Like some other commenters below, I feel like I just uncovered a RUclips treasure trove in your excellent videos. I've loved thinking about genres since realizing that genre can describe many things including both musical vocabulary and cultural context, and there's absolutely no need to describe each song using exactly one genre. I agree that you didn't say anything that wasn't obvious, but I think you said it really well. All the genre skeptics and genre zealots should watch this!
Thanks so much for the very kind comment. I appreciate it a lot, and reassures me I'm making good content 😁 glad you enjoyed the video Thanks for watching - and don't forget to check out my other videos 😅
Wow thanks so much for the kind comment! It's massively appreciated 😀 I'm still just a small channel, but I hope to grow in size, and comments like this make me believe it might just happen eventually Cheers!
Been looking forward to this one since you announced it! Couple of things, first, I don't know if you watch the comedian Dave Gorman, but he had a whole segment about music gatekeepers, calling them "extractor fans" which I think is a brilliant way to describe them. Secondly, I think genre is only useful when describing songs, because anything more than that can start to get blurry, take The White Album for instance, nobody in their right mind would say that Honey Pie, Revolution 9, Helter Skelter and Rocky Raccoon are the same genre, but they all appear on the same album and work, for the most part, coherently, likewise for artists who experiment with different genres throughout their career, like Bowie, The Beach Boys and The Jam. Thirdly, I disagree somewhat with the idea that folk lyrics aren't allowed to have standards or not be complex, like in The Times They Are A-Changing, Dylan's first line is "Come gather round people" which is a very clear standard practice from all over different cultures, including the folk genre, and also on the topic of Dylan, he sometimes uses very simplistic lyrics to tell his story "I had a dream about world war 3, she said it was a bad dream". I wouldn't say that is a very complex lyric, but it achieves the goal of what Dylan is trying to talk about. All in all though this was a really well presented and well thought out video that has introduced new ideas and new ways of listening to me.
I don't know his stuff all that well tbh - only ever seen him on the odd panel show! But yeah, that sounds about right. And your second point is definitely a good one, and I've often had similar thoughts regarding progressive rock: there could feasibly be a band that doesn't record a single individual track we would consider 'prog', yet they could still be a 'prog' band. I think Kate Bush, and Peter Gabriel's solo stuff kind of fit into this. But maybe the best example would be The Wall - I don't think I'd be able to point to a single song on that album and say 'this is prog', but the album as a whole clearly is. I think every prog band has at least a few songs that aren't individually prog (sometimes not even remotely), but it would probably still be best to call even those songs 'prog' (I think), just because of the context of the band/album. This actually goes into some of the stuff I left out of the video haha, and I'm not going to write out another essay here 😅 but I think even with the Beatles' White Album, it's worth remembering that although they do hit upon a very wide range of styles, they are still a 'pop/rock' band. So when they do country music, it's not actually full-blown-country-music - when they do *whatever*, it's usually not really full-blown-*whatever*. It's usually 'The Beatles dabble in *whatever*'. Not at all to diminish their acheivements - just a realistic assessment of the fact that they weren't (and no one can be) a master of all styles. For one, because genre is culture, and no one can be all cultures (I hope this makes sense - pls challenge me if you disagree. Or head over to my subreddit and we can talk there! www.reddit.com/r/bigyellowpraxis/ it's very quiet at the mo, so any contribution is valued!) And on your third point - I did write that bit thinking 'this is an overgeneralisation' (a common theme for me!). But just to be clear, what I said was 'bad lyrics - or maybe just trivial lyrics - are less acceptable in folk music than most other genres'. Which is a bit different to what your understanding of my point was (I didn't say complexity). That's partly on me, of course, and it still isn't a perfect statement! (After all, Quinn the Mighty Eskimo sounds pretty trivial to me). Obviously, none of the lyrics you quote there are 'complex' - but I also don't think they're trivial either. And I certainly think that folk music *does* have higher standards for lyrics than most other genres, with a lower tolerance for triviality - I might argue that Bob Dylan could only get away with the occasional dabble in trivial lyrics precisely because he so rarely did. I do actually want to do a future episode on 'what is complexity', so I'm sure some of this stuff will be in that. Though I'm not sure when I'll make it. Next video: one chord songs (and why David Bennet Piano's video is wrong) 🤔 Thanks as always for watching, and your comments are always appreciated!
@@bigyellowpraxis Ah my mistake on the misunderstanding, I think a video on lyrical and compositional complexity, its merits and drawbacks would be incredibly interesting, and maybe it could be another project video like this one.
Like some other commenters below, I feel like I just uncovered a RUclips treasure trove in your excellent videos. I've loved thinking about genres since realizing that genre can describe many things including both musical vocabulary and cultural context, and there's absolutely no need to describe each song using exactly one genre. I agree that you didn't say anything that wasn't obvious, but I think you said it really well. All the genre skeptics and genre zealots should watch this!
