What are we LISTENING to lately?

[lousy]

I picked up Musiq Soulchild's Luvanmusiq recently, for some late night romancing.

Can remind you of some of John Legend's work, but Musiq has a much better voice in my opinion. Check it out if you're into a little soul/R n' b

I'll have to check him out. I'm a pretty big John Legend fan.

[ministry88]

Listening to the Gap Band a lot lately. I think on a good day they equaled some of the more legendary bands like Parliament/Funkadelic. Actually I (slightly) prefer the Gap Band's more stripped down, hard funk style. I can listen to songs like "Party Train" and especially "Burn Rubber (Why You Wanna Hurt Me)" over and over. Grrreat stuff.

[Guest Markgway]

I must be getting old or extremely uncool.

Only artists I've heard of thus far are Aretha Franklin and Elton John!

[ministry88]

Wow Markgway. You haven't heard of Parliament or Funkadelic then? You ARE Sir Nose dVoidoffunk, aren't you?

PS: Also listening to "Velvet Underground and Nico." What an amazing album. I'm astonished a band in the '60s could release a song so uncompromisingly brutal, kinky, sexual, and harrowing. I mean, one of the songs (and the best on the album, IMO) is simply called "HEROIN"! Amazing, and amazing in its emotional honesty and experimentation.

[gravedigger666]

@work I listen radiorock which airplays lot iron maiden,metallica,foofighters,nirvana etc...at home I listen mostly ambient and trance.

[ironfistedmonk]

You like trance gravedigger! Your the first one on the forum I've seen who likes it as well. I'm listening to Paul Oakenfold's Anthems release as I type this, some absolute classics on there. I'm off to Ibiza on the 5th September, hoping to catch Above & Beyond at Cream and Armin van Buuren over there

[gravedigger666]

You like trance gravedigger! Your the first one on the forum I've seen who likes it as well. I'm listening to Paul Oakenfold's Anthems release as I type this, some absolute classics on there. I'm off to Ibiza on the 5th September, hoping to catch Above & Beyond at Cream and Armin van Buuren over there

at the moment I like most manuel le saux,digital nature,paul miller.sean tyas is always good too:D john`00`fleming and digital blonde kixxx azzz too.and whirloop.

[ministry88]

Oh don't forget me:p! Put me down as another electronica fan. Heh, I've been around long enough to remember when it was just called "techno" or "electronic music.":D

Anyways, I have to admit I don't care much for the clubbing/DJ side of techno. When I think "trance" I think of groups like Germany's Sun Electric. And I don't necessarily "chill out", I listen to ambient music. This is not meant as a slight, just an explanation and clarification of my tastes.

Some of my fave ambient artists are The Orb (UFOrb, Orb's Adventures beyond the Ultraworld and Orblivion being my fave albums), Aphex Twin (especially Selected Ambient Works vol. 2 for his ambient work, although I like all of his styles), Steve Roach, Tetsu Inoue, Biosphere, and Pete Namlook and his fax label (in my opinion, the one man who is most keeping ambient alive these days). There are also some great one-offs like Global Communication and Skylab.

For "trance" I like stuff like Plastikman (yeah yeah I know it's classified as Detroit Acid House/Detroit Techno, but it puts me in a trance anyway) or even the "krautrock" band Cluster, which to me seems more like experimental trance with its droning synths and no "traditional" instruments like guitar/bass/vocals.

*EDIT: Oops, forgot Klaus Schulze! How could I forget him?!

[ironfistedmonk]

It's hard to pigeon hole dance music (although most people on here would say it all sounds the same!) It sounds like you guys are into the more ambient, chilled vibes which is all good but I prefer the more euphoric banging big room sounds. I've been into dance (or electronic if you prefer that term) since I was about 13 years old when I first heard Charly by The Prodigy back in 1991 and I have been into dance music ever since in it's many many different forms, rave, dark side, jungle, happy hardcore, drum N bass, house, garage and especially trance music, basically anything with a groove! You can't beat that feeling at 2 O'Clock in the morning when the lights are flashing and the DJ drops a huge breakdown, everyone is smiling the hands are in the air and everything in the world is alright XD

Paul Miller and Sean Tyas are pretty good, I had the pleasure of seeing John "00" Fleming at Bakers in Birmingham in the UK a few years ago, he's pretty good and has a very intelligent style to his sets. I'm not that familiar with the scene in the US Ministry88 (I thought your name may have come from the UK dance promoter Ministry of Sound but I may be wrong?) The scene in the US is still pretty underground, it must be like when the acid house craze first hit the UK in the 80's, it's all new and this amazing sound hits you and your like WTF is this!!!! Europe and the UK has dominated the dance music scene for what seems like forever but there are some great artists coming out of the US like Sean Tyas and George Acosta.

