Mainly playlists. Trying to promote people to share some idea on how they can sort their favorite music for the best result.

Here I go;

Singalong - songs worthy of singing along to

emotional - songs that have emotional conection for me

inspired - songs that influence my own music creations

ex playlist - songs reminds you of an ex or friend

therapy music

piano only songs

Driving playlist

Rap and Hip Hip

Shoegaze

GUitar only songs

Beat and instrumental inspirations

family favorites

Expressive

Playlist #1 aka soundtrack to my life

known - songs I just picked up along the way to learning on the journey to instrument mastery

Single album for depression

It's the same odd thing where you watch fat people muck bang to feel better about yourself overeating. The music industry makes no sense to me but I want to make music and "make it". Whenever I feel like that's impossible, I look at someone like Ice Spice or Lil Xan, I see how dogshit they are, and I see how big they are, and it puts my mind at ease kind of? Like if they can make it there ain't no way I can't. Like there are people in the underground with way better music than Lil Xan but are a fraction of the size, idk what I'm missing but does anyone know what feeling I'm talking about?

The Beatles were my very first musical love, introduced to me by my mum. I must've been 9 or 10, around the time the remastered edition of 1 came out. Growing up in a musical household, with mum being an extremely talented classical pianist and always playing records-- a mix of classical, Czechoslovakian and Serbian stuff from the 50's through to modern times, some Elvis, Roy Orbison, Paul Anka, The Beatles, etc.--, there was plenty of music I liked before The Beatles, but they were really the first musical act I felt I chose to like largely of my own volition, even though mum intro'd me to them. They were the first I'd do a solo deep-dive on, and that record (1) was the first record I ever memorized every word, solo, melody, drumbeat, to- I know it inside-out, on a very intimate and intricate level, like I do few other pieces of music. Not long after, as I began to grow into my musical (and general) consciousness/tastes, I'd discover other bands entirely on my own of course, but The Beatles to this day remain at the top for me.

Anyways, after many years pretty comprehensively checking out their catalogue, I then started to get into the solo stuff, most all of which I honestly liked just as much if not more, for different reasons. But musical tastes of course aren't static- we can have our favourites, but old ones will take a back seat, new ones will emerge, as we traverse life and revisit at different points. "Favourite" is such a definitive word- we can have many favourites, it doesn't have to single one out, and we can love them all equally with the same exact fervor, for different reasons of course.

Lately I've observed that I listen to things very differently than I did as an adolescent. For however engrained most of my favourite music growing up is, there's a ton of records I listened to repeatedly back then which, for whatever reason, just didn't grab me as others did. Nowadays I'm revisiting a lot of these records and making a concerted effort to really actively listen to them, and All Things Must Pass (the 50th anniversary "super deluxe" edition) is one such record I'm currently doing that with, and:

OH MY GOD, THIS IS LITERALLY THE BEST EXPERIENCE EVER.

I'm very much "in it" right now- I guess the honeymoon phase?- despite having listened to the original pressing of the album so many times, but this time REALLY listening, and I'm just completely blown away, jaw on the floor... This is imho every bit as good as some of the best Beatles albums, and in fact better than a few, with this particular edition showing GH's insane depth and bravery in experimenting. Track after track, I have been utterly blown away by the sheer depth of the production/how much is going on. This edition is an absolute blessing- I'm so damn grateful I decided to randomly give it a whirl today and just sit back and get lost in George's world. This is an absolute titan of a record, wow.

I'm a musician myself, guitar my primary instrument (though I also play piano/synths and bass, and sing), and just today started out on what I think will be a great piece once it's all done, really feeling it, but man, listening to ATMP has quickly humbled me, haha. I still have confidence in my own music, but man, GH is G-freakin'-H for a bloody reason!

I know I keep repeating it... but, man, the sheer depth of this recording. All the parts, layers... all thoroughly thought through, even all the bonus tracks (which I guess is the majority of this version), none feel lazy. I can see why many didn't make it on the original pressing, but only from a more commercial perspective- personally, I adore them every bit as the more accessible tracks, if not more.

It's been a minute since I've been this blown away by an album.

I don't know where to go from here.

Incredible how an island the size of Britain can produce some of the worlds most innovative, influentiial and transformative artists. One could say it was ingrained in the culture starting with the British Invasion, where the groundwork and template was laid for what was to follow.

Because of the UK's relatively small size, it was almost like a petri-dish of sorts, allowing for a more boundary-pushing approach. The school system can also be another factor, where a harsh regimented environment didn't allow creativity to flourish. It gave young aspiring musicians to aspire to, to unleash their creativity as an alternative to a structured school sytem.

I'm guessing now it has changed, but I know that the downturn in economy and a bleak job environment of the past gave musicians/bands a chance to break out of that cycle and something to aspire to instead of a soul-sucking job. The same could be said of the class system. Music as a way out.

There can be other factors as well. A centralized radio network, smaller size means bands can easily tour and cover more ground in the less amount of time, etc, etc.

Thoughts?

