Rate The Song Above You

1.5/10 no. just no.

• bad "autotune"(?)
• bad lyrics
• bad audio effects
• etc (i can't think of anything else)

nihigo - angelic w/ nunashi

Edited by Heyitsgalaxycreeper on May 6th 2022 at 11:58:57 AM

The first 30 seconds were really haunting, like you’re dying under the rain but content with your life and embracing your fate… Then the beat comes in, and it’s slightly loud and annoying at first, but after a while it blends nicely with the atmosphere. I aprove.

Okay, an artiste I’ve been (re)discovering this past few days.

Tarkan - Dudu

It’s Turkish, for anyone wondering.

75/100 - I think I'd like this a lot more if the drums weren't obnoxiously mixed to mostly bury or compete with the rest of the instrumentation especially in its first half. There are some genuinely poignant melodies here and the addition of energetic percussion recontextualizes them in a compelling, energetic manner. It's quite tasteful all around but that mixing job on the percussion ends up making it go from genuinely cool to just outright annoying.

50/100 - I don't know *how* to explain it but this gives me the same energy as a rickroll. I have no idea if this actually is seen like that or anything but it really feels like it could be.

Fer de Lance - The Mariner

Edited by StillbornMachine on May 5th 2022 at 3:21:35 AM

Huh? That’s, uh… maybe? I don’t know, maybe we should try making it an actual rickroll.

don't frequently listen to this genre (i don't listen to it at all, lol) but here's my opinion (live)

i like the little bells (?) in the background, guitar is cool I guess. gives me a pirate-ish vibe, probably what they were going for. singing feels a bit over the top for me. drums are...drums, i guess(?) nothing i can say about them. nice and cozy (acoustic) guitar solo. 7.5/10 overall

sorry about my face - dsa

7/10 I've always had a hard time with remixes that derive songs down to a few lines. The soundscape is very interesting but it gets a bit old after a while.

Turin Brakes - "Sea Change"

10/10 - love the classical guitar motifs and vocals, which help make a beautiful overall theme.

Jolt Trailer Music - Worldfall (composer: Gabriel Saban)

5/10

Generic trailer music; not great, not terrible.

And speaking of movie music:

Bill Conti - Going The Distance

80/100 - On paper I don't like the idea of songs built purely around build-up but this does a lot of said building with little peaks and plateaus that develop and elaborate on initially humble ideas. In a lot of ways it honestly sounds like a lost British symphonic progressive rock tracks from the genre's golden era when the bands were getting headier and more ambitious.

Pocket Orchestra - Imam Bialdi

Edited by StillbornMachine on May 12th 2022 at 4:54:24 AM

the mixture of rock and classical seems like a good idea, but here it's just.....annoying to me? the classical instruments are played either too chaotically or too discordantly. overall, the song feels kind of obnoxious to me. maybe if some instruments were removed or played less chaotically/discordantly i would like it. 4.8/10

LTJ Bukem - Horizons

Edited by Heyitsgalaxycreeper on May 13th 2022 at 10:51:29 AM

8/10; though it does feel a bit drawn out as a whole, i do really like the more atmospheric first two minutes. also a big fan of that ascending piano(?) arp repeated throughout.

Edited by Routeferret on May 13th 2022 at 6:10:55 PM

Blur could do harsh, and Blur could do groovy, but I can't recall another song in their discography that's this harsh and this groovy. The housey beat and bassline synergise surprisingly well with the screeching guitar peals, and Damon sounds, as he often did during this phase of the band's career, thoroughly disgusted and bored with the materialistic obsessions of modern life (which, as we all know, Is Rubbish). A song to get smashed and depressed to posing as a song to party with a few beers to. 8/10

Black Midi - Years Ago

86/100: Really good buildup, hard/soft contrast, and instrumentals.

Muse - "Plug In Baby"

Music unavailable.

Aphex Twin - 7 Cutting

ah, good ol' breakcore/drill n bass/whatever you call it. there's something about the chaotic drums that appeals to me. the melody seems a bit discordant at first, but i get used to it after a while. though at the ~2:30 minute mark it got a bit too chaotic for me. other then then it's your standard aphex twin idm song. 8/10

speaking of breakcore...

sorry about my face - broken tape

Edited by Heyitsgalaxycreeper on May 15th 2022 at 2:06:27 PM

solid 8/10; the juxtaposition between the more collected, bittersweet melody and the faster, mechanical drums works really well. and though it doesn't do too much to keep things varied, it doesn't at all feel stale throughout its runtime. i like it, i like it.

spiritualized - all of my thoughts

8/10 i dig it. i like how it starts off mellow and then goes all out interstellar overdrive at the end.

Aphex Twin - Petiatil Cx Htdui

Nowadays it's common for hard-edged IDM and breakcore musicians to have a couple of really gentle tracks in their catalog, but good ol' Aphex might have been the first back in the day, like he was with a lot of things. A nice minimal melody to serve as a breather between some heavier stuff. (8/10)

The Tubes - Smoke (La Vie En Fumér)

Edited by Small_Mess on May 17th 2022 at 1:04:13 PM

Everything I'm reading about these guys suggests they were known for their goofball tendencies, but I'm not hearing much here that isn't fairly typical theatrics-wise for a band of the glam era. I suppose the lyrics scan as a cold satire on society's obsession with nicotine, but that's not really goofy, is it?

The vocals are my main sticking point here. He sounds like he's trying for a sense of cool detachment, a la someone like Lou Reed, but he can't stick the landing and comes off more as disinterested in his own material. That's never a good vibe to have, especially with subject matter that practically begs to be delivered with all the oily sleaziness you can muster. The keyboard flourishes, the subtly crescendoing song structure and some of the more clever lines ("Your life is smoke, and the world's my ashtray!") are saving graces. 6/10

Belle and Sebastian - Lazy Line Painter Jane

9/10 The first part is a bit unexciring, but once guest singer Monica Queen comes in it really comes alive. She basically carries the vocals.

Grizzly Bear - "Yet Again"

Edited by FirstSnow on May 17th 2022 at 1:04:54 PM

80/100 - Hats off to the rhythm section off the bat, working in a lot of nuances as subtle as they are impactful which gives is a far more varied sense of sonic topography. It's "technical" but it is so in an impressively unintrusive manner and it uses this technique to create a very full sound without the need to be stereotypically grandiose or epic.

Ars Nova - Cazadora de Astros

This sounds like something that would be made in a tracker in the early 2000's or something, and the album cover reflects that well. The intro is pretty good. Felt a bit long for me, but I guess that's normal when the song is 8 minutes. I like the guitars, as sparse as their sections may be (or maybe I just didn't turn up the volume, I'm not sure...) There's some weird "voices"(?) at the 7th minute mark, they sound like babies, not sure why. Overall, pretty good, gives me Smash soundtrack vibes. 7/10

633397 - forgetting was my only option

10/10 I love anything breakcore, I'm biased but I don't care.

Cocaine Krueger - Killa Clique

Not very well developed and definitely too short, but the fuzzy production and minor-key synths still make it a pleasant listen. (6/10)

The Posies - Suddenly Mary

60/100 - I'm not 100% sure what to make of the hearty singer songwriter vibe this track has going and for all its repetition it knows how to deliver on the buildup in tension especially when that chorus comes around. It's the space between that where it feels a little too cut and dry, as if it's 50% buildup and 50% delivering. I might enjoy one but it's not enough to keep the other afloat.

Amnesia - Reborn In Evil