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General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: bosk1 on May 17, 2019, 11:08:23 AM
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Not sure whether this is an idea that will catch on or quickly die on the vine, but I had the thought of posting this because of the old political/religious subform thread, which is basically a survey for people to post what their basic positions are on some key issues.
So, to get this going, here are some ideas for issues to discuss. Feel free to answer some or all, or to add additional ones:
-What is your favorite band?
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
-What was your musical journey in life like?
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
- Classic rock
- Modern rock
- Classic prog
- Modern prog
- Prog metal
- power metal
- Classic metal
- Hair metal
- Grunge
- Thrash metal
- Nu metal
- Death and/or black metal
- pop
- jazz
- classical
- rap/hip-hop
- R&B
- punk
- other
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Ooooo. Fun idea. This will definitely take some time to get my thoughts together about this.
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OOOOH I love this idea. I echo Anguyen... it's going to take a bit to gather my thoughts and fill this out.
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Not sure whether this is an idea that will catch on or quickly die on the vine, but I had the thought of posting this because of the old political/religious subform thread, which is basically a survey for people to post what their basic positions are on some key issues.
So, to get this going, here are some ideas for issues to discuss. Feel free to answer some or all, or to add additional ones:
-What is your favorite band? Gun to head: The Beatles. It's hard to focus on one, though. Kiss, Genesis, Dream Theater, Yes, Zeppelin, could all be in the Top Five.
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums? Going For The One is favorite, no debate. Others: Abacab, Hemispheres, Images and Words,
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely? Hard rock/British heavy metal
-What was your musical journey in life like? Hacked around with guitar, hacked around in bands in high school, but in hindsight, I didn't appreciate the work that it takes. Joined a string band in Philly (Google: Mummers Philadelphia) and learned more about being a musician in three years than I did in the prior 30. If I knew then what I know now.... :)
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up? Country and Western. Johnny Cash was a big one, Kris Kristofferson, Elvis, George Jones...
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity? Rolling Stones Hot Rocks, The Beatles Red and Blue albums (my mom bought them for me when John Lennon was shot, and I thank her every day for that). Billy Joel The Stranger. The Royal Guardsmen Snoopy vs. The Red Baron (Not joking at all).
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Staple; essential
Take or leave.
Staple, essential
Take or leave.
Take or leave.
Take or leave.
Staple; essential
Underrated; less a musical genre than a lifestyle
Overrated; less a musical genre than a lifestyle; way more classic rock based than they'd care to admit.
Overrated. One dimension of classic metal.
Way overrated. One dimension of modern metal.
Can't comment; not my thing. Seems more gimmick than substance.
Love it to death. WAY underrated in terms of song writing and even playing. If it was so easy, everyone would do it.
Love a lot of it, some of it is hard to swallow.
Love a lot of it, some of it is hard to swallow; big fan of rock interpretations (like ELP).
Hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.
No opinion
Overrated; less a musical genre than a lifestyle; way more classic rock based than they'd care to admit. (Both the Sex Pistols and the Ramones are hard rock bands with shitty singers).
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-What is your favorite band?
Hard to answer this since it kind of depends on my mood but if I had to generally say, The Hirsch Effekt
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
10 in no alphabetical order. I dunno if these are even my "top 10":
- The Antlers - Hospice
- East of the Wall - The Apologist
- El Drugstore - Plague Ship
- The Hirsch Effekt - Holon : Anamnesis
- Oceansize - Frames
- Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element I
- Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition
- Spectral Lore - III
- Thrice - Beggars
- Wilderun - Sleep at the Edge of the Earth
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
"Progressive Metal", but less the specific genre and more "metal that is progressive to some extent"
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Young Child: Lots of classic rock - greatest hits compilations from the beatles, elvis, steve miller band, the beach boys, probably some others
Age 10 or so: listened to pop radio
Age 11-14ish: got real big into electronic music while i was playing DDR
Age 14ish-18ish: mostly just pure prog metal
Age 18ish-22ish: djent existed too, some harsher prog metal in general
Age 22ish-now: i've literally more than doubled the size of my library & gotten into black metal, death metal, post-hardcore, etc. on top of what i already listened to
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Answered above lol
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
- Dream Theater - Scenes From a Memory and Awake
- Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element I and Remedy Lane
- Opeth - Ghost Reveries
- Sigur Ros - ( )
- Thrice - Vhiessu and Beggars
- Oceansize - Frames
- East of the Wall - The Apologist
- Alrakis - Alpha Eri
- Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
- Classic rock - it's fine but i don't actively seek it out
- Modern rock - i don't like radio rock much but some emo and post-hardcore leaning stuff is cool
- Classic prog - it's fine but i don't actively seek it out
- Modern prog - it's like classic prog but not novel
- Prog metal - absolutely
- power metal - i don't see a reason why anyone needs more than, like, 3 power metal albums ever
- Classic metal - it's fine but i don't actively seek it out
- Hair metal - no
- Grunge - no
- Thrash metal - maybe my least favorite metal subgenre besides inane stuff like grindcore and whatnot
- Nu metal - okay i lied this is worse than thrash
- Death metal - completely different genre than black metal. pure death metal i don't tend to like, need it proggy
- Black metal[ - tend to only enjoy the more atmospheric stuff, but there's a lot of it i like
- Pop - depends on the era & incredibly hit-or-miss regardless but can be great if done well
- Jazz - don't like it on its own, like it as a flavor in other genres
- Classical - no thanks
- Rap/hip-hop - the polar opposite of what appeals to me in music
- R&B - same as pop, though i don't have any artists or albums in this genre i really love
- Punk - pure/hardcore punk, no, punk-inspired genres, yeah
- Other - love me some ambient/drone if it's done well
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My favorite band? It's a three way toss-up between Rush, Yes, and Dream Theater. All three bands have put out so much good music over the years.
Favorite albums: too many to mention but I will mention a few.
Boston - debut album, and Walk On.
Yes - TALK, The Yes album, Union.
Dream Theater - Octavarium, TA, DT12, and now d/t.
Rush - Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, Clockwork Angels
The Who - Who's Next
Favorite genre: Classic Rock, Prog Rock, Classic Metal, progressive metal etc.
Musical Journey: grew up listening to classic Rock/ pop music. In high school I got into bands like AC/DC, Scorpions, Van Halen, Boston, Guns N Roses, some hair metal etc. I got into Rush around 1989-90 and was blown way!
Listening to Rush made me want to become a musician and I saved up and bought my first guitar. I later got into Dream Theater in 1993, then YES in the mid nineties. I didn't like the grunge scene in the nineties so Dream Theater and Yes were my saving grace at that time period.
I started really digging Symphony X post 2000, and started to really appreciate Iron Maiden by 2010, lol, now they are in my top five favorite bands. As far as a musician myself, I've played in a few bands since 1995. Mostly original music but was in one cover band about 7 years ago. We recorded one cd of original music that I recently posted a link to in the musicians forum. It was alot of fun, kind of a more straight forward direction..
Household growing up: I was exposed to some classic rock by my older brothers. Journey, Boston, Styx, Doobie Bros, Pat Benatar, etc. My mom listened to Alot of John Denver and my dad liked country and goldie oldies. So much more to mention here.
Classic Albums as my identity: I would say the ones abovementioned in the fav albums part. Boston is a big one, along with Rush. I forgot to mention their live album Exit Stage Left, that was a pivotal album that floored me musically and changed the way I look at music...just incredible!!! :eek
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-What is your favorite band?
Dream Theater
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
In no order and chronologically all over the map...
Images and Words
The Wall
Delicate Sound of Thunder
Hysteria
Who's Next
Arena (Duran Duran live album - the only cassette I owned to make the short list, I played the crap out of this in the mid-80s)
Strange to think some of my favorite bands (Iron Maiden, Nightwish, Within Temptation...) don't make my favorite albums list. I just tend to like most of their stuff equally without any one album standing out.
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Prog/Metal and Symphonic Metal
-What was your musical journey in life like?
As a kid in the 80s: mostly whatever was on MTV/radio in the rock/pop genre. Didn't really gravitate to anything specific nor did I own many cassettes.
High school in the early 90s: Classic rock once I heard some Floyd, then prog/metal once I heard Images and Words.
Late 90s: Lost interest in music, my life was going off the rails.
00s: Got back on track and back in to music, and Dream Theater specifically, which opened me up to bands of that mold, Also started going to clubs and getting in to dance music and disco.
10s: Started expanding in to more symphonic metal and other prog/metal bands
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Not much I can remember, some 60s classic rock (Beatles for example). Parents did not play much music at home.
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-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Anathema - Weather Systems
Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
The Cure - Disintegration
Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
Dream Theater - SFAM
Kayo Dot - Choirs of the Eye
Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell
Tool - Lateralus
Yes - Close to the Edge
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Metal (I'm being purposefully non-specific) and folk
-What was your musical journey in life like?
When I was younger I listened mainly to pop on the radio. Later I discovered two songs which transformed me quite a lot: Dream Evil's "Chasing the Dragon" and Dream Theater's "Hollow Years" (Live at Budokan). They opened the door to many sub-genres of metal, as well as progressive rock. Eventually I emerged from the woods and started listening to more popular genres again, including a lot of singer-songwriter stuff (I don't like that label but it's hard to avoid). For a long time I was pretty snobbish about my music (my friends would say that I still am), but I'm pretty sure I've become a lot more open-minded lately.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Nothing that I care to remember.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
(in addition to the favorites listed above)
Anathema - We're Here Because We're Here
David Gray - Life in Slow Motion & White Ladder
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun
Rush - Hemispheres
Sigur Ros - ( )
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock - Not something I typically pursue, but I enjoy quite a few of the classics.
Modern rock - Hit or miss
Classic prog - Fan of the big ones—Yes, Rush, Selling England By the Pound, Thick as a Brick etc.—but not something I listen to a lot these days
Modern prog - Generally enthusiastic about a few bands and artists (Steven Wilson and Anathema stand out), but probably not as much as most on here
Prog metal - Definitely a fan, apart from the more modern djent trend
power metal - I'd say this is an underrated genre and a lot of fun, but never has produced my favorites
Classic metal - Apart from a handful of albums, I don't spend a lot of time here
Hair metal - Not my style, but I've enjoyed some stuff in the past
Grunge - Not my style at all
Thrash metal - Apart from a couple Metallica albums, thrash never did much for me
Nu metal - Not my style at all
Death and/or black metal - Some of my favorite bands and albums; probably the sub genre of metal I listen to most, these days
pop - I don't know what's popular these days but I love a lot of pop and I always will
jazz - I enjoy the classics—Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane especially—but don't spend a lot of time listening to Jazz
classical - Rachmaninoff and Debussy have my number, I also enjoy some contemporary composers like Ludovico Einaudi, as well as a lot of classically-inspired film scores
rap/hip-hop - Mostly a pass for me, but I've been listening to Nas's Illmatic quite a bit lately
R&B - Mostly a pass
punk - I like many bands that are influenced by punk, either musically or in terms of the punk attitude. They generally go by "post-hardcore," "emo," "post-punk," or God knows what else. I honestly don't know what any of these things mean, but I like a lot of bands who get lumped into these categories: Brand New, Thrice, and their ilk.
other - I've been enjoying a lot of country, folk, and americana lately
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-What is your favorite band? Iron Maiden. They always will be. But my musical tastes always expand and I always focus on new stuff so I never indulge on the same bands over and over. I don't listen to the old Iron Maiden albums anymore, and the only time I hear their classic is at concerts. I started to follow them in 1995, no need to hear The Trooper's studio version for the 4575437th time.
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums? Scenes from a Memory, Trans Siberian Orchestra's Beethoven's Last Night, Iron Maiden's entire catalog basically with special mention for Piece of Mind and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Blind Guardian's Imaginations from the Other Side and Nightfall in Middlearth, Bruce Dickinson's Chemical Wedding.
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely? Right now, Folk Metal. More generally, anything heavy with clean vocals - Heavy / Power / Epic / Prog Metal, but Dream Theater are basically 98% of the prog metal I listen to.
This is something I add:
Favorite male singer: Bruce Dickinson
Favorite female singer: Loreena McKennit
-What was your musical journey in life like? I was just a passive listener to whatever the radio or the family was passing, basically mainstream italian stuff. Discovered Bon Jovi with Always in 1994, that was my introduction to foreign and somehow heavy music. I started with hard rock with Bon Jovi and Guns n' Roses, then I was introduced to Iron Maiden and my musical life was determined: metalhead for life. Early bands were Maiden, Metallica, Blind Guardian, Helloween and Manowar, must have heard them a gazillion times. Then I had my "phases", when I would discover a band and would be spellbound by the sound, with that sound being for a time my favorite. Manowar and Virgin Steele were HUGE in my appreciation of epic metal. German metal also gave dozens of bands to love. When I discovered Savatage, probably a gateway for more operatic and bombastic metal, I was really, really into them, they must have been my then-current favorite band for a couple of years. In recent years (at least 10 by now) I discovered folk metal and that's what I'm still drawn to, music with a lot of weird instruments.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up? As above, generic mainstream italian stuff.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity? I am old enough to have lived in the cassette tapes era, so my introduction to bands were not YouTube videos (they didn't exist) or full albums, but compilations made by a classmate. I can't tell you my first Maiden album or my first Metallica album - I had compilations of their songs. So those songs mixed with the albums current at the time (or classics) of Blind Guardian and Helloween were those in huge rotation in my "early days".
