Messages

I'm currently listening to this:

Just started, so far the first track is cool.

Yes!

This is very funny, I love it.  Not a bad track, either.

My favorite autotune song is the surfer guy.  Crazy to think it was 10 years ago:

Funny, sure, but actually a really good track.  I also like the Carl Sagan autotunes.

Here's what I was listening to before that:

Brothers Johnson - Strawberry Letter #23

It's a cover of Shuggie Otis.  Thought about putting this in the other thread about cover songs, but I don't like it more than the original.  Both have their appeal, but the funky bassline in this cover version is worth noting for our earlier conversation.

Lots of stuff to check out here, will try to make some time for it!

Shame on me for forgetting about Mark Sandman when were were talking about bassists. Morphine were one of the most peculiar bands of the "alternative" 90s era, consisting of just a two-stringed bass, drums and saxophone. Like so many others, Mr. Sandman left us too soon, after collapsing on-stage from a heart attack back in '99

Good picks from Morphine!  I guess I didn't realize the specifics of their instrumentation before.  Fascinating.  Reminds me a bit of the aforementioned Soul Coughing, Ben Folds Five, or even Local H or the Presidents of the United States of America.

Aesop Rock! I have a couple of his albums too! Check out Kirby, unless you already know it.

El-P saw Camu Tao's album released, after he died from cancer.

I'm not even going to attempt to label that genre of that album, but I love it so much! Especially this song with its commodore 64 style synths.

I had not heard Kirby, but now I love it!  Makes me want to actually compose songs about my cats (rather than just improving to them around the house).

And the Camu Tao track does have a great chiptune vibe.

So here's another couple of things I was listening to (2 completely different styles, but both really good):

GRiZ - Griztronics (ft. Subtronics)

El Michels Affair - Enfant (ft. The Shacks)

[HIP HOP]

Moving away from metal, you can't speak of best rock bass players without mentioning Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano:

That Violent Femmes track is great, and a good showcase of the bass skill for sure.  I wasn't familiar with much more than a few of their more well known songs (Blister in the Sun, Kiss Off, and Gone Daddy Gone).  Here's another fun one:

The Violent Femmes - Dance, Motherfucker, Dance

re: drummers , some great posts there form you guys!

Rupak is amazing.  I love a great tabla player.  And that Venetian Snares drumming is fantastic.  Thanks for sharing.  I don't know that I would have believed it was live drumming without the video.

Probably one of the best bass players ever, Jaco Pastorius:

Charles Mingus, fantastic double bass player and composer:

Both of these guys are incredibly skilled players.  Great tracks here.

Here's something with a double bass, although the talent is nothing like Mingus.  Just solid bass grooves:

Soul Coughing - Super Bon Bon

A great band with nice drums as well.

You people are too industrial gothic for me Actually I'm not much into music in the first place :/

Gotta love Mussorgsky.  This one was dark, but sweetly romantic.  Everyone should be familiar with his most famous work (and my favorite classical piece of all time), which was featured in Fantasia.  This is a decent performance of it (the harp could have been a bit louder):

Modest Mussorgsky - Night on Bald Mountain

Rockin' Sidney:
Video has a slight glitch in the second song. Interesting artist that I missed along the way.

This was fun, and nice to see a different instrument featured!  Reminds me of a few years ago working with the RFD television station and their Mollie B Polka Party show on the overnight shift.

Dact, I've heard some cool randoms (at least randoms to me) play on that NPR Tiny Desk Concert.

Alright so long as we're in random town at the moment:

Yeah, I've discovered a few there myself, and seen some other good ones perform.

And Neil Young is classic.  A band that reminds me of Neil is Built To Spill (possibly because of the vocals):

Built To Spill - Distopian Dream Girl

There's Nothing Wrong With Love is a fantastic album.  In fact, this band has put out a lot of stellar music.

HIP HOP

I stumbled across this song, really love it! It was vaguely familiar and I didn't know why. Turns out it was in a Tony Hawks game!

HARD ROCK

I had never heard of Poppy before january, and while I'm not so keen on most of her earlier electronic pop songs, this alternative album of hers, "I disagree", released earlier this year, blew me away. This chorus is catchy as hell.

MORE HARD ROCK YESH
This song is also super catchy, and the video feels really 90's, I love it!

ELECTRONIC ROCK
Loved these folks for years. This particular song stands out for me on my first album listen on their new works.

ALTERNATE DANCE?
Not as well mastered/mixed as the others, because this is by me, lol. Still, I've really impressed myself with this beast! For fans of Prodigy, I guess?

