Music that flipped the script?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
check out this edit a guy made of watermelons, it really is something: AAAnd it's gone. taken down by youtube. Shit.

anyway, my argument is that, it doesn't matter if you play zappa, what matters is which song you pick, and when you play it. You totally can play a zappa song inappropriately, just like you can play a britney spears song and make it epic. The point is that music programming should follow your stream of consciousness, *what* music you use to do so does not matter. Like, if you take me to a dark place, i'm happy to listen to The Man Who Sold The World, but i don't want it as an opening song. How does each song fit inside of the setlist. What purpose does it fill. These are the questions that you need to answer.
Yes, as a partial answer (because I haven't finished reading your post yet here), the big challenge for me as a DJ is how to weave my show, each set, together for an effect that achieves a result that works, is a wakening experience, not putting people off. It's not at all easy for me because I'm very very eclectic. A number of our DJs are relatively predictable, they lean heavily to certain genres, sounds, and all they need to do to not have a sense of WTF in their sets is play another of their typical song/selections. I try not to be that at all. So, making my sets "work" is the challenge. I tend to pick out (mostly pull from our massive library, I don't usually bring music with me to the station) much more music than I can play on any particular show. It surrounds me in the studio, and I try to make selections (one at a time pretty much, but sometimes have several in mind simultaneously) that seem to me will work. Sometimes it's something like plain intuition, without having reason or even what I'd call "thought" involved.

but my really big revelation was Masada, the free jazz band led by John Zorn, of whom i recommedn the 10 original Masada studio albums, and Naked City (watch out, it's a wild ride), and Spillane.
John Zorn is the one artist I always pull from our library prior to each of my shows. We have something like 50 of his CDs. However, Naked City is filed under "N." I have played them too, yeah, super wild ride that and I love wild rides! Zorn I pull and play because he's one of those artists whose work is reliably interesting. It's extremely varied, however. But Masada, you kind of know what you're gonna get, I've played Masada tracks on my shows dozens of times.
i don't think i have made my point sufficiently.

Ministry's The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste is a great album. Tin Machine 1 is a great album. Tina Live In Europe is a great album. These 3 are really, really good and you CANNOT make a playlist out of their songs and expect it not to suck.

Listening to a song should generate in you a special feeling that will tell you what song should come next. In a song, the importance of a note is based on the notes that came before it - tthe same holds true for a setlist. Listen to a song until the end and you should instictively know which song needs to come after.

I know this sound like some "use the force" bullshit but i promise you it's all true.
You would still make a great DJ, clearly! Thanks!
 
Last edited:

esquared

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 8, 2000
24,762
5,902
146
So, I was happening to read through a linked tweet today, which was orange menace related.
These guys were busking in Union Station.
Reminds me a little of Tom Waits.
Very cool music and I read into these guys a little further and they are a group known around NY
as TooManyZooz..

Here a wiki site:
They have their music for sale via bandcamp.

Their self defined genre is Brass House, defined as a mix of jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, funk, EDM and house music.[3]

Here's a video from the subway called Bedford

 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: WelshBloke and Muse

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Clara Ward sort of inadvertently invented rock and roll when they went electric with their gospel guitar music.
I'm going to include Sista Rosetta Tharpe doing Didn't it Rain (the version I'm familiar with is Mahalia Jackson's, which I've played on my show a number of times over the years), Tharpe does it wonderfully, here in this live video, evidently performed in the rain:

 
  • Like
Reactions: zinfamous

Pacfanweb

Lifer
Jan 2, 2000
13,155
59
91
Music that "flipped the script"?

You can't do that list without Van Halen. Totally changed the world of guitar.

Bad or good, was what started the hair metal of the 80's....they were all taking what VH was doing and running with it.

Major, major influence.
 
Feb 4, 2009
35,862
17,401
136
Ultimate flipped script song. Ugly Kid Joe’s version which is good mainly because the lyrics are clear and has subtitles


Basically flips from you to I
 
  • Like
Reactions: Muse

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
Music that "flipped the script"?

You can't do that list without Van Halen. Totally changed the world of guitar.

Bad or good, was what started the hair metal of the 80's....they were all taking what VH was doing and running with it.

Major, major influence.
Yeah, I can think of several tracks I could play, "Running with the Devil," "Ain't Talking about Love," (which I've played several times over the years, but my first idea when I heard he'd died was "Eruption," which I've played a few times too, and blows me away every time. I saw today online that "Eruption" made him world famous, it was the track. I'll play that on the fundraiser show.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
Ultimate flipped script song. Ugly Kid Joe’s version which is good mainly because the lyrics are clear and has subtitles


Basically flips from you to I
Yeah, I like music that blows your mind, makes you see life, yourself, the world a different way.
 

dasherHampton

Platinum Member
Jan 19, 2018
2,602
521
136
XTC didn't exactly flip the script but I remember hearing Dear God for the first time as a teenager. I was high as a kite, alone in my room, listening to CDs I had borrowed.


I had grown up with a pretty solid religious moral compass and the song almost gave me a panic attack that night. I was like "Everything I've clung to in my life is bullshit. We live. we suffer, we die, and we rot in the ground. That's all there is. There's nothing else, and nothing can stop it".

I had to smoke a few more bowls to get over it.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Muse

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
@dasherHampton

Yeah, XTC were the real deal. Great story. But hey, there's "ecstacy," so it ain't all bad, right? And XTC. And so much more...

I've played about a dozen different XTC songs on my show over the years, not often recently, but they are good enough I can drop them into a set now and it still works, really works. Dear God is new to me, probably, I'll listen to it now.

Edit: Best I've heard on this theme is Christopher Hitchens, look up his videos. So eloquent it's fantastic!

