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Joined: Fri July 26, 2013 12:34 am Posts: 4396 Location: chewm
I do believe people here had way too much of a reaction after he posted that Betterman is a top 5 song for him or when he posted his favorite PJ songs.
Still...
mikejasond wrote:
You are literally people that cannot understand what Betterman is doing outside of its chords. Its no surprise what songs you guys like now because some elements of music are just being completely lost to you.
Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 3:35 pm Posts: 32366 Location: Buenos Aires
Birds in Hell wrote:
PHATJ wrote:
It’s impossible to debate the merits of anything when your arguments are 100% based on how something specifically makes you feel. That basis allows you to argue any number of absurdities with no reasonable way to disprove your cockamamie hypothesis.
What else do you think people should judge the merits of art on?
MJD honestly comes out of this thread looking fine, you guys are kind of being jerks. He’s being very generous and patient despite being openly (and unfairly) mocked for his opinions.
If you look past the fact that he's arguing against claims nobody is making and constantly (willfully?) misinterpreting (and then misrepresenting) people's responses in a supremely obtuse manner, sure.
Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 2:02 am Posts: 15145 Location: Gigatown
Birds in Hell wrote:
PHATJ wrote:
It’s impossible to debate the merits of anything when your arguments are 100% based on how something specifically makes you feel. That basis allows you to argue any number of absurdities with no reasonable way to disprove your cockamamie hypothesis.
What else do you think people should judge the merits of art on?
MJD honestly comes out of this thread looking fine, you guys are kind of being jerks. He’s being very generous and patient despite being openly (and unfairly) mocked for his opinions.
When you are talking about song structure, maybe your arguments should be based on, I don’t know, SONG STRUCTURE. Not statements like “the song doesn’t repeat itself because when it does repeat itself I feel different”. Good lord.
If you look past the fact that he's arguing against claims nobody is making and constantly (willfully?) misinterpreting (and then misrepresenting) people's responses in a supremely obtuse manner, sure.
I see people wilfully misrepresenting mjd’s posts repeatedly.
You guys aren’t engaging with him, you’re just trying to goad him into saying more things you can mock him for.
(I’m making blanket statements here, I don’t think everyone is treating him that way all the time and my post isn’t aimed at you specifically, Jorge.)
Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 11:15 pm Posts: 20812 Location: the bathroom
PHATJ wrote:
Birds in Hell wrote:
PHATJ wrote:
It’s impossible to debate the merits of anything when your arguments are 100% based on how something specifically makes you feel. That basis allows you to argue any number of absurdities with no reasonable way to disprove your cockamamie hypothesis.
What else do you think people should judge the merits of art on?
MJD honestly comes out of this thread looking fine, you guys are kind of being jerks. He’s being very generous and patient despite being openly (and unfairly) mocked for his opinions.
When you are talking about song structure, maybe your arguments should be based on, I don’t know, SONG STRUCTURE. Not statements like “the song doesn’t repeat itself because when it does repeat itself I feel different”. Good lord.
Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 2:02 am Posts: 15145 Location: Gigatown
bodysnatcher wrote:
PHATJ wrote:
Birds in Hell wrote:
PHATJ wrote:
It’s impossible to debate the merits of anything when your arguments are 100% based on how something specifically makes you feel. That basis allows you to argue any number of absurdities with no reasonable way to disprove your cockamamie hypothesis.
What else do you think people should judge the merits of art on?
MJD honestly comes out of this thread looking fine, you guys are kind of being jerks. He’s being very generous and patient despite being openly (and unfairly) mocked for his opinions.
When you are talking about song structure, maybe your arguments should be based on, I don’t know, SONG STRUCTURE. Not statements like “the song doesn’t repeat itself because when it does repeat itself I feel different”. Good lord.
The weird intro is cool, for the longest time I thought this was actually it's own filler track. I think this is my favorite part of the song. This song is just too fuckin' bouncy. I don't like how uplifting the music feels when the lyrics are the opposite, this works in some songs, but I've never really liked it in Betterman, I think it really detracts from the whole song. Except for the (2nd) intro, I feel no weight to the song. Every time I hear this song I know that I should be thinking "she dreams in red," but instead I'm always thinking "can't find a better man!" The outro is alright, Ed sounds cool, but again, it's way too happy sounding, especially to end with.