El-P is great.  Here's my favorite of his (and there is an instrumental available as well):

El-P (ft. Aesop Rock & Ill Bill) - Delorean

"Great Scott!"

And that Poppy song reminds me of Sevendust.  I've said it before in this thread, so I guess a lot of metal does:

Sevendust - Denial

I dig that Birthday Massacre track.  Good stuff.

Your own track is good, too!  I can definitely see the Prodigy influence.  Thanks for sharing it!

El-P is a total boss! Company Flow's "Funcrusher Plus" is a cult classic, and his first solo album "Fantastic Damage" was absolutely groundbreaking in terms of production. I'm really happy that after all these years he's gaining the mainstream recognition he deserves with Run The Jewels.

Another great El-P track, and yeah, Fantastic Damage is sweet.

Oh heh, guess I should have mentioned I have 2 or 3 El-P albums, but this song escaped me. I wasn't into him during PS2 era of that Tony Hawks song. Run the jewels are good but I prefer El-P's solo work. But yeah, at least people know who I'm talking about by mentioning RTJ!

I agree.  As good as Run the Jewels are, I still prefer his earlier work.

So here's what I've been listening to lately:

Bonny Light Horseman - The Roving

Nice and mellow.

Khruangbin & Leon Bridges 'C-Side'

Laid back, great bass tones.

Ohmme - 3 2 4 3

Some good modern alternative rock.

And a few older ones:

John Frusciante - The Slaughter

CKY - Sink Into the Underground

Enjoy!

Moving away a bit from the Flea/Tool/Rush/Primus cliches...

Yeah, they may be cliche, but all are tremendously talented.  When posting a quick reference of bass greats, those would have to be mentioned.

A bassist (and artist) that I've been loving for the past few years now is Thundercat.  He does great solo work, and has played bass a lot with Flying Lotus.  Here's my favorite of his tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngyk7CJbJyw
Also, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhVgbZdMdb0
His bass chops start to shine through on the second song here.

I'd argue that bass players are even less acknowledged. Any normie can listen to Tool or Soundgarden's Spoonman (great choices!) and go "oh man, dem drums are so awesome", but when was the last time you heard a non-music-nerd go "ah yes, such exquisite bass playing". That's right: never

I was thinking about that as well.  Guitarists and vocalists get all the love.  We did have one of the best bassists a couple of pages back with Victor Wooten, but here are a few more of the obvious choices:

Tool - The Pot (Justin Chancellor)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civuoU_NE38
Les Claypool - The Awakening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9HA1CUltjQ
Atoms for Peace - Before Your Eyes (Flea)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWrUEsVrdSU
Of course Flea also does great work with Red Hot Chili Peppers.  He gets a lot of work, including performing the bass on 9 of 10 songs on the Mars Volta Album I referenced above.  And most people don't know, he played bass on this one:

Young MC - Bust A Move
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy4FXhkm6Nw
And for Rush, see YYZ above, or listen to this classic tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPBinohXHLc
Again, just some from the top of my head.  I'll have to start keeping a nice list of tracks to post up here for more drum and bass love.

OK, it's been too long since I was in here again, so another long post:

Catching up on tracks from this thread with some lovely IPA's. Dact, thanks for the intros. Honey Dijon reminds me of that unmistakable 90's New Age style, like Deep Forest, Enigma, etc, 2000-era dot com nerds all the way!

No problem, glad you enjoyed!  And thanks for posting the Deep Forest, that's good stuff!  And Enigma, of course!

The Pulp Fiction soundtrack is fantastic.  I have enjoyed the soundtracks of all of Tarantino's films.  Since you posted surf rock, here's a different version of a surf rock track that appeared prominently in Pulp Fiction:

Dick Dale and Gary Hoey - Miserlou '97

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDPpL8upm-k

The funkiest track of Pet Shop Boys since now. They're getting old but still clubbin'.

Haha long reign the dynasty! Let me share the track that introduced me to them:

Thanks for posting Pet Shop Boys.  The only track I had heard by them before was this one:

Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3j2NYZ8FKs
So everyone has likely heard that, but maybe not this song that it obviously inspired:

Flight of the Conchords - Inner City Pressure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUAcN9UCnbU
Of course, that one borrows its title from this awesome track:

Goldie - Inner City Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anQgfwdZUkE

From my playlist today:

Angelo Badalamenti is great.  Here's another, from the Lost Highway soundtrack, a movie that was also directed by David Lynch:

Angelo Badalamenti - Insensatez (I prefer Dub Driving, but it's a chill and relatively uneventful track so I posted this one instead)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuZvHfuyIT8

I never played this game but the song got stuck in my head. Not because it's any good. It just did.