Hey yall, stoned 19 year old here. I grew up with a dad who loved 90s rock but despised the progressions in punk/pop punk that happened around the 2000s, so I never really got the chance in the car/at home to really listen to these genres myself as a kid. But over the past few years I have been revisiting some of these bands such as Catch22, Blink182, Sum-41 etc. and have always been asking myself the same question: Why the fuck do they all off shoot from eachother? I get that names trend in the space of music, but upon listening to the popular tracks, or even the deeper cuts on their debut or sophomore albums, they always seem to have some vein of independence in their sound from the rest of the pack.

This is kind of a personal one, but I was curious as to your takes on it. Song was always pretty special to me, since it's whole theme about having hope in spite of fighting tough odds always kinda spoke to me. I'm not super depressed or anything, but whenever I was dealing with a messy situation and it didn't look like things were likely to work out, listening to that song always made me feel like it was a little more worth it to keep fighting back and not giving up one way or another. Something about something feeling kinda screwed but holding on anyway just seems so beautifully human to me. Not really another song quite like it that I know of.

Fast forward to recently however and I found out that a lot of people interpret the song as a meaning to give up and let die. I get the title could lead to some interpretation of that, but I found out that the song itself is often seen in that context. The song was also used (admittedly really well) in the Netflix series Monsters (about the Merendez brothers), in a similar-ish context, and couple that with the fact that I only just found out that the lead drummer took his own life in 2005, and I can't help but wonder if the meaning ended up being really different for most people.

I won't say that it ruins the song for me or anything like that. It still is a great song, and I know everyone has their own meanings and associations to different songs, but knowing the context most people view it in and how they interpret it, as well as some of the background info makes it feel a bit different. I want to believe it's still that same song with the same message of hope, and I know no one's stopping me from thinking that way, but I can't help but have my perspective skewed and change a bit. Makes me a bit sad because of what it sort of meant to me and it's almost hard for me to associate it the same ways I did before without feeling at least a bit weird. Maybe I'm just being dumb and overthinking it, was wondering what you guys think? And to that end in general, has anyone else's different perspective of a song you like or value ever changed how you feel or interpret it? And this might be a dumb question, but if it didn't, how did you prevent it from changing your viewpoint? Even if the answer really is just "doesn't matter what other people think, it's what it means to you", I'd love to hear the perspectives and trains of thought.

In accordance with Halloween music listening month, I listened to Krzysztof Komeda's score for the 1968 film Rosemary's Baby. I saw the movie many years ago but hadn't listened to the score on its own until this week. What immediately jumped out is how contemporary it sounds considering when it was recorded and how so much of the soundscape utilized in the movie can be heard in film scores today.

Krzysztof Komeda was one of Poland's most important jazz musicians. His music tutelage was interrupted by World War II and, in the 50s, he adopted a stage name in order to play jazz in secret given jazz's poor reputation in Polish culture. His breakthrough was in 1956, playing at the I Sopot Jazz Festival. His most well known album is the 1966 album Astigmatic leading the Komeda Quintet, seen as one of the key recordings in Polish jazz music.

One of Komeda's fans was the Polish film director Andrzej Wadja. Wadja's 1960 film Niewinni czarodzieje (Innocent Sorcerers) was inspired by Komeda who wrote music for the film (as well as appeared in a cameo). One of the actors in the movie Niewinni czarodzieje was Roman Polanski who tapped Komeda to score his debut film, 1962's Nóż w wodzie (Knife In The Water). Komeda would follow by writing the score for three of Polanski's next four films including 1968's Rosemary's Baby.

Without spoiling the plot of Rosemary's Baby, Komeda's score is great at moving between moments of lightness and long forays of complete darkness; from the merry, domestic light jazz of "Christmas" and "Moment Musical" to the intense dread of "The Coven" and the movie's lullaby theme. "Dream" is a smear of orchestra tones with a wisp of a ghostly melody plodding overtop before an upright bass melody enters the fold and the strings start to curdle. Breathy chanting takes over, punctuated by a distorted guitar pulse. It's as startling and chilling now as it was 50 years ago.

The sound that really caught my ear is the opening swell of "Expectancy", which sounds almost exactly like the recurring theme in Mica Levi's score for the 2013 film Under The Skin. The strings stretch out and stagger in a seasick motion. The horn sounds like it is run through a quick delay, the natural reverb makes it feel close like you are with it stuck in the same small room with the horn.

At the end of 1968, Krzysztof Komeda was at a party when a colleague pushed him down a hill. He sustained injuries that put him into a coma and he died four months later. Komeda was only 37 years old and Rosemary's Baby was the second to last film score that he wrote.

Has anyone else listened to Rosemary's Baby recently? In preparation for listening, I also listened to Astigmatic earlier this month and it was completely different, Astigmatic being focused on jazz chops and this score focusing on texture and tone. Any thoughts on Komeda's work as a whole and how he fits into the Polish jazz and European jazz scenes?

Each week a WHYBLT? thread will be posted, where we can talk about what music we’ve been listening to. The recommended format is as follows.

Band/Album Name: A description of the band/album and what you find enjoyable/interesting/terrible/whatever about them/it. Try to really show what they’re about, what their sound is like, what artists they are influenced by/have influenced or some other means of describing their music.

Artist Name – Song Name If you’d like to give a short description of the song then feel free

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUTUBE, SOUNDCLOUD, SPOTIFY, ETC LINKS! Recommendations for similar artists are preferable too.

