What are some of your favorite genres/themes in music?
I always love asking this question because the answers are always so unique to each person.
I love a lot of music, but a lot of my favorite albums or songs often have a few recurring themes or are in a certain genre, and I personally like analyzing my taste and asking myself stuff like "why do I like this so much?" As I've done this, I've noted that my favorites often fall into one or more of these:
Shoegaze and/or Dream Pop
I like warmth in music, and a lot of shoegaze is very good at having a warm atmosphere like in Citrus. Other times I a noisy assault on my ears with an emphasis on wall of sound, and stuff like Grandeur of Hair is perfect for that need. I love the feeling of a wall of sound washing over me and just enveloping me, and sometimes a dream pop edge is also a great addition.
Space
This is mainly space rock, but I love a lot of space-y feeling things and I always have. I have a really big attraction to it, and I can't really explain why, but the idea of a cold vacuum of space just gets to me and makes me go "Wow, this sounds so cool and expansive and distant and I want to be there." Whether it's something sappy like Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, something a little more depressing and slow like Stratosphere, or something infectiously repetitive like Orion Awakes, it never fails to make me happy.
Southern and/or soulful hip-hop
I like vocal harmonies, soulful sounding stuff, and the accent is very familiar to me so it makes some of the rhymes feel a bit closer or special or familiar? Something like that. Anyway, things like Rodeo, Soul Food, and ATLiens fit into this and make me smile with the southern rhymes or the souls-y love.
Plunderphonics/Sound Collage
I LOVE plunderphonics to death. I love the idea of taking little things out of pieces of other stuff and molding it into a totally new project with a new feel and theme and sound. Some of my favorites are Since I Left You (full album wasn't on Youtube) and Wildflower (also not on Youtube), Pharma, and Planetary Natural Love Gas Webbin' 199999.
You don't have to type out some big thing like I did, just tell me some of your favorite things in music!
Jazz, funk, blues, classic r&b, and all the various permutations of those. I have done very deep dives into those genres. I also dip into rock (more on the classic rock side but also some modern things), gospel, reggae, afrobeat and other African styles, and prog rock. Don't much care for most metal, country or hip-hop, though there are exceptions. I suppose the common demoninators are music with either deep soulfulness or strong and complex rhythms, which appeals to me as a drummer.
Here's my collection on discogs, in case anyone is curious.
Maaaan, you would have a Varese LP. I need to blast some Ionisation until the neighbors think the air-raid sirens have gone on :P
Edit: also, what?, they were recording in the 80s???
Definitely check out the band Polyphia if you haven't already. Purely instrumental metal (I think?) Very unique sound. I think you might like the album Wildcat by Ratatat as well
For sure, Ratatat to me seems about buildup and triumphant choruses, but it's fantastic background music.
Polyphia is very proggy and they don't linger on many parts at all except for the chorus sometimes. Definitely check out "Baditude" and "Sweet Tea". Sweet Tea is a highlight track for me. Crush and Storm are highlights from Renaissance. The whole album is very slap bass-y and Crush shows that really well. 5 strings never sounded better
EDIT: I feel Aqueous Transmission by Incubus would fit your bill as well. It's very much unlike the rest of their stuff, so you may not like anything else by them, but that track is wonderful and there aren't too many vocals on the track
No problem! I love helping others expand their collection. It's something I'm always actively striving for
You might like some Ativin! Not sure if this will be too flat for you, but I think their sound is pretty interesting.
I think your example of Bohemian Rhapsody of a song that's very vocally heavy is poor. There is a lot of unique musical scoring in that song. Most people love the lyrics, the harmonizing, and Freddy, which are all really great, but listen to the guitar, the keyboard, and the orchestral sounds. They're all very good and stand out. Certainly the refrains and Freddy's vocal prowess are what people know the song for, but it's so good outside of that.
That's totally fair. I don't expect everyone to love it. It's a song that's grown on me as I've learned more about music and learned how to play an instrument because it is so layered and varied. From an objective stand point I say that it's very accomplished.
I do agree that people tend to love it blindly, and there are parts I also don't enjoy (which might be a side-effect of the song being too varied.)
I've got a radio show on my local college station, and I've done episodes on literally everything from chicken-themed funk songs to two hour long Zappa-esque sound collages to soviet era polish jazz/funk. This week I did... well I guess I'd call it Island Soul? That's only because I really don't know what sort of genre it is -- decidedly not reggae---highly repetitive beats / breaks are not for me, which unfortunately makes me real picky with my reggae---and definitely not rake-and-scrape (god, the things I had to wade through on youtube to get enough material for that show!).
The only thing I don't (usually) get down to is electronic music and metal shrug.
One of my all time favorite techniques(?) is when tracks on an album slide into the other. NIN's Head Like A Hole slides into Terrible Lie and it sounds fantastic.
Another favorite of mine is when a track starts off slow/quiet and throughout the song gains speed or more instruments. It's always an amazing buildup that just kicks ass when it reaches max intensity. Tusk by Fleetwood Mac and Extension by 311 are great examples of that.
I do love when bands make songs that use multiple guitars. It isn't optimal for live songs, but it sounds kickass. Dreaming by System Of A Down is a nonstop banger. Wet Sand by RHCP is also a god damn masterpiece.
I'm a huuuuge sucker for violins in my rock. Blue October is more soft rock/alternative but they make heavy use of violins to great effect.
And lastly, Slap Bass is king. Early RHCP and Incubus' S.C.I E.N.C.E. are my favorites for slapping
I really like this when it works but it does make listening to individual songs a bit, for lack of a better term, awkward. Five Iron Frenzy does this in a lot of their albums and it tends to take me out of the experience more often than I find it appealing.
Harmonizing guitars is really hard for so many reasons. Most of the time, in recordings especially, harmonized guitars are the same guitar track but manipulated to sound like a harmonized track. A lot of rock has multiple guitar tracks though. Often a rhythm track and a lead (and then a bass guitar). Sometimes there are multiple leads. Most Dragonforce songs have multiple leads, and they're the prime example of what you said about it not being optimal for live performances.
Yeah I feel that it is greatly important to make a track stand alone well in addition to complementing another track. I feel my example works well, but I definitely know a few tracks that don't work too well on their own. I feel you on that point.
And oh yeah, harmonizing/layering guitars is very difficult which is why I expect those songs to very rarely, if ever, be played live. In my post I mean several tracks of one position, and I believe lead is best when layered. The songs sound very impressive and active after having been recorded, but can be very difficult to assemble 5 guitarists and have them all keep rhythm. However, I tend to dislike listening to live recordings (Background noise takes me out of it), so it's lack of feasibility doesn't bother me too much
funeral doom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg6qR0M8ZWU
tech death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51net-bYL0E&list=PL2E8D32C385844B92
I don't think I'll ever get tired of French House. There's just something about the use of filters that can really bring out the best in a track!
Admittedly I am more a fan of instrumentals than vocals. To me vocals just help accentuate the overall ambience or theme the music is going for. Not to say I don't appreciate lyrics and how they are delivered, however if they are delivered over instrumentals that feel lazy then it will probably turn me away. This leads me across many different genres and styles but all have a good balance of vocal and instrument intricacies.
Some of my favorite bands/albums at the moment are:
Agalloch: Ashes Against the Grain, The Mantle, Pale Folklore
Perturbator: New Model
BROCKHAMPTON: Saturation I, Saturation II, Saturation III
Taake: Noregs Vaapen
Run the Jewels: RTJ, RTJ 2, RTJ 3