Music reviews-Why I love the music I love

[Big Tabs]

Coming out the closet here... I love Beyonce's 2014 eponymous album

I reckon Beyoncé ‘Lemonade’ (2016) is the best of her work, when she is furious with her husband.

Not really Hip-Hop, but definitely classy Pop.

 

[popol_vuh]

Really good topic. And difficult to answer - it requires quite a bit of introspection and synthetic thinking.

In my early childhood, I didn't really listen to music and wasn't exposed to much music because my parents didn't really have big passion for music. My dad loves and loved back than Dire Straits and Rolling Stones, mom listened to some mexican mariachi stuff, but they very rarely played music in house, don't really know why. So, when I was a kid I used to hear that stuff, but very rarely and I wouldn't say it influenced me much. I did find some "best of " Shadows LP and I used to play that constantly when I was about 11. Not much else - but this I liked, especially the guitar tone. My journey really started in about 1994 when I was 14 years old when I heard Guns'n'roses on MTV. I was fascinated by both music and image and I taped all their videos on VHS and watched that constantly. Similar soon happened with Metallica. But shortly after that I started high school and discovered Nirvana. I soon collected their albums on tapes (taped from friends) and together with Nirvana started listening to Soundgarden, Sonic youth, a bit of metal such as Sepultura (but really on the side - I wasn't that much into metal). At the end of high school I got really sick of the electric guitar sound and didn't know what to listen to. Then purely by accident, I was in a used CD shop and saw an album whose artwork struck me. I didn't know anything about this band, but I bought the CD solely because of artwork and packaging. It was The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails. This was another big moment in my development. Upon first listen, I didn't know what to make of it. I didn't like it nor dislike it, it felt difficult but also fascinating. I put it aside for a couple of months and didn't listen to it. Didn't listen to anything during this time, I was a bit sick of music. Then one evening I got the urge to listen to music, and something was very strongly telling me to reach for the NIN CD. Put it on, listened through the whole thing carefully and that was it. It struck me as a most brilliant piece of music I've ever heard. I realized that music doesn't need to have choruses, doesn't need to rely on instruments, can be highly conceptual etc. From there I sought after all the other similar bands, which led me also to "industrial music" - first more popular stuff like Skinny puppy, Front 242, Frontline assembly, but later also more avantgarde stuff like Throbbing gristle. Since Trent Reznor always talked about Aphex twin and Coil - I got into them, which led me to Current 93 and all that esoteric english music. Fell deeply in love with that stuff any this broadened my view of music immensely.

Now from that point I got into all kinds of avantgarde music (Stockhausen, Xenakis, Riley, Reich), electronic music (Autechre, Pan Sonic, Oval), minimalism, I started listening to more adventurous modern guitar music again (Keiji Haino, Sunn 0))), Earth, Melvins, Swans...), discovered classic late 60s early 70s band like Pink Floyd, King crimson, Jethro tull, Frank Zappa etc, discovered all the wonderful krautrock stuff, primarily Faust, Guru Guru, Cluster, Popol vuh, Tangerine dream, Klaus Schulze. Also discovered there's nothing to be ashamed about in liking good pop - I discovered Kate Bush, Bjork, much later Joanna Newsom, Bonnie Prince Billy... My taste is now very wide, but I also tend to stick with a fairly low number of bands I love most of all...that's how I function, I can't love many things intensely and simultaneously.

Jazz I really don't get and don't like. I really like freeform rock so it's weird I couldn't get into stuff like Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor and such....mainly because of the very sound pallette, I believe. I like dirty, grungy, distorted, broken sounds. More classic jazz I really don't like...I'd like to get into it, but can't. I feel much more affinity to classical music than to jazz, but wasn't able to get properly into it either by now. I really like Penderecki and Arvo Part but that's all very modern as well...it's not "classical classical". I really like Shostakovich. But most of classical seems hopelessly romantic, culturally distant and irrelevant and unrelatable to me...even emotionally. Emotionally, I often find it as something very unstable...one moment it's delightfully happy and then it gets down and soppy, and then it's all in love and playful and I find that unbearable and neurotic. I like composers who maintain emotion. I like more gloomy atmospheres and darker moods. But classical remains my fascination and I really feel I'll get to understand it one day.