This thread is meant to encourage sharing of music and promote discussion about artists. Any post that just puts up a youtube link or says “I've been listening to Radiohead; they are my favorite band.” will be removed. Make an effort to really talk about what you’ve been listening to. Self-promotion is also not allowed.

During the acoustical era, there were many criticisms of the acoustical process that was used at that time, the biggest one is limited fidelity, the acoustical process typically captured from 100 Hz to 2.5 kHz, which isn't much compared to later innovations such as electrical and magnetic tape, because of these limitations, many didn't like recording until electrical came along, however that didn't stop many from participating in recording.

So in this scenario, if the phonograph was released at the same time as photography but using disks instead of cylinders, as disks are easier to mass produce than cylinders, would sheet music remain the dominant force until electrical would come along in 1925? Or would records surpass sheet music by 1900? Or would they coexist with both records and sheet music having the same amount of copies sold?

Have any of you heard this thing? I keep seeing songs from it get recommended whenever I listen to Porter Robinson so I decided to give it a try.

It's like old music from the 40's and 50's with modern beats and electronic effects? I'm so confused. It sounds like those lofi music projects you see on Youtube all the time.

Doing some digging, finding anything about this album is strange and difficult. And what I do find tends to regard this as trash.

Have you heard this bizarre album? And if so, what do you think of it?

I’ve been listening to "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash, and I’m a bit stumped when it comes to classifying its genre. The Clash are mostly known for their punk rock sound, but this particular song seems to blur the lines between genres. It definitely has some punk influences, but it also feels heavily influenced by new wave, with its catchy, upbeat rhythm and electronic elements.

Some people even say it has a bit of a pop sound, given how mainstream and radio-friendly it became. The song also has Middle Eastern-inspired musical elements, which adds another layer of complexity.

So, what do you all think? Would you consider "Rock the Casbah" strictly punk rock, or does it fit more into new wave, pop, or even a mix of genres? How would you define it? I'd love to hear your take on this!

This band 'First to Eleven' has a fervent fanbase and has been around for years on Youtube doing covers of popular songs from a wide variety of genres and music. They're a talented group of people and the singer has her own band on the side as well I believe.

I check them out from time to time, and one thing that's sort of stuck with me is a general 'lifeless' quality to her chosen vocal range in the covers and I don't have the music theory knowledge to really quantify what I'm hearing. Don't get me wrong, she's a great singer, but she feels like she's playing everything safe and 'compressing' her vocal range into a very limited space if that makes sense. As a result, it sucks the dynamics and energy out of the songs when you stack it up to the original track and feels like a real lackluster take on the song where it could really shine given the obvious talent in this band. The comments are full of rave reviews, so obviously not everyone is bugged by this, but I am lol.

Some examples, but you can probably listen to any popular cover they've done where the original song is relatively dynamic with vocal range:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VfaUwhumlM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ncEBRUmc_w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JMZkRGU1Gc

Finally, I found a 'Welcome to the Jungle' cover they did where she seems to actually push out of her safest vocal range but there's still a sense that she's 'pulling back' toward the higher notes where it again seems like she's artificially limiting herself and the result is the cover sounds 'flatter' and more 'lifeless' than the original. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um-pSk0hpQk

What's happening here? What am I hearing? Do you hear what I'm hearing?

edit: Not 'flat' in the musical scale sense, but 'flat' as in 'less interesting' or 'devoid of color'.

Remember when back in the days you could categorize the youth in greasers, hippies, metalheads, hiphopheads? All just normal kids, part of the dominant music genre in their era. I leave out the punk genre deliberately because punk in itself is anti-astablishment and has always expressed frustration with mainstream society. What could lead to extreme political ideologies. But punk was a subculture. These days I find that for whatever reason that the youth has nomainstream music culture like the youth had in the 60s with rock n roll or the 80s with metal music or the 90s & 2000s with hiphop/ gangsta rap. I don't want to step on any toes here and provoke for provokingsake itself, but gangsta rap and metal music are not punkrock in themselves. They were super populair under the youth. I would say that both genres embodied mainstream to a high degree.

Since gangsterrap died as a mainstream music genre (with the rise of 50 cent), I would go as far as saying that gangsterrap was the last mainstream music genre there was in the western world.

After that, music splintered into subgenres with a mixture of old and new genres.

What happens when a large group cannot channel their frustrations into an influential mainstream movement? Where do the people then go to identify or escape? The answer is not just subcultures of music. No, it's broader now. The flight or need for identification now also broadens itself to social movements, political activism, and just as punk rock could lead: extremism.

Music lost most of its capability to function as a valve to release social tensions.

The times we live in now are not built to act in a civil matter or to put in effort to invest in the fabric of society.

The punk rock thing to do is to destroy the fabric and just silence anyone who has something to say about it.

Why let someone be part of a group if being part of a group means nothing anyway?

Maybe being part of a group is the thing that takes most effort in life, and that's something punkrock never understood: Now and back then.

We need a mainstream music genre again!

Hey guys,

This phenomenom is an "Enigma" to me. The EMF guys reached 1 in the Billboard 100 on the US. For any British band that's a big accomplishment. At least based on hearing interviews I've read. Many bands that are considered legendary by the British Press and Public like The Smiths, The Stone Roses and The La's where actually not that known in the US. Or even outside of the UK.

