Other music... *gasp*
I know that many of us spend considerable amounts of time listening to JoCo's brilliant songs, but I'm curious about what everyone is listening to the rest of the time.
I personally listen to a lot of music, from within most genres. The musicians I am most into (although this changes all the time) are: Badly Drawn Boy, Rilo Kiley, Regina Spektor, Tori Amos, Scissor Sisters, Neko Case, David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Decemberists, Elliott Smith, Neil Young, The Dresden Dolls, Bjork. There are many more than that... I listen to A LOT of music.
What about you? What other musicians/genres do you enjoy?
I personally listen to a lot of music, from within most genres. The musicians I am most into (although this changes all the time) are: Badly Drawn Boy, Rilo Kiley, Regina Spektor, Tori Amos, Scissor Sisters, Neko Case, David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Decemberists, Elliott Smith, Neil Young, The Dresden Dolls, Bjork. There are many more than that... I listen to A LOT of music.
What about you? What other musicians/genres do you enjoy?
Comments
I like the Capitol Steps, but I don't know if they count as real music.
And I would call the Capitol Steps music. I love them too.
I like most things outside of these three Genre's
Country
Rap
'Love Ballads'
And even then there are some from those genre's I can get into - just 90% of them are like poison to my ears :D
Todd Rundgren (always way ahead of the rest), Devo, Blancmange, Jellyfish, Cocteau Twins, Agent Orange, Smithereens, Dream academy, Level 42, Bryn Terfel. Pretty much anything but country music, unless it's from another country.
My favorite artists include: The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Black Sabbath, mc chris, They Might Be Giants, Judy Garland, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queen, Corinne Bailey Rae, Dean Martin, Harry Connick Jr., and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Isn't Todd Rundgren fronting the Cars now?
They Might Be Giants, The Monkees, The Mountain Goats, The Pixies, Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, Love, The Bags, The Zombies, Army of the Pharoahs, The Beta Band, Oingo Boingo, Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Chimaria, The Dead Milkmen, Dire Straits, Flaming Lips, Flogging Molly, Hawkwind, Hendrix, Lightning Bolt, moe., Motorhead, Pink Floyd, Supersister (old prog band from the 70s), Talking Heads, Tom Waits.
That barely scratches the surface, but it'll do.
First off, I'd do a little research on John Darnielle himself until you learn a little bit about the Alpha Couple. The songs with "Alpha" in them are all about this couple and their bittersweet, addictive, unhealthy, obsessive, beautiful malicious relationship. Or accept what I've just said, and get the album "Tallahassee," which despite only having one "Alpha-"entitled song is in fact entirely about them and is absolutely gorgeous. The greatest breakup song of all time, "No Children" is from this album.
"We Shall All Be Healed" is another solid effort and is worth looking into, also themed, this time around Meth addiction. "The Sunset Tree" is a very different sound for Darnielle/The Mountain Goats to go for and is largely autobiographical, but I personally thought it really worked well.
Those are the easily accessible albums, and usually the only ones you'll find online/in stores. I've heard other stuff from friends back when he was still just recording into a tape recorder, and some of that is great, although I couldn't tell you what albums they were.
All of the "Going to...." songs are interesting bits of dark Americana about, well, going to (or needing to get out of) some place.
Darnielle is a brilliant musician and lyricist, and his dark themes are often contrasted by hauntingly beautiful melodies and spritely rhythms. I think you'll enjoy them, if you're into that kind of thing.
In addition to Sindex's superb list above, which could have been cut/pasted from my iTunes, these are a few I would include. Although, as is the case with Sindex, this only scratches the surface.
And Pink Floyd...no offense to David Gilmore... but anything after Roger Waters left just isn't Floyd to me. Someone probably said the same thing when Syd Barrett went nuts, but in my humble opinion, any self respecting former keg party attendee would agree.
Regardless, Mountain Goats CDs ordered and on the way as I type. Thanks for the knowledge.
Nothing could be more unpredictable than listening to a new Wilco record.
And live? Simply the best.
