Discuss the Musics Thread

[Lucky]

Catchy little bugger.

[D_Davis]

Man, why do so many people hate on Tim Buckley's final album Look at the Fool?

This thing is bad ass. Reminds me of Ween a lot.

[MadMan]

So weird listening to really early Flaming Lips. So far my impression of Hear It Is is that overall its a great album despite being a bit messy and a little unfocused at times. I naturally love "Godzilla Flick" on general principle alone.

PS: Upon checking Wikipedia its clear that this was their first full length feature album. Ah. Makes sense now.

[D_Davis]

So weird listening to really early Flaming Lips. So far my impression of Hear It Is is that overall its a great album despite being a bit messy and a little unfocused at times. I naturally love "Godzilla Flick" on general principle alone.

PS: Upon checking Wikipedia its clear that this was their first full length feature album. Ah. Makes sense now.

Have you heard Hit to Death in the Future Head and In a Priest Driven Ambulance?

Totally amazing. God I miss when these guys were just a crazy rock band.

[D_Davis]

Woah - Dave Fridmann produced the new Neil Finn. Some of the drums and strings sound like something off of The Soft Bulletin.

[D_Davis]

Track 4, "Divebomber," on the new Neil Finn album is the best Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev song since The Soft Bulletin/Deserter's Songs.

Totally sounds like an outtake from those two albums.

Reminds me of how some of the outtakes on Dylan's Oh Mercy! sounded so much like U2, and that's when I realized that their sound was so tied into Lanois' production.

[dreamdead]

Good month for music. The new Sun Kil Moon is rapturous minimalism, and there's still next week's Angel Olsen and the St. Vincent at the end of the month. For Ms. Clark, the newest single "Oh Johnny" is the first track that marks the transition from Strange Mercy to the self-titled, holding good melody and rhythm throughout. Hopefully I warm up to the rest of it.

The self-titled Warpaint is also digging in to my ears. Middle of the album (Biggy especially) is the winner for me.

[D_Davis]

I do not like the new Sun Kil Moon at all. It's the first studio album from Kozelek that I don't like. The main reason is that I can't stand his new vocal style - it's all talky and gravelly now.

[Henry Gale]

Is it possible to not like Pharrell's Happy?

Or at least not be in a good mood after?

Yep. I don't find it as annoying or tedious as Blurred Lines, but still does very little for me.

His Random Access Memories tracks and "Move That Dope" though... (Wooooo)

I'm really glad he's had such a big comeback in the past year...looking forward to his solo album.

I am in agreement here.

[dreamdead]

I do not like the new Sun Kil Moon at all. It's the first studio album from Kozelek that I don't like. The main reason is that I can't stand his new vocal style - it's all talky and gravelly now.

That's an interesting critique. There's elements throughout the album (Song Remains the Same...) where he does adopt a more singing tone, but it does have more of a spoken word quality. I'm perfectly fine with that approach, but I'm also a late bloomer to Kozelek's work, so I don't have 15+ years of expectations on vocal style determining my appreciation.

Was his most recent Desertshore album a harbinger of this style, or was that one basically sung?

Also, if anyone's in the mood for heavier music, Narjahanam (a Bahrainian metal band) has, on their album Wa Ma Khufiya Kana A’atham blended together Middle Eastern motifs and musicianship and stylings intelligently with a more typical metal approach. It luxuriates in those native sounds, but doesn't feel shoehorned in.

[D_Davis]

De La Soul is making their entire catalog available for free today.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/201...ilable-free-25

http://www.wearedelasoul.com/

[D_Davis]

So one of the reasons why De La is giving their music away for free today is that there is a good chance that a lot of it won't ever be sold new again, on MP3, or any kind of future media, mainly because there are a bunch of samples that they can't get cleared now for any kind of new license.

Three Feet High and Rising and De La Soul is Dead are two of the best albums ever recorded.

[EyesWideOpen]

De La Soul was one of those groups I never got into even though I was the right age for it. I'm definitely going to download some of their albums and check it out.

[D_Davis]

The wordplay and sampling on De La Soul is Dead is unmatched.

Hope you can dig them now.

