Lurker > Raetsel_Lapin

I'm looking for any random suggestions at the moment, not after anything particular--it is nice to find something that's actually of this genre though, since my attempt to find more avant-garde metal songs didn't really go anywhere (a flaw with my search technique, mostly).

Song is... I wouldn't say bad; I like that it's different, but... not a big fan of stories about cannibalism, really. It doesn't take itself too seriously ("YEE HAW!"), but it's still a bit off-putting.



Age Of

I feel like I should like this album more than I actually do. The title track that opens the song is by far my favorite track on the album; the way the song switches between almost depressingly normal and chaotic is intriguing and I like what's happening there.

The Station is perhaps the best representation of my thoughts of the album. It feels like something I'm supposed to love; we've got a highly synthesized voice, lyrics that are reminiscent of The Thing or Alien or something like that, a unique sound... but I'm not connecting with it, not like I did with the other two albums.

"Last Known Image of a Song" was interesting because the iPad decided to freeze while I was listening to it. The song would play, but I couldn't pause or look at anything else; only this song, which given the name, was equal parts appropriate and creepy. Not that I should give the song credit for unrelated technological failures, but it really set the mood.

Other songs also feel like things I should like. We've got songs about the apocalypse, songs that are the soundtrack to fictional films, a track with "cat" in the name... but they all feel like they're missing something? Or more likely I'm judging them too harshly because I enjoyed the other albums so much. Garden of Delete was so good I listened to the album in its entirety twice in one day, so just about any other album was going to have a hard time living up to those expectations.

Garden of Delete > R Plus Seven > Age Of.

...though I'd probably say I still enjoyed Age Of. I listened to it in the background while doing other things yesterday and my reaction was "I need to focus and pay attention to this album", not "I don't want to listen to this". And I did listen to it again today--a few songs multiple times in hopes of finding something I wanted to say about them. So the experience is still generally positive... but not quite the same.
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Marshmallow unicorns forever!

Got caught up in ither things, Tried listening to Age Of, but couldnt focus on it; will try to make time to pay attention to it tomorrow.
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Marshmallow unicorns forever!

MycroProcessor posted...

Glad you liked Garden of Delete just as much as R Plus 7 (if not more it almost looks like?)

Hard to say as I haven't gone back to that album yet. My first reaction is that Garden has higher highs and lower lows; I don't recall having as strong of complaints about anything on R Plus Seven, but Garden also had more parts that I loved on it, so it would probably be a tough call. Still plan on listening to both of them more either way.

...actually I'll probably listen to r+7 for background music while I'm doing some other things at the moment...



MycroProcessor posted...

He has a very very recent album (came out this year) called "Age Of" that is ALSO kind of a different direction. I'm not as much a fan of it as the previous two, it's sort of like a 'collection' of various different styles. but one of the styles that is represented there is definitely the Garden of Delete style, so if you want more of that, there's a few tracks from that album that you'll probably appreciate!

Commissions I and Commissions II are also definitely EPs worth checking out with a mix of interesting styles.

I'll definitely check those out later, thanks! Not sure if I'll go right to one of them or take a break to listen to some of the other Venetian Snares albums you named earlier; will just have to see what I wind up clicking tomorrow.
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Garden of Delete

I very much enjoyed the album. Few notes I can recall:



I like the opening to Ezra, with the music cutting in and out. The part starting at around the 25 second mark is amazing...until we get to the vocalization at around the 38 second mark. I don't like that voice sample and it appears so often on this track that it really drags it down; I love all the sections without that specific voice though.



When I look at "Sticky Drama", the phrase "best song on the album" comes to mind, though I can't recall why... *goes back to listen again*

I don't know how to put it, but something about the beat and vocal elements make this feel like a mainstream song that was heavily edited and distorted? There are points where I feel like I hear a traditional pop song in the background, but it's buried under the static and distortions. It is a very pleasing effect. It loses that near the end, becoming a bit too chaotic... but then I like the chaos anyway, so I have no intention of holding that against the song.



Mutant Standard is just too long. It takes it a bit too long to get going and then it feels like the song never ends; I know there were parts of it that I liked, but I think it was probably the low point of the album for me.



Child of Rage... I like this. It's up there with Sticky Drama for best song.



Animals... if you could remove that distorted voice or whatever, this would easily be one of my favorite songs of all times. The purely instrumental portions, just the computerized instruments and the static, are heavenly and purrfect..... but that high-pitched vocalization isn't quite working for me, which hurts it somewhat. Still great, but not as amazing as I may have wanted it to be.

Also that cat pun feels weird even to me, but parts of that song made me feel like purring, which is a new experience so here we are.



Remaining tracks were also good; I can't recall any other really stand out tracks, but I didn't have any complaints about any of them and was quite sad when the album ended as I wanted it to keep going. Would like more from this artist and plan on listening to this album again. (Actually listening to some of it again right now; I didn't recall anything specific about Freaky Eyes, but I'm rather enjoying it now--this mellow synthesized portion in the middle of the song that seems peaceful and nice before fading into a static-y screeching noise... oh I love that part of this track. It just has some problems of being in direct comparison to so many other songs I like.)



BlackDra90n posted...

Gaku Sano is unfortunately not in the movie, but Gaim is. It was an ok movie.

I refuse to believe any film with a title that convoluted and flying Pac-Man viruses is anything other than amazing.
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Girlfriend: Not bad. Knew the song, didn't know it was Avril Lavigne. Had a couple of her songs (My Happy Ending and Nobody's Home) on an mp3 player at one point, though I don't really recall how or why. Felt like they were always on it and I kept them around because they were always on it, in some bizarre loop that doesn't seem to have a starting point.



Last Voyage: Pretty good. It's sufficiently nautical and pirate-y, works for her and her character. A lot of comments compare it to Soul Calibur music, but I've never really focused on any of the series soundtracks to have much of an opinion on that? It feels like it would work well as the theme for any of the more seafaring characters (Cervantes, Maxi).



Lejonet Frn Norden: Hey, it's these guys again! Still metal, still very good voices, still giving vague history lessons on historical figures I know nothing about. I think I still prefer Night Witches, but this is also a good track.



Kamen Rider Gaim: For being a series I've never seen in any of its original forms, Kamen Rider seems to keep popping up in my life. I first learned about it from the obscure Kamen Rider Sega CD game; it wasn't really any good, a sad Dragon's Lair clone using footage from one of the Kamen Rider films--the movie wasn't translated, but the game was for some reason? I have no particular memories of anything that happened in the game, but I do recall playing it.

When Saban released an American version of the show, Masked Rider, I immediately recognized it as being Kamen Rider from that game I had played. Tried watching some episodes of the show, didn't care for it, don't remember enough about the show to really comment on it.

Years later, characters from it popped up again when I got into MUGEN. There are a lot of Kamen Riders in MUGEN and some of them are actually quite well made! Kamen Rider Kaixa is always fun and I really enjoy watching Gillskaya--their moveset is the perfect mesh between brutality (they have a curb stomp super which, in spite of only being a stomp, is still one of the most painful looking moves I've seen) and comedy (driving a motorcycle over the opponent). Can't say I know anything about their source material, but they made good game characters.

Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed the nonsensical trip down memory lane, I'm not really into the song itself. The opening chanting or whatever grates on me quite quickly and, while the song improves drastically around the 55 second mark, it's so short that it ends as soon as it starts to get good.



Mummies Alive: And the award for least expected song of this topic goes to...



