Can we just do another music thread?

[Radar]

I don't post here often, but I realy need to share my fairly recent find:
Electric Moon
I don't even know why I like it, but it's very hard not to listen to it once it starts.

[Moff Chumley]

Alright, I'm calling an official Music Thread conference.

After The Gold Rush versus Harvest. Discuss.

[Radar]

From theese two I guess, I'd pick After The Gold Rush. Neil Young is quite good, but he's not Moody Blues.
On a slightly related note: 70's - will music by as trippy as this ever again? There is obviously Acid Mothers Temple, but it's not quite the same style.

[ex cathedra]

ITT: Moff ranks Spoon albums so that I can disagree with him.

Also, contemporary music is plenty trippy and junk and the only albums worth listening to that were released between 1960 and 1979 is In The Court and also maybe Red. That's right, I went there.*
The above statement is potentially less than perfectly factual (but not by much).

[Radar]

ITT: Moff ranks Spoon albums so that I can disagree with him.

Also, contemporary music is plenty trippy and junk and the only albums worth listening to that were released between 1960 and 1979 is In The Court and also maybe Red. That's right, I went there.*
The above statement is potentially less than perfectly factual (but not by much).

There were more good albums in that time - plenty more. Take theese examples: Mrowisko (just bare with it for the first few minutes), 1990 (and other stuff by Temptations), Mirrors (by Blue Oyster Cult), anything by aforementioned Moody Blues just because.

Thanks for the King Crimson anyway - never heard of it before.

[Moff Chumley]

King Crimson is amazing. I really like their 80s stuff but Red is a goddam hell of an album.

Vis a vis Spoon, Transference is the only one I can actually get myself through from start to end. There are plenty of songs from other albums of theirs I like, but Transference is my favorite.

Vis a vis 1960 through 1979, Can's Tago Mago, The Cure and Gang of Four's debuts, Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, a handful of pretty excellent Miles Davis joints, the goddam Modern Lovers, Neil Young, of course, Television's Marquee Moon, some Yes and Pink Floyd classics, goddam Black Sabbath...

One must conclude that you, sir, are yanking our collective chain. Alternatively, you've got some records to spin.

[ex cathedra]

There were more good albums in that time - plenty more.

Fire of Unknown Origin is the only BOC album that did anything for me and it doesn't exactly have a lot of longevity, in my opinion. I've never encountered Klan, I'll give it a listen.

One must conclude that you, sir, are yanking our collective chain. Alternatively, you've got some records to spin.

Would someone do such a thing on the internet? Come now, who's yanking whose chain?

Vis a vis Spoon, Transference is the only one I can actually get myself through from start to end. There are plenty of songs from other albums of theirs I like, but Transference is my favorite.

I've had the hardest time connecting to Transference. It seems to me that Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is their most consistent album; it has a weak spot, maybe two, but I'm straight up convinced that their cover of Don't You Ever is the single greatest triumph in the history of pop-rock, so... yeah.

[Radar]

(...) I've never encountered Klan, I'll give it a listen. (...)

I'd be surprised, if you did - it would be more probable to encounter Omega's song other then Gyöngyhajú lány. I only ever got to know them thanks to an awesome radio audition.

Another thing I remembered: Say It Ain't So was released in 1975 and thanks to Murray Head this memory leads to the obvious conclusion of Jesus Christ Superstar, so there (and Hair). Mandrill is a pretty solid group from that time.

[Snares]

Well Demdike Stare were phenomenal live, dunno when/if they'll play any shows over the other side of the Atlantic but if they do, go see them. My friends in Britain, if you weren't in Union Chapel yesterday, what the hell is wrong with you.

Also somehow I ended up seeing Maja Ratkje and Ikue Mori playing at the Café OTO (best venue) the day before. There was one point in the first piece they played where I suddenly became absolutely terrified and wanted to run out of the room. I like music that does that to me. Also they made a random on-the-spot decision to do a quartet with the support act (really goddamn great free jazz saxophonist Evan Parker and a cool musique concrète performer), which turned out to be cool as hell

I can't contain my envy.

Guess who the support act is? Yeah, it's Fen. Nothing big, just goddamn Fen and then Agalloch straight afterwards. Nothing big.

i know dude JAZZ

Yo, Snares, I ain't seen you round in ages. Where you been?

Edit: Yo, buying tickets to see Andrew Jackson Jihad, and also tickets to Refused on Friday. SO MANY SHOWS. SO MUCH EXCITEMENT.

A lot of places? I kinda drifted away and then went to uni and I'm blaming Moff for the fact that I ended up back here somehow and why is entire forum ponies

Also, damn you, do want AJJ live

Also, contemporary music is plenty trippy and junk and the only albums worth listening to that were released between 1960 and 1979 is In The Court and also maybe Red. That's right, I went there.*
The above statement is potentially less than perfectly factual (but not by much).

