Igor's "you should know about music" thread

[Torn Mind]

i won't lie, i only follow you up to a point, e.g. i get the gist of your opinion, but only so much.
Firstly, i don't really know the song dreamlover, or anything by M.C.
I'm also not particularly fussed about changes in performance in these pieces, maybe because they don't really touch me. I can be absolutely fastidious with performances of the Mister Crawley or Highway Star solos, down to extremely minute details; for example

i find this solo terribly bad

but this one excellent

The only classical piece where i feel the same way is Der Holle Rache (and only just *that* bit). It's both terribly difficult to pull off the notes, but at the same time keep the angry diction and tone of voice that the piece dictates. There's many famous singers who can sing the notes, but they don't feel in any way threatening, or "furious".

I would agree that the second cover is more compelling the first. Never heard the original, so my thoughts are based strictly on the two players. The first sounds like someone just getting by, the second is putting many more subtle inflections to give her playing much more "bite" and "edge" to it.

 

[DigDog]

ATOT autocorrect to the rescue.

Never heard the original

YOU WAHT?

version from the album

version from the famous live "Made In Japan"

 

[Muse]

If you don't mind, what would be the top ten songs you would recommend to someone who listens to music casually? Youtube links preferred!

That's not something I could rattle off or anything. I have variously put YT links to songs like that in my posts many times in these forums, usually P&N or OT, more than 10 songs for sure. They come to mind as appropriate and I post them. I don't think they let me here post more than 2 or 3 YT videos in one post. I could do it serially, but really I don't think that way, "top ten."

I didn't read DD's post above but see his inclusion of Mozart's 40th symphony. That, of course, is top notch, my personal favorite of his symphonies and I'm sure polling would have it come out on top by people into Wolfgang's work.

First track that crosses my mind is:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+damned+life+goes+on

I won't pick a particular hit there, but the first one is the one I play on my show, i.e. sans video component, the graphic there is just the album cover of "Strawberries," the Damned LP I play it off.

 

[Torn Mind]

i dare ask, have you hear the Koln Concert? (not available on youtube)

If not, then i have two advice.
1. know that (wikipedia quote)
"At Jarrett's request, Brandes had selected a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial concert grand piano for the performance. However, there was some confusion by the opera house staff and instead they found another Bösendorfer piano backstage – a much smaller baby grand piano – and, assuming it was the one requested, placed it on the stage. The error was discovered too late for the correct Bösendorfer to be delivered to the venue in time for the evening's concert. The piano they had was intended for rehearsals only and was in poor condition and required several hours of tuning and adjustment to make it playable. The instrument was tinny and thin in the upper registers and weak in the bass register, and the pedals did not work properly.[13] While Brandes made an attempt and procured another grand piano up to Jarrett's standards to be delivered as an emergency, the piano tuner who had meanwhile arrived to fix the baby grand warned her that transporting a grand piano without the proper equipment at low temperatures in the middle of a rainstorm would irreparably damage the instrument, forcing Brandes to stick to the small one."
2. this is likely one of the top 10 greatest pieces of music ever put on record. I genuinely mean that.

Jarrett is a wise and beautiful woman - the kinda guy who would cancel a performance for some microscopic nitpick - and here he was essentially in mental agony. He somehow pushed past this and both managed to improvise in a sublime way, but also taking into account the "bad" sound of the piano he had, and managing to pull creativity out of hardship.

Nope, haven't yet.

My comments on his Mozart are strictly limited to the performance itself and not a rejection of the entirety of the musical abilities of the performer. So, while Jarrett's Bohm-like approach for the the first movements sans the K. 271 does not move me, that doesn't mean his other performances in his more natural element would also fail to move.

I'm the type who might come off as eviscerating practically every pianist who has tried Mozart, but that's because Mozart was just so good at tapping into nearly every potential aspect of music emotion and the cover artist(because that's what any concerto pianist is) may only capture of 50% of Mozart's essence.

 

[Muse]

I "grew up" feeling and thinking that it's the performer's obligation to reveal the composer's conception, be a conduit for that. That's first and foremost. Personally, I don't think any composer's work makes this difficult. Of course, my experience is limited, but I've never thought of Mozart as impenetrable nor any other composer, really. Of course, certain recorded renditions move me more than others.

 

[DigDog]

gonna list some more "how did these idiots pull out of they' ass an album this good" links.

