Mostly unrelated but as much as I loved the soundtracks for Bastion and Transistor I just did not connect with the music in Pyre or Hades -- but that didn't stop Spotify from spoonfeeding me...
Mostly unrelated but as much as I loved the soundtracks for Bastion and Transistor I just did not connect with the music in Pyre or Hades -- but that didn't stop Spotify from spoonfeeding me tracks from both of those games one at a time across most weeks in the last year. It's quite annoying how music suggestion engines overreact to disparate interests... if I listen to anything "from the internet" I get meme music for weeks. I listened to some Tally Hall which is the band that Rob Cantor, the guy who wrote viral song "Actual Cannibal Shia Leboeuf" used to be in, now I get sent tracks from his inane Disney Junior nursery rhyme albums EVERY WEEK. It's the worst. But my only option to exclude him from those playlists is to indicate that I "don't like this artist" which excludes his other music from playlists that I created myself??
Actually, getting spammed okay-but-not-great tracks from Hades made me way less likely to play Hades. I used to be a big fan of this studio but after Pyre (which was cool but too much VN for me) I was thinking I would skip Hades which I felt had mostly unexciting music... thankfully I tried it anyway and it's a return to form for their action games, but gosh if getting random uptempo instrumentals in my pile of new mostly quiet folk-music releases each week wasn't annoying...
I hear you on the pigeonholing of recommendations. I've talked before about how Netflix and Amazon changed over to showing me almost nothing but gay-interest content (almost all highly suggestive)...
I hear you on the pigeonholing of recommendations. I've talked before about how Netflix and Amazon changed over to showing me almost nothing but gay-interest content (almost all highly suggestive) the moment their algorithms realized I wasn't straight. My recommendation queues went from "here's a spread of different stuff you might like because you're someone with diverse interests" to "here are MEN and only MEN because we know you like MEN so look at these MEN that you like, you liker of MEN". It was incredibly patronizing. And also misguided! Any algorithm worth its salt should have known I really wanted to watch drag queens and Carly Rae Jepsen instead.
Lol, that's awful. It'd be fine if they gave you the means to walk back parts of your profile, but as it is it encourages a kind of isolation where I'm cagey about engaging with stuff that friends...
Lol, that's awful. It'd be fine if they gave you the means to walk back parts of your profile, but as it is it encourages a kind of isolation where I'm cagey about engaging with stuff that friends send me or things that interest me because I know I'll be getting questionable thumbnails... It's a very suppressive environment, this constantly reactive machine.
Tally Hall was my favorite band for years! I saw them once in Boston during the Good & Evil tour and always wished I had got to see them more. These days they're more of a private pleasure group -- I think of their output as annoyingly boyish, but those tight male harmonies and polyphonic charm are still my favorite vibes. Have you heard of Landlady? That's a rock music project I got into last year for some of the same reasons I liked Tally Hall. Just one vocalist but the songs go in a bunch of directions, it's great.
They were one of my favorites too! There was a time in my life where I would talk about how Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum was a masterpiece to anyone who was willing to listen to me, which...
They were one of my favorites too! There was a time in my life where I would talk about how Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum was a masterpiece to anyone who was willing to listen to me, which was usually no one after I really got going about it. I had the independent release first, and then I remember getting really excited when the album got picked up by a major label for distribution. I was sure they were going to hit it bigtime and become stars!
I actually think they were a bit ahead of their time -- their songs are perfect for modern YouTube audiences (c.f. Rob Cantor's "Shia Labeouf") and I feel they would have taken off more had the internet and internet culture been a bit further along than it was when they started.
Like you, I feel like I've aged out of their appeal a bit, which is why I was sad to see that they didn't do anything beyond Good & Evil. I would have loved to be able to grow with them as a band. They already had such a great ear for hooks and such unusual and satisfying construction to their songs, so it would have been really interesting to see how those skills would develop album after album. Regardless though, even though I don't listen to them much now I'm happy I had them when I did. There was a time where I thought the failed haiku structure of "Haiku" was the most brilliant meta-writing I'd ever heard, and there was a time where I actively practiced being able to sing the bridge of "Ruler of Everything" on a single breath.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'll definitely check out Landlady. Thanks for the recommendation!
