At 2/13/17 03:57 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: Curtis Mayfield tho.

Curtis is a cool dude. Haven't listened to any of his stuff outside of his debut and the Shaft soundtrack, so I should probably give him more of a chance.

Also as I was typing that I just got an email update from Radical Face, one of my favorite pop artists, announcing the release of a new EP called SunnMoonnEclippse. I try to push pretty much everything this guy makes because I think he deserves a lot more recognition than he gets, I appreciate the DIY aspect of his recordings and he has an ear for unique and interesting production.

He made a neat dedicated site for the project with a little atmospheric lyric video for the three tracks. Check it out.

At 2/13/17 04:43 PM, Oolaph wrote: Curtis is a cool dude. Haven't listened to any of his stuff outside of his debut and the Shaft soundtrack, so I should probably give him more of a chance.

Curtis Mayfield did the soundtrack to Super Fly. Isaac Hayes did the soundtrack to Shaft, which is also excellent but IMHO not on Curtis's level.

Also as I was typing that I just got an email update from Radical Face, one of my favorite pop artists, announcing the release of a new EP called SunnMoonnEclippse. I try to push pretty much everything this guy makes because I think he deserves a lot more recognition than he gets, I appreciate the DIY aspect of his recordings and he has an ear for unique and interesting production.

I only know the "welcome hooooOOOOOAAAAUUUUUOOOMMMEEEee" song but it's a good 'un.

At 2/12/17 11:01 AM, Oolaph wrote: I'm going to use this thread as a general "musical listening habits" thread

reported blocked called the cops

Don't know anything about classic R+B or Soul but I might spin a few of those at random.

Actually I do have something to post about, I saw Conor Oberst live about a week ago, he's the driving force behind the band Bright Eyes. I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning is sort of their poppy sell-out record but it's become one of my all time favourites over the last year or two, and this guy's back catalogue is so varied that I still can't decide if some of it is brilliant or complete assgarbage. He's been releasing music since his early teens so a lot of it is super angsty and a bit try hard, but each project is very distinct from the rest and his lyrics for the most part are fantastic, he's definitely one of my favourite songwriters.

His more recent solo albums have been very stripped down and somewhat Dylan-esque and that's what mostly got played at the show. So it was a sort of subdued for the most part, though he was upbeat and chatty with the audience between songs. They ended the set with two songs from I'm Wide Awake and that was probably the highlight for me.

There just seems to be an endless supply of this stuff too, they were really churning it out. I'm having no problem finding more obscure artists in my digging, unlike my bossa nova digging where I hit a language barrier with my exploration and haven't found anything worth saving in weeks.

What's your method for discovering music? Do you have a rule for how many times you have to listen before deciding if it's a keeper? I hit my maximum saved songs on Spotify ages ago, it's almost all albums I want to try and I still haven't made much progress on cutting that backlog down at all. I can never decide if I don't like it or if I just don't ''get it'' yet. With some genres (jazz) I have no idea what I'm listening to let alone if it's good.

Or just rec me something completely unrelated, I'm not picky.

Alright fuck it, try Oberst's Ruminations and see if you don't hate it. It was all recorded within 48 hours and intended as a demo for full band versions but for whatever reason he decided the raw solo version was the way to go. It's pretty rough as a result and quite dark and depressing in content but it's grown on me a lot. Gossamer Thin, Counting Sheep and Barbary Coast are some of my favourites on there.

Also listen to some Fishmans if you never have, pretty blissful way to kill half an hour.

At 2/13/17 04:43 PM, Oolaph wrote: Also as I was typing that I just got an email update from Radical Face, one of my favorite pop artists, announcing the release of a new EP called SunnMoonnEclippse.

I only know Welcome Home as well, will probably give this a listen even though that's one hell of an obnoxious EP title.

At 2/14/17 09:50 AM, Jackho wrote: What's your method for discovering music? Do you have a rule for how many times you have to listen before deciding if it's a keeper? I hit my maximum saved songs on Spotify ages ago, it's almost all albums I want to try and I still haven't made much progress on cutting that backlog down at all. I can never decide if I don't like it or if I just don't ''get it'' yet. With some genres (jazz) I have no idea what I'm listening to let alone if it's good.

I tend to go through a few different "search spots". Discogs is great for digging through labels or connecting artist to artist, I'll usually browse through there and I'll search anything that stands out to me on Youtube to get a sample. If I think I'll want to listen to it again, I'll grab a copy of it. The real goldmines are curated lists on blogspots, but those can be hard to find. Jazz is the easiest genre to explore, there's so much collaboration that you can just follow who's on what records and fall into this giant spiderweb of musicians appearing in different bands.

I have a text file on my phone where I keep a "to-listen" list that's updated pretty much daily. Same goes for films, but with far less frequency.

Alright fuck it, try Oberst's Ruminations and see if you don't hate it. It was all recorded within 48 hours and intended as a demo for full band versions but for whatever reason he decided the raw solo version was the way to go. It's pretty rough as a result and quite dark and depressing in content but it's grown on me a lot. Gossamer Thin, Counting Sheep and Barbary Coast are some of my favourites on there.