 
Last edited:

dasherHampton

Platinum Member
Jan 19, 2018
2,602
521
136
lol When I say panic attack I mean a real hard core panic attack. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I shot up from lying down, my heart was beating 200 bpm, I was short of breath, I felt dizzy.

I think being stoned to the bejesus didn't help.
 

echo4747

Golden Member
Jun 22, 2005
1,979
156
106
for several years in the 1970's disco was quite the rage. A couple pioneers of this genre:

Donna Summer
KC & the Sunshine band
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
for several years in the 1970's disco was quite the rage. A couple pioneers of this genre:

Donna Summer
KC & the Sunshine band
Not sure about KC, but I do put aside my aversion for disco in favor of Donna Summer. I've played "She Works Hard for the Money" a number of times on my show, just love it. I had a distaste for disco when I felt it was pushing aside the best music in the 70's, thought it was part of the cooptation of the best sentiments from the 1960's. And, I suppose, earlier 70's.
 

echo4747

Golden Member
Jun 22, 2005
1,979
156
106
Not sure about KC, but I do put aside my aversion for disco in favor of Donna Summer. I've played "She Works Hard for the Money" a number of times on my show, just love it. I had a distaste for disco when I felt it was pushing aside the best music in the 70's, thought it was part of the cooptation of the best sentiments from the 1960's. And, I suppose, earlier 70's.
I was never a big disco fan myself but I remember it flooding the radio/television airwaves.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Muse

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
XTC didn't exactly flip the script but I remember hearing Dear God for the first time as a teenager. I was high as a kite, alone in my room, listening to CDs I had borrowed.


I had grown up with a pretty solid religious moral compass and the song almost gave me a panic attack that night. I was like "Everything I've clung to in my life is bullshit. We live. we suffer, we die, and we rot in the ground. That's all there is. There's nothing else, and nothing can stop it".

I had to smoke a few more bowls to get over it.
Here's the XTC tracks I've played over the years on my show:

Garden Of Earthly Delights
Radios In Motion
Are You Receiving Me?
Helicopter
When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty
Senses
Complicated Game
I'm Bugged
All Along The Watchtower
Generals And Majors
No Language In Our Lungs
Ten Feet Tall
Towers Of London
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
I was never a big disco fan myself but I remember it flooding the radio/television airwaves.
I didn't have a TV in those days, but listened to radio... a lot! Especially KSAN, San Francisco until they were bought and went country. Soon after that I discovered college radio and very soon had my own show on it and ever since. There were some points where I didn't have my own weekly show, be even then you can do substitute shifts when DJs have other commitments, go on vacation or get sick, etc.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,304
1,815
126
So, I was happening to read through a linked tweet today, which was orange menace related.
These guys were busking in Union Station.
Reminds me a little of Tom Waits.
Very cool music and I read into these guys a little further and they are a group known around NY
as TooManyZooz..

Here a wiki site:
They have their music for sale via bandcamp.

Their self defined genre is Brass House, defined as a mix of jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, funk, EDM and house music.[3]

Here's a video from the subway called Bedford

The Sax player, Leo P has been involved with several other projects too ... They are a fun trio for sure.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
lol When I say panic attack I mean a real hard core panic attack. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I shot up from lying down, my heart was beating 200 bpm, I was short of breath, I felt dizzy.

I think being stoned to the bejesus didn't help.
If you have issues and you get real stoned, yeah, you can wig out. Before I ever even smoked a joint I researched psychedelics. I subscribed to The Psychedelic Review, a sort of pamphlet put out by Harvard professors Timothy Leary and Ram Dass (at the time, Richard Alpert). Their attitude was to be pretty conservative in the use of LSD, psilocybin, etc. Controlled setting, IIRC with a trusted companion, that sort of thing. Later people became relatively cavalier in their use, with varying results!
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,304
1,815
126
not sure if these guys flipped any scripts, or set them back in time by 80 years "Hanba" from poland is a sort of street punk band ...


Also jazz/rock ADHD from Iceland always amazes me
 

dasherHampton

Platinum Member
Jan 19, 2018
2,602
521
136
If you have issues and you get real stoned, yeah, you can wig out. Before I ever even smoked a joint I researched psychedelics. I subscribed to The Psychedelic Review, a sort of pamphlet put out by Harvard professors Timothy Leary and Ram Dass (at the time, Richard Alpert). Their attitude was to be pretty conservative in the use of LSD, psilocybin, etc. Controlled setting, IIRC with a trusted companion, that sort of thing. Later people became relatively cavalier in their use, with varying results!

I remember almost everything about that night in great detail. I believe - not 100% sure - that that the lyrics of the song hit me with a mental image of death, being in a coffin underground, no afterlife etc.

I'm sure it was the first time my mind had to process those types of thoughts in a serious fashion and it did freak me out.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,304
1,815
126
Also, Black Sabbath more or less created metal.
Brownout made latin funk black sabbath covers that are completely amazing ...

 
  • Like
Reactions: repoman0

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
I remember almost everything about that night in great detail. I believe - not 100% sure - that that the lyrics of the song hit me with a mental image of death, being in a coffin underground, no afterlife etc.

I'm sure it was the first time my mind had to process those types of thoughts in a serious fashion and it did freak me out.
Yeah, your imagination took you somewhere you weren't prepared to go. Dreams can be that way. I had a disquieting dream last night. Not a nightmare but disquieting. Somewhere I couldn't have gone in waking life for sure, not without drugs, anyway.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,288
9,881
136
Also, Black Sabbath more or less created metal.
Brownout made latin funk black sabbath covers that are completely amazing ...

I could play Black Sabbath for sure. I think Led Zep sort of were on the leading edge of creating metal too. Didn't they preceed Black Sabbath?

Edit: Looking it up, pretty much the same time... 1968.