Rise/Raise Up Your Flag: Much better than the other Gaim song. Good lyrics, I like how fully committed he seems to be to the role--it's goofy, but he feels passionate about the material, so he does a good job selling it. Also while looking up this song, I learned about "Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Riders". That thing may not have had Gaku Sano in it, but considering the title, I can only assume it to have been the greatest film in this or any other universe.



Lejonet Frn Norden > Last Voyage > Raise Up Your Flag > Girlfriend > Mummies Alive > that other Kamen Rider song
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Yay suggestions! I'll start working on those tomorrow.

IhatethisCPU posted...

...And I'm also legitimately surprised you've never heard 'One' before this topic. Hmm...

Like I said, most of my music knowledge comes from oldies stations, 80s stations, and classic rock stations. I think Metallica was just too heavy to get plays on most of those... I think I hear Enter Sandman on one of the classic rock stations occasionally (or the song is so omnipresent in pop culture that I just feel like it plays more often than it does), but I'd have a bit of a rough time even naming any other Metallica songs.

I can't say with certainty that I haven't heard any of their other songs (I didn't know just how many singles came from that Third Eye Blind album until I listened to said album, so it's entirely possible I know more songs from any given band than I think I do), but my first reaction is that I know next to nothing about Metallica.
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cinnamon fried modulation

Not bad, though there's nothing as good as focus tous or fissure queen. Favorite track was "Fleshtruck (dunade 2)", particularly the part starting at the two minute mark. Something about that sound reminds me of the stairs sound from the Dragon Quest series; to me it sounds like little 8-bit footsteps walking away from an explosion, then getting progressively faster as they run, ending with them hopping onto a helicopter and flying away.

...I doubt that's what the end of the song is supposed to sound like, but that's what it felt like to me, and I'm sticking with it.



Spider was also good, though it didn't make me think of anything specific.



Briefly listened to a few Venetian Snares tracks at random, but it feels like there's way too many songs to sort through, so I mostly just got overwhelmed by the amount of choices to click on and gave up quickly. Will probably go back to it sometime soon-ish.
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Am I Cool or What?

Cracked informed me that there was an entire album of Jazz and R&B songs inspired by Garfield, so naturally I put listening to it at the top of my To Do list. I figured it would either be overwhelmingly furry, laughably horrible, or both.

...The album is so strangely average that I'm even less sure what the point of it all was. There's so many big names doing the best they can with the material, that it's never laughably terrible. It's also not good and not as furry as one might expect. It just..."is". It exists in defiance of everything; it has no reason to be, yet it exists. It should be terrible, but it isn't. These artists should be good, but they aren't. It should appeal to someone, but it doesn't.



Shake Your Paw (The Temptations): Well, they did what I felt was impossible--they made a song about wagging your tail that I don't care for. This song is a failure on every conceivable level: The lyrics are unbearably repetitive, consisting almost entirely of "Shake Your Paw (Shake Your Paw), Wag That Tail (Wag That Tail)" ; it wants to be a dance song, but it doesn't have a good enough beat to be played...anywhere, at any time, for any reason, in any universe.

It's rather sad to see such a great group reduced to a song like this.



I Love It When I'm Naughty (Patti LaBelle): ...why. Just...just why...



Fat is Where It's At (Carl Anderson): I actually like this song. I shouldn't, but it's kinda funny and I like the music. I don't have many R&B songs on any of my playlists, but it's got this nice mellow groove that I'm digging tonight. I should try to do more research on that genre at some point.

Also, it gets some points for being clearly related to Garfield--after the failed dance song and the abomination that was the last song, it's nice to have someone get the album back on topic.



Long 'Bout Midnight (Natalie Cole): Have you ever wanted to hear a jazz singer use her sexiest voice while singing about Garfield eating in the middle of the night? No judgment! Just kinda wondering who the target demographic of this song was.



Nine Lives (The Pointer Sisters): A fairly generic love song that does nothing for me. It's not bad, but I think I'd take a song I actively disliked over the average-ness of this track.



Here Comes Garfield (Lou Rawls): I think this is the first song that mentions Garfield by name, which seems a bit odd for an album about Garfield. Song's okay; it's just a generic Garfield theme song. There have been better themes and worse themes, leaving it as something that just sorta exists. It is perhaps the song that best represents the album: Short, pointless, inoffensive, and forgettable.



Next To You I'm Even Better (Diane Schuur): I've been trying all night to find a way to connect this song to Garfield and haven't come up with anything. It feels like it's entirely unrelated, like the song was written for a different album and somehow wound up here. I don't get it.



Spare Time (David Benoit): Do you want an instrumental version of one of the themes from "Garfield Gets a Life"? Was there ever anyone who watched that special, heard this song, and said "yes, I want more of this, but jazzier and without the lyrics!"?



And then two other songs, but I've lost interest in discussing this album. "Fat is Where It's At" was worth finding, the other songs not so much.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

this is the essential orson welles-related thing you must watch!

aside from citizen kane

Ah. I figured there had to be something with Orson Welles commercials considering The Critic's parody, but never tried looking anything up. Thanks for that!



Not much music related today. I did listen to "dear future self", but didn't fall in love with any of the tracks. Nothing bad, but no real standout tracks. I think I'd actually pick "stone" as the best track on the album? There's a wind chime sorta quality to the music that stands out, not just in comparison to that album but in terms of anything I've heard before, which gives it an edge over the competition.

kyogre waterfall & hall of dry yeast are probably in second and third? secretosore.txt was memorable, which likely lets it take fourth place on the album.

Really though, the album just made me wish I was re-listening to either of the Venitian Snare albums I already liked, or possibly diving into some third album of his. Think I'll try something else of his tomorrow.



Listened to River again, definitely not as down on it tonight as I was last night--good voice and what not, though I'd probably still have it ranked lower than the other songs you posted.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

yeah, don't lose my number is one of my favorite phil collins songs and i would never want to listen to the song via the music video (even though it's a funny video, for sure).

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

...not entirely sure how they can claim there's no symbolism at all--Charlie choosing the music over Beatrice seems like a pretty straight forward message, even if they somehow didn't intend for it to be one.

yeah, i think daft punk is kind of like the orson welles of music, by which i mean that what they say about their own stuff should be taken with a grain of salt. in my view there absolutely is meaning to the video.

...that being said, i'm a pretty pretentious guy when it comes to movies and sometimes i might read too much into them. i even think there's some kind of meaning to un chien andalou, even though buuel and dal insisted that it's completely meaningless. (man, this reminds me of when i had an argument with muffin about the producers [the original movie]. he insisted that it's a comedy and nothing more, i insisted that there's more to it.)

Yeah, my knowledge of classic films and what not is...nonexistent. Pretty sure I've never seen anything with or by Orson Welles, so I mostly associate him with Maurice LaMarche's parody from The Critic:



My knowledge of Dali and the Producers is somehow even less existent. </.<
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Somewhere Street Intro

Nice and pleasant. Somehow, it reminds me of the Wings theme--I can just see a small plane slowly flying over the ocean when I listen to it. Which also makes it work quite well for a travel show! Can't say I've ever heard of the show though, so I couldn't help you with where to see it.

Go To Hell

Since all the related videos are Japanese Wrestling related, I'm going to guess this is the theme for some Japanese Wrestler?