[D_Davis]

Man - 25 years since Three Feet High and Rising. Still remember riding my bike to the mall to buy the tape at Sam Goody's, and the cute skinny girl with the boy's name (Tony) who worked there. Had a huge crush on her, but alas she was a Sr. and I was a scrub. "Me, Myself and I" was in constant rotation on the local pop and college stations, and a staple on both Post-Modern MTV and Yo! MTV Raps (blows my mind that MTV used to be THE place to discover new awesome music). I bought it the summer before my freshman year of high school, and it completely blew my mind - I'm sure that many of my musical synapses were formed and connected while listening to that album. I'd never heard anything even remotely like it, and it quickly became the bar by which all subsequent hip hop purchases would be measured. It still sounds completely different than any other hip hop album, and it's still a masterpiece.

[Pop Trash]

I do not like the new Sun Kil Moon at all. It's the first studio album from Kozelek that I don't like. The main reason is that I can't stand his new vocal style - it's all talky and gravelly now.

I just listened to it all the way through today and I kinda get what you mean. There's some great songs on here but I find "Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes" to be unlistenable with its pseudo raps about Mark's prostate and eating ramen.

It's sad because it's really close to being a Great American Album. Other than Pinkerton are there any other (good) albums that have lyrics that are this uncomfortably specific? Maybe Lou Reed's Berlin but I feel that Reed probably took a lot of poetic licence there. Nebraska is very specific but not about Springsteen's personal life.

[dreamdead]

Agree on the specificity of the Sun Kil Moon album. I listen to the songs and feel that their "and then..." quality masks a clear precision in theme and artistry. The focus on his romantic exploits in ""Dogs" is horribly awkward to listen to, and yet the whole album is full of the type of confessional that independent music is supposed to capture. Regarding the singing--eh, I love Tom Waits and extreme metal and so un-pretty vocal styles don't matter to me as much.

The new Angel Olsen record is marvelous. The opening for tracks are stellar, and that closer is equally good. Love how transparent her Leonard Cohen riff is, but also how she builds upon that template for her own purposes.

Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 album with the Kronos Quartert is quite good. I don't ever think of him as the foremost minimalist (Part or Glass instead) but he's conjured up some haunting echoes and repetitions and adaptions on these tracks.

Finally the new Woods of Desolation is nice for those who were impressed by the post-influences on extreme stuff like last year's Deafheaven. The melodies never quite ratchet up to that level of lyricism (see DH's "Dream House"), but several of the songs embody that album's gorgeous guitar passages. So endeth a discussion of extreme metal with the hipster's obligatory ode to Deafheaven...

[D_Davis]

One time we went to see Red House Painters - I was with a few friends, including a couple of girls. During one of the songs, Mark stopped playing and addressed one of the girls I was with. He told her she was pretty and that she looked like Wynona Ryder. He asked her to come closer. As she did, she got into the light to reveal that, while pretty, she looked nothing like Wynona Ryder. Mark then said, "Oh, never mind."

That same night, Katy from "Katy's Song" was there, and he dedicated the song to her. "Like glass on the pavement under my show, without you is all my life amounts to," is one of the lines from the song.

There was also another woman there that he dedicated "Mistress" to.

The dude goes out of his way to sabotage his love life and create awkward situations so that he can write songs about it. He's kind of a big creeper.

[Pop Trash]

What year was that Davis?

I'm not going to fault him for self sabotage. Plenty of artists are self destructive. Look at the man on match cut's banner.

[D_Davis]

What year was that Davis?

I'm not going to fault him for self sabotage. Plenty of artists are self destructive. Look at the man on match cut's banner.

I don't fault him either - it's part of what makes his music so interesting.

I think that was when they were touring for what Mark called "The Three Hour Tour," because they played for three hours, and every single song had an extended electric guitar solo. It was after the self titled album with "Evil" was released, because they opened with a sludgy, almost doom-metal slow core version of that song. So around 1993-95? I saw them so many times back then, it's hard to keep track of which show was which.

Actually, it was probably a little later, because by that show they had their new guitarist, Phil - the guy who Mark still plays with. Gordon had already left at that point. So post 95.

