What are you listening to now? Page 1,402

Quote: lofthouse @ 8th June 2020, 9:40 PM

What do you get if you cross Coldplay, Keane, Elbow and the Killers?

The death of music forever and ever

It's over people

End of

Full stop

Final.

Nails.

In coffin.

Fin

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I'll always turn off Keane and The Killers.

Coldplay were good when they started and their second album is a classic, though I never listen to it any more.

Elbow are friggin' ace, and probably my favourite band right now. I wrote them off too after I got bored with "The Seldom Seen Kid" being overexposed. Then I looked into them, album by album, and they've only got one weak album in their entire catalogue - probably because their drummer walked out just as they were going into the studio. You might even like their debut, as the sound is a bit edgier - Asleep in the Back. It turns up in charity shops.

Wear your mask if you're worried about anyone seeing you buy a copy.

their second album is a classic, though I never listen to it any more.

What sort of recommendation is that ?

I've just got in the post a second hand copy of com lag (2 plus2 is five)
Which I shall probably be listening to all day.

Quote: john tregorran @ 8th June 2020, 11:57 PM

I've just got in the post a second hand copy of com lag (2 plus2 is five)
Which I shall probably be listening to all day.

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For hardcore fans only apparently. You'll get eminem in a lather again if he breaks your code.

You'll have to explain the Eminem,I don't know anything about him

My record was not bad and OK COMPared to lots of other stuff.

Lofty, give this one a go.

Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World

I'd not seen the video before.

Longer album version.

Quote: john tregorran @ 7th June 2020, 10:11 PM

he does ludicrous though just about acceptable liberal elongation within a tight post conservative and social democratic framework, while taking it all up to the utterly ethereal.

It's RVW meets Bowie, is it not?

Haven't got a clue but I like listening to it.
It is modern classical but with lots of romantic era stuff.

This is an interesting modern piece.The composer uses actual bird song in the music.

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I approve of Rautavaara.

Talking of Scandinavia, the second best symphony of all time is, of course, Sibelius 5 although I am not huge on Sibelius overall. I had to awaken from a post alcohol dream state with the sun shining in to fully get it but exactly the same thing had happened 30 years earlier with RVW2. It can be a doorway.

It is also arguably birds, especially in its wonderful finale.

There is, of course, an unanswered question (to paraphrase Ives) as to whether birds do birds better than music does birds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAFouzo3ZHQ

As a champion of the true underdog, as opposed to Winston Churchill crucifying thugs of which there are so many now, I have also promoted along with Roy Harris these two American composers, the first who is virtually an unknown and in my opinion the true heir to prairie Copland as he travels in "3" across the vast American lands and the second who is sort of regarded as a gay hippy alternative and yet by rights should be seen as a genius for the way in which he did America looking beyond its own boundaries (which it should do more). These are two of the greatest modern US symphonies - the greatest in my humble opinion - and each should be massive. It is because the culture is crass that they aren't so - or yet.

Enjoy!

Samuel Jones - 3 - 1992 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiGNcHLEgKc

Lou Harrison - 3 - 1982 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27I8YOlRZSM

(I told you I had taught myself a lot!!! - if anybody likes either of them, please spread the word so they get recognition.)

...I love Copland - my third favourite composer - but the snobs dismiss him for his folky Americana although that is too glib a category. Sam Jones probably isn't approved for the same reason but while his symphony is succinct it by definition is classical, hence rangy, with highly memorable bits and less so. To get the contexts right from a popularist perspective - and I am pop and rock first and foremost - think of Moross's "The Big Country" sitting between the two which is able to be more immediate as it is a (breathtaking) film score. This is the sort of connection I tend to make and, if I were a teacher, would teach. I never had a lot going for me but my mind has the capacity to make enjoyable innovative connections which I try to convey for others' pleasure. I'm not feeling so well but if I can I will do something similar shortly on the Brit, William Walton, who it took me an age to get and then when I did I really liked him via the Spitfire theme, much loved by we England footy fans. That isn't his but there are direct comparisons if you want to find them.