Google leads me on a journey to Dragon Gate and a very similar song by the same artist, "Go To Heaven"... so I'm guessing someone had one of the themes, had a face/hell change, then switched to the other version? Though it could just be a gimmick chance, kinda like Cody Rhodes and both versions of "Smoke and Mirrors".

Song is alright, though I think enjoyed trying to research the song's origins more than the song itself.

Till I Find You

I've never cared about objective quality, so don't let something like that stop you. I have no idea why you'd give a warning about this song though--it feels like a boy band song, possibly...Backstreet Boys?

*checks comments*

Hey, someone agrees with that comparison! It'd probably never be one of my favorites, but I'd never change the radio to avoid listening to it--it's a perfectly fine and nice song.

The River (Blues Saraceno)

Okay, but I've never watched The Walking Dead or played Watch Dogs 2, so I don't have any memories to associate with the song.

River (Bishop Briggs)

It's not fair, but repeating "Like a River" 37 times turned me off the song quite quickly...it devolved into a game of trying to guess exactly how often she was going to say that over the course of the song.

I should try to listen to it again and not be as ludicrously unfair to it, but it's late; I'll give it a second chance tomorrow.

One (Harp Twins)

It's pleasant, but I don't know that I'd ever heard the original version of One before looking it up to compare it to this song--without that context, it's just some nice harp music. I get that it's technically impressive and their FAQ in the comments section explaining a bit about the development of the song helps--hearing that one of them split her foot in the making of the song really puts into perspective just how far they went when trying to figure out how to do the song.

As for the Metallica version of the song, which I presume to be someone's next question, it's pretty good. I feel like I should be bothered by it and the story it's telling, but for some reason I'm fine with it. Using that song also gave me the closest to a decent result off of rave.dj:

https://rave.dj/nIKsjIRkmqoS1Q

Certainly not great, but after several days of messing with things, that almost kinda works. And while it's completely unrelated, I was clicking other recently submitted mashups and found the best possible rave.dj result:

https://rave.dj/AZkjay-PUQ2YBQ

...again, not related, but I'm also not concerned about staying on topic.



Till I Find You > Somewhere Street Intro > Go To Hell > One (Harp Twins) > The River (Blues Saraceno) > River (Bishop Briggs)
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Yeah, there are always some music videos that make a point of not letting you hear the song--I'm sure there are plenty of better examples, but the one that always comes to my mind was the video for Phil Collins "Don't Lose My Number"; a bizarre meta take on a music video, parodying an assortment of other 80s music videos and movies, which takes a solid minute and a half before the song even starts.



To be fair, there's still more focus on the song than either of those Daft Punk videos, but for a while this was the only version of the song you could get on YouTube. They kept removing anyone's attempt to upload an actual version of the song, leaving you with this video or nothing. And if, like me, you were determined to listen to as many of Phil Collins' Greatest Hits as possible, you probably wouldn't be thrilled about being limited to the version where they have a meta conversation about what to do during the guitar solo during the guitar solo.



Either way, I wouldn't worry too much about posting such videos. This isn't exactly a formal music topic and the videos tend to be interesting; for what it's worth, I liked both Daft Punk videos. Da Funk was rather interesting--especially the debate between the band and the fans, with the band insisting that there is no meaning to the video and the fans insisting that there definitely was.

...not entirely sure how they can claim there's no symbolism at all--Charlie choosing the music over Beatrice seems like a pretty straight forward message, even if they somehow didn't intend for it to be one.
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I hadnt at the time, though Ive gone back to watch it now. Wasnt expecting a dog person, that might help the song slightly; it interested me enough that I stuck around to see whatever the original video with Charlie the Dog was, though I cant recall the name.

I got distracted by that Rave DJ site, turning random songs into discordant noise. Nothing worth sharing, but Ive apparently wasted two nights on it already...
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One Man, One Vote

Nifty. Not one of my favorites of his, but still good. Autoplay followed it up with "What's New In Baltimore?", which was also nifty. Probably would have been niftier if I knew who Steve Vai was--he may have been awarded 10th greatest guitarist of all time by Guitar World, but I don't really know musicians, so I'm not sure I'd even heard of him before.

Last night Autoplay followed Baltimore with something from the Sleep Dirt album. I remember the album name and artwork, but not the track or anything about the track--it was the last song I listened to before trying to type thoughts out on the things I'd listened to and I was already kinda tired, so it didn't leave much of an impression.



Hereafter

Not bad, but while I'm sure it's just me, it just feels like "standard metal song". I have no complaints about the singer, the band, the lyrics, or the video but it never does anything I love either.

Fresh

I do love the waves, but that little vocal sample being repeated on an endless loop is just a bit too much for me.

Just Be Friends - Nico Nico Chorus

It's actually really good and it's impressive that combining so many different covers of the song works so well, though the lyrical dissonance is very strong with it. Such an upbeat, happy, group song for tragic breakup lyrics.

Pain of Salvation - Other Albums

Both of those albums seemed a bit too...emotionally intense for me last night. I'll probably listen to The Perfect Element at some point, but I have to be in the right frame of mind before trying to tackle an album dealing with those subjects.



Just Be Friends Chorus > What's New In Baltimore? > One Man, One Vote > Fresh

Trying to rank everything from BE would be difficult, but it held my attention for the entire duration, so most of it probably scores decently; Nauticus, Latericius Valete, and Animae Partus II flop (is it even fair to rank Part II?), but the rest of the album was good or unique enough that I enjoyed it.
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"Nihil Morari"...I dunno. It's not bad, but...well honestly I'm rather tired right now and don't actually want to type more.

"Latericius Valete" is another interlude, not as good as the rain one--also one more line about Earth's population, just to make sure you can't call it an instrumental track.

"Omni"...I don't know that I could type up thoughts about this even if I were fully awake. So Nauticus is a...space probe or something, sent to try to save humanity or the planet by...something...

"Iter Impius"--hey, there's the best song on the album!

"Martius/Nauticus II"...so Space Probe is God now or something?

"Animae Partus II"...what.

...no seriously, what? Why the long period of silence? Why the little girl? Why is that question the note we end the album on? What happened and what was the point of anything? There are albums that go completely over my head (Imaginos is still the best example) and then there's something like this, where I just...

...what?



I listened to more songs than just this one album, but I'm just too tired to say anything on any of them. More stuff tomorrow.
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Binged on a lot of music tonight--probably too much all in a row, but let's see what details I can remember.

BE

"Everything after Be is a step down," seemed like a cue to start there. I like concept albums, it already had one song I highly enjoyed, and a recommendation for the album itself definitely pushed it over the edge.

Having listened to the entire thing now, I'm not quite sure what I listened to. It bounced between genres, characters, and concepts so rapidly that at no point did I ever have a guess what was coming next. It feels rather like the inevitable punchline the entire last topic was building up to; complain about songs being too repetitive or not varied enough, crash into an album that feels like it can't stay on any one train of thought for more than a few minutes before derailing with enough force to launch into space, through a black hole, and into another universe before exploding in a shower of rainbow colored chocolate chips.



"Animae Partus I": A great start to the album. I've mentioned enjoying songs about questioning God; God questioning God is a different take on it, but one I can appreciate. Enjoy the shifting voices, very nice. I have a hard time calling it "music" though, it reminds me of that Sega CD Warning video--it does a lot of things I like, but could I really give it a high score?

...now I want a mash-up of this song and Sega CD Warning. I feel like if Warning were to continue into a full album as I always dreamed it would, something like this song would follow it.

https://www.rave.dj/7AoKfe81XA-cYQ

O.o?

