The Chatterbox, Random Music Discussion

I used to watch the Weather Channel's local on the 8's a lot when I was a kid, which again might explain why I find vaporwave so appealing.

@GlennMagusHarvey M3 stands for Music Media-Mix Market, a biannual doujin music event similar to that to comiket, except that all the circles in M3 sells music releases instead.

Re: Nostalgic at First Listen

I agree with you, Xeroop. Although I have never heard those songs before, they share similar traits with the songs that I love. Whether the general public agrees or not, I think "Semi-Charmed Life" shares some traits with plenty of Big Star's most beloved tunes. Links like this somehow trigger my emotional response that gives me a sense of reminiscence.

I agree to some point. Perhaps a majority of everyone's favorite recent songs are similar to their respective favorite older songs. In fact, I once read that our music tastes are based on the music we were exposed to as children.

(It sure is weird mentioning a Third Eye Blind song and Big Star in the same sentence)

Alright, question time!

How do you guys find your new music(besides this forum of course), especially for venturing into new genres?

http://www.last.fm/user/sgtpendulum Yo, check out what I'm listening, it'll be heat, brah :^)

Wikipedia, documentaries, books (especially those that deal with the history of a genre or aesthetic), Allmusic and Last.fm.

You Tube, Spotify (playlists especially work surprisingly well for finding new music) and every now and then I check out Album Of The Year.

Also, people posting stuff on facebook.

edited 17th Jul '15 10:26:53 AM by Xeroop

I like Spotify's New Music Friday page for an overview of music across multiple genres. I also watch iTunes, Allmusic, Twitter, and the Genius front page. Sometimes strange stuff pops up on Pop Genius.

Reddit's /r/listentothis works best for foreign music and unusual genres, but I haven't tired it out for a while.

Either word-of-mouth or just happening upon it by chance. Usually the latter.

On top of the ones mentioned above, I use VgmDB, Soundcloud and Xiami, but the latter is inaccessible outside of China unless you use proxy or VPN.

edited 17th Jul '15 5:05:07 PM by murazrai

Rate Your Music is one of my favorite places to find new music, though it's probably better for discovering previously released music that looking out for new music releases (I tend towards the former). The site's chart function is especially helpful for this. In default mode it ranks the top 1000 albums as rated by the userbase, buy you can filter the chart in many different ways, including by genre & subgenre, so you can use that to find the highest rated music in whatever genre your interested in.

edited 17th Jul '15 5:46:16 PM by djbj

Anyone heard of MS MR? They dropped their second album Friday and now I'm listening back and forth trying to settle on an opinion for a review.

It's clear Album #1 has that debut charm, and Album #2 has better mixing (the drums actually hit), but beyond that...I'm comparing the deep cuts (am I glorifying Album #1?) and the singles (am I giving Album #2's a hard time?).

It got my second guessing because while Album #2 is clearly a Sophomore Slump, it sounds good in terms of production. But in terms of that "sleek pop" production that makes the aesthetic weaker. Or is it...

This review's gonna be a doozy.

I'm actively waiting for September already. New albums from Iron Maiden, Metric, Silversun Pickups, CHVRCHES, Disclosure, Battles and New Order.

edited 19th Jul '15 11:50:20 PM by Xeroop

A few months ago, I read this article. It says that dumbed-down/watered-down music that appeals to the masses tend to serve as gateways to the more "authentic" music of the same genres. For instance, post-grunge softies like Nickelback and Creed can serve as gateways to grunge bands Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The author points out that a significant portion of today's young adults who openly love Metallica, Slayer and Iron Maiden were likely to be fans of Limp Bikzit and Linkin Park who served as their gateway bands when they were in their pre-teens. It's just that they are too ashamed to admit so today.

