Music: Sharing and Listening

[Bartimaeus]

And now, in the interest of actually correctly posting in regards to the thread's intended purpose..:

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Certain parts of that remind me a little of Celeste's soundtrack. Not bad. Not what I usually go for, but not bad.

Just something to annoy @Malcador:

[majestic]

23 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

If anyone ever wants to re-experience my only slightly out-of-time formative musical teen years, here are some key albums:

Hmm. It's probably not the right thread for this, given that we have a different one for that purpose (by far and large, at least), but if I were to go over music I've listened to as a teenager, well... 

The first thing probably doesn't count because it came out a couple of days after turning 20, so no more teens, but I still want to include it. The lyrical content of this album is somewhere between angst, emo, angsty emo and depressing. Pretty much par for the course considering the genre.

Sirenia, At Sixes And Sevens (2002):

Sirenia's debut, and probably best work. Might as well be the best in the genre, although I'm less certain of that.

Deine Lakaien, Kasmodiah (1999):

Not much to be said about Kasmodiah, I guess. Their finest work, by far and large. Avant-garde darkwave isn't my usual, therefore has a very well deserved spot on the list.

I've posted this before, but here goes nothing:

 

Moonspell, Irreligious (1996)

Moonspell's must have album. The first they made that transcended their reliance on traditional Black Metal elements and elevated them beyond the crudeness inherent in the genre.

Up next is something I'd rather not talk about, because it's one of these things that stood there as an entryway to something, and eventually you end up being embarrassed that you ever listened to stuff like this, and any posted who followed my posts throughout these music threads is probably wondering what could possibly be worse than Eurodance trash and Scooter?

Well...

Hammerfall, Glory to the Brave (1997).

Yeah. So there's... that's... yep. I have no qualms admitting that I own Aqua's Aquarium, or that I actually really like listening to Whigfield. But this? This sits at the terrible spot between actually good music and music so cheesy its fun again. So where Dream Evil are fun because they out-cheese even Manowar, Hammerfall is just... where the dragon lies bleeding. Pretty much.

And to round it out with fifth something...

Here's Apocalyptica proving that Metallica isn't so bad when you take out the vocals and mix up the instruments:

Apocalyptica, Plays Metallica by Four Cellos (1996):

I'm actually serious, I don't like Metallica, which is apparently one of these quirks of mine that I shouldn't have, according to a whole lot of other music fans. I can't stand James Hetfield's singing, and I don't like the guitarwork, so when you remove both, the results become interestingly good...

 

[Gorth]

@majestic I actually have a few Apocalyptica cd's somewhere....

I guess my teenage years were the late 70's and early 80's

Just too much good music from that period to really pick a good representation. Most of it heard over the radio. Some bought on vinyl when I could afford it (trying to catch your favourite songs from the radio and record on a tape recorder being too cumbersome)

 

[Malcador]

majestic has taken it too far

 

 

[HoonDing]

14 hours ago, Malcador said:

Music to invade cyberpunk Poland to.

 

[Bartimaeus]

9 hours ago, majestic said:

I've posted this before, but here goes nothing:

I think this is the part where I remember "wait, I dislike most music and especially most singers", . At the very least, the Deine Lakaien song was listenable (if very silly looking because I made the mistake of looking at the music video...whoops), whereas the next song...was not. I just can't into most metal - HOWEVER...

9 hours ago, majestic said:

Yeah. So there's... that's... yep. I have no qualms admitting that I own Aqua's Aquarium, or that I actually really like listening to Whigfield. But this? This sits at the terrible spot between actually good music and music so cheesy its fun again. So where Dream Evil are fun because they out-cheese even Manowar, Hammerfall is just... where the dragon lies bleeding. Pretty much.

Funnily, terrible power metal is one of the very few forms of metal that I actually like instrumentally to a degree - well, not specifically "terrible" power metal, but you get what I mean. Like, I can actually listen to nonsense like DragonForce...and I was able to listen to this silly Hammerfall song alright as well. The problem is that the combination of music, lyrics, and vocal style is all just so patently silly that I can never take it seriously. The end result is that I prefer to just listen to "video game metal", which tends to have a similar sound to power metal without quite so much of the absurdity.

I don't really have anything that I would ever feel comfortable to claim as being the best of anything...I just like what I like, usually as a function of some combination of liking the vocalist and lyrical style and not being annoyed by the instrumentals, and that's fine. I also don't think I have anything that I grew so much out of where I was like "man, I'm embarrassed to have liked THAT!" either, though. Admittedly, some of that gothier darkwave 90s stuff wouldn't be anywhere close to the first thing I'd ever show or tell anybody about, but I still occasionally listen to it when the mood strikes, and it's fine. On the other hand, I don't have much I like that is distinctly either "the 80s" or "the 00s", which, from what I can tell, seems to be the two main decades of "well, that was embarrassing and I can't believe I was into that".

Overall, I didn't "like" anything you linked, but the Deine L (I am not going to go look how to spell his last name again when I already had to Google it earlier) and Hammerfall songs were tolerated, Moonspell and Sirenia were not even slightly tolerated, and the Apocalyptica was "I don't like this, but I feel like if it was used in the proper context, I could", .

9 hours ago, Gorth said:

I guess my teenage years were the late 70's and early 80's

Hello, dad-rock. Funny how we're all products of our respective environments. Sometimes how our specific environment was formed doesn't make a whole lot of intuitive sense (i.e. me), but our specific sensibilities by which we can be appealed through are still so much determined by that formative time.

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I think this is the part where I remember "wait, I dislike most music and especially most singers", . At the very least, the Deine Lakaien song was listenable (if very silly looking because I made the mistake of looking at the music video...whoops), whereas the next song...was not. I just can't into most metal - HOWEVER...