In fact, I seen smaller bands like shoegazers Ride, they are a great band, being considered 'legends' by music critics while a group like EMF is not even spoken about or even added to any lists.

Someone might say that EMF "sampled" some of their music. While bands like the La's wrote all their music. That's a fair point.

However, what about a band like Primal Scream. Their most popular album "Screamadelic" is very sample heavy. They found a innovative producers like Andrew Weatherhall and The Orb to help them make the album.

Yet the press raves about the Screamadelic on and on in most lists, articles, compilations. Despite, the album being "sample heavy."

Its peculiar to me. My only theory is that they are not from Machester. It seems winning over the Machester crowd determines how popular you become. Not everyone but it seems like many groups which went on to big accomplishments tried to win over the Machester crowd.

My other theory has to do with genre: Guitar pop bands like The La's tend to be more popular. Then lower on that list would Shoegazing like Ride or Slowdive since it seems to be less liked. Then at the bottom might the alternative dance like what EMF was trying to do.

What do you guys think?

I just finished reading Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm. What a great read!

What's great about this book is the "oral history" part. It's all snippets of interviews woven together. It reads as if everyone is in the same room telling the story. It even includes the deceased (like Kurt Cobain).

And it's a lot of people; not just musicians but also producers, writers, managers, record company execs, A&R guys, MTV, wives, girlfriends, etc. In their own words.

It starts with The U-Men playing around Seattle in 1980 and ends with Layne Staley's death in 2002.

Bands interviewed include, but not limited to: The U-Men, Malfunkshun, TAD, The Gits, Mother Love Bone, Fastbacks, Coffin Break. The Melvins, Dwarves, Green River, Skin Yard, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, L7, Babes in Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, Nirvana, Hole, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Candlebox*.

*I'm just saying that they were part of the story, not that these are all grunge bands!

My summary: Seattle was pretty dead in the early 80s. There was no music scene so artists that wanted to go big usually went to LA or New York. It started with teens who couldn't play instruments well but started bands. Usually some kind of art punk. Just make noise and destroy shit. And do drugs or get drunk.

Sub Pop, the independent label, was a big part of the scene, even though they hardly made any money. Many grunge bands started on Sub Pop but moved on to major labels, with mixed success. It created a bit of resentment. Jealousy and band member changes.

They did a lot of drugs. For some years it was mostly psychedelics and booze. The heroin started to become a problem though. The first notable casualty was Andy Wood of Malfunkshun/Mother Love Bone.

I don't have much more to say about it. Let me just share some quotes. Keep in mind that doesn't mean they're right! Musicians can be unreliable or full of contradictions.

A BUNCH OF RANDOM QUOTES

About grunge music

JEFF GILBERT (journalist; KZOK DJ; concert organizer) "Seattle isn’t a glamorous town at all. It was pretty pathetic. Very depressing. That’s where this music came out of...Grunge isn’t a music style. It’s complaining set to a drop D tuning.”

TRACY SIMMONS (a.k.a. T-Man; Blood Circus bassist) "I went and saw the Melvins at this little warehouse in the Fremont area in Seattle and was totally blown away. I was like, Oh, my God, that’s the heaviest music I’ve ever heard. I gotta tell you, that really influenced Blood Circus a lot. Melvins were the band that inspired the grunge sound more than anybody.”

NILS BERNSTEIN (Sub Pop publicist) "Hype! (documentary) was cool because you get a sense of everyone’s humor, which you don’t necessarily get in the music or the media portrayals of it. Like Van Conner (Screaming Trees) is the funniest fucking guy. It still surprises me that people have a sense of grunge being really dark or the result of living in the rain, because to me it seemed to be the most lively, funny, upbeat group of people.”

BRUCE PAVITT (Sub Pop cofounder) "The first Lamefest (1989 concert)—that was the moment when grunge blew up. That was the defining moment. That was the record release party for Nirvana’s first record, which a lot of people don’t realize.”

The blowback

TOM HAZELMYER (U-Men bassist) "Every band thought they could be Nirvana, and that was insufferable. The attitude was “Why aren’t I big yet?” It’s like, “Have you listened to your own fuckin’ record? It’s just like fuckin’ frog noises with a distorted guitar being smashed up. Are you kidding me?”

TOM NIEMEYER (The Accused/Gruntruck guitarist) "People wanting to be the next Nirvana, I saw it every fuckin’ day, dude. It was disgusting!...And the record-label people moving here, having offices here, it poisoned the clear waters of Puget Sound. All of a sudden, there was this weird oil slick over all this shit. You didn’t wanna be from Seattle.”

DAVE KRUSEN (Pearl Jam/Candlebox drummer) “What was a really cool, tight-knit scene, changed to a lot of backstabbing and shit-talking because some people were getting signed and some people weren’t.”

Kurt Cobain

DALE CROVER (Melvins/Nirvana drummer) “All that stuff has just been so overstated, but nobody ever wants to know the truth. Like the stories that are written about Kurt sleeping under the bridge. It’s just not true! I know that he did once, but it’s not like he said, that he spent hours and days down there, becoming this tortured artist. That’s the biggest myth, right there: Kurt Cobain, the tortured artist. People don’t realize that guy was a funny motherfucker.”

