r/LetsTalkMusic

I get such an overwhelming feeling of dread every-time I listen to this song, the vibe is so unsettling. I’m so sad Sia moved away from this state of mind, this is such a deeply personal and moving piece.
Unlike other sad songs like Breathe Me, the song does not ask for help, or to “hold me”. She wishes to die. She sits in a state of empty, uninspired isolation.

There is no will to fight, the song ends with, “I hope to die”.

While Colour The Small One is an insanely personal album with deeply intimate moments, this is the standout track for me.

I love them, I’ve always been quite shocked that some people actually prefer to listen to the music rather than watching the music videos of their favourite artists or bands. I know that music is obviously felt at best within the ears but I just think music videos add an extra excitement about the song and creates not only a musical but visual and spiritual pleasure as well. Let me know your thoughts and opinions, I am extremely interested in this topic.

I’m genuinely curious about this because I’ve always found it hard to understand the “overrated” argument. Their influence on music is enormous, and beyond that, I find their music remarkably creative and innovative for its time. They experimented with songwriting, production, instrumentation, and helped pioneer or popularize countless ideas that later became fundamental to popular music. That said, I’m aware I may have some bias because of how highly I regard them, so I’d love to hear other perspectives: if you think the Beatles are overrated,

Recently saw The Martinez Brothers on Capital Radio in London saying House Music comes from NYC and it kicked off a debate with those taking sides between NYC and Chicago.

As a Midwesterner, I find this narrative has always been told inaccurately and those on the coasts have always been confused what was happening actually happening in the Midwest.

The biggest impact on House was funk. It wasn't disco. Many of the early house songs from Chicago even have funk in the title or their names like Farley "Jackmaster" Funk.

Funk's Orgin and Evolution

James Brown invents funk in Cincinnati in the 60s and then George Clinton in Detroit invents P-funk with Parliament-Funkadelic in 1970.

Midwest funk bands evolve the sound over the 70s - Ohio Players, Slave, Dazz, Earth Wind & Fire, Lakeside, Faze-O, Sun, Heatwave. They start to use synthesizers and drum machines.

By 1980, four genres emerge from four cities - Minneapolis, Cincy/Dayton, Chicago and Detroit

• Zapp from Dayton, Ohio release the first electro-funk record More Bounce to the Ounce in 1980 with signature vocoder vocals
• Prince releases Dirty Mind - the first Minneapolis Sound record in 1980
• Jesse Saunders in Chicago releases On & On - the first House track in 1984
• Juan Atkins (Model 500) in Detroit releases No UFOs - first Techno track in 1985
• Larry Heard (Mr Fingers) in Chicago releases Mystery of Love - first Deep House track in 1985
• Phuture in Chicago releases Acid Tracks - first Acid House track in 1987

I found this quote from Jesse Saunders from his early DJing days the late 70s Chicago:

We were playing more popular stuff like funk, James Brown, Parliament, Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” and “The Grooveline.” In the beginning we weren’t playing disco at all. Maybe Donna Summer – it was generally more commercial stuff. The disco part of it didn’t come until probably ’78. 

Midwest producers with new technologies were pushing the sound forward with more aggression and groove.

Midwest radio stations like the Electrifying Mojo were blending genres playing a mix of soul, funk, new wave, hip hop, and rock long before Frankie Knuckles comes to Chicago to take residency at the Warehouse.

I think its telling some of the biggest R&B producers by the end of the 80s also came from two cities - Minneapolis (Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis) and Cincinnati (LA Reid & Babyface and the Calloway brothers).

By 1988, half the singles in the R&B charts were being produced by the Midwest producers with a signature mix of funk, soul, synth pop, and new wave.

So Chicago or NYC?

I told a guy I know who's passionate about classical music, that although I don't find it bad it's boring to me, as well as a factual little analysis that common practice harmony does have many things in common, and not as vast and all-encompassing as he thinks. (So, things like major/minor, V-I being everywhere and leading tones. All those being very common in that tradition).

Lastly, after telling him that my style in music is more 50s-till today, he went on to say something like "your spirit is destroyed in darkness, and you cannot see real beauty in music".

That's next-level elitism, and his need to attack like that tells more about him than me. I just laughed at his words and replied that "yeah, Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers, which is one of my top songs ever, is so dark and destructive". 😂

I think he, and like-minded people, are more vulnerable to others' opinions, and need to attack them emotionally, rather just agreeing that tastes differ and moving on.

What do you think?