 

[Tony L]

Coming out the closet here... I love Beyonce's 2014 eponymous album

It’s somewhat outside my wheelhouse, but I have huge respect for her, especially the later more political stuff. She is unquestionably a force for good and one of the best Glastonbury headliners ever IMO.

 

[Tony L]

Pan Sonic

I saw them playing on the roof of the RFH in That London. Excellent gig. Involved a very large metal spring mic’d up on a table that sent shockwaves through the place.

Jazz I really don't get and don't like. I really like freeform rock so it's weird I couldn't get into stuff like Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor and such....mainly because of the very sound pallette, I believe. I like dirty, grungy, distorted, broken sounds.

If you’ve not tried them immediately head for Miles Davis Get Up With It, Agharta and Pangea. There is a huge crossover area here between the really heavy jazz funk/fusion and Krautrock. The first side-long track of Get Up With It could be Amon Düül II!

 

[Darren L]

I reckon Beyoncé ‘Lemonade’ (2016) is the best of her work, when she is furious with her husband.

Not really Hip-Hop, but definitely classy Pop.

I don't know anything about her albums but I watched her perform at Glastonbury and wow, what a performance that was, reminded me of a young Tina Turner, dancing, singing and shaking, tremendous!

 

[popol_vuh]

I saw them playing on the roof of the RFH in That London. Excellent gig. Involved a very large metal spring mic’d up on a table that sent shockwaves through the place.



If you’ve not tried them immediately head for Miles Davis Get Up With It, Agharta and Pangea. There is a huge crossover area here between the really heavy jazz funk/fusion and Krautrock. The first side-long track of Get Up With It could be Amon Düül II!

That Pan Sonic performance sounds really up my alley, I bet it was great! I also saw Pan Sonic live here in Zagreb back in 2007. and amazingly, that is one of my references for high quality sound - not just live but hi-fi as well. The concert took place in a moderately big rectangular gallery with brick walls that actually resembled a big living room (but was empty, no furniture). They were on the floor level with a long table and their equipment on the table, back wall was about 4 metres behind them and to each side of the equipment table and about 2 metres in front of the table they've had two huge floorstanding speakers with toe-in, pretty much set up in the way in which you'd set up stereo speakers in a home hi-fi situation. So Pan Sonic, the speakers and the audience was on the same level, there was no "stage". Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see decipher which speakers they used but the sound was at the same time freakishly loud and freakishly distortion-free in such a way that even white noise at huge SPL wasn't painful at all. I could hear each individual grain of sound in that white noise by itself....insane resolution, clarity and no distortion at all. And the lowest registers would move the very bottom of your pants, but not your pants from the knees-up (of course, all of this on sub-sonic level). At times it was like you were scanned by soundwaves - from your feet to your head. Absolutely insane sound, I've never heard anything similar in any other situation - both live and home hi-fi.

Also, thank you very much for the jazz recommendation! I really want to get into jazz, just as well as classical, but am trying to find my way in. This connection of these Miles Davis LPs to Amon Duul sounds extremely promising, I love Amon Duul.

 

[Tony L]

Also, thank you very much for the jazz recommendation! I really want to get into jazz, just as well as classical, but am trying to find my way in. This connection of these Miles Davis LPs to Amon Duul sounds extremely promising, I love Amon Duul.

Also try Herbie Hancock Mwandishi and Crossings, again pretty dark and visceral long-form funk stuff. I’ve only discovered the existence of this stuff in the past decade or two. Prior to that my impression of fusion was 80s white guys with mullets going ‘widdly widdly widdly’ on DX7s for no apparent reason. The stuff I recommend has absolutely zero connection with that and for me sits far more closely with a lot of early free Krautrock stuff, e.g. there a lot of Tago Mago-era Can in there too with the dark long-form grooves etc. Miles didn’t put a foot wrong from In A Silent Way in ‘69 through to Agharta/Pangea in ‘75, it’s all crazy good stuff. There’s a lot of amazing stuff in this whole era, e.g. try Miles Davis A Tribute To Jack Johnson, it is the most powerful long-form full-ahead blues rock I have heard and makes Cream & Led Zep sound like Justin Beiber and The Spice Girls respectively.

