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’ll be completely transparent here: I’ve found Anthony Fantano insufferable since I first found out about him around 2011-2012. I hate how so much of the discourse surrounding popular music on the internet runs downstream from him. I cringe every time I hear his self-declared moniker 'the internet’s busiest music nerd.' I hate seeing people at shows wear T-Shirts with his face on them. I hate his humor and skits with the Cal Chuchesta character. I’m just…really not a fan.

I don’t particularly like Beato either, or Rhett Shull, or anyone else in that clique. But, at least Beato actually has a background as a touring musicians and studio engineer. From what I can tell, Fantano doesn’t have any qualifications outside of getting into the YouTube game during a time it was booming.

i was listening to don toliver’s newest album “hardstone psycho” on my airpods the other day and it was amazing. i was falling in love with it. now i’ve listened to the whole thing in my car and i haven’t liked it as much. a lot less special. however, other songs seem to hit a lot better in my car sound system with the bass. is this normal? do different songs sound different and better on headphones vs earbuds vs car speakers vs cds vs vinyls and so forth?

I've listened to enough music to develop a sort of internal conductor who predicts how songs will go - sometimes it's pleasantly surprised by unexpected twists but more often it will be expecting certain melodies and structures only for the song to drop the ball by using the 'wrong' chord and making what could have been a hair raising melody sound flat and cliched.

Unpredictability can be exciting in music and I listen to a lot of avant garde genres that are built around that but more often than not the deviation from my imagination isn't a welcome one.

Sometimes I'm expecting a crescendo then it just spins its wheels... sometimes it ends or fades out just as it reaches a climax. Sometime I just feel like they never fleshed out the ideas enough. Sometimes the dissonant chaos isn't dissonant or chaotic enough.

The most frustrating is when the song has all the right ingredients but it just doesn't seem to combine them in the right way to create a good dish.

Sometimes literally one different chord could have elevated a song from being generic sounding to being unique and memorable or an extra 30 seconds of build up would make it so much more electrifying...but hey I guess if the queen had balls she'd be the king.

It's also probably why I've found that a lot of my own compositions have unwittingly copied sections of music I've listened to with certain changes as I see fit - I wouldn't ever release anything that I knew I had plagiarized of course.

Does anyone else feel this way?

Indulge me. I recently started making a playlist of metal songs I can give my „uninitiated“ friends to ease them into the genre or at least try to show them it‘s diversity of sound.

There are many challenges such as the thundering blast beats, the venomous lyrics or the fanbase, that lay upon the way to the mount doom of our musical landscape. But the foe that instills the most fear in many unasked for answers is undoubtedly the vocalist.

So? Lots of albums use them to control the pacing and give a bit of a breather (next to sounding fucking beautiful, of course!) or deluxe versions/remasters have instrumentals versions, live versions, rehearsals, etc.

That is obviously true, but also not really what I’m getting at. Metal inherently wants to overcome any boundaries it faces. Be they set from inside or out (I recommend “Masculinity & Metal” by Brutus Bathory on YT if your interested in that disscussion). I like the analogy crustbag made in his breakdown of band logos, where he likens the illegibility of them to those „you must be this tall to ride“ signs in front of roller coasters.

Growls, shrieks, screams, pig squeals and false chords are all integral parts of the music. You wouldn‘t download a car show your friends Talking Book without the bass, right?

Stop writing that AJFA comment.

How integral is scaring the foes to metal beeing „metal“? How does a community balance upholding these principals and keep gatekeeping at gate bay?

Disclaimer: I‘m not venting or asking for help with my playlist. I think we‘re quick to dismiss such „esoteric“ discussions out of fear for telling people how they should listen to their music. And of course there’s no right way of listening to music, but how do we balance that with metals core principles?

I hope I was able to present my points somewhat clearly and am genuinely interested in your takes!

BLEGH!

A bit of a long question but genuinely asking as someone working in the music industry in Australia and having friends who are artists.. what do you think needs to change or happen for the scene to actually be successful here.. compared to... the UK or USA where upcoming artists can thrive and find somewhat of success how come its so hard for the ones in Australia? An added thought I always wonder about the music media here and how we lack that presence as well?