I just wish dance music was more accepted in the mainstream and we weren't just subjected to Cascade and Basshunter every five minutes! Ponder this thought for a minute, if Beethoven and Mozart were alive today what genre of music do you think they would be involved in? I would be trancing away to their newest tunes right now!

[KUNG FU BOB]

Also listening to "Velvet Underground and Nico." What an amazing album. I'm astonished a band in the '60s could release a song so uncompromisingly brutal, kinky, sexual, and harrowing. I mean, one of the songs (and the best on the album, IMO) is simply called "HEROIN"! Amazing, and amazing in its emotional honesty and experimentation.

This is certainly a classic, powerful album. But your comment makes me think you haven't heard much 60's music! I'm curious Ministry88- how old are you? I'm guessing late 20's, early 30's? And does your user name come from the band Ministry? I love those guys.

Anyway, the 60's is when "The Revoloution" began man. Have you ever heard Codine by Donovan? Or My Generation by The Who? You know how he stutters the words in the song? "Talkin' bout my g-g-g-g-generation" The popular over-the-counter drug at the time caused this particular side effect in all the self proclaimed "moral majority" that were looking down their noses at pot and LSD users. How about White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane, Almost Cut My Hair by CSN&Y, Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Lola by The Kinks, or White Room by Cream? This stuff was all cutting edge too. That's my decade for music Brothers and Sisters. Nothing gets KFB floating towards the ceiling like some good psychedelic music!

I'll listen to almost anything though. John Coltrane, Cypress Hill, Prince, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Led Zepplin, Stones, Frank Sinatra, Lords of Acid...

Today while I worked I listened to Nirvana (Unplugged), the Blues Brothers (Complete), Queen (compilation of faves), Robert Johnson (Complete Recordings), Hendrix (Axis: Bold As Love), and the new Coldplay album (which is not "Rush of Blood", but is still very enjoyable).

[gravedigger666]

No one listens to Metal, huh...I must be the only one on here. Heavy stuff like Testament, Dimmu Borgir, Megadeth, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath,

King Diamond, SoulFly, Opeth, Slayer, Immortal, and Exodus. People should check out the hard and heavy, some of these bands might suprise you, very good for work out music at the gym, or fitness adrenaline rush. If your a hip hop guy, you probably won't dig this style, but those that arent should. Music has no limits with age, its your mind that is capable of limitless possibilities.

I can listen easily "mainstream" metal like metallica,maiden,dio,rainbow,deep purple,guns and roses,motley crue etc....listening black metal like burzum(they have really nice and dark ambient tunes also),cradle of filth no problem for me either.trance is my favourite music though.

[ministry88]

Great stuff here guys!

To Kung Fu Bob: perhaps I should clarify what I find so amazing about Velvet Underground: it's the tone. It was so prophetic in its grimness and three-dimensional outlook on the highs (literally and figuratively!) and lows of drug use. The Velvets had a uniquely dense, unrelenting and jaundiced East Coast attitude towards the brighter, more hippy-dippy "summer of love" West Coast pyschedelia. I much prefer the Velvet's more realistic (and, I would argue, more sympathetic) look at drug use as not so much a groovy mind expansion and ringing endorsement but as a desperately needed escape from the blahs or outright terrors of modern American life. Consider this line from "Heroin":

"Because a mainer to my vein

Leads to a center in my head

And then I'm better off than dead

Because when the smack begins to flow

I really don't care anymore

About all the Jim-Jim's in this town

And all the politicians makin' busy sounds

And everybody puttin' everybody else down

And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds"

Boy, that doesn't sound like a glamorization of drugs AT ALL to me! The lyrics are beautiful shades of gray: it may seem wonderful to block the uglier (and inevitable) sides of human nature out with a heroin high, but there's a suggestion here that it's tragic the singer feels it's his only way out and way to cope with life's ugliness. And the way the song self-destructs at the end instrumentally is pure genius, like the inevitable self-destruction of a drug addict who chooses to NOT affirm life by simply turning his head at the uglies of daily life and tapping another vein into numbed-out bliss, not aware of the hidden blessings that could be teased out by the more unfortunate parts of life. And yet it's also sympathetic: listening to Reed's nakedly vulnerable voice singing about the downers and outright horrors of everyday life gives me solace as I feel that way often too. So much to dissect and enjoy in just one cluster of lyrics!

