The TV Tropes Album Exchange Club

This is very pleasant.

SO, I listened to Forget and Not Slow Down, and I can see what people mean when they say it's inoffensive pop punk. But it doesn't sound bad, and I can't really find any reason to actively dislike. I think I might use it when I need music to practice my drum rudiments along to.

Saeg got me to listen to this album before, and it's gonna be nice having an excuse to do so again, because it's basically awesome.

Also, I'd like to suggest The Inner Mounting Flame by the Mahavishnu Orchestra for Round Two.

^That's good stuff.

Hmm. Wicked likes it, Meta likes it... promising.

Heartland first impressions:

This album is interesting. I don't have enough of a bead on it to make any strong statements of my opinion, but initial results look promising. It's nice and atmospheric, and although nothing sticks with me, it kind of hums in my head for a while. Multiple listens are needed, though.

UPDATE: Consider my collection increased by one album. Sae, what do you think of Porcupine Tree?

edited 6th Nov '10 7:06:06 PM by arks

DOUBLE POST! Was I really the last person in this group to listen to the album? I was sure there would be more comments.

Anyway, it's time for round two. People can still suggest albums to be in this round if they want to. They will be added to the list and people will listen.

Random Number Generator says "4", which is Esem - Scateren. Zudak was kind enough to provide a link in his suggestion. Looks like you can either stream it from the site or download a playlist for the music player of your choice.

Next album will be chosen Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

You're not the last person, I still have to comment and listen and stuff. Which can't be accomplished until tomorrow.

I've also yet to comment, on account of me and my shitty internal planner.

Heartland has earned a place in my nigh empty "Stuff That's Actually In English" folder. Great compositions. At first, I didn't like the vocal style, but the rest of the amazing makes up for it.

Also, there is a link on the page for the new album that lets you download a zip full of oggs. It is cleverly labeled "ogg".

Current thoughts while listening to Zudak's album: Very well balanced. Simple melodies, but a great atmosphere. Currently liking this album.

edited 6th Nov '10 9:51:10 PM by Solstace

And here is a plugin that lets you play .ogg files in iTunes. I'm pretty sure all the other music players either support .ogg or have plugins for it.

Yeah, Zudak's album also get's a permanent place in my music collection.

Okay, before I listen to this album: Is this one of those things that requires a high quality audio setup to fully enjoy? Because if it is, you can consider that noise fucked.

I don't have a high quality audio setup, and I enjoyed it.

Esem - Scateren

I can't do a track by track on this, because it's too minimalistic for my taste, and I did not find anything remarkable in this. At times, I loved the sound, but overall the rhytm was too weak for me.

I found however one track which I liked very much, and that was Track 11 - Microessen. It has a distinct beat and great electronic sound! If only the rest of the tracks would be like this...

I mostly agree with Sati on this one: It was very well composed and all, but nothing really jumped out at me, due to how minimalist it was. Theory of Machines was minimalist, but it had a way of emphasizing its main bits, that this one didn't.

Yeah, I can't really imagine anyone who's not a fan of the subtle or understated getting very much out of this one.

Wait, is this minimalist or subtle? Because by definition they're kind of opposites.

Okay, firsly, consider this a placeholder for my opinions on Scateren when I listen to it.

Secondly, I'm glad quite a few people enjoyed Heartland. As for the criticisms, I think people pretty much picked up on the two main sticking points many people have with the album: A) It's so concept-y that it becomes impenetrable. Some have suggested that because of this, he should think about going into the Soundtrack business. B) Owen's voice is a bit wimpy, and this ain't great when he's trying to convey a narrative.

BUT both of these things are (obviously) YMMV, and for me Heartland is still this year's best album - it was released on January 12th and I've yet to hear anything better.

edited 8th Nov '10 3:37:04 PM by Saeglopur

Old thing: I'ma continue being a stick in the mud and say that I didn't care much for Heartlands. I usually don't care either way about "concept"; I think it's more important that the music fits together so that the whole thing feels like an album and not just like a bunch of songs that happened to be together. Owen Pallett definitely succeeded at that. So I admire the accomplishment and it's pleasant to listen to, but it's not something I'm terribly anxious to hear again.

New thing: On first listen, scataren struck me as too minimalist. I'm currently in the middle of my second listen, and it's growing on me a bit.

Ah so this draws from minimalism. Got it. Not subtle. (By the way, you'd be surprised how little my philosophy on subtle music limits what I can do or listen to)

Track 1: Interesting. I like the drums and how it all fits together. It's too short, though. It loses all its effect by ending too soon.

Track 2: This would be a lot better if they didn't add the noise in the background. Just have the foreground music with small changes throughout. The drums/noise adds nothing.

Track 3: So we're going into a kind of funk based thing now? Hope we get some cool countermelodies. Oh, they cut out the bassline instead. They're trying, but it just doesn't quite fall together here.

Track 4: The drums are cool, but they're overpowering the rest of the track. I'd like to hear more interplay between parts. If the balance were better, I think I'd like this.

Track 5: Decent, but not great. I just feel a lot more could have been done with it.

Track 6: Drums came in way too early. Should have been allowed to build more. On the plus side, the drums fit really well with the background in this track.

Track 7: It's in that limbo zone where if it were shorter or longer it would have been much better.

Track 8: Drums don't fit with the rest. This is one of the better tracks on the album so far.

Track 9: I'm glad to see that they went for most of this track without bringing the drums in. When they finally came in, it was much more effective. If only they showed that kind of restraint on some of the other tracks.

Track 10: This one passed me by before I was able to form an opinion.

Track 11: This track suffers because of the base elements that make up its parts. There's nothing wrong with the execution of those elements. They just aren't that interesting to start with.

Track 12: This is a bit different. Brings in a few tribal elements. I'm liking this one. You can groove to it.

Track 13: This doesn't sound like a last track. It is pretty, though.

Overall: The biggest problem on this album is that they rely on their drums too much or use them ineffectively. There were quite a few tracks on the album where I was thinking "This would probably be much better if those drums weren't there or were used differently." Besides that, maybe if they exercised a little more patience and let things develop more.

You have very specific ideas about what you like to hear in a song, don't you?

I don't know. What do you mean by that?

Just what I said. You said earlier you've listened to a lot of music and took the time to figure out what you do and don't like, right?