Any opinions on them? I mean, I think it's undeniable that the surrounding qualities of an album (visuals, band interviews, beefs, hype, reputation, that sort of thing) affect the way we as an audience think about the music we experience. But how and why? And when are these peripheral qualities a positive influence on the audience when listening to music, and when is it negative?
Certain examples of what I'm talking about:
Album covers, such as
>Nirvana's Nevermind baby cover
>Bowie's New Day cover that's plastered over Heroes
Other external packaging, such as:
>Colored/gimmicky vinyl a la Jack White
>Large, elaborate packaging, like Mount Eerie Pt. 6 & 7 and Death Blues's Ensemble that comes with a book
(Possibly) Song/Album Titles:
>Instrumental music that has names (like a lot of jazz)
>Album titles that hint to a larger theme that you might not get just out of the music (eg. "Dark Side of The Moon", "Music For Airports")
Music Videos, such as:
>Aphex Twin's Windowlicker, with the faces
>Death Grips's lo-fi #noided videos
Members' dress/looks:
>CHVRCHES (Lauren, basically)
>Sunn O)))'s cult hoodie thing
Manifestos/Documents:
>HHH's Transcendental Black Metal Manifesto, for the Ark Work
>The Death Blues manifesto and art surrounding the music
Beefs/Personalities:
>fucking Deadmau5
>Lauren calling out /mu/
>Drake and Meek Mill (or whatever it was)
Reputations/Hype:
>Revamped look of Justin Bieber
>P4k's dickriding of Thugger
>"/mu/-core"
>"It's the Beatles so it must be good" mentality
Listening to music like how people normally do is quite a different experience, than, say, downloading a bunch of unlableled .wav files with no artwork, and listening with no knowledge of what other people think of those artists, or how those artists present themselves, don't you think?
So what do you guys think about these peripheral/external qualities of the music?
>>60469630
Album art can set a mood, let the listener know what they're in for, etc. Ultimately the album art is inconsequential to how the music actually sounds and whether you like it or not, but that FIRST listen, when hear the first track. The album cover is in your head, all your expectations are running rampant. The praise you've heard, the negativity you've heard about the album, all that shit can affect your listening experience just as in anything else.
If you hear that one album or other is just some of the shittiest shit that was ever shat, your reaction can be one of two things: "Oh c'mon it can't be that bad" or your expectations are just really low. As a result of low expectations, you may be utterly surprised and may take to the album more KNOWING that somebody else vehemently dislikes it when it's really not that bad.
This isn't some sort of revelation shit affects shit we know this. I feel like the ideal way to listen to something is with just the bare minimum in mind: What the album's genre is, the cover art, that's it really. Everything else is is boo boo until you formed a proper opinion of it.
>>60469789
>I feel like the ideal way to listen to something is with just the bare minimum in mind: What the album's genre is, the cover art, that's it really.
Really? I prefer to read some positive reviews of the album while listening to it for the first time, maybe some interviews so I can get a better context to understand the album and give it at least some kind of chance.
Like
>pic related
knowing the artists' overall intention and larger conceptual picture through interviews and reviews helped understand what they were doing on the album.
>>60469887
Nah I can't do that. I'll read reviews after I feel like I get it, or if I want to masturbate over how good the album is. When I really like the album I'll start looking into the backstory.
I remember when I had first listened to Faust's first album, I knew I liked it but I didn't know what I had listened to. Such a bizzarely wonderful piece of music, so I made a thread on /mu/ asking what the hell I just listened to. We were hashing it out, and somebody actually brought up the backstory to the album being that it was just kind of thrown together after a year of spending the label's money on drugs, which made another anon actually appreciate the album less KNOWING that the composition wasn't as deliberate as he thought.
All that to say I feel like expectations can never truly make or break an album. If you dislike an album the first time, you'll probably like it if you come back to it in a few weeks with different expectations. If you like the album's music, the backstory may enhance your experience next listen.
>>60469789
I always imagine the colors and design of the album cover when I'm listening to music.
>>60470127
I feel like primary* expectations my bad.
>>60470127
What about stuff like TPAB though? I was in New York when it dropped, and even if I hadn't read up on its history or behind-the-scenes tidbits, it pretty much resonated with the culture of America as well as the general pop landscape. You kind of couldn't help but be aware of stuff like that when listening to the album; you couldn't just tune it out even if you wanted to. I mean, it's one of the reasons why the immediate reaction to that album by /mu/ (and to a large degree to this day) is to say "kek" and then ignore it as much as possible, or try to dismiss it as a meme.
>>60470231
>kek
and that's "c u c k" for you censors
>>60469630
come as you are,
the guitar effect, its always sounded
underwater to me... i dont know if that was intentional before or after the album cover was decided upon.
>>60470231
Hmm lemme explain it from my point of view and then try to extrapolate shit.
I've listened to a lot of shit. And there's been a lot of shit I really didn't feel the first few listens through. So I'll step away, listen to other shit meanwhile, maybe albums I already know I like/love. Come back to it with a different mindset, different experiences, I usually end up enjoying it. That is to say: You can always find something good about an album if you actually let yourself be open to it.
With albums that you take to IMMEDIATELY, like you and TPAB, I think the only way you could ever dislike that album is if you had a negative experience that would somehow relate back to it. I don't have one myself, but Dave Grohl (yes yes Foo Fighters hurr) can't listen to In Utero anymore simply because the album now seems like it leads up to Cobain's suicide, when to Dave Grohl it was initially just an album.
I forgot where I was going with this.
