This is a thread to talk about music.
Music Thread
- This topic has 996 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 8 months ago by
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Israel
Ah yes, the European country of Israel…
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A surprise contender from Sweden:
“The uploader has not made this video available in your country”
This is no way to run a song contest
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By the way, regarding your alternative eurovision… Who won?
The voting is still being tallied by our expert panel of judges.
While we wait please enjoy the half-time entertainment, which features a hilarious comedy sketch by our presenting team and a performance from a classic band with a new album to plug.
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Saturday evenings are all about the Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show in our household
Yeah I like this show. I don’t catch it every week but when I do it’s always good.
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New Alestorm!
These are the most Alestorm songs ever, and thus my favorites on the new album:
This one is very good, but I have to skip a part of it
:This one is growing on me:
Their metal cover of this Scottish folksong is also pretty good, but it sounds if they can’t choose between the traditional tempo and a more metal one:
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Their metal cover of this Scottish folksong is also pretty good, but it sounds if they can’t choose between the traditional tempo and a more metal one:
I think they chose metal
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Today is the 50th anniversary of the greatest rock album ever made.
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Today is the 50th anniversary of the greatest rock album ever made.
Wait a minute; I thought Led Zeppelin IV, the greatest rock album ever made, was released in November 1971, not June ’70.
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Today is the 50th anniversary of the greatest rock album ever made.
Wait a minute; I thought Led Zeppelin IV, the greatest rock album ever made, was released in November 1971, not June ’70.
That wasn’t even the best album Led Zeppelin made.
Seriously, does anyone really think IV is their best album? Better than any of the first three?
That really makes me wonder
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Seriously, does anyone really think IV is their best album? Better than any of the first three?
Of course picking a “best” something is a purely subjective matter based on what you, as an individual, like or dislike. Having said that, The Rolling Stone magazine list of 500 Best albums of the rock era places the first Led Zeppelin album at #29, and Led Zeppelin 4 at #69, with Physical Graffiti at #73 and Led Zeppelin 2 at #79 as the only Zep albums in the top 100. Strangely enough, not one Deep Purple album is in the top 100.
Again, subjective.Led Zeppelin 4 was my breakthrough Zeppelin album, released shortly before my 13th birthday when I was just discovering Album-Oriented Radio after spending my pre-teens listening to pop music on AM radio. “Black Dog”, “Rock and Roll”, “When the Levee Breaks”, and of course “Stairway To Heaven” were eye- and ear-opening experiences for my young brain. So, yes, I consider 4 my personal “best” Led Zeppelin record.
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Wonder Woman 84 should be opening this weekend, but Covid put paid to that.
But checking up on things I discovered that the guy who did the remix of Blue Monday that was used in the trailer released this a month ago;
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Best rock album of all time for me would be Velvet Underground and Nico.
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Is this the aussie version of Bohemian Rhapsody? Fucken love it!
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I’m a big Ben Folds fan and enjoyed this take on the year so far. He’s never made any secret of being influenced by Billy Joel but he’s really channelling him here.
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Every time you post that video I get a notice saying it’s not viewable in this country.
Folds is great anyway. He’s been doing a weekly hourlong live webcam performance for free during lockdown which has been pretty cool.
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The Manic Street Preachers podcast just released their episode on the band’s 2001 album “Know your enemy” – this was the first of their albums I bought new. They’re such an interesting band; at this point they had released the first two albums to mixed reviews, a third album now hailed as a dark, tortured masterpiece, had a member (key songwriter) go missing (he was mentally unwell and had been for a long time), but decided to carry on, releasing their 4th and 5th albums to acclaim and massive sales (in the UK mainly) between 1996 and 1998.
They’d ditched the spraypainted t-shirts and military garb and glitter and leopard print, and adopted a “Mondeo man” look – khakis, polo shirts, “normal” haircuts.
With this sixth album they wanted to alienate some of the new mainstream fans they’d picked up – albums 4 and 5 were full of anthems, full of radio friendly singles, lots of string swells and largely non-abrasive sounds.
