2008 Listening Log
Submitted by lukeprog on Sun, 07/13/2008 - 05:44
Tags:
- Assassins (2008, metal) by Nachtmystium: Unlike Meshuggah, this is crappy and boring black metal.
- I (2004, metal) by Meshuggah: Pretty impressive EP of abstract and ever-changing death-metal.
- Dear Science (2008, indie rock) by TV on the Radio: I've lost interest now.
- Where You Go I Go Too (Lindstrom, cheesetronica) by Lindstrom: Really, Pitchfork? 8.6? I don't think this even fits your criteria.
- Hammerstrike (2008, post-rock) by Lotus: Calling this post-rock may be too generous. How 'bout instrumental rock lite? At times it sounds like a video game soundtrack.
- Tell Tales the Conscience Tells (math rock) by Oh No, It's Birds: Ugh. Sounds like they just do stuff because it's totally emo, not with any compositional awareness.
- Death Magnetic (2008, thrash metal) by Metallica: Has the "sound" of their 80s albums, but none of the compositional talent. I become ever more convinced that Cliff Burton was the genius of Metallica. (I've always thought their first three albums were their best.)
- Symphony No. 5 / String Quintet (2006, contemporary classical) by Jay Greenberg: Greenberg entered Juilliard in 2002, at age 11. Symphony No. 5 is one of his first works to be well-received by critics. It's a dark, intense, and melodic neoromantic symphony. Very accessible. Sounds like a film soundtrack to me. I didn't care for it. I liked the String Quintet a bit better; it was less predictable.
- Concerto for Group and Orchestra (1969, classical crossover) by Deep Purple: Wow, pretty damn bad.
- Classified (2004, classified crossover) by Bond: Ugh, no. They even manage to fuck up Barber's Adagio for Strings.
- Shine (2002, classical crossover) by Bond: A string quartet with an electronic drum kits and swirling synthesizers. They play short, catchy tunes. Think of the instrumental sections of Rob Dougan's music. Several of the tracks are covers (the James Bond theme, Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir"). "Allegretto" is pumpin', but I was bored the rest of the time.
- Das atmende Klarsein (1981, modern choral) by Luigi Nono: Performed by the Bergen Contemporary Music Festival on March 12, 2007. Sparse. Experimental bursts from teh wind instruments. Didn't grab me.
- Spoors (2003, pro rock) by The Science Group: Highly enjoyable bits of avant-neoprog-rock music.
- The Very Best Of (1991, pop) by Edith Piaf: The essential qualities of pop music have not changed, except that now the background music now is hip-hop. My favorites were the most melodramatic: "Mon Dieu" and "Non Je Ne Regrette Rein".
- Thokozile (1990, mbaqanga) by Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens: Not a bit more interesting than Britney Spears, except that I have heard hundreds of Britney Spears sound-alikes and only a few dozen albums of South African pop music.
- First Annual Report (2001, industrial) by Throbbing Gristle: Recorded 1975. Only notable track is "Very Friendly."
- Lampi (1994, jazz) by Giorgio Gaslini
- Concerto della Resistenza by Giorgio Gaslini: Of course I thought immediately of Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, to which this live concert cannot compare. But it is not a classical piece, and it is not a set of variations.
- Un Omicidio perfetto a termine di legge (1971, soundtrack) by Giorgio Gaslini: Soundtrack to the film of the same name, it's basically what you would expect from a jazz-inflected, avantgarde suspense movie soundtrack. Quite good, really. I suspect the soundtrack is much better than the film.
- Jelly's Back in Town (1996, jazz) by Giorgio Gaslini: Modern arrangements of Jelly's tunes, without any of the fun taken out!
- Death of Don Juan (1987, postminimalism) by Elodie Lauten: An enjoyable neo-opera, except for "Duel" and "Kyrie."
- I Cum Blood in the Think Tank (2007, noise) by Lietterschpich: I listened hard for tracks that stood out, but there were none.
- COH Plays Cosey (2008, glitch) by COH: An annoying glitch mix-up of Cosey Fanni Tutti's voice.