Thanks so much for the very kind comment. I appreciate it a lot, and reassures me I'm making good content 😁 glad you enjoyed the video
Thanks for watching - and don't forget to check out my other videos 😅
These videos are insanely well thought out and well made. I genuinely think this is one of best explanations and analysis of music!
Wow thanks so much for the kind comment! It's massively appreciated 😀
I'm still just a small channel, but I hope to grow in size, and comments like this make me believe it might just happen eventually
Cheers!
I love this channel.
excelent video.
Glad you enjoy my videos - thanks so much for watching
Been looking forward to this one since you announced it!
Couple of things, first, I don't know if you watch the comedian Dave Gorman, but he had a whole segment about music gatekeepers, calling them "extractor fans" which I think is a brilliant way to describe them.
Secondly, I think genre is only useful when describing songs, because anything more than that can start to get blurry, take The White Album for instance, nobody in their right mind would say that Honey Pie, Revolution 9, Helter Skelter and Rocky Raccoon are the same genre, but they all appear on the same album and work, for the most part, coherently, likewise for artists who experiment with different genres throughout their career, like Bowie, The Beach Boys and The Jam.
Thirdly, I disagree somewhat with the idea that folk lyrics aren't allowed to have standards or not be complex, like in The Times They Are A-Changing, Dylan's first line is "Come gather round people" which is a very clear standard practice from all over different cultures, including the folk genre, and also on the topic of Dylan, he sometimes uses very simplistic lyrics to tell his story "I had a dream about world war 3, she said it was a bad dream". I wouldn't say that is a very complex lyric, but it achieves the goal of what Dylan is trying to talk about.
All in all though this was a really well presented and well thought out video that has introduced new ideas and new ways of listening to me.
I don't know his stuff all that well tbh - only ever seen him on the odd panel show! But yeah, that sounds about right.
And your second point is definitely a good one, and I've often had similar thoughts regarding progressive rock: there could feasibly be a band that doesn't record a single individual track we would consider 'prog', yet they could still be a 'prog' band. I think Kate Bush, and Peter Gabriel's solo stuff kind of fit into this. But maybe the best example would be The Wall - I don't think I'd be able to point to a single song on that album and say 'this is prog', but the album as a whole clearly is. I think every prog band has at least a few songs that aren't individually prog (sometimes not even remotely), but it would probably still be best to call even those songs 'prog' (I think), just because of the context of the band/album.
This actually goes into some of the stuff I left out of the video haha, and I'm not going to write out another essay here 😅 but I think even with the Beatles' White Album, it's worth remembering that although they do hit upon a very wide range of styles, they are still a 'pop/rock' band. So when they do country music, it's not actually full-blown-country-music - when they do *whatever*, it's usually not really full-blown-*whatever*. It's usually 'The Beatles dabble in *whatever*'. Not at all to diminish their acheivements - just a realistic assessment of the fact that they weren't (and no one can be) a master of all styles. For one, because genre is culture, and no one can be all cultures (I hope this makes sense - pls challenge me if you disagree. Or head over to my subreddit and we can talk there! www.reddit.com/r/bigyellowpraxis/ it's very quiet at the mo, so any contribution is valued!)
And on your third point - I did write that bit thinking 'this is an overgeneralisation' (a common theme for me!). But just to be clear, what I said was 'bad lyrics - or maybe just trivial lyrics - are less acceptable in folk music than most other genres'. Which is a bit different to what your understanding of my point was (I didn't say complexity).
That's partly on me, of course, and it still isn't a perfect statement! (After all, Quinn the Mighty Eskimo sounds pretty trivial to me). Obviously, none of the lyrics you quote there are 'complex' - but I also don't think they're trivial either. And I certainly think that folk music *does* have higher standards for lyrics than most other genres, with a lower tolerance for triviality - I might argue that Bob Dylan could only get away with the occasional dabble in trivial lyrics precisely because he so rarely did.
I do actually want to do a future episode on 'what is complexity', so I'm sure some of this stuff will be in that. Though I'm not sure when I'll make it.
Next video: one chord songs (and why David Bennet Piano's video is wrong) 🤔
Thanks as always for watching, and your comments are always appreciated!
@@bigyellowpraxis Ah my mistake on the misunderstanding, I think a video on lyrical and compositional complexity, its merits and drawbacks would be incredibly interesting, and maybe it could be another project video like this one.
Yeah, I'm sure I'll get round to it someday! 😅
You are an excellent journalist (but you’ve probably hard that a lot)
Thx for…
Thanks so much! Appreciated!