BUZZ OSBORNE (Melvins singer/guitarist) “They (Nirvana) had become exactly what I had always tried to avoid. This was way before they got popular—that’s what people don’t get. They lined up for this shit. They put themselves in line to be aligned with horrible people. I blamed them for the whole thing. They got in line to be involved with horrible management, horrible booking agents, horrible everything. They didn’t need to do it, but they did it.”

Courtney Love

I want to share this just because it's so funny. Obviously she's opinionated, volatile, and loose with the truth. Here she is complaining that Kurt was portrayed as weak in the media. She ranted that

“Do I sound like the kind of bitch that would fuckin’ marry a beta male? I don’t like somebody that I can boss around. If I’m gonna fuck you, throw me around the fuckin’ room. If you can’t do that, then sorry, son, you’re out.”

In her defense though: PATTY SCHEMEL (Hole drummer) "Courtney has a reputation of not being a nice person. It depends on the situation, though. She’s completely self-absorbed. And all that anger that she has is just one big cover-up, because, really, she’s just kind of a scared person. I was not threatening to her. I’m not interested in her husband.”

Soundgarden
SUSAN SILVER (Chris Cornell's ex-wife, Soundgarden/Alice in Chains manager) "It was Soundgarden’s nature to never be enthusiastic about anything, to the point where the Guns N’ Roses crew referred to them as Frowngarden."

BEN SHEPHERD (Soundgarden bassist) "Why’d we get called Frowngarden? Because we weren’t party monsters. We weren’t motherfucking rock stars. We were not like that. We were there to play music. We weren’t there for the models and the cocaine. We were there to blow your doors off.”

Candlebox and the end of grunge

WAYNE COYNE (Flaming Lips singer) "Candlebox wasn’t just the nail in the coffin of grunge. To me, they arrived as the coffin of grunge music.”

JEFF GILBERT (Journallist) "Among the metal guys, there was a term that we all used to bandy around. If your band was on the way out, we’d say, “Oh, man, you’re Candleboxin’.” That meant you were circling the drain, so to speak. This was when their second album came out. The second album kind of sounded like the first one, and the first one was pretty cool, but … they never really connected with everybody.”

Layne Staley and Alice in Chains

JEFF GILBERT "Layne sequestered himself and did nothing but play video games and do drugs. I bumped into him probably about six months before he died, in the U District. He looked like an 80-year-old version of himself. He looked very jaundiced. He wore a leather jacket down to his fingertips to cover up all the needle marks. He had a knit hat on, pulled down, and his eyes were so sunken in, just dark.”

SEAN KINNEY (Alice in Chains drummer) "It’s like one of the world’s longest suicides. I’d been expecting the call for a long time, for seven years, in fact, but it was still shocking …”

Imogen Heap’s “Headlock” got kinda popular on TikTok. Not any sort of hit but I’ve seen it on enough videos to make me curious because it was very soothing.

I found the album which it came from, Speak For Yourself, and decided to give it a listen. I’m big into metal so you could imagine electronic ambient pop wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but damn. I feel like this came straight out of my soul. It’s unexplainable. I think everyone should give this album a listen, it’s a masterpiece.

I think of it as Aphex Twin if he was a heartbroken girl holding a bouquet in some sort of liminal sunny garden. I’m not heartbroken, I’m not a girl, I’m not holding a bouquet and my bedroom looks nowhere near this place I described, and yet still it has something so true it kinda makes me emotional. Weird rant, I know. I can’t think of anywhere else people would care. Listen to Speak For Yourself by Imogen Heap.

I've started to listen to so much more music this year and I've been consistently surprised by how little variance of opinion there is for a lot of music specifically on aoty, not so much rym. Sure, there are people who have hot takes but for a lot of albums people are just giving the same review. I find it strange when music is supposed to be subjective but there are albums where pretty much everyone has rated every song above 90. Giving a song a 90/100 for me is rare, let alone every song on an album, let alone everyone giving that same review. It's making me start to wonder what's up with my taste in music because it's so rare I'll give a whole album super consistent high ratings like this, and the reality is that in the real world when you talk to people about music people have completely different views on everything.

Could it be that my rating system is off? I'd never give a song a 70/100 or above if it didn't make me feel anything at all, even if I thought it was really good or interesting. For me a 90+/100 song is so close to being perfect which just seems so unrealistic if I'm expecting an album full of that.
Take Magdalena Bay's Imaginal Disk or Geordie Greep's The New Sound, I'd possibly give one song on each of those albums a 90/100 but the general consensus is that those albums are almost perfect. I have this with the majority of beloved albums, like Rumours by Fleetwood Mac or even Abbey Road.

It's so big now it's... Insane. Like in a good way..my only question is if all of these great DJS are producing these electronic tracks is will we see a decline in younger generations of Europeans picking up an instrument? Are good bands losing audiences because of EDM? Why has it stuck around for so long there? Don't get me wrong but all I hear from Europe anymore is EDM. A lot of it was influenced by America soul music. UK putting out some of the nastiest drum and bass.

So I guess I'm wondering why EDM is still going on Europe when other countries have seemed to fizzle out?