Let me know if you can find a file / retailer for this, i lost the original CD.

C.O.C sucks but this album doesn't.

Miles Davies and John Coltrane "fight" during the 1960 Olympia concert.

Take some acid.

Imagine that THIS ALBUM was actually cutting-room-floor stuff deemed "not good enough".

What can i say, i think this album is perfect. Sue me.

Stabwound.

Iwrestledabearonce are really special. ONLY the first EP and album, with original singer Krista Cameron.

He's got a big discog most of which is boring stuff, but this album really nails it.

This whole tribute album is good, but Sepultura's version of Symptoms absolutely rips face.

What can i say, i have a weakness for a heavy metal band playing covers of Brittney Spears and Pat Benatar. (probably not a masterpiece)

That famous concert.
funny story, i was in NYC in 1991, wandering the streets with not much to do, staying at a family friend's house near central park. I got home to discovered i had missed the SECOND concert which was taking place that day. Or maybe not so funny story.

For those who don't know. There's a Cuban-style band that .. well, see for yourself.

This is what we had instead of techno in the 80s.

Forgive me for i have sinned.

Sometimes buying just random shit can find you really interesting stuff.

How about a band that makes cover-to-cover clones of famous albums .. in Raggae Dub style? Ex 1 - Ex 2 - Ex 3 - Ex 4.

 

[Torn Mind]

I "grew up" feeling and thinking that it's the performer's obligation to reveal the composer's conception, be a conduit for that. That's first and foremost. Personally, I don't think any composer's work makes this difficult. Of course, my experience is limited, but I've never thought of Mozart as impenetrable nor any other composer, really. Of course, certain recorded renditions move me more than others.

Mozart's got an operatic element to his music. So, the instrument will have dramatic "inflections" similar to an opera vocalist hitting a high note. And there are numerous other "inflections" besides that to really make the movement go beyond easy listening background nosie or a stuffy bore.

The piano concertos are closest to Mozart fully tapping his abilities because either he himself was the soloist integrating himself with the orchestra or he was showcasing the abilities of another. The 17th piano concerto is historically valuable because it was written for Barbara von Ployer. She did not have the full abilities of Mozart, but her "musicality" met Mozart's approval. Thus, the 17th is valuable in seeing because Mozart wrote out the varied repeats that a soloist can enhance musicality. They appear very simple but very effective.

Another feature of the 17th is Mozart left a statement stating that the 2nd movement is an Andante, not an Adagio, which suggests that performers then were so awed by the beauty the chords themselves, they slowed down the music a lot when the lyrical elements require "walking speed", not the slow drag of an Adagio.

The 18th concerto was Mozart writing for a blind pianist.

Even in the interpretations by conductors, the takes on how to perform them can vary widely. Solti takes a breakneck pace to Figaro. Bohm takes a more reserved, slower, refined phrasing approach(the Sull'aria in the Green Mile is from Bohm's record).
Solti's approach brings out the excitement and drama in the rom-com that is Figaro. Bohm is better at the lyrical sections.

There's a lot of humor. Long before Darth Vader, the Marriage of Figaro had the reveal that Don Bartolo was Figaro's father, then the ensemble "Riconosci in questo amplesso" starts. LOL. Then suddenly, antagonists suddenly become allies in a snap.

Mozart performances may also suffer from modern preconceptions brought into what his music was for. Audience etiquette usually involves silence and reverence. He actually wrote some sections to get a rise and response out of the crowd, and a 1778 letter, he himself got himself ice cream after doing exactly that with his Paris symphony.

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Then there is the melismatic element. Many bars of Mozart will have a perceived sustained single note followed by a scalar flurry, but that scale is perceived as "one entity", similar to a singer saying a word but changing the notes while pronouncing it. It's common in opera all over as coloratura.

 

[DigDog]

You have earned the thumbs up.

 

[Muse]

How about a band that makes cover-to-cover clones of famous albums .. in Raggae Dub style? Ex 1 - Ex 2 - Ex 3 - Ex 4.

I knew that was likely Easy Star All Stars. So happens I pulled their Sgt. Pepper covers album on Wednesday but didn't play it. It remains on my pull list for next week.

 

[Torn Mind]

ATOT autocorrect to the rescue.

YOU WAHT?

version from the album

version from the famous live "Made In Japan"

While I don't think it will enter my inner circle of "always on repeat", I do think song is pretty good and worth appreciation.