When Devo first arrived on the scene in high school, a friend of mine had Are We Not Men? and most of my friends listening to it were pretty much WTAF? I mean, what the hell kind of version of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction was this??? Some (mostly Zep fans) expressed outright hate.

A couple years later people were dancing to Whip It and listening to Gates of Steel, and then we had Once In A Lifetime, The Cars, Flock of Seagulls, The Motels, The Waitresses, Siouxsie and the Banshees and we were off to New Wave heaven. It was truly a "new wave" of music, and so much changed after that.

I would say The Sex Pistols started all this, but after the infamous arrival of Devo and The Talking Heads, it really did seem like people were ready for a change in music at that time, which ultimately lead all the way up to Radiohead in the 90s/00s. I'll put a stake in the ground and say that Devo marked the start of New Wave as we know it.

Just a bit about their style -- Devo had these quirky robotic sounds which became something of a hallmark in new wave. But never so robotic as to miss out on a groove or a riff. Uncontrollable Urge, as weird as it sounds, was pretty damn catchy. The movie Revenge of the Nerds kinda made it a point of it that robotic stuff could have a groove. Talking Heads took that to new heights, and nailed down that danceable aspect -- just listen to The Great Curve. Was it because rock needed to be more danceable after disco, I dunno. All I know is that new wave pretty much took over in high school after that arrival of Devo.

What do you think? Is there some other band that should mark the start of new wave? How did the alternative scene arrive in your town?

There are artists we enjoy, and then there are artists whose music somehow becomes part of our lives. Maybe it’s a specific album, a particular period, the lyrics, their sound, or the memories attached to their music.

What makes that difference for you? What turns an artist you like into an artist you keep coming back to for years? What makes their music stick with you when so much other music eventually fades away?

Isn't that the natural cycle of things? At some point too much of one thing, stagnancy, formulas, etc--regardless of all the usual explanations--don't we hit a wall? The Machine controlling things, monopoly on music, insane concert prices, dopamine decadence, aging rockers, prepackaged music, lack of authenticity, nothing shocks, no more controversy. We used to have music movements that shook things up...bubble eventually bursts. It's usually the natural cycle of things--but man--it's sure taking a long time.

Tyga's latest album getting a 0.0 from Pitchfork reminded me of the last time that Pitchfork gave a 0.0: for Jet's Shine On. Jet were an Australian band from the 2000's that had some success, but were critically slammed. Most of the criticism seemed to stem from the fact that they were ripping off the sound of older bands like AC/DC and even straight up lifting the riff for "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" from Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life".

More recently, I've seen the same types of criticisms levied at Greta Van Fleet; that they are unoriginal and/or are just trying to rip-off Led Zeppelin and other classic rock bands.

But, I never understood the actual problem here. If you liked AC/DC or Led Zeppelin, why would you not want to hear bands that sounded like them? Why is a band that is trying to harken back to an earlier sound necessarily a bad thing?

Whenever I finish an album for the first time, I often only recall two or so songs. Maybe more if I REALLY vibed with the whole piece (or if it was very short). It's often the first and second song and maybe the last or second-to-last. Potentially also the lead single or whatever else song I heard before going into the album.

And more often than that, I recall all the songs melding together. Like, I know intellectually that Tracks 2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14 and 15 were different from one another, but in my head they all had basically the same instrumentation, melody, key, etc... even if that is technically untrue. It typically takes a second or third re-listen to familiarize myself with these songs, but unless the tracklist is wildly eclectic (like the White Album or Demon Days) it often runs together for me.

Has anyone else had this experience?

Is it the shouting you don’t like? Or the heaviness of some songs? I’m genuinely curious why some may dislike these genres. Some may think they’re satanic, but that isn’t true for the most part. Is it the loudness, screaming, or just the overall sound? I’d genuinely like to understand what makes people dislike these genres so strongly, especially when there’s so much variety within n them.

Sssssss

I went for a long run and threw on True and let it play from top to bottom and all of a sudden the album was over and my run was done. I was so lost in the music, the melodies, the lyrics.

It made me think about how complete of an album it is, and it was his first studio album! I know there are pioneers of house/electronic music that came well before Avicii but I do see a lot of current artists mention him as a major influence.

So, what do you think? Crazy take? Any other albums 2000-2013 that you would rank above it?

Hello,

I have a weird, but difficult problem at hand and I want to ask fellow music enjoyers how they would go about it or do.

Goal: For the next years, methodically and precisely, I want to go through thousands of artists to discover new music on a (paid) streaming service. I already know which artists, my problem is not finding the artists.