To launch the album they pulled a chart stunt (the singles charts were still a thing then), releasing two singles on the same day. Their prior release – a non-album single, The Masses Against the Classes, opens with a Chomsky quote, closes with a Camus line, and is loud, fast and dirty sounding. Surprisingly it debuted at number 1 (their second and final number 1 single); a sign of just how big they were at the time.
The two singles they release are vastly different in sound, neither tapping into the MOR style of their hit albums – one a short, punchy rock number Found that soul, about the band rediscovering themselves, the other So why so sad a Beach Boys pastiche about being unfulfilled by religion:
That sharp little solo!
Both debuted in the UK top ten singles chart in the same week which I can only guess was a record at the time (pre-digital sales). The band did one of those gigs where they play all their singles a while ago – in introducing the second song there they apologised for it – I don’t think it’s that bad.
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The Masses Against the Classes, opens with a Chomsky quote, closes with a Camus line, and is loud, fast and dirty sounding. Surprisingly it debuted at number 1 (their second and final number 1 single); a sign of just how big they were at the time.
It did debut at number one but they did employ the ‘Iron Maiden’ trick.
Iron Maiden of course have a really big and loyal fanbase but like most metal bands weren’t really producers of hit singles. They’d make top 10 sometimes on week of release but not really troubling the top spot.
A member of their organisation worked out that the week with the highest sales for records in the UK was the week before Christmas (with people buying them as presents) but the week after Christmas and the one after new year had the lowest. A combination of shops being closed for part of it, money having been spent at Xmas, and also record companies not wanting to work over Christmas meant nobody released new records or bought that many. Which he figured out makes it the easiest week to get to number 1.
They did it with “Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter’ which flew into number one on their usual sales, which in that week were way higher than anyone else.
“The Masses Against The Classes’ went a step further and was only on release for 1 day to warehouses in a limited edition and then deleted. The Manic base though meaning that was enough for top spot.
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Yeah, it’s chart shenanigans, but it did mean they scored the first new UK number one of “the new millennium” (not really since the Millennium started on 1 Jan 2001, but anyway).
Still, two number one singles is better than one (which is better than none). One about the Spanish Civil War that mentions shooting fascists, the other with a Cuban flag (sans star) as the record sleeve – quite strange.
I’m just listening to their albums while working from home and the variety in sound is amazing. The (too long) album that saw those two singles I posted also has a few REM sounding tracks, a glorious disco pastiche, and some standard indie/art-rock sounding numbers. The following album is sterile sounding synth-pop (including the lead single “The love of Richard Nixon”, which really is apologia for the disgraced President; the single art and video showing the band wearing grotesque Nixon masks – it was a number 2 UK single).
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Still, two number one singles is better than one (which is better than none). One about the Spanish Civil War that mentions shooting fascists, the other with a Cuban flag (sans star) as the record sleeve – quite strange.
Absolutely, they are subjects you’d rarely see top the chart and “If You Tolerate This” didn’t use any chart shenanigans, it came out in August which would just be a standard week.
I heard The Masses Against The Classes first at the Manics Millennium gig on New Year’s Eve 1999. The first ever concert at the newly built Millennium Stadium. They made a loss by pegging the tickets at £20 because socialism.
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I ended up finding this video.It’s the top 5 of every year, worldwide, which makes it interesting as we usually look at US and UK charts. The overall view sees country music and Britpop pretty much missing. It doesn’t pay to have regional appeal, it does pay to be The Beatles or Madonna.
It may say something about life and age that my youngest child was born in December 2008. 2009 is the first year after my birth I don’t recognise one of the songs.
Shakira, Roxette and Maroon 5 feature with more songs than Michael Jackson.
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At work I’ve been listening to my iTunes library (approximately 15,000 songs) chronologically for the last few months. Currently nearing the end, and it’s sad how few songs/albums I downloaded from the most recent half-decade, compared to music I have from the 60 years prior to 2015.
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I am currently listening to the 26th album I have bought that was released new this year. I still have a few waiting to be listened to, and a few on pre-order, and it’s only half way through the year.