The background and description you gave here has certainly gotten me interested, will give it a listen once I'm done watching old Disneyland TV specials here.

I've completely ignored Bright Eyes for all these years, so this is a pretty good recommendation for me. Might as well check out that one album of theirs while I'm at it.

Also listen to some Fishmans if you never have, pretty blissful way to kill half an hour.

I didn't recognize the name, but I know I've listened to Long Season at least once. I don't remember a single thing about it though, so I guess it deserves another listen.

I'd post a little chart of my fav Bossa Nova records so far, but they're pretty standard and entry level so I doubt it's anything worth sharing until I get deeper into things. It'll come though.

At 2/14/17 04:00 AM, Dr-Worm wrote: Curtis Mayfield did the soundtrack to Super Fly. Isaac Hayes did the soundtrack to Shaft, which is also excellent but IMHO not on Curtis's level.

dang darn dagnabbit that's what I meant to type. They're both blaxploitation films that start with S and I'M NOT A BIG PHONY YOU GUYS

@jackho Home sick from work today, so I gave "Ruminations" a listen this morning. The guitar and piano compositions are bare bones and "to the point", which allows the listener to focus on the lyrics, which were obviously the main point of him writing these songs. I'm not familiar with the artist, so I'm not sure if these songs are very personal reflections or simply crafted stories, but the lyrical themes here are pretty heavy stuff. Themes of losing faith, waiting to die, substance abuse & addiction, fragility, loss of innocence, as well as some killer lines like "But his eyes were blue and mine are red and raw" and "Tomorrow is shining like a razor blade". Very good record, definitely makes me interested in the rest of this guy's stuff.

I've also got Bright Eyes' "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" playing in the background while I type this out. After this it's time to go digging for bossa nova blogspots.

I am looking for something new and exciting, but have not found it yet.

Paramore was just a okayish band at best.

At 2/19/17 06:01 PM, argile wrote: Paramore was just a okayish band at best.

I agree with you. Just an average band.

At 3/10/17 10:59 AM, goofried wrote: pretty standard for the past month or so, nothing new as of yet

I've heard nothing but pure love for Butthole Surfers, but I've never given them listen. I may just have to give their discography a run through this weekend.

I'm pretty certain that slayer will be the getting the most attention for the coming weeks

I'll have to start making my own collages now. Here are 12 records I've been listening to recently, only 5 of them have nude women on the covers.

Bossa nova digging has slowed down immensely, focus has veered off course towards old exotica records and whatever this hot new "city pop" thing is.

@argile I was just giving a few Coheed and Cambria tracks a listen before I opened this thread. I haven't listened to a single thing of theirs since I jumped into their discog with a full marathon of all their records last summer. Also thumbs up on Sonny Clark & Sun Ra, way cool dudes making way cool tunes. I bought a Sun Ra film a few months ago which consisted of live performances on a rooftop with no audience, and footage of Sun Ra walking around DC while babbling about who-knows-what. Rad stuff.

342's probably the most I've ever scrobbled for a artist in a week recently

My pre-ordered copy of Mount Eerie's "A Crow Looked at Me" arrived in the mail today. I sat motionless reading the lyrics in the gatefold while album played through twice in a row.

Simple. Intimate. Personal. Blunt. Honest. Rough. Brutal. Devastating. There are many adjectives, but very few can really describe the crushing feeling that this album gives.

If you didn't know, Phil Elverum (probably my favorite current songwriter) recently lost his wife after a battle with pancreatic cancer, leaving him to care for his almost two-year-old daughter alone. This is a collection of songs written between 7 days and 4 months after she died in their home. The recordings were done in the room where she died using her instruments, with the lyrics written down on her paper. Recorded mostly in the afternoon while his parents watched his daughter for him, but occasionally at night while she was sleeping right down the hall.

Go listen to it.

Nearly forgot about this thread ...been trying to look for heavier stuff

I'm not hip enough to know if this means I'm a "traitor" or something but I have recently decided to create an RYM account. This past week I've been going through my full music collection and giving each record a rating. I've made it through "D" so far.

The ratings are mostly based on how re-listenable the release is to me, whatever that may mean. No big reviews based on THEORETICAL COLOR and SCIENTIFICALLY TESTED EMOTIONAL WEIGHT of a written piece from me.

This is a link if you're interested in the early development of my "rating curve" and "taste".

At 8/10/17 10:47 PM, Oolaph wrote: I'm not hip enough to know if this means I'm a "traitor" or something but I have recently decided to create an RYM account. This past week I've been going through my full music collection and giving each record a rating. I've made it through "D" so far.

The ratings are mostly based on how re-listenable the release is to me, whatever that may mean. No big reviews based on THEORETICAL COLOR and SCIENTIFICALLY TESTED EMOTIONAL WEIGHT of a written piece from me.

This is a link if you're interested in the early development of my "rating curve" and "taste".

rym is def better for recommendations than last.fm has been to me. much easier to discover new stuff based on their yearly and genre charts.

At 8/15/17 09:45 AM, sumidiotdude wrote: rym is def better for recommendations than last.fm has been to me. much easier to discover new stuff based on their yearly and genre charts.

