The official unpopular opinions thread
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Firefly is a mediocre to ok series that wouldn't have anything like the following it does if it hadn't been cancelled with a storyline in progress
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@Jaloopa said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Firefly is a mediocre to ok series that wouldn't have anything like the following it does if it hadn't been cancelled with a storyline in progress
Is mediocre, or was mediocre when it first appeared?
It's a pretty important distinction. Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
E.g. there was once a popular series called Friends. It was very dated already 10 years ago. By now, it's downright terrible.
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@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Is mediocre, or was mediocre when it first appeared?
I never saw it at the time so I was influenced by people proclaiming it perfection in TV form, and then being disappointed that it wasn't that great
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@Jaloopa said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Is mediocre, or was mediocre when it first appeared?
I never saw it at the time so I was influenced by people proclaiming it perfection in TV form, and then being disappointed that it wasn't that great
I wouldn't have described quite like that but it was a lot of fun to watch. An unusual setting with cool characters with interesting backgrounds.
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@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
There's no tendency of newer stuff in tv or cinema getting better.
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Following the Silverback is the root of human male homosexuality.
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@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
There's no tendency of newer stuff in tv or cinema getting better.Overall "better" or not, new stuff does build on what came before. Looking at Seinfeld nowadays, you might think "wow, what a generic sitcom with old, stale ideas that have been totally played out" but that's missing the context that back in the late 80s/early 90s the show was inventing all the stuff that would go on to be worn out by every other sitcom.
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This thread is completely broken.
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@hungrier said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
There's no tendency of newer stuff in tv or cinema getting better.Overall "better" or not, new stuff does build on what came before. Looking at Seinfeld nowadays, you might think "wow, what a generic sitcom with old, stale ideas that have been totally played out" but that's missing the context that back in the late 80s/early 90s the show was inventing all the stuff that would go on to be worn out by every other sitcom.
Which, of course, in no way invalidates Sturgeon's Law. But it's like thinking about how all the old music was so much better than today's stuff. We mostly only remember the good stuff and have forgotten all the crap that also existed back then.
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@hungrier said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
There's no tendency of newer stuff in tv or cinema getting better.Overall "better" or not, new stuff does build on what came before. Looking at Seinfeld nowadays, you might think "wow, what a generic sitcom with old, stale ideas that have been totally played out" but that's missing the context that back in the late 80s/early 90s the show was inventing all the stuff that would go on to be worn out by every other sitcom.
You can look at this the other way round - new stuff just copies old ideas and has little to offer on its own.
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@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@hungrier said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
There's no tendency of newer stuff in tv or cinema getting better.Overall "better" or not, new stuff does build on what came before. Looking at Seinfeld nowadays, you might think "wow, what a generic sitcom with old, stale ideas that have been totally played out" but that's missing the context that back in the late 80s/early 90s the show was inventing all the stuff that would go on to be worn out by every other sitcom.
You can look at this the other way round - new stuff just copies old ideas and has little to offer on its own.
It's old ideas all the way down.
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@hungrier said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
There's no tendency of newer stuff in tv or cinema getting better.Overall "better" or not, new stuff does build on what came before. Looking at Seinfeld nowadays, you might think "wow, what a generic sitcom with old, stale ideas that have been totally played out" but that's missing the context that back in the late 80s/early 90s the show was inventing all the stuff that would go on to be worn out by every other sitcom.
@error_bot tvtropes seinfeld unfunny
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TV Tropes said in https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny :
"Seinfeld" Is Unfunny
"I don't know what the big deal with Hamlet is. It's just one famous saying after another, strung together by a moldy old plot."— Old JokeThere are certain shows that you can safely assume most people have seen. These shows were considered fantastic when they first aired. Now, however, these shows have a Hype Backlash curse on them. Whenever we watch them, we'll cry, "That is so old" or "That is so overdone".
The sad irony? It wasn't old or overdone when they did it, because they were the first ones to do it. But the things it created were so brilliant and popular, they became woven into the fabric of that show's genre. They ended up being taken for granted, copied and endlessly repeated. Although they often began by saying something new, they in turn became the new status quo. It's basically the inverse of a Grandfather Clause taken to a trope level: rather than being able to get away with something that is seen as overdone or out of style simply because it was the one that started it, people will unfairly disregard it because it got lost amidst its sea of imitations even though it paved the way for all those imitators. That is, a work retroactively becomes a Cliché Storm.
