Delsaber
New Gaien Wildcards
Joined: 10 Aug 2006
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 Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Brecht wrote: |
| A lot of my friends are really into "Indie" rock. I put "Indie" in quotation marks because several "Indie" artists, are not, by definition, indie anymore. Snow Patrol and Modest Mouse are not independant; they are signed by Universal and Epic respectively. I do not care really when bands "sell-out", but it bothers me how they are currently mis-labeled. I also do not like the term "Indie". |
Yeah, you've pretty much summed-up my opinion on this subject. To me, "indie" is merely a catch-all term for any unsigned artist. I've never understood its usage as a genre label since most bands which get branded with it sound more or less like any other alternative rock group I've heard over the last ten years, give or take their own personal stylistic touches. Anything else is merely put out there by the scenesters to make themselves feel more important, in my opinion of course. That said, I enjoy a fair amount of the music despite the trappings. Good music is music you like. That's really all that matters.
Anyway. My musical tastes tend to careen wildly all over the road. A great deal of it comes from my father's record collection, recommendations from friends, or random internet-fueled experimentation. My playlist has probably expanded by several orders of magnitude since joining last.fm and acquiring a larger hard drive. Reading a bunch of musically-inclined webcomics - the best ones being Nothing Nice to Say and Questionable Content - has also contributed significantly in recent weeks.
Let's see if I can provide some small insight on my tastes, although looking over my last.fm top charts may work better. In no particular order...
Punk: Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Flogging Molly, and The Soviettes are good examples of what I like the most, although others such as The Clash, Rancid, The Descendants, and Sleater-Kinney are worth mentioning. Anything featuring Jello Biafra tends to be right up my alley. His spoken word material is quite brilliant. There are supposedly a lot of subgenres here - "hardcore punk", "not-so-hardcore punk", "hardcore punk served chilled with a slice of lemon", "psychobilly" - but I hate pigeonholing to this degree. All you really need to know is that Blink 182 and their ilk are not punk. Don't even do that stuff the service of calling it "pop punk". Just do what I do and ignore the whole lot.
Various Rock: Alternative, grunge, "indie", whatever you feel like calling it. Usually best without too many "post" prefixes attached to it (although I do have a good deal of music labelled as "post-rock" by virtue that I prefer that term over "shoegaze"). Foo Fighters, The Tragically Hip, Metric, The Fiery Furnaces, Broken Social Scene, Tegan and Sara, Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies...
Jazz: I have my dad to thank for most of the jazz on my playlist. Everyone is probably at least vaguely familiar with the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Great stuff. I'm also quite fond of Ornette Coleman (especially with Prime Time), Thelonious Monk, and jazz guitarists such as Sonny Sharrock. I usually toss Acid Jazz/Nu Jazz artists onto this pile even if they're more closely associated with electronic music. Mr. Scruff, for example... or about half the population of the Ninja Tune label.
Ska: As I understand it, ska is an offshoot of jazz and the direct predecessor of reggae, at least the first incarnation of ska could be interpreted in this manner. Futhermore, artists such as The Skatalites were doing this long before the 1970's UK punk rock explosion despite what some punks might tell you. Ska is not punk, although the second and third waves definitely crossed-over on a regular basis; hence all those bands in the mid-nineties with the one obligatory ska song. Anyway! The Skatalites, Don Drummond, The Specials, pre-new wave Madness, The Toasters, Skankin' Pickle, Pilfers, and Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra are all worth your time.
Reggae: Legend has it that reggae was born when a bunch of Jamaicans started listening to New York-based jazz and ska broadcasts on really old, malfunctioning radios. Whether or not you put any stock into that theory, the result is mostly great, although some newer examples of the genre have wandered a little too far into hip-hop territory. Surely everyone already knows Bob Marley & The Wailers, so how about trying out Big Youth, Easy Star All-Stars, The Heptones, Matisyahu, or The Mighty Diamonds?
Underground Hip-Hop: By which I mean the intelligent, creative artists who do their best to make-up for mainstream hip-hop's cultural excess. Jurassic 5, anyone even remotely involved in the Quannum Projects, Dälek, Dan "the Automator" Nakamura, Deltron 3030, Dr. Octagon, MC Frontalot, The Herbaliser, K-OS, MF Doom... if you're willing to dig deep to find these guys, it's worth it.
Worldbeat: My preferred method of catagorizing both traditional world music and the plethora of remixed material that's been coming out of the electronic scene. DJ Cheb i Sabbah, Ali Farka Touré, Natacha Atlas, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Hiromitsu Agatsuma, Transglobal Underground, Jah Wobble... good for chilling.
Electronic: The erroneous nature of the "techno" tag has already been mentioned, so I won't get into that particular rant or I'll be here all day. I'm not even terribly fond of "electronica" either. Both terms were invented to describe fairly specific styles in a very, very large genre. But whatever. I listen to a little bit of most electronic creeds, so I'm not sure if I really have a favourite. Big Beat and Trip-Hop probably come the closest. As for artists: The Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack, Leftfield, Daft Punk, Delerium, Juno Reactor, Prodigy...
There are others and I'm always trying out new stuff, but I've already spent like and hour on this reply, so... bye!
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Bub
Sons of Thunder
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| Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:39 am Post subject: |
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I have been in a very weird kick as of late when it comes to music. I have been getting into some really odd bands. I am not sure how to classify them, other than just putting them into "Rock," but that is too broad nowadays.
I have been listening to a band called Destroyer a lot, particulary their album "Your Blues." It's a mixture of...man...I don't even know...almost like music you would hear in show tunes, and Bowie. The lead singer of The New Pornographers is the lead singer of Destroyer. It's very...interesting music.
The other band I have been listening to a lot is a compilation album between two bands/artists. Tortoise, which is a experimental jazz band from what I hear (I haven't listened to their solo stuff yet) and Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Their compilation album is called "The Brave and the Bold." A very ecclectic and diverse album, mostly soft, almost folk rock lyrics and sound, but with synthesizers and other things that you usually don't hear in music like this, which gives it an amazingly addictive twist. The first song on the album, "Cravo E Canela" is so insanely addicting.
Other than those two albums, I have been getting into some real heavy Drum N Bass, mainly a guy named Gridlok. I think I am getting into Drum N Bass because of my heavy metal routes, and that most of Drum N Bass is just rehashed drum beats you would hear in most metal.
My old standby for the past 2 years has been Muse. Their last album took a bit to grow on me, but it slowly became my second favorite album of theirs, after "Absolution," which is in my top 3 favorite albums of all time.
Then throw in some Gorillaz, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Black Label Society, Pantera, Slayer, and a few others, and you get the Bub recipe of current music.
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