"Deus Nova" was also interesting. The counting population growth bit might go on too long, but works for what it is, and I'm up for more confused-tri-voice-God.

"Imago (Homines Partus)" is an unexpected change of genre, going with a nautical type song? It's nice, but it's also the point where I realized I was definitely not going to understand anything, much like with Imaginos--though I was drawn to Imaginos due to the confusing nature of things, so that's a compliment.

We then go to an orchestral interlude about rain for..some reason. That goes on for five minutes. I like rain and I like songs doing something unexpected, so I actually don't mind this--never going to be one of my favorite tracks of the album, but it's not bad.

"Lilium Cruentus", just to further defy expectations, is a relatively normal song about grieving the death of a loved one. On the surface, anyway. There's probably a thousand deeper levels of meaning to the song, but whatever; it works and I like it--not as much as the first two tracks or Iter Impius, but I like it.

"Nauticus"...uhh...what?

"Dea Pecuniae", while I'm not exactly a fan of it (or even particularly clear who or what Dea Pecuniae is), works well enough. It's nice to develop Mr. Money a bit before we get to Iter Impius, so it's what I was looking for when I started the album.

"Vocari Dei" is another interesting experiment that I like, though I don't know that I could give a good score to it. It's apparently fans of the band leaving messages for God while an orchestra plays background music; there's something very...pure about it.

"Diffidentia (Breaching the Core)"; I'm completely lost on this track's symbolism, but I think I like it well enough. It's probably the first song that I can actually identify as Progressive Metal on the entire album.

*more songs to come; long album...long, complicated album...*
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Rossz Csillag Alatt Szletett

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I asked for an album of theirs that I probably wouldn't like, but I doubt it was this. Don't think there was anything bad on the album, though in general it was a step down... the stand out track was easily "Msodik Galamb", which I've listened to three times already today. It is unique and confusing in the good way.

"Ktsark Mozgalom" was also interesting and I've gone back to it a few times too... it is very different. I think I like it.

Other songs didn't stand out as much. None that I had any real negative reaction to, but none that I really wanted to try to remember the names of.



Other than that, I basically just listened to The Megas today. Had to listen to all the new stuff multiple times, then compare both versions of Breakman, then get drawn into listening to some other older songs of theirs (it had been a while since I listened to the enhanced version of "Man on Fire")... sorry will get to the other posted stuff tomorrow.
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NBIceman posted...

In related news, The Megas put out some new stuff last week. Might be recency bias but I think Cracked Skulls is my new favorite track of theirs.
https://themegas.bandcamp.com/album/skulls

Neat! It's funny, I checked their Spotify page just two days before Skulls was added, so I just barely missed hearing about it. "Cracked Skulls" is great; wouldn't put it as my favorite of their Robot Master songs, but it's above average and might just need some more time to grow on me.

The other three songs were also good, but I didn't have as much knowledge of Castlevania (or any knowledge of The Crow) to get as much out of them on first listen. Still happy to add all of them to my list of Megas songs to listen to, but I imagine a song like "Vampire Killer" would have more impact if you had heard of Sara before the song.

Either way, thank you for pointing out the new content! I didn't even know about the remix of "I'm Not The Breakman"... think I prefer the original, but the remix is still really good too.
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Right, so after my music ranking topic, there were several songs that were not part of the ranking that I wanted to listen to; artists from the ranking that I wanted to learn more about, assorted suggestions of new artists/songs/albums, and what not. It was all going quite swimmingly, until we ran out of posts.

...that would give me the perfect excuse to go back to lurking, but I was quite looking forward to listening to the album Mycro just posted and telling him what I thought about it, so let's have a hastily thrown together continuation!

Rules

Post songs or albums and I'll make an attempt to listen to them eventually; some songs will be listened to immediately, some get thrown onto a list and lost for a month, there's no real structure or format. There will be write-ups when I feel like writing something about the songs--no promises, but I'll make an attempt.

Since this isn't a very formal topic, there's not any limit on songs or anything. Also no telling how long this topic will go on for; as of this writing, I want more songs to add to the list, so nominate whatever for any reason that amuses you. Or don't. I mean, I already made my dream music topic and got it to 500, so I'm quite happy as is although more songs would be honestly appreciated.

No real telling how long this will go on for, depending on my interest and the interest of other participants, but we'll see? ...Forgive the abysmal opening post, I wasn't kidding about this being hastily thrown together.



ZA'LIST

ARTISTS


Alice Cooper

The Mars Volta

Kindo

Vektroid

Childish Gambino

Pain of Salvation

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Spock's Beard

Oi Va Voi

Sufjan Stevens


ALBUMS



dear future self ( https://inpuj.bandcamp.com/album/dear-future-self )

cinnamon fried modulation ( https://inpuj.bandcamp.com/album/cinnamon-fried-modulation )

Rossz Csillag Alatt Szletett ( https://venetiansnares.bandcamp.com/album/rossz-csillag-alatt-sz-letett )

Skulls EP ( https://themegas.bandcamp.com/album/skulls )



MYCRO'S PLAYLIST

For when I just want to push YouTube's random button and have it throw a song at me:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLliVxBMurmt4lRjxsOK5y_0h17vKByMp4

Yes, I'm taking that EP from Snake's all-purpose music topic, which is the first I've heard of it in spite of The Megas being one of my favorite bands. Highly looking forward to more music from them; I suppose I should post my thoughts on that specific thing over at the topic I got it from (and probably will), but I'm putting it on the list here so I don't forget about it.
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Binky - Snarky Puppy

We're just a couple hours away from it being exactly one month since it was suggested that I listen to this song. Truthfully, I had completely forgotten about it until I tried updating that list earlier. Sorry about that.

...unfortunately, I wasn't much of a fan. There is one stretch of the song, starting at the five minute mark, that I loved: I think I have a thing for aquatic VGMs, which I'm actually just noticing now. Explains a lot, actually. My favorite Mega Man song was Aqua Man's stage theme, my scoring system gave Bubble Man's theme first place at that Mega Man Song Ranking topic, I routinely use the Super Mario 64 Secret Aquarium stage for MUGEN just to listen to the music, I wanted to listen to more of Ocean's soundtracks because that Unused Theme from The Flintstones sounded like aquatic music...

...wait, Ocean Games? That's...kinda unsettling actually...

*blinks*

Right, right, what I started trying to say: The 30 seconds starting at the five minute mark somehow reminds me of Aqua Man's theme and I get really into it, but that feeling is gone completely by the six minute mark. The rest of the song is technically impressive, but doesn't really appeal to me much.



Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding

Fun! Though when I binge an entire album of instrumental music, it becomes hard to remember specifics about most of the tracks... if I don't make an effort to force myself to remember track names, the memories all blur together really quickly.

"Li2Co3" was my favorite track. The opening of the song is very soothing and I love the effect created by having that soothing music continue playing in the background, able to be clearly heard even as the more chaotic instrumentation feels like it should overpower it. I feel there's some spiritual wisdom in that and it is quite beautiful.

"Ion Divvy" was also really good, though in a different way. I've mentioned liking synthesized voices and distorted voices and this track definitely has that. It's a very "yes, this is the literal definition of what I was looking for" type song.

The only low point for me was "Aaron"; I can't really explain why, but I had a very bad reaction to that song... I can't place why, but it feels like death. It just creeps me out on a level so deep that it was difficult to listen to the entire thing--I got through it and the rest of the album, but quite frankly, I don't plan on going back to that song anytime soon.

