My theory on why dubstep is being widely disliked by people

styLIShT This is just a theory on why many people hate dubstep. I am not saying that any music genre is bad or anything. One main reason would be the fact that Dubstep has become quite mainstream in the past few years and by being mainstream, it is receiving hate. There's also the accusation about how it is associated with edgy pre-pubescent children. I'm going to put that aside. Here's the main reason why Dubstep is being widely disliked.

Our brain has a notion of what sounds good, and what sounds bad.

Take this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vntAKXIuRUI

and compare it to this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QNCIz-_QFrs

Big difference eh?

This is nearly not subjective, we are shown what sounds good and what sounds bad through the popular musics we hear everyday.

What most people will hear as “nice” is musically known as “functional chords”. Basically, these are progressions of chords that our ears will expect. By using these chords, our ears feel satisfied, sort of like when a piece perfectly fits a Tetris puzzle.

Another feature is “conjunct melodies”. These are melodies with very small jumps between each note i.e. very low to very high would not be conjunct, but disjunct, which is the opposite of conjunct. This is well shown in the two pieces I compared earlier on. The first one has conjunct melodies with little leaps, whereas the second well, yeah. Call it what you want ;)

There’s more to it, but this basically sums it up.

Dubstep says “f*** that” to these features in particular, which makes it very uncomfortable for the average listener to listen to. There’s no real use of chords, and the melodies are largely disjunct which surprises their ears, an average listener will not tend to like that.

A pop music listener, when suddenly exposed to Knife Party or Skrillex will obviously not like the dubstep.

I don’t mean any disrespect to dubsteppers, actually I am a big fan of Dubstep, but that’s my explanation to why most people will dislike the sensation they get from listening to Dubstep and why it is receiving hate.

Comments

I have a friend who's obsessed with Dubstep... - TwilightKitsune

Positronwildhawk was liked dubstep. - 2storm