 

[mega lord]

Also try Herbie Hancock Mwandishi and Crossings, again pretty dark and visceral long-form funk stuff. I’ve only discovered the existence of this stuff in the past decade or two. Prior to that my impression of fusion was 80s white guys with mullets going ‘widdly widdly widdly’ on DX7s for no apparent reason. The stuff I recommend has absolutely zero connection with that and for me sits far more closely with a lot of early free Krautrock stuff, e.g. there a lot of Tago Mago-era Can in there too with the dark long-form grooves etc. Miles didn’t put a foot wrong from In A Silent Way in ‘69 through to Agharta/Pangea in ‘75, it’s all crazy good stuff. There’s a lot of amazing stuff in this whole era, e.g. try Miles Davis A Tribute To Jack Johnson, it is the most powerful long-form full-ahead blues rock I have heard and makes Cream & Led Zep sound like Justin Beiber and The Spice Girls respectively.

I couldn't agree more. It's all amazing music

 

[Del monaco]

I tell you what. I wish I could be sitting in the sun and warmth in a lovely resort playing the new James Blake album through Qobuz and my lovely Sony bluetooths. Oh no…wake up…I am! Hope you can all be in same situation now, soon or in the near future! Funny how fortunes can change.The headphones are WF 100XM3s. A little loss of air but very balanced sound. IMO these leave the AirPods standing. The new versions are even better apparently.

 

[Del monaco]

I reckon Beyoncé ‘Lemonade’ (2016) is the best of her work, when she is furious with her husband.

Not really Hip-Hop, but definitely classy Pop.

It is a sleeper. Quite something really. The more I listen to it, the more impressive it is.

 

[Marchbanks]

For me, as with all old gits of my vintage, it started with the Beatles. I bought From Me To You as my first pocket money record aged seven. I remember following them up to Magical Mystery Tour and then getting left way behind. The next thing I remember was someone playing 21st Century Schizoid Man at school. I’m 13 and this was like a nuclear explosion. Next came Black Night, Paranoid and Prog. I was led along the way by the NME and Richard Williams via Zappa, Beefheart and Todd into the Dan and jazz.

The 15-year old me was buying Ornette and Coltrane albums. Then at university in London punk hit. Soon the Stranglers, the Köln Concert and Abdullah Ibrahim were side by side on my shelves. Then like-minded work colleagues introduced me to Talking Heads, Suicide, Devo and Krautrock. Through delving backwards into jazz I found a lasting devotion to Monk and Mingus. Having written off Neil Young as a wimpy folkie I discovered he had exactly what I wanted from an electric guitarist. Greatest band in the world was REM for a bit, then Godspeed, and/or the Pixies.

Not much new happened for a while, then I saw the White Stripes for my first gig in a decade. Then there was Magma, of whom I had never heard a note until seeing them live in 2008 despite knowing about them since my schooldays. Another new favourite band. Since then I’ve been filling the gaps in my jazz knowledge (Bill Evans, Miles, Armstrong), discovering Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot in all his guises and their associates (Motian, Lovano, Zorn...) and their associates in turn - at least a lifetime’s work ahead, I’m pleased to say.

 

[Tony L]

Soon the Stranglers, the Köln Concert and Abdullah Ibrahim were side by side on my shelves.

I don’t think that would be a correct order even if you filed things by catalogue number.

 

[Marchbanks]

I don’t think that would be a correct order even if you filed things by catalogue number.

Busted. I was going to tell the truth and say ‘in the same heap on the floor’ (this was a halls of residence room, after all) but I thought I’d try to retain a vestige of audiophile credibility.

I forgot Joni, which was unforgivable. Summer Lawns and Hejira were vital parts of the same heap in 1976/7.

