What kind of music do you listen to? Post samples!

[Inochi 命]

Oh.. I forgot about Chaos Legion, I need to check that out again.

I also forgot to mention something: Vangelis.

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

Time to teach you honkies that rap need not entirely suck.

www.myspace.com/knotarapper

Go to the right, click Read a Book. Not worksafe =D

[Inochi 命]

What rap and hip hop is all about just doesn't go with me... I like tune and melody, not beat and rhythm. Lyrics and Singing are also low on the scale for me. I wouldn't seriously attack Rap and Hip Hop in general as they're just genres that can go either way (like any form of music), great or crappy. If there's anything I wouldn't hesitate attacking though, it'd be 50 cent. Even my cousin in england only listens to "underground" stuff, mostly.

The closest i've come to liking rap is that song called Gangster's Paradise from some movie... and I remember liking the theme from that hollywood Godzilla movie when I was little. Those songs had some orchestra in it to go with the rap, and If I remember correctly there was no swearing in them (I just find constant swearing to be ugly and disrespectful).

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

Ah, Gangster's Paradise.

See, vocals and lyrics are important to me when they are present. Shitty singing kills a song for me VERY fast. A lot of modern music annoys me, because shitty vocals are very in vogue these days. I also find myself often (not always, but often) annoyed by vocals that lack passion or beauty. That's actually part of the coolness behind Read a Book, the vocals are very passionate and energetic, even if it's really just rhymthic shouting. Lyrics can only get so dumb before they kill a song. That's an advantage of music in languages I don't know; the words lose meaning, and thus can be judged on the beauty of their sound alone.

I can totally agree that a overwhelming amount of Hip Hop sucks. Not because of swearing, as you can swear and make it sound good, but just because it's boring. Gangsta got old back in '94. Too much of it is about hoes, drive bys, wanna badassery, and shouting a name with "uh!" mixed in.

Sad, really.

[Inochi 命]

I agree with all that, but I still find lyrics less important compared to other things, but I find singing much more important in comparison as it can be considered part of the instruments, it shouldn't be out of tune. Unless the lyrics and singing are blatantly bad and unoriginal, making them annoying and unavoidable compared to anything else in the music (HIMESH!!), they don't matter to me much. I try to find music that doesn't have singing in it anyways, or very little of it. Although, It's great when the singing just goes with the tune of the song, becoming on par with the instruments and not above it. For almost every vocal song i've ever said to have liked, I always focus on the background of the music most of all, and the composition... most of the time I can't understand what's being said anyways (I just make up an image of what's happening and what's being said in my own head, It doesn't matter what it's really about).

so, does anyone listen to Vangelis? there's this song called Four Horsemen that... heh, I don't know what to say about it, but I've been wanting to discuss it. I guess I like it in a strange way (kind of the way I like that song you posted, Captain).

[Grave]

Aha! Bunch of power metal fans here... good, good. Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, DragonForce (I was at their first US show ), even more proggy stuff like Symphony X, and ESPECIALLY the stuff that is far too fruity for the average metal fan to deal with. Rhapsody and Azrael come to mind.

My favorite bands are Queen and Guitar Wolf. A Night at the Opera is my favorite Queen album, though Sheer Heart Attack is a close second, and I've been listening to A Day at the Races constantly lately. Yeah... lots of Queen.

This year I hope to finish my Guitar Wolf vinyl collection. Last time I did a check of my inventory (part of which is out of state), the only thing I'm missing is two LPs. I believe I have all of the 7"s, including splits. Exciting! Fun fact: when I got my copy of Kung Fu Ramone I was so excited that I almost kicked myself in the face.

[Stan]

captain said:

Not worksafe =D

What rap song is? I really can't take the raspy voice, or yelling "yeah!" (or yelling every word, for that matter), or the constant swearing. Or no one in the genre having an original song concept. Way too many rip off another song's beat or a classical melody (as in this case), and just yell crap over it.

Sorry for attacking an entire genre, but that sums up my feelings in general about it. I'm sure there are exceptions, but if popular music has taught me anything, it's that exceptions are stiffled.

deuce said:

BTW, this video will mess with most of your heads.