I took a quick glance at the recommendation section and WOW it's much better than anything last.fm ever offered me. I'll definitely be exploring that in the future once I finish rating my collection, I'm ALL THE WAY UP TO "L" NOW.

At 8/15/17 09:45 AM, sumidiotdude wrote:

At 8/10/17 10:47 PM, Oolaph wrote: I'm not hip enough to know if this means I'm a "traitor" or something but I have recently decided to create an RYM account. This past week I've been going through my full music collection and giving each record a rating. I've made it through "D" so far.

The ratings are mostly based on how re-listenable the release is to me, whatever that may mean. No big reviews based on THEORETICAL COLOR and SCIENTIFICALLY TESTED EMOTIONAL WEIGHT of a written piece from me.

This is a link if you're interested in the early development of my "rating curve" and "taste".

rym is def better for recommendations than last.fm has been to me. much easier to discover new stuff based on their yearly and genre charts.

I've created account there back september 2015 , haven't used it much until like this week ,I didn't even know getting recommendations was a possibility on that site ,to think I would have been just stuck with the ones i've been getting with spotify

Just another technically-not-related-because-this-is-a-last.fm-thread-but-i-will-post-it-anyway-because-it's-the-only-decent-place-to-talk-about-general-music-listening-here post to announce that after many hours I have finished rating my digital music collection on RYM. There are a couple old & obscure things that I've come across that weren't on the site, but I haven't jumped into adding to the site's catalog yet.

Now comes the time to explore RYM's recommendations and user lists, and to keep it updated as I explore in the future. I doubt I'll ever review anything, not really my deal. I'd rather talk about music with someone than shout opinions to nobody.

AREN'T YOU INTERESTED IN MY TASTE?

Woah look out it's a BIG HUGE MEGA LATE REPLY coming through!!!!!!!

At 2/14/17 09:09 PM, Oolaph wrote: I have a text file on my phone where I keep a "to-listen" list that's updated pretty much daily. Same goes for films, but with far less frequency.

Problem with this is that I go at too slow a pace, so the lists just get far too big too quickly. My music taste is still in larvae form though so it's not like I'm struggling for things to listen to.

I didn't recognize the name, but I know I've listened to Long Season at least once. I don't remember a single thing about it though, so I guess it deserves another listen.

I really love this album, gave it another listen earlier. Nothing kills half an hour faster. I think its their best but if you liked it most of their other stuff is similar. There's also a two-hour live recording called 98.12.28 where they play the entirety of Long Season as one track and people generally prefer that over the album version, though they're very similar. That was their last performance as the frontman died at some point afterward.

At 2/15/17 10:55 AM, Oolaph wrote: @jackho Home sick from work today, so I gave "Ruminations" a listen this morning. I'm not familiar with the artist, so I'm not sure if these songs are very personal reflections or simply crafted stories, but the lyrical themes here are pretty heavy stuff.

I think its a mix of both, he's not overly public about his personal life so it's hard to tell. He also seems to switch between first and third person sometimes within the same track.

A fan accused him of sexual assault in 2014 iirc (she eventually admitted she was lying) which comes up a few times, particularly on the first track (he talks about having a nightmare of being in a courtroom) and "You All Loved Him Once" which seems to be about the idea of one's own fans / followers etc. turning on you, but it's general enough to apply to anyone in vaguely similar circumstances. When he played that one live he referenced Julius Ceasar, Jesus and also mentioned Christina Grimmie by name, the singer who was shot by a fan at an after-show signing in Florida.

Stress over the accusation seems to have been a driving force behind creating the album and why it turned out the way it did.

Very good record, definitely makes me interested in the rest of this guy's stuff.

I can't say it's all good but even Bright Eyes alone have a very diverse set of albums (though leaning predominately toward mopey and edgy).

And then Conor's other work is a bit of a rabbit hole; Desaparecidos, Mystic Valley Band and Monsters of Folk are other bands he's started and some more that I'm probably forgetting. Ruminations is probably my favorite solo album of his but imo all his solo stuff is pretty nice. Milk Thistle and Double Life are two songs I'm always coming back to.

I've also got Bright Eyes' "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" playing in the background while I type this out.

I'm Wide Awake is honestly a masterpiece imo, it nearly feels like a greatest hits album because every track could be the focal point. Never gets old for me.

At 8/10/17 10:47 PM, Oolaph wrote: I'm not hip enough to know if this means I'm a "traitor" or something but I have recently decided to create an RYM account.

Wow deliberately acting like you're uncool as a way to appear cool, real original but I see through your shallow facade.

I made a RYM account years ago but never used it at all, mainly because the site is kinda ass-ugly. This post got me logging in again though and I've added around a hundred ratings since. I think I sent you a friend request on there but I have no idea if it even sent or what because the site's UI on that end is muddled af.

My ratings skew very high right now because I've only rated things I'm very familiar with. I tend to have the mindset that if I don't like something I just haven't listened to it enough, I need to ruminate on music for a while before I'd be comfortable saying I don't like it, and so most music I don't like just wont get a rating.