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
- I've always liked more metal than rock. Ok I'd say, I can listen to it, but I'm not a big fan as a whole.
- Same as above.
- Very casual listener. To this day I haven't heard to a huge chunk of the classics of the genre.
- Even more casual listener, basically not really following the scene.
- Dream Theater is my Jupiter of prog metal - all the rest combined can't match up, put together, the mass of it.
- Great starting point, but I've moved on from it. I still listen to the classic bands, but I don't go searching for new power metal bands.
- Love it.
- Never a fan save the occasional song.
- As above, never a fan.
- Metallica is 99,5% of trash metal I listen to.
- Nah.
- Nah, I don't like harsh vocals.
- Nah, but the occasional song and especially the occasional remix in rock / metal version is cool.
- Nah.
- If for whatever situation I have to sit through classical music, it's no big deal at all. But I just don't go looking for it.
- Please gods, no. Nope nope nope.
- Nah.
- Nah.
- FOLK METAL BABY! I love folk metal as said above.
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Awesome thread idea, enjoying the responses so far. I'll add mine soon...
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-What is your favorite band?
In some order:
- Dream Theater
- Rush
- Fates Warning
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Without thinking too hard about it:
Asia - self-titled
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Dream Theater - I&W, SFAM and SDOIT
Evanescence - Fallen
Fates Warning - No Exit through A Pleasant Shade of Gray and Darkness in a Different Light
Genesis - A Trick of the Tail
Helloween - the two Keepers albums
Iron Maiden - TNOTB through Powerslave
Judas Priest - Unleashed in the East and Defenders of the Faith
Kansas - Leftoverture and Point of Know Return
Metallica - Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman
Queensryche - debut EP through Operation: Mindcrime
Rainbow - Rising and Long Live Rock n Roll
Rush - 2112 through Signals
Styx - The Grand Illusion through Paradise Theater (except Cornerstone)
Toy Matinee - self-titled
Triumph - Allied Forces through Thunder Seven
UFO - Lights Out and Strangers in the Night
The Who - Who's Next
Yes - The Yes Album through Drama
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Metal/prog metal
-What was your musical journey in life like?
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Born in the late 60s with three older sisters who were into folk and the Beatles, so I got a lot of that as a young kid. Lots of classical as well via my mother and playing in the school band from 4th through 9th grade. Got into popular/rock music via The Beatles at age 13. Got into hard rock/metal via my two best friends in high school and their older brothers. Started playing bass after high school and played in bands in the Los Angeles/Orange County areas in the late 80s and early 90s.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Beatles catalog, "classic" era Styx and Yes, prog era Rush.
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock
* Varies widely depending on the artist.
Modern rock
* Not much, but I took my kid to see Panic at the Disco and was impressed.
Classic prog
* Mostly love it.
Modern prog
* Haven't heard much that impresses me.
Prog metal
* Mostly love it.
power metal
* Like a couple bands.
Classic metal
* Mostly love it.
Hair metal
* No.
Grunge
* No.
Thrash metal
* A few bands (notably Metallica).
Nu metal
* Not even sure what this means, but I think it might apply to Evanescence.
Death and/or black metal
* No (HATE cookie monster vocals).
pop
* Mostly no, but a few songs here and there.
jazz
* Mostly no, but a few songs here and there.
classical
* Generally yes, but I don't go out of my way to listen to it too much.
rap/hip-hop
* FUCK NO!
R&B
* Mostly no.
punk
* No.
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-What is your favorite band?
1a..Dream Theater
1b..Iron Maiden
1c..UFO
4...Alice Cooper
5..All things Dio
6. Thin Lizzy
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Top 10:
10. Alice Cooper- Killer AND School's Out
9. Thin Lizzy- Renegade
8. Dream Theayter- Scenes From A Memory AND Live Scenes From New York
7. Metallica- Kill "Em All
6. UFO- No Heavy Petting
5. Michael Schenker Group- MSG
4. Helloween- Keeper Of The Seven Keys Parts 1 AND 2
3. Iron Maiden- The Number Of The Beast
2. UFO-Strangers In The Night
1. Dream Theater-Images And Words
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
NWOBHM
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Bought KISS Alive II in the fourth grade..
Junior High years 80-82...Discovered AC/DC, Van Halen, Rush
High School-(Class of '86)..spent most of those years listening to UFO and Iron Maiden
College-Discovered Alice Cooper
Post grad-Discovered Dream Theater
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
I wouldn't classify my parents as real music fans, but there was always music playing. We'd go camping a lot, and my parents had an 8 track player. Stuff like Chuck Mangione and Barry Manilow. My mother loved Johnny Mathis. My father was a high school teacher, so when he was correcting tests, he would always have the radio on, so when I hear those 70's one hit wonders or soft rock hits, it takes me back to that time.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
KISS Alive II
AC/DC Back In Black
Def Leppard-High n Dry
UFO-Strangers In The Night
Michael Schenker Group-MSG
Helloween-Keeper Of The Seven Keys Pt.1
Dream Theater-Images And Words
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
...Love it, generally. Grew up on it.
...Nope
...Generally too loopy
...I have no idea what this is.
...Love it, generally
... Love it generally
...My favorite
...I like what led up to it, until it actually got there
...Not really into it
...Done right, it's great.
...No idea what this is
...I've opened up a bit to this provided the music is good enough and the vocals are not overbearing
...Hate it
...Not really
...Nope
...Hell no
...Not really
...Not really
[/list]
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-What is your favorite band?
Pink Floyd
Dream Theater
Metallica
Green Day
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Pink Floyd - The Wall, Animals, Dark Side Of The Moon
Dream Theater- Octavarium, Awake, Scenes
Metallica- Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets, And Justice For All
Porcupine Tree- Fear of a Blank Planet
Green Day- Dookie, Insomniac, American Idiot
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
This is a tough one. I want to say prog, but how does one define prog? lol
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Was given a Queen Greatest Hits CD when I was little. Played the crap out of it. Got into Green Day in Middle School, and in High School discovered classic rock (big Zeppelin and Pink Floyd fan), and as well as Punk (Misfits, Dead Kennedys, local bands). My best friend is a musician, and all throughout High School was introducing me to more and more music, including Dream Theater.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Classic Rock (my dad), and Country (my step mother).
Specific albums my dad always had on were:
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Queen - Greatest Hits (Hollywood)
Random REO Speedwagon compilation
Moody Blues- The Story of the band (Greatest Hits)
and a few more I can't think of.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
The Wall
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock- What is Classic Rock now a days? I love it
Modern rock-Depends
Classic prog- Yes Please
Modern prog- Hell yea
Prog metal- Yes
power metal- Meh. take it or leave it
Classic metal- Yesss
Hair metal-Meh
Grunge- Yessss
Thrash metal- Yessssss
Nu metal- meh. I liked Linkin Park growing up
Death and/or black metal- It's hard for me to find acts that I enjoy, but they are out there.
pop- meh
jazz-Yess please
classical- meh
rap/hip-hop- no
R&B- meh
punk- F*ck yea
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What is Classic Rock now a days?
:lol Good question. I remember seeing a package tour with REO, Styx, and Journey back in around 2002 or so. At one point during Styx's set, Tommy Shaw was talking to the audience and said, "Man, the other day, I heard one of our songs on a 'classic rock' station! I guess that means we're...'classic rock' now? Man, does that mean I'm old?" Or something along those lines.
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-What is your favorite band?
Toto, Stratovarius, Guns N’ Roses, Enya, Sonata Arctica, Randy Newman
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
#1: Toto – Toto IV
Stratovarius – Episode
Sonata Arctica – Winterheart’s Guild
Tycho – Awake
Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain
Explosions In The Sky – The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
Dream Theater – Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Rhapsody – literally any of their first 6 albums
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
I don’t know what my favorite genre is these days. The genre I’ve always identified with most is 90s-early 2000s power metal, keyboard and vocal-focused stuff like Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica, and to this day I love that stuff, but I don’t actively look for any bands in that genre anymore. I am nostalgic for that era, though.
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Early childhood: video game soundtracks, 90s Nintendo stuff was my jam
Preteen: mostly whatever pop music my older sister liked and radio hits
Teen: 80s bands like Maiden and GnR, followed by a healthy dose of power and prog metal and a brief stint with the more extreme ends of the spectrum, and a deep dive into symphonic metal as well
Most of the 20s: moving away from all things metal in favor of exploring all the other wonderful things the wide world of music has to offer
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Mom liked the crooners and mellow stuff like Barry Manilow. She also loved Van Halen, The Carpenters, The Mamas & The Papas, Toto, Def Leppard… She’d also play a lot of holiday albums around Christmas time, so your Kenny G renditions and Michael Buble and stuff. Dad has always liked 70s and 80s rock, ACDC reigns supreme in his eyes. I watched lots of Disney movies as a kid too so there was a lot of that music playing on TV, and I would often leave certain video games running just to hear their music. I also played instruments so there was a bunch of that.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Most of what I listed above in my all-time favorites. There are a lot of others, too, but too many to list.
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
– I like it, for the most part. Some artists annoy the hell out of me.
– Truly awful.
– Crapshoot. There’s King Crimson, and then there’s… Genesis.
– Not sure what this means to be honest.
– If there was ever a genre whose artists usually try way too hard, way too often, it’s prog metal. Too many bands trying to throw the kitchen sink into their albums, and too many bands screaming and growling. Too many bands sounding like Tool on sedatives, too.
– A once great genre that has now opted to shine the spotlight almost exclusively on one-trick gimmick bands, with no end in sight. Now is the winter of my discontent, truly.
– like Iron Maiden? Iron Maiden’s pretty sweet
– Motley Crue’s 1998 Greatest Hits is all you need, nothing more, nothing less.
– Apart from a few Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains songs, this genre sucks eggs.
– I like very few thrash metal songs. Testament is about all I’ll listen to.
– I’m convinced this genre is a punishment for humanity from God himself
– Truly awful. Noise, noise, noise.
– I have no problem admitting I like some pop music. I own CDs by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Lana del Rey, and more.
– I love jazz, and I love smooth jazz even more. Incognito rules.
– I LOVE CLASSICAL MUSIC. Chopin is my favorite composer. I do not enjoy 20th century classical music with all its experimental hogwash; Tchaikovsky is painful, Scriabin even moreso. I own the complete works of Beethoven on 87 CDs, to indicate where my allegiance lies. Also a massive fan of Bach, of course, as well as Domenico Scarlatti whose music is not only delightful to hear but an absolute joy to play, truly 'fun' in every sense of the word.
– There’s some good stuff here but I can’t lie, I really only listen to select Eminem and Kendrick Lamar tracks
– Don’t know much of anything about R&B but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve heard throughout my life
– get a job
– I LOVE new age music, and I am probably the biggest Randy Newman fan around these parts. 90s Nintendo soundtracks make me happy.
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-What is your favorite band?
Toto, Stratovarius, Guns N’ Roses, Enya, Sonata Arctica, Randy Newman
Wow, as long as you've been posting here, I'm surprised that I had no idea about most of that. Even as far as what I've seen you post about GnR, I didn't realize you held them up that highly.
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-What is your favorite band?
Toto, Stratovarius, Guns N’ Roses, Enya, Sonata Arctica, Randy Newman
Wow, as long as you've been posting here, I'm surprised that I had no idea about most of that. Even as far as what I've seen you post about GnR, I didn't realize you held them up that highly.
Oh yeah, dude... I think GnR is the absolute pinnacle of rock music. There is not a single group that embodies the spirit of rock n' roll better than the classic GnR lineup. Well maybe Aerosmith, but GnR is just on another dangerous level entirely, the confidence they exuded on stage, oh man. I can remember the exact moments I heard many of their songs for the first time and just what an impact they made on me, I remember the moment I heard Jungle for the first time, it was like knowing I was experiencing a life altering moment. I could gush about GnR all day; behind the scenes shenanigans aside, I must have watched those UYI concerts on DVD as a kid a hundred times. Axl running across a massive stage, strobe lights going wild, Slash running around off the stage in front of the audience shredding away... yeah man. Manifestation of 'cool' right there. As far as I'm concerned, 'real' hard rock died with GnR in the 90s.
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-What is your favorite band?
Iron Maiden, followed by Dream Theater (it has been this way for a long time now) and then Nightwish currently sits at #3.
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Dream Theater - Images & Words
Kamelot - The Black Halo
Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Metal pretty easily, but specifically is tough. I think the top end of the power metal genre is probably my favorite, but I'm not sure the genre as a whole is. I like classic metal, prog, thrash, some nu even. It's hard to say which one I identify with most closely.
-What was your musical journey in life like?