I actually saw Phil's first show, and during it Mark kept going over and turning Phil's effects on and off when he wanted, shaking his head as if Phil was the biggest idiot ever. It was really awkward.

[dreamdead]

Looks like I might have to eat my words. Been listening to the new St. Vincent album the past week, and it's got a solid arc from song to song. Still not the biggest fan of this funk style that she's drawing on, but that's mainly qualms with the production mix, which renders everything a tad too mechanical and shorn of the reverb that I expect with funk.

[D_Davis]

For some reason I thought Beck would be one of the few artists to give a shit about how his music is mastered.

This is one of the softer acoustic tracks on his new album:



Peaked in the red, with full digital clipping.

I noticed that it was distorting my headphones using my my new DAC, and distorting my car speakers.

It's a shame because the songs are great, but it's practically unlistenable as it is.


In contrast, here is Grant Lee Buffalo's "Lone Star Song," a louder rock song, especially when compared to the quieter Beck tune above. This version of "LSS" is from the CD pressed in the 1990s, before the loudness wars began:




If you play both back to back, the volume at which the Beck track can be heard renders the GLB song almost mute.

Pathetic.

[amberlita]

Looks like I might have to eat my words. Been listening to the new St. Vincent album the past week, and it's got a solid arc from song to song. Still not the biggest fan of this funk style that she's drawing on, but that's mainly qualms with the production mix, which renders everything a tad too mechanical and shorn of the reverb that I expect with funk.

I'd never heard of St. Vincent before, never heard a one of her songs, but she was on Colbert the other night and I was absolutely mesmerized by her and the "Digital Witness" performance. I love getting blown away by artists that come at me brand new out of seemingly nowhere.

[Acapelli]

One time we went to see Red House Painters - I was with a few friends, including a couple of girls. During one of the songs, Mark stopped playing and addressed one of the girls I was with. He told her she was pretty and that she looked like Wynona Ryder. He asked her to come closer. As she did, she got into the light to reveal that, while pretty, she looked nothing like Wynona Ryder. Mark then said, "Oh, never mind."

That same night, Katy from "Katy's Song" was there, and he dedicated the song to her. "Like glass on the pavement under my show, without you is all my life amounts to," is one of the lines from the song.

There was also another woman there that he dedicated "Mistress" to.

The dude goes out of his way to sabotage his love life and create awkward situations so that he can write songs about it. He's kind of a big creeper.

read this on another forum, apparently it's true

saw him at the Hot Dog Fest a few years ago. Some obese woman kept yelling out during one of the quiet numbers, so Mark walks off the stage and starts punching her a few times, then just jumps right back on stage and does 2 Sonny and Cher covers. Then he told the crowd that its his drummer's birthday, and that he flew in his mom, his mom comes out on stage with a present, somehow Mark slipped a "You're Fired" note in it, and tells them both to get off the fucking stage. Then he ate 7 hot dogs and said that he isn't going to pay for any of them, and that they should be free for him.

[dreamdead]

So the full Pitchfork Festival line-up is below. Already saw St. Vincent last weekend, but what here should be prioritized in terms of performance quality...? Originally purchased the weekend passes to see Sun Kil Moon, Slowdive, Grimes, and Kendrick, but welcome thoughts on the other performers.

Friday
Beck
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks
Giorgio Moroder
Sun Kil Moon
Factory Floor
Death Grips
The Haxan Cloak
Sharon Van Etten
Isaiah Rashad
Hundred Waters
SZA

Saturday
Neutral Milk Hotel
The Field
FKA Twigs
St. Vincent
Danny Brown
Kelela
TuneYards
The Range
Pusha T
The Julie Ruin
Cloud Nothings
Mas Ysa
Wild Beasts
Circulatory System
Empress Of
Ka
Twin Peaks

Sunday
Kendrick Lamar
Hudson Mohawke
Grimes
DJ Rashad & DJ Spinn
Slowdive
Real Estate
Jon Hopkins
Schoolboy Q
Dum Dum Girls
Earl Sweatshirt
Majical Cloudz
Deafheaven
Perfect Pussy
DIIV
Speedy Ortiz
Mutual Benefit