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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!
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.
Listened to Gorillaz' Demon Days in its entirety a few times. I know I'm like 15 years late, but damn that was a good album.
It's weird how my opinion of this album has shifted over the years. It used to be extremely high, but over time I guess I just kind of start seeing a bunch of little issues that piled up and now I don't really like it nearly as much as I used to. On the bright side, the last 3 tracks on it are easily my favorite things in the Gorillaz discography.
I've been on a recent kick of finding relatively recent (by my standards, anyway) progressive rock/metal bands.
Coheed and Cambria's new album Unheavenly Creatures is out, which introduced me to them, and I've spent the last few days tearing through their previous work (Good Apollo in particular), tracking down a few of the associated comic books, and generally having a great time.
Finding C&C also lead me to Riverside and their recent album Wasteland, which I've also really enjoyed, and I've now got The Mars Volta and Big Big Train next up on my list to explore.
So jealous of you experiencing Coheed for the first time. It's almost magical. Enjoy.
check out eidola you dig coheed, pretty big overlap
After @SlowRiot put them back on my radar last week, I've been listening to mewithoutYou's [Untitled]. As I've gotten older I've lost a lot of my former patience and taste for music with yelling in it, but it doesn't bother me in this album. It's mixed well, which keeps it from being too grating, and it matches the emotional contour of the songs. The album reminds me a lot of Brand New's Science Fiction from last year, and I loved that one.
I haven't listened to it enough to fully grok the lyrics yet, so there's more to discover, but I like the sound and the feeling so far.
If you try to take on "music" as a whole, you'll very quickly find yourself drinking from the firehose. It used to be that you were limited to what was on the radio or in the store, but now, with streaming services like Spotify or YouTube, you have millions of tracks available to you at any time with thousands more being added daily.
My recommendation would be to find ways to limit your focus to something more specific. The list you linked is a good way of doing that, as are other genre guides. You can also do it by focusing on a single album or artist. You can even do fun stuff like "this week I'm only going to listen to bands with one word in their name" or "today I'm only going to listen to albums with birds on their covers." The nature of the exercise isn't as important as the outcome, which is that it forces you to take a deliberate, digestible slice of the otherwise endless dessert that is "music." It doesn't have to be anything permanent, and you can change it up whenever you want, but it can be a way of reducing the scope of your search. It'll let you dive deeper into a few specific things rather than having a shallow exposure to nearly everything.
I'll also throw in that I chased the "greatest albums" for a while and found myself underwhelmed. I think a lot of them end up there because of their impact on music and their cultural relevance, which can make their acclaim hard to understand when you're listening to them in the absence of those, without context. Music is also deeply personal, so it's less about finding what other people think is good and figuring out what you like. Very few of my favorite albums would ever end up on "best of all time" (or even "best of the year") lists, but all of them are "best of all time" for me.
Just listen to whatever you're enjoying! Don't hesitate to listen to the same track or album a few times in a row if it's really interesting to you, often there's details that are hard to pick up the first time through. Lists and recommendation services are great, but don't feel rushed to get through everything in a hurry.
When I decide to try listening to a new band, I'll usually start with their most popular song or album, listen to it a few times to see if I like it, and then go back to the earliest album I can find and work my way forwards from there. It can be really interesting to hear how a bands sound changes over time and as members come and go.
In that vein, pull up the wiki page for the artist or album when you go to listen, see who was involved and what else they went on to do; following one persons career can be a great way to find new bands or entire genres that you might not have expected to like otherwise.
You don't need to spend hundreds on equipment, but it's worth investing in a set of over-the-ear headphones if you don't already have some. A decent set can be had for < $100, and even a cheap set makes a world of difference compared to a pair of earbuds.
That list seems pretty good, but it's quite restricted to indie rock. Personally I have periods where I just stay in my comfort zone, or pure obsession (same song for two weeks) and others where I search randomly for new music. I like the reviews on allmusic.com for classics, and I also have a last.fm (100k tracks listened so far). Try not to get boxed in by recommendation services though. Listen to all kind of music, electronic, classic, jazz, metal, etc.
Importantly enjoy the music for itself, not to be "knowledgeable", otherwise you'll burn quickly.
Don't really know how to organize a response that well with what I want to say so I'll just kind of dump it all.
Go at your own pace. Need a bunch of listens to feel like to digested the album/song/mix/whatever as a whole? Go ahead and do it. Only need one? That's fine too.
Use discovery methods. You've already found an indieheads-core list that you linked, so that's neat. Some people really like going through charts like that because it gives a visual aspect to it, and I'll admit sometimes I like that too. There's loads of these that you can find on the /mu/ wiki (yeah i know 4chan etc but the wiki is largely just a collection of genre charts and misc. stuff). You can use spotify's discovery queue if you find that it gives you stuff that you like. You can make a rateyourmusic account and use it's automatic recommendations, go down the charts for genres/years/all-time/etc., refresh the front page and pick random stuff that shows up. You can use last.fm's recommendation thing (It has one, I think? I can't really remember.), you can go on a sub like r/hiphopheads or r/indieheads and keep up with the new releases and check out recommendations from other people. There's a MILLION different ways to tackle this but there is no really "wrong" way, it's just important that you keep it fun and do what seems cool to you. Wanna listen to a fuck ton of krautrock? You can do that til you get tired of it. Wanna binge a band's discography? Go right ahead.
