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Music Sounds Better, Together [part 2]

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Posted

Since the blog section seems to have detonated, I'll post a topic.

 

WARNING: IF YOU PLAN ON BEING INVOLVED WITH THIS POST AT ALL, BE SURE TO SECTION OFF SOME TIME TO LISTEN TO WILDLY VARYING CRAZY MUSIC. Disclaimer: I don't actually count on any of you reading this, let alone clicking any links, but I will press forth...

 

So here's some music I've listened to as of late, in bulk. I've listened to a lot more than this just incidentally, but it's easier to just talk about albums and stuff I've listened to. I'll link notable tracks from the album.

 

In the past few months, I have listened to:

 

Denki Groove - [discography minus Human Beings and Animals]

(all albums; all the tracks here aren't my favorites per se, because hardly anyone's uploaded their stuff to Youtube)

 

Daft Punk - Homework (1997, album); High Fidelity

 

Pointer Sisters - [discography]

(all albums)

 

The Ones - [discography]; Picture Perfect (ATOC Dubmaster) I can't actually find it, but it's cool.

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (2013, album); Contact. I actually heard Thomas Bangalter use the sample for this song much earlier in the 2000s in one of his sets. It was interesting hearing that it was confirmed for the sample they would use for their fourth album's only sample, a decade later.

Kristof R. - Pantone 165 C (2001, 4 track EP); What's Happening

Roy Rogers - Pantone 389 C (2001, 3 track EP); Mamamia

Roy Rogers - Pantone 814 C (2000, 2 track EP); Falling In Love

Gile - Starnight (2000, 3 track EP); Stop It, which I made a mashup with

Gile - Furious Week (2000, 3 track EP); Furious Funk

Michael Jackson - Off the Wall (1979, album); Off the Wall

Michael Jackson - Thriller (1982, album); Billie Jean

Michael Jackson - Bad (1987, album); Speed Demon

Queens of the Stone Age - Queens of the Stone Age (1998, album); Regular John

Yes - 90125 (1983, album) on vinyl; Owner of a Lonely Heart

Men At Work - Business As Usual (1981, album) on vinyl; Who Can It Be Now

 

other stuff I'm not going to talk about [right now [due to laziness/lateness]] are things like, but not limited to

 

Fireflowerz - Beats Per Minute (2013, album)

Birdy Nam Nam - Defiant Order (2011, album). I'll say The Golden Era of El Cobra Discoteca was really cool.

B. Derazzo - Beats Vol. I (2011, album) on CD; Quixote's Theme. I need to listen to this album with a clearer head next time. Sometimes I just have bad days where I can't think straight.

Sugarhill Gang - SugarHill Gang (1980, album). It's pretty silly, but I like its music.

Fireflowerz - Remix Per Minute (2013, album)

 

Short thoughts in order of most recently listened to:

 

I've had the 90125 and Business As Usual albums for forever, but I accidentally left them at someone's house; due to the hectic nature of their house, and just generally not knowing what to do with them, I guess, stuff was put on top of the records, so now the album art is pretty much ruined and the records are warped pretty bad, but they play alright if you put enough weight on the tone arm, which wears records out faster, but these are unplayable otherwise. They still skip some, but they still sound great. Yes sampled a song that covered a different song in their first song of this album. It was a breakbeat, which are often used in Jungle genres, so I was thinking something like, "A rock song sampling electronic music? This seems a bit backwards..." but it's great. Men At Work's use of saxophones is amazing, and their sound is also really awesome.

 

The Queens of the Stone Age debut album was a little disappointing. It was brooding and stiff to the point of sounding somewhat generic as hard rock. Or maybe they set trends back in '98? I don't know much about hard rock. I must conduct further research. It sounded good, but I guess I expected more.

 

I've already talked about Michael Jackson's albums, but man, they're really good.

 

Gile, Kristof R., and Roy Rogers' records are all great; they each have a unique sound, and they just rile me up like crazy. I kind of group them all together because they're criminally unrecognized electronic musicians with <=4 track EPs with simple-looking record labels.

 

I could talk about RAM and Homework, but I probably have to make a different post some other day, because I don't want the post to stretch on too long. They're both really great.

 

But hey, The Ones are pretty good too. They're kind of one-hit wonderish with Flawless, but they've got a lot of cool music. At first I was under the impression they were a poppy flamboyant group who just got lucky hopping on the French Touch bandwagon back in the early 2000s and didn't know much in the way of electronic music, but they're surprisingly pretty great in that regard, with actually good remixes of their own tracks dispersed in there, which I liked.

 

I'll be honest in that I only listened to the Pointer Sisters because of Dave Armstrong's French House remix of Dare Me, called Make Your Move. More specifically, the Chris S. remix, which I've been trying to find some kind of physical copy of somewhere. The place I discovered it was in a Youtube video that said it was the original mix. Supposedly, on whatever physical copy it's on, it's still called the "original mix", which is entirely unhelpful to finding this thing. I even uploaded a Youtube video with download links and the correct track title with the highest-quality version I could find after scouring the internet for two hours one day.

