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Odd and rather wonderful, though you do have to be in the mood. 8/10
The music was by Neil Ardley, who was once mentor to subsequently-married couple Jon Hiseman (drums) and Barbara Thompson (sax), currently of Paraphanalia and, as it happens, my neighbours.
That was totally good 9/10
Here's a golden oldie - could have been a better sound recording but you'd miss the video - think I'll work on that tomorrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sn1UqbbbqQ
I like it well enough, 8/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8lnt...eature=related
For Muta, an Asian girl group composed of women who definitely can't pass for 12.
No, they don't look 12, that's for sure. I didn't necessarily enjoy it, but it's just so freakin' bizzarre I kind of like it. 6/10
Not a type of song I'd usually like, but I just can't help but enjoy this one. It makes me smile. Vocals kind of remind me of Steely Dan in sections. I also enjoyed the movie.
Unexpectedly enjoyable in a frothy strawberry kinda way. 7/10
As you mentioned them.....
Good song. I just like how he writes songs, and great lyrics to boot. 8/10.
The first song is one of my favorites by Steely Dan.
To be pedantic, it's 'how they write songs'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
I prefer the second of those two, but in any event it's a 9/10.
Taking the Beatles as read, there are days on which I think that Steely Dan are my favourite band. The only real competition is Costello, up to about 1985. So here's more...
When my son was very young, I made sure he was around a lot of intelligent and well-crafted music, because that stuff shapes you for life. When he was five, I was walking past his bedroom at about ten at night and I could hear him in the dark singing "And I'm going insane - I'm laughing at the frozen rain. Oh, and I'm so alone - honey, when they gonna send me home...?" When he was six, he auditioned for the part of Joseph in the school nativity play by singing XTC's Towers of London. (He ended up as Third Shepherd From The Left, but I try not to blame Andy Partridge for that.)
Fourteen years later, the kid's turned out pretty good, apart from an inexplicable devotion to techo-rave-psycho-dance crap.
Before doing a little Wikipedia research, I assumed that the songs were pretty much written solely by the lead singer, who I also assumed was named Dan (unless 'Dan' can be a nickname for 'Donald'). Obviously, I'm pretty new to their music, and only just started listening to it a few weeks ago, aside from when I heard my dad playing it. You do learn something new everyday.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
I liked it, despite the use of "pina colada" in the lyrics. 8/10.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
My dad did much the same with me. I grew up listening to a lot of jazz and jazz fusion (Al Di Meola, Pat Methany, Chick Korea, progressive rock (Yes, Genesis, etc.), and, of course, great stuff like The Beatles and Costello. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed that music until I was well into high school. Well-rounded musical taste is one of the greatest things my dad gave me. It was my cousin who veered me into the realms of heavy metal, and I then veered my dad into heavy metal, also. It's fun seeing metal bands with my dad (rarely do you see fathers and sons at metal concerts).Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
So as to not make this into an exchange of Steely Dan songs, I'll go a different direction. . . .
How about some avant-garde jazz hardcore fusion!
um. My neice once played percussion with the pots and pan she pulled out of the drawer under the oven.
alright. so here is mine. I can't stop listening to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8HNakhSp38
Since there's no rating, I assumed you loved it. Good for you, being open minded. I just find Naked City fascinating.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shalot
I can. I just don't dig that 80s sound. 3.5/10Quote:
Originally Posted by Shalot
This band continues to solidify itself as one of the most creative and innovative metal bands out there. (For those who hate metal [which, unless metal134 decides to show back up, is pretty much everyone :)], try to ignore the screaming and appreciate the technicality and complexity of the composition.)
I suspect they are solidifying themselves as a pre-emptive defence against someone trying to liquidate them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
See, there's the problem for me. Technicality and complexity are not in themselves appreciable. They're not ends; they're means. And in this case, I can't see what they're for - they don't tell me anything apart from the fact that these guys can play and they can remember a lot of time signatures.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
So - y'know - no surprise, really, that this is a 3/10 for me. And it only got that many because it followed Morrissey, whom I despise to the depths of my blackened soul.
Declan covers Nick. I may have this as the 'everybody shuffles out of the chapel' music at my funeral.