I don’t know if anyone’s had a similar experience. Maybe someone has more industry knowledge than I do that might shed some light on recruiting for labels and talent acquisition but here it goes.

I would have to say Andy Shauf is one of my favorite artists as of the last few years. When checking out my local records shops online catalog, I was semi prompted by labels being displayed with artist/album for each item in the catalogue and for the first time ever, had the idea of checking out the rest of the label in an effort to find new music I might like. I had no idea a lot of my favorite artists had belonged to the same label, with newer ones that I love like MJ Lenderman, Delicate Steve, and Dr. Dog. What’s really weird and kind of insane is that the overlap has spanned decades and included so many different genres. Danny Elfman (Love him and Oingo Boingo) the black keys, the Drums, fleet foxes, title fight.

If that isn’t a strange coincidence enough, there was a song that I could not find for the life of me that I have been searching to find for the last 10+ years that I finally found because I recognized the name in the list of artists that worked with the label. I searched them up on a streaming platform and knew instantly the name of the song I was searching for. It was our 2 cents by Solillaquists of Sound, and I swear to God I had searched with every variation of 2 cents I could think of as well as every lyric I could conjure up. Even as I was writing this I discovered Busdriver was under the label as well! All of these artists spanning so many sounds and even different variation within the same genre, under one label with a lot of the music I love.

My question is, is this some kind of weird cosmic connection, extreme coincidence, or something else I’m not seeing? The essence of me resonating with the essence of those artists. I didn’t even include artists I like a few songs from yet don’t really know their whole discography, but the phenomena is kinda freaky

Reading this post and the replies really Led me to consider why we go to concerts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/1gpfy4z/faking_it_artists_using_backing_tracks_and_that/

I've only ever really been to small local gigs. I like seeing musicians do their thing. Thats why I also enjoy watching performance videos. Im a musician too, and I love seeing others produce music.

Being able to connect sound to visuals allows me to connect more with the music, as well.

I'm not too big on spectacle or atmosphere, however. The local shows ive been to have been pretty light on the theatrics.

Before you come at me in the comments, let me say that I love metal and jazz!

What I mean is that they both have a lot of "stank" moments. I listen to a good sax line, and my face makes a grimace, because it's so good. I listen to a groovy breakdown, and I shake my head and go "ugh!". The pianist lets out some crazy licks, and you can't help but squint your eyes and open your mouth. The lead guitarist lets out an insane pitch squeal, and it's just so nasty.

Both genres have those really intensely musical and provocative moments that create intense emotional reactions.

Edit: Due to the strong reactions to this post, i will be posting another in the near future that expresses the same views, but in a much less stupid and more detailed way.

N.E.R.D. Pharrell's group is a interesting case to me. They have influenced many artists like Tyler the Creator and MIA. However despite Pharrell popularity (including getting a Lego Movie and his multiple hits for other artists) his group N.E.R.D. rarely seems to come up in music conversations. Is there a reason they are rarely talked about or underrated and how would you describe their overall place in music overall and their impact?

If you don't know, Kid Rock blew up with his 1998 album Devil Without a Cause which blended hip hop rock and country. It went multi times platinum and broke him through to the mainstream. With how much crossover there has been with hip hop and country this year one could argue he was ahead of the curve in some sense. However, he has become much more known for is MAGA leaning beliefs as of recent times and being extremely conservative. Those beliefs came across in his most recent album Bad Reputation which could arguably be considered one of the worst albums of all time. I feel as though all of this has caused people to wonder was there really any merit to his music in his peak. I am curious as to what your thoughts are of the Devil Without a Cause era Kid Rock?

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.

Recently I have had the pleasure of being introduced to the Glory of Mac Dre aka Ronald Dreagan aka Pill Clinton aka Thizzle Washington. I am absolutely stunned with how many people my age (30) have no idea who this absolute legend is.