 

[Del monaco]

I’ll have to work through some of these jazz recommendations. I like and listen to jazz but not yet caught a passion for it as I did with classical. I have a feeling it may come though.

 

[Big Tabs]

I’ll have to work through some of these jazz recommendations. I like and listen to jazz but not yet caught a passion for it as I did with classical. I have a feeling it may come though.

Jazz brings to mind the phrase, ‘Can’t See The Wood For The Trees…’

I definitely tried too hard to appreciate the sound when I was younger, maybe trying to intellectualise the music.
My Artist mate dismisses Jazz as a pseudo-intellectual exercise, but this is only because he doesn’t get it. (and I think it bugs him) He will listen to feedback and someone screaming into a megaphone and get something from that (as I will).
What he is unable to hear is how ‘Punk’ Jazz can be.

Ordered disorder.

 

[Del monaco]

I just find some pieces challenging. I suppose it’s the same for some classical. Just have to persevere!

 

[Big Tabs]

I just find some pieces challenging. I suppose it’s the same for some classical. Just have to persevere!

Maybe ‘challenging’ can be converted into a simple ‘not your cup o tea?’

I find some Classical music too romantic, and some of it plain boring.
It is such a broad field and like Jazz, the sub-genres are endless. It would be odd to like every classical piece, even from a favourite composer.


I have a few albums of various styles of music that I feel that I should enjoy. I keep hold of them, hide them at the back, then a couple of years later drag them out in the expectation that my taste may have matured… Invariably I still don’t like them, and nowadays I tend to stick them in the charity shop for someone else to chin-rub over.

 

[Darren L]

There's plenty of stuff I don't like whether critically acclaimed or not, nothing wrong with that IMHO, I'm sure there's plenty I do like which others don't . I think the best thing anyone can do is listen with an open mind and decide for themselves.

 

[Andrew C!]

I started off really listening to stuff at my grandparents, in the early/mid 70's. my granddad introduced me to big band jazz - he played trombone, and basic keys/organ - his brother/my uncle trumpet and drums. I remember many evenings in miners welfares in North Notts, when they played to packed rooms, and I got loads of orange juice.

My step dad came along, and introduced me to Paul Simon, and all sorts of other stuff including Kraftwerk. I remember him playing me Sound and Vision by Bowie - amazing.

School influences were The Police, Numan and then the emerging new romantic scene: Spandau Ballet, Vizage, DM, Ultravox, TFF etc. My love of all things electro and beat driven remained, but other tastes widened. My best mate at school was into soul, funk, reggae and disco. He also liked China Crisis. We'd have evenings playing 7" singles from all over, including or respective parents collections. I never really got into classical at this time - too much other stuff got played. Classical piano stuff came later, when I took up learning piano itself. Even now, classical stuff has to be mellifluous and rich - I don't like discordant stuff.

The early/mid 80's were spent clubbing, and that's when I got into dance music big time. Venue 44/Renaissance, Cream, Gatecrasher etc. always interesting when I got offered drugs in some places

Go to system test records for me would include Leftfield, Massive Attack and Portishead, and also Kay Starr and Paul Simon!

How does this relate to my hi-fi purchases. Well, I've always liked pace, soundstage and detail. I'd sooner have a rig that is fast and rhythmical than a bit bloated. My current rig does all this really well. Some of the recordings from back in the day sound marvellous.

 

[Del monaco]

Maybe ‘challenging’ can be converted into a simple ‘not your cup o tea?’

I find some Classical music too romantic, and some of it plain boring.
It is such a broad field and like Jazz, the sub-genres are endless. It would be odd to like every classical piece, even from a favourite composer.


I have a few albums of various styles of music that I feel that I should enjoy. I keep hold of them, hide them at the back, then a couple of years later drag them out in the expectation that my taste may have matured… Invariably I still don’t like them, and nowadays I tend to stick them in the charity shop for someone else to chin-rub over.

No..I used to find Stravinsky challenging but through perseverance I’ve managed to really love some of his music. Same for Shostakovich. And I adore Rachmaninov. Took retime to surmount some prejudice around his music.