Mostly unrelated but as much as I loved the soundtracks for Bastion and Transistor I just did not connect with the music in Pyre or Hades -- but that didn't stop Spotify from spoonfeeding me tracks from both of those games one at a time across most weeks in the last year. It's quite annoying how music suggestion engines overreact to disparate interests... if I listen to anything "from the internet" I get meme music for weeks. I listened to some Tally Hall which is the band that Rob Cantor, the guy who wrote viral song "Actual Cannibal Shia Leboeuf" used to be in, now I get sent tracks from his inane Disney Junior nursery rhyme albums EVERY WEEK. It's the worst. But my only option to exclude him from those playlists is to indicate that I "don't like this artist" which excludes his other music from playlists that I created myself??
Actually, getting spammed okay-but-not-great tracks from Hades made me way less likely to play Hades. I used to be a big fan of this studio but after Pyre (which was cool but too much VN for me) I was thinking I would skip Hades which I felt had mostly unexciting music... thankfully I tried it anyway and it's a return to form for their action games, but gosh if getting random uptempo instrumentals in my pile of new mostly quiet folk-music releases each week wasn't annoying...
I hear you on the pigeonholing of recommendations. I've talked before about how Netflix and Amazon changed over to showing me almost nothing but gay-interest content (almost all highly suggestive) the moment their algorithms realized I wasn't straight. My recommendation queues went from "here's a spread of different stuff you might like because you're someone with diverse interests" to "here are MEN and only MEN because we know you like MEN so look at these MEN that you like, you liker of MEN". It was incredibly patronizing. And also misguided! Any algorithm worth its salt should have known I really wanted to watch drag queens and Carly Rae Jepsen instead.
Oh, and Tally Hall is awesome, by the way!
Lol, that's awful. It'd be fine if they gave you the means to walk back parts of your profile, but as it is it encourages a kind of isolation where I'm cagey about engaging with stuff that friends send me or things that interest me because I know I'll be getting questionable thumbnails... It's a very suppressive environment, this constantly reactive machine.
Tally Hall was my favorite band for years! I saw them once in Boston during the Good & Evil tour and always wished I had got to see them more. These days they're more of a private pleasure group -- I think of their output as annoyingly boyish, but those tight male harmonies and polyphonic charm are still my favorite vibes. Have you heard of Landlady? That's a rock music project I got into last year for some of the same reasons I liked Tally Hall. Just one vocalist but the songs go in a bunch of directions, it's great.
They were one of my favorites too! There was a time in my life where I would talk about how Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum was a masterpiece to anyone who was willing to listen to me, which was usually no one after I really got going about it. I had the independent release first, and then I remember getting really excited when the album got picked up by a major label for distribution. I was sure they were going to hit it bigtime and become stars!
I actually think they were a bit ahead of their time -- their songs are perfect for modern YouTube audiences (c.f. Rob Cantor's "Shia Labeouf") and I feel they would have taken off more had the internet and internet culture been a bit further along than it was when they started.
Like you, I feel like I've aged out of their appeal a bit, which is why I was sad to see that they didn't do anything beyond Good & Evil. I would have loved to be able to grow with them as a band. They already had such a great ear for hooks and such unusual and satisfying construction to their songs, so it would have been really interesting to see how those skills would develop album after album. Regardless though, even though I don't listen to them much now I'm happy I had them when I did. There was a time where I thought the failed haiku structure of "Haiku" was the most brilliant meta-writing I'd ever heard, and there was a time where I actively practiced being able to sing the bridge of "Ruler of Everything" on a single breath.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'll definitely check out Landlady. Thanks for the recommendation!