So who is Mac Dre for those who don’t know? Mac Dre is a legendary bay area rapper who was killed in Kansas City during his prime (2004). He had been making music since 1989, claimed to have recorded the first album from prison, and defined the whole “hyphy” movement that e-40 and Too $hort are known for.

Beyond his music and charisma, dude was an absolute icon for independent music. He never signed with a major label because he figured out he was making a killing performing in the Bay Area. The shit he put in his albums would not fly on a major label (look at any of his album covers, shits hilarious. Genie in the lamp is my personal fav).

Anyways, Mac Dre not only deserves to be known as one of the greatest rappers, but one of the greatest musicians. I encourage everyone to take the dive starting with “feelin myself” and for those who know him, please share your favorite song 💕

https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/12/is-payola-alive/

Turns out Spotify has a feature called "Discovery Mode" where artists take lower royalties to get "discovered" by the algorithm.

They basically made payola legal by making artists pay with their own royalties instead of cash.

But if you're with the right label, you might not even need that. Look at Drake exposing how UMG allegedly worked with Spotify to pump Kendrick's streams to 900M. (not taking sides here, it's not like Drake never benefited from Payola)

the thing is, Small artists have to give up earnings for visibility, while big labels just make backroom deals. Your "personalized" playlists never stood a chance.

Soooo what are we actually supposed to do about this as listeners?

I am from a german speaking country and have never really gotten into german musik, I do appreciate some bands/artists but I often feel like I prefer music that's in english, even though I've been trying to get into it. Sometimes I wonder why that is. I feel like I cringe more easily when it comes to the lyrics or how someone pronounces things and I also feel like there's not as much of a music scene that I enjoy (mostly a lot of indie pop, german rap, there are some nice punk bands tho but mostly they're from germany) where I'm from. I do like Krautrock and NDW and some austropop has lyrics with dark humour that I enjoy (for the record), but still I find it harder to enjoy german music or I am much more picky about it.

Does anyone have similar feelings? If so, why do you think that is? Or do you prefer music in your mother tongue? How do you people from english speaking countries feel?

AND if there are any cool local bands from your country, drop them!! (The only local band I know of that I truly enjoy is this austrian band called Buntspecht, which is indie but has some cool gypsy, jazz and wienerlieder influences and an unique sound)

I was listening to an old Free For All Fridays with Eddie Trunk, and it was during the wave of young rock bands were gaining momentum and creating a buzz, eg, Greta Van Fleet, The Struts,, Ghost. Rival Sons, etc. There was a sense that guitar-driven rock swagger was going to take over the music industry. Nothing materialized. No rock revolution unfortunately.

Backtrack to the early 2000s when The Strokes, White Stripes, The Hives, The Vines were getting tons of press, media attention and resonated with people. Same sort of deal, brash guitars, a sound straddling garage rock to 70s post-punk. This struck a chord with people, and although it never got to the level 70s punk or grunge, I'd still classify it as a "movement".

Both waves embody similar things...danger, recklessness, irreverence, an edge and grittiness, rebellion, authenticity....all those things rock and roll is known for. Yet one created a buzz, the other? Interest waned with nothing but a whimper. The thought that went through my mind while listening to Eddie Trunk was...does the music industry have such a stranglehold (pun intended) and monopoly on peoples hearts, minds, and ears that there is no longer room for rock and roll?

That last wave (Greta Van Fleet, The Struts, Ghost, Rival Sons) is probably the last time when several rock bands aligned--a three or four pronged attack on commercial pop/rap--will ever happen again. What will it take? Or have we seen the last of the rock revolution? Jesus Christ. Please don't tell me Taylor Swift and friendship bracelets will be dominating music culture for years to come.

I just finished Lawrence’s excellent book on the history of disco, Love saves the day. I already knew a lot of about disco before reading the book, but I did learn a number of interesting things from the book.