I used to love punk and ska music. Punk music is catchy and heavy and fast, but lacks diversity and technicality. After time, I discovered more metal music and realized it had a lot of what punk offered plus much more and started listening to a lot of 80s metal. I've never been one who likes a lot of screams, so the classic stuff really was enjoyable and then I moved from there to power as I felt like power metal had an 80s vibe to it but wtih more melody and fast speeds. Dream Theater was the first real prog metal band I got into and they opened doors for me to explore more prog metal and become more interested in music that is deeper than just a typical song.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
My parents liked classic rock so that's what we listened to a lot, but also current pop music as I had an older sister who liked that. My parents are big Eric Clapton fans. My dad saw Black Sabbath as a kid, but he never really got into metal, just more of a rock guy.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
I'm not sure how to interpret this other than albums that I absolutely love and maybe aren't my favorites that I listed above but are deeply important to me.
311 - Self Titled
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way
Iron Maiden - A Matter of Life and Death
AFI - The Art of Drowning
Offspring - Smash
Van Halen - 5150
Dream Theater - Images & Words
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
I enjoy it because as I mentioned, my parents would listen to it a lot.
There's very little modern rock that I enjoy. Maybe Greta Van Fleet is the onyl one that I can think of.
Not interested in it
Not interested in it
A favorite genre of mine, and a current favorite as well. A lot of the new bands I discover currently are prog metal.
A favorite genre of mine, and a current favorite as well. On the flip side, I'm not finding new bands in this genre that I enjoy.
I like a lot of it. I think there's a lot more good music here that I'm just a bit hesitant to dig into, essentially bands people say are really good, but I just don't have an interest in digging into their catalogs for various reasons (a big reason is if the band doesn't exist anymore).
I definitely have a soft spot for hair metal. I don't love it all, but there's lots of really fun music in this genre and the fun sing along chorus's too. I hardly listen to this genre anymore, but I like it.
I've never been able to get into grunge. Alice in Chains is the closest and that's a recent enjoyment for me, I wasn't a fan in their heyday and the rest of the grunge bands from the 90s never were of interest to me.
I find thrash metal to have vocals I often don't enjoy, but I love the thrash guitars and drums. Bands like Slayer I enjoy but I can never love and the genre is mostly filled with bands I can enjoy but would never love. Metallica is the one that I enjoy the most from this genre.
I did enjoy this a lot more at the time. I was a huge Limp Bizkit fan when 3 dollar bill was released. But I fell out of love with them by the time their second album dropped. Some bands like Slipknot who may or may not be nu metal I do enjoy though. I think I do enjoy some of the styles of Nu metal, just not full on nu metal.
Not my thing.
Pop can be catchy. I don't enjoy most pop music, but there's good stuff out there and I certainly enjoy when my favorite metal bands do a poppy song if its well done.
Not my thing. I respect it a lot though.
Not my thing. I respect it a lot though.
Not my thing.
Not my thing.
I enjoy some punk still. I used to love it, but punk becomes very samey after a while. Some of the best punk bands are still really good to me like Bad Religion for example.
I feel like I don't like country music, but some of the more modern rock country stuff that is popular isn't terrible.
I still like ska music if I'm in the mood. Ska is practically dead, but I've always enjoyed it.
Reggae is good stuff, but I don't listen to enough. I typically like heavy music so I don't tune into reggae but when I do and I am in the mood, this is good chill music. I've gone to a few reggae/ska shows over the recent years. I enjoy these.[/list]
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Great thread!
-What is your favorite band?
Dream Theater
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Dream Theater: Images and Words, Train of Thought, A Dramatic Turn of Events, Scenes From a Memory
Muse: Origin of Symmetry
Metallica: Master of Puppets
Tesseract: Altered State
Isis: In the Absence of Truth
Rage Against the Machine: Rage Against the Machine
System of a Down: Toxicity
Radiohead: OK Computer
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Progressive metal
-What was your musical journey in life like?
I've always enjoyed music, but I didn't listen to a huge amount as a young kid - mostly just what was on the radio and in the charts. When I was maybe 10 or 11, I was beginning to enjoy more rock based songs. I remember listening to Neighbourhood by Space with my best friend over and over again as well as really liking The Riverboat Song by Ocean Colour Scene. I probably discovered these sorts of songs from listening to the Now That's What I Call Music compilation albums, which were released regularly in the UK. I definitely remember me or my sister having this particular one: https://www.nowmusic.com/album/now-thats-what-i-call-music-35/ (https://www.nowmusic.com/album/now-thats-what-i-call-music-35/)
Oasis was probably the first band I really loved and explored more of though, instead of just listening to the odd song here and there. They were huge at the time and most of my class at school listened to them. As a teenager in the early 2000s I was really into nu-metal/alternative metal. I had Sky TV at that point and there were a lot of music TV channels, I'd spend a lot of time watching Kerrang, Scuzz and MTV2. Linkin Park and System of a Down were among my favourites. One of my best friends watched a lot of the music channels too, but he was also in to a lot of heavier stuff as well. Despite being so into nu-metal, Muse became my favourite band in the early 2000s. Origin of Symmetry was just incredible to me and I loved checking out live bootlegs, b-sides, posting on their forum and they were the second band I saw live (after Radiohead)
The influence of my friend got me into bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden and Megadeth and also a fair bit of grunge I think, but the next big change in my tastes came when another friend recommended Dream Theater to me and played me some tracks from Octavarium, around 2006. It took me a while to really check them out properly, but I probably did so shortly after Systematic Chaos came out. I really loved Train of Thought, I guess from coming from a more metal background. It took me a little while to get in to the other aspects of their music, but eventually I was obsessed with the band and music in general. I was listening to so much music, I would almost always have something on playing through my PC if I was at home or via CD/MP3 player if I was out. I enjoyed looking at my stats/graphs on Last.fm too and discovering new bands from there.
I was loving DT and getting in to similar bands like Symphony X, as progressive metal just sounded so good to me. In the late 2000s/early 2010s, I was also into a lot of post-rock and post-metal bands (mainly instrumental), like 65daysofstatic, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky etc. I became friends with another guy who was into a lot of these bands too and we started regularly going to gigs in Glasgow. Actually the first one was DT at Prog Nation 09, it was the first time we'd met in person and even though he wasn't really into that type of music, we had a great night and continued that for a few years until he moved abroad.
Apologies, I've droned on for ages here, just lots of nostalgic feelings coming out! Anyway, I don't listen to as much music these days and don't get to gigs very often anymore unfortunately, but I still love most of the same bands and discovering the odd new gem, mostly through this forum.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
My dad had a great sound system, but the only bands I can really remember being played a lot were The Pet Shop Boys, Crowded House, Meat Loaf and Chris Rea.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Well I'll go for the most important ones in my musical journey. Oasis: Definitely Maybe & What's the Story Morning Glory; Linkin Park: Hybrid Theory; System of a Down: Toxicity; Muse: Origin of Symmetry; Dream Theater: Train of Thought & Images and Words
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
- enjoy the odd song, but not something I'd specifically listen to
- bit of a mixed bag
- strangely not something I've explored very much, though I'm sure I'd really like a lot of it
- some great stuff in here
- my favourite genre
- great, though I should probably explore a bit more
- some great stuff in here too, though a lot of the older bands I've not really listened to
- never really listened to this
- had a period maybe 10-15 years ago where I listened to this a lot, though not so much anymore
- mostly limited to Metallica and Megadeth here, though I listened to Anthrax for a while too
- I loved this in the early 2000s, lots of great bands and albums but again, I don't listen to that much these days
- I love Opeth, but not much else
- generally hate it, especially in recent times
- not generally my thing, though I enjoyed a lot of the stuff I heard in the TV show Treme
- I've always quite enjoyed classical music, but mainly the well known pieces, I'd never really explored the genre beyond what I'd hear on TV/movies. Recently started checking out a lot of stuff on Youtube though and found some fantastic pieces
- generally hate it, though I did enjoy the odd Eminem song like Stan years ago and the parts in nu-metal
- not my thing
- never really listened to much punk
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this topic will likely be a nice, long read. :tup
I'll try and answer these later tonight when I have more time.
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-What is your favorite band?
Rush
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
1. Kid A
2. Misplaced childhood
3. Downward spiral
4. Disintegration (The cure)
5. Images and words
6. Before these crowded streets (Dave Matthew's)
7. Pleasant shade of grey
8. Wish you were here
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
1. Prog metal
2. Electronic - Like synthwave and EDM
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Started with offspring and greenday, then obsession with Nirvana, then obsession with Dream theater, then only prog metal and prog rock
Then some more traditional metal and thrash, then jazz, Hip hop and Electronic and now everything
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Prog rock and prog metal, and classic rock
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Refer to the favorite albums part
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Electronic - Currently my favorite genera and most listened to (EDM, synthwave, retrowave, vaporwave and so forth)
Classic rock - Decent
Modern rock- idifferent
Classic prog- Love it
Modern prog- Love it
Prog metal- Love it
Classic metal- Love it
Grunge- Don't care about nirvana anymore, but soundgarden, alice in chains, smashing pumpkins are awesome
Thrash metal- love it
Nu metal- love it
Death and/or black metal- love it
pop- if its catchy, then I'm down
jazz- love it, specifically bebop
classical- Respect it, but rarely listen
rap/hip-hop- love it, especially drake
R&B- love it. Its very chill
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What a cool idea!
-What is your favorite band? It's a 4-way tie: Dream Theater, Cheap Trick, Propagandhi, Skinny Puppy
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums? 6DOIT, Cheap Trick 'At Budokan', Potemkin City Limits (Propagandhi), Too Dark Park (Skinny Puppy), Wish You Were Here, Hemispheres, The Sound of Perseverance, Van Halen's debut
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely? This is difficult for me; I'm all over the board! I usually tell people I like rock music and leave it at that.
-What was your musical journey in life like? Played violin from age 3, and guitar from age 10. My dad is a huge music fan in general and brought me to my first shows and introduced me to rock.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up? Pink Floyd, Rush, Jeff Beck, Nektar, Janis Joplin, Cheap Trick, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Van Halen
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity? besides my favorites listed above, Dark Side of the Moon, Rites of Passage (Indigo Girls), Moving Pictures, Surfing With the Alien, Images & Words, Rust in Peace, Semantic Spaces (Delirium), Morningrise (Opeth) and about 40 others!
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock LOVE
Modern rock meh
Classic prog love Rush, Pink Floyd, Camel, Genesis, Nektar
Modern prog I've actually never heard anything by Marillion or Spock's Beard. I like Steven Wilson alright.
Prog metal I'm learning about this genre, and just got a ton of cool recommendations from this forum!
power metalnot really my thing. This is Dragonforce, right? They're pretty much the power metal standard-bearers? Then no thanks.
Classic metalsure
Hair metalI like some Motley Crue! But I LOVE Lillian Axe
Grunge I like three albums: Core, Facelift, Nevermind. Oh, and Dirt. 4 albums
Thrash metalClassic thrash :metal I love Anthrax and Megadeth
Nu metal c'mon man
Death and/or black metal in small doses, although I love Death for some reason. And Opeth.
pop I love pop music, but only with female vocals. Not sure why that is. I generally hate pop with male vocals, like Ed Sheeren. Blech
jazz nope, never. hate
classical Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky I love.
rap/hip-hop nope
R&B ugh, no
punk sometimes! Most people think of Propagandhi as punk, but I don't
other for me the great other is Skinny Puppy, a category all their own
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Man, this is a long post. I didn't think it would take me around 1.5 hour to craft. Here's what I got.
-What is your favorite band?
My favorite band is Alter Bridge. They have been in that position for almost 12 years and honestly, no one comes close to that. This is the only band I’m willing to travel out of state for if they have a big special show. If I had like $3,000.00 in October of 2017, I would have flown to see them play with an orchestra in London at the Royal Albert Hall. No questions. If only I did have the money at the time…….. Well, meeting them in person in Orlando, Florida in September, hearing their new album before it is officially released, and seeing a brief live set do just fine for me. I state before and I will state it again. I would not do anything like travel out of state to see a band except for Alter Bridge.
Although I did have a lot of #2 favorite bands for certain periods of time. Sometimes it was Foo Fighters, sometimes it was Rush, sometimes it was Seether, Skillet, Shinedown, Breaking Benjamin, Owl City, etc.
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Alter Bridge – Blackbird
Skillet – Comatose
Rush – Clockwork Angels
Shinedown – Us and Them
Dream Theater – either DT12 or Awake
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
I’m going to go say Modern Hard Rock. Mainly bands that you would hear on Sirus XM Octane and Turbo.
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Childhood – listening to boy bands and late 90s pop in the background (thanks to my sister) and when we got to the early 00s. Nu metal…… (also thanks to my sister).
High School Years- I got more into bands that I would hear their songs since they were official theme songs of WWE PPVs and then I got into bands when I hearing their songs from fanmade Youtube videos of various WWE PPVs. That’s how I got into Alter Bridge, Seether, Shinedown, Daughtry, etc.