There is so much incredible new music being produced at the moment, I’m barely finding time to listen to the many albums I have from the 60 years prior to 2015.
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I think partly the move to streaming and the loss of music as something as something tangible means I just don’t reach for a record in the same way any more.
It’s a huge part of it that music more than any aspect of the arts has been placed into compartments. When I was growing up we had Top of the Pops, NME, later MTV (as a single channel) and magazines like Sky and Select. All gone really apart from NME retains a website.
You can though still buy Kerrang, DJ Magazine and watch MTV Bass or MTV Rocks.
Now everything is separated by genre. There’s no easy catch-all inroad to general pop music (in its widest sense that could include Public Enemy, Johnny Cash, Motorhead, Donna Summer, Pink Floyd, Daft Punk).
David has some very specific genres he likes, prog and folk, which means even if our running joke is how he lives in the past he does listen to more new music than probably all of us.
In games, films and TV though you still do have a general access point. PC Gamer, Total Film and the like aren’t genre specific.
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That’s a conscious decision, though — I know where to hear pop songs if I want to, I just choose not to because experience has shown me that I don’t like modern pop songs.
I don’t feel the same, my kids have got me listening to Radio 1 in the car these days and a lot of the music is fine (and relatively genre-diverse). It might not speak to me strongly as I’m the wrong demographic, but musically it’s pretty good.
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And the presence of kids may be a difference. I’m 47, when my dad was 47 he watched Top of the Pops with me. He may not have been that hugely into it but I recall he did find a lot of amusement in Chaka Demus and Pliers, he wondered if the next act would be another household tool, Wrench or Spanner. A pop act closed out every Wogan show at 7.30 and they’d be on Pebble Mill at One. It kind of spreads out.
I think even if you loved brass band music and nothing more back then it’d be hard not to know who Boy George was in 1983 and not have heard his song.
I have become aware of Blackpink in the last week or so because my daughter is 11.
Edit: I just aged myself for no particular reason, corrected that I’m 47. 😂
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I listen to music daily (bless the iPod), but over 90% of any new music I listen to is going to be new releases from artists I already follow. Once or twice a year I’ll get hungry and take a chance on some new album or artist, but they usually don’t stick. Or I might do a deep dive on some of the recommendations in threads like this.
If I had to choose between never hearing new music again, or never listening to anything older than this year, I’d easily choose the former – I know some people would rather invite the new music to come over the next 5 decades.
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My library of already discovered music is so very vast and diverse I keep rediscovering new ways to enjoy the old stuff all the time.
I know what I’d choose.
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A pop act closed out every Wogan show at 7.30 and they’d be on Pebble Mill at One
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My only real memory of music on Pebble Mill at One was that Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen always seemed to be on it
This was actually hugely influential on my musical taste. I was listening to stuff like this long before I got into rock music.
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Once or twice a year I’ll get hungry and take a chance on some new album or artist,
Tower Records used to promote new and undiscovered artists via heavy discounts on CDs in the mid-2000s. Those discounts encouraged me to try bands like Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, My Morning Jacket, The Black Keys and others that were not being played on local radio but whose music I fell in love with to the point where I’ve bought most of their subsequent releases.
I know I can do the same thing via my Spotify account these days, but the experience just isn’t the same.
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The greatest ever Pebble Mill performance is this one: https://www.facebook.com/TheOwenPaul/videos/885218045266150/
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Ha, I was looking for exactly that earlier and couldn’t find it.
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More people need to know about Päivi Hirvonen. I was shocked to see that this video has only 566 views (several of which may have been me over the years) and one upvote (which was definitely me). When you consider the absolute drivel that gets millions of views on youtube . . .
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When you consider the absolute drivel that gets millions of views on youtube . . .
It’s not bad but let’s be honest – it’s no Gangnam Style.
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While we don’t have similar music tastes, I have enjoyed and stuck with some recommendations of yours over the years; this isn’t for me though, and I’m not at all surprised that it has so few views. We must just be wired very differently – what do you get from it, especially since it’s in a language that I assume you don’t understand?