For those completely clueless about disco, it went from an underground gay, racially mixed, urban phenomenon to a mainstream phenomenon that absolutely DOMINATED radio programming in the US for 18 – 24 months. As quickly as it ascended, disco was quickly pushed out of the mainstream and back into the underground. Popular theories for the backlash against disco include the idea that there was an anti-gay, anti-minority feeling among mainstream music consumers. Another theory is that as the total number of disco tracks being released was increasing dramatically, the quality was decreasing just as fast.

But back to the new stuff I learned from the book. Apparently record labels in the 1970s (and earlier) could predict album sales based on sales of singles from the album. So, if a single for an album sold X number of copies, then the record label could predict that they would sell Y number albums. The way record labels worked is that singles were a low profit format, while albums were a high-profit format. Record labels didn’t hate the low-profit nature of singles, because they drove album sales. However, disco violated the rules. Around the time that Saturday Night Fever was released, major labels were going absolutely nuts doing several things: signing disco acts, buying or entering into partnerships with disco labels, and pushing non-disco acts (e.g. Rolling Stones, Kiss, Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, etc.) to record disco songs.

Why did the major labels go so all-in on disco? They saw how the format was blowing up in the urban club circuit, and they assumed that disco was the ‘next big thing’. The majors dumped a lot of money and resources into disco in 76 thru 78. Remember, for other genres, if X singles were old, then you could expect Y albums to be sold. However, for disco music, if X singles were sold, you might be lucky to have Y/10 albums sold. Disco was a format that didn’t follow the rules of other music forms at the time. Consumers wanted the dance floor bangers as 12” singles, and they really couldn’t be bothered with disco artist albums.

The majors invested a ton of money into disco, and the sales of singles gave them reason to be optimistic that they were all going to get insanely rich…any day now. Those initial sales of singles caused the labels to greenlight even more spending on disco.

When the album sales didn’t materialize, the majors started to throw good money after bad. They started flooding the market with disco, and spending a LOT of money on payola. Payola drove record sales because of the mere-exposure effect. If people hear a song enough, they often start to like it, and album sales increase. Thanks to record labels desperation to recoup all the money they had spent on disco, they spent even more money on marketing (including payola). And the push was successful. For a while 70% of Billboard’s top 100 were disco tracks. Well, I should say that money spent on payola was successful in getting disco to dominate the airwaves. Alas, all that airplay still didn’t budge album sales. Neither the major labels nor the independent disco labels could sell large numbers of albums (with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack being a very notable exception). For other music genres, singles predicted album sales. For other music genres, payola led to an increase in album sales. Disco just didn’t function like other music genres, however.

Why was there a backlash against disco? A prominent theory is that it was a negative reaction against gays and minorities who gave birth to the movement. While I still think there absolutely is some truth to that, I now think that money was also a huge thing (yeah, I know. OF COURSE I should have assumed money had a huge role play. After all, CREAM). If the majors didn’t flood the market with disco/disco-adjacent songs (all to financial loss) then they probably wouldn’t have gone payola-crazy and spent even more money forcing the format to dominate radio airplay. Once the labels saw that disco was putting them deep in the red, they turned on it with incredible speed. It was a bloodbath. Artists were let go, albums were cancelled, disco departments were folded (and all the employees dismissed).

Without the financial stuff going on in the background, would disco still have lost its spot as queen of the airwaves? Certainly. No genre can remain at the top forever. However, I now think that things like the Disco Demolition Night and the Disco Sucks movement might have had a considerably smaller role in the timing and scale of disco’s fall.

I live in Switzerland (not originally from here) where I can see many brass bands associated to carnival groups. I'm not sure if this is actually caused by the fact that carnival here is in most regions very loudly celebrated, like parades few days in the row and many live music concerts played by these bands.These bands are playing not only during the carnivals, but also on the holidays and random occasions around the region. Anyhow, the quality of music played by these bands is rather good and they do play mostly covers. I must say that I really love it, especially some of them can make amazing party atmosphere interacting with crowd etc.

Are brass bands also popular in countries you live? You can see how the carnival parade looks like here and the brass music concerts example is here.

