Music Discussion

[Apolloncrash]

As the "Music you're listening to atm?" thread is not really conducive to discussion, I figured I'd open this one. Basically just discuss a given genre/artist/song/album/whatever. This could be how you feel about it personally, it's technical merits, or anything really.

I'll start things off with Nightwish's album Imaginaerum. I'm pretty tired and still not fully over whatever virus I had yesterday, so I'm going to keep this very simple.

Overall:

I admit that, like many long-time Nightwish fans, I was left scratching my head after listening through this for the first time. It just seemed so... odd. There were are few standout tracks, sure, but overall it just felt off somehow.

I have since listened to it many, many more times and now think that it is their second best album (under Dark Passion Play). I rarely care about albums as a cohesive whole, but it's not often I will listen to individual songs on Imaginaerum, as they just feel too much like different parts of one single, flowing story.

My rating: 9/10

Breakdown by song:

(I couldn't be bothered to play the following Youtube videos all the way through, so let me know if there are problems with any of them)



Any other Nightwish fans on here?

[Kimiko]

I used to be a big Nightwish (and other symphonic metal) fan. I still like it, but lately my interests have been more focused on other music.

Regarding Nightwish, the last album I have is Dark Passion Play. I'm sure many people have discussed Nightwish's changes in singers already. DPP was certainly Nightwish (although with a little more autobiographical feeling to it), but Olzon didn't quite measure up to Turunen. I've since learned that she has left the band too, but haven't really listened to anything after DPP.

I just checked out a few tracks above, and my first reaction was "I don't remember Olzon sounding like this. She almost sounds like she's singing pop instead of metal.". The music has a recognizable Nightwish style, but also some new things, like the bagpipe/flute/whatever it is, acoustic guitar, and, I dunno, they just sound lighter than before. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm not quite sold on it. Part of it may be an attempt to accomodate Olzon's voice, part of it is probably that Holopainen is getting a little too enamoured with this orchestra and pushes it more into the foreground instead of using it as backing for the real metal.

I hope Jansen will bring Nightwish's sound back closer to what it was with Turunen. And that Holopainen gets back down from his orchestra high. It was awesome on Once (their best album I think), but has gotten a little too prominent since. Mind you, I'm not saying DPP or Imaginaerium are bad, not at all, just not quite as great as Nightwish used to be.

As for other symphonic metal, my collection contains Edenbridge (6 albums), Elis/Erben Der Schöpfung (4), Lunatica (3), Midnattsol (2), Nightwish (6), Visions Of Atlantis (4), Within Temptation (1), and Yousei Teikoku (3). Like I said, it's been five years or so since I listened to it a lot, so I'm not very aware of what's happened in the genre since then.

[CD-Man2021]

I like music. I'm getting into more electo-typo music lately. ...Yeah.

edit: To name drop a group, I'm enjoying Lemaitre a lot. Eluvium too, but that's more of ambient piano stuff.

[Kimiko]

What kind of electro-type music?

[CD-Man2021]

Lemaitre, Daft Punk, Telepopmusik, CHVRVHES, Blackmill, Passion Pit, Madeon, and a few others I can't remember.

[Apolloncrash]

[Kimiko]

I just listened to Once again, and yah, it does have some meh tracks. "Wish I Had An Angel" is pretty good, but "Nemo" and "Ghost Love Score" are my favorite Nightwish songs.

I haven't heard Jansen either, but her Wikipedia page says she's a classically trained soprano, so she has that in common with Turunen. She also sang in After Forever (symphonic metal) and did several songs for other metal bands. Her background fits better with Nightwish than Olzon's did.

[CD-Man2021]

[quote="Apolloncrash"
@"electro-type music" I love a lot of synthesized music, but I never really bother with it, since it is really hard to even figure out what genre of music you are listening too, which makes it difficult to find similar stuff. With metal I can typically listen to a song and know "okay, that's black metal" or "this is power metal", but with synthed stuff I have no clue. There are literally hundreds of genres there and no one can ever agree what one a given song fits into. I have seen many an argument where people are spouting out genre after genre I have never even heard of.