It’s really hard to explain why I like specific music. And I lack the musical training to give a technical explanation, so some of the following might not use the proper words to convey what I mean.
Addressing the easy point: the language is completely irrelevant. I listen to a lot of songs in languages I don’t understand. While I appreciate good lyrics, they are not at all necessary to a good piece of music. If they were, instrumental music wouldn’t exist. The voice is just another instrument, and it can make a pleasant sound without words (the end of the song is wordless vocalization anyway, as far as I can tell).
I’m naturally drawn to violins. Even more than guitars, I think. I generally like the sound whatever they’re playing (as long as they’re played well, obviously). So this ensemble is already going to attract me, no matter what they play.
In this song specifically, I like the (to me) alienness of the melody. (I think at least one of the violins is an octave fiddle, which is a beautiful but really unusual sound and adds to the novel quality). I haven’t really listened to much traditional Finnish music (and this style seems traditional, even though it’s her own composition), and to my ears it sounds weird. I mean, not completely alien like Chinese music or 12th century French music, but it doesn’t do what I would expect English music to do. I can’t explain how because I don’t have the music training to explain it. But I’m drawn to things that sound unusual.
In structure, I like how it builds over seven minutes from one voice, adding in violins, then the whole ensemble, before dying away to a single voice again. Dynamic movement is really important (and it’s why I like prog rock and classical music and rarely like pop songs). There’s an emotional uplift I get from music that rises and rises like this. And you don’t have to take seven minutes to do it, you could do in in three, but this piece doesn’t feel long (note: seven minutes isn’t what I would normally call long anyway
), it feels like it’s exactly the right length to say what it needs to say.By the end, I’m admiring the skill of the performance, I’m admiring the cleverness of the composition, and most importantly of all I’m emotionally satisfied. The song just works on every level. Maybe understandable lyrics would add another level, but it honestly doesn’t need it.
I hope that made at least some kind of sense
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It’s really hard to explain why I like specific music.
I think you explained it really well, David, and one of the reasons that I pay attention to your music posts is because I know it’s usually going to be an artist or a piece of music that stands outside the boundaries of “popular” music. I’m personally drawn to artists who try to bring non-traditional sounds into the mainstream, which is why (for instance) my favorite Christmas albums are Cyndi Lauper’s “Merry Christmas…Have a Nice Life” and the “Celtic Heartbeat Christmas” collection from that label. (Look up the Lauper album on Wikipedia to see what I mean.)
For what it’s worth, I enjoyed that Päivi Hirvonen enough to seek her out on Spotify. That particular song reminds me of my favorite classical music piece, Pachelbel’s Canon, because it takes a simple repeating motif and keeps building on it and swirling around it in constantly-changing patterns and layers until it reaches the perfect climax and then fades away.
It still don’t justify the Deep Purple obsession; but thanks for sharing.
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The first video I found was a live version of that song
Not bad at all. Bonus points for the Hammond sound, even though it was a bit buried in the mix, and I admire the way the guy plays to a crowd.
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Addressing the easy point: the language is completely irrelevant. I listen to a lot of songs in languages I don’t understand.
This is an interesting area. I am fine with songs in another language but they were very rare to be presented to us when young in the UK. Britain likes a good bit of homogeneity.
Sigur Ros are interesting since they perform a lot of songs in ‘Hopelandic’ which is just noises made up by the singer. Hoppipola though remains a work of beauty, such a great piece of music. (If you don’t know the band you’ll likely recognise the tune which is used as incidental music on TV a lot).
I have a Twitter friend though called Geordan, she’s an African-American lady from Cleveland. She fell in love with the music of the Superfurryanimals, who compose songs bilingually, most in English but many in Welsh. Their album ‘Mwng’ released in 2000 was entirely in Welsh and the highest new entry into the UK album charts of a non English language album. She couldn’t stand not understanding the words so learnt to speak the language over the internet. She’s now pretty fluent and has her own set of fans who converse with her in Welsh. So the converse that she couldn’t stand not appreciating the words.
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Very solid 90s rock, that one. I like it.