- Magical Energy (2004, free jazz) by Antennas Erupt!: Kind of like Zu, but less-rockish and brutal. Energetic and fun. Sounds very live.
- Women as Lovers (2008, art rock) by Xiu Xiu: I moan too much about music being dead. There are more new ideas being introduced each year than ever before (well, maybe), they're just smaller and less monumental. This is a delightful release with lots of minor ideas, good execution, and undying charisma.
- A High, Happy, Perverse And Cynical Cry Of Joy... (1984, new wave) by Bene Gesserit: If Suicide and White Noise teamed up with Diamanda Galas and a poo-throwing monkey, you might get this album which, amazingly, sounds just like it's seemingly paradoxical title.
- Lazy Afternoon Among the Crocodiles (1997, modern chamber) by Terry Riley: A "minor" Riley release, but excellent! In the title track, not a moment or sound is wasted. The atmospheres are perfectly sculpted, like a chamber version of a great Biosphere record. The second track is a throw-away and the third, Orfeo, isn't very emotional to me. So, there are only 6 minutes of really good music on this CD.
- Avant Garde Project 97: Donald Erb (2007, avantgarde) by various artists: The Avant Garde Project is an ongoing series of 100+ free-download albums compiled from out-of-print LPs of 20th century avantgarde classical music. Popular examples include Subotnick, Cage, Takemitsu, Berio, Kagel, Partch, Henze, Davies, Birtwistle, Xenakis, Stockhausen, and more. This release contains two complete LPs of his work, plus one track from another. The pieces are chaotic, noisy, whimsical, disorganized, and occasionally enjoyable.
- Brick: The Soundtrack (2006, soundtrack) by Nathaniel Johnson: Director Rian Johnson's brother wrote a fun, offbeat, and moody score for the most enjoyable movie of 2005. Nathaniel used any style or idea necessary to hit the right tone for the movie. With the movie the effect is awesome; without it, it's merely interesting.
- Infidelicacy (2000, experimental electronica) by Infidel? / Castro!: Simple song structures, mutated by chaotic sounds, warped electronica melodies, and washes of ambience. Full of ideas, but they are struggling to find their voice here.
- Heavy On The Highlife (1990, Nigerian folk) by Oriental Brothers: Nigerian pop-folk. Meh.
- Fabbrica Occupata (1974, free jazz) by Giorgio Gaslini: Awesome free/avant jazz from Giorgio Gaslini, who (1) began performing at 13, (2) has collaborated with Braxton, Lacy, Cherry, Rudd, Gomez, Roach, Barbieri, and Ponty, (3) arranged Ayler and Sun Ra pieces for piano, (4) composed the soundtrack for Antonioni's The Night, (5) has also composed symphonies, operas, and ballets. This is the first Gaslini album I've heard, and now I must hear the rest.
- So Embarrassing (2008, math rock) by Capillary Action: Math-play. Post-Mr. Bungle. Eclectic-core. Anti-genre. Rock collage. Those are my attempts to name the style played by all these hyper-eclectic math-ish rock bands. The clear launching point is Mr. Bungle; Capillary Action likes to jump between many styles in each short track.
- Ecce Cor Meum (2008, choral) by Paul McCartney: Sequenza21 sums it up nicely: "Paul McCartney is one of the finest melodists popular music has produced... The melodies in McCartney’s hour-long Ecce Cor Meum... are not nearly as memorable as those in his best songs. It seems as though he had a preconceived notion about what "classical" melodies should sound like and how they should be shaped. He wrote accordingly, and the result is somewhat forced and artificial."
- Back to Life (2008, modern chamber) by Fred Frith: Sounds like a collection of leftovers, several of them interesting.
- Sparks Fly Upward (1999, modern chamber) by Alex Cline: Eclectic. "Rose Window" is a gentle jam. "Pieces of a mirror" is a frantic percussion concerto. "Sparks Fly Upward" is a droning, soaring suite. "Audacity" is a rock piece, complete with electric guitar solo. "Sonnet 9" is basically ambient.
- Dreamland (2008, mad circus music) by Beat Circus: The music of a demented cabaret populated by the zombies of Kansas farmers.
