Your opinion on Western music?

[Kingdom]

Originally Posted by untitledforayu

That being said, the western mainstream is great too, provided you listen to the 'right' stuff. I mean Lady Gaga's stuff is so much fun (minus Born This Way, perhaps) and right now, I think Rihanna's definitely ruling the scene.

I don't want to make unfair generalisations, but I think that people who listen to Ayu/Hikki/Namie/Kuu/K-Pop groups/etc. listen to a very small selection of western artists. Just look at the last.fm profiles of people who mainly listen to asian music or at the very active 'general music' threads here on ahs and it becomes pretty apparent that most j-pop fans listen almost exclusively to chart-topping pop divas like xtina and britney and gaga.

yes to Lady Gaga, yes to Rihanna

If you look at my last.fm though (I'm a Kuu/Ayu fan when it comes to Japanese) my library is small but diverse. I listen to a lot of western music compared to about 2/3 years ago!

[happiholic★]

Loving the Nicki lyric love. And that crazy voice. She makes very unique music.

[primavera♥]

Originally Posted by Love Shine

Loving the Nicki lyric love. And that crazy voice. She makes very unique music.

nicki's lyrics

one of the reasons i have fallen in love with her...theyre amazing imo...and yes her voice too, and her different personas...love love love

[ストロボ・EdGE]

SHE ON A DIET BUT MUH POCKETS EATIN CHEESECAKE

[MemorialAddress]

I can't even think of where to begin when defending Western music...
I don't want to write a ****ing book about it though, so I'll just make this brief.
There is nothing wrong with Western music, and those people who claim to "hate all Western music" are ****ing moronic idiots who think that ALL Western music is like what they play on the lame ass radio. There is AMAZING music out there, people just don't take the time to actually listen to anything other than the garbage of "artists" like Kesha or some stupid lame crap like that. Real amazing bands / artists do exist!
Sorry if I sound vague and defensive, but it just really baffles me when people say Western music sucks. I honestly do not understand it at all

[Aditmi Krisnasaki ~II~]

I'm in CRAZY mood for Britney right now... Hold It Against Me is just pure GOLD...

[happiholic★]

Originally Posted by Aditmi Krisnasaki ~II~

I'm in CRAZY mood for Britney right now... Hold It Against Me is just pure GOLD...

Yes! I am dying for her new album!!

[emi♡]

^S&M is pure gold

[Pieces_of_SEVEN]

In short:

mostly trash, some greats.

Too safe, nobody seems to know how to think outside the box in terms of producers, melodies, and arrangements.

Originally Posted by Pieces_of_SEVEN

Too safe, nobody seems to know how to think outside the box in terms of producers, melodies, and arrangements.

I would actually think that about Jpop.

Originally Posted by MemorialAddress

People do not seem to understand that "Western music" does not mean "only the music that is popular / on the radio"

+100,000,000

[Kanzaki]

I love it. It's not really different from any other kind of music in terms of style and genres, but in management and artist freedom it might be.

When I was 17 I was japanese music OBSESSED. Wouldn't listen to anything else but Ayu and a few other artists. But now in the last few years I've discovered so many valuable artists and I won't go a day without them. I used to also never listen to mainstream artists because, well, because they were mainstream, which is a pretty idiotic excuse. There's most likely always a very good reason for stuff being mainstream, other than good PR.

I still listen to japanese music of course, but I treasure western music just the same.

[channy]

I listen to japanese music only.
For me, Japanese is such a melodic language. I have never heard another language, that sounded more awesome than Japanese. I'm now 23. I started to listen to J-Pop when I was 14.

The main problem in Western music for me is, that I understand the lyrics. I don't want this! If you love a song that you can't understand lyrically, you have extremely much space for your own fantasy. That's why I usually don't read english-translation of Ayu's songs. I don't want to know the lyrics! I want to decide, what the songs means to me, without having the actual lyrics in my mind. That's the biggest reason, I prefer Japanese for songs.

