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What have you been listening to this week?
What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)
Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.
You can make a chart if you use last.fm:
http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/
Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.
I realized I never listened to Lorde really. I knew Pure Heroine, and that was about it. I know people went nuts for Melodrama, less so for Solar Power, but then Virgin was an uptick for her. I also knew that she was considered a Lana daughter, and that Royals was responsible for the switch in mainstream music from EDM to a more bedroom pop sort of thing that would eventually give us Billie Eilish.
The thing that struck me the most after I listened to both Melodrama and Solar Power back to back. Was that it didn’t really feel like the alt-pop of Lana Del Rey or Pure Heroin and it felt much more in line with Taylor Swift. I don’t know how much of that is the Jack Antanoff of it all. But, I think Lorde should be considered more of a Swift daughter than a Lana one. I think the lyrics and the production are very Swift influenced. I think especially Solar Power.
For as much of a reputation that Lorde has for doing sad girl music, or emo adjacent, her music sounds lighter to me. I think Midnights by Taylor Swift sounds moodier. I’m not even a huge Swift fan, but what Swift did in Midnights, both sonically and lyrically, is what Lorde was trying to do with Melodrama and Solar Power but Swift does it a lot better.
Eilish is definitely the only one from the 2010s that I feel is more directly inspired by Lana, especially with how more cinematic her sound is compared to Lorde’s.
I was also trying to remember what albums from this decade I’ve listened to the most. Not my favorite albums but the ones which song’s I would have on a loop. It’s only been this decade that I’ve actively listened to music as it came out. In the 2010s I would mostly listen to older music, and would only be familiar with the Top 40 on the radio. My knowledge of pop music was much more limited back then than it is now. I also didn’t have access to Spotify for most of the 2010s because I was a child for a lot of it lol.
2020: Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa
2021: Planet Her by Doja Cat
2022: Harry’s House by Harry Styles
2023: Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. by Lana Del Rey
2024: HIT ME HARD AND SOFT by Billie Eilish
2025: Man’s Best Friend by Sabrina Carpenter
2026: you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love by Olivia Rodrigo
The reason I came up with this is because I was realizing that one of the albums I’ve listened to the most this year is Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally by Harry Styles, even though I had initially said that I didn’t really like it. But Styles has an addictive quality to his music (hence the Harry’s House inclusion) that just makes me come back to specific songs. From this latest album I was listening to American Girl and Coming Up Roses a lot.
Don't have any specific songs or artists to even call out this week, been too busy to even pick certain ones so I've just been letting YouTube's mixes pick music for me and it's been doing a solid job. I've been on a Japanese jazz fusion tear recently that hasn't changed this week. Lots of Masayoshi Takanaka, Masato Honda, and more in there.
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
one of the few bands that can mix clean vocals and harsh vocals in metal in a way I think works tastefully (I have a strong distaste for most music that tries to combine them). This band is like the season of Autumn if it was a sound and I love them
Coprolith - Putrescence
sick death metal from Canada
Zorn - Return to Castle Death
great metal-punk back with another great record, FFO Devil Master
Miracle - The Living Likeness of My Electric Daemon
absolutely beautiful synth pop with a goth / post-punk bent
I can appreciate all the various “seasons” of Opeth’s sounds, but man, anything from Watershed and earlier is, IMO, the peak of progressive(/prog-adjacent) metal. It’s insane what they were doing for what felt like decades before anyone else really caught up with their sound in earnest.
I agree. I dig some of the later stuff (Heritage and Pale Communion) though after that it really falls off hard for me. Everything past Pale Communion to me either sounds bad, or when it sounds good it sounds like just a phoned-in copy of previous work.
But, I adore their discography up to and including Watershed. The best portion of their career.
They're likely my favorite overall band that falls into some progressive territory in metal. That's also a genre full of misses for me and they're a standout of how it can be done well. It's very poetic, but it's not cheesy or symphonic or overdone. It feels sincere and well-crafted and dark (like, genuinely dark vs. Spirit Halloween "dark"). They're not overbearingly proggy and "showoff-y" (or conversely, poppy) in an annoying way
As a musician it really appeals to my ears too. They use some really strange chord progressions. Wildly good production too. Beautiful acoustic parts and solos and whatnot. There's also something difficult to articulate that has to do with that "Autumn" feel the music gives me- it's a very particular atmosphere/experience the music conjures for me. It reminds me of campfires and being out in nature. Falling leaves, tea, overcast and rainy days, etc - all some of my favorite things and all very cozy lol. It really tickles my brain.
I totally get what you mean on the cozy / “autumnal” vibe of Opeth haha, I feel very similarly. I think those are some great callouts on the musicality points as well. I remember watching some BTS videos leading up to Watershed’s release and the band was talking about using major tonality and clean vocals on top of blast beats. I hadn’t yet discovered atmoblack/blackgaze stuff yet so the variety within the orchestration was really mind-blowing to me at the time. And speaking of, to your point, I feel like their earlier stuff does scratch a similar itch to a lot of atmoblack from a “vibes” perspective, despite not really sounding anything like it.
Phideaux's new album, AutoMoto Animus is here! It seems like it's only up on Bandcamp at the moment, hopefully it'll get a Spotify/Youtube release soon so more people can hear it.
I've been a big fan ever since I came across Phideaux years ago with Doomsday Afternoon and Infernal, and so far I'm quite liking the new album too. Not quite as much of an instant favorite, but still quite good.
If you like progressive rock, electronic/synth, and a little bit of pop-rock for good measure, it's worth checking out. Maybe check out Doomsday Afternoon if you don't want to wait for the new album to get a wider release.
The single has been out for a while, but Cabin Fever by Slomosa has been a total blast for me. Gives me something gutteral to latch onto when I'm fighting for my sobriety.
"So high...and for no reason why. Cabin Fever."
I like most genres but am a bit of a folky at heart. Anyway. This isn't about that.
One thing I do really like is Shaggy. And the way he sings and performs. So I've long been on a quest to find the lightning in a bottle that is dancehall style reggae riddims with shaggy's voice on them. That isn't Shaggy.
I've attempted this a good few times over the years, and never really got anywhere. Sean Paul is great when he comes in on Rockabye, but doesn't do it for me elsewhere. Max Romero gets a bit of a mention but always it's missing that silky smooth deep laid back rhythmic vocal.
Honestly, I think it's an impossible task. Closest I got this time around was Mad Cobra. Pretty close. So mostly I have been listening to Mad Cobra.
Anyone with some suggestions feel free to pitch in, haha.