I agree with the article. It would be more difficult for me to accept 1960's rock music in my teens if I haven't listened to Top 40 Pop-Punk bands like Green Day and Paramore as a kid. I think all of us have to start somewhere, even in terms of music. And perhaps we should toss away the idea of "guilty pleasure" and just accept that we did/do like manufactured music of some sort(s).

I don't frequently venture into new genres, but when I do consciously, it's because I felt like looking it up on Youtube or talking to someone about it, or when I do accidentally, it's because I heard an interesting song somewhere or had something recommended to me by a friend.

What exactly am I not getting about Disintegration by The Cure? Nothing about it appeals to me at all, but I wish it did because there are some Cure songs I really like.

edited 18th Sep '15 2:14:59 PM by ColonelCathcart

Eh, I can see the point but I don't believe that you need to have "basic" music to necessarily get people further into established genres. For metal almost the entirety of the modern/European school of power metal is maybe only slighter harder to get into then I don't know, Sum 41 and Blink 182? Hell even a lot of thrash is fairly accessible compared to a lot of other underground metal.

I guess our ways to approach unfamiliar music differ. I don't think I'd like "Master of Puppets" this much at first listen before knowing "Enter Sandman". "Enter Sandman" served as the "basic" song for me to "get" "Master of Puppets" as well as other metal bands. In short, I need "basic" music/songs to increase my tolerance/theshold to extreme/unfamiliar music to the point where I can enjoy it. I mean, I can't enjoy habanero if I have never taken jalapeno before, you know? I'm just weird.

(EDIT: Responses to other posts)
For me, venturing into new genres is one thing but understanding them is another. If said genres are the ones I find extreme/unfamiliar/offbeat, I have to find accessible "basic" songs from the genres to slowly make me understand and, thus, enjoy them. Just read my spice analogy that I just wrote to StillbornMachine to get what I mean.

Me too! I have only heard it once via streaming 5 years ago. I had only heard their more pop-oriented tracks before "Disintegration". I think that's why I don't get that album. Have to return to that album soon.

edited 18th Sep '15 11:17:31 PM by tropeslave

There's tons of less big name artists you you could use though. I mean I've gotten people into the genre through Metal Church's late 80's material before and stuff like Stratovarius, Rhapsody, and Kamelot in mamy ways is even better entry level metal than Iron Maiden and Judas Priest because of how much it's brilling with energy and colour. Hell even something like Savage circa Loose n Lethal could be useful; sure it's not thrash like Metallica is but it touches on a lot of the core ideas but in a way that's even catchier and more fun, kind of setting the stage for them.

Dont know if i'd recommend Kamelot or Rhapsody as good entry-level metal. The symphonic and classical elements may throw them off. That said, there are plenty of good power metal bands that work as entry-level stuff, mainly the more straightforward stuff like Hammerfall, Helloween, Sabaton, Iced Earth, Theocracy, Dragonforce, heck, even Edguy could work (even their goofier stuff could cause someone to discover their more serious work).

If you can stand a film score than those bands pretty much are like that but with metal riffs backing it up. To the uninitiated anyways but you get the point.

I'm usually into richly melodic/harmonic music, with my roots in classical and a great love for videogame music as well as some folk, pop, and rock selections, but I actually recently started to get a taste for jazz. And then it dawned on me, the elements of jazz that jazz musicians focus on are not the same, in such a way that it basically feels like it's a different music "language" — and in order to appreciate it properly, one has to learn or at least become somewhat familiar with that language.

So, apparently the current Pope plans to release a Prog album.

It's not a joke.

Technically, it has his name, but he didn't participate in it (the two musicians come from an Italian prog-rock band, btw, iirc). The musicians simply took his speeches and other recorded voices of his and did cut&sampling with them.

Still, it's quite nice. And being a Catholic, it's a nice change from the usual classical music albums being associated with the Popes (e.g. Pope Benedict XVI had released an oratorio, if I'm not mistaken).

To be honest, I didn't know any of the Popes had any music out before I heard about this.

Does anyone know what this music is? I really like it.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.