I am curious about more of their work, especially the more orchestral stuff that everyone was worried I would hate. Now that I've heard this and loved two of the tracks, I'm more open to trying something different.
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The longer it gets from when the ranking was finalized, the harder it is to guess where anything might have wound up; it's been over a month. </.<

First Impressions

This song reminds me of Graves due to the somewhat long nature of the song (not that eight and a half minutes is terribly long, but longer than the average nominated song, shall we say?) and of "Fair to Midland" in general, in that like their songs, I understand absolutely nothing. "Rainband pendant deadlight grew"?

You made the right choice picking this version with the instrumental opening; I appreciate the existence of the music video that cuts directly to the singing, but it feels like its missing something without Arrival added in.

I liked the song enough to look up the music video and compare them, which is a good sign; and this version held up much better than the alternative version, unlike that poor Jagged, Gorgeous Winter song. Still kinda regret not just ranking the version of that song that I liked instead of the nominated one... not that that's terribly relevant to this particular write-up.



It does a lot of things that I like. I like the mysterious nature of the lyrics and that a brief Google search for the lyrics did not give any relevant information, leaving everything open to interpretation.

I like the distorted spoken word portion at around the six minute mark.

I like the instrumental opening, it has a sort-of...alien, UFO type quality to it.

Bonus points for the birds at the transition between the instrumental and main part of the song (and a bit later in the song). Truthfully, I am drawn to any song that even briefly reminds me of an empty beach--seagulls, waves... it's hardly a coincidence that Maclir relied heavily on that sort of aesthetic and came in first place.

Good performance by both singers and the band.



On the negative side , the song hits a bit of a repetitive mark at around 4:30. I'm sure they don't repeat "She seems to be on my mind through armagnac" as often as it felt like they did, but once it hits that mark, it's a while before the song really does anything different musically or lyrically.

Song also ends abruptly; I'm currently unsure if this is due to YouTube's tendency to just cut songs off, a problem with the person uploading it, or if it's intended to seamlessly transition to whatever song is next on the album.



Great song, easily makes it into the Clump of Songs that were rankings #18 through #37... unsure if it could get any higher; it's complicated because I feel Road Head and Number City (especially Number City) were ranked too low... and theorizing about how things would have gone if I shuffled the top 17 around is a bit beyond what I'd like to do at this moment. We're getting too hypothetical at that point.



EDIT: Though with only four posts left, this raises a question... should I post a brief continuation topic to finish listening and commenting to posted songs or just wrap this up here and listen to everything on my own time? I don't really want to get into a whole other topic right now, but I'm not entirely ready for this one to close to either. </.<
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Updates

Listened to all of R Plus Seven. That was great; I think my favorites were Cryo & Chrome Country, though I enjoyed it the whole way through.

"Dance Me This" had the misfortune of being the album I listened to immediately after that; not bad, but I don't think I'm a fan of throat singing and didn't really connect with any of the rest--though Wolf Harbor 3 was interesting.

Also tried to listen to a lot of David Whittaker songs; my favorite was Terminator 2 Game Boy theme:



I also had fun with some of his covers of movie themes. The Back to the Future theme on the Spectrum was really nifty, but I had the most amusement from his desperate attempt to play the Superman theme on a computer that could never even dream of playing such a song:





Don't get me wrong, he did better with it than anyone else could have, I just had a very hard time not laughing when the song came on. Of course, I like laughing, so I've listened to it three times already. </.<



Now going to gather everything else that I said I was going to try to listen to, since it's been a long time since I edited ZA'LIST.

...hey, I forgot that I actually did listen to that one Venetian Snares song when it was posted and kinda liked it! My brain was just so fried after listening to Aphex Twin that they just got kinda lost in the shuffle... all the more reason I need to update this thing.

SPECIFIC ARTISTS

Alice Cooper

The Mars Volta

Kindo

Vektroid

Childish Gambino

Pain of Salvation

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Spock's Beard

Oi Va Voi

Sufjan Stevens

Snarky Puppy [particularly the song "Binky" which I still haven't gotten to yet]

Venetian Snares



ALBUMS



dear future self ( https://inpuj.bandcamp.com/album/dear-future-self )

cinnamon fried modulation ( https://inpuj.bandcamp.com/album/cinnamon-fried-modulation )

Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding ( https://venetiansnares.bandcamp.com/album/huge-chrome-cylinder-box-unfolding )

...I'm sure I probably forgot something, but that's still a lot.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

you can listen to worms from hell here:

That was interesting. Certainly lived up to its name with its creepy and unsettling nature. Found Samba Funk on YouTube last night, though I didn't have any particular reaction to it.

I hoped to get through "Dance Me This" tonight before posting an update, but I'm not feeling too well right now (nothing serious, should be cleared up in a day)--made it through the first two songs before deciding that I really wanted something more relaxing than that album was going to be.

...not a knock against the album or the music, mind you, just not what I'm looking for tonight.
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Tag.
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Marshmallow unicorns forever!

Finished the rest of Phaze III and threw in "Feeding the Monkies at Ma Maison"; though I listened to that on Spotify and it didn't have Worms from Hell or Samba Funk. I'll have to go find those later.

Fun, though the length of the title track of Feeding makes it difficult to listen to without setting aside a lot of time specifically for it. I did highly appreciate the chance to listen to the different versions of Buffalo Voice, that was an unexpected surprise.
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Listened to the entire Imaginos album. It was as confusing and impossible to understand as I hoped so I enjoyed my time with the album, but it was so...unusual that I have no real comments after only one trip through.

Will try listening to it again someday in the future, when I can better research theories and what not.
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Sorry, will work on stuff tomorrow; took two days off from everything to obsessively binge Deltarune and read everyone's theories.
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Toby Fox posted a lot of thoughts about Deltarune just a little bit ago:

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sqn3p9
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Marshmallow unicorns forever!

Forgot to mention why I didn't get anything done on Sunday: I watched Evolution, the WWE's women's PPV & the House Hardy Halloween Special. I know I shouldn't support the company, but I like Kairi and didn't want to miss the chance to see her in a PPV match.

...yes I know I could try to research her pre-WWE career, but that requires more effort.

I also highly enjoy the goofier side of wrestling. It's virtually impossible for something to be to weird or ridiculous for me when it comes to pro wrestling--at the Mega Man song topic I declared that I'd much rather watch a "Buff Bagwell's mother on a forklift match" than a five star classic. Broken Matt is definitely on the odder side of things, so the company was quite literally giving me exactly what I wanted.

Enjoyed both of them, but it didn't leave much time for music.



Music Update

Decided to listen to "I, Phantom" today for a change in musical genre. It was interesting, but the story tried to cover so much ground that I didn't really connect with much of it. I enjoyed "Live From the Plantation" and "Iron Helix", and of course "New Man Theme" is still good. Not as crazy about everything else on the album, but none of it was bad.
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Yeah, after Iceman couldn't think of anything, I thought it was a long shot. Still, open to listening to just about anything you'd want to suggest, if anything comes to mind.

NFUN posted...

Very good song! I would have responded right away, but I was hoping to save the next post for a bigger update... but then I've been so caught up on other things that I really haven't listened to anything other than this song. Sorry bout that..
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Well, I suppose it's worth asking then while we still have some posts before this locks.