I find myself at odds with this question that’s been stirring in my mind off and on. There’s a lot to be said about what makes a piece of art great, and I’d say the most important factor is the impact it has on its audience.

With that line of thinking, the answer seems obvious: music doesn’t have to memorable, as long as it affects the listener. But to that, what is to be said about the impact of a piece of art you can’t even remember?

I’ve found that a lot of albums I consider “objectively” great are ones that I often don’t have a clear picture of until I revisit them, and once it’s over they leave my mind again. However, when I do spend my time with them, they continuously blow me away with their creativity, ambition, and substance, and I am once again reminded why I consider these albums to be some of the greatest ever made. The emotion lasts, but the details don’t. This could be due to a lack of time spent, or more unconventional choices that aren’t as easily “palatable” to my brain, but for some reason or other, these albums just don’t quite stick in my mind.

On the other hand, the albums I’d consider my personal favorites tend to be ones that hooked me instantly, and have since listened to so many times that I know every sound, every lyric, even the order of the tracklist. I don’t think these albums accomplish as much as those others, which is why it’s a different list, but these albums resonate with me in a way that solidifies every inch of them in mind forever.

It begs the question: does music have to be memorable to be considered great? How much weight does memorability have in the discussion of the greatest albums/songs of all time? Should it have any bearing on the artistic merit of any piece of music? What is to be said about the value between the emotional impact and mental impact of a piece of art, especially as they relate to time?

I have been following not so much Coldplay as I have been following Chris Martin for a while. I find him to be one of the most interesting, complex, difficult-to-pin down human beings on planet earth, and I am saying that from the perspective of a non-superfan who does love a handful of Coldplay songs (Square One! Don't Panic! Arabesque! A L I E N S!) but otherwise gets icked out by a lot of their music and by the man who sings it. The rest of the band seem to be relatively normal people despite their immense wealth/status, I have no problem with any of them. Chris on the other hand...

To be clear this is not an 'oldplay better' post. They've made good music early on and they've made good music recently. This is a discussion about Chris Martin the man. I think he's the most bizarre pop culture figure of all time

Chris Martin is not a natural pop star. Point blank, period. In theory he is so deeply unremarkable. He is the kind of man who you'd expect to be your slightly odd coworker at an accounting firm in Staines-Upon-Thames. He is gangly, uncoordinated, sort-of-good-looking-but-sort-of-not, thoroughly middle class, is mostly quiet and awkward in interviews (but never so on stage), has an odd, nervous style of speaking full of halting pauses (but never so on stage), tends towards vague platitudes in his lyrics, and has a very unimpressive vocal range. He is firmly ensconced in the 'decent songwriter' tier. He is someone who in 999,999 out of 1,000,000 universes would be a middle manager somewhere in rainy middle England who does pub gigs on Saturday nights with a band less talented than he is.

Yet somehow, through sheer chance and a little bit of hard work, he ended up in the right place at the right time to be the biggest rock star in the world.

To be clear, there are many people who sing in bands I'm indifferent to where I look at them and I think – oh yeah, THAT dude has the IT factor. THAT dude was always meant to be a star. Matt Bellamy is the sort of person that was always going to be famous pretty much from the day he was born. If Bono didn't get into music, he would have been a famous movie star or a famous author or a famous something. Same with the likes of Springsteen, Alex Turner, Freddie Mercury, Dave Grohl, Hayley Williams, etc. These guys and girls have confidence, they have a look, they have the sort of energy that can fill up a room. It is only natural that they end up marrying Hollywood supermodels and buying houses in Calabasas and inviting Paul McCartney over to dinner, because they fit right the fuck in with that lifestyle.

Being charismatic is not essential for being rich and famous in music though. Thom Yorke is a classic example. He is awkward, nerdy and not conventionally attractive at all – and that's okay, because he is extremely talented and (importantly) does not try to pretend he's a natural star. The man still lives mostly in his home town. He knows how out of place he is and embraces it.