In honor of Phil Lesh, I would like to discuss about the band known as Grateful Dead & their incredible mark on music:

Honestly, Grateful Dead are one of those bands who I don't get a lot. Yet there's no denying the impact they left on the development of rock & roll.

They're not on a level of The Beatles & The Rolling Stones in terms of popularity alone however when it comes to influence, innovation & originality, it's all there!

Without them, bands like Phish, DMB, Widespread Panic etc wouldn't be in the industry & there would be no San Francisco psychedelic scene as they lead the entire movement!

What's your take on this band? Let me know in the comments below!

Hey everyone! I'm curious about how you all approach listening to music, especially when it comes to exploring albums and artists. Do you listen to albums in any particular order (genre, artist, historical period, place)? Or do you just play whatever you're in the mood for?

And when you dive into a new album, do you go through it multiple times, or is one listen enough? Personally, I find it hard to remember individual tracks without a few listens. I used to not listen to a new album until I memorized all its songs, but this took too long.

Finally, do any of you keep notes on your thoughts about each album? Like short reviews or something.

I personally am interested in discovering music just for the sake of discovering. I check, not only bands I like, but also acts that I know are historically significant or are popular with my friends.

When it comes to your favorite artists, do you gravitate more towards one or two masterpiece albums or deep discographies?

Some bands' legacies really around a single classic album: The Zombies, Guns 'n' Roses, Boston, Stone Roses, Neutral Milk Hotel, Television. On the other hand, a lot of bands and artists (singer-songwriters in particular) are renowned for incredible productivity across multiple decades, like Dylan, Bowie and Prince.

Do you prefer one category over the other? Are there any artists you'd call all-time favorites based on a single great album?

Arab Strap are a Scottish band formed in 1995 by singer Aidan Moffat and guitarist Malcolm Middleton.

The band are known for their downbeat tales of drink, drugs, sex, romance and bad relationships; frank, filthy, often tender. The band's name refers to a sex aid used to prop up a failing erection. Musically, Aidan's immediately recognisable baritone and speech singing style with Malcolm's delicate, atmospheric guitar, and often electronic, club-influenced beats. Other songs have a post-rock influence to them (they've a long relationship and friendship with Mogwai, with Aidan featuring on a couple of their tracks).

The first thing I heard by them was The First Big Weekend of the Summer in 1996, an unusually upbeat number praised as the greatest single of the decade by legendary DJ Steve Lamacq. Then I heard an occasional song before picking up 1999's Elephant Shoe and live album Mad for Sadness. They were one of the first gigs I clearly remember going to (helped by a friend making a minidisc recording of it, which I still have the mp3s of).

I'm about a decade younger than Aidan and Malcolm, and the content of their songs really wasn't much like my life. I wasn't going out, getting drunk, taking pills and going to indie discos, for example. That's not really because I was too young to legally drink though; I stopped drinking before I went to university. And I never went through a phase of messy relationships, break-ups, etc.. Despite all that, there was something in the band that connected with me.

Looking back on his, and the band's, younger days, Aidan has commented along the lines that behind all the drink, drugs and sex, they were just very unhappy. Maybe that was why they connected so strongly with me. I'd never planned moving away and having children with someone, but the slow, claustrophobic, desperation of a song like Autumnal was familiar. "It's choosing a mattress that's keeping me going," Aidan sings on that.

Arab Strap were active from 1995 to 2006 and I kept up with them to varying degrees. None of their later albums from this period made a massive impact on me, though there are good songs on there. I saw them live maybe four times between 1999 and 2005. After this the band reunited for some live shows in 2011, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their first album. They reformed for more gigs in 2016 and then released new albums in 2021 and 2024.

Seeing them live after they reformed it was interesting to see which songs the band chose to play. The songs that still meant something to them, or they still enjoyed, after 10, 15 years. They also tweaked some of the lyrics that maybe now embarrass them or don't feel right - most obviously calling a girl a "pig" (changed to "not quite as pretty as I had initially believed"). They seem to have settled on a fairly consistent set of older songs they like to play (I've seen them three times since they reformed).

What might be most remarkable to me about Arab Strap is how their sound has remained so recognisable without getting stale. Compare Here We Go (1998), The Shy Retirer (2003. Ignore the video here; it's the best quality option I could find) and Bliss (2024). All easily recognisable as Arab Strap, even before Aidan starts singing. 

Even more clear than the evolution of the music is the evolution of the lyrics and subject matter. There are a number of bands I've been listening to since the 90s, but most of them are either instrumental (eg. Aphex Twin) or opaque in their lyrics (eg. Radiohead). Whereas Arab Strap tend to lay it out straight and plain.

What may be unique with Arab Strap is how I relate more to them now than when I first listened to them.

2022's As Days Get Dark opens with the lines "I don't give a fuck about the past / our glory days gone by..." Both new albums talk about ageing, regret, memory. All things that I think about more as I move into my 40s. More universal experiences, perhaps.

The band also take a wider social perspective than they ever used to. There's the Fable of the Urban Fox on Days Get Dark, their only clearly political song, while this year's I'm Totally Fine With It... has a lot of songs about phone and internet use.