@Bane_Of_Despair

Do you have any suggestions for songs even vaguely similar to Number City? Either by Coheed and Cambria or a different band, I'm open to trying just about anything at this point. It's just so unique and experimental that I wouldn't know where to start looking.

It's also rough because I have a hard time putting what I like about it into words, though I guess I'll give it another shot... in no particular order:



1: It just feels experimental, like the song is playing with things I wouldn't expect. The very retro computerized voice, the crying, the genre shift at the end of the song; it gives the track a very unique feel and kept me guessing as to where the song was going to go next.

2: As unique as it is, some of the reviews of the album classify it as being a pop song... which doesn't feel right to me, but the singer does have a very nice mainstream type of voice. It makes the song very...approachable, even for those who might not be as into the experimental nature of the song?

3: There's a certain edge to the way he sings "Go on and tear it out of me" ; like a very...controlled anger? It's not really angry, per say, but there's just this hint of harshness to the line that I find very appealing.



And probably some other stuff, but I've already spent over an hour trying to figure out how to word that much. I wouldn't really expect any other song to hit all three of those points, but if you could think of any song that covers any of it? Like something else experimental, or something else with a hint of anger that never devolves into generic yelling, or anything you just feel like you'd nominate now that you know Number City was my favorite of your nominations?

You don't need to, obviously, and I figure it's a bit of a longshot... but since you're the one who nominated the song in question to begin with, I thought you might be the best person to ask. At the very least, summoning you here gives me a chance to properly thank you for nominating Number City and tell you how much I've come to love the song this past week.

...also it doesn't matter now, but I think I'd probably raise Number City to 5th place if I had to rerank things. I'm liking it more and more each day, even if it's far too late for that to be particularly relevant.
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MC_XD posted...

handsomeboy2012 posted...

There's Mosou Gundam game? Guess there are more warriors games than I thought

There's at least three Mosou Gundam games, in fact.

Yep! I've played the entire trilogy, though they kinda blur together... I don't recall much reason to go back to the older ones if you had the chance to play 3. They were fun, but I seem to recall the third game being super grindy? Something where I had to build relationships with all the pilots and it felt like it was taking forever?

Still above average for Gundam games and nothing else was being localized at the time, so if you wanted a Gundam game in English, you basically had to take it. Things are slightly better these days; America at least got Gundam VS & New Breaker, and you can import an English version of G Generation Genesis (strategy RPG).

...of course VS is overwhelmingly hostile to new players, New Gundam Breaker wasn't any good, and GGG was prohibitively expensive due to being an obscure import RPG. Still, ya know, progress.



I agree with Archive Deletion being the weakest of my nominations; I'm not typically a fan of songs that try too hard to be epic, but those types of songs tend to be popular with other people and I really wanted to nominate something Gundam related, so I rolled with it anyway.
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Still didn't listen to much; between trying to follow all the rankings over at Flamander/Glacier's VGM topic, working on other things, and listening to unrelated songs my time spent on ZA'LIST has been rather low.

Minor Updates

Decided to Google "Avant Garde Metal" and see what I hit. Didn't find much; Diablo Swing Orchestra is still unique and interesting, but everything else I hit seemed to just be Black Metal under a different name. Even Arcturus, which had a truly great song nominated, seemed to be just generic metal growling on every song I hit. I tried to two or three other random bands and can't even remember their names.

...in retrospect, I should have tried searching for best Avant Garde Metal Bands and looking for an actual list judged by people who knew what they were talking about instead of clicking results at random.

*tries that, running into "Land Animal by Bent Knee"*

Well that's at least different. I don't think I'm a fan, but it's unique and experimental and not at all growl-yelling, so it's more what I had in mind.



Played some random DM DOKURO remixes. Actually listened to the full ten minutes of the Wrong Number Song to see if anything happened in it... not the best use of my time, I suppose.

The most interesting one, to me, is that he did a NiGHTS remix--original Saturn game, not the Wii sequel that I try not to remember.





I hadn't realized just how strongly memories of that soundtrack would hit me. Back in the day, I used to do speedruns of NiGHTS & Sonic R; All S-Ranks for NiGHTS, All Chaos Emeralds & All Characters Unlocked & First Place All Courses runs for Sonic R. Not on any sort of serious level, never even actually timing myself, just running through the games on a nightly basis.

I still listen to Sonic R music on a regular basis, but the only NiGHTS song I still keep around is the end credits theme (both Kids & Adult versions), so I don't think I've heard much of the soundtrack in quite some time... that was more emotional than I had expected, though considering how many times I finished that game, I really shouldn't have been surprised.



I wonder if would be in bad form to @ Bane and ask if he could think of any other Coheed and Cambria songs as experimental as Number City? I'm becoming increasingly obsessed with that song this past week, listening to it multiple times per day... it truly is quite wonderful and unique. Just everything about it: The heavily computerized voice sample, the awkward shift in tempo and music style at the end, the crying baby, the counting, just everything--it stands out so well as being a unique experience and while it's just one part of a larger story, it feels rather complete unto itself.

As I mentioned, the follow-up song (Gravity's Union, IIRC, which I may not) felt...far too normal in comparison. Certainly not bad, of course, but it doesn't live up to the expectations set by Number City. I should do the research myself, but combing through their entire discography in search of unique experiences feels a bit beyond what I can commit to at the moment.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

oh, i'm just now realizing that civ phaze iii is decidedly modern classical too which MIGHT be a turnoff for raetsel?!?

Jupiter, Bringer of Jolility got into the top 70, so it's not like the entire genre is doomed to be last place fodder.

Minor Updates

Threw Civilization Phaze III on for background music while I was working on things today. Not the best way to experience it, I know, but I needed something and figured it would work well enough. Didn't get through all of it, but from what I heard, the album seems pleasant enough.

"Get A Life" was so good that I had to drop everything I was doing and devote my full attention to the song; everything else was fine, there was never a point of "I don't want to listen to this", but also nothing else so amazing that it actively distracted me from my work.

I do plan on giving it a more...detailed listen eventually, along with the other Zappa works mentioned, though I'll be busy for at least a few days.



"Number City" has been getting a lot of play from me the past few days. Probably had that ranked a bit too low, should have had it somewhere in the top 10.

Consider anything related to Kevin Barnes and his band, of Montreal, off the list. I'm done with him and actively wish to not discuss that topic any further. The nice part about being done with someone is not having to waste the energy.

Stuffed into blocks so I don't have to scroll past his name each time I come to this topic.

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I'm not really sure how to hype things up, but I'm here and making an attempt to cheer you on!
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Tag-o-rama.
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Make a Good Mega Man Level 2 - Boil Man Theme


Chrono Trigger - Undersea Palace


Final Fantasy Mystic Quest - Battle 1


Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) - Aquatic Base (Level 1)


Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: Missing Link - Archive Deletion

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Minor update:

Jazz From Hell

Best album I've heard since starting this phase of the topic. The first track, Night School, was oddly soothing and something I definitely want to keep on hand--it joins Aqua Man Theme (Mega Man 8), Credits (Mega Man 8), and Beneath the Mask (Persona 5) as one of my favorite songs to relax to.

Nothing else on the album reached that high of a level, but I enjoyed the experience from start to finish. I could definitely see myself throwing the album on whenever I want to listen to something different for a half hour or so. Great album.