Awesome! Even though I just went off on copying work , I find this re-realization to be amazingly fun.

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

Oh shit, Grave just mentioned Symphony X, Stratovarius, and Rhapsody. He is a good man!

Also, here's a good musical litmus test

[Cyhirae]

Shame on me..a music thread and I took this long to post in it....

• Metal
  Black Sabbath, Royal hunt, Sonata Arctica, Within Temptation, Kamelot, Nightwish, Lullacry (just the 'Be my God' CD with them), and Hyde
  
  
• Rock/Pop
  Styx, Evanescence, Queen, The Police, Aqua, T.M. Revolution, Ali Project, L'Arc~en~Ciel and random smatterings of one shots.
  
  
• New Age
  Arkenstone, Lanz, Secret Garden, Dead Can Dance, Enya
  
  
• Celtic
  Loreena McKennit, Debra Peterson, Irish Rovers, O'Carolan's works
  
  
• Classical
  ...Too long a list. XD Lets just say I take it song by song rather than by composer and call it done. Devil's Trill deserves special mention cuz I'm obsessed with that song.
  
  
• Games/Anime
  See Lumi's list. Our tastes are pretty well identical there.
  
  
• Folk
  Blackmore's Night, Mediaeval Baebes, Tina Malia, Nordman
  
  
• Movie Composers
  Alan Silvestri, David Arnold, Jerry Goldsmith, Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore
  
  
• Special mention (cuz they don't fit anywhere else)
  Cast in Bronze, Arcana (European 'band' specializing in gothic ambience, not the american band of the same name), Gackt (cuz no one agrees where he fits. =P Gackt is Gackt.)
  

As to dislikes...Gangster rap, jazz/blues, R&B, and any metal who's primary purpose is howling and screaming over singing.

Sorry I have no samples to post but most of these can be found on amazon as well...Arcana may be the only difficult one.

Edit: shame on me once again..how could I forget Black Sabbath?

[FM-77AV]

Gangster rap! That's the greatest term I've ever heard!

[Cyhirae]

*BOL* well that's the only way I know to determine the nasty rap from the old school. ^_^; I do like some of the older rap, but a lot of what I hear these days is just disgusting.

[Lumi]

Cy and I have more or less identical tastes in music anyway. I get her hooked on new stuff, she gets me hooked on new stuff. It's a vicious cycle.

Anyway, she mentioned a few I like but forgot to slap in my big list, so yay.

And also, Inochi.... YAY Vangelis! XD I like his stuff too.

[Cyhirae]

Hehe- you have a point Lumi. Our tastes seem to vary more by individual song than by the groups in general. O.o; go figure.

oh and another one I forgot to add...Alan Parsons Project. ^.^ They do some very interesting, unusual type music.

[Lumi]

Yes. =P Your list is like the unabridged version of mine.

[Cyhirae]

Hey now- I kept it to the main streams ones. =P so mine's abridged.

edit ..How I managed to post this before finishing I...don't know.

Since mine's abridged it can't be the unabridged of yours. So nyah.

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

I shall say this: Anyone who hates Funk, Soul, or Blues is going straight to super hell =[

[Lumi]

How 'bout semi-hell? I'm not overly fond of them but they don't give me violent twitches like Country or 99.9% of Rap.

[Cyhirae]

For me, having to listen to Funk, Soul or Blues IS being in super hell. =P I get out when it's over!

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

I'm sorry you're allergic to good music =[

I am curious, what do you classify as these things? Perhaps we use the terms in different ways?

[Cyhirae]

To me...they're much the same. In all my reluctant encounters with them: They're usually with heavy/deep voiced singers in low tones with raucous (to my ears) instrumentation like harmonicas and little use of a full array of sound and tonality. They tend to be a bit heavy on the bass notes and slow in tone as well, given the feeling of the song taking forever to get to the point which generally turns out to be complaining about some aspect of their life.

For me it's mostly the sound quality though that turns me off of those three categories. I prefer lighter, faster sounding music and higher-singing voices. I rarely like baritones, a bass voice is definitely a NO in singer for me and I prefer my instruments to be constant, melodic and as important to the song as the singer themselves.