Well, I don't know what it's for either. I don't really know what you mean by what they're "for," really. The only thing they're for that I can possibly think of is to produce a different type of sound. I like technicality and complexity--I become quickly bored with very straight and standard song structures (with exceptions, of course). I guess if if one wants to stick to formulaic (and I do not use that word pejoratively, at least not in this case) music because that's just what they enjoy, I get that. Well, not really--I rarely understand someone else's tastes.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
I'm glad you appreciate the skill, though. Did you at least enjoy some parts of the song? It wasn't all screaming and complexity, after all.
I'm a Costello fan, but this isn't one of my favorite songs of his. 6/10.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
I prefer his later work, and usually like his more subdued songs, like this.
It's not his, actually. It's Nick Lowe's. But as Lowe himself said, "Elvis has been doing it for so long and so well, I've kinda forgotten I wrote it."Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
I fell out of love with Costello somewhere around Spike, but of his subsequent work All This Useless Beauty is one of the best songs. In fact I was listening to it on the way into work today. 8/10
This was written by Allan Toussaint, who did an album with Costello a few years back. It's about as uncomplicated as pop music gets, really, but it works perfectly for me.
It actually works for me, too. 7/10. I like the horn section. And is that an actual 1967 live recording? It sounds amazing.
This is what is missing with current popular music, in my opinion, and the problem is I can't really define what this song has that current pop-songs don't. I guess it can only be described as heart, or soul. There just seems to be a genuine quality in old pop that has vanished.
When I can't think of anything to post (and I don't feel like being sadistic and posting a metal song) it never hurts to post a song by the greatest band to have ever existed.
I'm sure both Mutatis & Mark can agree that my judgment is impaired in this regard: the Beatles never do much for me. I don't "hate" them or anything. But when I hear their songs, I just get a feeling of. . ."meh..." So to honor the great mediocrity that I feel of the above song, I'll give it a 5/10
I'm in the mood for Fiona: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOzayDpWoI
Thanks for giving Mark and me something we can agree on, lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Comedian
I'm in the mood for Fiona: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOzayDpWoI[/QUOTE]
Well, I kind of feel the same way about Ms. Apple as you do about The Beatles. Not horrible, not really memorable for me. 5/10.
Bartok is awesome. Plus, kudos to Ritter for playing this without any sheet music.
On the subject of the Beatles, I'd say my own opinion is best expressed here, in the para marked 'Music'. (The bold type isn't mine. MySpace seems to have decided on it without consulting me.)
Here's my problem with Bartok. Ahem. Technicality and complexity are not in themselves appreciable. They're not ends; they're means. And in this case, I can't see what they're for - they don't tell me anything apart from the fact that these guys can play and they can remember a lot of time signatures. 3/10
At the other end of the scale of involvement in the process of production, Eno.
Wow! I thought I was flying through space, looking at the planets and the stars, or floating on a cloud, looking up at the big blue and white, or going into the light...10/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpSYulUFncE
Do you like anything with technicality or complexity, Mark?
I disagree.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
As qimissung's song. . . .
I kept waiting for it to kick in, and it never did, which was frustrating. But, the lyrics were good, so 5/10.
My favorite progressive death metal band doing a decidedly un-death metal song.
Well, depends on the complexity. So harmonic complexity, yes - bring it on. Rhythmic complexity, not usually, if it's the changes in rhythm that are complex, but I don't mind if the established rhythm is complex.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
And on the technical side - everything I like is crammed to the gills with technical prowess, because technical prowess is simply the ability to play the piece precisely as it should be played. What I rarely like is a piece that appears to be written mostly in order to show how it should be played. Moreover, no amount of technical proficiency, however impressive, will make an unengaging piece of music engaging.
I hope that helps.
That helps quite a bit, actually, and makes sense.
Now, someone rate my song! I don't care if it gets a 0, though I always hope a song is enjoyed.
Alright, if no one want to rate that, how about this?
I was staying out of it to give someone else a chance, but wotthehell...