 

Anyway, the Pointer Sister's songs are kind of funny in that their songs tend to either be about not being taken advantage of by men, or about sleeping with them. I mean, I don't think this is contradictory, I'm just saying that this is literally their two most common song topics, and they have a relatively large selection of music. So yeah, that was kind of fun to listen to. It was really hit-and-miss, I think, or maybe it was bland? I'd call it "okay" as a whole. Turns out my mom likes them/listened to them back in the 80s. That was funny to find out.

 

Another honesty bit, I only listened to Denki Groove's discography because of Trapeze's opening and ending themes. It's unfortunate, but those are probably their most enjoyable tracks. The others range from generic to way too abrasive, but they still have some great stuff in there; I'd say my favorite part of their work was their live remix concert at Iibon. I noticed one of their samplings of a techno track early on in their discography, and it just made me want to go listen to that one instead. Their use of the sample was good, but it didn't last long enough.

 

Currently planning to listen to:

  • she's Electric Girl album because it's been forever since he's released it and why haven't I listened to it yet
  • Denki Groove's Humans and Animals, their most recent album for the same above reason
  • The rest of QOTSA's albums (I just know they're going to get better)
  • Maybe the rest of the Yes and Men At Work albums
  • Yes reportedly has one of the most populated discographies in the history of popular music; this will be a journey 
  • The rest of Michael Jackson related albums
  • Yellow Magic Orchestra's discography
  • (the reportedly very eclectic) Romanthony discography
  • Sugerhill Gang's relatively short discography
  • Anything by Sweater Beats
  • Abba?
  • other stuff I just don't have off the top of my head
  • Then maybe look up some good funk records

 

I can't get over that I'm unable to listen to the rest of Sapphire (or as sellers and Youtube would have me believe, SAPPHIRE). Someday... when I have a lot of money to spare... or maybe when the people who uploaded Come and Dance with Me upload the rest of the music on that record, which is probably never...

 

Currently listening to:

 

Sebastien Léger's We Are EP on vinyl, because it's amazing. He supposedly does electro nowadays, rather than the French House sound of this record, like much of France, which is a little disappointing.

 

Aaaaand I have a little bit of a to-do list for buying records. I really enjoy buying them, and listening to them is astounding. But why is shipping from Spain and Italy an extra 15 dollars? ): It's a good thing vinyl is paradoxically cheaper than CDs in most cases.

 

Planning on buying these records:

  • Michael Jackson: Off the Wall and Thriller albums
  • Yes: Fragile album
  • Gile: Starnight and Furious Week EPs
  • Modjo: Lady EP
  • 95 North: The Request EP
  • Roy Rogers: Pantone 814 C and Pantone 389 C EPs
  • Kristof R.: Pantone 165 C
  • Delta Heavy: Get By EP

so yeah, it's been pretty fun

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Posted (edited)

Denki Groove-Yeah I agree about their tracks being generic or abrasive. Smoky Bubbles and Superstar were okay I guess. Nothing compared to their tracks from Trapeze though.

 

Pointer Sisters-Not really my type of music. I would say bland is a good word to describe them.

 

Daft Punk-I only listened to the linked tracks. I couldn't really get into High Fidelity. Contact was good though. I haven't listened to much Daft Punk for some reason even though I like what I've heard.

 

Kristof. R-I only listened to the linked track but I really liked it.

 

Roy Rogers-I actually really liked Falling In Love even though songs with only one or two lines usually give me a headache. Mamamia was really catchy and upbeat and I really enjoyed it too. How could I resist it?

 

Gile-Furious Funk was good. I didn't really care for Stop It it at first, but after a few listens I kinda like it. Also I agree with Baconbeats about your mashup. I feel it would be a lot better if it was louder. It feels a bit distant and that makes it hard to get into.

 

Michael Jackson- Didn't really care for Speed Demon, but Off The Wall was as good as any of his more popular songs. I already consider Billie Jean as one of his good popular songs.

 

Queens of the Stone Age-Meh

 

Yes-Owner of a Lonely Heart was alright; it just didn't leave much of an impression. I do like Roundabout though. 

 

Men at Work- Who Can it be now and Down Under are pretty good. I haven't listened to anything else yet though so I can't really comment on their overall sound.

 

Listened to a few tracks from both of Fireflowerz albums and they're really great. 

 

Birdy Nam Nam- (The Golden Era) of El Cobra Discoteca is pretty nice though it feels like it's trying to make me have an existential crisis. Their other music is a bit dark but I like some of it.
 

B. Derazzo- His tracks have a nice sound or something. They're pretty nice.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This ended up being kind of shallow so sorry for that. I'm not very good at analyzing or describing music.

 

 

Based on my initial impressions of these artists Roy Rogers, Fireflowerz and Kristof R. are probably my favorite artists.