The ratings are mostly based on how re-listenable the release is to me, whatever that may mean. No big reviews based on THEORETICAL COLOR and SCIENTIFICALLY TESTED EMOTIONAL WEIGHT of a written piece from me.

i'm not a fan of the utterly vapid "the acting was ___, the cinematography was ___ and I thought this movie was an A+" style of review but I do think there's value in reviewing things, just typing a paragraph about your thoughts and getting your feeling into words can be helpful even if just for your own future reference and to help identify your own taste.

I always read a lot of fan reviews on Letterboxd after watching a film, more often than not there'll be several things pointed out that I hadn't noticed or thought about myself, and then there's usually at least one that just has the perfect phrasing to sum up the intangible 'feeling' of a movie. Not pretending to objectively measure art by quality but just giving your subjective experience its own r-

At 9/8/17 08:14 PM, Oolaph wrote: I'd rather talk about music with someone than shout opinions to nobody.

wow heck way to sound like a bellend u goofstick that was totally uncalled for

To be fair, the reviews I have read on RYM did make me physically ill so I'll hopefully only be reading reviews from people I follow once I settle in. I'm real glad there's no comment section on artist pages. People say gamers are the most toxic group online, imo music fans have gamers beat 100 times over for that award. I have yet to see an artist shoutbox on Last.fm that didn't give me some kind of soulcancer.

Anyway here's sum charts. Might make a follow up post about some of these albums.

Also hey I hit the number of the beast on MBDTF a while back. Guess I can never scrobble that again.

BIG REPLY TO A REPLY OH BOY WE'RE NOVELISTS NOW.

At 9/9/17 03:16 PM, Jackho wrote: Problem with this is that I go at too slow a pace, so the lists just get far too big too quickly. My music taste is still in larvae form though so it's not like I'm struggling for things to listen to.

I probably listen to an average of 1-2 new albums a day. Not something I schedule in or plan for, but it's just how it works out. Some days I don't listen to anything unless I'm going somewhere and need those commuting tunes, other days I listen to 5 records in a row that are 100% new to me. That being said, I probably add artists to my backlog list just as often and it never seems to get any smaller.

I really love this album, gave it another listen earlier. Nothing kills half an hour faster. I think its their best but if you liked it most of their other stuff is similar. There's also a two-hour live recording called 98.12.28 where they play the entirety of Long Season as one track and people generally prefer that over the album version, though they're very similar. That was their last performance as the frontman died at some point afterward.

Gave it another listen after I finished rating my collection, realized I had never got a copy of this and probably just listened to it on Youtube. It's a perfect "driving somewhere an hour away when the sun is still rising with a cup of coffee in the cup holder" record.

I made a RYM account years ago but never used it at all, mainly because the site is kinda ass-ugly. This post got me logging in again though and I've added around a hundred ratings since. I think I sent you a friend request on there but I have no idea if it even sent or what because the site's UI on that end is muddled af.

My ratings skew very high right now because I've only rated things I'm very familiar with. I tend to have the mindset that if I don't like something I just haven't listened to it enough, I need to ruminate on music for a while before I'd be comfortable saying I don't like it, and so most music I don't like just wont get a rating.

I can confirm that you were my ORIGINAL RYM FRIEND BUDS FOR LIFE. Also that's an interesting way to look at it. I don't think there's anything wrong with a piece of music not really jiving with you, but gaining familiarity by relistening to a recording can definitely help you look at it from a different perspective and possibly hear something that you didn't notice before that allows it to "click" with you.

The ratings are mostly based on how re-listenable the release is to me, whatever that may mean. No big reviews based on THEORETICAL COLOR and SCIENTIFICALLY TESTED EMOTIONAL WEIGHT of a written piece from me.

i'm not a fan of the utterly vapid "the acting was ___, the cinematography was ___ and I thought this movie was an A+" style of review but I do think there's value in reviewing things, just typing a paragraph about your thoughts and getting your feeling into words can be helpful even if just for your own future reference and to help identify your own taste.

I always read a lot of fan reviews on Letterboxd after watching a film, more often than not there'll be several things pointed out that I hadn't noticed or thought about myself, and then there's usually at least one that just has the perfect phrasing to sum up the intangible 'feeling' of a movie. Not pretending to objectively measure art by quality but just giving your subjective experience its own r-

Yeah, it's not really the idea of reviewing something I dislike, it's just putting something out there as a STATEMENT with no idea who's reading it and likely never getting any feedback or response that keeps me from having any desire to do it there. I don't really plan to interact with the RYM community much at all, but maybe I'll start doing little 1-2 sentence summaries of how I feel about new records I listen to in this thread every now and then. As long as you guys don't complain and kick me out for going on about albums and artists you'll never care about, that is.

wow heck way to sound like a bellend u goofstick that was totally uncalled for

hey now don't be a rudester ok

To be fair, the reviews I have read on RYM did make me physically ill so I'll hopefully only be reading reviews from people I follow once I settle in. I'm real glad there's no comment section on artist pages. People say gamers are the most toxic group online, imo music fans have gamers beat 100 times over for that award. I have yet to see an artist shoutbox on Last.fm that didn't give me some kind of soulcancer.

People can have bad attitudes about anything. I don't think it has anything to do with the medium, it's just how people can be about things they're passionate about.

