Music that surprised you...

[lovecraft68]

I used to roll my eyes at JT as well, but then I discovered his sense of humor. Same with Michael Bolton. I can't make fun of people who don't take themselves too seriously.

I agree on JT. I used to think he was a tool then I heard an interview with him and the guy really doesn't take himself seriously at all and he is pretty damn funny.

I mean how serious can someone be to have a "burp off" contest with an audience?

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I used to roll my eyes at JT as well, but then I discovered his sense of humor. Same with Michael Bolton. I can't make fun of people who don't take themselves too seriously.

JT won me over with his appearances on SNL. Dude is funny. The wife and I both think he should have his own variety show.

 

[patientlee]

JT won me over with his appearances on SNL. Dude is funny. The wife and I both think he should have his own variety show.

Did you see the SNL with Lady Gaga? She was excellent.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Did you see the SNL with Lady Gaga? She was excellent.

She was better than I expected. Except for JT, I've found most musicians are not great hosts. She was above the curve.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Ah, is that how he did it. I heard that blakk skinn thing [can't they spell?]
and thought: "Rock & Roll, part 2".

It would be nice to hear some original, un-sampled, un-copied song with words one can hear.
[Yes, I know. It's my age ]

It's spelled 'BlKKK SKKKn head, so the KKK is in both of the words. He wrote the song after being accused of being racist towards white people. (so I hear).

I feel like I'm about to shake my fist and yell at the kids to get off my grass, but it amazes me how the younger generation will pay to see a musical performance where no instruments are played and no one actually sings. And the performers still call themselves musicians.

Making electronic music like dubstep or techno is still a skill set. Playing a guitar might even be considered a relatively easier skill set. When artists are composing electronic music, they have to create something fresh and new each time. With a guitar, you can just play old music.

I understand the feeling, but after putzing around in 'GarageBand' for an hour, I realized just how time-consuming and creative the process of trying to make electric music really was. The really good composers have an understanding of music theory and because there are no words or instruments, they usually go for 'spinal music'.

I get a much more visceral feeling from most of my electronic music.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

It's spelled 'BlKKK SKKKn head, so the KKK is in both of the words. He wrote the song after being accused of being racist towards white people. (so I hear).



Making electronic music like dubstep or techno is still a skill set. Playing a guitar might even be considered a relatively easier skill set. When artists are composing electronic music, they have to create something fresh and new each time. With a guitar, you can just play old music.

I understand the feeling, but after putzing around in 'GarageBand' for an hour, I realized just how time-consuming and creative the process of trying to make electric music really was. The really good composers have an understanding of music theory and because there are no words or instruments, they usually go for 'spinal music'.

I get a much more visceral feeling from most of my electronic music.

I invite you to watch a live Jazz band play, a piano concerto, or a blues session, and then come back and repeat that statement. You do realize that these electronic "artists" are playing back pre-recorded, computerized, digitized, and synthesized sounds that replicate real music?

 

[lovecraft68]

I invite you to watch a live Jazz band play, a piano concerto, or a blues session, and then come back and repeat that statement. You do realize that these electronic "artists" are playing back pre-recorded, computerized, digitized, and synthesized sounds that replicate real music?

I'm not a jazz fan, but a place in Cranston does a Jazz Breakfast on Sundays and we took my wife's aunt who is from Boston and loves jazz.

I was amazed at how complex the music is and how good these musicians were.

Electronic music is also known as sampling. Meaning someone else had to do it first

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I invite you to watch a live Jazz band play, a piano concerto, or a blues session, and then come back and repeat that statement. You do realize that these electronic "artists" are playing back pre-recorded, computerized, digitized, and synthesized sounds that replicate real music?

Oh forgive me, I thought we were still talking about pop music here.

I am NOT trying to say that Skrillex and Deadmau5 and Martin Garrix are better than live jazz performers and the like.

I'm saying that they are as smart and talented (if not many time more so) as the artists we listen to on the radio.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I invite you to watch a live Jazz band play, a piano concerto, or a blues session, and then come back and repeat that statement. You do realize that these electronic "artists" are playing back pre-recorded, computerized, digitized, and synthesized sounds that replicate real music?

"real music" LOL.

It's still real music, get over yourself. You were reacting to the group experience, and to your personal intimate familiarity with the material and the forms, and the kids who flock to see deadmau5 or Skrillex are reacting to the exact same things.

Thirty years from now they will be shaking their heads over the terrible taste their kids have and how they just don't make good music like they used to.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

"real music" LOL.

It's still real music, get over yourself. You were reacting to the group experience, and to your personal intimate familiarity with the material and the forms, and the kids who flock to see deadmau5 or Skrillex are reacting to the exact same things.