College Years – Once WWE decided to go another way with what they want as theme songs for their PPVs, I decided to listen to iHeartRadio more and listened to this station called Sixx Sense and really listen more into the modern hard rock bands and the Active Rock radio format and got into bands like Breaking Benjamin, Halestorm, A7X, Sixx: A.M., etc. Then I found this forum, DTF, and got myself more familiarized with the songs and the lore of bands like DT, Rush, Iron Maiden, etc.
Post-college years (the now) – Nowadays, thanks to the internet, I can find a lot of different kinds of music in a lot of ways. Sometimes, my favorite Youtubers/Twitch Streamers would play something in the background while they are playing videos games and I get curious on what band is that, what song is that, etc. It’s how I got into bands like Owl City, Poets of the Fall. Sometimes, I see some musicians I like collaborating with someone that I didn’t expect that particular musician to collab with, but it turns out to be awesome and then that particular musician/band’s catalog turns out to be awesome. That’s how I got into Zac Brown Band and Lindsey Stirling. I sometimes watch anime and hear some themes songs and it sounded immense that’s so ahead of the curve from the stuff you would hear in the West and I want to listen to more stuff from that well. I really dug this Japanese singer, Aimer, and her albums and rate one of the albums she released this year as my favorite album of 2019 so far.
I guess to sum it up, I never stop chasing wanting to hear new stuff no matter who they are or where I find it. I just want to enjoy it in ways that only I can define.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Growing up, it was a mixture of my parents (mainly my mother) playing music from this variety show called Paris By Night and my sister playing whatever current pop stuff was at the time whether it was boy bands (NSync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees), pop teen stars (Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera), and Nu Metal (especially Limp Bizkit. Shudder……….). The fact that I got into hard rock after all of that amazes me.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Aside from my all-time favorite albums, I would say the following.
Switchfoot – Vice Verses
All five Alter Bridge albums (seriously, that band has inadvertently created the soundtrack of my life, time and time again, and I don’t think I would be in the spot that I am in without their music pepping me up when I need it)
Sixx: A.M. – This is Gonna Hurt
Foo Fighters – Wasting Light
Breaking Benjamin – Dear Agony
Owl City – The Midsummer Station (although, I do like the Maybe I’m Dreaming album better)
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
• Classic rock
I don’t like classic rock. Have no personal investment to it and have no reasons to do so. I appreciate what those bands done in the course of history, but other than Rush, if I could, I can live without them and it wouldn’t affect me one bit.
• Modern rock
I like a good portion of the bands I hear some stations like Octane, but there are some bands that are so bland, especially when there are so many screaming/whiney vocals without any distinctions that can make them appealing to me. It’s like whose the next in-line in terms of recognizable modern hard rock vocalists after guys like Myles Kennedy, M. Shadows, Lzzy Hale, Corey Taylor, Ben Burnley, etc. The only one closest to those guys I listed is Jonny Hawkins from Nothing More to me. I'm not counting the guy from Greta Van Fleet or else I might as well say Robert Plant and he ain't modern (but still good).
• Classic prog
Don’t know much about those bands. Have no interest to do so.
• Modern prog
See Classic Prog
• Prog metal
Don’t know much about it other than DT, but if there’s a band that may peak my interest, it could be something I can get into more. I'm seeing Coheed and Cambria and Mastodon in June so I can't wait to dig into more of those guys stuff.
• power metal
Once again, don’t know much about bands from that genre and have no interest to do so, but if a band peaks my interest. Who knows.
• Classic metal
See Classic Rock, except replace Rush with Iron Maiden
• Hair metal
I hate those bands and their attitudes at the time of their peak. I feel like they represent a lot of things that I stand against. It seems like those bands were in their peaks today, oh boy, they wouldn’t survive in this today’s social media culture.
• Grunge
Out of the main four big grunge bands, I like Soundgarden. Have a lot of respect for Alice in Chains (especially in the now). The rest, ehhhh. As for Nirvana, it sounds cruel (but it is how I feel) that the only good thing for me about Nirvana was that it brought attention to Dave Grohl and then he went on to form Foo Fighters and they created music that I enjoy.
• Thrash metal
See Classic Rock, especially replace Rush with Metallica and even that’s pushing it
• Nu metal
Nu Metal gets a lot of flak and some of it deserving. There’s only so much Korn and Rob Zombie and others that I can tolerate hearing on Octane/Turbo in a day. That stated, I think Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory and Meteora deserves all of the praise it gets. Everyone in my age bracket should know at least one Linkin Park song, especially In the End or Numb. Also, I think Disturbed doesn’t get enough credit for having so many solid songs and hits. There’s more to them than Down with the Sickness. Same goes for Papa Roach. There’s more to them than Last Resort as I always say.
• Death and/or black metal
Don’t know anything about it. Probably don’t want to get into it given my preferences in vocals.
• pop
The modern pop stuff, nowadays, have a lot of stuff I don’t enjoy, but I do enjoy Ed Sheeran a lot. I do want to get into more decent JPop stuff. I feel like I’m only scratching the surface after getting into Aimer’s music. I would say about my stance on pop and this applies to any music as well: I just want to hear something that seems honest and not created only for the purpose to sell something. I feel that musicians’ role is to create music that’s meaningful to them and is able to communicate that with an audience that is willing to listen and relate to.
• jazz
I think jazz might be a bit too slow for me to get into, but I think it’s a good platform for musicians to show what they can do.
• classical
I don’t enjoy classical. I mean if there are some classical music that is loud, intense sometimes, and have meaningful lyrics that relates to me, sign me up for that
• rap/hip-hop
Like Pop, if rap/hip-hop feels more honest and creative and not released only for the purpose of getting rich, great. I feel like there are few examples far in between though.
• R&B
Like jazz, I think it has a great platform for solid singers to show what they can do, but it’s not really what I’m looking for
• punk
I’m not too keen on punk and their lifestyle choices and the whole “if you do a certain thing, that’s not punkish of you.” I always think music should always bring people together in ways people would not expect, but love experiencing. Having a “that’s not punk” or “that’s not metal” mentality seems to go against what I am looking for in music and I feel that it’s only hurting themselves if people have that mentality.
• other
As for other genres, I want to get into more modern J-Rock stuff. I feel like there’s some good stuff there that I am missing out on. Also, I want to get into more bands like Poets of the Fall. They just make beautiful sounding music and depicts very vivid images in their lyrics and tone.
Hope you enjoy reading this long post. Just me rambling like I always do when I do long posts.
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What is your favorite band?
- Animal Alpha, but Nine Inch Nails is my favourite band that has released more than three albums.
What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
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Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Animal Alpha - You Pay for the Whole Seat, But You'll Only Need the Edge
The Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia
Ministry - Filth Pig
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime
Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding
Nightwish - Century Child
Leprous - The Congregation
What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
- Industrial, alternative rock and metal.
What was your musical journey in life like?
- As a kid, I watched a lot of music television and learned probably the most about popular music that way. I tended to like rock music even back then.. Then when I was about twelve years old, I heard some other boys from my class play Metallica, Iron Maiden and AC/DC and I was converted into a metalhead pretty fast. In middle school I got also into bands like Megadeth, Anthrax, Queensrÿche and well, Dream Theater and also a little bit into extreme metal through Sepultura and Death. I mostly looked down on music that wasn't metal. In high school I became more tolerant musically and started liking other genres of music too. I used to hate electronic music, but then I got into Ministry and later Nine Inch Nails. Later on I've gotten into piano-driven pop/rock, 90s rock, doom metal...
What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
- Mostly Finnish pop and rock music.
What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
-
Green Day - American Idiot
My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade (back in the day I only had an illicit mp3 copy which didn't have I Don't Love You, I really should get a physical copy)
Metallica - Master of Puppets
AC/DC - For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)
For Iron Maiden and Megadeth I didn't have such clear cut favourites, but let's say The Number of the Beast and Peace Sells... But Who's Buying
Dream Theater - Awake
Animal Alpha - You Pay for the Whole Seat, Buy You'll Only Need the Edge
Ministry - Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Bruce Dickinson Skunkworks - s/t
The Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia
How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
- Classic rock
Hmmm... I'm not maybe a fan per se, but generally I tend to like 70s/80s rock.
- Modern rock
I don't know what's considered modern rock anymore. Nickelback? Coldplay? Imagine Dragons? So nope.
- Classic prog
Pink Floyd is great, and so is Rush's prog era. Other than that, I've never been that interested to check 'classic' prog bands out. I've been listening to some 80s King Crimson lately and I LIKE IT!
- Modern prog
I don't know what bands count as modern prog, so I have no feelings either way.
- Prog metal
Ehhh... I don't know. I do like proggy music, but I prefer good melodies to noodling for noodling's sake.
- power metal
Generally not my thing.
- Classic metal
It's usually at least alright.
- Hair metal
Hate it.
- Grunge
I don't think grunge's really even a genre. Out of popular 'grunge' bands, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden are pretty great, Stone Temple Pilots good, Nirvana OK but overrated to hell and Pearl Jam I don't like. I like 90s rock though.
- Thrash metal
Outside a couple of bands, not really a fan.
- Nu metal
Deftones is awesome and Papa Roach's lovehatetragedy is a great album. Outside them, no.
- Death metal
Sure, why not.
- Black metal
I can stand more athmospheric kinds of black metal, but not a fan.
- Pop
I love me some 80s pop! But after that decade, good and original sounding acts are few and far between.
- Jazz
I'm not well versed in it at all, but I like the kind of jazz you can dance to.
- Classical
Never really gotten into it.
- rap/hip-hop
I can get the appeal of old school gangsta rap, but otherwise no.
- R&B
Some old R&B is fine I guess? The modern chart crap? No.
- punk
I like the energy and attitude of some punk bands, but not a huge fan.
- Industrial
I like it a lot.
- Doom/sludge/stoner metal
I generally like these genres. The more your riffs sound like Black Sabbath, the better.
- Post-hardcore
At best it's punk rock energy mixed with prog metal. What's not to like?
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-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
KISS Alive II
AC/DC Back In Black
Def Leppard-High n Dry
UFO-Strangers In The Night
Michael Schenker Group-MSG
Helloween-Keeper Of The Seven Keys Pt.1
Dream Theater-Images And Words
Other than Helloween - just not familiar (though I heard a Michael Kiske solo song that blew me away!) - this is like a master class in metal. These are Mt. Rushmore albums right here. I'd go so far to say that you don't have to LIKE them, but if you don't KNOW these, you can't credibly call yourself a metal fan. Boom, I said that.
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Mom liked the crooners and mellow stuff like Barry Manilow. She also loved Van Halen, The Carpenters, The Mamas & The Papas, Toto, Def Leppard… She’d also play a lot of holiday albums around Christmas time, so your Kenny G renditions and Michael Buble and stuff. Dad has always liked 70s and 80s rock, ACDC reigns supreme in his eyes. I watched lots of Disney movies as a kid too so there was a lot of that music playing on TV, and I would often leave certain video games running just to hear their music. I also played instruments so there was a bunch of that.
I probably hit on your mom in college. She better dealed me with dad. :)
(I'm totally joshing with you; nothing but props and respect for your parents; I just saw the easy joke).
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Are... are you my real dad? No wonder I love John Wetton so much.
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I bet you I saw Wetton live before you were born Mike. Lol
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-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
KISS Alive II
AC/DC Back In Black
Def Leppard-High n Dry
UFO-Strangers In The Night
Michael Schenker Group-MSG
Helloween-Keeper Of The Seven Keys Pt.1
Dream Theater-Images And Words
Other than Helloween - just not familiar (though I heard a Michael Kiske solo song that blew me away!) - this is like a master class in metal. These are Mt. Rushmore albums right here. I'd go so far to say that you don't have to LIKE them, but if you don't KNOW these, you can't credibly call yourself a metal fan. Boom, I said that.
Statements like the highlighted one bug the crap out of me, but I'll leave that as it is. As for the rest of this, I'm with you on the "master class" idea, and I'd agree that Back in Black is a "Mt. Rushmore of Metal Album," but none of the others belong.
I'll defer to you and others about Kiss, but I always thought the first Alive album was more highly regarded.
With respect to Def Leppard, I think you'd get a ton of argument that either Pyromania or Hysteria is the more appropriate "Mt. Rushmore album."
Strangers in the Night is no worse than my second favorite live album of all time, but I don't think any UFO album -- much less a Michael Schenker Group album -- goes on any "Mt. Rushmore" of metal.
And, as much as I love DT, the reality is that no DT album is going on any "Mt. Rushmore" unless it's for prog prog metal.
You can't have a "Mt. Rushmore" of metal without Back in Black, something by Sabbath and something by Metallica. As for the fourth band, I'm not sure who it is, but it ain't UFO, Schenker or DT (maybe Kiss, but I think that spurs the whole "is Kiss really a metal band" debate).
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I don't really see how either KISS or AC/DC are metal bands, honestly. AC/DC is kind of heavy, I guess, but it seems more just like a rock n roll kind of thing, vocals aside, at least.
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I don't really see how either KISS or AC/DC are metal bands, honestly.
Both have had a big influence in metal music though.