Anyway here's sum charts. Might make a follow up post about some of these albums.

Your charts are flawed because Vashti Bunyan is not above the others in those collages, but I will let you by with a warning this time because you are a friendly individual who is capable of having level-headed and constructive discussions.

Also hey I hit the number of the beast on MBDTF a while back. Guess I can never scrobble that again.

Jackho confirmed for LAST.FM FAKE. 100% FRAUD MANIPULATING SCROBBLE COUNTS. PLEASE BAN HIM FROM THE WEBSITE.

At 9/10/17 12:23 AM, Oolaph wrote: BIG REPLY TO A REPLY OH BOY WE'RE NOVELISTS NOW.

STEPHEN KING BACK OFF!!

I probably listen to an average of 1-2 new albums a day.

Holy heck. I'm trying to do 5 new albums a week and struggling.

I can confirm that you were my ORIGINAL RYM FRIEND BUDS FOR LIFE.

<<<333 SUPER NINFRIENDOS

it's just putting something out there as a STATEMENT with no idea who's reading it and likely never getting any feedback or response that keeps me from having any desire to do it there.

Yeah that is true, RYM is pretty garb in terms of feedback or actually connecting with anyone. I've been hoping a site like Letterboxd that's super community focused would show up for other art forms, or even that LB will open up and let TV, Music etc. on there.

People can have bad attitudes about anything. I don't think it has anything to do with the medium, it's just how people can be about things they're passionate about.

There's bad ones in every group for sure but there's also definitely more bad eggs in certain baskets. I think one part of it is that music is more subjective than other art forms, with games or films divisive ones are sorta rare and to a decent extent you can objectively measure how good a film/game is or how well received it may be. For music you can have the most impeccably made album of all time and it'll still only connect with like 50% of people who hear it. Just anecdotally I see hate circle-jerks over supposedly beloved music far more often than classic games/films/books.

I also agree re-listenabiity is probably the best way to try and rate music, if I don't want to listen to something again it could hardly be a 5-star album.

What's your attitude on rating singles? Have you been doing those or just albums?

Your charts are flawed because Vashti Bunyan is not above the others in those collages, but I will let you by with a warning this time because you are a friendly individual who is capable of having level-headed and constructive discussions.

I'm actually surprised how high Vashti is on my all-time charts, it doesn't feel like I've listened to JADD that much compared to the other albums around it. I guess it's just easy to listen to and has a pretty high amount of tracks which helps it climb over time.

At 9/14/17 05:51 PM, Jackho wrote: What's your attitude on rating singles? Have you been doing those or just albums?

There's definitely a different context when looking at singles compared to LPs. If I have some opinions on a single that never made it on an album, I'll probably rate it. I almost always focus on the full-lengths though.

BIG POST DAILY COMING THROUGH

Oh also I got to see American Football live on monday, great show. I think they covered most of both albums but the audience reaction to the newer songs vs. the old ones was night and day. I still haven't listened to LP2 enough to have a proper opinion on it. First thing Mike Kinsella did on stage was apologise for the band's name - "we were young, it was 18 years ago." You are forgiven my man. Crowd went mental when they finally played Never Meant.

Here's what I've been listenin 2. Though I've been sitting on this post for a while so that's not 100% medically accurate.

Worry. by Jeff Rosenstock - been LOVING this album and would highly reccomend. Full of energy, catchy as all hell, perfect lyrics and the second half goes full on Abbey Road with a cascade of tracks that flow into eachother. It's bordering on all-time favourite status.

Jeff by all accounts seems like a rly swell dude as well. He used to be front man of Bomb the Music Industry and Arrogant Sons of Bitches if you know those. He pioneered donation-based music years before patreon came along and as a result you can download his entire discography for free at quoteunquoterecords (of course he's also on spotify etc.)

Here's a better description from someone who probably gets paid to describe things:

"The album you are about to listen to, WORRY., only furthers and exceeds the myth of Jeff Rosenstock, he who is mythical for being the most normal dude from a boring place any of us have ever met; mythical for sticking to his guns when all logic points in the other direction; mythical for writing melodies that stick in our brains and lyrics that rip our guts out; mythical most of all for being not mythical at all. He’s just Jeff. It’s not that complicated. But in a world where everything is driven by branding and image and hidden agendas, being not that complicated makes him perhaps the most complicated artist I know." -- Chris Gethard

Fav tracks: Festival Song, Wave Goodnight to Me

I can't stand feeling violent
But it's hard not to sometimes
When the innocent get slaughtered
And the guilty get a fine
When I drown myself in chemicals
Do I even have a choice?
And if you scream and no one hears you
Are you even making noise?

4:44 by Jay Z - I bought this on itunes when he finally made it available outside of Tidal despite not having heard any tracks, something I never do. Turns out three whole tracks are missing off the non-Tidal version god damn it Jay.

Anyway I really enjoyed this one, I'm not a huge Jay Z fan but the more open, confessional lyrics here are a nice change of pace, but what steals the show here is No ID's production. The soulful beats remind me of "the old Kanye" & are nice enough to listen to that i'd have liked the album as much if it were just intrumentals. They sound kinda lo-fi, choppy and unpolished as well which complements the more humble approach Jay took with the lyrics.