...So good, in fact, that I'm considering listening to the "Civilization Phaze III" album at some point. That one's almost two hours long, so I doubt I'll go through it all in one sitting, but... well the possibility of finding another song as good as Night School is rather irresistible, ya know?
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Bowser (Super Mario Bros)
&
Yuffie Kisaragi (Final Fantasy VII)



Alex Mercer (Prototype)
&
Missile (Ghost Trick)
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Marshmallow unicorns forever!

In light of tonight's announcement that Roman Reigns is suffering from leukemia, my earlier post about hating him is now in rather bad taste. I would like to clarify that I did not, and do not, wish any harm on Reigns himself and truly hope he can make a recovery.

Mr Lasastryke posted...

alice in chains is a good band. interesting how wikipedia describes them (among other things) as "sludge metal," which i always think of as one of the bad kinds of metal. guess it isn't necessarily bad after all!

I don't think I've ever heard of sludge metal before this post. </.<



Song Updates

I was in the mood for something heavier and non-happy, and Wikipedia's description of "Dirt" told me that's what I was going to be getting. Death, the Vietnam war, a lotta heroin, and "the sickest, darkest, most fucked up and heaviest thing Cantrell could write."

...Well those aren't usually my sorta topics, but today seemed to be an exception, so I figured I'd get that album out of the way now.

I like "Them Bones", "Rooster", and "Would?". I also appreciated the album giving a better idea of who Layne Staley was--there was a lot of talk about Rainier Fog's title track with people believing that at least some of the lyrics were dealing with his death, and since I didn't know anything about him, that didn't really mean a lot at the time... this album went a long way towards explaining things.

Quite a heavy album though, don't really feel energized to listen to any other songs after it or talk about the songs at any kinda length, kinda just want to rest a bit.



I did tell YouTube to randomly select one song from Mycro's playlist though, it picked Brain Wash from Pulseman:



Definitely interesting and I feel it's exactly what I wanted to listen to at the moment, coincidentally enough.
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Princess Rosalina (Super Mario Galaxy)
&
Princess Peach (Super Mario Bros.)

Garrus Vakarian (Mass Effect)
&
Leon Kennedy (Resident Evil 2)





Don't like voting for a team with two characters so similar, but I dislike voting against Peach even more, so... yeah.
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Ooh, an entire topic series of mystery songs! I may poke around those eventually...

Minor Updates

Wanted to listen to a normal album as a palette cleanser after yesterday's experimentation with Aphex Twin & ...whatever that folk metal band I liked was called, I'm realizing neither of us ever actually said their name?

*checks*

Agalloch. Reminds me of Fraggle Rock, but let's not go down that train of thought at the moment. Point is, wanted an album more traditional than that.

Not many really normal albums on ZA'LIST, so I went with "Rainier Fog" ; I'd actually clicked a second song from that album at random back on Day 1 of the nominations since I liked So Far Under so much, so I figured I basically knew what I was in for.

...and I did! Album was basically exactly what I expected it to be.

Highly enjoyed "The One You Know", feel that competes with "So Far Under" for best track on the album. Also very pleased by the Wikipedia article for that first song, as one of the band gave an almost perfect response when questioned on what it meant:

.It's always really difficult for me to lay out what it is. Cause I'd rather you tell me and not even tell me, it be whatever it is to you. And I'm also a little selfish too, I like to keep what it is for me as well. The cool part of songwriting, I think, and the challenge of it is taking something personal that is internal and making it universally translatable to everybody.

See! This guy gets it!



The title track, Rainier Fog, was also pretty good though I don't particularly wish to discuss it.

Red Giant is also good, though it's kinda...like..."oh hey, it's the fifth or sixth best song on this album, yay?".

Chunk of songs in the middle, blah blah blah.

Never Fade was the previously mentioned random song I'd already heard, which is obviously not bad--if it were, I wouldn't have bothered committing to listening to the rest of the album, much less going for two albums.

All I Am joins The One You Know & So Far Under as the best songs on the album.

"So Far Under" = "All I Am" = "The One You Know" > "Rainier Fog" > Never Fade > Red Giant > Others? On a casual first listen for most of those songs anyway.



Also went through a variety of Rob Hubbard songs. I liked Ace 2 and Flash Gordon, but his best work has to be Mega Apocalypse:



It's rather long going on for well over seven minutes, but there's enough variety in the music itself that it never feels like it's dragging on or becoming dull. It's quite impressive.
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King of All Cosmos (Katamari)
&
Monokuma (Danganronpa)

Tear Grants (Tales of the Abyss)
&
Vergil (Devil May Cry 3)
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Didn't get around to listening to too much today, but a few minor updates:



I apparently really liked "Ranunculus" actually, having gone back to it multiple times the past few days.

Also gone back to Scatman John's "Everybody Jam!" a few times; while the initial watch was slightly painful from triggering flashbacks to so many different points in time--a song created in the 90s, by an artist that I first heard in the 00s, which is about a different artist I first heard in the 80s, who died in the 70s, which I'm hearing for the first time in the 10s... that did a pretty good job frying my mind--it's actually quite nice now that I've had time to adjust to it.

"I Am The Wooden Doors" was interesting, though I feel the singer's voice was a bit wasted on it. It's a great metal voice, don't get me wrong, managing a good inhuman growl while still being easy enough to understand... I just wish it was used on a gimmick like Nekrogoblin. His voice and a nonhuman gimmick may hit greatest of all time status.

"... And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth" fared much better for me. I lucked out with that YouTube being the first suggestion for another song by that band; nice atmospheric music, very good lyrics that deal with a mythology that I have no experience with, that voice being used to tell a mythological story about the end of the world just works so perfectly... I've gone back and listened to it three times today alone. I definitely owe you for pointing this band out to me, thank you!

Mr Lasastryke posted...

nice. i'll note that within the electronic music genre he's a very diverse artist - his music ranges from rather abrasive glitchy music to very easy-on-the-ears ambient music.

You definitely were not kidding on that point. Scrolling through YouTube links at random, the first song I hit was some nice ambient background music... not amazing, but I could see it being nice to have on when I was working on something, can't recall the song's name.

I wanted to find something louder and YouTube/Google suggested "Come To Daddy", so I felt compelled to click it. ...I can't complain as that was literally what I asked for, but a bizarre horror metal parody thing was unexpected and I have no idea how I feel about it.

Switched over to Spotify which suggested Avril 14th, putting us back into the ambient background music category.

Clicked an album and song at random and hit "Come On You Slags". It was weird and different, and basically what I was looking for when I started searching... though the fact that it samples porn makes it a bit awkward? Sorta? I haven't decided how I feel about that song either, though it's unique enough that I'd probably categorize the feelings as "generally positive-ish"?

Will probably click more songs on a different day. Considering how different the few songs I've heard are, I feel like I can just pick something of theirs at random whenever I'm in the mood for something really different.



After that, I spent the rest of my dedicated music time just listening to older songs from the ranking itself that I wanted to hear again (Sorrow, Real World, Hrafntinna for the sake of comparing it to that Death of the Earth song I mentioned earlier, Ranunculus which wasn't part of the ranking but was posted before the ranking ended so I'm counting it anyway...). More tomorrow and what not.
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I'll try looking at some of Rob Hubbard's work later tonight.

I'll definitely look at spider at some point (may save it to use a break next time I get a little burned out on an album) and make a note about them being multiple people.