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Oh yeah, definitely. But I wouldn't consider them metal, so saying you have to like them to be a metal fan is pretty strange.
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Oh yeah, definitely. But I wouldn't consider them metal, so saying you have to like them to be a metal fan is pretty strange.
Well me neither and I've only heard three of those albums so if Stadler doesn't think I'm allowed to call credibly myself a metal fan, I'll just say I'm more of a music fan. :) :biggrin:
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Consider the time too, Kiss was metal then and maybe it's not considered metal now, but I think it's OK to classify it as that personally.
As for Def Leppard, maybe Hysteria or Pyromania are the more popular albums but High n Dry is more metal and the best Def Leppard album. I'm not sure I'd say it's a master class album for metal, but it's a really good album and top notch in the genre for the time.
I guess a metal master class discussion is kind of a cool concept, although "master class" just seems like a ridiculous trend these days.
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Well, we can certainly disagree, but to further explain, I think it's like anything else. You can't change a set of tires and call yourself a mechanic, you can't sign a contract and call yourself a lawyer, you can't boil a hot dog and call yourself a chef. There is information that you need to have to call yourself more than a dabbler, and I think music is the same thing. It doesn't mean you can't like or enjoy music without knowing the entire pedigree, but it gives a necessary context. Pearl Jam didn't make a lot of sense to me until I finally listened to the non-Tommy Who albums, and Steve Vai made ZERO sense before I listened to the deeper cuts on the albums Hendrix made while he was alive.
And PG, Ruba, I meant it to spark conversation, not insult you, so take it for what it is.
Shadow: I didn't say LIKE, I said KNOW. It's about musical knowledge, not taste.
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Yeah, but I could eat a hot dog and call myself a fan of food.
I don't necessarily disagree with some of your main point here; that understanding the background of music can contribute to your enjoyment of it, but I also think that saying you can't be a fan of a genre without [insert album here] is pretty limiting, especially when the albums in question aren't (entirely, at least) metal and definitely don't describe the breadth of the genre as it is now.
I mean, I could say that you must listen to DEPs Miss Machine in order to be a fan of metal, and you'd probably be like fuck you Shadow Ninja, what the hell is this shit.
And you would be right to do so.
There's a point in here somewhere. Unsure whether salient or not.
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And PG, Ruba, I meant it to spark conversation, not insult you, so take it for what it is.
My comment was written tongue in cheek and I doubt anyone would feel insulted by your original comment. So it's all cool.
I do sometimes like to check out artists some of my favourites have been influenced by.
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I thought this would drive my OCD nuts but it wasn't too bad. I keep adding things and I just need to go with my first instinct. So, here it is.
-What is your favorite band?
Rush, Opeth, Katatonia
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Psycho Motel – Welcome To The World
Midnight Oil – Blue Sky Mining
Opeth – Blackwater Park
Katatonia – The Great Cold Distance
Marillion - Misplaced Childhood
Bad Religion – Against The Grain
Anthrax - Persistence Of Time
The Dead Deads – Rainbeau
The Dead Deads – For Your Obliteration
Frank Gambale – Coming To Your Senses
Spock’s Beard – V
Killing Joke – 2003 S/T
Veruca Salt – Eight Arms To Hold You
Tool – Lateralus
Soen – Lykaia
Killer Be Killed – S/T
Nightmare - Dead Sun
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Metal / Prog
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Got a paper route as a kid to support my CD purchases. I started buying them shortly after the medium came out. Joined BMG and Columbia House and never looked back. Have at least 2000 CD’s now and still growing.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Dad – Oldies and Country
Mom – Rock, Hard Rock, Pop, Metal
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Rage Against The Machine – S/T
Pearl Jam – Ten
Dire Straits – Brothers In Arms
See fave list above. I could go one forever.
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
• Classic rock
Enjoy a lot of it
• Modern rock
Not sure if I listen to a lot of modern rock
• Classic prog
Love it
• Modern prog
Love it
• Prog metal
Enjoy it quite a bit
• Power metal
Can’t say I have a lot but I certainly don’t dislike
• Classic metal
Love it
• Hair metal
Not a big fan of true hair metal. Many bands I really like are classified as such and I disagree with it.
• Grunge
Outside of Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains – can’t say I have much.
• Thrash metal
Love it
• Nu metal
Hate it, for the most part
• Death and/or black metal
Really can only tolerate Opeth
• Pop
I enjoy a lot of Pop – Sara Bareilles, Tori Amos, P!nk, Colbie Caillat, Natalie Imbruglia, etc.
• Jazz
Only really like Fusion and Big Band Swing. Has to be instrumental as well.
• Classical
Nope
• rap/hip-hop
Very little and mostly old school.
• R&B
Nope, not really.
• Punk
Love Bad Religion and early Offspring. Can’t say I have much else but I do love the genre.
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metal is defined as "whatever the average 40-year-old of the time considers too heavy"
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-What is your favorite band?
Dream Theater, naturally!
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
The Astonishing, Scenes from a Memory, The Mountain, The Human Equation, Octavarium, NeO's Urn and Portal of I, The Old Man and the Spirit, Diablo Swing Orchestra's Pandora's Pinata, SDoIT, ADToE, The Theory of Everything, all three of iamthemorning's albums, and Howard Shore's score to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. There's way too many to list!
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Late-Classical up to Late Romantic classical music. Stuff like Beethoven, Dvorak, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, etc.
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Childhood: Alternative rock, some ska, Now! That's What I Call Music
Adolescence: Progressive and Symphonic Metal, J-pop and J-rock, Alternative Rock
Late High School - Early College: Classical, Jazz, Musical Theater, Progressive Rock and Metal, Alternative Rock
Now: EVERYTHING that's not atonal
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
I grew up in a single parent household and my mom didn't listen to much music that I can remember.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Some of these aren't albums buuuuut:
Dream Theater - The Astonishing (my all time favorite album)
Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (what got me interested in pursuing music as a career)
Howard Shore's score for The Lord of the Rings (probably one of the greatest pieces of music ever)
Puccini's La Boheme (my first opera!)
Prokofiev's Symphony Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (a piece that cemented my love for classical music and was my "gateway drug")
Taylor Swift - 1989; Lorde - Melodrama; Carly Rae Jepsen - E-MO-TION (the three albums that got me into pop)
Haken - The Mountain (really broadened my horizon into other genres, like electronic music)
Liszt's Piano Sonata (this had an EXTRAORDINARY impact on me as a composer and music theorist, got me really interested in form and structure)
Rachmaninoff's 2nd and 3rd Piano Concertos (still two of my favorite pieces of music EVER alongside Octavarium, and some of the biggest inspiration wells I have)
Beethoven's Piano Sonatas (is this cheating? Yes. But I've been studying them so much lately that it doesn't matter)
A weird example, but the 1000 Folk Song Fake Book, which got me really interested in folk music and was a masterclass in good melody writing.
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
I'm probably going to like all of them lol.
Classic rock
[Assuming we're talking about Journey-esque 80s rock stuff] A bit simplistic at times, but it's great fun in small doses.
Modern rock
[Assuming we're talking about Imagine Dragons-esque stuff] See above.
Classic prog
I love it. I think we only really remember the great stuff like Close to the Edge and Dark Side of the Moon, but there's probably a lot of crap that got released during the 70s and early 80s that we've forgotten. Even so, Yes, Floyd, and Camel are some of my favorite bands. Really pushed the boundaries of what rock could be.
Modern prog
Ehhhh, it seems like it's mostly trying to live in the past rather than do anything new and "progressive". Sometimes that gives us great stuff like Neal Morse or truly innovative artists like iamthemorning, but most of it is mediocre and kinda dull tbh.
Prog metal
I like the big bands like DT, Tool, Ayreon, Opeth, SX, NeO, PT, SW, and DSO. Most of it is eh though, for the same reasons as above.
Power metal
Sometimes can be a bit much for me, but the more conservative and orchestral stuff like Blind Guardian is always welcome in my ears.
Classic metal
You mean stuff like Metallica, Iron Maiden, and the like? It's hit or miss for me honestly, and not my go to for when I want to listen to metal.
Hair metal
I honestly just file this under classic rock most of the time lol, I know they're different but I just don't care.
Grunge
I've always liked it. Weirdly enough tho, Nirvana is probably my least favorite grunge band. I've always been more of a Soundgarden or Alice in Chains kinda guy.
Thrash metal
Eh, see classic metal. I haven't kept up with modern thrash so idk what to say about that.
Nu metal
I like it, honestly. Was there some cheesy stuff? Yeah, of course, it's metal. Was there some really great stuff? Yeah, of course, it's metal. Bands like Linkin Park and Disturbed are great imo
Death and/or black metal
I like the more melodic, techy, and progressive stuff. The stuff with over the top cheesy satanic lyrics can get out tho. I'm also not much of a fan of "rawer" black metal (not to be confused with "rawr" black metal, which is played in Hot Topics across Norway). It just sounds bad to my ears.
pop
tbh my go to music for when I want to have a fun, good time or want a short thing to listen to. Probably gets crapped on more than it deserves, as there's a lot of good stuff here. Lorde, Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, etc. All great music. Honestly, one of my favorite genres outside of classical and metal.
jazz
Best enjoyed live! I really enjoy jazz and studied it a little bit when I was in my music program. I much prefer to listen to it live, because that way you get to capture the feeling of spontaneity and improvisation. Also, tickets are usually SUPER cheap. Like most jazz concerts I go to are $0-$10 because they're mostly hosted by music schools and music students lol.
classical
Probably my favorite genre, and also my least favorite genre. I love a lot of the stuff in the "common practice period" (basically the Baroque up to and including Romanticism) and listening to and studying classical music has totally changed how I listen to every other genre and made me more appreciative and open minded about other kinds of music. A lot of the best music I've ever heard has been classical and a lot of the artists and music I most enjoy are in this genre.
But that said, modern classical is kind of a dumpster fire after you move on from the undergraduate stuff. It pursues innovation at all costs, even if the music that's being written isn't good. There's kind of this toxic attitude that that composer is separated from and "above" his audience and it doesn't matter if they like it or not, because he is an artistic genius. There's also a lot of expectation that you'll write in an atonal/serialist/expressionist style while in school and more tonal composers are often accused of selling out. It's led to this weird situation where the majority of what you hear is established standards rather new music being performed. There's still some really good stuff being put out there (like the minimalists and Elena Kats-Chernin's ballet "Wild Swans"), but most of the music I've heard recently has sounded rather...uninspired. There's complex historical reasons for all of this that I won't get into right now, but it jut frustrates me to no end.
rap/hip-hop
I've liked what I've heard so far. Probably should listen to more. One of the genres I'm the newest to tbh.
R&B
Always been hella confused by what R&B actually is. It may just be my modern bias, but R&B and Pop are mostly indistinguishable and it seems like black artists get the R&B label and white artists are labeled as Pop. If that's the case, can't we just merge them into one? Segregating music based on the race of the artist is so...1950.
punk
I like pop-punk and the emo scene! Punk punk has never been my thing tho. I'm not really a fan of that SO RAW IT BLEEEEEDS sound and I'm clearly not the target audience for it lol. I respect it for what it is, but it's not for me.
other
My "other" favorite genre! No, but seriously, here's my thoughts on some miscellaneous genres that got skipped over:
Trance - I like the more complicated psytance stuff like Juno Reactor and Infected Mushroom (the kind that's "borderline" psytrance) and some goa trance. Haven't really delved into the uplifting stuff yet.
French House - in terms of electronic music, this is my JAM. Stuff like Justice, Madeon, and Daft Punk are all great.
Electro House - my OTHER electronic jam. Should probably try and find more stuff in this genre.
Complextro/Glitch Hop - I dig it. I haven't really delved to deep yet.
K-pop - Starting to get into it. Really digging some things I've heard so far.
Classic dubstep (+ Chillstep) - hit or miss for me so far. I like some of it (Submotion Orchestra is great), but some of it has been dreadfully boring.
Brostep - Skrillex is really good, everything else I've heard I have to be in the mood for.
Progressive EDM genres - Believe it or not this is totally different from Progressive Rock and Metal. I've mostly found it incredibly boring.
IDM (+ Techno too I guess?) - I like some of it. Some of it is a bit much for me. Hate the genre name.
Metalcore - I actually like this stuff quite a bit lol. Especially the bands that take more influence from pop-punk and have a catchier edge to them. That's the good stuff
Folk/traditional music - I like the really traditional throwback stuff. The more modern tunes are kinda eh imo, lol.
Funk/Disco - I've been getting into this more! I've been pretty much loving everything.
Swing Revival - The kinda jazz that I listen to at home. More pop and vocal jazz influence, less emphasis on improv. Still some great, swingin' tunes.
Musical Theater - LOVE it. Really, I find it kinda hard to listen to on my own because the visuals are so important to telling the story. But I love seeing it live or on YouTube. I don't think I've been disappointed by a musical I've been to yet. I've even been to a world premiere and lemme tell ya, THAT was exciting!