Chris Martin somehow falls into a third category. Here's this awkward, gangly, mostly average man who somehow ended up being one of the biggest musicians of all time. He has little real charisma. He should theoretically be in the Thom Yorke category. But no. What happens instead? He gets the fuck out of England, buys multi million dollar houses in Malibu, almost exclusively dates Hollywood actresses (Paltrow, Lawrence, Johnson) while the rest of the band marries relatively normal people, and adopts a new barefoot hippie persona. He convinces himself that he is an authentic part of the Hollywood glitterati. Which I find so fascinating and inexplicably hilarious.

My question for discussion: is this some sort of defence mechanism? Because the other thing about Chris Martin is that he is historically one of the most insecure men in pop music and has suffered from crippling self-esteem issues. I consider this to be the only true revealing interview that Chris has ever done, and it's from the year 2001, right at the beginning of his career. Some selected quotes:

He looks at his best mates next to him – guitarist Jonny Buckland, drummer Will Champion and bassist Guy Berryman – and wonders if they’re feeling as weird as he is. Then he decides to say the first things that come into his head... Later, he regrets saying anything at all.

Outside in the corridor, they use the same words: “odd”, “weird”, “surreal”. As Chris Martin will say more than once, “It’s been a confusing year.”

“I feel a bit like we’re human cannonballs,” he finally decides. “We’ve just been fired and while half the time you think, ‘This is great we’re flying through the air’, the other time you think, ‘Shit, when are we going to land?’... it’s a mixture of extreme excitement and extreme, er, panic.”

Conversely, anyone who tries to interview him feels like A Bad Person. After an awkward question he looks around as if searching for an escape hatch, twiddles with his hat, frowns, gives an answer, then immediately retracts it. He is perpetually saucer-eyed, as if everything fills him with either wonder or horror... Halfway through the interview he sighs, “Sorry, this is a really shit interview. Do you want to start again?”

You hate talking about yourself, don’t you? “Yeah, of course. I talk shit.” Are you more comfortable with it these days? “No. Less. Less. I hate it. You have two years to make a record and do what you like to it then you have 10 minutes to do an interview that could mess it all up.

Chris says he was a worrier long before Coldplay but fame hasn’t helped. For two or three months after Parachutes hit No 1 the band was a mess. Last time Select met them, at a Portuguese festival (”the most horrible gig we’ve ever played”, says Jonny), they were in a state of minor crisis: exhausted, paranoid, reeling from all the attention... Chris says he “felt extremely paranoid. I thought my hair was falling out.”

“If you’d spent six months with us in the studio you wouldn’t think we were nice boys,” adds Will. “Fucking fierce rows, big strops, smashing things …” Does even Chris swear in private then? “Yeah,” Will chuckles. “Fuck yeah. Absolutely.”

I think this is the most interesting and by FAR Chris's most honest interview. It paints a picture of a man who was caught totally unawares by fame and is uncomfortable with every part of it. Can you imagine Bono or Bellamy ever doing an interview like this? Never, because they were born to be famous. This is where I find Chris the most endearing, to be honest, because this is back when he still felt real. He was making music that felt real to him and was not pretending that he was anything but Chris from Whitestone.

But then something changed. That hair falling out that he was talking about? He got a transplant. He started dating famous actresses. He changed up his band's entire sound to mainstream pop so they could accrue more wealth and fame. He stopped playing any old songs in concerts minus the ones that were already hits, and flooded songs with lyricless 'la la la/woah-oh-oh' sections because he couldn't risk the feeling of the crowd not singing along. He slowly shut out the other members' contributions. He began working out and chewing the scenery on stage. He stopped wearing deodorant and started going barefoot everywhere – imagine how his home town would've reacted to that if he had not become famous. Unthinkable to him a decade earlier, he started inviting David Bowie for a collaboration, Ed Sheeran to play with him at a show, and Dick Van Dyke to film a music video with him. Chris decided to plug holes in his insecurity by cosplaying the part of a stereotypical star. It is sad and, to me, repressive.