 

Also thanks for uploading the Chris S. mix of Make Your Move. One of your earlier posts reminded me of it, but I didn't remember what it was called. I had downloaded the original mix, but the original mix isn't nearly as good. It lacks variety, especially for the first 2 1/2 minutes where I don't think there was any? It was painful.

Edited by Linkprow (see edit history)
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Posted

I am glad that you took the time to listen to the stuff, Linkprow. (: House music, though, is a funk-variety dance music, and therefore tends to be very repetitious, and if you're mostly familiar with songs that use a pop-like structure, then it can be hard to get into sometimes.

 

Hi Fidelity is just delicious to me because of its use of percussion, the nostalgic feel and utilization of the samples, and of course, their use of the low-pass filter, which is part of what made Daft Punk so monumental in electronic music. I think that track in particular is crazy underrated. Every time I listen to it it's like reading a book that makes me want to dance, but that tends to be for most of the music I particularly like. Contact is just the most intense thing to me, though. The way it slowly builds to this massive, all-encompassing wave of sounds, and then this screech starts to climb higher and higher in pitch, like you're blasting into space. It's a crazy musical journey.

 

Kristof R. is great though. If shipping from Spain weren't 15 dollars I would already have that record in my hands. Another really good track on the EP is Feel It. All his tracks on the EP, actually, are reworks of classic disco songs, so his source material was good, and his reworking was top notch, imo.

 

Roy Rogers' high octane filtered feel-good sessions are in the same boat in terms of purchasing. International shipping costs are horrible... But the repeated sample is good mostly because of how he works the percussion and filters around what he does, and of course, that the sample already sounds good. The piano in Mamamia was likewise done really skillfully, I think, and combined with the kind of darkly contrasting sound of its bass synth, it gives this crazy nostalgic, somewhat brooding, but not lusty or overtly angsty vibe. At least, that's how it makes me feel. Like there's a subtle innocence there that's losing touch with itself, so it's kind of sad in the same way a wilting rose is kind of sad.

 

Speed Demon's best point is the energetic synth basslines that are always going crazy. When I first heard it I was like "Woah, these basslines" and it turned out the rest of the Youtube commenters agreed. And yeah, Off the Wall is good, and I really really like Billie Jean, and Smooth Criminal; I already posted up a lot of the songs I like from his albums in the listening thread tho. It was great listening to his stuff.

 

I was really disappointed with QOTSA's premier album, yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's just not my cup of tea.

 

Owner of a Lonely Heart's best points from me are its electronic elements, like the random samples or synths, and when the chorus comes in, "Owner of a lonely heart" and the background voice comes in ("Much better than a...") with this phaser(?) effect on it. Then there's a breakbeat with an "Ow!" thrown in that's almost kind of silly. It's almost tongue-in-cheek. I can understand that it might not leave an impression on you, but there are good things to be said about it, at least.

 

Men At Work is a whimsical band, I find. Down Under was the silliest thing. He's talking to some guy and one of them is asking the other if they come from Australia, then he hands him a Vegemite sandwich. Like "Heh, do you really need to ask? I carry around PREMADE VEGEMITE SANDWICHES"

Those sound horrible, btw.

 

Fire Flowerz is gaining notoriety, which is great because I've been following them around a lot and they still don't surpass two thousand views on their Youtube videos. I don't understand how these guys are still underground. Fitness, Vision, and Impeto in G Minor are some of my favorite high-energy tracks by them. Since the Fitness EP that I discovered them during, their sound seems a lot more matured and less cluttered. So good on them. I hope they climb even higher.

 

Birdy Nam Nam is cool in that they're an actual four-person electronic music band specializing in turntablism. As in, they each do a different sample on a different turntable. In real time. It's pretty crazy.

 

As for B. Derazzo, If you didn't catch my last blog, I actually bought the album off him in person for five Malaysian ringgits, because that's all I had on me and he'd let you pay anything. So I feel bad about not properly listening to it all the way through. But man this disc has a lot more than I expected on it.

 

Glad you enjoyed the Chris S. remix. You don't understand how long it took me just to find out that that's what it was called, only to find that it was said somewhere in the comments of the video I discovered it in. Chris S.'s remix is hands-down my favorite mix of it, though I respect Dave Armstrong a lot. (Good Shot, Love Has Gone instrumental) When I bought the record with the original on it I was actually pretty disappointed, so I don't break out the record too often. I even bought some random remix album for Make Your Move because the timecodes on one of the tracks was close to the Chris S. remix and I figured I ought to give it a shot. The album had a remix on it by Sebastien Lèger, and even that was disappointing, and I really enjoyed his French Touch works! The Chris S. remix on file was hidden in the most obscure parts of the internet on strange download sites; a rip of the video revealed that the video on Youtube's kbps was kinda' terrible, so I'm glad I could upload the 160kbps version for people to enjoy properly.

 

And don't feel bad, man. I'm just glad you actually read the post and listened to the stuff and even had anything to say about it.

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