fans is when I say I too was a Queen fan and I ask them what albums they have by Queen. Invariably the majority will say 'I've got the greatest hits' (!) Many of these so called fans look at me blankly when I ask them what they think of songs such as The Prophet's Song, Good Company, Ogre Battle, Lily Of The Valley etc. Not real fans methinks....
Regarding guitarists' tones, although I admired Jan Akkerman's playing ability with Focus, I never liked his tone, it was always too thin and weedy and high for my liking.
As for vocalists, I too don't care for Celine, Mariah or Whitney as others have mentioned here already, though the worst of the three has to be Mariah. I will add to that Tina Turner, although I did like some of her earlier stuff, such as Nutbush City Limits and River Deep - Mountain High. Can't stand her later stuff such as the awful Simply The Best. Can't stand Cher's voice either but, worse than any of those I've mentioned, when it comes to female singers, bottom of the pile for me has to be the atrocious Dolly Parton. Every time I hear that high pitched. helium fuelled whine I cringe!
That will do for now but I'm sure I'll think of others later 
As a Queen fan I will give you The Prophet's Song or Teo Torriate or Sleeping On The Sidewalk any day. As for Bohemian Rhapsody it sounds as astonishing to me as the day I first heard it. There are not too many songs I can still say that about (hint.... one of them is In The Air Tonight).
I don't listen to the radio so I don't consider anything overplayed except perhaps good old Hotel California, a song I once thought of as holy writ.
I don't listen to the radio so I don't consider anything overplayed except perhaps good old Hotel California, a song I once thought of as holy writ.
It must be the most played song across the globe. It's become like wallpaper or something. I don't dislike it, but I would never seek it out.
I had stopped listening to the radio for years until I decided to give local college radio a go in the car. Have discovered countless bands I'd never have heard of otherwise, most of them local. Shazam has been my friend in capturing the songs I like.
Interesting to read all the different comments and opinions on here. Back in the seventies, The Eagles were one of my favourite non-prog bands. I loved their first four albums, especially On The Border. Then Bernie Leadon left.....
Now don't get me wrong, Joe Walsh was good in his own right, I even bought one of his singles, Life's Been Good, which also had an excellent instrumental on the B-side. For me though, once he joined the Eagles, the early magic quickly disappeared. When the album Hotel California came out, I was so disappointed. Of course, the title track is a classic and New Kid In Town is also very good, but as for the rest of the album, to me it was just filler. I think they tried too hard to ditch their country influences and become more of a standard rock group. For me, it didn't work. The songs were laboured and bland to my ears and they became just another band to me. The same applied to their subsequent releases, none of them ever again held my interest. Of course, they made their money and had all the classic 'rock star' fall outs and flare ups but that didn't help their cause in my eyes.
I remember seeing them, years later, on the telly, giving some concert or other. Of course, the place was sold out but they just weren't the old Eagles anymore, I think they were actually wearing suits! For these old musical cowboys, this was super show biz and, for me, a total sell out.
A shame really. 