On that album Moffat is as excoriating about his own behaviour as others, as he sings to his phone on Sociometer Blues, "I let you inside / I follow you blind... you take all my time / you steal my love." How often have I felt I spent too much time online? The album closer Turn Off the Light starts off with the sound and structure of an uplifting love song but turns out to be something much darker. "Then you came and showed me the answers / you came to make sense of it all..."

It's not quite as depressing as all that makes it sound, even if the band did promise a "no-one goes home smiling" guarantee the last time I saw them play. The quietus review of the last album commented that it might be titled "I'm totally fine with it don't give a fuck any more " but the band really do care. They may be cynical, angry and sad, but they're not nihilistic. They feel things, they care about others. Is that what I need now, more than ever?

Almost hidden at the heart of this is the relationship between Aidan and Malcolm. Aidan's the front man, and Malcolm tends to keep quiet. However I'm pretty certain on Hide Your Fires I can hear him singing rare backing vocals on the chorus, "we're never going back to the stars I know / we corrode, we implode, but we can't let go."

It's surprisingly touching, and surprisingly hopeful. It reminds me of friends I've had since I was a teenager, and that I'm happy Arab Strap are still going.

Lykke Li released a single yesterday, featuring Nature. I'm a huge Lykke Li fan, and I actually found it enjoyable.

I have been following Lykke Li like since 2008. I discovered her through her single Little Bit off her first album. I really enjoyed her latest album, and have been on the lookout for singles and forthcoming albums. Give it a listen if you haven't and let's discuss here. It's definitely interesting and a little daring.

i cannot be the only one who picks up the deep sense of melancholy over a moment in time that’ll never come back, and wishing to live in a moment forever themes from the instrumental. sorry for being emo over a pop record. but i get a heavy feeling in my chest everytime the song ends, almost as if it’s a supercut of a person’s favorite moment from a life they’ve lived and what the wish to keep feeling/stay in that moment forever and always.

I love music as much as the next person, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how the ease of access to music, especially with headphones and playlists, is changing how we experience it—and maybe not always for the better. Music used to be a more deliberate, shared experience. You’d sit down and listen to a whole album or go to a concert, and there was something intentional about the way you consumed it. Now, with endless playlists and the ability to listen to anything, anywhere, all the time, I wonder if we've lost some of that intentionality and connection.

Think about how often people walk around with their headphones in, blocking out the world. Sure, headphones are convenient, but they've normalized shutting off one of our senses. People are no longer engaging with their surroundings, with others, or even with the music in a meaningful way. Instead of albums that tell a story or create a cohesive experience, we now have playlists that are more like fast food for our ears—quick hits of dopamine but no substance.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love music and use headphones myself, but I’ve noticed how often I reach for them just to fill silence or avoid my own thoughts. It’s like music has become an emotional crutch. Instead of processing feelings, we just queue up a playlist that matches our mood and stay in that emotional loop. It’s almost like we’ve outsourced our emotional regulation to music.

And it’s not just headphones. Playlists have taken over in a way that devalues the album experience. We don’t sit down to listen to an album from start to finish as much as we used to. Instead, it’s all about shuffling through individual tracks, never really getting the full artistic intention behind an album. It’s the difference between bingeing random YouTube clips and watching a thoughtfully crafted film.

I came across this idea recently: Music is like gasoline for emotions. It can fuel us, uplift us, or drag us deeper into whatever we're feeling. But because it’s so accessible now—Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, you name it—it's easy to overconsume. We rarely give ourselves space to feel things on our own or let silence do its work. Instead, we rush to fill every moment with sound.

So I ask, are we overdoing it? Has music become too much of a good thing?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

By now you might be familiar with the crazy mythology surrounding Funkadelic's 1971 rock album Maggot Brain. You've probably heard the title track (the first song on the record) opening with George Clinton's trippy, haunting spoken word poem about "maggots in the mind of the universe". What follows is about 10 minutes straight of Eddie Hazel and his guitar, who apparently was told by Clinton to play as though his mother had died.

There's a good chance you've seen the evocative album cover of a woman's head emerging from the ground, surrounded by the dirt (along with the back cover of a skull in the same dirt). Or you've heard that the album name Maggot Brain came from George Clinton's experience of finding his brother's decomposing dead body with it's skull cracked open in an apartment in New Jersey.

But, this album is much more than it's mythology, and much more than it's famous title track. In fact, each song off of this album is a masterpiece in and of itself.

Maggot Brain is of course an extremely evocative piece of music. There's not much more to be said about this song that hasn't been said a thousand times. If you haven't heard it (or even if you have) you should give this a listen when you get the chance. Interestingly, multiple musicians recorded parts on the track, but were all de-emphasized by Clinton in mixing to make for the Hazel's guitar.

Can You Get To That, a reworked song from George Clinton/Parliament's past (which was a common approach for Clinton's bands at this time) gets the honor of following up that intro, and might have gone in a different direction than you were expecting. Rather than going further into rock, we take the blues and move in a folkier, gospel direction. It forgoes the distortion for a more accessible, melodic approach. It utilized Isaac Hayes' backing vocal group Hot Buttered Soul to contribute to the cast of vocalists featured that accompany each other. But still, in Funkadelic fashion, there's more under the hood with the satirical lyrics which take the classic "broke blues" tune and make it an interesting take on taking advantage of someone's love, like you would a credit card and what the consequences of that would be.