That's got a really nice, chill backing track.  Not bad at all!

R.I.P. Manu.

Very loose.  Good stuff!

Frighter, cool track. I hear echoes of it in some of Sting's stuff, i.e. the outro session here from 4 minutes onwards:

I like Sting (and the Police), but hadn't heard this track before.  Not bad at all.  Kind of a weird Western thing going on.  And I can see the connection between the outro here and the Manu Dibango track.  Thanks for posting!

- (Frank Zappa)

I love a lot of Zappa's stuff.  This one's hilarious, and the guitar work is incredible.  Here's one of my favorite Zappa songs covered on the G3 live album (Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Eric Johnson), my first exposure to the song:

G3 - My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZXt1djCkQU

- (Alica Cooper)

Good track.  I'd love to hear an instrumental version.  I mean, it's fine with vocals, but I think an instrumental would be awesome (and half of it is instrumental already anyways).

- (David Bowie)

Bowie is always good.  This one is not one that I usually listen to, but I do like it.  May have to add it into rotation.

And since I posted a track from Lost Highway earlier, I'll just post Bowie's song from the same soundtrack.  In fact, it's from the intro to the movie, just like that Dick Dale track above from Pulp Fiction.  This is one of my all-time favorite Bowie tracks:

David Bowie - I'm Deranged

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjd7FQIWnGk

I guess this is the kind of stuff nobody else around here likes lol, but I can't stop listening to the new Ulcerate single. sO GOOD.

Heavy and slow.  Nice stuff.  Not as into this kind of stuff as I used to be, and never really got into metal with this kind of vocal, but the music is very good.  As far as stuff I'm into, it kind of reminds me of a combination of these two tracks, but slower, and less prog / more doom:

Mastodon - Crystal Skull (the entire Blood Mountain album is amazing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11eis4XVfVE
Meshuggah - Shed (Gotta love a song hat starts with a 19 second scream)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjzIBI3jkKY

If you haven't seen it, you need to watch the music video (the guys who made it went on to direct the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie):

Through power of association it also made me think of this:

That video is awesome, always enjoyed it.  Blur is great, and this is one of their best.  They've got so many, like Girls and Boys, Song 2, There's No Other Way, Crazy Beat, etc.  Here's a Blur track I enjoy, that leads into Damon Albarn's work with Gorillaz (though it came out after Gorillaz first album):

Blur - Jets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCuw18yIRjE
There's a bit of horn here that reminds me a bit of the manic horn at the end of Angelo Badalamenti's Red Bats with Teeth from Lost Highway.

And thanks for posting that Belle and Sebastian song.  Nice and mellow.  I can see how the you got here from Coffee and TV.

I should probably post this in what grinds my gears, but as it relates to something you just mentioned and it being somewhat relative i will mention it here.

Like so many other folks, ive been a huge music fan all my life and one thing throughout that time that has bugged me is the lack of any significant recognition to the drummer.

To me the drummer is as important as any other element in a band if not more so,  they are the conductors in a conductorless group, they are the rhythm makers, the time keepers, they endure the most physical work, they are pushed to the background in more ways then one, yet through modern music history their names, skills and achievements are so often last to be recognized and respected.

Respect and thanks going out to all the forgotten rhythm gurus out there in time and space

You are absolutely right.  Drummers do not get their due.  So, here are some prime tracks from bands with tremendously good drummers:

Rush - YYZ (RIP Neil Peart)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdpMpfp-J_I
Tool - Rosetta Stoned (Danny Carey, in my opinion he is the best living drummer.  Maybe this will be something heavy for Laura Hunt and something funny for Slasher)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnlhVVwBfew
The Mars Volta - Son Et Lumiere / Inertiatic ESP (Jon Theodore)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL5sfl4H1w
Those are probably my top 3 drummers.  Of course, prog drumming always seems impressive because of the interesting time signatures, but these guys are still the top of their craft.

A few other notable drum songs:

The Smashing Pumpkins - Geek U.S.A. (Jimmy Chamberlin)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K79LRBXJOqM
Soundgarden - Spoonman (Matt Cameron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0_zzCLLRvE
Pearl Jam - In My Tree (Jack Irons)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYVLfFZmEg
And you gotta love Dave Grohl.  He manages to be the highlight of everything he plays on.