Beside that, I never really listened to commercial western music before I started to listen to J-Pop. I was busy playing Game Boy and N64 xD

I don't mind western music though. It may exist, but not for my personal music preferences

[zoomzoom]

Originally Posted by Pieces_of_SEVEN

In short:

mostly trash, some greats.

Too safe, nobody seems to know how to think outside the box in terms of producers, melodies, and arrangements.

Are you for real?


By "western", I'm assuming anything that's not Asian. One has to be extremely narrow minded and ignorant to dismiss such a gigantic amount of the music industry, from the underground to the massive stars.

But even if "western" is USA alone, it still applies. Every industry has generic, bland and streamlined, overproduced music but I find the Asian to be particularly bad.

Anyone who instantly dismisses "western" music as not being unique or original are no better than the people who go "ew, Japanese music? that's weird".

[Kingdom]

Originally Posted by zoomzoom

Are you for real?


By "western", I'm assuming anything that's not Asian. One has to be extremely narrow minded and ignorant to dismiss such a gigantic amount of the music industry, from the underground to the massive stars.

But even if "western" is USA alone, it still applies. Every industry has generic, bland and streamlined, overproduced music but I find the Asian to be particularly bad.

Anyone who instantly dismisses "western" music as not being unique or original are no better than the people who go "ew, Japanese music? that's weird".

+1

[MemorialAddress]

Originally Posted by zoomzoom

Are you for real?


By "western", I'm assuming anything that's not Asian. One has to be extremely narrow minded and ignorant to dismiss such a gigantic amount of the music industry, from the underground to the massive stars.

But even if "western" is USA alone, it still applies. Every industry has generic, bland and streamlined, overproduced music but I find the Asian to be particularly bad.

Anyone who instantly dismisses "western" music as not being unique or original are no better than the people who go "ew, Japanese music? that's weird".

People do not seem to understand that "Western music" does not mean "only the music that is popular / on the radio"

[untitledforayu]

Originally Posted by MemorialAddress

People do not seem to understand that "Western music" does not mean "only the music that is popular / on the radio"

This.

[emi♡]

^I be agreeing wit u...

...

anyway, you know, I was listening to the radio the other day, and I was thinking about the lyrics thing again...and sometimes I think, some artists care more about the flow of the lyrics, instead of the actual words...

anyway, it's interesting. Most music on the radio seems to be about like, partying. I guess that's what they want to be.

[Andrenekoi]

It's normal in western pop music in general to have a big focus on how the lyrics flow, sound, rhyme and on the rhythm of the words...

It may not be deep, but doing a good lyrics work based on flow, rhyme and rhythm is a really hard thing to do... I would say it's as hard as doing a good lyric work on the japanese music way...

[NintendoHTF1242]

Holy crap I love Wiz Khalifa at the moment. His song "Roll Up" is sooooo good!!

Although the radio station I listen to overplays a lot of songs...Like "Give Me Everything (Tonight)" by Pitbull and "Party Rock Anthem" by LMAFO (especially this song -.-)

[bondingo]

I think Western music, just like any other type of music, has its ups and downs. I think Western music in the 90s was incredible, and the best out there. I think from about 2006 on, mainstream Western music has fluctuated between being great and awful. At the moment it's pretty piss poor, but so is K-Pop if you ask me (and I LOVED K-Pop a year ago). I think all the industries have some really good music here and there, and that it just varies. Of course, there's always something decent going on in any type of music if you look hard enough. I turned to British music from about 2007-2009 because it was incredible during that time and I felt like American music was just awful. Really what I'm trying to say is that every country has their ****** music that sadly becomes popular, but also some truly great music.

That being said, if we're talking about current music, I mostly listen to Japanese music because the only current music I've been really liking right now has been from Japan. That doesn't mean American music won't be good again and that I'm swearing it off; it just means that I'm preferring what's been coming out of Japan at the moment and that that's what I've been in the mood to listen to. Completely limiting oneself to only Asian countries for music is just as lame and close-minded as when people insult others by calling them weird for liking J-Pop or whatnot.