There may be good reason for this. Whoever is first to do something isn't likely to be the best at it, simply because everyone that comes after is building on their predecessors' work.
Named after Seinfeld, which many people won't watch any more because everything about it has been copied. (To be clear, we mean Seinfeld the series, not Seinfeld the person—Jerry's stand-up segments were, even at the time, generally the least funny part of the episode; this may have been intentional, or it may just be that Jerry's brand of humor, while fresh and new for a sitcom, was pretty old hat for a stand-up comedian even then). Most likely will result in Fan Haters and accusations of Rule Abiding Rebels. This can also occur in countries that get the shows years after they originally come out.
When someone attempts to make "Seinfeld" funny again in this time and age, see Reconstruction.
Compare with Appeal to Novelty, Not-So-Cheap Imitation, Newer Than They Think, Older Than They Think, Discredited Meme, Unbuilt Trope, Franchise Original Sin, Hype Backlash, Rule-Abiding Rebel, Early Installment Weirdness, "Weird Al" Effect or Dead Horse Trope. Contrast Vindicated by History. This is a special case of Newer Than They Think, when the Trope Codifier is thought to repeat old clichés; and a case of Older Than They Think when the imitators are much more famous. The same principle applied to ethical or cultural issues is Fair for Its Day. The exact opposite of Values Resonance. The worst outcome is Condemned by History. Occasionally overlaps with Values Dissonance.
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@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@hungrier said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
There's no tendency of newer stuff in tv or cinema getting better.Overall "better" or not, new stuff does build on what came before. Looking at Seinfeld nowadays, you might think "wow, what a generic sitcom with old, stale ideas that have been totally played out" but that's missing the context that back in the late 80s/early 90s the show was inventing all the stuff that would go on to be worn out by every other sitcom.
You can look at this the other way round - new stuff just copies old ideas and has little to offer on its own.
That's actually what made Firefly so special at the time; it was something different.
Most TV shows were copying Seinfeld and Friends. The only other Sci-Fi series available at the time (that I recall) was Stargate.A bit like all the FPS games before Half-Life were clones of Quake.
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The only other Sci-Fi series available at the time (that I recall) was Stargate.
Farscape was also running at the same time.
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@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
A bit like all the FPS games before Half-Life were clones of Quake.
Starsiege: Tribes was the superior game
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@hungrier said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@acrow said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Newer series tent to be better than older ones, since all the good ideas of the old series are included in the new ones. But not the other way around, because they hadn't been invented yet back then.
There's no tendency of newer stuff in tv or cinema getting better.Overall "better" or not, new stuff does build on what came before. Looking at Seinfeld nowadays, you might think "wow, what a generic sitcom with old, stale ideas that have been totally played out" but that's missing the context that back in the late 80s/early 90s the show was inventing all the stuff that would go on to be worn out by every other sitcom.
You can look at this the other way round - new stuff just copies old ideas and has little to offer on its own.
It's old ideas all the way down.
Nope. New ideas that then got old. They were all new when added, whenever that was.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
old music was so much better than today's stuff
It was.
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@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
old music was so much better than today's stuff
It was.
You remember that first rock Thag whacked on that second rock? Man, that was it for me.
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@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
old music was so much better than today's stuff
It was.
You remember that first rock Thag whacked on that second rock? Man, that was it for me.
They call that classic rock
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@hungrier said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
old music was so much better than today's stuff
It was.
You remember that first rock Thag whacked on that second rock? Man, that was it for me.
They call that classic rock
The second rock too? Bullshit.
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@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
This thread is completely broken.
@Gribnit's posts are hilarious.
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@Zecc said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
This thread is completely broken.
@Gribnit's posts are hilarious.
For a very odd definition of "hilarious"...
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@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
old music was so much better than today's stuff
It was.
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@dcon said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Zecc said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
This thread is completely broken.
@Gribnit's posts are hilarious.
For a very odd definition of "hilarious"...