The band actually wrote something about the music video in the YouTube video description, and that they decided to keep the music video the way it is because for better or worse, it's part of their history. I also don't think Moonspell will generally go over well with most people (but yeah, given your "dislike" for the singing style at large, that's just the cherry on top ), the must have album comment was by far and large meant for metal fans, I guess. I very rarely post about music outside of circles with similar musical tastes.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Funnily, terrible power metal is one of the very few forms of metal that I actually like instrumentally to a degree - well, not specifically "terrible" power metal, but you get what I mean. Like, I can actually listen to nonsense like DragonForce...and I was able to listen to this silly Hammerfall song alright as well. The problem is that the combination of music, lyrics, and vocal style is all just so patently silly that I can never take it seriously. The end result is that I prefer to just listen to "video game metal", which tends to have a similar sound to power metal without quite so much of the absurdity.

Hammerfall is pretty good, all in all, it's just that at some point it dawned on me that these groups take what they do seriously. Well, that and my taste in music evolved a little, and listening to HammerFall is not something I can do for any long streches of time any more. It'll forever be a part of what brought me into the genre as a whole, but between the simplistic music (which isn't bad, not really), the ridiculous swords & sorcery fantasy lyrics and the way they dress and behave, yeah, well... while I don't usually do that because I dislike the quote, this is really a 1 Corinthians 13:11 sort of moment. At least in terms of power metal.

To provide some contrast, this is - in theory - within the same (well, similar) genre, except it's on an entirely different level compared to HammerFall, and yeah, Sonata Arctica started out very similar to HammerFall, they just... kind of evolved in the years they were active.

 

Still, there's worse than Hammerfall. Like Rhapsody of Fire's album Power of the Dragonflame.

You know you're in for a treat when a song begins with:

Quote

Rise mighty dragon! Rise, rise, rise, rise mighty dragon rise!

Right?

Don't let the album cover fool you, they had to change their name over some copyright claim, so they went from Rhapsody to Rhapsody of Fire. Because why the hell not.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I don't really have anything that I would ever feel comfortable to claim as being the best of anything...I just like what I like, usually as a function of some combination of liking the vocalist and lyrical style and not being annoyed by the instrumentals, and that's fine. I also don't think I have anything that I grew so much out of where I was like "man, I'm embarrassed to have liked THAT!" either, though. Admittedly, some of that gothier darkwave 90s stuff wouldn't be anywhere close to the first thing I'd ever show or tell anybody about, but I still occasionally listen to it when the mood strikes, and it's fine. On the other hand, I don't have much I like that is distinctly either "the 80s" or "the 00s", which, from what I can tell, seems to be the two main decades of "well, that was embarrassing and I can't believe I was into that".

The 90ies did a good job of providing me with such music, but the main issue is that for the most part, when it comes to the Eurodance trash I often link, I genuinely like it and still listen to it every now and then, when the mood strikes me - and unlike HammerFall it doesn't make me cringe.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Overall, I didn't "like" anything you linked

To be honest, I don't think that anything I listen to is something you'd like, we're sitting on diametrically opposite sites when it comes to vocalists, and for me they're usually the most important part of the music.

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

but the Deine L (I am not going to go look how to spell his last name again when I already had to Google it earlier) and Hammerfall songs were tolerated, Moonspell and Sirenia were not even slightly tolerated, and the Apocalyptica was "I don't like this, but I feel like if it was used in the proper context, I could", .

That's just a stage name, maybe the native spelling of his real name is more to your liking: Александар Вељанов. Sorry, couldn't resist. It's Alexander Veljanov in the latin alphabet, which isn't much better, huh?

I even picked the Sirenia song that's most appropriate for the thread, and it's my least favorite of the album, but the others are a mix between violin music, harsh gothic metal plus appropriate vocals and the female vocalist. That would have went over even less tolerated.

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Rhapsody to Rhapsody of Fire

Could have been worse, could have become Rhapsody of Steel

Been years I've known of this but this is too painful to watch each time

 

[majestic]

^ I actually have that... single. There's other language versions of the song on it too... yeah. Uhm...

 

[kanisatha]

14 hours ago, Gorth said:

@majestic I actually have a few Apocalyptica cd's somewhere....

I guess my teenage years were the late 70's and early 80's

Just too much good music from that period to really pick a good representation. Most of it heard over the radio. Some bought on vinyl when I could afford it (trying to catch your favourite songs from the radio and record on a tape recorder being too cumbersome)

Late 70s and 80s was my pre-teen and teen years too! And Led Zeppelin is my #1 all-time favorite rock band. I have a large Stairway to Heaven poster hanging on my office wall, and it's funny that my students will often comment on it.

[HoonDing]

I remember reading somewhere that Fabio Leone actually hated all that high fantasy crap even though he was vocalist of some other power metal bands like Vision Divine.

It was really Luca Turilli and Alex Staropoli who were the uber fantasy nerds.

[bugarup]

Speaking of Apocalyptica and Rammstein

 

[Raithe]

 

[Keyrock]

WARNING: LANGUAGE The most ruthless diss track of all time:

 

[Malcador]

 

[Gorth]

Oh look, I found a Rammstein song. Supposedly with a fan made animation making up the visuals of the video...

 

[Malcador]

Interesting band.

[Raithe]

 

[Raithe]

 

[Raithe]

Because who didn't need to know this was out there...

 

[Gromnir]

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by Gromnir

[Malcador]

 

[Gorth]

Just to try something completely new... Rammstein!

 

No, seriously. A new single and the video premiered 8 hours ago at the time of writing

 

[Deadly_Nightshade]