Unpopular Opinion and Discussion thread

Is this poll pointless?

  • Total voters
    125
mobucks said:
Sick of this especially the term "rogue" like.
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This is probably the most unpopular of those three to be honest. I guarantee a good amount, if not a majority, of people who like Roguelikes/Roguelites don't realize that the name comes from the game Rogue or that a game named that ever existed (I mean they probably would say yeah I'd imagine some game is called that but the point is they don't know the correlation).

But I agree, genres shouldn't be named after a title or two that "pioneered" that style. I especially hate Souls-like because what makes a Souls-like a Souls-like is often just dropping a currency and/or progression currency on death with the ability to pick it up if you don't die on your way back. Otherwise, the games don't necessarily have to have much in common. But many of them decide to be designed similarly with obtuse worldbuilding and/or storytelling, a bit more of an initial challenge/learning curve, and being dark thematically. I guess dodges that guarantee invincibility frames is usually there too but again, not really a unique concept. The best argument is that a Souls-like combines most of the elements that make people feel like Demon's and Dark Souls unique from other action games but that would start to discredit plenty of Souls-likes I'm sure.

I think it's fine to just have genres be more broad generalizations and let things within them be unique without acting like we need to have subgenre upon subgenre. I feel similarly about music. There's plenty of bands I've heard that I cannot find another band that sounds enough like them. Sometimes it's just a collective of less than 10 bands that I can find enough similarities in. Those aren't enough to justify a new classification to me.

I'm fine with some subgenres but the broader the better. There, that's my stupid unpopular opinion.
 
Game devs should be less gamey.
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Morgan_ said:
Wtf, this is so thought out I went from disagreeing to agreeing.
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What I said? I didn't really think about it much here but it is something I've thought about and had discussions about for a long time. When it comes to music, metal subgenres are a big offender of this. Maybe it's because I started losing interest in metal from when I was a teenager but that's where a lot of frustration started. I grew up listening to country and country pop songs mostly, didn't really care enough to ever seek anything different. Then one day my mom played classic rock she liked and I was enthralled with it. A week later, I see a weird shirt my friend was wearing and ask about it (it was Slipknot). Then I got really into nu metal and industrial metal. Turns out, a lot of "metal" titled subgenres are often not considered metal by metalheads. So begins the annoying brainworm of giving a fuck about this dumb shit.

If nu metal isn't metal but Slipknot is "more metal" than Limp Bizkit, why are they both in nu metal? Honestly, based off of what I know of nu metal, Slipknot quickly arrived to the genre and left it about just as fast. Early Slipknot material, things before their self-titled album and Corey being the frontman, were showing numerous influences that were more akin to funk, jazz, rock, and metal. Then the self-titled album drops after they sign to Roadrunner Records. Bam, here's an edgy new nu metal band for the kids to enjoy. By some metrics, Iowa and Vol 3 already depart from the core aspects of nu metal.

Maybe a band with 9 members consisting of a traditional drummer, traditional lead and rhythm guitarists, a traditional bassist, and a traditional frontman vocalist along with a DJ/turntable player, two extra percussionists, and a sample player just have a unique sound and end up mashing a bunch of influences together to the point where they don't sound like Korn, Deftones, or Limp Bizkit at all besides having some hiphop influences and being rock.

In my opinion, a band like Mushroomhead has had a historically higher record of reflecting hiphop influences but they aren't considered nu metal as often as Slipknot is. Especially when J Mann was one of the two singers of the band since he would often rap lyrics, he even had his own side projects that were hiphop, jazz, and/or funk influenced including one that is literally a rap group.

Slipknot's most on point nu metal sound was probably Spit It Out. Hiphop influences don't solely show themselves through rap but it's a very apparent way to do it when merging it with other genres.

Also! What genre/subgenre do you even try to place a band like System of a Down? Wikipedia says they are: alternative metal, nu metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and progressive metal. All these subgenres to describe them yet I don't think if someone who has never heard them listened to most of their discography would find them to sound not much like others of those genres. Alternative is a easy way out though. Pretty much says yeah it's like this but not quite!