It is this profound perception and three-dimensional outlook on drug use that so fascinates me about The Velvets. It was just so prophetic and philosophical in its nihilism and musical virtuosity. It's like they prophesized the death of the Hippie movement before it even got fully underway. A song like "Heroin" showed that drug use was not a way out of social or personal ills or a gateway to unparalleled mind expansion like the hippies so desperately hoped it was. Instead, it was a deadening way inward, but not towards mind expansion. It was inward to stagnation and a dis-afirmation of life via a passive denial of it. And again, the three-dimensional view of the pros and cons of drug use in the song is just so contemporary, as today the big issue of drug use in society isn't black and white but myriad shades of gray, like so many issues in today's listless, post-post-post Enlightenment West where the hope in easy black and white answers has seemingly lost to the growing realization (through sociology, technology, etc) that life may be too chaotic and complex (and perhaps pointless, but I see that as a good thing:p) to lay down a simple black-and-white plan of action to cure society's ills.

In fact, I think the Velvets were more innovative songwriters than Hendrix (gasp!). When you get right down to it, Hendrix was playing electrified blues with revolutionary guitar playing, but the song structures (however elongated and "jam session" sounding) were still somewhat conventional (sometimes quite conventional). But don't get me wrong: Hendrix introduced a new vocabulary of guitar playing AND use of studio and I still think he lives up to the hype. But try this: listen to NICO and HAVE YOU BEEN EXPERIENCED? side-to-side. Both albums came out in the US at the same time (I think) in 1967, but it's close enough anyhow. Which one, TODAY, sounds more revolutionary? I think it's Velvet Underground's.

So to sum up I think the main thing that blows me away about that song, Bob, is its brutal honesty and prophesy, which bands like Jefferson Airplane didn't have. It seems like many of the "psychedelic" bands of the 60s were more interested in recreating and recounting the psychedelic drug experience over a traditional blues structure which was definitely necessary at the time but seems to date them as they were often (but not always) glaringly lacking the profound insight, philosophy, and prophesy of The Velvets. And often they were too tied up in 60s politics and not in human nature, which never changes. Not to say we can't learn a lot from 60s politics and sociology, but I've personally been more interested in philosophy and what it means to be human. And I have heard just about every band you've mentioned (and enjoy some of them quite a bit), although admittedly not in as much depth as Velvet Underground. Basically, the fact that Velvet Underground were musically adventurous (leaving the electrified blues format of much 60s rock) AND lyrically/thematically adventurous is a hard combination to beat, and very rare indeed in rock music.

But I wasn't there. Bob, how old are YOU? I'm 24, like you guessed. Clearly I am missing much of the nuance and fervor of 60s music as I wasn't a part of it. I can only go on history and lasting influence. And I'd like to point out that influence doesn't necessarily constitute artistic merit. I am only interested in artistic merit and how emotionally engaging the music is. To me, the "big three" of 60s music are The Velvets, Frank Zappa, and Captain Beefheart for their uncompromising vision, prophetic sociological/philosophical vision, and musical experimentation/virtuosity. I'd even say that most people TODAY still aren't ready to digest some of the more extreme material of these three groups/artists.

But I'd still like to explore more 60s rock. I'm looking forward to getting into The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, perhaps the first psychedelic band (although this is hotly debated), and The Red Krayola, a supposedly way-ahead-of-its-time rock/experimental band from Houston, TX.

Also, while I agree with you that a lot of important things began musically in the '60s, I don't think you can completely say that that was where the "revolution" BEGAN. I mean, look at someone like Little Richard (well, not too closely as he's kinda scary). But that's my point: this fireball personality was a HUGE shock to the establishment and he was there BEFORE the Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, etc. Back in the FIFTIES. And he had an uncut, raw African sensuality that wasn't muted by cutie-pie white-boy Beatles music, which in my opinion, is only historically important for making true black R&B socially acceptable and "safe" for whites (and even their psychedelic and experimental stuff pales next to Zappa's or Beefheart's). And let's not forget he was GAY too! In 1950s America. Wow.