He's released several music videos for this as well and I have no idea what to make of some of them. My favourite track by far is Smile, which in part is about Jay's mother coming out of the closet. "Mama had four kids, but she's a lesbian / Had to pretend so long that she's a thespian / Had to hide in the closet, so she medicate / Society shame and the pain was too much to take / Cried tears of joy when you fell in love / Don't matter to me if it's a him or her"

It's not on youtube so here's a pretty accurate fan made instrumental instead.

Fav tracks: Smile, Story of OJ

Run the Jewels - Everyone else probably knows them well but I just got into these guys semi-recently after hearing Legend Has It in the trailer for Black Panther. I've since played RTJ 1-3 to death and listened to some of their solo stuff. Killer Mike's RAP Music is pretty great and Reagan is a beast of a track and a great video, but I think RTJ is significantly better than what either artist did alone. I've watched several videos of them both separate and together and they're both genuinely quite fascinating people too.

The beats here are so infectious, and both Mike and El-P have such a brash, unapolagetic and in-your-face style of delivery that works so well when they trade verses. My favourite is definitely RTJ2 but all three albums are very consistent in quality. Like Jeff you can also download all three albums for free from their site. Love Again seems to be fairly divisive but I love it, I love any track that can be so excessively gratuitous while still sounding great.

Fav tracks: Close Your Eyes (and Count to Fuck), Love Again, Legend Has It, DDFH

ALSO HEY PEEPS RATE MY RECORD COLLECTION SO FAR. All that's missing from the pic is three 12" Kanye singles (Through the Wire, Heard 'Em Say, Diamonds)

L A S T P O S T

I wanted to ask, what streaming service to y'all use? I'm on spotify but thinking of jumping ship.

At 8/24/17 03:25 PM, argile wrote: I've created account there back september 2015 , haven't used it much until like this week

we the RYM crew now

At 9/8/17 08:14 PM, Oolaph wrote: AREN'T YOU INTERESTED IN MY TASTE?

You need to get some Kanye in your diet my son

also >5/10 for the fuckin' Beatles White Album

wew and here I thought you liked music

but no our ratings are actually very similar now that I've compared them, that was one of the few significant differences so I had to use it as the example for the purpose of that dig

I meant to reply to your little review of A Crow Looked at Me, I haven't listened to it in full yet since I haven't been in the mood for suicidal depression but a few songs, in particular Real Death has come up on spotify mixes and it's made me stop and listen each time. I've listened to The Glow Pt. 2 and it never really clicked but this has me interested in trying his previous work.

There was such a gap in my replies that Conor Oberst had time to release a whole new album, Salutations. Mixed thoughts on it. It recreates all of Ruminations with a full band as well as a bunch of new songs so it's pretty bloated at 17 tracks, and I'm nlot a major fan of the production style. I greatly prefer the Ruminations version of most tracks and felt that re recording them just undermined what made the previous album so good. The new songs are pretty good though, I got a lot of listens out of Napalm in particular. If it was reduced to ~10 tracks with just a couple songs from Ruminations I think it would be pretty good but it's a bit much as is.

Also re: discovering jazz, the frequent collabs do make it easy to find a lot of jazz artists really quickly but having so much choice can be debilitating in itself, esp. when most of these guys have hugenormous discographies covering many decades.

At 9/14/17 09:07 PM, Oolaph wrote: There's definitely a different context when looking at singles compared to LPs. If I have some opinions on a single that never made it on an album, I'll probably rate it. I almost always focus on the full-lengths though.

On letterboxd I mark short films as watched to buff my overall 'movies watched' counter but I don't rate them unless they're over 25 or so minutes long, it just doesn't feel right to mark shorts and feature films on the same scale. But of course on RYM there's no way to mark a song as 'heard' without rating it. Thus far I've only been rating non-album singles and singles where I haven't listened to the full album (and probably never will). I might start limiting singles to 4 stars max or something, I don't think a 'perfect' song and a perfect album should get the same scale.

At 9/15/17 07:34 PM, Jackho wrote: You need to get some Kanye in your diet my son

I know I listened to MBDTF and I think Graduation a few years ago (probably around when MBDTF came out) but I don't remember anything about them. Maybe I should dive into Kanye sometime soon.

also >5/10 for the fuckin' Beatles White Album

wew and here I thought you liked music

sorry i only like bad music

Also re: discovering jazz, the frequent collabs do make it easy to find a lot of jazz artists really quickly but having so much choice can be debilitating in itself, esp. when most of these guys have hugenormous discographies covering many decades.

Welcome to the club. It feels like each album leads to someone new with another big discography to explore. It's all a giant spider web of musicians.

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ok so here's the trial run of my KIND OF SLIGHTLY MORE IN-DEPTH CHART POSTING BUT ALSO NOT QUITE REVIEWS OF NEW SHIT I'VE LISTENED TO.