I have dedicated my life to the service of Yahweh, many times over indeed. And that guy's nuts.
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@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
And that guy's nuts.
I'm really hoping this is a contraction of "guy is."
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Nope, pretty much always been against pop music and trite love songs. Beatles are one of the worst bands ever, how they became famous while sucking that much is a true mystery of the ages.
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@error said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
And that guy's nuts.
I'm really hoping this is a contraction of "guy is."
Never hope.
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@Dragoon said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Nope, pretty much always been against pop music and trite love songs. Beatles are one of the worst bands ever, how they became famous while sucking that much is a true mystery of the ages.
They eventually got good once their success allowed them the leisure time to learn music.
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@Dragoon said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Nope, pretty much always been against pop music and trite love songs. Beatles are one of the worst bands ever, how they became famous while sucking that much is a true mystery of the ages.
No mystery. They became famous when the Baby Boomers reached the age of maximum emotional vulnerability to trite love songs.
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@error said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
old music was so much better than today's stuff
It was.
I'm 26 and I believe music of every genre peaked before I was born.
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@Gąska said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@error said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
old music was so much better than today's stuff
It was.
I'm 26 and I believe music of every genre peaked before I was born.
Some newer genres had to work pretty hard to make the deadline.
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@Gribnit not a single music genre was invented after 1994. Change my mind.
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@Gąska said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
I believe music of every genre peaked before I was born.
Yes. I think there have been multiple peaks, but if I had to pick just one, probably Beethoven. Maybe Mozart or Bach. But definitely long before I was born. Not that nothing good has been written since then, but not much, and a negligibly small amount that would be called "popular".
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@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Not that nothing good has been written since then
As opposed to since 1994, which actually is nothing good. Except for an occasional cover of a song that itself is from before 1994.
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@Gąska I'm going to disagree with you. To pick a single example, John Williams. Most of his best-known music is from before 1994 (just missed Jurassic Park and Schindler's List by one year), but he wrote the music for Saving Private Ryan in 1998, which is very good, and all the Harry Potter movie music was after then, too.
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@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gąska I'm going to disagree with you. To pick a single example, John Williams. Most of his best-known music is from before 1994 (just missed Jurassic Park and Schindler's List by one year), but he wrote the music for Saving Private Ryan in 1998, which is very good, and all the Harry Potter movie music was after then, too.
John Williams is doggerel for people who want to enjoy classical music, but lack the classical prerequisites. I'm glad you liked Star Wars.
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@Gąska said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Not that nothing good has been written since then
As opposed to since 1994, which actually is nothing good. Except for an occasional cover of a song that itself is from before 1994.
Nah, there's plenty of good music after '94. I still buy albums that just got released. You just have to know where to look.
But if we're talking about popular stuff, then yeah, 99% of it is crap and seems to get worse by the year.
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@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gąska said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Not that nothing good has been written since then
As opposed to since 1994, which actually is nothing good. Except for an occasional cover of a song that itself is from before 1994.
Nah, there's plenty of good music after '94. I still buy albums that just got released. You just have to know where to look.
But if we're talking about popular stuff, then yeah, 99% of it is crap and seems to get worse by the year.
It's always been mostly crap. For every Bach there are a huge number of other Bachs.
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@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gąska said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Not that nothing good has been written since then
As opposed to since 1994, which actually is nothing good. Except for an occasional cover of a song that itself is from before 1994.
Nah, there's plenty of good music after '94. I still buy albums that just got released. You just have to know where to look.
But if we're talking about popular stuff, then yeah, 99% of it is crap and seems to get worse by the year.
It's always been mostly crap. For every Bach there are a huge number of other Bachs.
Everything is mostly crap, the question is - is quality of the most popular ("best") music now worse than in the past.
Yes, it is.Here's one explanation why:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ks4c_A0Ach8
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@MrL it improves a bit if you factor out country and christian.
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@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL it improves a bit if you factor out country and christian.
I have no idea about country and christian music, but I doubt it.
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@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gribnit said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL it improves a bit if you factor out country and christian.
I have no idea about country and christian music, but I doubt it.
This is not intended as a qualitative but a quantitative statement. Both mentioned forms are intensely derivative.