Edit: Case in point, I just Googled Lemaitre and listened to the first song that came up and most of the comments were arguing what genre it was.[/quote]
I agree. I like this music, but I'm not sure what to classify it as (hence electro-typo), and it also makes it hard for me to find more of it that's similar.

[Kimiko]

Last.fm doesn't require exact classification to find similar artists, so:







A few names I see multiple times are MitiS (& MaHi), OVERWERK, Mord Fustang, The Naked and Famous. That should be a start, right?

Last.fm works quite well for genres that are fairly popular and bands that have fairly unique styles. In very popular or very unpopular genres, everything gets lumped together because there's too much overlap in listeners. You also don't find stuff that's not popular among Last.fm's mostly Western userbase.

As for me, I have a strong dislike for anything dubstep/D&B. I like some electronica though, like Fluke (90s UK), or Perfume and Capsule (00s/10s JP). I'm also into eurobeat and electroswing.

Electroswing seems to have been short-lived. The same artists/songs that were popular in this mini-genre a few years ago are still the most popular now, without much news. The artists who did some electroswing also usually have a wider range of styles and have moved on since its peak in 2011/2012. Some artist names are Parov Stelar, Caravan Palace, Swing Republic, Tape Five.

Eurobeat is a pretty unique thing in that it is produced in Europe (northern Italy mostly) and consumed in Japan. There are some Japanese artists, but they don't get as much attention, and the genre is practically unheard of outside Japan. It is quite similar to eurodance though, which is still fairly popular although nowhere near as much as back in the 90s. Eurobeat was huge in the 90s too, and has since slowly declined. The most famous compilation series, Avex's Super Eurobeat series, is the longest-running compilation series in the world, started in 1990 and currently up to vol.228. In 2012 no new albums came out in the series, but they seem to be back now.

[Apolloncrash]

[Kimiko]

Amazing, huh? It's been going on for 24 years.
Of course, there's a lot of repeated content. Every few albums there's a non-stop megamix, and every tenth is a best-of. And then you have producers themselves reusing old songs in a different mix or with a different singer.
I have everything up to vol.222 downloaded (not owned; even if I wanted to, I'm not nearly rich enough) and have listened to 161-222 and 1-29 now. Still over half to go..

[Apolloncrash]

There is something I've recently been curious about, but haven't been able to decide where to post it, so I guess I'll put it here. I'm wondering if any of my fellow labyrinth goers play any instrument(s)?

At various points in my life I personally have gotten at least reasonably competent with the keyboard/piano, saxophone and acoustic guitar (tried electric, didn't like it). I have also been really wanting to learn the violin for the last couple of years, and I actually own one, but I just don't have enough time to dedicate to music like I used to nor can I afford lessons.

I learnt the basics of playing keyboard in music class in high school and further developed those skills on the crappy piano we had at home and later got my own keyboard (which has since been broken but not replaced). I actually took extra-curricular saxophone lessons for a couple of years in high school, since they were trying to get some students to try some of the less popular instruments and I was interested. My dad taught me basically everything I know about playing the guitar.

It's actually pretty funny, even though I know how to play three different instruments, the only one I actually own is one I have no idea how to use.

[Trifkin]

@Apolloncrash - I have a violin I don't know how to play as well! Heh. The strings need to be replaced before I can even attempt to play it at this point.

I played guitar in high school. I had a cheap acoustic (I think it was a Gremlin) and a shiny, candy apple red Warlock. I haven't tried in a few years, though. I'll pick it up again soon.

I also used to play piano by ear, long before I learned to read music in choir at school, and am currently borrowing my cousin's keyboard to teach myself to read music (again) and really learn to play this time. It's slow going.

@garrett - I don't know what trap is. o_o

[Hong]

I sing while playing the piano. My ability to perform either improves if I perform them simultaneously.

[Trifkin]

I work much the same way with singing and guitar. I'll have to give singing + piano a try. :3