- Yama-No Attchan (1984, children's punk) by Shonen Knife: Punk music for children?
- Mate saule (2002, modern choral) by Peteris Vasks: Includes 6 short choral works, including Mate saule (Mother son), which is 5 minutes long. The most interesting to me was Litene, though it is abrasive to hear.
- History, Mystery (2008, jazz fusion) by Bill Frisell: A playful album of simple tunes. Sounds like elevator music to me.
- Entre Deux (????, world) by Ravi Prasad: The sound of Hindi art/folk music, but also informed by lessons of jazz and, on the first track, rock. Track 4 sounds like Bernard Hermann with raga and chanting. For once, this is a sound I have not heard before. Though I bet it's an entire genre and I'm just unaware of it.
- Best of Bootie 2005 (2005, mashup) by various artists: A compilation of fun mashups. My favorites were "La La Her Madly" (The Doors vs. Goldfrapp) and "Smells Like Compton" (NWA vs. Nirvana).
- Parc Avenue (2008, indie-pop) by Plants and Avenue: Initially they sound like Coldplay, but they also show hints of acid rock, Dylan, Polyphonic Spree, Modest Mouse, and more. Five years ago I think I would have really enjoyed this album, but just now I could barely finish it without getting bored. My how things change when you listen to too much music! I don't have the patience for anything that isn't extraordinary.
- Oleva (2008, abstract electronica) by Ø: A Mike Vaino (Pan Sonic) project. Vaino is certainly a master of his technology and atmospheres, though this release is not a standout.
- Caves (2008, minimalism) by Riccardo Dillon Wanke: A bunch of tones and drones overlapping each other. Track 4 is the most effective. The rest of the album is pretty meh.
- Themes for Orchestra and Choir (2008, Carmina Burana miniatures) by Immediate Music: A sampler of bombastic orchestral themes meant for movie trailers and the like. Not for retail; only corporate users. Immediate Music is an interesting type of company. They hire composers to write trailer music, then get production companies license it. I like much of this subgenre (love the Howard Shore remix of Mansell's "Lux Aeterna"), but not these cliché tracks. Every track has a choral and non-choral version: I learned quickly that I always like the choral version better. Yay choral music!
- At War With Wall & Mazes (2008, dream folk) by Son Lux: As Pitchfork Media put it, "the lyrical concerns of Sufjan Stevens circa Seven Swans, production techniques from Massive Attack, and the classical habits of Nico Muhly." I would substitute Kid A for Nico Muhly. The album reminds me of Conor Oberst's Digital Ash In A Digital Urn, except better (though, that's not saying much). I suspect there are some people who could fall in love with this album.
- Violin Concerto / Rituals (2005, modern chamber) by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Another great album! I love it when this happens. The Violin Concerto (1998) has a melodic, violent beauty. The second movement sounds like the score for a dance between two dying and warring lovers; the intensity builds at a steady pace. Rare in a modern work: it's themes may actually stick in your head. Yessir, they are still writing great music! Rituals is a percussion concerto with a great deal of intense orchestration that is only marred by the percussion. :) I listened to the second movement of the Violin Concerto like 5 times in a row, though.
- Mothertongue (2008, avant-rock) by Nico Muhly: The second "album" by a prolific composer and arranger of music by Bjork, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Rufus Wainwright and The National. The album plays at the borderland between electroacoustic composition and avant-rock. Track 4, for example, sounds like a cross between Philip Glass and Sigur Ros. One of many rolling textures throughout the work is that of some frenetic female voices whose syllables sound as much like a plucked instrument as a singing voice. Track 5, though, is like a Laurie Anderson song. The rest is also a diverse set. One of the most interesting "rock" releases of the year. Really, it would be fairer to say it is a set of three choral suites from the classical tradition, and heavily influenced by rock production and texture. I think this is a potential future for music: music with the intelligence and creativity of "classical" music, but with the personal nature and accessibility of "rock" music. Heck, one track off his last album even had a kickass music video. More, please.
