Jacob Collier is considered by some to be a modern Bach. What do you think of his music?

He's what happens when someone is gifted with superhuman musical skills, no taste, and zero aptitude for composition. He'd be impressive if everything I heard from him wasn't the worst music in the world. I remember reading some opinion piece on him (was it in the NYT?) that said that he was amazing at giving demonstrations about music, but terrible at making music. His natural home is in a seminar or TED talk.

As a composer he's not even the modern Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

He's obviously an insanely gifted musician who has also put in a really vast amount of work.

His music is bad, but I'm not convinced it's supposed to be 'good'. I think the stuff he does is probably a compromise between what is palatable/commercially viable while being complex enough not to bore him to death. I don't know that churning out mind-blowingly edgy/sophisticated compositions would pay his mortgage, or maintain the level of fame he seems to genuinely enjoy. I bet he does some good stuff at some point.

Pure :WF:

Omg this kid was studying to be a doctor and pivoted into busking last minute.

But a true musical genius would make beautiful music that is never boring, not unlistenable claptrap. Do you really think he will rise above?

He's all intelligence and no feeling. It's like watching a robot trying to understand love.

I enjoy the occasional video of George Collier (Jacob's father, I assume) where he does music transcriptions of some performer or other, so I thought I'd check out a couple of his son's videos.

McCoy Tyner could seemingly flub a note during his solo in "My Favorite Things" and somehow it isn't just "not a bad thing" but instead it's almost magical. Jacob Collier is, from the bits I've heard, technically flawless at playing musical instruments, but it doesn't really amount to much. As the robots might say in Westworld, it doesn't sound like anything to me.

I don't get it, but I'm in the decided minority on this. CRAP, I guess.

Just heard this guy for the first time, and it sounded like Rick Wakeman sitting in with Michael McDonald. CRAP.

His cover of "Here Comes the Sun" brings it home to me what the problem is. There's just too much going on all the time. It sounds messy. No element is allowed to simply play itself out but always veers off in another direction in a way that doesn't make sense, or is overlayed with a dozen other things.

The trick to experimental pop music in my view is to keep the complexity on the arrangement side, while having the melody up front and distinct.

That and there's simply nothing that interesting going on in the music. The layerings are mostly like superfluous ornamentation and the productions are flat. It sounds clean in a way that puts me off.

I do appreciate that he sings while clearly not a virtuoso on that part. I don't find him pretentious or standoffish at all.

I don't buy that there is some calculation behind the music either, like finding some middle-road between popular appeal and avant-garde. I see no reason to believe other than that he makes the music he enjoys and that stimulates him. There are plenty of talented instrumentalists with crap tastes around.

This song is ok. Not masterful, but fine if it were less adult contemporary-sounding. Which therefore I take to be simply his style.