I like to pick on a friend with fake subgenres like post-grind omega-smash thrashcore and proto-progressive doomgaze and shit like that.

TorontoReign said:
Games should be less gamey.
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I feel like they've gotten better with this. I mean, there's so many games out there that it's a natural occurrence that some idea in some capacity has been attempted. But just thinking about that, makes me think of earlier console games vs mainstream AAA games of today. But I also can see the inverse in some series like stapling on levels and skill trees to games that shouldn't even bother with that stuff (looking at you Assassin's Creed).
 
SquidWard said:
I think it's fine to just have genres be more broad generalizations and let things within them be unique without acting like we need to have subgenre upon subgenre. I feel similarly about music. There's plenty of bands I've heard that I cannot find another band that sounds enough like them. Sometimes it's just a collective of less than 10 bands that I can find enough similarities in. Those aren't enough to justify a new classification to me.

I'm fine with some subgenres but the broader the better. There, that's my stupid unpopular opinion.
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I kinda agree but kinda disagree. The way I see it concepts are just expedients; categorizations pertaining to everyday life (in contrast to science and shit) are done for convenience's sake, not to create some rigorous taxonomy of games / music / whatever. Makes it easier to find more music similar to a band you like for example. Not necessary, just handy, even though there's the risk of clinging onto the classifications. Just don't take genres/subgenres as gospel and you're golden

edit: bands similar to SOAD should be called Down-like
 
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RexExitium said:
I kinda agree but kinda disagree. The way I see it concepts are just expedients; categorizations pertaining to everyday life (in contrast to science and shit) are done for convenience's sake, not to create some rigorous taxonomy of games / music / whatever. Makes it easier to find more music similar to a band you like for example. Just don't take genres/subgenres as gospel and you're golden
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I agree with you but I also see silly people bicker over what isn't and is alternative goblin smash metal and is instead depressive goblin smash metal.

I think even more of my distaste also derives from subgenres focused on theatrics or lyrical content. Music is a sonic thing. I get that the show and/or message that goes along with it adds to the experience but it feels useless to someone listening to it in their car. If you have someone listen to Green Jelly, Gwar, and Ghoul they aren't going to really think they have a lot in common besides maybe being comedic but that's even if they find the content funny or if they only find one funny compared to the others.

Subgenres are fine, there's just a point where it feels like it goes too far to me and I stop seeing the distinction as meaningful or useful. I don't expect many people to really agree with that.
 
Mr Fish said:
What genre is Gorillaz?
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Funny, I've pondered this question for quite awhile.

If we were to categorize them under just one genre to make things simple, rather than throw every genre under the sun on their description like wikipedia and music sites do, I might categorize them as trip-hop. If not that, then nu hip-hop or experimental hip-hop perhaps. Even then that's a shaky and uncertain categorization.

That being said, someone recently showed me a group named "Die Antwoord", and to be honest, I have no fucking clue what this "genre" is:

 
Mστh said:
Funny, I've pondered this question for quite awhile.

If we were to categorize them under just one genre to make things simple, rather than throw every genre under the sun on their description like wikipedia and music sites do, I might categorize them as trip-hop. If not that, then nu hip-hop or experimental hip-hop perhaps. Even then that's a shaky and uncertain categorization.

That being said, someone recently showed me a group named "Die Antwoord", and to be honest, I have no fucking clue what this "genre" is:

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That's the problem with genres, it works when an artist actually 'sticks' to a type of music but when they are experimental and want to explore sound you get to a point where there's no way to define them really as each individual song is unique.

Gonna post a few Gorillaz songs just because of it to showcase diversity of sound:








https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhXK74DY4DU


Like, this is maybe a feet of the tip of the iceberg of Gorillaz. Sometimes it is even hard to genre define individual songs let alone their entire albums or discography.

[edit]

Also Die Antwood is pretty unhinged music, while entertaining I dunno if I'd enjoy listening to them on the regular.
 
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