Bro, that doesn't even cover 'albums by King Crimson between 1960 and 1979 that are worth listening to'. See: exhibit A, exhibit B. And then there's most of the classic prog during that time, well-known stuff like Yes, Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, and the less well-known stuff like Comus, Yezda Urfa...

Then there's almost all of the things that Moff said, (Ege Bamyasi too, if we're talking about Can...) and I could also counter your statement with four words: 'the goddamn Mahavishnu Orchestra'.

And you're also throwing aside Ambient 1: Music for Airports...

[Moff Chumley]

I donno why, but I've always preferred Tago Mago to Ege Bamyasi. The latter has Vitamin C, which is perhaps their best tune, but the first four tracks on Tago, especially Halleluhwah, are one of the best 40 minutes of music I've ever heard...

Also, I forgot Wire's first two albums. If you haven't listened to Pink Flag, you gotta go for it. It's like Tago in the sense that there isn't anything in the world that sounds like it, but everyone and their mother's tried to at some point.

[eyeofsaulot]

Also, contemporary music is plenty trippy and junk and the only albums worth listening to that were released between 1960 and 1979 is In The Court and also maybe Red. That's right, I went there.*
The above statement is potentially less than perfectly factual (but not by much).

You're clearly intentionally snubbing the obvious great bands in that time period (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, etc.), so I won't go into those.

But how about some you might be less aware of?
Hawkwind, Flower Travellin' Band, Camel

I guess I can see you mistakenly overlooking Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures because it's easy to think of it as an 80's album.

[ex cathedra]

Man, Hawkwind seriously never did anything for me but I totally forgot about Camel.

Re: Classics.
I actually don't think that most of them have very much to offer me. It's probably an unpopular opinion but the only Pink Floyd that I would still bother to listen to is probably Shine On and even that might just be nostalgia or some such nonsense.

Re: Unknown Pleasures.
Eugh. It's always weird for me because I do think of Joy Division as an 80's band and I do think of King Crimson as a 70's band even though both of them released their debuts in 1979 and 1969, respectively. Whatevskies, close enough.

[eyeofsaulot]

Man, Hawkwind seriously never did anything for me but I totally forgot about Camel.

Re: Classics.
I actually don't think that most of them have very much to offer me. It's probably an unpopular opinion but the only Pink Floyd that I would still bother to listen to is probably Shine On and even that might just be nostalgia or some such nonsense.

How could THIS not do anything for you? But yeah, that's fair enough. Different strokes and whatnot.

Re: Unknown Pleasures.
Eugh. It's always weird for me because I do think of Joy Division as an 80's band and I do think of King Crimson as a 70's band even though both of them released their debuts in 1979 and 1969, respectively. Whatevskies, close enough.

I think of In the Court and Unknown Pleasures as the albums that gave birth to their respective following decades.

[Kindablue]

A little bit of Easter music for you.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Chumley brought up a good question recently:

Neil Young vs David Bowie. What do you guys think?

[Moff Chumley]

I wrote a long post trying to justify the two as equal, but I gotta revert to my original opinion: Neil Young is superior, if only by a hair. He's simply one of the greatest, if not the greatest, songwriters in the last 50 years; Needle and the Damage Done, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Powderfinger, Like a Hurricane, etc, are totally untouchable.

Come at me, bros.

[dehro]

Chumley brought up a good question recently:

Neil Young vs David Bowie. What do you guys think?

Neil Young
but the two don't really compare that well, I believe.

trippy? I'll give you trippy

[Kindablue]

I wrote a long post trying to justify the two as equal, but I gotta revert to my original opinion: Neil Young is superior, if only by a hair. He's simply one of the greatest, if not the greatest, songwriters in the last 50 years; Needle and the Damage Done, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Powderfinger, Like a Hurricane, etc, are totally untouchable.

Come at me, bros.

If it's a matter of hair, Bowie clearly wins.

[Moff Chumley]

I dunno, man. Dem locks.

[Weezer]

I've got to agree about Neil Young winning. David Bowie loses automatically just for wearing a codpiece and grey tights...
(Also there's the whole thing where Young is an incredible musician, but that's besides the point )

[SDF]

But, have you ever listened to the lyrics in Cortez the Killer? Young needs to crack a history book.

[Moff Chumley]

On an unrelated note, anyone dig Mission of Burma? Those guys were unbelievable.

[Weezer]

But, have you ever listened to the lyrics in Cortez the Killer? Young needs to crack a history book.

I personally think this stanza is 100% accurate


"Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones."