Opera - Same as above, except I haven't been to a world premiere yet (I've been to a 2nd ever showing tho)
Contemporary Christian - You know how I said I liked most genres? This isn't one of them. And I'm Christian.
Symphonic metal - Has the same problem as a lot of metal, where I've heard so much of it a lot of it can sound boring. The really great stuff like Nightwish, Epica, Within Temptation, and modern Blind Guardian are fantastic. English usually sounds terrible with operatic vocals tho.
Indie rock - It's decent. Haven't made too much of an effort to dive deeper tho. Probably should fix that.
Djent - 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101001 01110100 00101110
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Is Disturbed considered Nu metal? I guess I should add that to why I do like some nu metal. Its funny cause no band wants to be labelled as nu metal so I have no idea which fringe type of bands actually are nu metal. I feel like Slipknot and Disturbed may be Nu metal.
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-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
KISS Alive II
AC/DC Back In Black
Def Leppard-High n Dry
UFO-Strangers In The Night
Michael Schenker Group-MSG
Helloween-Keeper Of The Seven Keys Pt.1
Dream Theater-Images And Words
Other than Helloween - just not familiar (though I heard a Michael Kiske solo song that blew me away!) - this is like a master class in metal. These are Mt. Rushmore albums right here. I'd go so far to say that you don't have to LIKE them, but if you don't KNOW these, you can't credibly call yourself a metal fan. Boom, I said that.
Statements like the highlighted one bug the crap out of me, but I'll leave that as it is. As for the rest of this, I'm with you on the "master class" idea, and I'd agree that Back in Black is a "Mt. Rushmore of Metal Album," but none of the others belong.
I'll defer to you and others about Kiss, but I always thought the first Alive album was more highly regarded.
With respect to Def Leppard, I think you'd get a ton of argument that either Pyromania or Hysteria is the more appropriate "Mt. Rushmore album."
Strangers in the Night is no worse than my second favorite live album of all time, but I don't think any UFO album -- much less a Michael Schenker Group album -- goes on any "Mt. Rushmore" of metal.
And, as much as I love DT, the reality is that no DT album is going on any "Mt. Rushmore" unless it's for prog prog metal.
You can't have a "Mt. Rushmore" of metal without Back in Black, something by Sabbath and something by Metallica. As for the fourth band, I'm not sure who it is, but it ain't UFO, Schenker or DT (maybe Kiss, but I think that spurs the whole "is Kiss really a metal band" debate).
Yeah, I'm not saying these are my Mount Rushmore of metal albums. The question was what do you consider classic to "your" (my) musical identity. These are the albums that I feel most influenced me in my musical direction. they were "turning points" for me.
I posted my 10 favorite albums in my original response.
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What is Classic Rock now a days?
:lol Good question. I remember seeing a package tour with REO, Styx, and Journey back in around 2002 or so. At one point during Styx's set, Tommy Shaw was talking to the audience and said, "Man, the other day, I heard one of our songs on a 'classic rock' station! I guess that means we're...'classic rock' now? Man, does that mean I'm old?" Or something along those lines.
Nirvana and the grunge wave is often considered classic rock nowadays. The emo/nu-metal/gothic rock wave of the early 2000s is heading that way now too.
• jazz
I think jazz might be a bit too slow for me to get into, but I think it’s a good platform for musicians to show what they can do.
• classical
I don’t enjoy classical. I mean if there are some classical music that is loud, intense sometimes, and have meaningful lyrics that relates to me, sign me up for that
Re: jazz - Bebop and hard bop might be your speed. Literally. The tempos can get up to a blistering 300bpm, and a lot of the tempos are in the 200bpm range. Classic dancier swing jazz like Ellington and Swing Revival can hit 200bpm ranges too. I've always thought of jazz as one of the fastest genres out there so reading this was surprising lol
Re: classical - "Loud and intense" basically describes Late Romanticism (Wagner onwards) and Early Modernism (like Stravinsky). As for meaningful lyrics...eh. That's not really the focus, and most of it is in German/Latin/Italian/French/sometimes Russian anyways.
Is Disturbed considered Nu metal? I guess I should add that to why I do like some nu metal. Its funny cause no band wants to be labelled as nu metal so I have no idea which fringe type of bands actually are nu metal. I feel like Slipknot and Disturbed may be Nu metal.
I've always considered those two nu metal and most people I've talked to do too. Disturbed, Slipknot, KоЯn, Papa Roach, and Linkin Park are solid examples of Nu Metal I think.
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I think this is my ignorance speaking and thought that playing jazz was similar to playing saxophone at a slow pace, Maybe, I'm mistaking it for blues and I could be wrong at that as well. I am that uncultured, but I'm willing to learn if I'm intrigued about it. I don't mind the sound of bombast brass instruments being played at a good pace. Maybe, it's something I can listen to more as background music.
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I think this is my ignorance speaking and thought that playing jazz was similar to playing saxophone at a slow pace, Maybe, I'm mistaking it for blues and I could be wrong at that as well. I am that uncultured, but I'm willing to learn if I'm intrigued about it. I don't mind the sound of bombast brass instruments being played at a good pace. Maybe, it's something I can listen to more as background music.
There's a whole lot of different jazz out there. It's awesome background music :)
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-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Mom – Rock, Hard Rock, Pop, Metal
I love your Mom! :lol You're father is a lucky man!
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-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Mom – Rock, Hard Rock, Pop, Metal
I love your Mom! :lol You're father is a lucky man!
Yeah, Mom was pretty cool. She saw Tesla, Skid Row (with Bach) and others in concert. Sadly, cancer took her several years ago. She was only 62. I definitely got my taste in music from her.
EDIT: Totally forgot the she freaking saw Queensryche with me at The Vic in Chicago. She loved QR and this was during the Tater years.
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-What is your favorite band? Blur
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums? Blur-Great Escape, DT-SFAM, Nas-Illmatic, Fat Boys-Big & Beautiful, Beasties-Licensed To Ill
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely? Old school rap. I still speak 80's rap slang
-What was your musical journey in life like? 80's radio pop, 80's rap, 90's metal/grunge/DT, branched out from there
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up? Not much
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity? Fat Boys-Big & Beautiful, Beasties-Licensed To Ill, Run-DMC - Raising Hell
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock - I like some of it
Modern rock - I like some of it
Classic prog - Don't know much
Modern prog - Don't know much
Prog metal - Only a few bands
power metal - Nah
Classic metal - Only a few bands
Hair metal - Nah
Grunge - Only a few bands
Thrash metal - Metallica and Megadeth is all I remember
Nu metal - No
Death and/or black metal - In the 90's yes, not anymore
pop - 60's-80's yea, nothing new
jazz - It's ok
classical - Boring
rap/hip-hop - Love old school, hate the new shit
R&B - I like 70's-90's
punk - Do Green Day and Offspring count? probably not
other - I like funk, disco, shoegaze, dark indie rock, classic britpop, some electronic, some post rock, blues
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I think this is my ignorance speaking and thought that playing jazz was similar to playing saxophone at a slow pace, Maybe, I'm mistaking it for blues and I could be wrong at that as well. I am that uncultured, but I'm willing to learn if I'm intrigued about it. I don't mind the sound of bombast brass instruments being played at a good pace. Maybe, it's something I can listen to more as background music.
Here's a quick rundown. First, the ensemble types:
Chamber jazz:
Solo piano/guitar: Yup. Self-explanatory.
Jazz piano trio: Bass/Drums/Piano. Often referred to as the "rhythm section" in other settings. Piano can often be subbed for guitar.
Quartet: A rhythm section, but with a "front-line" lead instrument. Almost always a brass instrument or a saxophone.
Quintet: The above...but with two front-line instruments.
Big Band: An arrangement consisting of a front-line (~5 saxophones, ~4 trumpets, ~4 trombones) and a rhythm section (bass, drums, guitar, piano).
Instrument roles:
Bass: carries the beat and outlines the harmony. Almost always has a "4 on the 4" kind of rhythm outside of jazz fusion. Solos are often terrible.
Drums: creates rhythmic interest by contrasting its swing rhythms with the bass's constant pulse. Most of the groove comes from the interaction between the drums and bass, like in funk or some metal (e.g. Gojira).
Guitar/Piano: usually lays down the harmony. Often has solos. In a trio setting, this will often carry the melody.
Front-line: Provides the melody and fleshes out the harmony. Typically in big bands, most of the front-line is "homogenized" around a single melody, but takes up different notes of the chord. Provides counter melodies in jazz with vocals.
And subgrenres:
Cool jazz: Pretty much what you're describing, but good. Usually slower tempos, much more "static" harmony, and conservative instrumentation. Very...impressionist, I guess.
Smooth jazz: EXACTLY what you're describing. Basically bad 80s ballads with a saxophone carrying the melody. This is that stuff like Kenny G that you might hear at a coffee shop or Target. Most jazznicks don't like this.
Modal jazz: This is just jazz based in modes rather than classical tonal harmony. Can be anywhere from slower stuff (usually with some cool jazz crossover) to more energetic, fast-paced stuff.
Swing: This music was originally intended for dancing, so it has a faster and more energetic tone. Melodies are based out of old musicals and popular songs (we're talking stuff from the 1890s-1940s) and there's a big band arrangement. May or may not have vocals. Can have some ballad stuff, but this is ultimately dancing music.
Vocal jazz: Can be all over the place in style, since it's mainly just "jazz with vocals". Can be taken to mean crooner stuff like Frank Sinatra and Michael Buble, or the classic singers like Ella Fitzgerald. Also usually broadly encompasses swing revival.
Swing Revival: A genre that emerged in the late 80s/early 90s to "bring back" the classic big band swing sound of the 40s with a modern production. Usually has vocals and often has a bright, energetic tone.
Jazz fusion: Stuff like Weather Report that tries to fuse rock/funk elements with jazz. Ranges from catchy stuff (like Snarky Puppy) to absent-minded noodling (sometimes called "Berklee Funk"). There's also Third-Stream Jazz, which focuses solely on blending classical music with jazz.
Bebop: Probably the dominant form of jazz for the last 60 years or so. Very complicated, very fast. The early stuff was usually smaller chamber ensembles, but more modern interpretations tend to include big band ensembles. Tempos can range anywhere from 80-300bpm, and they're more often at the higher end of the scale. Kinda hard to dance to. Basically the prog of jazz.
Hard Bop: A more conservative form of Bebop that's more influenced by gospel and pop. Catchier melodies and a stronger and more danceable beat, but still the same complexity and energy of bebop. Probably the most popular form of jazz today.
Dixieland: The original jazz. Controlled, collective improvisation. Everybody's improvising at the same time but it still manages to sound good. Think New Orleans, and this is probably what comes to mind.
Ragtime: Proto-jazz. Not swung, but has very heavily syncopated rhythms over an "oom-pah" beat. Most often solo piano, but larger ensembles do exist. More closely associated with classical music than jazz nowadays tbh. Scott Joplin and Art Tatum (unquestionably the greatest pianist of all time. Listen to this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu7UP4wdn7I) and keep in mind that this dude was almost completely blind) are the biggest examples I think.
Gypsy Jazz/Jazzmer: An unfortunately named genre that combines klezmer (a form of Jewish folk music) or Eastern-European folk music (often Romanian and general Balkan) with jazz. Honestly pretty fire stuff.
Latin jazz/Afro-Cuban jazz: Combines jazz with Latin American rhythms and percussion. Self-explanatory.
Electroswing: A very broad term, but it's mostly a genre of electronic music that has swing rhythms and samples old swing/ragtime/dixieland recordings.
Free jazz/Avant-garde jazz: you remember that clip from Spongebob where they talk about acquiring a taste for "free form jazz"? That's not free jazz. Free/Avant-garde jazz is basically atonal classical music...but jazz. Kinda terrible imo. (note: Diablo Swing Orchestra does not count as this, even tho it's Avant-garde metal. They would fall closer to "swing revival/jazz fusion". Avant-garde rock/metal/pop and Avant-garde classical/jazz are two VERY different things)
Loft jazz: originally a subset of avant-garde jazz, now the term's been supplanted by low effort YouTube channels to basically mean smooth jazz. Avoid both forms.
I think that should cover mostly everything. Hope that helps.
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Smooth jazz: EXACTLY what you're describing. Basically bad 80s ballads with a saxophone carrying the melody. This is that stuff like Kenny G that you might hear at a coffee shop or Target. Most jazznicks don't like this.
:tdwn :tdwn :tdwn
That stuff rules! Jazz elitists can kick rocks :hat
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Smooth jazz: EXACTLY what you're describing. Basically bad 80s ballads with a saxophone carrying the melody. This is that stuff like Kenny G that you might hear at a coffee shop or Target. Most jazznicks don't like this.
:tdwn :tdwn :tdwn
That stuff rules! Jazz elitists can kick rocks :hat
tbh I don't exactly like it either lol
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Smooth jazz: EXACTLY what you're describing. Basically bad 80s ballads with a saxophone carrying the melody. This is that stuff like Kenny G that you might hear at a coffee shop or Target. Most jazznicks don't like this.