Nirvana - Drain You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k96sAezF-VE
Foo Fighters - I'll Stick Around (chose this one over Everlong, which is a much better song with its own incredible drums, but the first album doesn't get enough credit)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_rTTsZZ9KE
Queens of the Stone Age - A Song for the Dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrA2KLtAn1A
Just a few off the top of my head.  I guess you can see where my expertise is.  So here's one last track from something other than a rock band:

The Roots - You Got Me (ft. Erykah Badu) (?uestlove, particularly at the end of the song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJCHeEQV454
But anyways, what was I listening to before all of this?

Ultraísta - Harmony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA5xPZhhFBI
Hard to evaluate drums nowadays because most music has drum programming and layers and so on and so forth, but the drums here are great and remind me of Radiohead:

Radiohead - Reckoner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPW-eo0aE_g
Sorry for going on for so long again!

How good was (is?) The Cure?

So good!

Indeed.  Great pick.  There's a cover by the Get Up Kids that I really enjoy, though I'll never say it's better than the original.  Just great in a different way:

I'm listening to this:

Lustral - Everytime (Way Out West Sunrise Mix)

Sent me down so many rabbit holes there. We listened to the whole playlist of Radiodread's OK Computer cover, which was surprisingly amazing. I wouldn't have thought those tracks would crossover to reggae at all.

Thanks for the introduction to Yellow Magic Orchestra ~ love it! Daft Punk are clearly a degree of creative iteration on sounds of the YMO era.

In turn, maybe YMO took some influence from jazz fusion of the era:

I love that dated digital sound:

Thanks for posting some tracks.  I hadn't heard too much of Yellow Magic Orchestra, and love what you posted above.  And Chick Corea is such a great talent.  That's some good jazz.  Here's another Return to Forever / Chick Corea tune that I'm particularly fond of (from an album that reminds me of early King Crimson):

Radiodread is really cool, and I was surprised at first as well.  They also do the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  This is my favorite from the Beatles album (mostly because of what's different):

I'd check out Lovely Rita as well, if you have a chance.  They also have a full album cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon that matches the tempo all the way through so that you can do the Dark Side of Oz synchronicity with their album as the soundtrack.

And here are some tracks I was listening to as I composed this response:

You're Dead by Norma Tanega (heard this in What We Do in the Shadows)

H34T RISES by Nilüfer Yanya

808 State of Mind by Honey Dijon (featuring Shaun J Wright and Alinka)

Sweet - our weekend here in Arabia (Fri-Sat) starts in about four hours. Going to be balcony, beer and these tracks...

Hope that worked out well for you!

[Rioji Ikeda]

Nice - apparently that video is Tokyo (according to the comments).

Air's Lost in Kyoto:

There's also a background/study/work version 

Can anyone share a cool track that's actually by a Japanese artist? I've already beat you to Pon Pon Pon, so something else please 

Nice chill track as always from Air.  The other version, a little too chill.

And Pon Pon Pon was entertaining, to say the least.

I don't listen to a lot of Japanese stuff. Just a few bands or artists that I trust. One such group is Ogre You Asshole. I fell in love with them when I saw them support Polysics in 2007.

Some nice shoegaze jam stuff there.

I've been listening to Rioji Ikeda a lot these days, since I'm working on a "clicks and cuts" type of playlist:

If that's too cold, maybe try some DJ Krush: (beat enters at 0:50 if long intros bore you):

Even more chill is Nujabes. Not quite my thing, but...:

On the other hand, if you're in a fuck you kind of mood, Merzbow is your friend:

Boris are very, very, VERY cool. "Pink" is their all-time classic and less experimental that what they're doing now, but it's still a trip:

And of course... Babymetal:

That first Rioji Ikeda one sounds like someone fiddling with the audio cable in their amplifier.

I like DJ Krush.  Reminds me of Kid Koala, or DJ Shadow's fantastic Endtroducing..... album (which is made up almost entirely of samples):

I really enjoyed the chill Nujabes, thanks for posting it!

Merzbow was pretty chaotic.  A bit too much for me.

Boris is a bit noisy / fuzzy.  Pink is a good tune underneath it all, and they are definitely talented musicians.  I feel like I would enjoy a cover more.  Perhaps this version would interest classic gamers:

I liked the production value on Absolutego more, but Pink is a better song.  Absolutego reminds me of a slightly heavier Sevendust with less pop sensibilities.

And someone had to post Babymetal.  I work with a guy who is damn near obsessed with them.  I don't listen to much metal anymore, but this is a pretty good, catchy track.

Thanks for the leads my dudes.

Maybe it is the abstract clicking, but it reminded me of one of those old Pleix vids:

That was only slightly unnerving and quite glitchy, but interesting to watch.