By the way, this is my favorite topic in the forums. Adding fuel to the obsessive fire that some day I will hear every note of music ever recorded. With the help of my yet to be invented Time-Stopper, of course.
Job? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
If you're interested, go check it out at http://www.last.fm/user/C4bl3Fl4m3/ Oh, and sign up for it too. It's all Open Source (the code equivalent of Creative Commons) and there's no spyware or anything involved.
Oh, and, uh, join the JoCo group on there. And I'm not just saying that 'cause I'm the founder of it. Nope. Nosiree.
Or, just look below for my top tracks and top artists:
(oh, and uh, note that the emphasis on TMBG was because at one point, I had almost the entire discography of TMBG on the computer that I listen to music the most on, but I had little other tracks. Therefore I listened to almost all TMBG at that point. Yeah.)
And dude... I totally have you beat on the TMBG. Probably most other people too, because apparently I'm insane. lol.
It took me a while, but now my collection is more balanced. Well, sorta. Now I have WAY too much Christmas music on here.
BTW, you should join our JoCo group. I mean, all the cool kids are doing it. And by cool, I mean geeky. ;-)
The funny thing is about the top songs is that it doesn't really reflect my overall tastes. The songs on the top are there from when I get obsessed with a song and listen to it like 30 or 40 times in a day or 3. Like the Josh Groban song Lullaby just got up there after going to his concert on Tuesday night (that's right, last Tuesday) and becoming completely enamored with the song and listening to it 41 times over 3 days. (However, I still wish I could get the live version of it. Instead of having other singers do the harmony with him on it, he uses a vocoder and replicates his voice like 4 or 5 times and it's just the tiniest bit electronic sounding, which I think makes it so much more haunting and beautiful.)
My last.fm Page!
I'll be joining the JoCo group and attempting to friend you, c4bl3flam3.
But totally join the JoCo group! :-D
np.. no offense taken.
So... Beyond JoCo, what do you listen to?
What are you listening to (if anything) at this moment? (It's JoCo, isn't it...)
I'm listening to The Apples In Stereo, myself.
Also, someone recently pointed out The Veils to me on YouTube, and I keep going back and listening to their songs, I don't even know why ... they're just bizarrely compelling or mesmerizing or something. His voice is kind of annoying but I still just keep relistening. It's weird.
I will listen to a little Stephin Merritt on occasion ... I have The Tragic Treasury (songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events) because those are the greatest books ever and I'm obsessed, and it's pretty great, but I've only listened to a little of his other music, and I'm not sure if I really like it or not. I think I like "I don't believe you" and "all the umbrellas in London" the best so far, but, I don't know, he has kind of a weird sound that I'm not sure I like.
The song Hotel California is, of course, without parallel.
Except perhaps American Pie or Vincent.
Haha, or "We're off to see the world" from the Chipmunk adventure movie, which I seriously do like.
smile like you mean it is my favorite song evar.
Some techno/hip hop stuff like The Orb, Orbital, The Gorillaz, Cibo Matto, Portishead, Jamiroquai, Luscious Jackson, Underworld. David Guetta is pretty good.
I like some stuff by Cake, Weezer, TMBG, Barenaked Ladies. Ben Harper's "Live from Mars". Some old school rock and 70's ballads. James Taylor and Elton John. Pretty eclectic, I guess.
Don't like country, probably never will.
Did anyone hear about Stephin Merritt's project with NPR to write a song in two days? Sounds like the perfect thing for our boy, JoCo!
Genesis, Joan Jett, Dave Matthews Band, "Weird" Al Yankovic, BNL, Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Benny Goodman (40's), Billy Joel, Dylan (as in Bob), Boston, Springsteen, Coldplay, Crystal Method, Dead Milkmen, Dean Martin, Dixie Chicks, Duke Ellington (40's), Duran Duran, Edie Brickell, Elvis (Presley not Costello), Enya, Fleetwood Mac, Zappa, Glen Miller (40's), Third Eye Blind, Green Day, John Lennon, Johnny Cash, Mozart, Justin Timberlake (yeah, I said it), Led Zepplin, Madonna, Metallica, Missy Elliot, Negativeland, The Outfield, Outkast, Patsy Cline, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Prince, Run DMC, Tom Jones, Tom T. Hall, Frank Sinatra, U2, Van Halen, Yes.
