Polyphia is So Cutting Edge…😉

[DanTravis62]

As a polyphia fan I totally understand why some people here would hate them, BUT…

y’all better not call out his playing for not having feeling and then think Kerry king solos are good

That's a fair point, his solos are NOT good - but I honestly think Kerry King has MORE emotion in his playing than Tammy Henson

Its a douchey monster energy drink/punch holes in drywall type of emotion, but its a real, honest to god emotion

 

[Ben Waylin]

Which parts are cringey?

 

[braintheory]

Seen this kid yet?

This recent trend in steel string playing sounds impressive, but also to me it sounds like he just takes whatever popular song he can and employ all his bag of tricks he can throw to them in almost a cookie cutter way. Insert percussive flourish here, insert same percussive flourish here, tapping section here, behind the nut trick here, rinse and repeat in the next song (no matter what the song is). To me this isn’t really artistry and it doesn’t fit the songs. If anything it makes them less coherent pieces of music. It also seems like lots of recent steel string players have these same tricks up their sleeves, but at least apply it to their own compositions and do it more tastefully. JMO

 

[Yehuda]

Also for those of you who have mostly written off polyphia, I’d highly encourage listening to their ep “The Most Hated”- for the most part it is more melody focused and less technical wankery than some of their other stuff.

I think people tend to write off polyphia as tappy percussive stuff without feeling or emotion, but a good chunk of their stuff I would argue doesn’t fall into that category (their newest album mostly does from my perspective admittedly).

I think the reality is that rage and blues bends aren’t the only way to express emotion on guitar, and the emotions polyphia expresses are simply different than the ones a metal band or blues guitarist would go for. I don’t expect people to like their music, or their aesthetic (I person am not a fan of that either), but I would argue that the ep I listed above, their album renaissance (especially the song nightmare), and a lot of their album “new levels new devils” have no less feel/emotion than the music yall listen too- music is subjective after all!

 

[DanTravis62]

This recent trend in steel string playing sounds impressive, but also to me it sounds like he just takes whatever popular song he can and employ all his bag of tricks he can throw to them in almost a cookie cutter way. Insert percussive flourish here, insert same percussive flourish here, tapping section here, behind the nut trick here, rinse and repeat in the next song (no matter what the song is). To me this isn’t really artistry and it doesn’t fit the songs. If anything it makes them less coherent pieces of music. It also seems like lots of recent steel string players have these same tricks up their sleeves, but at least apply it to their own compositions and do it more tastefully. JMO

I'm with you on this. Honestly this cheapens both the techniques and the songs themselves. It feels like I'm watching an infomercial rather than experiencing music.

does anyone under 30 actually WRITE cool music anymore? Or is it all "ironic" cover songs and paint by numbers with Steve slate drums?

 

[TexasBaritone]

Also for those of you who have mostly written off polyphia, I’d highly encourage listening to their ep “The Most Hated”- for the most part it is more melody focused and less technical wankery than some of their other stuff.

I think people tend to write off polyphia as tappy percussive stuff without feeling or emotion, but a good chunk of their stuff I would argue doesn’t fall into that category (their newest album mostly does from my perspective admittedly).

I think the reality is that rage and blues bends aren’t the only way to express emotion on guitar, and the emotions polyphia expresses are simply different than the ones a metal band or blues guitarist would go for. I don’t expect people to like their music, or their aesthetic (I person am not a fan of that either), but I would argue that the ep I listed above, their album renaissance (especially the song nightmare), and a lot of their album “new levels new devils” have no less feel/emotion than the music yall listen too- music is subjective after all!

I enjoy listening to Polyphia.

 

[thegame]

To “get” Polyphia, puberty blockers really help

 

[rsm]

 

[rsm]

I'm with you on this. Honestly this cheapens both the techniques and the songs themselves. It feels like I'm watching an infomercial rather than experiencing music.

does anyone under 30 actually WRITE cool music anymore? Or is it all "ironic" cover songs and paint by numbers with Steve slate drums?

 

[mentoneman]

I'm with you on this. Honestly this cheapens both the techniques and the songs themselves. It feels like I'm watching an infomercial rather than experiencing music.

does anyone under 30 actually WRITE cool music anymore? Or is it all "ironic" cover songs and paint by numbers with Steve slate drums?

music used to be much more of a social thing. although fading, families here in Hawaii have kanikapilas

this was my childhood. go to a family party and bust out ukuleles, guitars, piano, washtub bass, girls doing hula…
every saturday we’d go to the UH football games and my dad and his work friends and our families would eat, drink budweiser, sing and party hard tailgating before the games. we got there early and commandeered 16 stalls in the north end zone parking lot EVERY saturday for decades. my dad had season tickets from the year Aloha Stadium opened in 1975 until he passed in 07.



traveling around the country for work i experienced similar family jams with good old boys down south.

now music in this cell phone generation is dominated by bedroom studios, IRs, drum tracks and YouTube, in isolation.

re: stanley j. this lady seems to have picked up where he left off

 

[rsm]

@mentoneman back in the day, my social music was school related from middle school through college: dances, socials, fairs, etc. battles of the bands (all ages, and later at bars), it was also between bands, as members left/joined each other's bands, so if we got gig, we'd find a friend's band to open for us and vice versa. it was organic, in the local club scene, seems like everyone knew each other, and it was a regular weekly thing when there were many clubs, most would have music 3-7 nights a week...the music scene was the social scene for many of us.

 

[7704A]

Naturally, though I was talking about Mr. "When a guitarist...":

 

[7704A]

Partly it's the ridiculous exaggerated head flailing and overdone body gyrations, which are clearly choreographed and not what he would naturally do, mixed with the smug look on his face that lets you know he thinks he's super hot shit and that "obviously you've never seen anything as fabulous as me.”

And partly it's that the pieces he chose to embellish upon were obviously picked because of how stock standard, universally recognizable they are, like he's specifically making these videos as instagram bait to be gawked at by rubes.

He's obviously got some talent and coordination but the whole thing is just really, really obnoxious.

Ah, got it. For me it was the clickbaity nature of the video and the overplaying for the sake of overplaying. Reminds me of the talent show musicians who show off how fast they can massacre flight of the bumble bee and are called prodigies for it. To be fair though, this kid is doing more than just speed slurring the songs so that's a step or two up in my book.

 

[TheGreatGreen]