- Cosmic Pulses (2007, avantgarde) by Karlheinz Stockhausen: I had no idea what to expect. I've heard about 30 hours of Stockhausen music over the years, and this might be my favorite piece of his! No, it's not as important as many of his earlier works, but it is damn fun to listen to. The piece consists of 24 layers of sound, each with their own spacial movement patterns between 8 speakers (of course, I only heard it in stereo). I can't imagine what it must sound like to have these sounds cycling about you on eight speakers! (Details.) It's a swirling mass of brooding and warped tones laid over an earthy rumbling. Occasionally, a sound familiar to planet earth tries to leap out, only to be once again overwhelmed by the music of the cosmos. In that way, it reminded me of the early moments of Faust, but also of Irrlicht. If we are able to receive an audio signal from a distant race of super-intelligent beings, I expect their music to sound something like this. This piece's emotional impact on me was awesome. A legend has died. Who else has the balls to produce something like Licht, or the talent to produce something like this? I'm sure there will be followers - already are, in fact - but I must thank Mr. Stockhausen for his eternal music. Oh... and the CD contains the first 1:45 of each of the 24 layers from which this piece is constructed, on separate tracks. Neato. But, this really needs to be released in 8-track sound, and I need to buy an 8-channel audio system so I can sit amid the speakers, close my eyes, and join the space baby.
- Reflecting On The First Watch, We Uncover Treasure Buried For The Blind (1978, avantgarde) by Cellutron & The Invisible: The brainchild of Bob Greely, this trippy electronic album fuses early Subotnick and perhaps acid rock. Pretty boring, though.
- A Wider Embrace... (1994, world art music) by Trevor Watts Moiré Music Drum Orchestra: All tracks are built from African drumming and vocals, but they are wonderfully diverse. The first track ends with haunting jazz brass. The third is a wild and energetic dance number. The fourth is jazz-funk. The fifth is a laid back pop melody. The eighth is a raga with middle eastern scales. The ninth is, alas, basically smooth jazz.
- Modern Guilt (2008, indie rock) by Beck: I get the feeling Beck doesn't know what to do anymore. His songs are still eclectic assortments of sounds, but they go nowhere and serve no purpose.
- Painbody (2008, modern jazz) by Magnus Broo Quartet: Fair. Extroverted but laid back.
- Man of the Light (1976, jazz fusion) by Zbigniew Seifert: Really fun Coltrane-inflected jazz fusion from Polish violinist Zbigniew Seifert.
- Situation (2007, alt rap) by Buck 65: After Secret House Against the World, this just sounds old-hat.
- Secret House Against The World (2005, indie rock/rap) by Buck 65: Several of the tracks are sung, others are talk-sung, others are rapped. More eclectic than, you know, Beck - and of course loads more philosophical. A very nice transformation! His best-produced and most consistent album.
- Talkin' Honky Blues (2003, alt rap) by Buck 65: Not really that different than his other albums, but the soundscapes here are often provided by a folk band.
- Square (2003, alt rap) by Buck 65: His other albums have dozens of short tracks. This one is four 15-minute tracks, but that is a gimmick because the "tracks" inside the digitally distinct tracks are just as musically distinct as before. Maybe his worst album.
- Synesthesia (2001, alt rap) by Buck 65: Yup, Terfry is a much better rapper than most rappers, too. Hmmmm.
- Man Overboard (2001, alt rap) by Buck 65: Oddly, his first release for Anticon is his most mainstream.
- Vertex (1999, alt rap) by Buck 65: A nice sequel to Language Arts.
- Language Arts (1997, alt rap) by Buck 65: They lyrical content here is more interesting than 99% of rap music. The musical content is not.
- Weirdo Magnet (1996, alt rap) by Buck 65: Terfry's signature talk-rap over abstract background sounds like a faster, rhyming Steven Jesse Bernstein to me.
- Exiting Arm (2008, indie rock/hip-hop) by Subtle: Not nearly as good as for hero: for fool.
