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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 have been listening to some post-rock, because I have been writing an essay and so have been needing to listen to primarily instrumental music.
Of the new music that I have listened to, Caspian's 'Dust and Disquiet' stood out as a superb album. I really enjoyed the sound, even in the louder, more metal-inspired sections, which came as something of a surprise to me since I don't tend to listen to much metal. I highly recommend it to those who like post-rock and instrumental indie music.
The Emerging is also a good post rock album. Check it out.
Lately, a bunch of John Fahey. I'm trying to get some of his stuff down on guitar, particularly Sun River Blues and (my favorite) The Portland Cement Factory at Monolith, California. A bit of a challenge to keep the thumb at a consistent rhythm while the other fingers handle the melody.
I have a very musical spirit - my moods and energy are directly, VERY expressly affected by what I listen to.
This week it's a mix of lofi for my mellow daytime and heavy punk for working. Prophets Of Rage are dope - it blows my mind that in our time of unrest, our music and culture has all but stopped reflecting it.
Anyone else use youtube red to listen? I started paying for it a couple of months ago because youtube is such a central part of my life and haven't regretted it once.
I disagree. I think that our music does reflect the general degree of unrest - which is quite low. Sure the news has lots of unrest, but this tangibly effects very few day today since any unrest is physically much restrained. If you are look for music to reflect the unrest in society look at the Billboard. Not even a joke. (Note that it is a joke to you if you really feel lyricists like Zach de La Rocha or Dead Prez! :) )
Remember the unrest in the 60s? Songs like People Get Ready by the Impressions and Dancing in the Streets by the Vandellas went to number 14 and two on the Billboard Pop Charts and Hot 100 respectively. If we really lived in times of unrest culture would reflect it because look at how much it has in the past.
Our culture is a bunch of straight laced bullshit just trying to make a profitable spectacle and our art and media reflects it.
Also in the 00's during Bush there was a huge resurgence in more political music. Just like in the 80's. Usually during a republican presidency we have a lot of musicians speaking out but not so much this time around. Which surprised me. I was genuinely expecting it.
I was too. But then again no I wasn't. Again going back to art expressing culture, I perceive this as the end of Occidental resistance culture in a real way. Its certainly not for good but nonetheless even compared to the docile (imo) Bush years these are super culturally complacent days.
Sure there are little moments of #Resistance ^TM ^R c/o Nike or some new young congressperson the Democrats want to sell to the Millenials. But by and large the reaction to the outrageous behavior of the masters of society is way out of proportion. To me this suggests a shift in political norms towards accepting what we have. I hate to say it but it seems like this is the new normal.
We are amazingly complicit in this rape of the U.S.A.
I have been listening to 2112, by Rush (Where I got my username) and various chillstep and jazz songs
Does anyone know why Rush shows are so many dudes? They aren't macho at all.
I wanted to ask u
Just got turned on to this catchy newish indie band.
Forth Wanderers - Taste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br6He6dfH38
And I've been getting into this band that's got a really heavy rock sound, which isn't usually my thing.
All Them Witches - Diamond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh1Jd8xU42U
And Randy Newman has been making a resurgence in my life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G55cJrUs9VM
Origins - Imagine Dragons
What if Nothing - Walk the Moon
Piano Man - Billy Joel (the album, not just the song)
Chronovision - Oberhofer
Know. - Jason Mraz
Then sprinkle in some opera, jazz, video game OSTs and you'll have my musical week.
been feeling like a bitch these days, so Billie Eilish's you should see me in a crown has been on repeat for the past few weeks, along with some halsey (Control, Gasoline) and chvrches (Gun)
I love listening to Chvrches while riding my motorcycle.
Nothing really groundbreaking, but I finally listened to the entirety of Pink Floyd’s The Wall in one go for the first time.
Awesome experience, highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t done it.
A few different albums:
Music From The Penguin Cafe by Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
It was excellent, especially the song "In a Sydney motel". I'd never heard of Penguin Cafe Orchestra before, so this was a nice introduction. I'll be sure to listen a couple more albums from them.
The Death Defying Unicorn by Motorpsycho and Ståle Storløkken.
An exciting jazz-rock fusion album performed by the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. It is one of my first jazz albums, and I really like it.
Blackstar by David Bowie.
I can't believe I had missed this album! It's interesting and fun, an unusual combination in my experience. The standout song for me is "Girl loves me" in which Bowie goes up and down in falsetto. It's just great.
and finally:
The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber performed by Emmy Rossum & Gerard Butler.
If you've seen the film (or the live musical in a theatre) you know how incredible it is. It is intense, impressive and emotional. My personal favourites are (of course) the title track and "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again". It's so beautiful and moving.
Ooh some Motorpsycho love! One of my favorite bands right there, though I haven't given that album more than a quick skim.
And I'm forever impressed by the quality of Blackstar...I can't imagine having as long of a career as Bowie did and crafting my best album in the days immediately before my death.
Not much to be honest. Mostly Battlebeast and Epica
I've been listening to the Soulstice album by Shapeshifter, an NZ drum and bass band.
It's sooo good. Here it is on youtube
Julien Baker - turn out the lights. I can’t get over how soul crushing her soft, kinda-warbly voice is. Some interesting song structures too.
I've been listening to some light hearted pop and dance pop. Mainly Confidence Man and Sundara Karma.
Their latest albums is a delight to get myself into a happy and festive mood.
I am
abusinglistening on repeat 25 by Lieh and The Less I Know the Better Nataly Dawn and Sarah Clanton. I am a sucker for jazzy groovy basslines and hiphoppy soul/jazz singing over it (if that means anything... I suck at musical genres sorry). The Butter playlist of Spotify's has many great stuff that are some mix of soul, jazz and hiphop. I also love whatever there is in their Lo-Fi Beats playlist.I've been getting back into They Might Be Giants. I can't get enough of them, although I do seem to skip over a lot of the shorter tracks so that it's less jarring when its like 20 different styles in 20 different shuffled songs.
I really love the way the songs are written. It's always abstract in some grounded way, if that makes any sense.
My current faves have gotta be They'll Need A Crane, Meet James Ensor, and Where Your Eyes Don't Go. they've been bouncing around in my noggin for weeks and finally the other day I gave in and went on a youtube binge of everything I could find
Lots of things, but the most noteworthy is a full listen of the Everywhere at the End of Time project by The Caretaker. The final stage just came out and it was a fascinating and horrifying experience to go through it.