:tdwn :tdwn :tdwn
That stuff rules! Jazz elitists can kick rocks :hat
I'm a massive Sade fan, so I agree (although they may not be Smooth Jazz, but to hell with genres. That said, if they are, they're the Rammstein of that IMHO. I'm not into Kenny G or almost anyone else of the like.)
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Good music is good music. Jazz elitists flipping out over "smooth jazz" because they think the saxophone is their instrument is hysterical.
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Totally agree with Kev on that, and Kenny G freaking rules, no shame in admitting that. :lol
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Totally agree with Kev on that, and Kenny G freaking rules, no shame in admitting that. :lol
very true. I'll rephrase: I haven't listened to too many things by Kenny and I still prefer Sade. (as he does apparently). I think he is a good player nonetheless. I like Lee Ritenour as well btw. Equally great player.
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A friend of mine on another board introduced me to Sade a couple months ago and damn is that some good stuff. Baby making music right there :lol
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A friend of mine on another board introduced me to Sade a couple months ago and damn is that some good stuff. Baby making music right there :lol
I've seen them (it's not just her, they are a band after all with the lineup intact ever since 1982) live in 2011 three times and these were the best concerts I ever attended (and my standards are superhumanly high). As precise as you can go in pop music. (and as sparse. One note too many and it doesn't work anymore.) Perfection. Nothing surpasses them in that aspect. Both live and on their records (all 6 of them, they're making album no. 7 now. Doesn't hurt owning everything they released). (although she said that the music never was intended to serve for that activity you mentioned. I guess you could say people "abuse" the music for that as it were)
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Good music is good music. Jazz elitists flipping out over "smooth jazz" because they think the saxophone is their instrument is hysterical.
That...that...that's not why they don't like smooth jazz. Smooth jazz is widely considered to be the "Lo-fi Hip-Hop" or Elevator Muzak of Jazz and the jazz community as a whole views it as a watered down, commercialized, and gentrified form of jazz with out a lot of the central tenants of jazz (improvisation, swing, etc.). It's basically considered and inoffensive, corporate form of jazz. Honestly tho, Smooth jazz is often not even considered jazz at all, it's closer to Easy Listening or Adult Contemporary. It's like referring to everything with a piano or a cello as "classical". It also tends to be used as a label to refer to ALL jazz and because it's so popular and ubiquitous, so people tend to tend to think all jazz is Kenny G when it's not.
Put it this way, you know how people tend to refer to all metal as Screamo with KISS face paint? Yeah. That's what Smooth Jazz is for the Jazz community. Edit: An even better example would be Traditional Country vs Bro Country. Most jazz musicians have a respect for some of the musicians in the genre, who are often extremely technically gifted (Kenny G's breath control is legendary). They just don't like the music and the connotation it has.
Also I wouldn't call Sade Smooth Jazz. That's Soul, which is an entirely different and more respected genre lol.
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-What is your favorite band?
1. Dream Theater
2. Steven Wilson
3. Porcupine Tree
4. Crowded House
5. Frost*
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Dream Theater - Most of them, tbh. But Octavarium and A Dramatic Turn of Events are two of the most significant ones.
Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused to Sing
Supertramp - Breakfast in America
Frost* - Milliontown
Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Modern progressive rock and classical in equal measure.
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Was into typical radio stuff in my youth, then discovered Pink Floyd in 2006 after recently acquiring a guitar and hearing about a poll where Comfortably Numb had been voted the best solo of all time. Two and a bit years later I discovered DT when Octavarium knocked me for six. Then through Transatlantic I discovered Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings and Marillion and so forth...
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
The main band that has stuck with me from youth is Crowded House, specifically the first four albums.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
See above.
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
- Take or leave
- Take or leave
- I pick up the odd album here or there, but the modern bands speak to me more. (No pun intended.)
- Joint favourite of these genres.
- Apart from DT, Haken and a bit of Ayreon, not really explored all that much. The fewer growls, the better.
- power metal
- Classic metal
- Hair metal
- Grunge
- Thrash metal
- Nu metal
- Death and/or black metal
- All not really my cup of tea, but they're doing their thing and that's great.
- You dismiss all pop music at your peril. While a lot of it is throwaway, you cannot deny there's some great pop music out there from over the years.
- Not really explored beyond jazz influence in classical or prog.
- The vast majority of my collection is classical. I listen to full-length works almost daily.
- Most is not my cup of tea, but there are some classic songs out there.
- Same as above
- Same as above.
- I think I've said everything.
[/list]
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-What is your favorite band?
If I absolutely have to pick one, it would be DT.
Dream Theater
Led Zeppelin
Rush
Rainbow
Queensryche
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Top 10: - order changes
Dream Theater - Images and Words or Awake (depending on mood)
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane
Pearl Jam - Ten
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Rainbow- "On Stage"
Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime
Iron Maiden - Powerslave or Piece of Mind (depending on mood again)
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Progressive Metal
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Pre - 1976 - Funk and disco :omg:
Parliament
Bootsy
Earth Wind and Fire
KC and the Sunshine Band
1976 - 1982
Led Zeppelin
Rainbow
Black Sabbath
Pink Floyd
Deep Purple
Rush
Jethro Tull
Sex Pistols
1982 - 1991
Iron Maiden
Yngwie Malmsteen
Joe Satriani
Judas Priest
Dio
Queensryche
Guns and Roses
Metallica
Anthrax
Faith No More
Lot's of Christian metal bands - Barren Cross, Bloodgood, Deliverance, Sacred Warrior, Bride, Saint.
1991 - 1994
Pear Jam
Soundgarden
Alice in Chains
Stone Temple Pilots
Mother Love Bone
Black Lab
Dishwalla
1994 - 2010
Dream Theater
Symphony X
Pain of Salvation
Liquid Tension Experiment
Red Hot Chili Peppers
2010- present
Dream Theater
Haken
Neil Morse Band
Kamelot
Nightwish
What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
My dad isn't a big music guy. The one song I remember him playing all the time was Macarthur Park by Richard Harris (Yes.. the actor... :lol ) Funny thing is my mom would spin Donna Summers version of the same song. Mom was a somewhat Beatles fan and a HUGE Barbara Striesand fan. Family albums that played on the weekend in the living room in the 70's were - Hotel California, A Star is Born (Striesands), Jesus Christ Superstar, Barry Manilow. Suffice to say, my parents had very little musical influence on me by the time I was 12.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Dream Theater-Images And Words
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
Rainbow - On Stage
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Pearl Jam - Ten
Pain Of Salvation Remedy Lane
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock - My roots
Modern rock - Not Really
Classic prog - Some is OK, some loses me
Modern prog - like a lot of it
Prog metal - My musical identity
power metal - Love it
Classic metal - Great
Hair metal - Avoided it
Grunge - LOVED it
Thrash metal - Some epics, and some epic failures
Nu metal - No opinion
Death and/or black metal - No thank you
Pop - No, although sometimes a tune might grab me
Jazz - I appreciate it, but won't sit down and listen to jazz albums. Live is cool!
Classical - See "Jazz"
Rap/hip-hop - Nope
R&B - Pre 1980 YES! Post 1980 -NO
Punk - I was in high school in Huntington Beach California 78-82, during the Punk explosion. Arguably the US capitol for the punk scene at that time. At the time I was a Rocker, but I loved some punk. Never Mind the Bullocks was an epic album
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Totally agree with Kev on that, and Kenny G freaking rules, no shame in admitting that. :lol
I'm in on that. I love Kenny G.
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Totally agree with Kev on that, and Kenny G freaking rules, no shame in admitting that. :lol
I'm in on that. I love Kenny G.
Kenny G was my "go to" gettin laid music, before marriage.
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Totally agree with Kev on that, and Kenny G freaking rules, no shame in admitting that. :lol
I'm in on that. I love Kenny G.
Kenny G was my "go to" gettin laid music, before marriage.
Hard to tell from that statement if getting married was the end of Kenny G, or the end of getting laid. :lol
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Totally agree with Kev on that, and Kenny G freaking rules, no shame in admitting that. :lol
I'm in on that. I love Kenny G.
Kenny G was my "go to" gettin laid music, before marriage.
Hard to tell from that statement if getting married was the end of Kenny G, or the end of getting laid. :lol
Well once married, to my second and current wife, I didn't need the Kenny G assist anymore... :lol
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Grunge
I've always liked it. Weirdly enough tho, Nirvana is probably my least favorite grunge band. I've always been more of a Soundgarden or Alice in Chains kinda guy.
Feel the exact same way.
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane
Well played, Sir!
This is something I add:
Favorite male singer: Bruce Dickinson
Favorite female singer: Loreena McKennit
Nice addition. for me it would have to be...
Male - Roy Kahn
Female - Floor Jansen
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Totally agree with Kev on that, and Kenny G freaking rules, no shame in admitting that. :lol
I'm in on that. I love Kenny G.
Kenny G was my "go to" gettin laid music, before marriage.
Hard to tell from that statement if getting married was the end of Kenny G, or the end of getting laid. :lol
"Alex, what is "both"? I'll take "Marriage Jokes" for $600, please."
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-What is your favourite band?
My favourite band of all time is The Beatles. They've been #1 ever since I was 8 years old (for 30 years now), and will always remain #1.
-What are some of your all-time favourite albums?
Abbey Road & Revolver (The Beatles), Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys), Images & Words (Dream Theater), Skylarking (XTC), Band On The Run (Paul McCartney), Selling England By The Pound (Genesis), What's The Story Morning Glory (Oasis), Dark Side Of The Moon (Pink Floyd), Moving Pictures (Rush), Sell Out (The Who), Odessey And Oracle (The Zombies). Lots of 60s/70s music :P
-What is your favourite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
I've always been closest to classic rock/pop from the 60s and 70s.
-What was your musical journey in life like?
I grew up on dad's vinyl collection, he introduced me to bands like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, and other stuff. Then in my teens, I listened to some hard rock and metal (Kiss, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica). I discovered Dream Theater when I was 25, and started listening to more progressive music (Yes, Rush, Genesis) and some DT related bands (Transatlantic, Neal Morse, Spock's Beard). My most recent "discovery" is the new wave bands from the late 70s/early 80s - like XTC and Split Enz.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
As I said, my dad introduced me to 60s pop/rock. We shared a common interest in that, it's something I cherish a lot since he passed away 20 years ago. I can't remember if my mom listened to anything special when I was growing up. It all comes from my dad, really.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Difficult to answer really, since I could just copy & paste my answer from "my all time favourite albums".
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock - My main genre. It's what I am brought up on, it's where my heart lies.
Modern rock - I'm not really interested in modern music, but I listen to some Foo Fighters etc.
Classic prog - When it comes to prog, it's the classic stuff I like. Genesis, Rush, Yes, Pink Floyd.
Modern prog - Don't know much about modern prog. I just listen to Neal Morse and his various projects. Some Steven Wilson too occasionally.
Prog metal - It's basically just Dream Theater plus Haken for me. Throw in some songs from Opeth, Queensryche, and Pain of Salvation too.
Power metal - I had a period where I listened to some Blind Guardian, Stratovarius, Hammerfall, Sonata Arctica.
Classic metal - For me, it's all about Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Metallica when it comes to classic metal.
Hair metal - Never been a fan of hair metal. I guess Europe count?
Grunge - Nope.
Thrash metal - Metallica and Megadeth, I guess. A song or two from Slayer as well. Never got into Anthrax and the other thrash bands.
Nu-metal - Nope.
Death and/or black metal - Nope.
Pop - If it's from the 60s and 70s (and some 80s) then yes. Definitely not the more modern pop that's on the radio.
Jazz - Nope.
Classical - Nope.
Rap/hip-hop - Nope.
R&B - Nope.
Punk - Nope.
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a)-What is your favorite band?
Marillion
b)-Who is your favorite musician?
Kevin Gilbert
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
5-star albums in my rateyourmusic page (https://rateyourmusic.com/collection/SoundscapeMN/r5.0)
1. Marillion - Brave
2. Kevin Gilbert - The Shaming of the True
3. Apes & Androids - Blood Moon
Cherry-Picking another 7
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
Yes - Relayer
Genesis - Foxtrot
Rush - Hemispheres
Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade of Gray
Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element I
dredg - El Cielo
Dream Theater - Awake
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
progressive college rock (I've explained this self-coined term/style ]in my blog (http://allmediareviews.blogspot.com) a number of times in recent years
-What was your musical journey in life like?
This may be best saved in extensive hyperbolic detail for a book I intend to try and write.