Got into the 40's and classical because my dad was born in 1916 and he listened to the classical artists and older music. And yes, I'm older but not THAT old. He was almost 60 when I was born.
Child of the 70'/80's - have tons of it but too many one song artists to list here.
The Beach Boys (esp. Pet Sounds or Smile), Mike Doughty, Buju Banton, Cake, The Mountain Goats, Ween, The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Django Reinhardt, The Who.
I'm probably 5 to 10 years behind on the newer artists, so I'm thankful for this thread to give me listening suggestions. I also like NPR's All Songs Considered podcast to hear some things I'd never hear otherwise.
*Deep Breath* I like Jeremy Soule (Guildwars, Neverwinternights etc.), Weird Al (umm duh?), Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy Series.), Koji Kondo (Ocarina Of Time.), 403 (You don't know them.), Martin ODonnell (Halo Series.), Matti Paalanen (Again you don't know him), Frank Sinatra (His music might be oldies but totaly keen.), Almost anything classical, Run DMC (Walk This way, It's Tricky, etc.), and finally Jonathan Coulton (You wouldn't know him, but he is WAY better than the guy on this website.)
Overrated.
Oh, and what about The Time Lords (KLF) version of the theme song. Good stuff. I'll have to listen to some of those remixes you recommended.
According to my ipod, Jonathan Coulton has over 50% market share on music sales. Hardly overrated in my household. We got a rental car recently and my husband put a CD of selected JoCo favorites in before I drove it. When I turned on the stereo, my 5 year old said "Oh, they have our music!"
Now I don't know. It's intense, isn't it?
And jinx ... what exactly were you saying in that last paragraph you wrote?
I'm somewhat confused.
And I know that these days, in the 00s, with so many advances for women, there are a lot of people whose reaction to feminism is kind of "so what? What's the big deal?" And I can understand folks reacting like that if they didn't really remember what things were like before.
When I was much younger, and there were marches in the streets & a very new, active movement, there was a lot of backlash. A fair number of women at the time felt the whole movement was kind of unladylike and inappropriate, and a larger number of men made fun of it and put the whole thing down, but after several years, there was a similar kind of hostility that I felt coming from men in particular. By then, it embodied a lot of resentment against the frequent talk about 'male chauvinist this' and 'sexist pig that' -- the "me victim, you oppressor" dichotomy that a lot of my sister feminists were kind of harping on.
These days, though, it makes no real sense to me where that level of backlash would be coming from. I need one of you younger folks to sort of interpret it to me.
And then I realized there actually were people who didn't think a woman would be capable of being president, and that totally confused me. Because these people were all female too. And intelligent, and clever, and so on. And...I just don't understand how they could ever think that. And then the whole women-are-more-sentimental crap they tried to use? I just don't get it. Because I don't understand how that could possibly be a characteristic of an entire ... well, genderful of people. It just seemed like an incredibly stupid generalization that could clearly be disproven in a moment; I mean, that's a fucking personality trait, not a characteristic that half the population is mysteriously born with.
I think there's an idea of "feminism" being equated with "sexism," probably justifiably in a number of cases - but then it again is expressed through a sort of blanket-statement anti-feminist anti-women way. And I think it's just more socially acceptable to bring that up, especially now that the feminist movement is sort of a thing of the past, than to say, point out that, you know, a number of non-whites are pretty damn racist too. (Last I heard, they were still referring to that sort of thing as "reverse discrimination," which just seems absurd.) There's, I think, this thing about minorities/un-empowered groups being able to do no wrong, except with regards to women, that's largely disappeared, and so...maybe it's a cycle of some sort? Discrimination -> Activism/Backlash -> Less Discrimination (state intervention) -> Hypersensitivity -> People being fed up with hypersensitivity -> Discrimination? If so, that's bizarre.