Luiz Bonfa - Jacaranda (Brazil, 1973, Samba/Jazz Fusion) My first Bonfa album, and apparently it's not a favorite of listeners of his, but it has Stanley Clarke on it so it must be cool.
Highlight tracks: Apache Talk, Danse V

Gary Bartz NTU Troop - I've Known Rivers and Other Bodies (USA, 1973, Spiritual Jazz) Free-flowin', movin' & groovin', Gary Bartz can play a sax like a man. His vocals accompany the band well, but the lyrics can be a bit "yeah ok i get it"
Highlight tracks: Jujuman, Uhuru Sasa

Gary Bartz NTU Troop - Taifa (USA, 1971, Spiritual Jazz) I like this release a good bit more than the other. Vocal parts feel much better written and arranged, Andy Bey is a great addition and I'll probably try some of his records soon. Definitely a tighter release and I think it works well.
Most tracks from this aren't on Youtube but here's a sample.

Pedro Santos - Krishnanda (Brazil, 1968, Samba/Psychedelic) Sound collages, layered percussion, and an orchestra that fell down a massive cavern. A wacky reverberated tropical adventure.
Highlight tracks: Agua Viva, Flor de Lotus

Novos Baianos - Acabou Chorare (Brazil, 1972, MPB) Tons of energy, rhythm so tight it's busting at the seams. This record sounds like a glass of orange juice in the morning. Listen to this album, I could talk about it for hours. Immediate favorite.
Highlight tracks: Brasil Pandeiro, Swing de Campo Grande, Misterio do Planeta

Novos Baianos - F.C. (Brazil, 1973, MPB) Coming back a year later with another favorite. You can hear the smiles on their faces through the microphone. More dynamic than the last release, production clean and sparkling, and the cover art is as accurate as it gets because this record makes me want to get up and run around. I CANNOT stop listening to these albums.
Highlight tracks: Sorrir e Cantar Como Bahia, O Samba da Minha Terra, Os 'Pingo' da Chuva

Death From Above - Outrage! Is Now (USA, 2017, Dance Punk/Hard Rock) Feels closer to my DFA1979 home than The Physical World, but still doesn't quite hit it. Sometimes they sound like they're doing a Muse impression but I'm ok with it. I'll probably forget about this as quickly as I did the last release.
Highlight tracks: Never Swim Alone, Holy Books

At 9/26/17 10:46 PM, Oolaph wrote: I know I listened to MBDTF and I think Graduation a few years ago (probably around when MBDTF came out) but I don't remember anything about them. Maybe I should dive into Kanye sometime soon.

Not to overblow it or anything but 'Ye is by far the best and most important artist of the century so far imo and MBDTF is way up there as potentially my all time favourite album. That said, while the production is 10/10 it's personal enough to Kanye's life that it may be a meh listen if you're not familiar with him.

Basically his mother died in '07 from a cosmetic surgery he paid for, he subsequently released his most critically unsuccessful album (808's, it's still not as loved as his other stuff but it's become a very influential album), fell into depression and alcoholism culminating in the Taylor Swift thing where he was universally demonized in the media and pop culture. His career was going down the drain and his life was at its lowest point, so he took off to Hawaii, shipped all his friends and contemporaries out one by one and recorded an album in "self-imposed exile," or the flashy, rich artist equivalent.

There's so many recognizable stars on this album it's insane, to the point where it feels more of a giant collaboration carefully sculpted into Kanye's vision rather than just a regular Kanye album. There's 30+ recognizable artists involved. It's like they took a full decade of pop music and compressed it into diamonds, it's the headstone for the 00's and probably the best comeback record of all time if you'd even call it that. If Ye's life was a movie, MBDTF would be the triumphant climax before the credits.

=

I actually got into Graduation again pretty recently too, I'd always dismissed that as his worst album based on how pop and radio friendly it is, but a video about the album's creation popped up on youtube autoplay explaining the painstaking perfectionism Ye had while working on it that got me interested again.

Apparently he created 75 versions of the song 'Stronger,' enlisting a dozen sound engineers and still wasn't satisfied with the final version. I still don't totally love the album, but going back I can appreciate what he did with it. I can see how much of a departure it was from his first two albums, how his influences were expanded and some of the groundwork for what would make MBDTF so great being set in place. TLOP is definitely and by far my least favourite album of his now, though the opening track is a masterpiece.

College Dropout, Late Registration and MBDTF are the must-listens, Graduation is very much pop rap but still good, 808's and Yeezus are pretty divisive love-it-or-hate-it records, with 808's being very mopey, autotune-drenched pop and Yeezus being aggressive, experimental punk-rap with stripped back production (though imo it doesn't push boundaries nearly as much as it thinks it does). There's also Watch The Throne which is mostly just Ye and Jay-Z rapping about how cool they are for 50 minutes but there's some excellent tracks if you don't mind fairly mindless shit that sounds cool, and there's a couple tracks with surprising lyrical depth too. Even though it's only from 2012 I'd say it's aged the worst of all his albums though.

Gary Bartz NTU Troop - Jujuman

Hey this ain't too bad

Death From Above - Outrage! Is Now (USA, 2017, Dance Punk/Hard Rock) Feels closer to my DFA1979 home than The Physical World, but still doesn't quite hit it. Sometimes they sound like they're doing a Muse impression but I'm ok with it. I'll probably forget about this as quickly as I did the last release.
Highlight tracks: Never Swim Alone, Holy Books

I've been listening to this a bit too, I've never been into DFA but I quite like this album. Fan response is all over the place but most people seem angry at the direction they've gone in. It's way more memorable than their last album imo.