- for hero: for fool (2006, indie rock/hip-hop) by Subtle: WOW! Probably the best album I've listened to for the first time this year (including all the albums I listened to from before July 12th, which aren't on this list). Subtle is basically an Anticon project, which promotes avantgarde hip-hop. This album is a post-everything indie-pop album that sounds like a cross between Modest Mouse, cLOUDDEAD, The Residents, and... who knows? It's brilliant. An accessible, exciting sound for which the term "genre" is totally irrelevant. Frontman Doseone has fused all past music into a cohesive statement, ala Vampire Rodents.
- Jazzmatazz Vol. 1 (1993, jazz-hop) by Guru: A major work of jazz/hip-hop fusion, following "Jazz Music" and "Manifest" from No More Mr Nice Guy (1989) by Gang Starr. Highly enjoyable.
- I Walk Among You (2008, power metal) by Iced Earth: A single for the track I Walk Alone. Booooooriiiiiiiing! Could have been recorded 10 years ago and still sucked.
- Sulla Strada (1995, fourth world music) by Jon Hassell: Composed just one year after his masterpiece, Dream Theory in Malaya. A soundtrack for an avantgarde Italian opera. Loud and intrusive compared to his other works, it may be a shock to long-time Hassell fans. Not enough musical development for my tastes, though.
- Lost: Season 3 Official Television Soundtrack (2008, avantgarde) by Michael Giacchino: Film soundtracks (and perhaps now some TV soundtracks) are the public's only exposure to avantgarde music, and I am happy for it. As with most mood music that leaps from suspense to romance to terror to bliss, you'll hear sequences Schoenberg, Xenakis, Herrmann, Brahms, Glass, Schnittke, Copland, Shostakovich, and more.
- Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973, Bollywood musical) by RD Burman: The soundtrack for the highly popular movie by Nasir Hussain. I haven't seen the movie but nobody cares about it anyway. All people talk about is this soundtrack. I will say the songs are catchy mix of 70s pop/funk/disco and Hindi traditional melodrama.
- Circa (2003, glitch ambient) by Steinbrüchel: Impenetrable humming and clicks. Supposedly, the sound sources are all rain, but nothing here sounds like rain.
- September in the Rain (1950, jazz piano) by George Shearing: Delightful tunes, energetically played.
- The Light (2008, modern chamber songs) by Ketil Bjørnstad: Some nice melancholy songs with piano and viola. Basically just a set of traditional songs. Very accessible.
- Little Imber / Amao Omi (2008, modern choral) by Giya Kancheli: Little Imber is nothing new for Kancheli. Amao Omi is a bit urgent and successful. Skip it.
- Grisailles (1-100) (2000, avantgarde) by Peter Ablinger: For three pianos. A single tone is surrounded by a frenzy of patterned layers and tiny sounds, each mostly silence. The composition was highly technical (Ablinger originally wrote 24 layers), but the result is something with an emotional impact not far from that of random noise.
- Third Site (1999, ambient) by Paul Schutze: Bad ambient sprinkled with some muttering voice.
- Ramblin' (1979, newgrass) by Richard Greene: Delightful but nothing special.
- Chamber Music Concerts Vol. 1 (2008, improv avantgarde) by Masahiko Okura and Taku Sugimoto and Taku Unami: Terrible. Most of the tracks are almost entirely silence, with tiny bits of noise every now and then. This is exactly the kind of pretentious nonsense that people rightly dismiss with derisive laughter or disgust.
- Musiques savantes et populaires (2002, Tadjikistani folk music) by Davlatmand: Traditional falak arrangements for traditional poems about life and love. The nearest thing to this that most people have heard would be the Indian raga, I suppose. Tracks 2 and 8 are the most intense, and therefore my favorite.
- Guitars (1975, crap-jazz) by Philip Catherine: Ugh-no. Lounge jazz on guitar.