Hit It And Quit It brings back the distortion. The brash mix, along with the catchy groove pull you into a drugged out state, a high that keeps your head spinning. A burst of choir and organ bring the breakdown, and the organ battles Eddie Hazel's psychedelic lead guitar with solos throughout the track. The lyrics accentuate the drugged out feeling of the track with their simplicity and a theme of the difficulties of leaving a drug (or something akin to drug) after you've tried it.

You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks smacks you right in the face with it's electronically distorted drums. Add in an extremely simple yet undeniably funky bassline along with a perfectly accenting and rhythmic keyboard, and you have in my opinion one of the funkiest grooves of all time. The later half of the song interestingly features Eddie Hazel's sleazy guitar playing a solo that is held back in the mix. The lyrics are a plea for solidarity of the poor. The words are dark, and reminiscent of a cry for help. A warning that the rich are going to swallow up the less wealthy if they don't come together.

Super Stupid is possibly the most underrated song on the album. The main star here is once again Eddie Hazel, providing the guitar and the vocals. I would describe this song as the best Jimi Hendrix song he never made. Hazel's guitar playing is magnificent here, playing at a break neck speed to keep up with the pace of this song. The main guitar riff is equal parts funk and heavy metal. But aside from Eddie, I'd also like to bring attention to Bernie Worrell, who whether I've mentioned or not, has been giving us some beautiful funk keyboard and organ throughout the album. I love the almost Halloween/scary movie-like riff he brings in between the verse and the breakdown. The song ends with a face-melting guitar solo, which would easily be the best solo on most other albums. The lyrics here are apparently a real story about Eddie Hazel snorting heroin, mistaking it for cocaine.

Back In Our Minds brings back the funk. The humor and playfulness that encapsulates Funkadelic and George Clinton has been kept relatively under wraps so far, only seeping through briefly on songs like Can You Get To That and Hit It And Quit It. But here it is in full force, accompanied by this wacky and consistent Flexatone riff, which can admittedly over stay its welcome a bit. But this song serves a great purpose in the flow of the album: slowing it down and lightening the mood. This is taken advantage of in the next and final track.

Wars of Armageddon is often described as apocalyptic, chaotic, and funky as hell. Serving as a contrast to the opening/title track, this song also contains a lengthy instrumental, highlighted by Eddie Hazel's guitar playing. The track is essentially a 9 minute long funk rock jam session, peppered with samples and vocal performances that conjure images of a failing society: screaming, protesting, banging, crying, sounds of traffic. It could almost be considered art rock, or avant garde in a way. We're brought through chaos itself, riding on a funk machine that's powered by guitar and drums. And just as it seems too much, and like the song will never end, it cuts out with the sound of an atomic bomb, ending all of the noise and chaos. Following the explosion: a heartbeat, accompanied by the music being brought back for a few seconds, representing the cycle of life of death: the main theme of the album. I'll leave you with the opening poem:

Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time —

For y'all have knocked her up.

I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the Universe;

I was not offended.

For I knew I had to rise above it all,

Or drown in my own shit.

Talk about whatever you want here, music related or not! Go ahead and ask for recommendations, make personal list (AOTY, Best [X] Albums of All Time, etc.)

Most of the usual subreddit rules for comments won't be enforced here, apart from two: No self-promotion and Don't be a dick.

I have started really listening to a lot of music lately, and exploring new genres and having a lot of fun with it.

I’ve lightly used albumoftheyear and rateyourmusic off and on but I’m wondering which is the better website overall?

I want to get involved in discussions and making lists and rating albums and everything!

Is one website more popular than the other? Which one is more community focused? Is there another website that I don’t even know about? Thanks! ☺️

I never hear anyone talk about this, but so often I'll listen to something and I know my opinion is that it sounds good even though it's not making me feel anything on first listen, I'll expect it to grow on me but then I return to it and find myself starting to find it annoying. This happened with the latest Tyler the Creator song. Intellectually I knew it was really good but I've returned to it since and realise there's a disconnect between my opinion and the experience it gives me. It makes it confusing as I like to rate music, but when someone asks me on first listen how I feel about a song, I feel I can't give a proper answer because I almost have no idea what my experience with it will be after my 3rd/4th listen. This doesn't happen with any other kind of art, I know for sure if I enjoyed a film or a painting etc.

Edit: A lot of people are saying it's not about an intellectual response which I definitely understand, I guess my question is about how people know if they like something on first listen if the enjoyment is based on the experience? I almost never feel anything on the first listen. Like with my Tyler example, I ended up returning to it waiting to feel something from it and being disappointed, that's quite a frustrating thing, but it also feels like I'm overthinking things as everyone else seems to know how to give an immediate accurate rating.

I feel like since shes gotten bigger on TikTok, her music has become more generic and I haven't been connecting with her newer music as much as her old music like Loveworm. Her new album especially felt a little basic. I feel like this started when Glue Song came out. I feel like a lot of her rock-inspired music disappeared once she became more mainstream. I have been a fan for many years and I haven't seen a lot of people agree with me on this so what do you guys think?