[ministry88]

To dragonsword: You are not alone! I love metal too. I remember my life changing when I bought Megadeth's "Countdown to Extinction" on tape back in 1992 (heh, in fourth grade at the time!). I liked it better than Metallica's "Black Album" then, and still prefer it to that today. Well, you can't go wrong with the Mustaine/Friedman combo.

I've listened to (and still enjoy) most of the bands you've mentioned. I especially like Testament ("New Order" is a classic Bay area thrash album), King Diamond ("Abigail" and Mercyful Fate's "Don't Break the Oath"), and Black Sabbath ("Master of Reality" and "Volume 4").

Not really a big black metal fan. My friend is hugely into it, but I don't like how chaotic it is. I've tried. Just not into it. Although good call on Burzum gravedigger. For some reason I like Burzum.

Some of my fave metal is: Sepultura, Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Loudness (great Japanese classic metal), Type O Negative (greatest "joke" band if you're in on the joke), Judas Priest, Tygers of Pan Tang (great nearly forgotten NWOBHM band, with some killer John Sykes guitar work), Helloween, Anthrax, Accept, Candlemass, Flotsam and Jetsam, Electric Wizard, Carcass, and Deicide.

I have a real soft spot for Floridian death metal of the early-mid 90s. Towering above the rest for me is Death, headed by the legendary Chuck Schuldiner (RIP). Just an amazingly musical talent. I've played some of Death's stuff for people who aren't into metal and even they are impressed. Just what metal should be: powerful, visceral, energizing, and thoughtful (yes it's true!). Also can't forget CYNIC. They are perhaps the most accomplished of the short-lived metal avant-garde movement in Florida. It's like heavy metal jazz fusion! Some songs even have soothing female vocals and a weird vocoder. Just amazingly fluid and musical despite its lofty musical ambitions. Absolutely amazing.

EDIT: I also love Whitesnake. SHUT UP. Coverdale is a great singer and as far as a Led Zeppelin clone goes, these guys are great.

[ministry88]

Ah but I do LOVE Opeth! "Still Life" is my fave of theirs. Saw them live a few years ago in Worcester, MA and they rocked for sure. Great show!

[Guest ekisha]

I prefer metalcore / hardcore to any other music,but i can listen to everything from funk to grindcore.My favourite band is Slipknot...no i mean the old Slipknot(last good album is IOWA),now they are too soft.Also Soulfly,As I Lay Dying and Cradle Of Filth are cool bands.

________

Karin1

[Asmo]

Dragging this back up, sorry.

I'm a metalhead myself, not so much into the 'core' genres but I have pretty eclectic tastes, what's in my cd player at the moment:

Boris - Flood (excellent post-rock styled sludgy ambient doom metal from Japan. Boris are chameleons, they change styles with almost every release. Simply brilliant!)

Arson Anthem - Arson Anthem (blistering hardcore from Mike Williams, Philip Anselmo and Hank Williams III)

Grimfist - 10 Steps to Hell (Brutal black/death/Pantera influenced groove metal from Norway)

[Drunken Monk]

The Beefeaterz and Dirty Dike. Fantastic slices of British hip hop.

[shaolin drunkard]

Iron Maiden:D

[jiujitsu77]

iron maiden rules!

right now im watching the Slade film called "flame"

cmon.....with all these people from the uk on here...you cant tell me not one of them listens to slade

[thehangman]

Listening to Shinedown -the sound of madness and Metallica

[ironfistedmonk]

iron maiden rules!

right now im watching the Slade film called "flame"

cmon.....with all these people from the uk on here...you cant tell me not one of them listens to slade

Slade! LOL, they are from my hometown. Not my type of music at all though. Come on feel the noise!

[jiujitsu77]

Slade! LOL, they are from my hometown. Not my type of music at all though. Come on feel the noise!

oh man cmon...one of the best bands of all time! your hometown? wolverhampton?

ok now on the player is the soundtrack to sergio corbucci's "companeros".

anyone else here rock out to spaghetti western music?

[ironfistedmonk]

oh man cmon...one of the best bands of all time! your hometown? wolverhampton?

Yeah Wolverhampton mate, most people only know them for the xmas song they did which gets hammered every crimbo. Beverley Knight is from Wolvo too and is a more "respectable" musical ambassador for the city.

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

oh man cmon...one of the best bands of all time! your hometown? wolverhampton?

ok now on the player is the soundtrack to sergio corbucci's "companeros".

anyone else here rock out to spaghetti western music?

I do... I listen to all kinds of movie music!

[inframan]

Hexen old school thrash