- The Carter III (2008, hip-hop) by Lil Wayne: Every now and then I try a record off Pitchfork's Best New Music list so I can, you know, stay hip with my generation or something. The last one I tried was Fleet Foxes, a soothing set of Beach Boys harmonies. Now here is Lil Wayne; his first record I've heard. In theory, I should love hip-hop since I love good collage music (Vampire Rodents, Amon Tobin, Shostakovich's 15th, etc.). And yet, I've found few hip-hop albums I enjoy. I think the problem is that for hip-hop, the lyrics are the focus. The music is irrelevant (except for Dalek and a few others, whom I enjoy more), so hip-hop producers don't waist brain cells on it. I tried to enjoy hip-hop as spoken word performances, and succeeded with Steven Jesse Bernstein, Eminem, and cLOUDDEAD (all white). Maybe I just can't emotionally relate to black culture, and that's why black hip-hop performances usually don't grab me. Or maybe it's because I think the lyrics are dishonest: rich rap stars talkin' like they're oppressed in and it's 1964. Or maybe I'm just jealous they get so much pussy for their napkin scribblings (of course, I know they get it for their charisma and social status, but my subconscious doesn't accept that). Or maybe I'm racist. UH-OH! Quick, I'd better list all the black rappers who have released an album I liked: Dalek, Wu Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, ummmm... Oh. Notice Lil Wayne ain't on the list... ... ... What the heck? Is that supposed to be a mini-review?
- The Age of Quarrel (1986, hardcore metal) by The Cro-Mags: The debut of hardcore metal (a step beyond Motörhead), led by Harley Flanagan, who started touring in punk bands at the ripe ol' age of 10. I don't really get into this stuff but I see its appeal.
- Biguine, Valse et Mazurka Créoles (1929-1940) (2003, Caribbean folk music) by various artists: Early Creole jazz music from the Antilles islands. Gosh, the popular music of the time was so much more fun than the pop music of my time. You can hear the joy bursting out of every note.
- Real Tchicai (1977, free jazz) by John Tchicai: An austere, "rational" form of free jazz with a great density of ideas. But that doesn't mean I want to hear it a second time.
- Thai Elephant Orchestra (2001, animal music) by various artists: Dave Soldier and Richard Lair trained a dozen asian elephants to play multiple instruments (mostly percussion, of course). My reaction was, "My kid could paint that." The elephants don't play any specific tunes, but on the upcoming album they reportedly play a Beethoven tune. That would be quite impressive if an animal can be trained to really play a musical instrument.
- Anima (2001, ambient techno) by Vladislv Delay: The first ten minutes are an astonishing netherworld of placid chords and erupting jazz glitch, but then there is no development after this point. Several times I checked to see if the same track was repeating, but no; it was track 3, track 4, track 6...
- La fantana dorului (1994, Romanian folk music) by Gheorghe Turda: Turda sings Romanian folk tunes in an operatic voice.
- Freigeweht (1996, jazz) by Rainer Brüninghaus: Recorded 1980. Currently unavailable. I guess I'd call it "new age easy-listening jazz," except for track 5, which makes no sense on the album.
- The Double U (2000, avant-pop) by The Double U: The Double U are Matt Hall and Alex Behr. They call their music "Viking rock," but I don't know what that means. It sounds like Zappa or The Residents. One track is an interpretation of Tchaikovsky's "The Sick Doll" (from opus 39), another is of Coleman's "Lonely Woman." As if they weren't weird enough already, the second disc is a "demix" of the first disc by Glands of External Secretion (Barbara Manning and Seymour Glass), which pushes the ideas even further into vanguard territory.
- The Sapphire Nature (2002, electroacoustic) by Z'ev: Sixteen meditations intending to sonically represent the Sepher Yetzirah, an ancient mystic creation myth. Knowing this, I could only listen and imagine the magical formation of planets and substances, like mysts swirling together and contracting into forms. Sounds like electroacoustic percussion (but don't confuse that with "rhythm"), though some people apparently classify it as jazz. The CD includes a 54-page booklet that outlines Z'ev's process of translating the Sepher Yetzirah as a numerological text, and then translating that into music.
- Animal Magnetism (1995, minimalism) by Arnold Dreyblatt A musuclar Music for 18 Musicians, and sometimes a series of rock jams ala Neu, surrounded by the swirling textures of minimalism. Highly enjoyable. It is funny to me that if this had been played by a rock band, it would be considered a significant rock album of sweeping beauty and genius (ranked next to, say, Millions Now Living Will Never Die). But it came from the classical world, and its listeners probably know a thing or two about music, and so it is a footnote in musical history.
