Topic: The Music Thread

@ShaiHulud Oh yeah those Davis albums are classic for sure. Finding Gabriel by Mehldau is brilliant - do you know that one? You might also enjoy Ben Monder as he throws in the ocassional moment to headbang to!

@TheBrandedSwordsman Haven't heard Finding Gabriel yet, just put that on the list with Ben Monder. Thanks

@ShaiHulud Got another one for you - The Aristocrats are a band that mix jazz with metal, you'll love them I'm sure, try You Know What? or Tres Caballeros to start off with, then have a go with their self-titled record and see what you think. I'm not a fan of their album Culture Clash, but your opinion may differ from mine. The rest is gold, though. Let me know what you think once you've listened!

@Jimmer-jammer Have you heard Total Football by Parquet Courts? That's obviously another sports-related, and awesome rock song.

@TheBrandedSwordsman haven’t heard it but just looked it up. Great song! Vocal delivery was authentic and the whole thing had a real west coast street punk kinda vibe I enjoyed. Nice and tight live performance, I particularly liked the gang vocal bridge section and the last line made me chuckle. Thanks for that!

@Jimmer-jammer Glad you enjoyed it. Have you heard of a band called Meet Me In St. Louis? I went to college and appeared in a college play with the bassist, they have broken up now but were signed to a label and released one record, Variations on Swing. What do you reckon to giving that a go on Youtube or Spotify sometime? What have you been listening to recently, Jimmer?

@nessisonett What do you think of this analogy that I read somewhere - "Playing rock vs jazz guitar - rock guitarists play 3 chords to 5000 people, jazz guitarists play 5000 chords to 3 people"

@TheBrandedSwordsman I actually know the The Aristocrats - they're quite funky but I don't really listen to them throughout the day, when I listen to music the most during work. For some reason my brain can't really cope with jazz that's too busy, whereas blastbeats are fine!

@ShaiHulud Wolf's Lair Abyss by Mayhem more your cup of tea then?

@TheBrandedSwordsman I haven’t heard of them but I’ll definitely check them out, thanks. Oddly enough I’ve been on a Buddy Holly kick as of late. There’s an earnestness to his music and his voice that I just find comforting. Also, I like your jazz analogy there. Very true

@TheBrandedSwordsman Mayhem /../ Ha! Haven't listened to them in ages! Time to give De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas another spin and see how it holds up.

@Jimmer-jammer Thanks man! I hope you like MMISL, let me know what you think after you give them a spin, the best way to describe them would be tech-punk I suppose, but the genre doesn't really exist outside of that band Did you like the Weezer song that references him and is named after him as well?

@TheBrandedSwordsman I’m a pretty big Weezer fan, though they’ve been so prolific the last few years I’ve had a hard time keeping up. I would say that ‘earnestness’ applies to Rivers and company as well, they are great songwriters.

I gave two songs a spin, wow you weren’t kidding with your tech/punk assessment. I actually found it pretty refreshing. Don’t hear a lot of rock music that’s that technical outside of the metal genre.

The bassist really stood out to me. That little breakdown in ‘all we need is a little bit of energon’ was mind meltingly sweet. Thanks!

@Jimmer-jammer That's interesting - where do you stand on metal then? I personally gave it up a few years ago and have been focusing on jazz, classical soft and avant-garde music almost exclusively since then, the odd band like MMISLor Parquet Courts often slips through the cracks though, I just can't help myself sometimes! and revert to my old ways, but, in all seriousness, I hardly listen to rock any more, I find a lot of it be just headbangy music for teenagers!

@TheBrandedSwordsman I love all music but rock is absolutely where my heart lies. With that said, the over genrefication of music has been been good to the industry but bad to music. I generally gravitate to songs and bands that simply have their own unique thing going on, melding different sounds, genres and techniques together to create something special, whatever that may be.

For example, one of my all time favourite bands is Billy Talent, for many reasons, but the main one being that they are completely unique. Nothing out there sounds quite like them and they have consistently stayed true to their sound. It’s simply who they are. As a guitar player and songwriter, Ian D’Sa’ has a truly unique vision that is completely authentic, even if it’s easy to write them off as a simple rock band.

I’m personally less concerned with technical ability and genre as I am with the strength of songwriting. I’ve been equally as moved by a sloppy 3 chord acoustic camp fire song as I have been by an epic, infinitely layered and technically sound symphony. Just my perspective.

On metal, I can honestly go either way. It’s an over saturated market for sure, where a lot of it just blends into the same chugging and screaming we’ve heard a gazillion times...it kind of feeds into my anti genre philosophy where I’d much rather hear something unique than something that fits specifically into a genre. Country is the worst offender of this to me.

@TheBrandedSwordsman I think jazz guitarists can sometimes come off as a bit pretentious, writing off their lack of commercial success by acting self-superior. Plenty rock guitarists are as talented as jazz guitarists and honestly Prince is a better guitarist than 99% of rock or jazz guitarists.

@nessisonett I’m glad you said this. Prince’s guitar skills are underrated, the man is a prodigy. I don’t fully agree with your 99% assessment but I agree with your overall point. On a world scale there are some almost superhumanly talented musicians that don’t see the spotlight. But technical ability only means so much, Prince is the whole package.

@Jimmer-jammer I just don’t like making a link between technical ability and what makes ‘good music’. The tendency from jazz and rock fans to downplay pop music for example is just silly because there are probably more progressive steps and risks being taken by pop musicians than rock musicians just now. The fact that Greta Van Fleet have a career attests to that. Whereas Charli XCX can’t do a clearly Led Zeppelin inspired guitar solo but she can completely sell pretty wild and interesting music.

If we only paid attention to bands that could play their instruments like maestros then punk wouldn’t exist today as the Sex Pistols and their contemporaries wouldn’t have made it. The sad thing is that while someone like Prince can clearly play a guitar extremely well, he’s still left out of the conversation when it comes to the ‘best’ guitarists in favour of the traditional picks. Rock and metal fans make fun of Lil Wayne constantly for being bad at guitar but would never say the same about Sid Vicious playing the bass considering they’re both dreadful. There’s a fair amount of ‘genre wars’ and also considering metal’s very prominent ties to white supremacy, that probably plays a part when it comes to metal fans’ attitudes towards rap too. I wish people would just listen to whatever genres they want and not be a ‘rock fan’ or ‘metal fan’ or ‘rap fan’. It would be like only watching Westerns, you’re just missing out on stuff you probably would have liked if you’d given it a shot.

@nessisonett well...I agree with everything you just said and have nothing to add 👍, but felt compelled to reply due to a lack of a heart button. Cheers!

@nessisonett What genre would you say Prince fell into then? pop? funk? jazz-funk? I think he was his own man entirely. Also, with regard to your comments on metal fans, that's largely true but I also think, just to back up your point, that there is a strong belief in the metal community that one should only listen to metal and all the sub-genres therein. @ShaiHulud, you obviously listen to a lot of metal, care to weigh-in on this? You obviously like jazz as well, but I think I can safely assume you're probably in the minority when it comes to liking jazz as well as metal, and therefore can attest to the niche headset of the majority of metal fans out there, yourself excluded.