In a sense I can't blame him. When Jay Z literally calls you 'a modern day shakespeare', of course something in your brain is going to go a little bit odd. He's a fascinating case study of an average or slightly above average man who has been gaslit by the entire public suddenly and severely into thinking he's the Messiah of pop music, and instead of rejecting the title like Thom Yorke did, he bought into it, thinking it'd preserve his self esteem.

The worst part is that the public doesn't care. The man who has admitted to suffering from intense depression and anxiety does not ever talk about it anymore, and the public really doesn't want to hear it. Chris has now successfully cultivated an image as an eternally positive, love-and-light wonder child and it's gotten him immense success. It's just not true to him at all. I do feel sorry for him. He is a one man representation of what imposter syndrome can do to someone who is, in fact, kinda an imposter.

I understand this post will not be very popular here, but I hope it at least stimulates some discussion. I do respect Chris's accomplishments. He is clearly good enough at playing a star that he's managed to mist the entire public. But he just feels fraudulent to his very core these days. Whatever. La la la la la la, and 'we'll be singing baraye', right Chris?

Hurt is one of the most recognisable and acclaimed covers in music history. I agree that it is a poignant, beautiful portrait of a broken man and it's among my favourite songs of all time.

But why did Hurt become so wildly popular among such a broad cross-section of music fans, well outside the country/southern Gothic sphere? I adore large swathes of Cash's American series albums, and his covers of Wichita Lineman, I Won't Back Down, Redemption Song, Redemption Day, and, in particular, If You Could Read My Mind (my favourite), are equally haunting and beautiful. His attempts at other songs well out of his genre like Personal Jesus are also commendable.

Why is it that Hurt achieved such success compared to any of Cash's other covers in the latter stages of this life? Was it carried to a large extent by its music video?

Like, I've always had this question, the US seems to be the only country in which accordion is thought to be a "bad and annoying" instrument, whilst in almost everywhere else it's holded quite fondly, either as a folk instrument (europe and most of LATAM) or even as a serious classical instrument (mainly in Russia and Ukraine)

So what's the deal with that? Cause the accordion used to be quite popular during the vaudeville times in the US

Curious to hear your guys opinions. I got back into Linkin Park around October when they released singles ahead of their new album, and since then I’ve MASSIVELY gotten into them, regularly listen to their albums front to back etc.

I know a lot of nu metal / rap rock has stayed right where the majority of it belongs - dead, forgotten about. But imo LP has actually stood the test of time, and is one of the few nu metal bands where their old albums still hit today.

People used to think listening to them was cringey. But 20 years later, and after the passing of Chester and getting a new lead singer, what’s everyone’s opinion on them now?. In the eyes of the masses, have they had their reappraisal, like how we now appreciate nickelback, creed etc?

It seems to be more than just subjective opinion - people can generally agree when something has or hasn't aged well, despite enjoying it just as much at the time.

I can't pinpoint why exactly.

It's not just that the stuff which doesn't age well was reliant on current trends... it's not necessarily that it has worse songwriting... it's not necessarily that the production sounds dated... although these factors definitely play a part. I guess it's more of a combination of things.

What do you guys think?

And do you feel confident in labelling contemporary songs as future classics?

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.

So I just decided to listen to Eminem's new album Death of Slim Shady and wow it is rather disappointing. I have a feeling that has been the way it has been for a while from Encore onwards(as the rate your music ratings will attest). However, I feel as though many of the aspects that people tend to criticize him for now has always been around even in his peak era( Let's say from Slim Shady LP to Eminem Show). The rather class clown image and rather vulgar humor, the constant dissing of Britney, Christina, and the other boy bands that were around at the time. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely some good songs on those albums, but I also feel as though he tended to just whine about things that annoyed him more often than not. He came across as more of a troll. I am curious of your thoughts and what separates his earlier stuff from his more recent ones?

(Just a question from a fan and wanted to know your opinions on it. Not trying to disregard your opinion or anything.)