That is a japanese guy that I really cheered for back when I wanted to learn how to play guitar. I still think he is pretty awesome

A song that I recently discovered and like a lot is this one:

And something entirely different that runs on repeat for me at the moment is this song from Frozen2 even though I did not see the movie. It´s just so calming and nice.

The Miyavi track is very cool.  That's an interesting skill set in the intro.

As a huge Edgar Allan Poe fan, it's hard not to enjoy The Raven.  And Alan Parsons Project are great as well, so this checks a couple of boxes quite nicely.  As is often the case with me, I checked out the demo version and like it a bit more in some ways.

The song from Frozen 2 is good stuff.  It reminds me of Civilization 4's intro music:

Cheers Racoon. That slap guitar intro on the Minyavi track is crazy. 

Another unreal talent is Victor Wooten (wait until he gets going):

Yes.  Wooten is ridiculously talented.

Yesterday this song won the Festival della Canzone Italiana 2020:

That was really pretty.  I can see how it won an award.

I need a bit of relaxation...

One of Radiohead's best songs.  This version was really cool and jazzy.  I love the vocal part in the middle, but after that when they rock out the ending was even better.  Good find!

Nice! I didn't look at the name before pressing play. Nice surprise 

Here's another one you might also appreciate:

Nice relaxing piano cover.  It really brings out how pretty the song is, and shows off this guy's very impressive talents.

My favorite take on this track is the Easy Star All-Stars reggae version featuring Toots and The Maytals.  I just love how intense he gets in the vocal and how uplifting this feels, especially in the second verse:

As for my own Japanese music recommendations, try these:

Shibuya Morning by Supercar

Behind the Mask by Yellow Magic Orchestra

Michael Jackson did a 'cover' of this song (basically used it as a jumping-off point for a song of his own of the same name), and it's not bad.  Clapton has covered that version, too.  Good track.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble finding a link to one of my favorites, the Pizzicato Five song 「買物王」のテーマ (or "Kaimono-O" Theme, which Google translate tells me means "Shopping King", but another source says "Shopping Queen") from their 1996 album Great White Wonder.  I heard it on a local college radio station a couple years ago and used Shazam to tell me what it was.

Anyways, here's some Katamari music (because it's similar):

It's absurd how good the Katamari Damacy soundtrack is.

Sorry for the lengthy reply, but there was so much to respond to!

After all that, here is what I'm listening to right now:

Great find!  It's a really chill hip-hop beat.  I actually ripped it and listened to it on a road trip last week.

And nice call-out to Summertime Rolls.  Great track.

I'm listening to this at the moment:

I do enjoy some Crystal Castles.  Hadn't heard that song before.  I like the typical dark aesthetic.

The fan video is interesting for sure.  I'll have to find a copy of that freaky vampire movie they pulled the clips from.

I'm listening to Babes of Atlantis.  Current track is All Over Again.  Love this one.

Listening again, it seems to me like it's about "The Man," a catch-all for authority structures that have the power to upend your life: the military, drug syndicates, Hollywood...

That's always been my interpretation, but I never really sat and analyzed the lyrics.

Good track, though.

This one was playing as I responded:

In the same vein:

(This video always cracks me up. What were they thinking? Eye patches, flags and finger wagging?! Ah well, no cringe video can destroy the awesomeness of this song!)

Had to post this in response.  Perfect remake.

I will always always love Annie Lennox. Greatest thing to ever come out of Scotland.

Annie Lennox is great (and so are the Jesus and Mary Chain), but I would say Mogwai is the best music out of Scotland:

I was not familiar with that Stones song.  Thanks for posting, I really dig it.

Here's my recent listen:

And this is why I only use buy now on Ebay...

Same.

That Pink Floyd song is a great pick.  I fell in love with this one when I was 15, roughly 20 years after it was released, and it still sounds amazing.  Easily among their top songs.

And that track by Air is a beauty.  Spooky.  In the beginning, it somewhat reminds me of Alain Goraguer's songs from the soundtrack to Fantastic Planet (La Planète Sauvage), like this one:

It goes much further though, and has a great mood beyond the initial spookiness.  French music is great.

Sigur Rós is fantastic.  I love that album, and Olsen Olsen is one of their best.  As moody as the song can be, there's a wonderful optimism there.  Very cool video, too.  I would love to see them perform in such a beautiful setting.  I was reminded of this song when I watched The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (by Studio Ghibli) a while ago and heard this:

My favorite Sigur Rós track might be Ný Batterí:

Thanks for posting such good tunes, everyone!  Sorry for posting a collection each time.  Maybe next time I'll just post one?