Topic: The Music Thread

@Thrillho @render That was such a weird time for British music. There was a time when Kaiser Chiefs and Kings of Leon were like the biggest bands in the UK. It’s as if the public missed having bands like Blur and Oasis in the charts so just pretended that they still liked ‘rock’ music.

@nessisonett came here to say I really enjoyed The Bravery's Sun and the Moon album, which, I was thinking was also around that time but just looked it up to learn they aren't even British. Really thought they were this whole time.

Conversely, it was only a few years ago I found out Dusty Springfield was British.

Needless to say, I don't always know much about the people I listen to lol.

@nessisonett @Thrillho That seems to be the way with music, like there's a fad and all of a sudden there's a lot of like sounding bands out there. It's like they were there all waiting in the wings for just one of them to break through knowing that there would be a need to fill the space with loads more bands that sound the same.

For me that seemed to culminate with the Artic Monkeys who I never really appreciated, but perhaps I was just too old. They pretty much out Kaisered the Kaiser Chiefs and all the rest and seemed to go on to be the face of British music for a while.

@zupertramp I'd forgotten about The Bravery until you mentioned them. They were around that time and seemed to be one of those bands that were there and gone in the space of one album.

@Jimmer-jammer Cool, cheers for the share. Can't wait to hear it in game. Austin's name is a seal of quality when it comes to game soundtracks for me.

@Jimmer-jammer and @nessisonett What do you reckon of this?

@TheBrandedSwordsman I feel bad for Lil Wayne tbh because there’s a massive trope spread around by metalheads that black people can’t play the guitar. Sure, Lil Wayne isn’t a very good guitarist but Sid Vicious was a god-awful bassist and people still love the Sex Pistols.

@Jimmer-jammer Yeah, in other words give up the guitar? I'd agree with that @nessisonett What about all the great jazz guitarists of yesteryear and even the present day such as Charlie Christian, Grant Green and the present-day Jeff Parker? Plus there's the black guy in Animals As Leaders (metal group).

@TheBrandedSwordsman Well yeah, there’s plenty of fantastic guitarists of all backgrounds. Nile Rodgers never comes up because certain sections of metalheads never look outside their own genre, and he’s one of the most influential guitarists of all time. I’m one of the approximately two people that quite liked Kid Cudi’s Speeding Bullet 2 Heaven though, despite it being a mess. I like when artists actually try to do something new even when it doesn’t completely pan out. I respect Kid Cudi a lot for making a weird grunge album because that’s the sort of music that he loves instead of the music he’s expected to churn out an album at a time.

@nessisonett I think the trope is less "black people can't play the guitar" and more "rappers can't play guitar" which kind of links to what @jimmer-jammer said where there's people who are willing to put in the work and those that aren't and it's really really hard not to view much of the hip hip community* as mostly uninterested in "the craft" of it all, so not really trying to put in the finger-bleeding hours it takes when they can make way more money mumbling out half-assed bars over well produced beats.

Edit: probably don't need to say this but in the interest of civility I'd like to clarify that I know we're talking about a very diverse community of artists and I don't mean to paint them all with the same brush.

@Jimmer-jammer I didn't take it that way but then, it wasn't directed at me.

I'm somewhere in the middle here where I could see there being a 'rappers aren't guitarists' trope but not one based solely on race. I mean there's Gary Clark Jr, Michael Kiwanuka, Leon Bridges etc. But then it'd be a tad disingenuous to act like there's not a racial slant to even the modified trope I proposed.

Guess I mean I don't see any harm in bringing it up.

@Jimmer-jammer I think you’ve somewhat misunderstood my point. The Lil Wayne thing was 13 years ago and people still bring it up. There does exist a level of derision aimed at primarily black rappers who crossover into rock and metal. When you correlate that with the continued success of NSBM and people like Phil Anselmo being overtly racist at a bloody memorial concert of his bandmate of all things, it’s very hard to not be suspicious of intent. The Kid Cudi thing is a separate point, in that artists branching out into genres that they’re passionate about is surely a good thing, even if the resulting product isn’t perfect by any stretch of the matter.

Like to point out too that I’m absolutely not speaking about your intent specifically, but more the way that Lil Wayne especially is still brought up by ‘the wider music community’. I really don’t have any problem at all with what you’ve said.

@Jimmer-jammer yeah fwiw I haven't taken anything to be rude. I'm not typically too stressed out about anyone's opinion (or approach for that matter). But yeah I kinda piggybacked off your comment and probably shouldn't have. Your words being yours and mine being mine.

I feel like I've stirred up enough trouble so I'll shut up and let nessi weigh in should they want to.

@Jimmer-jammer Honestly, it’s hard to really get across basically anything online. Probably a lesson for me to learn in articulating myself better!

There was one guy I remember seeing at a charity all-dayer in London about 10 years ago who was ace called Random Impulse.

He used to do loads of “refixes” of songs and I always liked his version of Fell in Love With a Girl (I can only find this acoustic version).

When I saw him, it was only him playing and he was just awesome. This song I remember as it was just damn catchy.

I have a couple of his EPs which were really good but I don’t know what happened to him. I think he changed his name and went more down the straight grime sound.

A quick google and it seems he was still going as “Jovel” until a year ago. And still doing refixes.

@Thrillho It’s always interesting to have that one person who you’ve seen and were brilliant live but nobody else has seemingly heard of them. I’ve seen loads of support acts for bands who were really quite great but unfortunately I have no idea what they’re called.

I listened to Modern Life is Rubbish by Blur. It’s alright. I love the more psychedelic songs like Miss America but the album does tend to drag a bit.

@nessisonett Yeah, I used to go to a LOT of gigs when I was at uni in London and came across some great bands as support acts or at some of the free shows I used to go to.

There was a great place in Notting Hill that used to do free gigs every week with a good array of bands. I think Pulled Apart By Horses were probably the ones that went on to be most well known.

As for Blur, I never really got into them. I think I own 13 which was a present when I was young and then only have Think Tank. Both have a heavy input from Graham Coxon so are a bit more out there. I find it a little funny that he had that influence on the band when his solo stuff was so pop punky.

To bring the post full circle, I saw him live in London and he really is a great guitarist.

@nessisonett @Thrillho When I was at school it seemed to be that people fit into one of two camps, those that liked Blur and those that liked Oasis. As I didn't really appreciate Oasis I guess you'd say I was in the Blur camp even though they weren't really someone I'd generally listen to anyway. Eventually I got into them a bit around the 13 and Think Tank albums so said I'd go and watch them with a mate.

While they were enjoyable to watch as a band they must have played 3 - 4 tracks that we knew, the rest being some heavier stuff from earlier albums that we didn't really know, so felt a bit deflated by that.

@Thrillho @render See, I have the benefit of hindsight which means I fall firmly in the ‘Pulp are better than both Oasis and Blur’ category! I probably prefer the Welsh scene at that time as a whole though, they had a brilliant group of bands around.

@Thrillho @nessisonett You are lucky to realise that now as I wish I had at the time. My mates girlfriend and some of her friends were very much into Pulp so they were a band that we listened to but just didn't appreciate until we were much older.

Pulp are my favourite band of the '90s.