Hair metal like the only subgenre of metal and rock which I've seen people harbour such strong emotions against. If you don't like black-metal, mostly people will say "ehh it's not for me" but for hair metal, the reactions literally go like "MAN THIS SHIT FKN SUCKS. GLAD IT DIED IN THE 80S. WORST BANDS EVER"

Personally, I think the hair metal guys deserve some credit for keeping guitar-driven rock relevant in the 80s. Most of the popular 70s hard rock bands were already splintering by the time the 80s were intomotion. Zeppelin lost Bonham, Ozzy left Sabbath and the fans weren't too happy about it, Deep Purple disbanded, Aerosmith and KISS weren't doing too well either. The only guitar-driven bands which were doing well in the early 80s were the NWOBHM and few of the German ones, but their success was strictly limited to UK and maybe Germany. Moreover, the popularity of new wave, synth-driven arena rock/pop on MTV really made guitar-driven, hard rock music's popularity take a backseat.

(You can say Van Halen and AC/DC but they were also falling off in popularity in the 1981-83 time frame. Their albums which came before this time frame sold so many more copies)

However, this all changed when hair metal hit the scene when Quiet Riot and Def Leppard had successful albums in 1983. Guitar driven rock became relevant once again because of these guys. Did hair metal overstay its welcome? Sure. But it was still an important era for rock music

And an unpopular opinion: I don't think grunge or thrash metal could have got as big as they did without hair metal because hair metal made record labels see how lucrative heavy music is and also served as an entry point into much heavier stuff for some of its fans.

And I think that musicians were great but severely underappreciated. Like balancing virtuosity with catchy songs is not an easy thing, but some of these guys managed to do it pretty damn well.

So I am just curious to know why this scene is still frowned upon even 30 years after its demise?

I remember indie rock/pop having what seemed at the time a golden age in the 2010s, with bands such as the Head and the Heart, Beirut, Stornoway, and the Decemberists having a lot of influence in the indie music scene (just to name a few examples). The 2010s seemed like a very hipster-esque era altogether that was really cool, to my recollection, with people seemingly still geeking out about things like vinyl, local concerts, and indie bands. However, since the 2020s, it seems that indie music in general has waned in terms of mainstream popularity, possibly due to COVID, and it seems to be much more peripheral than it was in the 2010s. Is this a fair assessment or am I just completely out of touch with the musical landscape since 2018?

I like looking at the obscure category nominations at the Grammys or other awards shows to learn about artists I've never heard of. The award for album packaging seems to be the most eclectic -- this year's nominees include some big-name artists (Charli XCX, Post Malone, Kate Bush), as well as two vanishingly obscure albums released in Taiwan, in genres about as far apart as it is possible to imagine. iWhoiWhoo (一虎一虎) has a whopping 47 monthly listeners on Spotify, and as far as I can tell apart from this nomination not a single word has been written about their album in English. The Muddy Basin Ramblers have 548 monthly listeners.

Going through nominations in this same category from past years, more often than not there are one or two Taiwanese albums with minimal internet presence in English. Is Taiwan known for a particular culture of creative album art and packaging? How do these albums even make it to the attention of the committee?

Who are the most obscure Grammy-nominated artists of all time? Not the biggest upsets, like Jethro Tull beating Metallica or Macklemore beating Kendrick, but the projects that the fewest people in the world ever heard that still managed to earn a nomination?

Since 2024 is coming to an end I wanted to share my favorite album from this year.

Still by Erika de Casier is definitely a sleeper hit for me. I’ve known about her and her music for a while now especially from her 2019 record Essentials and collaboration with Shygirl. But I only came to really delve into her discography this year because of Still.

And the title is actually very fitting for the album. It’s not outrageous or bombastic, it’s muted subdued and very intricate. Erika’s production feels super smooth and polished. It has some late 90s flair but is very clean at the same time.

You can listen to it on a walk, vibe to it late at night or while you do the dishes. The songs are all very distinctive and often have very catchy choruses but there’s not one big stand out hit, which might be a negative.

My favorite songs are:

• Home alone (sexiest song, when I become a home wrecker this is my anthem)
• ex-girlfriend (when I get home wrecked this is my anthem)