I did mention earlier that I would take a modern musician to craft a cadenza for Mozart over anyone who gets popped out of a conservatory. This song is another one that would justify such a belief.

The "solos" serve the same purpose as a classical cadenza, place to show both technical and musical skills.

I probably won't ever listen to it at its intended volume, but I'll say the musicians do have that magical attribute of "musicality".

 

[DigDog]

lets move on

Again in the early 90s i heavily got into techno. I have to explain that i .. well. Let me start again. Italy was one of the cradles of early electronic dance music. I'm not talking about Kraftwerk, but proper club-only, dance-oriented electronic music. Amsterdam, Detroit and Italy. What a weird combo.
Having had the luck to go to a very posh high school for rich kids, we had means beyond what most kids had in the 80s, and we were among the first of our generation to be exposed to this music; while i was not into it in any meaningful way (hard rock for me back then), my classmates were, and when we met again in the US for college, i swiftly picked it up.

And, we referred to everything as techno. "Techno" is the umbrella term that includes ALL of the italo dance scene, and anything that isn't stylistically italo dance, but follows the same musical rules. While then they would all have their own subgenre - and believe me, we looooved trying to classify everything - the word techno can sum them all up.
I am aware that "techno" was later meant to represent a particular style, but to us it's just a shortening of "technology", i.e. done with a roland 303 at its core.

Now .. i should be albe to easily state that heavy metal and techno are at the very polar opposites of each other and if you listen to one, you cannot listen to the other. Well, i do.

Techno meant to me as much as Breaking All The Rules or Where Is My Mind did. Like punk and metal, i find that techno - being made by people who had mostly zero education in music, was *wrong* and broke rules, thus contributing to that randomness-based creativity i was after. Many of the music that i loved is atrocious, and i loved it *because* it was atrocious - new, unpredictable, surprising.

Before i go and list a whole ton of songs, i need to explain two more things.
1. in the world of techno, you rarely if ever make an album; you cut a single, sometimes even ONE side of a record, with the other being blank. Thta's how music is made and how it's sold. Also, "remixing" - taking some elements (sounds, programming) of a song and re-issuing it as a completely different version - is acceptable, while in rock you try to create the "artistically perfect" version of a song.
2. i also love a ton of the cheesy commercial songs you already know about, so, C&C Music Factory, Rhythm Is A Dancer, What Is Love, etc. Consider those ought to be on this list, but they won't be. You don't need me to help you discover those.

One final thing.
Repetitive music will have an effect on you. This was already discovered in medieval times, it's where "ostinato" comes from. When your brain has detected a pattern, it will then stop trying to listen to it (because it can assume it will repeat), and focus on other things instead, even imagining new patterns that could match. Loud, repetitive music in a situation where you are deprived of other stimuli, will absolutely have a psychotropic effect on you - you won't be seeing dancing elephants, but you will have an altered state of mind, if slight. Add the drugs and the drinks and being surrounded by weird people and hot women, and the club becomes an experience which is almost completely removed from the music itself. Note that a lot of these songs are *long*. This is meant to be, and the reason why in a club songs are mixed to be seamless. They need to get your brain out of the normal state of mind - you know, where you look for food & predators - which is reached by fucking breaking it.



Ok, here are some examples of songs that i have found memorable.

Lost In Love.
One Night In New York City (NSFW !!)
Don't Laugh, Meditation Will Manifest, Higher State Of Consciousness by Josh Winks (i met the guy)
Desire and many many more by BBE - you probably have heard 7 Days And A Week.
Amphetamine.
Electric Dreams.
Komodo - featuring the famous polynesian "lullaby" also used by Deep Forest and many others(copyright lol). Proximus.
Cybertrance.
Nasdaq.
Joyenergizer.
Cyclic Evolution.
Two Full Moons & A Trout.
1999.
Terminal Velocity (sad because the guy actually splattered himself while skydiving), Goblin, Celestia and Zyon.
Emmanuel Top - who is a compositional genius - has both a concept album, and a TON of songs you've heard but never knew what they were; Chill Out, Turkitch Bazar, Acid Phase, Climax, Rubycon, So Cold, Lobotomie, plus he was the "E" in B.B.E., who made the excellent album Games.
House Of House.
Acid Squid.
Nuclear Sun - original - and its awesome hardstyle remix.
The Bomb.
Toca Me.
if one song is gotta convince you, it's gotta be Fromage Frais.
The Orange Theme. Bonus points if you can spot the name of the original composition this was blatantly stolen from. Hint: @Torn Mind may have the advantage, here.
Disco Volante.
Factor Y.
Trial Bells.
Gam Gam.