Basically, it's not a race or anything. There's such a large amount of music that you should just sink your teeth into whatever looks cool, and if you want to, figure out what exactly you like about it and use some of those tools or find your own.
Been listening to a lot of Fucked Up in anticipation of seeing them live for the first time in a few weeks.
Their new album fucking slams god damn, I can't get over how varied and like, not tiring it gets over the course of like 80 minutes
It's all over the place and I love it too. I don't think they'll ever reach David Comes to Life levels again, that's a once in a generation album. But this is a great new album and I'll be plenty happy if they mostly stuff their set with it.
I prefer it to DCtL honestly! I think the big reason is that variety meant I felt the length a lot less, and the vocal diversity kept me from getting tired of the hardcore voice that was all over DCtL
I've been listening to classic blues. I'm learning to play the blues in DADGAD tuning on my resonator so I'm studying the roots of the style. Right now I'm listening to Robert Johnson.
My favorite hip-hop production duo (Jazz Spastiks) just released a remix album. It's great stuff if you like jazz hip-hop and turntablism.
Honestly I've just been listening to Groove Salad on SomaFM. It's mostly ambient/downtempo beats on a free radio site with no commercials.
Currently getting into Alcest, a post-metal outfit, again.
Do you know Les Discrets ? pretty good too. And Amesoeurs of course.
https://i.imgur.com/8rxaDLE.jpg
Please do not pay attention to that one song, by that one French pop group from the 80s. That's just a meme.
I've also listened to In The Court of The Crimson King on repeat for a week now, after a very nice internet person gave me the full album in FLAC ^.^
Affinity by prog metal band Haken. Vector is coming out and so far I've loved nearly every album they've released and I only started listening to them over the past month. Affinity is by far my favorite so far from Haken, with visions a close second.
Vector was released today, so I finally had a chance to listen to the whole thing. :-)
I do prefer their older stuff though, with Visions being my favourite album of theirs, and Aquarious my second favourite.
Been powering through Dan Carlin's Hardcore History for the last few weeks, this one included, on my commute. On episode 36 Death Throes of the Republic III at the moment.
This week I inadvertently (and regrettably) discovered Greta Van Fleet, which, if you aren't familiar, is a shameless attempt at being Led Zeppelin, but like a terrible version of Led Zeppelin. The thing is, they seem to be extremely popular, and now I don't even know what's real anymore.
Greta Van Fleet is really divisive. Some day I will get round to actually listening to them - I don't know what to expect. Arcade Fire is the only other group I can think of who seems to cleave indie music communities to the same extent.
These days they sound more like Rush than Zeppelin and I've been enjoying their new album a lot. It's all preference but I think they're held to a very unfair standard for a group of teenagers that just released their first album.
They are a pretty okay band, especially considering how young they are. I don't particularly love their music but I am excited to hear what they do in the future. I saw them at a festival and it was a good show but it was a little off-putting that the lead singer talks with a British accent (they are from Minnesota or some shit).
A few weeks ago YouTube suggested Heilung to me. I have no clue how my previous music choices told them I'd love it, but I do.
I'll put them on in the background when I'm playing games on my pc.
Two songs I link people are Hamrer Hippyer and Krigskaldir.
Lots of stuff! Re-discovered System of a Down, been loving Hypnotize and Mezmerize, Zero7 - Simple Things and various Boards of Canada. And some Mac Miller trough it all, that's about the only artist I've been consistently listening too for the last few years.
I've been living in the country of my birth for the first time since leaving as real youngster.
This is probably my favorite song on Polish radio right now, and it gets stuck in my head a lot.
Dawid Podsiadlo - Nie Ma Fal (There's no waves) - https://song.link/i/1437797168
At some points in this one song, his voice reminds me of Jeff Buckley, but the production is much more indie-pop.
This song of his has a really cool video which really gives a feel of current Poland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2XWBcd5jn0
Edit:
The other thing that's been stuck in my eyes and ears is this Unknown Mortal Orchestra's song Hunybee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJrKlSkxRHA
This song is not normally my style at all, but these guys always get me. The video is eye candy if you are into animation. Both the song and the video have a faux-70's aesthetic. I've always said UMO is like a psychedelic Steely Dan, and I stand by that.
I am super pumped for Tetris Effect so I have listened to that song from the trailer a lot.
I have been all over the place musically
Thomas Dvorak's
Glasshouse With a butterfly has been my mental state this month. Beautiful game and Beautiful soundtrack.
I've been trolling back through dozens of 2018 releases in my '2018Maybe' folder on Spotify. All year long when I hit something that might be worth including in a best of the year list I toss it in there. Right now it's full of obscure media like Golden Dawn Arkestra and Greyhounds and Young Gun Silver Fox waiting for my judgemental ass to decide if they are worth tossing into the l2t best of spreadsheet this year. Nov/Dec always feel like work feeding that beast.
I can't stop listening to the album Evil Friends by Portugal. The Man. I just put the YouTube album playlist on repeat and hours go by. It's such a good album.
Recently I've discovered MASTER BOOT RECORD. Normally I'm not much of a metal fan, but the way he blends melodic electronic music with harsher sounds is really good. Good music for programming imo