- (Started July 12, 2008. Only counting new listens. I don't listen to music much anymore...)
To be fair although you may not listen to as music as you used to listening to 14 works in 4 days is more than the average person lol. Regarding the hip hop point if you want a combination of hip hop and collage (with vocals removed) what about DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...? Of course he's still white so you wouldn't be able to put it forward as black culture :P what about the great jazz albums? They're pretty much all made by blacks. Actually the 'abstract hip hop' community basically developed where djs decided to focus again on the music in hip hop rather than the lyrics of the mcs, although some of the turntablism is basically more technical skill than good music. On another point, that thai elephant beethoven tune sounds like it would be impressive if pulled off!
Ah yeah, Endtroducing was fun.
There are no words in the black jazz I like. (But yeah, I like way more black jazz than white jazz or latin jazz.)
I've been misled... those Germans also slap the "Jazz" label on a Dexys Midnight Runners alum.
But I am grateful to learn at least one of them made it out of the 80s.
"Well, you haven't heard the last of them." -- Homer Jay Simpson
The 'for hero: for fool' album sounds interesting. What would you rate it out of 10? Would you say it is one of the better albums of the decade?
Meh, I don't know numbers anymore. It's certainly one of the best accessible albums I've heard this decade, though others will say I don't know what "accessible" is anymore and they're probably right. Whatever: Definitely, definitely recommended.
Today a quote from Wayne Dyer - whose books I despise - rang true for me. When I read "A History of Rock Music, 1951-2000", it changed the way I looked at things, and I started to look at radically different things.
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
Do you know where I could get hold of that Stockhausen piece, Cosmic Pulses?
Dude. Search for it.
Not quite relevant but you've archived your artists I would like to see in concert list. I was surprised that Joanna Newsom wasn't on the list. Also now that My Bloody Valentine have reformed, would you like to see them in concert? My friend went to see them in concert and she said that lots of people were walking out of it due to the noise. To me that says they hopefully give a fairly accurate portrayal of what their music is about :) It also gives me hope for their third album if that ever actually gets made.
Newsom was on the list when I archived it.
Seeing as a recent My Bloody Valentine concert was the loudest ever measured, I do not think my ears would appreciate seeing them live.
Seeing as a recent My Bloody Valentine concert was the loudest ever measured
LOL. That's precisely why I want to see them live.
They give away free ear plugs...at a rock concert
Lol
What do you think about Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip's debut album Angles? I'd probably only give it as music a 7/10, but the lyrics of Pip are brilliant (I know you think that musicians are usually poor poets, but he is really great) and clever.
Actually, now that I think about it, I haven't bothered to find out if any rock musicians are good or poor poets. I just repeated that line from Scaruffi verbatim because I was too lazy to learn how to judge poetry and pay attention to song lyrics. I just want to listen to music. So wherever I said that rockers are usually poor poets, I take it back.
So yeah, I can't say if Angles has good lyrics or not. I can say I enjoy the rhythmic poetry of British MCs over American rappers, but I didn't hear any music that engaged me on Angles.
I wonder if the British MC culture helps young Brits to be more skeptical and anti-establishment than Americans, whose youth lean towards radio hits and vapid gangsta rap. I suppose we'll never know.
# Animal Magnetism (1995, minimalism) by Arnold Dreyblatt A musuclar Music for 18 Musicians, and sometimes a series of rock jams ala Neu, surrounded by the swirling textures of minimalism. Highly enjoyable. It is funny to me that if this had been played by a rock band, it would be considered a significant rock album of sweeping beauty and genius (ranked next to, say, Millions Now Living Will Never Die). But it came from the classical world, and its listeners probably know a thing or two about music, and so it is a footnote in musical history.
I'm curious, do you feel classical is that superior by such a large margin that a masterwork of rock would go unnoticed in the annals of classical history?
Yes, it's possible. It should not be surprising that people who have spent a decade studying music at a university should produce a higher quality and density of ideas in their work than a gang of teenagers who learned power cords on MTV to get laid. (Of course, not all rock musicians are so ignorant, but most are.)