[eyeofsaulot]

Chumley brought up a good question recently:

Neil Young vs David Bowie. What do you guys think?

I don't get it. They're not comparable musicians.

But if we're simply going on whose music we prefer more, then David Bowie for me. It's just so much more interesting to me than anything I've heard from Neil Young.

A little bit of Easter music for you.

Although if we added this musician into the mix, I'd cast my ballot for Tom Waits.

[Moff Chumley]

I don't get it. They're not comparable musicians.

They're both very prolific, talented, and well-known songwriters who continue to be influential to this day? There are others in that category but I thought the two of them were a cool juxtaposition.

[Raistlin1040]

I like Neil Young but I would give this to Bowie any day, for the following list of reasons.

Musicianship: Although it's hard to compare their personal musical talents (they both play a crazy amount of instruments, although I think Bowie plays a few more), the musicianship of Bowie's albums (especially his 70s work) is incredibly high quality. I'm not saying Neil Young doesn't have a talented backup band, but I can't think of anything in his discography that matches the piano work in "Aladdin Sane", the guitar on "Teenage Wildlife", or most of the things on the Berlin trilogy.

Vocal Ability: Again, Neil Young is good, but Bowie is one of the best vocalists ever from a technical standpoint. He uses his voice like no other singer I can think of. He can do a rollicking rock number like "Suffragette City" or funk song with a fair bit of falsetto like "Stay" or "Fascination". He can do singer-songwriter vulnerability on songs like "Letter to Hermione" or dramatic, almost operatic singing on something like his cover of "Wild is the Wind". He has such a great range and such a variety of styles and does them all expertly.

Diversity: Young has some cool proto-rock stuff and experimental songs, but he's generally either acoustic Americana (from Canada) or hard rock. Bowie has done proto-metal, folk, glam rock, soul/funk, pop, and experimental, and that's just in the 70s. Go through his other work and you find weird ambient/industrial, drum n' bass, modern rock, etc. The Berlin Trilogy alone would make Bowie one of the most interesting and diverse artists around, given how experimental it was. Adding them to the crazy genius of Scary Monsters, Ziggy Stardust, and Station to Station and you get a bunch of amazing, landmark masterpieces that all go in way different directions.

Songwriting: This is more of a personal taste thing rather than anything technical, but I think Bowie has a mastery of language and so much wit about him that it gives his lyrics a lot of depth and intrigue. The same note about diversity goes in as well. He writes quiet little love songs, bombastic, world-shattering anthems, and everything in between. He uses his songs to tell a story in a way that most songwriters (although Young is an exception) can't.

It's not a matter of Neil Young not being good, it's just that Bowie is basically peerless. Dylan, Young, and Tom Waits are the only people I'd say come close to him in terms of living artists, and in terms of the crazy sum of everything he's ever done.

[Moff Chumley]

I'd object to the musicianship bit; Young is one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Kicks Ronson's ass twelve ways 'til Sunday; give Cowgirl in the Sand and Southern Man a listen. And while there's not much technically difficult stuff in his music, it's hard to find performances with as much soul, energy, and feeling.
Gotta agree with you in terms of vocals; Bowie's one of the best there is.
In terms of diversity, I don't know how fair an argument that is. Bowie does pretty much everything damn well; Neil Young does two or three things and he does 'em better than almost anyone else.
Songwriting, I also have to disagree. He's got some kinda silly lyrics, but melodically and harmonically, he's pretty much untouchable. Obviously it's subjective but I've never heard a Bowie tune with as powerful a chord progression as Needle and the Damage Done, or a melody as compelling as Only Love Can Break Your Heart.

As much as I love Waits, I don't think I'd put him on level with Bowie, Young, or Dylan...

[Raistlin1040]

Mick Ronson is criminally underrated, but even disregarding him, look at all the OTHER guitarists Bowie's had. Earl Slick, Reeves Gabrels, Carlos Alomar, Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, SRV, and that's just on six-string. Mike Garson's piano work, his collaborations with Brian Eno, and all the awesome that is Gail Ann Dorsey, Bowie just surrounds himself with amazing musicians.

[Shadow of the Sun]

My two favourite songwriters will always be Tom Waits and John Darnielle.

Tom Waits is very good at what he does, and I do think that his songwriting is up there with anyone you could name, while John Darnielle is probably the most poetic songwriter I've ever heard.

[eyeofsaulot]

TOPIC SHIFT!

I'm looking for modern music with lyrics in either Old English or Middle English. For reference, Old English and Middle English look like this and this respectively (the second picture blows up). So I'm not looking for Shakespearian lyrics; I'm going back further than that. Can any of you fine heroes help me on my quest?