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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Mar 30, 2024 8:10:36 GMT
I don't expect all people to have similar tastes in anything, and it's always difficult to see what other people enjoy in things you don't. But sometimes it's possible to get it, even if you don't like it. For example, I'm not a particular fan of Madonna or Michael Jackson, but it doesn't surprise me that there are others who are. But I can't see the appeal of Phil Collins, for example, on any level.
With this particular song, as I said, I simply wouldn't notice it unless someone singled it out as you've done here. But then it doesn't have the nostalgia factor for me, and without better audio equipment and less tinnitus, I'm unlikely to appreciate the engineering.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Mar 30, 2024 8:14:59 GMT
I don't expect all people to have similar tastes in anything, and it's always difficult to see what other people enjoy in things you don't. But sometimes it's possible to get it, even if you don't like it. For example, I'm not a particular fan of Madonna or Michael Jackson, but it doesn't surprise me that there are others who are. But I can't see the appeal of Phil Collins, for example, on any level. With this particular song, as I said, I simply wouldn't notice it unless someone singled it out as you've done here. I do get why one would feel completely indifferent to that song, to be honest. On paper, I shouldn't like it this much, but the workings of the brain are mysterious. I've always had trouble with Phil Collins, but it so happens I found myself enjoying one of his songs recently and I think I Got It now, the appeal of Phil Collins. But this needs further research.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Mar 30, 2024 8:28:17 GMT
Funny thing, music. It's over 50 years since this was released, and I still haven't decided whether I like it or not. But at least anyone's who's heard it isn't likely not to have noticed it, or confuse it with any other piece of music.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Mar 30, 2024 8:43:05 GMT
The jury's in: I like it. Some pretty decent musicianship overall. Except maybe the drummer who left me mostly unimpressed. Also the guitarist's playing sounds quite metal to my ears at times.
As a side note, Helter Skelter is often mentioned as one of the precursors to metal. I suspect it's partly due to its association with Charles Manson and early metal's childish need to appear transgressive, but musically, there's something to it. It might not be their most famous song, so here:
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Mar 30, 2024 8:59:15 GMT
I'm not a particular fan of Madonna I quite like La Isla Bonita and Frozen, and hate the rest of it, to put it succintly.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Mar 30, 2024 9:00:43 GMT
Although, what kind of compliment is "I like it when you don't do you"?
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Post by kizolk on Mar 30, 2024 9:11:57 GMT
Then again, is there such a thing as "doing Madonna"? She strikes me as the kind of artist who never really had a definite musical identity. Which happens with people who don't write their own music, but at least some of them have some sort of consistent song selection process.
Now, if she enjoy(s/ed) those songs, good for her. One of the perks of being a non-writing singer is that you get to be a chameleon. But the counterpoint to that is that it makes you look like a mindless jukebox. I like the incarnatedness of music that's written and performed by the same person(s), and the evolution it goes through over the years.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Mar 30, 2024 21:28:46 GMT
Speaking of audio engineering, I wonder if we're seeing a new trend: I've listened to a couple of songs, some of which very popular, where the audio had a lot of distortion. More specifically, a form of distortion known as clipping (but confusingly, that's what people usually mean by "distortion"), which is something mixing engineers normally fight against like hell. It is because of clipping (mostly, but not only) that the oooold song of mine I posted not long ago sounded the way it did, i.e. like shit.
It happens when the audio signal exceeds a certain threshold and parts of the audio wave get clipped, as the name suggests. You could describe it as a degradation of the sound because some information is lost, but it has been used tastefully: that's what "distortion" in the sense of the stereotypical rock guitar effect is. But you would usually use distortion on a track (or instrument)-by-track basis, not on a song as a whole, and when it happens, it's usually by accident. A great deal of the art of the audio engineer consists in avoiding clipping at every stage of the audio signal chain.
But now they're using it as an effect on the master track, which I find pretty interesting. Here's an example. The effect kicks in around 3:02, but it's more noticeable in the instrumental part starting around 4:30, in the messiness of the drum hits in particular.
I think it works quite well, especially considering the first part of the song is a very quiet ballad.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on May 6, 2024 6:45:51 GMT
I was amused to find out that someone had chosen 'Golden Brown' to waltz to for a TV programme where celebrities dance (no, I don't get it, which is why I've just heard of it). The song is notorious for its weird rhythm, which appears to be a mix of 3/4, or is it 12/8, with 4/4.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on May 6, 2024 10:29:47 GMT
Cool song. I didn't know the band's name but it's fairly popular here as well. A good example of how rhythmical fuckery can pass pretty smoothly if done right!
I'd be tempted to say 6/8, because what would be two consecutive measures of 3/4 feel like a call and answer but I'm still not an expert and as always there's some subjectivity involved. Maybe 12/8 would work.
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on May 6, 2024 16:26:18 GMT
The latest rhythm that caught my attention was a tasty 7:4 polyrhythm (the melody is in 7/4 and the drum beat in 4/4).
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Post by kizolk on Jun 3, 2024 18:54:50 GMT
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Post by kizolk on Aug 30, 2024 20:04:43 GMT
^I meant that this feeling/opinion is not universal, but probably shared by most people, no matter when they were born. I wasn't commenting on the veracity of the statement itself. It was ambiguously put.
But related to that: I can't think of any artist or song I loved as a kid that I don't anymore. Maybe they exist but nothing comes to mind. New things were added to the list of good things and have taken up the top spots thereof, but it seems like nothing was altogether discarded.
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Post by kizolk on Sept 5, 2024 19:43:54 GMT
Something my middle school music teacher told us still comes back to mind from time to time, namely that non-Western music tended to be much more liberal in terms of mixing the major and minor scales within a song than we were accustomed to. At the time I didn't know much about music theory (and I'm still not an expert) but it fascinated me, and I wondered how it worked.
I didn't like fado much, growing up. Now I do, but I can still relate to the kid who didn't, and in hindsight one of the things that made fado hard to process for me was that alternation between major and minor. Not only was it confusing, but it was also frustrating, as I didn't like the happier/major side of fado, and to this day I still much prefer its darker side. But there's no question the alternation brings a lot to the genre.
The first switch happens at 1:00.
This song was famous in its own right due to its legendary singer, but a cover by Dulce Pontes, arguably the most popular fado singer alive today, was used in a 1996 American movie and became popular in a few countries.
Francophones might be more familiar with the 1999 adaptation by Hélène Ségara. It can still be heard from time to time here.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sept 14, 2024 19:46:36 GMT
Some people who didn't like the Smiths said that they liked the one song that didn't sound like the Smiths. When they said what it was, it was something that I wouldn't say I actively liked very much, but it wouldn't make me suddenly decide to go outside for a fag break if it was played somewhere I happened to be. And I hadn't realised that it was in fact the Smiths -- but as soon as I found out, I wondered how I could ever have thought it was anything but the Smiths.
This happened a while back, but I was reminded of it recently when I discussed the same topic with some other people, and they said exactly the same thing.
So is it obvious which song I mean?
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