Problem 1: There are so many albums and songs that I cannot possibly remember or know which ones I already checked out. Imagine listening today from artist A to 20 of his albums. 29 weeks later, how do I know where I left of? Multiply this by thousands for every artist.

Problem 2: A lot of songs, the same ones, are found in multiple albums. I want a system which tracks for me which songs I already listened to, so I can save time. We are talking here about thousands of songs that it matters a lot.

Problem 3: I want to be able to move/categorize songs into my own curated playlists.

Initial idea: I thought to myself, Spotify surely has a feature to let me mark albums at least as "read/seen/listened to" like on IMDb/Letterbox, but of course such a feature doesn't exist.

Question1: So do you guys have any idea about how to tackle this problem methodically? Obviously I want a method which doesn't create a lot of work for me, I am not gonna keep an Excel sheet and cross-check it every time I clicked on a song, if I have already seen it or not.

Question2: Do you happen to know if any streaming platform has a "seen" feature for albums? I only have experience with Spotify and it doesn't.

Thanks in advance.

Each week a WHYBLT? thread will be posted, where we can talk about what music we’ve been listening to. The recommended format is as follows.

Band/Album Name: A description of the band/album and what you find enjoyable/interesting/terrible/whatever about them/it. Try to really show what they’re about, what their sound is like, what artists they are influenced by/have influenced or some other means of describing their music.

Artist Name – Song Name If you’d like to give a short description of the song then feel free

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUTUBE, SOUNDCLOUD, SPOTIFY, ETC LINKS! Recommendations for similar artists are preferable too.

This thread is meant to encourage sharing of music and promote discussion about artists. Any post that just puts up a youtube link or says “I've been listening to Radiohead; they are my favorite band.” will be removed. Make an effort to really talk about what you’ve been listening to. Self-promotion is also not allowed.

I was just thinking about some of my favorite artists who have had really long careers. Some of them started out writing all their own stuff you know very personal and raw. But then over time as they get bigger or their sound changes they start working with more co-writers or even just taking songs written entirely by others.

It makes sense from a career perspective to keep putting out new music consistently. But sometimes I feel like the essence of the artist gets a little diluted. It's like the unique voice or perspective that drew me in originally gets lost a bit when it's not their own words telling the story.

Like can you really connect with a song as much if you know the artist didn't actually write those deeply emotional lyrics themselves? Or does it even matter? Maybe a great performance can elevate any lyrics. Is it about the authenticity of the words or the delivery of the message?

What do you guys think? Does it bother you when artists don't write their own lyrics anymore? Or is it just a natural part of evolving in the music industry?

This is about to get a little stuffy, so I recommend opening a window first 😊

I keep seeing discussions about whether artists, bands, labels, or entire music scenes should be avoided because of politics.

And it seems to me that people often talk about completely different things while using the same word: boycott.

Are we boycotting:

- a government?

- a nationality?

- an artist’s personal beliefs?

- public statements or actions?

- the content of the music itself?

- where the money goes?

- a label for choosing to work with certain artists?

To me those are very different criteria.

For example, someone might believe nationality should be irrelevant but an artist’s explicit political activity should matter. Someone else may see a cultural boycott as meaningful even when individual artists are not personally responsible for state policy. Others may separate the work from the person almost entirely.

So i’m not interested in which specific artists people refuse to listen to, but I am more interested in the *rule* behind the decision.

Where do you draw the line, and what exactly is the thing you believe you are boycotting?

I asked my friend what kind of music she listens to, and she said she doesn't listen to music. I asked, do you never put some music on to listen to? "No". I asked if there isn't any music that moves her? "No". I was just in kind of disbelief. If I woke up one day and music suddenly wouldn't move me like it has always done, I would feel kind of devastated.

She has told me in the past what her favorite song is, and she loves singing karaoke, but I guess music doesn't move her.

Back in the day I remember spending hours at record stores just flipping through CDs and LPs. I'd pick something based on the cover art or a cool band name. Sometimes I'd take a chance on an album from a genre I didn't usually listen to. It felt like a treasure hunt.

Now with streaming it's all about algorithms and playlists. Don't get me wrong those are convenient. But I feel like I'm mostly hearing what I already know I like or what's trending. The element of random discovery the happy accident of finding a new favorite artist just by browsing seems to be gone.

Do you think this shift away from physical media has changed how we stumble upon new music? Are algorithms too good at keeping us in our comfort zones? Or am I just looking at this through rose-tinted glasses?