 

[DigDog]

i'm almost done, i would welcome any "hey i listened to Xx link and i liked it *because reason*" comments.

 

[DigDog]

after the 90s there was a massive drop in quality in techno. This is, in my opinion, the result of two reasons which are very close one to the other.

1. it costs very little money to make a untz untz song to use in your commercials
2. greed of other kind, specifically a lot of producers going into techno because of the money

The first obvious loss is that, if you listen to the music ^ above, it is in no way listener-friendly. It is instead very diverse, unusual, and creative, and while tons of good modern songs exist that are nice to listen to, they dont have that raw edge that early techno had.
Also, being in a club and instead of being bombarded with this music that confuses your senses, you are now singing along to radio hits, and you are not going to trip out anymore just on the dissociation that the music could produce previously.
And stylistically we went back to stuff that is a lot easier to digest, and doesn't require any mental effort on your part.


Some of it managed to be still good. But really, a lot of it was trash. To be clear, there was also a lot of trash between 1980 and 1999, but it was more the result of trying at random, rather than not trying at all.

One of the most important acts, who did both a lot of good but also a lot of bad for the style, were Daft Punk. If you listen to what i posted earlier under Rondo' Veneziano, and their stuff on Voyagers, you'll see that the two are *very* similar in style.
Their first album, Homework, was very good, but it's worth listening to in full, as the second half has a lot of tunes which are a lot less listener-friendly that Around The World.
The two guys also did a lot of singles work, mostly on their label Roule', or under aliases. The most famous are probably Music Sounds Better With You, and Together.
You can clearly tell this is a lot more "sentimental" music, while still following some techno rules, and also that it's very similar to other "french wave" sounds of the period, like Modjo's Lady. Others also went with the same "still techno, but sweet" style, and it probably all started from THIS.

Another factor that made electronic music "respectable" was The Chemical Brothers being on Virgin records and therefore having a shitton of money to spend on promotional material. Their previous work, Exit Planet Dust and Dig Your Own Hole, were at best niche products with marginal success.

I actually DO have a playlist i can share, which is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR3u4dGZLgiZiFJHqXgJFVzkmm6SB1JZb
This is all stuff from that particular era which i find tolerable, but, from an artistic perspective, it's nothing like, let's say, classic trance, or even the modern equivalent.

i dont really recommend any of this stuff. This is to me the beatles of .. not even the beatles, but the GENERIC_BAND_24 of electronic music. they don't really have anything unique, anything memorable.

i have somewhat dabbled in [the dark arts], which was interesting, but also got commercialized. Then a few artists tried to keep the spirit pure, and it kept getting harder and harder and, now it's almost undistinguishable from technical deth metal.

 

[Muse]

I have distrusted techno because

1. "drum machines have no soul,"

2. playing it you don't work up a sweat,

3. Anybody with imagination can produce great techno, all you need is a laptop

I could have done it, maybe still can, I could do it in my head. I heard tons of all kinds for many years being a DJ at a top notch college radio station. We've had many great DJs, always do. Some bring stuff back from whereever they go globally.

So, I favor bands with people who play instruments, do not include drum machines or synthesizers, use midi, certainly don't utilize auto-tune. Bands that work up a sweat, are passionate in what they're doing, living full lives, evolving, know when and how to move on.

Some techno IS great, certainly, I play some on my show, but by and large I don't feature it. I can do a whole show without any and never think about it. My shows feature a pallet of all kinds of stuff, even things that aren't music occasionally.

I totally agree that there's tons of crap out there and I hear it on the air. I am rather good at recognizing when something is crap (most is). Helps to be discerning about that when you are a DJ!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Helps to be discerning about that when you are a DJ!

Are you a fan of any youtube DJ channels?