I'm curious where this idea that "Better Man" only uses three chords came from, because it certainly uses more than that. The chorus uses three chords, but the verse uses four completely different ones -- granted they make use of that "make one chord shape and slide it up and down the guitar and see what it does" approach that seems to be common among inexperienced guitar players, but it stumbles into some cool harmony!
"Better Man" is a great song and MJD is right that it's well-arranged. But despite people's struggles to come up with a song that shares its exact same structural design, conceptually the notion that this song breaks some kind of new ground in pop song dynamics is wrong. "Thunder Road," "Stairway to Heaven," and "Hey You" all spring immediately to mind without any effort as overly familiar songs that use this "layering" effect, starting minimal and gradually becoming more and more dynamic, "repeating without repeating" -- some run longer than 4 minutes but it's not like "Stairway" labors to get to its moment of change; it would have had the same effect had there only been one acoustic verse instead of four. One of my favorite songs that builds this way, precisely because it builds this way, is "Have You Seen Mary?" by Sponge -- kind of an alt-rock relic, but it's a lovely song and when the drums kick in after the final bridge, it's immaculate.
Acknowledging though that, at the very least, "Better Man" is a very dynamically arranged song, it's interesting to consider that that element of it may have been a happy accident, or -- maybe worse -- a result of the genius touch of Brendan O'Brien. The original arrangement of the song -- which dates back to Eddie's Bad Radio days and continues up through the 1994 tour -- contains a drum beat from the very beginning of the song which to my ears sounds like it's constantly tripping over itself, and some of the accents that only appear once in the final version appear multiple times in the early version. The changes that were made to it in production were absolutely the right changes.
I'm curious where this idea that "Better Man" only uses three chords came from, because it certainly uses more than that. The chorus uses three chords, but the verse uses four completely different ones -- granted they make use of that "make one chord shape and slide it up and down the guitar and see what it does" approach that seems to be common among inexperienced guitar players, but it stumbles into some cool harmony!
"Better Man" is a great song and MJD is right that it's well-arranged. But despite people's struggles to come up with a song that shares its exact same structural design, conceptually the notion that this song breaks some kind of new ground in pop song dynamics is wrong. "Thunder Road," "Stairway to Heaven," and "Hey You" all spring immediately to mind without any effort as overly familiar songs that use this "layering" effect, starting minimal and gradually becoming more and more dynamic, "repeating without repeating" -- some run longer than 4 minutes but it's not like "Stairway" labors to get to its moment of change; it would have had the same effect had there only been one acoustic verse instead of four. One of my favorite songs that builds this way, precisely because it builds this way, is "Have You Seen Mary?" by Sponge -- kind of an alt-rock relic, but it's a lovely song and when the drums kick in after the final bridge, it's immaculate.
Acknowledging though that, at the very least, "Better Man" is a very dynamically arranged song, it's interesting to consider that that element of it may have been a happy accident, or -- maybe worse -- a result of the genius touch of Brendan O'Brien. The original arrangement of the song -- which dates back to Eddie's Bad Radio days and continues up through the 1994 tour -- contains a drum beat from the very beginning of the song which to my ears sounds like it's constantly tripping over itself, and some of the accents that only appear once in the final version appear multiple times in the early version. The changes that were made to it in production were absolutely the right changes.
No one is saying it’s strictly 3 chords. When I said it got repetitive was the D-A-G progression over the last half+ of the song. It’s definitely more apparent in a live setting when they stretch it up. It helps when Ed goes up an octave towards the end, though. But that’s where the 3 chord discussion comes from.
Joined: Sat January 05, 2013 1:57 pm Posts: 32558 Location: Where everybody knows your name
mikejasond wrote:
Lets put it this way. There is no two 20 second sections in Betterman you could snip out and not know EXACTLY where in the song you are. Even if you ignored the lyrics. Not true of most songs.
It’s totally true. Most songs have different lyrics that let you know EXACTLY where you are. Or guitar solos. Or sad solos. Most songs have different production techniques to do this exact thing for this exact reason. Better Man is not alone in this regard.
_________________ Let me tell you, Homer Simpson is cock of nothing! - C. Montgomery Burns
Joined: Sat January 05, 2013 1:57 pm Posts: 32558 Location: Where everybody knows your name
mikejasond wrote:
Seriously if you listened to the first and second choruses in a vacuum you'd think you were listening to different songs. The tone and feel and rhythm and instrumentation and mood is just completely different.
Are you high?
_________________ Let me tell you, Homer Simpson is cock of nothing! - C. Montgomery Burns
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