'Gritty' music

clare_bear

If someone said they wanted the music a bit more 'gritty', what would you think they meant?  I think they were listening to something quite poppy at the time.  A friend of mine was asking my opinion, and the best I could come up with was, 'maybe they wanted to hear something less poppy'.

richardhomer

On a scale of Britney Spears to Slayer, probably somewhere around Del Amitri....

DulcetJones

From a guitar point of view I would guess playing power chords with some distortion on them as opposed to strumming open chords with a clean sound would make most music more "gritty".   When people use terms that aren't in the theory book, that's when things get 'gritty'.

ICBM

Probably a bit less produced and perfected - that's what I assume it means anyway.

Nothing to do with the amount of distortion on a guitar sound really.

Lixarto

More Neil Young than Will Young.

richardhomer

Lixarto;305210" said:

More Neil Young than Will Young.

More Angus Young than Paul Young....

johnnyurq

More old than young.

Could also be more edgy lyrics wise as well as less pop orientated, more angst and bad shizzle happening.  

richardhomer

More Billy Gibbons than Billy Ocean....

breakstuff

More GG Allin than Lily Allen.

Squite a good game this.

richardhomer

More Freddie King than Mark King....

mike_l

More Slayer than Slade.

 

I'd take it as being a bit darker, more thought provoking than Happy, cheery pop. Not necessarily "heavier" just a bit "deeper".

EricTheWeary

Less Cliff Richard and more...dammit, I thought I had one...

clare_bear

Ha ha, thanks guys  Pretty much what I suspected then, we know what it is but don't know how to define it

Bucket

I'd just say it means more attitude... a darker, more "dangerous" sound.

richardhomer

^
Yeah - more Mick Jagger than Mick Hucknall....

octatonic

I think of gritty music as music made by musicians who don't give a fuck if you like it or not.

They are doing their own thing and making the thing they want.

I'm sure there are exceptions.

Iamnobody

Ooh can I play?

More Nick Cave than Nick Kershaw...

sinbaadi

For me "gritty" is serious, raw, unfiltered, unmolested by over production.  It probably can't be sung with an angelic voice, or played with a harp, so it's as much about the sound as it is about the implied philosophy of the musician(s).  Again, there are probably exceptions.

errr...... more NWA than N-sync?

Bucket

More Justin Broadrick than Justin Timberlake.

More Electric Wizard than Electric Light Orchestra.

ICBM

sinbaadi said:

For me "gritty" is serious, raw, unfiltered, unmolested by over production.  It probably can't be sung with an angelic voice, or played with a harp

It can *definitely* be sung with an angelic voice, if the lyrical content and the arrangement/production make it so. So many it's hard to know where to start, although Tori Amos would be a good example… listen to 'Me And A Gun'.

And it can also be played with a harp - check out Joanna Newsom. (Although she does *not* have an angelic voice!)

Alnico

More Rival Sons than Rhianna