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm curious what the music snobs think of the following (I'm fully expecting a response along the lines of "That's crap!"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaDS3yktLlY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-fWDrZSiZs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwkej79U3ek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOL7aeIDruA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG9xYMGUlOk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHUmiJfodzY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl9wiuDGMm0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWoPUViMoSA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_wJe50YzQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ombqA70cI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5_p6trfbf4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIZZlnIV8XA

 

[DigDog]

I have distrusted techno because

1. "drum machines have no soul,"

2. playing it you don't work up a sweat,

3. Anybody with imagination can produce great techno, all you need is a laptop

well all these are both true and false at the same time. You *can* make music with a laptop, and it will suck unless you yourself have art in your blood. Very seldomly does great music come out of just technique (you gonna have to go with me on this one, i went to Berklee, and i can tell you it doesn't make musicians, it breaks them), you need the desire to experiment, to break rules, to be daring - AND to have a soul.

I say, the stuff i listen to these days, it's all, mashups on youtube (some of them are absolutely brilliant !), comedy music such as Lonely Island (THIS song with Julian Casablanca), Reggae Shark, Space Unicorn, Klangphonics [techno without computer], remixes of 80s stuff, more comedy music, Postmodern Jukebox, "indie" stuff, by which i mean REALLY independent, Rob Scallion, 2 Cellos, Steve N' Seagulls, some occasionally decent modern techno, and every now and then i go back to some more classic stuff, but it's more reminiscing than actually being invested in it.

 

[DigDog]

@igor_kavinski

1. bleah
2. okay
3. ofc, excellent. I also like the parody. I have a soft spot for Maroon 5 even when the songs are covers (and this is a good cover).
4. good.
The problem with Chick Rock is that 99% of the songs have a great [bridge] hook, but the initial part of the riff is the singer just waiting to get to the hook. Example, idk, Bitch, everything Alanis Morrisette ever wrote, Black Velvet, etc.
5. good song, but jesus christ, she can't sing.
6. nasal annoying voice and mediocre song.
7. probably will never amount to anything, but too early to say.
8. garbage
9. slightly less garbage
10. super predictable cookie cutter garbage
11. commercial crap with screamo influences, no tnx
12. bleah
13. i like this stuff; the girl on the R side of the screen has some fucking excellent intonation.
14. .. he's not really putting a lot of effort into this.

If you wanna hear KIDS who are good, then try: Bianca Ryan, Marina (who can't sing, but was born with A VOICE - she did much better with some actual training later), Jonathan from BGT (ignore the girl he duets with). There's a lot to say about children singing; it really screws up your vocal chords, this is a widely known fact among every professional musician and most will not train young kids to BELT OUT.

I'm gonna add that, when i went to Berklee, i went as a Performance major - you play an instrument. I quickly realized i was out of my league, there were kids there who were playing since being 4yo, with musician parents. Many of them never became professionals, not even being able to support themselves with music. Becoming a PAID musician entails a lot more than talent, and it's a long, difficult road.

Also, i don't mean this as an offense. It's not, "you like stupid music, you are stupid". i fell that, IF you were a particularly inclined person, IF you exhaust a field of music, eventually you become more discerning and reject things that you have previously liked.

 

[igor_kavinski]

13. i like this stuff; the girl on the R side of the screen has some fucking excellent intonation.

I love the faces she makes! And she has no idea how good she is. If you look at her interviews, she's really down to earth. Like grateful that people like her. Not a diva like one would expect her to be with her talent.

 

[Muse]

Are you a fan of any youtube DJ channels?

Not on my radar, can you suggest or link?

I have watched a bunch of Rick Beato videos, don't watch most of them, he can go on and doesn't cut to the chase much. However, I have learned a lot from some. It was a while before I started subscribing to YT stuff, but have for a while now.

 

[Muse]

Uh, for parody... I just bought a copy of Radio Free Vestibule's "Sketches Songs and Shoes" which I will review and donate to the station (long overdue, I figure). Some of the most brilliantly conceived/executed parody & flights of fancy I've ever heard. Their follow-up CD was nil in comparison.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Not on my radar, can you suggest or link?

Never watched them. Question popped up in my head coz I thought maybe you would know

One of the most famous seems to be Avicii. He's dead though.

 

[igor_kavinski]

The Damned - Life goes on
Komodo
Terminal Velocity

Good

 

[igor_kavinski]

Find this easy to listen to.

 

[DigDog]

Uh, for parody... I just bought a copy of Radio Free Vestibule's "Sketches Songs and Shoes" which I will review and donate to the station (long overdue, I figure). Some of the most brilliantly conceived/executed parody & flights of fancy I've ever heard. Their follow-up CD was nil in comparison.

Ah, Canada.
Surely you know, The Arrogant Worms?

.. btw, the aforementioned The Vestibules.