Thirty years from now they will be shaking their heads over the terrible taste their kids have and how they just don't make good music like they used to.

I've watched these DJs perform their EDM. It's like watching someone play NBA 2K14 on the Xbox. It resembles basketball, and you might even think you're seeing Lebron's moves, bug you'll have to go to an actual NBA game if you want to see the real thing. One is real, the other is a digital facsimile.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I've watched these DJs perform their EDM. It's like watching someone play NBA 2K14 on the Xbox. It resembles basketball, and you might even think you're seeing Lebron's moves, bug you'll have to go to an actual NBA game if you want to see the real thing. One is real, the other is a digital facsimile.

You, personally, have never developed an emotional response for that particular kind of performance.

Can't say that I ever have either. Music is one of them Noam Chomsky kinds of things, like language-- it builds its part of the brain and then that part is pretty much built.

I don't know from Lebron, or his moves. I've been to a couple NBA games and there were a bunch of little people down there making squeaky sounds with their fancy sneakers and tossing a brown dot around.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

"real music" LOL.

It's still real music, get over yourself. You were reacting to the group experience, and to your personal intimate familiarity with the material and the forms, and the kids who flock to see deadmau5 or Skrillex are reacting to the exact same things.

Thirty years from now they will be shaking their heads over the terrible taste their kids have and how they just don't make good music like they used to.

Thanks man. You are always way more articulate than I am.

I've watched these DJs perform their EDM. It's like watching someone play NBA 2K14 on the Xbox. It resembles basketball, and you might even think you're seeing Lebron's moves, bug you'll have to go to an actual NBA game if you want to see the real thing. One is real, the other is a digital facsimile.

I wonder what your parents thought about your music...?

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Going back to the purpose of this thread...


I had written off the band 'one direction' as a mildly insidious teen band. Their only real crime was mediocrity and a habit of subtly negging their female audience through vague lyrics.


But their recent offering, 'Best song Ever' is super catchy.


I found a lyric video because the official video is twice as long as the song and has a painful and unnecessary comedy bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuNDUWIn1vU

 

[SecondCircle]

"real music" LOL.

It's still real music, get over yourself. You were reacting to the group experience, and to your personal intimate familiarity with the material and the forms, and the kids who flock to see deadmau5 or Skrillex are reacting to the exact same things.

Thirty years from now they will be shaking their heads over the terrible taste their kids have and how they just don't make good music like they used to.

That last bit you said is one I couldn't agree more with.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Thanks man. You are always way more articulate than I am.



I wonder what your parents thought about your music...?

You should hear what they said about the Waltz back in the day

Pretty much every musician surprises me eventually. I was totally impressed by that Kanye West song-- serious musicality!

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

I used to work for a Chicago-based talent management company in the early Eighties - a really big one.

The thing is so controlled you would not believe...

There are maybe at most five big-money houses and half a dozen specialist studio editers and sound technicians in the entire Western World whose material is pumped out to the mainstream audiences - under the names of a variety of performers.

There are six or seven maybe ten songwriters for real behind EVERYTHING that is heavily commercially promoted.

When I think about big pop identities, I think money laundering by vast trans-national capital.

You are quite free to think anything you like, but that's what I think.

A strong capable musician - JZ - is not the same thing as a genius talent. But the capable musician is still a valuable commodity and usually very hard-working and I can manage to enjoy widely-promoted product even though I sometimes go back in my mind to how I saw things being budgeted to be made.

It's a mistake to think though, that the big organisations are not using some extraordinarily gifted people. They have some way talented people deep inside the works.

Just as there are extraordinarily talented musicians who never get a chance. It's a big world, it's a messy world, and it isn't a fair world by any stretch.

The reason that some performers you mightn't suppose really had any serious talent are made to look good is the studio musicians and editers are just so good. They really are that good and the technology now is superb.

The best EDM makers are still musically-gifted in my view. Re-mixes can make so huge a difference to a tune...

...There's so much music that surprises me. Jeezus. From Tori Amos doing Nirvana to Flo-Rida to Snoop Dog with Katy Perry. And I listen to Skrillex. When Bryan Adams became Chicane that was something!

God. Big subject area. Too big.

Most surprising music...? Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca having lesbian sex on stage doing the Flower Duet song in the opera by delibes. Tell me they aren't...

 

[sheablue]

I'm always surprised when I like rap music. I hated it so much in college (90-94) but over the years I've been pleasantly surprised to find rap that I like. Often they are white rappers, I don't know why that is ... maybe more likely to be played on the rock stations I listen to? I like eminem, macklemore and ryan lewis, some Jay-Z, beastie boys ...

