Emotionally Disturbing Music

[mikeyb]

Anything by Oasis/Blur/James and the like gives me the boak does that count?

[HackneyRF]

Anything by Oasis/Blur/James and the like gives me the boak does that count?

+1, if 'The Boak' means ya don't like it too much!

[rigger67]

The Macarena - Los del Rio
The Ketchup Song - Las Ketchup
Oops Upside Your Head - Oddysey
Wannabe - The Spice Girls
The Birdie Song - The Tweets
Dancing Queen - Abba
Never Forget - Take That
Agadoo - Black Lace


Anything that requires dance steps to be learned and passed down through generations.
Anything that gets Joe Public off their backsides at about half ten at any party anywhere in the UK.
Anything that is considered a "wedding reception classic".

I actually stopped DJing weddings when someone came up to me and asked if I could "play some cheese".

Yes, I'm a music snob.
No, I don't care.

I find the songs listed above to be insidious and a form of brainwashing that the masses do to themselves.
The love for Take That in particular staggers me.
Yes, they're nice blokes - apart from Robbie who's a cock in denial about pretty much everything - but their music is just generic, formulaic pop.
How they've been elevated to the same level as The Beatles by millions of people is beyond me ..

Abba were incredibly talented but I don't care for their stuff, least of all DQ - a guaranteed floor-filler, unfortunately.
Oddysey also made some good music, but that whole sit down in a line thing just makes me angry for some reason ..

So, yeah ... I am emotionally disturbed when in the presence of any of these songs being played.

[walpurgis]

I don't find any music disturbing. I'm just going to bung on some Marylin Manson!

[User211]

The Macarena - Los del Rio
The Ketchup Song - Las Ketchup
Oops Upside Your Head - Oddysey
Wannabe - The Spice Girls
The Birdie Song - The Tweets
Dancing Queen - Abba
Never Forget - Take That
Agadoo - Black Lace


Anything that requires dance steps to be learned and passed down through generations.
Anything that gets Joe Public off their backsides at about half ten at any party anywhere in the UK.
Anything that is considered a "wedding reception classic".

I actually stopped DJing weddings when someone came up to me and asked if I could "play some cheese".

Yes, I'm a music snob.
No, I don't care.

I find the songs listed above to be insidious and a form of brainwashing that the masses do to themselves.
The love for Take That in particular staggers me.
Yes, they're nice blokes - apart from Robbie who's a cock in denial about pretty much everything - but their music is just generic, formulaic pop.
How they've been elevated to the same level as The Beatles by millions of people is beyond me ..

Abba were incredibly talented but I don't care for their stuff, least of all DQ - a guaranteed floor-filler, unfortunately.
Oddysey also made some good music, but that whole sit down in a line thing just makes me angry for some reason ..

So, yeah ... I am emotionally disturbed when in the presence of any of these songs being played.

The thing about DQ is that it is an excellent song. It is also a bit vomit inducing. It's just too perfect a pop song. But the subject matter is dross and the "coolness factor" of liking Abba is petrifyingly low. Like much of the other material you mention.

Disturbing? Yes. But not in a good way. But then is disturbing ever good? I think it is. The fact is there are deeper, darker sides to life and the human psyche, and music that explores these areas was primarily the reason for the thread. Ian Curtis did it superbly and the depth of his lyrics really was a bit unexplored. I'm not sure many have got there before or since.

Another kind of disturbing is just noise as explored by bands like Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror. I'm not a fan of that, either.

[rigger67]

I know what you mean.
It's a bit like horror as a genre.
We shouldn't enjoy being scared, but we do .. same thing here. I think it's about challenging ourselves and ultimately stimulating the brain in unusual ways to keep life entertaining.
That's partly what the joy of the journey is all about with music, too - always finding new stuff to listen to, whether if it's decades old or a new artist.

I don't like Joy Division personally, but I can appreciate why so many do.
I think The The were up there in the darkness stakes for a while, with Soul Mining especially, though their music was often too catchy to be classed as disturbing.

I loved that thing about the timing of Tubular Bells triggering stuff in the brain.
That's fascinating, and probably key to why so much classical music can be so moving, whether in a eurphoric sense or a more gloomy, emotionally down sense.

[walpurgis]

If you can find any, listen to 'Artificial Memory Trace'. It's not truly music, but could be called Electroacoustic Constructions. Some may well find it disturbing.

As I said. I find no music disturbing.

I've never seen a movie that I've found scary either. Creepy maybe though. Roman Polanki's classic 'Repulsion' is renowned for creeping folk out.

[User211]

Ah Matt Johnson and Jools Holland in their prime. Yup it definitely had/has a real sense of depth too it aligned with fantastic sonics. Not as disturbing as JD, but there is a definite sense of being at unease with the way things are. Even if we are just symptoms of the moral decay that's gnawing at the heart of the country

Trent Reznor is pretty good at disturbing.

So I think we need some disturbing classical refs please someone?

[struth]

This in the day was and did live up to its name Thankfully someone nicked my copy May be valuable but so is my mind

[rigger67]

Johnson was bang on, wasn't he ??

"The wars on the televisions will never be explained
All the bankers gettin' sweaty beneath their white collars
As the pound in our pocket turns into a dollar
This is the 51st state of the U.S.A."

Could've been written yesterday but it was 1986.
THIRTY YEARS and nothing has changed ..

I like the way you worked the lyric in to your reply.
Chapeau, mon ami, chapeau


I quite like a bit of Marilyn Manson and loved his Killing Strangers from the John Wick OST - cracking movie, too :

So I think we need some disturbing classical refs please someone?

I'm sure there are lots of examples but soundtracks would be an obvious starting point.
Cape Fear is one that springs to mind, from the always excellent Bernard Herrmann:



Then a few choice Hitchcock's like Vertigo and Psycho, again both by that man Herrmann (even his name means Mr Man in German )

I'm looking forward to seeing what some of the classical experts suggest .. maybe a bit of Mahler ?? He always seems pretty dark and heavy to my ears. Possibly some Wagner, too ?