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@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
99% of it is crap
Music is at least as subject to Sturgeon's Law as any other field of endeavor (and I say this as a wanna-be composer whose efforts almost certainly don't make the grade). The advantage of classical music is that most of the 90% has been forgotten through the passage of time. With contemporary music (of all genres, including classical), the 90% makes up most of the stuff that is inflicted upon unfortunate eardrums.
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@Gąska said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@error said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
old music was so much better than today's stuff
It was.
I'm 26 and I believe music of every genre peaked before I was born.
/r/lewronggeneration
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@Gąska said in In other news today...:
@DogsB said in In other news today...:
Yes.
The developer does emphasize that his project is mostly a bit of fun and that it’d be pretty easy to “break the security” of the CAPTCHA. It even has a cheat code Easter egg: type IDDQD while the CAPTCHA runs to skip past it.
His implementation of CAPTCHA completely fails at what CAPTCHA is meant to do, and if it wasn't enough, he specifically added a feature that undermines it even more. At the same time, he left intact the part of CAPTCHA that's the most frustrating to legitimate users - wasting time and driving attention away from the task at hand.
This is the best metaphor of modern webdev I've ever seen.
@loopback0 does being "a little project for fun" absolve it of being the exact opposite of what it's claimed to be? It's not just that it's low quality. It's not just that it's ineffective in practice. The problem is that it doesn't fulfill its basic purpose and has additional features that make it even worse at that basic purpose than it would be otherwise.
It's like a save dialog that doesn't just completely ignore the path you've selected and always uses default location instead, it also has a switch to scramble the output and make the saved file irrecoverably corrupted. I don't care if you made it just for fun - your save dialog is bad and you should feel bad.
Now, if he realized his project is an antithesis of everything CAPTCHA is supposed to be, embraced it and purposely made it as a parody, that would be different. But it doesn't seem to be the case.
One of the rare @Gąska-rants that I entirely agree with, both for the reasons stated, and that I hate this stupid retro-fapping and "for fun" mentality ever so prevalent. The meme of putting Doom everywhere was never all that funny to begin with (very few cases where actual technical wizardry was done excepted) and therefore can DIAF.
But these "little projects for fun" seem to have especially taken over. No one does anything worth shit anymore. It's all for fun, then it's abandoned for the next stupid idea. So coding is fun, yes? Computers are? Tools are? Well, screwdrivers are also tools. Screwdrivers are not fun. Stabbing something with a screwdriver makes one look like a psychopath. Every time I see these "for fun" things I imagine someine with a shit-eating grin stabbing away at their meckanical keyboards and going "kakakaka so much fun" and...
I hate computers.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
But these "little projects for fun" seem to have especially taken over. No one does anything worth shit anymore. It's all for fun, then it's abandoned for the next stupid idea.
It's so prevalent nowadays that someone even coined a term to describe this...
...18 years ago.
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@Gąska Not sure it's just teenagers. Certainly not anymore.
It wasn't seen as much. You had to be in the scene a bit. There weren't any large ShitHubs to put it up for grabs. Tech chournalists weren't regurgitating it for clicks. One actually had to look for it, and internets access was precious. Psychopaths used to gather in relatively small mailing lists and IRCs, and... wait a minute...
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Gąska Not sure it's just teenagers. Certainly not anymore.
18 years tend to do that.
It wasn't seen as much.
The entire Open Source thing wasn't seen as much. But within OS itself, I'd say the ratio of CADT to people who care has always been constant.
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@HardwareGeek said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@MrL said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
99% of it is crap
Music is at least as subject to Sturgeon's Law as any other field of endeavor (and I say this as a wanna-be composer whose efforts almost certainly don't make the grade). The advantage of classical music is that most of the 90% has been forgotten through the passage of time. With contemporary music (of all genres, including classical), the 90% makes up most of the stuff that is inflicted upon unfortunate eardrums.
Well, to each their own. I'm not into classical music, I find it boring and devoid of emotions. Which is probably because I don't know it.
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Well, screwdrivers are also tools. Screwdrivers are not fun.
Next thing you'll say is that scissors and scalpels are not fun