Originally posted by fainéant
not much. It's their first effort, the production can be improved. you need to give them the benefit of the doubt. And what you're saying becomes more and more unlikely when you appreciate an album. It's easy to fake albums that are full of loops of repeating riffs. But this can't be said of an album that employs harmonies, bass lines synced with drum beats, and other things, I'd bet you haven't noticed.
You'd bet? Im saying many elements of the sound werent intentional. I do of course realise there is a lot of good stuff happening there. Remember, i love Orchid as well.
The direction of your replies are getting confused. I'm wasn't talking about technicality then. And here I'm not talking about the distinction between "whats' standard and what's not".
So you'd give a band credit for doing the standard thing? So Britney Spears deserves credit for doing standard pop songs? My point was relevant, maybe i didnt tie it in well with the topic. If a band is just doing the standard thing, without thought, then they dont deserve too much credit. There is good stuff in Orchid, im simply pointing out that there is bad stuff as well, you most likely dont find it important because its not something you listen for in music.
there's plenty of choice involved in riffs that could hav been played out by a looping machine, I'm sure. (remember MAYH, as for you now, used to be a fav.
That is one area where the later albums dont do well on, and where earlier albums do better. But this is what ive been saying, the same can be said in reverse about other songwriting techniques. This doesnt prove one is better than the other, it only proves that one is better than the other in this small issue of riff repetition.
I don't argue with this. Your point?
You're comparing Orchid and BWP for example, two quite different albums. They have similarities, and they are by the same band, but other than that there are a lot of very different things about the albums. And here you are saying one is undeniably better than the other, and its sounding like your claiming it as something objective. Im trying to point out how much your view is clouded by what you want from music.
You can say subjectively that a band is better or worse for you (and be pretty accurate for people with similar tastes to yours). You can say objectively which band/song/album does which technique (either songwriting, or playing, or whatever) better. But when it comes to saying which one is better overall, objectively, thats where you can only do it on a very general scale, because we humans simply arent smart enough to take everything about a band into consideration. And even then its got little relevance, Opeth may be better than Britney Spears.... but if a 14 yr old girl wants something to dance to, would you give them opeth?
One more point, you know that its hard to judge music that you dont get into, i believe you said something about that. To really understand whats good about certain music you've got to really get into it, to see why things are good. But its not just a level of getting into it or not, theres lots of levels in between. I can love an album, but if its not exactly what i want from music then i may still be missing certain elements, i may not be noticing things, even if i do notice lots and lots of other good stuff. You understand this im sure. Yet you seem to be claiming that because you used to like MAYH that that means you figured out everything about it. I doubt thats true, i doubt any person has seen every good/bad point about music, even if it is their favourite.