This is the newest one that surprised me. I saw him live when he opened up for a different band I was seeing, and I saw him again at Lollapalooza. Puts on a really great show.

Theophilus London:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypiIfMJYro

 

[aim2plz412]

I feel like I'm about to shake my fist and yell at the kids to get off my grass, but it amazes me how the younger generation will pay to see a musical performance where no instruments are played and no one actually sings. And the performers still call themselves musicians.

As an electronic music DJ (techno, tech-house) I feel the need to retort.

True, we are playing other people's music. Unless you are performing a LIVE PA, your tunes are preconstucted in the sense that the are phrased, synched, and complete. Most DJs perform through at least two turntables (Technics being the vinyl standard, and the Pinoneer CDJs being the other). In the past, a DJ would beatmatch one track to match kick drums so that the DJ could seamless blend one track from the other. In lieu of scratching and hard cuts, between dancefloor fillers, a true "artist" is able to take the audience through a myriad of emotions... And therein lies the art.. Two DJs can play the exact tunes, yet how you arrange them and mix them (programming) is what sets them apart. In many ways, it is very akin to foreplay... You introduce sensations through sound, you build tension, you bind them, you get them to beg... And then you slam it home... Again and again.

 

[aim2plz412]

Some of the best hip-hop that I have ever heard comes out of Mineapolis of all places: The Rhymesayers Crew.

See:

Atmosphere's "Shoulda Known"
Brother Ali's "Bad Mother Fucker"

For examples.

I'm always surprised when I like rap music. I hated it so much in college (90-94) but over the years I've been pleasantly surprised to find rap that I like. Often they are white rappers, I don't know why that is ... maybe more likely to be played on the rock stations I listen to? I like eminem, macklemore and ryan lewis, some Jay-Z, beastie boys ...

This is the newest one that surprised me. I saw him live when he opened up for a different band I was seeing, and I saw him again at Lollapalooza. Puts on a really great show.

Theophilus London:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypiIfMJYro

 

[Sasha69]

Twelve Girls Band

WOW! I know chicks "Rock", but these girls from China? That is some great stuff. And they have a really cool DVD! How cool is that!

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I'm always surprised when I like rap music. I hated it so much in college (90-94) but over the years I've been pleasantly surprised to find rap that I like. Often they are white rappers, I don't know why that is ... maybe more likely to be played on the rock stations I listen to? I like eminem, macklemore and ryan lewis, some Jay-Z, beastie boys ...

This is the newest one that surprised me. I saw him live when he opened up for a different band I was seeing, and I saw him again at Lollapalooza. Puts on a really great show.

Theophilus London:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypiIfMJYro

Gave it a listen, pretty catchy!

Some of the best hip-hop that I have ever heard comes out of Mineapolis of all places: The Rhymesayers Crew.

See:

Atmosphere's "Shoulda Known"
Brother Ali's "Bad Mother Fucker"

For examples.

Links for the curious but lazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEZseJ1Wuq8 (shoulda known)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxLTkue7L_M (bad mother fucker)

I listened to both, downloaded both as new music. Both have kind of these subdued beats that I really like. It's good writing music.

PS, I love brother ali. 'Uncle Sam Goddamn' being my favorite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO18F4aKGzQ

WOW! I know chicks "Rock", but these girls from China? That is some great stuff. And they have a really cool DVD! How cool is that!

Found the top song by the group, they are a cover band.

Clocks, originally by coldplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2D5bU-Nso8

Listening to it now, they are using a lot of new instruments, some of them traditional chinese instruments. It's pretty sweet.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Some of the best hip-hop that I have ever heard comes out of Mineapolis of all places: The Rhymesayers Crew.

See:

Atmosphere's "Shoulda Known"
Brother Ali's "Bad Mother Fucker"

For examples.

Why should that be a surprise? Minneapolis has been producing great music for decades

*coughHuskerDuPrincecough*

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Why should that be a surprise? Minneapolis has been producing great music for decades

*coughHuskerDuPrincecough*

Can't find a good audio link... The closest I could find was some bar with a bunch of guys in hawaiian shirts.

Do you have good link?

 

[Stella_Omega]

I hope you didn't think that was one band!

Husker Du; Zen Arcade

Prince

The Minneapolis Sound is a thing.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I hope you didn't think that was one band!

Husker Du; Zen Arcade

Prince

The Minneapolis Sound is a thing.

That explains it. I was searching 'prince husker du'

Which incidentally, sounds like a GREAT band name.

Whenever I read husker du, I just remember the game.

http://neighborhoodvalues.com/nv/Toys-Games/TG4/pixs/HuskerDu1.jpg

The first board game I ever played, I believe.