I feel like I've heard of Aphex Twin, but none of the song titles seem familiar... I'll add them to the list.
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Third Eye Blind (Third Eye Blind) [Part 2]

After that, I was honestly kinda burned out... wanted to listen to a different band and come back to this later, but persisted on for another four tracks. The result is that I almost fell asleep and don't really remember tracks 6 through 9, at which point I did take a break.



Anthill [Part 1]

Say what you want about bunbleman, but he provides something different.

"fisherking" was okay.

"fissure queen" was what I was looking for. It starts off kinda ordinary, but that transition starting at around 2:47... that ominous atmosphere and that static, yes, this song is exactly what I wanted. I still prefer focus tous (I'll admit the video helped focus), but that was definitely an A+.



Third Eye Blind [Part 3]

Not sure if the end of the album is truly much greater than the middle or if I was just re-energized enough to focus, but "London" was good.

"I Want You"... has the misfortune of being wedged between songs I like.

"The Background", "Motorcycle Drive By", and "God of Wine" are the three best songs on the album. I'd probably say Motorcycle > Background > Wine > Semi-Charmed Life > Narcolepsy? On a very casual first listen, with no attempt to look anything up about the songs other than Jumper.

Not a bad album, though not what I was expecting. I'd barely even heard of the band, so I honestly didn't know they had songs I'd heard before and it was kinda surreal running into those two popular songs. That gave it a rather strong opening; they also saved the best for last, letting the album close on a high note.

The middle... well, I tend to get burned out listening to a bunch of songs by the same artist in a row, so albums usually lose me at some point. I'll try listening to those songs again in a few days, see how they go over when I'm less burned out on the band.



Oh yeah, I also listened to "Tattoo of the Sun" since it was included in the Japanese release of the album. Not bad, but not as good as the trio of songs that closed out the original version of the album.

All in all, not a bad experience. There were some definite high points; I think you made the right call with which song from the album to nominate, though some of the others would have gotten decent scores too.



Anthill [Part 2]

Decided to go through "hellride simulation center" before breaking for the night. A bit too chaotic, even for me, I'm afraid. It actually reminds me of that video where someone tries to convert the data from Sonic CD into an audio track:



I ran into that while looking up the Sega CD Warning message, but had to make a point to not mention it before now. Honestly I find the first minute of Data Track rather interesting, but if I posted that and directly told everyone that I actively enjoyed listening to parts of that noise, it really would have given away the high placement of "focus tous". </.<
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Marshmallow unicorns forever!

Mr Lasastryke posted...

...this definitely makes me want to check out more evans stuff. i assume he's european? ocean was a british company and this song just has that western european VGM style (like the music by the follin brothers, david wise and jeroen tel).

Good catch, Google tells me he's British. I also hadn't realized how many VGM artists I was interested in were European... that does provide an interesting starting point for future searches. If I start with computer games developed in Europe, I may have better odds of finding what I seek. Thank you!

kateee posted...

still making my way through this

don't let it purgeeeeeee

Wasn't planning on letting it purge, since I still want to use it to update my progress listening to new things, but I'll try to make extra sure to post something every day to keep it around as long as possible.

NFUN posted...

apparently Beto O'Rourke was in a band with one of the members of Mars Volta

Really? *Googles*

Among those amused by the GOPs fruitless tactic was a former bandmate of ORourkes: Cedric Bixler-Zavala of the influential post-hardcore band At The Drive-In, and later The Mars Volta, among others

...I really should have seen that one coming by now.





Updates

I listened to some more Let's Eat Grandma songs yesterday, but they left so little impact that I'd forgotten I'd heard any of them until I saw them all pop up in my YouTube suggestions today. Hot Pink was somewhat interesting, as it didn't sound like any of the other songs I'd heard by the band... not sure if I'd say I like it, but it stands out enough that I wouldn't mind listening to it again. On a related question:



How would you describe the music starting at around the 50 second mark? The only word that comes to my mind is "industrial", but I'm not entirely sure I'm using that correctly.



Third Eye Blind (Third Eye Blind) [Part 1]

As the first album to get added to my list, it seemed like the best place to start with. It was an interesting experience:

"Losing a Whole Year" wasn't bad, but didn't leave much of an impression.

I recall preferring "Narcolepsy" over the first song, but forgot much of it due to the next song... wouldn't mind hearing it a second time to refresh my memory.

"Semi-Charmed Life". Huh. Heard it a lot, but I never knew the band name, or very many of the lyrics, or the name of the song. It was weird learning that this was the band and what all of the lyrics actually were... a good weird, but still weird.

"Jumper" is another song that gets played constantly. Again, didn't know the band or the name of the song, though I at least knew the lyrics. Did not know it was about some killing themselves because they were gay, so, that song is somehow even more of a downer than I assumed. Song is way too catchy for something like that.

Didn't really care for "Graduate"--not bad, but it felt out of place? After Jumper I wanted either something upbeat to perk me back up or for the album to continue being depressing... a rather loud song about the fear of not growing up doesn't seem to fit here--think it would work better playing before Jumper. Opinion of song is probably unfairly influenced by the songs immediately preceding it.

*continued soon-ish*
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Marshmallow unicorns forever!

A very belated thank you to everyone who nominated and a double thank you to everyone who followed along with the topic! I meant to say something to that effect last post, but apparently forgot... sorry about that.

Anyway, I listened to several things today, let's see if I can remember enough to comment on them:

Future Foe Scenarios

Pretty good. I like the debate over the meaning of the song, if it's about politics or relationships, there's a decent amount of things to think about here. I don't love it, but I think it'd probably be somewhere in the top 50%.



10-20-40

She has a great voice. I wouldn't have thought a song dealing with antidepressants would be something I wanted, but this is good.

"See they don't understand
Don't know who I am
But do I?"

Is a particularly good line.



Honey

...what?



Tintin on the Moon

I've mentioned liking the sounds of music from old computers and this is no exception. I'm not sure if I've heard it before, but I like it and Jeroen Tel just seems like a good guy. This song inspired lots of covers and he always seems very polite to all of his fans.

"Thanks for remixing one of my finest compositions on Commodore 64.
JT in Space. <3 (bro-hug) "

That's just so sweet. Tracked down a few of his other songs; Cybernoid's title screen was pretty great and apparently created before he even turned 16, which is kinda mind blowing. A couple others I can't remember, but what I was most amazed by was the song being played live for a crowd of people:



After hearing Tim Follin dismiss the entire genre, seeing Til proudly get on stage and play this song for his fans... it was incredibly heartwarming. While I think I've heard enough for list purposes, I may continue to seek out more of his music in the future just because I really like him.



Unused Track 2

This is actually the track that made me want to hear more of Dean Evans work and Ocean Software games in general. This track is so completely amazing.

Diving

Now this one is new to me and also great! Tried a few other random songs by Evans and wasn't as crazy about any of them, but those two songs are amazing enough that I may want to continue searching through his work in hopes of finding anything as good as them.



Jonathan Dunn Songs

Tried several of them since Robocop theme is one of my all time favorite songs ever, but none of his other work seemed to come even close to it... though I am intrigued by Darkman Title Screen:



No indication as to which system this song comes from or if it's a cover or something, but it's interesting... think I'm done looking for music by him for now, but I am glad that I found this one song.



Echo (Yukari Album)

Wasn't on my list, but "Just Friends" was so incredible that as soon as I saw the entire album was on Bandcamp, I had to drop everything and go listen to it. None of the other tracks approach that level of greatness, but I love her voice and style, so it was worth listening to anyway.
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Marshmallow unicorns forever!