>>60470927
>With albums that you take to IMMEDIATELY, like you and TPAB
Nah, man, I'm not saying I was taken by the album, I'm saying it's an album in which it's kind of hard to separate the overall social climate from the music itself, since so much of the music is somehow tied to it. Which is why I raised TPAB, since you said
>I feel like the ideal way to listen to something is with just the bare minimum in mind: What the album's genre is, the cover art, that's it really.
since you can't really do that with "social" albums like TPAB or D'Angelo's Black Messiah.
>>60471141
Oh my b I'm tired n' shit. I agree with you there.
With conscious/political hip-hop well yeah you can't ignore the things surrounding the album. Political music in general really.
>>60471194
Would you say it's possible to like political/social records like TPAB if you don't care for what they're saying regarding the larger scheme of things?
On one hand, people on here get absolutely triggered whenever someone mentions TPAB, but on the other hand, I know some people here listen to Nazi rock "for the riffs". But then again, maybe those people don't speak German so they don't know what they lyrics are in the first place.
I dunno, I just find the whole external aspect of listening that involves visuals and ideas in relation to the act of listening to be interesting. I mean, in a sense, pretty much all pop music is based around that idea, isn't it? And I'm sure it's not just inherent in mainstream/"alternative" pop, but most, if not all other musical works as well.
>having a serious conversation on 4chan
I think it's all very deliberate, and it is exerted upon us by record labels immensely. It's the perfect example of Marx's theory of commodity fetishism.
>>60471613
>it is exerted upon us by record labels immensely
Well, it's not necessarily from the record labels though, and at least some of it is unintentional.
Chris Brown punching a dude or Whirr getting in Twitter scandals aren't really benefitting anyway, but they do happen and they affect the way we think of the music.
Also, general audiences—what our friends on /mu/, for example, think of an album does affect the way we approach or think about it. For example, I probably wouldn't have ever bothered to listen to Loveless or ITAOTS if not for /mu/'s incessant memeing.
Unless you're saying those things are somehow coming from labels, too, I think it would be wrong to say that record labels control the image, since a lot of it is left up to the community and your friends (though the community is influenced by record labels and hype).
And anyway, you say it's all very deliberate, but…is that in itself a bad thing? A lot of it does add to the artwork, I do think. It is how most of pop operates, and it does have a bad side, but isn't it also a positive (or constructive) influence on the music itself (generally speaking, anyway)?
>>60471713
>benefitting anyway
I meant "benefitting anyone"
>record labels control the image
Not complete control, anyway. Obviously they have some control over image, even a significant amount a lot of time time. But hype is built by the people, and even if the label can buy out some of the critics, it's not going to raise a "mixed reviews" album to critical acclaim, no matter how much money they throw at it.
>>60470150
>I always imagine the colors and design of the album cover when I'm listening to music.
I wonder if colorblind and blind people appreciate music less, generally speaking, because they can't take in these peripheral qualities. Or more, since they are more used to paying attention to sounds.
bumping for actual music-related discussion
>>60471357
>Would you say it's possible to like political/social records like TPAB if you don't care for what they're saying regarding the larger scheme of things?
Absolutely. If everyone took what Good Kid MAAD City and TPAB said to heart we'd have a lot of social reform n' shit. But we don't.
>>60472738
>If everyone took what Good Kid MAAD City and TPAB said to heart
But there's a difference between apathy and actual disagreement.
Like, what if you openly disagree with (not just be apathetic about) Kendrick's message about blackness in America for whatever reason—would you still like his music?
>>60469630
If you care about any of that stuff then you're a pleb and should stop listening to music. The only things that matter at all out of what you listed are album covers and track names, and those are purely for identification.
If you allow your opinion on a piece of music to be affected by anything other than the music itself then you are literally and unequivocally a pleb.
>>60472774
I'm not sure I can answer that really it's hard for me to put myself in that scenario.
>>60472814
Well, what about those guys who say they like nazi-rock despite the political context, because they like the riffs? What if the political content was in a language you didn't understand?
I guess similar things could be said for religious albums, both explicitly (like Christian rock bands) and tangentially ("I love you Jesus Chriiiiist" in an album about Anne Frank), if you're not of that religion (though usually politics pisses off people a lot more than religion).
>>60472779
>The only things that matter at all out of what you listed are album covers and track names, and those are purely for identification.
Interesting. Why do you think so? Why is it so "plebeian" to be influenced by external factors, even if they seem relevant to the musical work?
>>60469630
Those peripheral factors are just a tool to lure you in, the music market is full so they have to find a way to get your attention. Personally I don't mind it so long as the person isn't actively annoying (see aaron). If a person finds new music because of its aesthetics, a beef, the singer's looks I don't really care, I'm just glad they're listening to new music (and possibly paying the artist)
Of course you'd expect a music aficionado to leave the peripheral aspects after a while, but the constant waifufagging in this board is proof that that might not happen
>>60472875
>Well, what about those guys who say they like nazi-rock despite the political context, because they like the riffs? What if the political content was in a language you didn't understand?
You can enjoy riffs because guitar riffs are a far cry from lyrics. Though I suppose a proper comparison would be the guitars/drums and the production. Hip-hop also has wordplay to think about if you don't like what the artist is saying.
>>60473049
>>60472875
I've been to many punk shows and sometimes there are bands that are a little too leftist/feminist for me or something along those lines, but i've shouted the lyrics with the audience.
Whirr have been complete assholes even before this recent scandal but Distressor is still a fucking great ep.
I also like black metal a lot but i don't agree with every message the bands have. For me it's about the music before everything else.