Yes, very much an 80’s / 90’s band, with obvious the Cure inspired looks =P
Not bad at all. Bonus points for the Hammond sound, even though it was a bit buried in the mix, and I admire the way the guy plays to a crowd.
Oh they gave some really amazing concerts, and on some videos you can see the gigantic crowds…
As I said, SS was probably THE biggest south american rock band there’s ever been (and if we go by the entire continent’s population, one of the world’s biggest band)… then when they split in the 90’s the singer carried on with his solo career and was quite succesful too, then some years back he sadly died, but he/they left quite a legacy. They were like the Beatles of SA, so if there’s one band you guys should know about, that’s the one =)
This is one of his solo songs that I like a lot, it’s also more recent so doesn’t sound so very 90’s…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ4q_4KJLEk
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Thanks David, that was a good explanation – like I said we must just be wired differently.
Hoppipola
Wife has Sugur Ros’ first album; I never really got into them but this song was the closest. Though the main refrain can’t help but remind me of “Nothing’s gonna stop us now” by Starship…
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Firestarter from The Prodigy came on the radio today when I was driving and it reminded me what a stroke of genius it was for them to let Keith sing and mix hardcore techno with punk vocals.
That was their first global hit but the band had 2 hit albums and 9 UK top 20 hits before Firestarter and I’d seen them perform twice live. Liam Howlett did all the music and other 3 just danced, any vocals were always samples. Keith Flint though even back then with no mohawk and no vocals was a force of nature on stage, we thought he might injure himself badly he was so crazy. Like all rave bands at the time, they were on tiny record labels with videos that cost 5 quid to make.
So sad Keith took his life not that long back. He was a totem for my generation.
Mark 1 Prodigy:
Notable that the group was half black and half white and also notable nobody noticed because that was pretty normal in the scene. It didn’t last too long but there was a brief glorious couple of years where that scene didn’t have a racial profile. Nobody considered it black or white music, it was Kraftwerk by way of disco and house corrupted by Europeans.
It’s only with some hindsight I looked back at early 90s music from the US and it’s hard to name a single mixed race group.
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It’s only with some hindsight I looked back at early 90s music from the US and it’s hard to name a single mixed race group.
There’s quite a few from the 90’s… specially in the white/latino mix (like the Deftones, Korn, Suicide Tendencies, Static X, Fear Factory, to name a few), I think the issue is black folks were VERY heavily into rap/R&B/hiphop in the 90’s, but even then, there were a few of those too (though only Hirax comes to mind).
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I found a whole bunch of live gigs on the Rockpalast (a German TV programme) Youtube channel and I’ve been slowly working through the ones that look interesting.
Last night I watched Them Crooked Vultures from 2009. I liked their first (and only?) album but never saw them live. Needless to say, they put on a good show, and the massive crowd loves them. It’s a very no-nonsense production for such big names — no fancy staging or gimmicks, they just stand there and play the songs, which is how I want my gigs to be. And it’s great to watch them interact. It feels very much like a group of equals who respect each other’s ability, no one is trying to upstage the others. I think they would have been a great band to see.
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I think the issue is black folks were VERY heavily into rap/R&B/hiphop in the 90’s, but even then, there were a few of those too (though only Hirax comes to mind).
Oh and goddamned King’s X… how the fuck did I forget that band? It’s one of the very best bands from the 90’s…
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It’s only with some hindsight I looked back at early 90s music from the US and it’s hard to name a single mixed race group.
There’s quite a few from the 90’s… specially in the white/latino mix (like the Deftones, Korn, Suicide Tendencies, Static X, Fear Factory, to name a few), I think the issue is black folks were VERY heavily into rap/R&B/hiphop in the 90’s, but even then, there were a few of those too (though only Hirax comes to mind).
I thought of Charles and Eddie, Dee-Lite and Color Me Badd too now I think back but they were pretty rare.
By contrast it was pretty much the norm in that early 90s dance scene. The Prodigy, S’Express, Massive Attack, SL2, Shades of Rhythm, Beats International. Some not strictly bands but producers that used a mix of vocalists – like Leftfield, KLF, Fatboy Slim etc
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