I got a lot of plays out of Freeze Me before the album came out and I really enjoyed Never Swim Alone as well until some goof pointed out that the main riff is literally just the Super Mario Bros. world 1-2 music, now that's all I hear.

Also my god why are these two so bad at cover art? "Yeah we had this pretty cool elephant trunk image 13 years ago, let's just reuse that except this time it's shit."

At 10/3/17 11:40 AM, goofried wrote: haven't posted here in a while, whats new?

another NG bud comes back from the dead. How've you been, my friend? Your chart made me add Spazz to my backlog, I need more powerviolence in my life.

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Now that the small-talk is out of the way, let's get down to business: ROUND 2 OF OOLAPH'S WEEKLY TUNEZ SUMMARY

I listened to a sorta large amount of new stuff this week, mostly catching up on some artists' discogs, so I'm gonna have to pick some favorites to avoid creating a stupidly large wall of text.

Gal Costa - Gal Costa (Brazil, 1969, Tropicalia/Pop) I had heard a couple songs of hers in the past, but never a FULL ALBUM LISTENING EXPERIENCE. A varied record that definitely puts her soft and sweet voice at the center of attention, and for good reason. Sometimes this record is soft, sometimes it's fuzzy, sometimes it has bumps & grooves.
Highlight tracks: Sebastiana, Lost in the Paradise, Baby

Inside//Outside - Self Titled (USA, 2013, Electronic/Jazz Fusion) Project of music theory Youtube channel host Adam Neely with some Berkley buds of his. An electronic & jazz pizza with some djent-y metal sprinkled on top. Neat stuff.
Highlight tracks: Desert of the Real, Effervescent

Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference (2017, USA, Spiritual Jazz) Our boy Kamasi back at it again. 1/5 the length of The Epic, but no less potent. While his previous release felt like a culmination of a lifetime of musical influence, this sounds like a focused piece of inspiration.
Highlight track: Truth

Heliocentrics & Melvin Van Peebles - The Last Transmission (UK, 2014, Nu-Jazz) hip-hop influenced dark jazz + some dude rambling about space and the cosmos. Not my favorite album of theirs (that's A World of Masks) but it did cause me to add some stuff to my list. Melvin Van Peebles apparently has a legacy of soul/funk records and film soundtracks that I'm gonna have to familiarize myself with, and seeking out the bass clarinet player led me to immediately grab and listen to the next album on the list.
Highlight tracks: The Cavern, Telepathic Routine

Shabaka and The Ancestors - Wisdom of Elders (UK, 2016, Spiritual Jazz) Credited for bass clarinet on the Heliocentrics album, here Shabaka Hutchins has a tenor sax in his hands while leading this group of South African musicians through a moody journey. Tender horn leads floating over a soft bass. Rhodes plinking around, bouncing off the swirling percussion, all surrounding the powerful voice of Siyabonga Mthembu. Fantastic stuff.
Highlight tracks: The Observer, The Sea, Nguni

Here are ALL the albums that were new to me this week:

At 10/4/17 01:37 PM, goofried wrote: can't keep myself away from this place even if i tried, haha.
nah, there's no place quite as wholesome as the NGBBS, can't help but drop every now and then to kill time and chew the fat, as for how i'm doing, i'm not too bad, just been taking it easy really, you know how it goes. what about yourself?

Livin' the classic "40hr a week in a place you don't care about and wishing there was more time to do nothing at home". Been trying to get less bad at piano, and wrote a couple solo guitar pieces but nothing that i'd say is worth recording yet. I'll get there eventually.

how's that new Guided by Voices album?, i haven't listened to any of their recent albums further than Class Clown Spots A UFO, saying that i've been behind with a lot of releases apart from the new Swans album and the new Death Grips record

Standard GBV, nothing to really write home about. They've been in a state of "eh good enough i guess" for years, but I'm always okay with more Pollard tunes.

speaking of which, what do you guys think of the new DG release? and the upcoming collab with Lucas Abela

I'm behind on DG, no drive to keep up with them lately but maybe one day I'll catch up.

At 10/4/17 01:37 PM, goofried wrote: speaking of which, what do you guys think of the new DG release? and the upcoming collab with Lucas Abela

You mean the Steroids megamix thing? You made me think for a moment that I'd missed a whole new album release and nearly shat.

I wasn't a mega fan of Steroids tbh and only gave it a few listens, Hot Head was one of my least favourite tracks from Bottomless Pit and this seems to be following that style more than anything else, too much chaotic noise and not enough catchy hooks imo. It doesn't help that it's stuck in one 22 minute glob rather than split into separate tracks either, usually I kinda digest DG releases one track at a time and having to listen to it all in one go is a turn off.

'My Whole Life,' 'Bald Head Girl' and 'Black Body' are the only segments to come to mind so I guess they were most memorable.

I've no idea who Lucas Abela is so no expectation there, not that DG collabs are ever really predictable anyway. It'll be another interesting release I'm sure.