I did a 40th Birthday "Wave Project" on KFAI radio in Minneapolis a few years ago telling my musical journey. It was only a 1-hour show, so the song list only looked like this:
Huey Lewis and the News - Back in Time
Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand
Rush - Natural Science
Marillion - The Great Escape
Toy Matinee - Last Plane Out
But IN-A-NUTSHELL
I went from
1) 80's Pop as a kid: Michael Jackson, Prince, Huey Lewis and the News, Weird Al Yankovic
2) Classic Rock and falling head over heals for Led Zeppelin and then Rush and Pink Floyd
3) Then Dream Theater, Marillion, King's X and Fates Warning along with the whose-who of classic progressive rock post-High School (1995-2002)
4) Jazz/Jazz-Rock: Pat Metheny, Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report
4) progressive college rock+ post rock: The Mars Volta, Muse, The Dear Hunter, Long Distance Calling,
5) progressive (Extreme/Experimental) Metal: Between the Buried and Me, Opeth, maudlin of the Well, Orphaned Land, Protest the Hero, Spawn of Possession
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
The Beatles, Barbara Streisand, Gary Puckett, Phantom of the Opera, Deep Breakfast, Don McLean
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Kind of answered in the All-Time Favorites
I guess I will list a few "classic" albums in progressive college rock which I guess I consider myself a well-versed seasoned veteran of knowing about:
The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
dredg - Ei Cielo
Coheed and Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness
Apes & Androids - Blood Moon
Oceansize - Frames
Pure Reason Revolution - The Dark Third
Fair to Midland - Fables from a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True
The Dear Hunter - Act II: The Meaning of and All Things Regarding Ms. Leading
Kaddisfly - Set Sail the Prairie
Cloud Cult - Light Chasers
Foals - Total Life Forever
Menomena - I am the Fun Blame Monster!
The Receiving End of Sirens - Between the Heart and the Synapse
Ours - Distorted Lullabies
3- Wakepig
Mew - Frengers
The Reign of Kindo - Rhythm, Chord & Melody
Bend Sinister - Stories of Brothers, Tales of Lovers
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock
I love a lot of it. Some of it has been overplayed to the death on the radio, but it seems many of the bands who had those hits have a lot of other songs to enjoy.
Modern rock
a lot of it is awful. But there's a percentage of it that is quite good.
Classic prog
a lot of the big names I enjoy, and some of the more obscure artists I enjoy as well. But there's a lot of it I have never got into.
Modern prog
hit and miss. I think a lot of it in the 90's and early 2000's was better than the last 15 years. But the stuff that is recipe I try to avoid and roll-my-eyes when I see other praise it.
Prog metal
hit and miss. I think a lot of it in the 90's and early 2000's was better than the last 15 years. But the stuff that is recipe I try to avoid and roll-my-eyes when I see other praise it.
power metal
A lot of it comes across as cheesy and all in major-keys. But there are some exceptions like Andre Matos-period Angra which was just as much progressive metal and power metal.
Helloween, Blind Guardian, Sonata Arctica are a few other exceptions.
Classic metal
Sabbath I am a fan, although don't own any Vinyl from. But I would never argue they have written a boat load of classic tunes, include some that are progressive.
Maiden and Priest: I enjoy some of their tracks, and Number of the Beast I enjoy (and more than DT's live cover of it). Also The Trooper is catchy as hell. Priest: Painkiller is a modern classic (oxymoron?), and some of their radio tunes I know. I guess I consider Maiden better but I don't feel too strongly between the 2 of them.
Ace of Spades from Motorhead? good tune. The rest Motorhead's music I might recognize if I heard. but can't claim to know. I can say their influence on bands like The House Harkonnen and even say Burst and Mastodon I think is a good thing.
Hair metal
Saigon Kick, Exrteme, Skid Row and a few others I find hold up. A lot of it was and is a bit too cheesy for me. Quiet Riot, Motley Crue and even White Snake? meh...
if you lump in Def Leppard and even GNR, I suppose I was and still am a fan for nostalgia, but hardly go out of my way to listen to it. And some of their songs have been played on the radio to death. Although I still have a soft spot for a couple od Def Lep tunes like "Hysteria" The vocal harmonies I enjoy.
Grunge
Most of it is terrible, but if you consider King's X and Galactic Cowboys and some of the pop-grunge stuff like Bleu and even Sloan, I guess that is the extent of what I enjoy. The 1st Pearl Jam album Ten is ok, but their music along with Nirvana and even Soundgarden, I really never cared much for. Alice In Chains I suppose I respect more than I enjoyed.
And Stone Temple Pilots..eh..didn't hate, didn't enjoy though. Plush maybe, lol. The bands that followed like Bush and were even worse.
Thrash metal
I enjloy Metallica and some Megadeth. Anthrax, Testament I never bothered with.
I would say Vektor is the closest thing to Thrash Metal I truly enjoy and paid to see live/bought their music.
Nu metal
most of it is awful. I don't consider System of a Down Nu-Metal, but if they are, they are by far the best thing it ever produced.
Faith No More? hardly belongs in this category, but if you put them in, the are the other best thing to ever do it. The problem is Mike Patton and even the SOAD guys can write songs and ACTUALLY SING. Whereas posers like Fred Durst and the people in Korn and Linkin Park can't (sans for the song "Breaking the Habit").
Death and/or black metal
I am picky, but especially Death Metal when combined with something else unique like chamber instruments or crazy technicality, can totally work for me.
Even the best Melodic Death Metal I enjoy quite a lot: Dark Tranquility for example. Their album "Fiction" is really good.
pop
Good pop is magical. But there's a shit ton of bad or annoying pop, I find myself somewhat picky.
My wife is a Pop music lover, so I have found a revival for my love of pop, namely older pop from the 80's especially in the 8 years I've known her.
A great pop tune is some of the best shit ever, Take Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out"..it's like pure gold when it's that good.
jazz
I love Jazz-Rock/Jazz-Fusion. At least most of the 60's and 70's stuff.
I enjoy Brubeck, Charlie Parker, Monk and the like. Some of the standards and classics like Night in Tunisia.
I find both Coltrane and even Miles Davis rather overrated. And I'd throw in most "free jazz." Although I enjoy some Miles, namely Kind of Blue and In a Silent Way (which I think is *Miles* better than Bitches Brew).
A lot of this also stems from needing to see this stuff LIVE. And DEAN MAGRAW has covered/interpreted a lot of it really creatively live.
I listen to Jazz radio regularly, but have never found myself seeking to recreation-ally listen to jazz albums like I wish. someday I probably will.
classical
Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are my favorite. I have heard a lot of it I enjoy, but also a lot that is boring as hell. But the stuff that is good, is outstanding. Point-Counterpoint arrangements. Chamber/Baroque. Often using harpsichord, etc.
Part of it is time/priority, but I would love to be more versed in the works of Liszt, Shostakovich, Schubert, Stravinsky, Chopin as well as some of the obvious names like Beethoven, Scheherazade, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and even Mozart as much as his work can be accused of being predictably written in entirely Major Keys.
rap/hip-hop
Not a lot, and the stuff I enjoy is MOOD MUSIC. Immortal Technique, Guante, Murs, Nas, No Bird Sing, Lazerbeak I enjoy and can't deny for nostalgia: The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and NWA. Otherwise, I would rather hear artists who combine it with other styles like Fjokra, Kevin Gilbert, Janelle Monae, Dessa (a little).
But artists like Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Eminem, Macklemore and Lewis, Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z and what seems like an endless list of artists who I cannot stand both their music and their fans force-feeding my ears (Puff Daddy, Chris Brown and even R Kelly?)
R&B
I enjoy a lot of it, largely per my wife. From Marvin Gaye to Mayer Hawthorne. But I doubt I'll ever become obsessed with it. But there are some fantastic tunes in it.
punk
I can say I enjoy a small percentage of this, but the amount of praise punk gets always hurt my interest.
Indietronica
an offshoot of progressive college rock.
When this shit is good, it's really fucking good. Cale Parks EP To Swift Mars I recently discovered that. Apes and Androids and a slew of other bands have done it well. The problem is, there's not been much good stuff, at least that I've found in like a decade. But from 2003-2009 there was a lot of it.
Power Pop
Really great when it works. Take Jellyfish for example. Incredible pop hooks with experimentation and studio trickery.
Queen, XTC, The Apples in Stereo...
bands like Weezer, Big Star, Cheap Trick, and even The Raspberries (who my wife loves), I don't love, but don't hate.
Badfinger, The Knack and some others, the jury is still out on.
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post rock: Long Distance Calling
:tup
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R&B
Always been hella confused by what R&B actually is. It may just be my modern bias, but R&B and Pop are mostly indistinguishable and it seems like black artists get the R&B label and white artists are labeled as Pop. If that's the case, can't we just merge them into one? Segregating music based on the race of the artist is so...1950.
"Blue Eyed Soul" is more or less a subgenre of R&B (or "Soul").
It's basically R&B done by White musicians. Hall & Oates, Michael McDonald, George Michael, Robert Palmer, Mayer Hawthorne, Amy Winehouse, etc
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R&B
Always been hella confused by what R&B actually is. It may just be my modern bias, but R&B and Pop are mostly indistinguishable and it seems like black artists get the R&B label and white artists are labeled as Pop. If that's the case, can't we just merge them into one? Segregating music based on the race of the artist is so...1950.
"Blue Eyed Soul" is more or less a subgenre of R&B (or "Soul").
It's basically R&B done by White musicians. Hall & Oates, Michael McDonald, George Michael, Robert Palmer, Mayer Hawthorne, Amy Winehouse, etc
Michael Jackson is pop, Luther Vandross is R&B.
Robert Palmer is R&B? Not from what I've heard.
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R&B
Always been hella confused by what R&B actually is. It may just be my modern bias, but R&B and Pop are mostly indistinguishable and it seems like black artists get the R&B label and white artists are labeled as Pop. If that's the case, can't we just merge them into one? Segregating music based on the race of the artist is so...1950.
"Blue Eyed Soul" is more or less a subgenre of R&B (or "Soul").
It's basically R&B done by White musicians. Hall & Oates, Michael McDonald, George Michael, Robert Palmer, Mayer Hawthorne, Amy Winehouse, etc
Michael Jackson is pop, Luther Vandross is R&B.
Robert Palmer is R&B? Not from what I've heard.
look up Robert Palmer on rateyourmusic and Wikipedia and Blue-Eyed Soul is 1 of the tags he's given.
Coming from my wife whose a huge Robert Palmer fan,
"most people don't know his solo work outside of hits like Simply Irresistible and Addicted to Love, but especially his early solo work he was more or less trying to be like Joe Cocker and Bryan Ferry.
His cover of "I Didn't Mean to turn You on" was originally written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and the original version from Cherelle charted on the R&B Chart"
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-What is your favorite band?
Iron Maiden
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Bruce Dickinson - Chemical Wedding
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Iron Maiden - The X Factor
Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime
Tool - Aenima
Allen/Lande - The Battle
Judas Priest - Jugulator
Judas Priest - Painkiller
WASP - The Crimson Idol
King Diamond - Abigail
Dream Theater - Awake
Dream Theater - Images and Words
Primal Fear - Delivering the Black
Trivium - Ascendancy
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Straight up hard rock and heavy metal, but I feel I indentify with a few closely. Some growls are becoming a staple for me lately. Can't go wrong with some prog metal too.
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Started playing the guitar when I was about 12. Was learning some Metallica, Green Day, Offspring, Nirvana etc. and was liking that kind of rock stuff. I was about 14 or so and saw Aces High (Iron Maiden) on late night music TV and it changed my life forever. I've been made of metal ever since.
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
Rock radio.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Quite a few of the ones listed above in my fav albums. Although I think it's time for a top 50 v2. Although I'd name more of the classic Maiden albums aswell as some Sabbath and some more Priest. As a guitarist, add some Satch and Malmsteen.
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
Classic rock
Nah, appreciate it, but not big on much.
Modern rock
Pass.
Classic prog
I like Rush but that's about it. Don't have the attention span for a lot of it and it's not heavy enough for me.
Modern prog
More acceptable, but I'm pretty picky on a lot of stuff. Again, a lot of it lacks the heavieness.
Prog metal
Big tick.
power metal
All day long.
Classic metal
For the most part, a big fan, although a lot of staple bands I don't find appealing.
Hair metal
Can be hit or miss, but Winger.
Grunge
Yeah, was a fan as a kid but not so much anymore.
Thrash metal
Again, can be hit or miss but the bands I like, I like.
Nu metal
Loved Korn as a kid but that's about it.
Death and/or black metal
Fuck yeah.
pop
Nah.
jazz
Like some fusion but not something I listen to.
classical
Appreicate, but don't listen to.
rap/hip-hop
Fuck no. Can't even really appreciate it to be honest.
R&B
Nope.
punk
Like Green Day and Offspring as a kid, but that's about it.
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Not sure whether this is an idea that will catch on or quickly die on the vine, but I had the thought of posting this because of the old political/religious subform thread, which is basically a survey for people to post what their basic positions are on some key issues.
So, to get this going, here are some ideas for issues to discuss. Feel free to answer some or all, or to add additional ones:
-What is your favorite band?
Rush
-What are some of your all-time favorite albums?
Marillion -- Misplaced Chilhood is Numero Uno
-What is your favorite genre/subgenre? Which do you "identify" with most closely?
Fusion
-What was your musical journey in life like?
Neverending
-What kind of music was playing in your household when you were growing up?
It wasn't good.
-What albums do you consider "classic" as part of your musical identity?
Too Many
-How do you feel about the following genres/subgenres?
There's good and bad in every genre although the percentages of each are not the same.