The suggestion (humble) is always to bide your time with these things. They aren't instant gratification so even with the Lou Harrison you have to wait a bit for the Tribute to Henry Cowell but when it cuts in you think "oh my god, wild, it's the only oriental Irish reel". Having said as much, Cowell may well have done one as he did a lot of weird stuff earlier but there aren't many of those sorts of things. Also, Cowell is a character who could be easily criticised whereas the more contemporary Uncle Lou was just a very nice man. I am frankly astonished that he isn't an adored darling in 2020 - he ticks so many of the current boxes and the entire thing is so emotionally moving and infused with oriental nuances, even more evident in his other works, but the culture is crass as I say so it wouldn't recognise the merit even it had ears.

Jerome Moross - The Big Country - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNr7_JU-UxY

Incidentally, the finale to Sibelius 5 is also Strawberry Switchblade''s "Since Yesterday" plus gloriously that combines hints of Mama Cass. This is kind of what I do. I am incensed by the American copy cat crap of BLM and will say so but what I will offer as a white man are positive aspects of black classical music history - and pop history history for that matter - of which these people know nothing. It has given me immense pleasure. Ironically, it appears to have given them - black and white and there are a hell of lot whites fannying around there - no joy as they just don't have the mindset.

That comes next.

Strawberry Switchlade - Since Yesterday - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJFuVhsemVs

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iXMXjD52Oo0

Cool. As. F**k.

oh dear I'm going to disagree with two forum stalwarts.

Sibelius is my thing and that Switchblade track is a travesty.
Also,being a Taff myself, I've always wanted to like the Manics but have never found them the least bit musical.

Quote: john tregorran @ 9th June 2020, 11:15 PM

oh dear I'm going to disagree with two forum stalwarts.

Sibelius is my thing and that Switchblade track is a travesty.
Also,being a Taff myself, I've always wanted to like the Manics but have never found them the least bit musical.

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Ah, I never knew John you were Welsh of background - you came across as Scottish to me though the name suggested Cornwall - but I do have something of a leaning to Wales. Well, Pembrokeshire, about which I know loads and to where I went early. It is little England beyond Wales. My "home" there is Llawhaden which is a rather ugly looking hamlet with a bit of a castle and it is almost dead centre. I love it so much. It is my farmland although I am more drawn to the coast.

The Switchblade track will bring in different thoughts, much like "All By Myself" and "Could It Be Magic" and many others drawn from classical sources. OK. I do like Lofthouse's Manics. Saw them live about four times. "Roses" is one of my big favourites so a good choice. Obviously I really fell for them when they went a bit commercial with the album which had "A Design For Life" about which I raved. That is my way. But the interest had been there earlier and was retained a little late. These are two that I really, really, love although I could name ten yet none would be my beloved Caerfai or Caerbwdi.

La Tristesse Durera:

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

No Surface All Feeling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka11RE9BlH8

I love this......Gorky's of course did Barafundle!

(JT - I do know what you mean - Manics could be seen as the SS Sputnik version of the Clash and pretentious and I did feel that initially but there is something obviously presented about that which is unusually direct .The interest in it is that it is combined with something really organic sounding. It is of its time plus life romantic and I do think they knew what they were doing plus there was the loss of R. I dunno. As the slogans and the style were reeled out, they were inviting accusations of shallowness but some of their stuff did get to the emotional core. It was generational and geographically comprehensible. It was variable musically. Not all good. Too often disappointing, I never saw a live gig which lived up to expectations. But I do rate it. It does have some sort of brittle deep soul. And life romance is the best romance at the end of the day. It is the stuff of living dreams rather than having to put the bins out. Worse, being ordered to before Tescos.)

I was too young for The Clash

When I was 16 the Manics were my Clash

Don't forget of course they went on to record the greatest song in the history of popular music

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzh6gaxV3ig

Although to label this masterpiece a mere song is a grotesque insult

It's a piece of art

A sonic sculpture

That it can only be enjoyed by listening to it via a compact disc or a record or on a streaming site doesn't do it justice

It should be in a museum

Behind velvet ropes

You should have to pay to experience it

In short - it's bloody good!

The 90's was a good time for music,this is more to my taste.

Everything I write on the forum is now deleted, either when it looks like it has been permanent or when text starts reversing and unravelling. I don't think I can go on. It has been nice knowing everybody but I am about to die. Sorry.

Dude I swear one of these days I will actually understand what on earth you are actually talking about....!