The Opeth thing, I thought, was a perfectly serviceable - if slightly long - ballad, though there's a chord change around the 2:55 mark which was a nice idea but which didn't work in practice. It's one of those things which, played on an acoustic guitar in your hotel room, sounds unsettling and cool, but with an entire band in tow comes over as heavy-handed and a tad contrived. 5/10
The Bach was pretty good - made me want to pour a kir royale and read the Sunday papers in the garden. We should bear in mind that Bach was actually Mozart - which is more than can be said for Mozart who was not, in fact, Mozart. 8/10
Lucrative though it must have been to join the bloody awful Eagles, I'd say that that move was the end of Joe Walsh as a creative artist. Not that this is immortal music, but it's pretty special American blue-collar-stoner rock'n'roll.
No way! That's the best part. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
As to your song, it was perfectly described, and while enjoyable, it went on a bit long, I think. 6/10.
Something a little different from me.
Not desperately memorable, to be honest. 4/10
B-B-B-B-Battery Brides.
I've never heard of XTC or that song, and it was quite interesting, MarkBastable. Not really to my taste, but I've never heard anything like it. If I was to describe it as a physical being, I would say that it was a modern art piece made of black onyx. Most intriguing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tEgzGnzojc
9/10 - that is nice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfuWXRZe9yA
Not one of my favorites 4/10 -- the line "no one knows what it's like to be hated" sounds just too whiny-teen for me to get beyond.
Song here sort of describes my mood right now:
Lonesome, On'ry And Mean.
Not awful, though it does sound like Yes auditioning Simon le Bon. 5/10
This is going back a bit. So there's a shock.
I like, but not a fan of vocals and lyrics 8/10.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXT4k3hFUYg
Enjoyed the song (guy's voice was really good). 6/10
I'm really feelin' this song right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gqT6En2O78
I can't take Tom Petty, although Free Fallin' isn't one of the worst of his songs. 3/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lxw6A6scvU
I liked that - unpretentious, homespun and fun. 8/10
Uncharacteristically for me, an instrumental.
Well, grats on posting a link to the song with least views. Who is Waverly? Wikipedia came up with nothing (that matched, at least).
In any case, I found it's oddity a bit charming, but an overal extremely ponderous piece with no real pay-off. 4/10.
Saw this performed Friday night, and it gave me goosebumps.
I agree with you about the lack of payoff. The cyclical nature of the thing needs to build up a centripetal force that, in the last minute or so, throws the listener towards something.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
What's interesting about it, I think, is not the music itself, but the fact that it was composed, executed and mixed on a single iPhone app during a half hour train journey into London Bridge. Twenty years ago, to do something like that, even on synths, would have cost a fortune and taken days. Now you can do it on the way to work when you forgot to buy a newspaper.
If I knew that, I think I would have definitely given it a higher rating, probably 6, just for the novelty. I actually thought they were real instruments (something sounded a little off, though, so my ear isn't completely inept). I think I saw them (or a group doing the same thing here in America). Still, I don't know how I feel about a song of this (sound) quality being composed and produced on phones. Part of me thinks it's cool, and part of me finds it oddly heretical.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
I couldn't stand that annoying baso ostinato, but I didn't want to respond in case there was some sort of personal connection to the piece.
@MM
Probably one of the most popular and accessible pieces of "classical" music. However, there is a reason for that popularity, and I love most everything French Impressionist when it comes to music. 10/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU
I'll go for some more Impressionism.
This is good 9/10 - it makes me think of a Saturday afternoon in the late winter - early spring. It's not cold, but it's not warm. It's not sunny, but it's not raining. She's inside looking out the window, pacing the hardward floors in a house or apartment with light greens and blues on the walls and in the curtains and on the furniture. She's not happy, or sad, or nervous or frantic - she might be slightly bored for the moment, but she'll have something to do later --- the world hasn't kicked her in the *** just yet. That's the image that came to mind when I heard this music...is that weird? probably. Does anyone else hear music and see a scene? Maybe it's because I watch a lot of movies.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Here's mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJLOr8S2d2E
Usually not, but that's kind of the goal of impressionist music though. So, it's appropriate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shalot
Oddly enough, the name of the piece comes from children who would perform nude dances prior to events in Sparta. Gymno = gymnasium, paede = child.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnopaedia