People that listen to "challenging" music

This thread is just so full of such genius. Only 7 pages? Can't wait for it to get to 700!!!

  On 9/14/2017 at 6:15 PM, auxien said:

This thread is just so full of such genius. Only 7 pages? Can't wait for it to get to 700!!!

 

i'd say stick around but, sorry, it's not contagious :p

sometimes i'm really glad for joyrex's incompetence when it comes to running this site. because otherwise early-mid 00's posts of mine where i'm shitting (in a hilariously broken english) on anything that's not the most extreme mego label/confield/draft/academic electronics level of complexity, specifically in YLC, would still be available.

^ pls repost

i'm not that man anymore.

  On 9/15/2017 at 6:27 PM, eugene said:

i'm not that man anymore.

 

lol

lol

  On 9/15/2017 at 2:18 PM, eugene said:

shitting (in a hilariously broken english) on anything that's not the most extreme mego label/confield/draft/academic electronics level of complexity

 

Dude

 

  On 9/15/2017 at 6:23 PM, xox said:

^ pls repost

^^^

 

 

We might need a concerted effort to bring eugene back to his roots again. I want that mixture of barely comprehensible english and "my horse is high and mighty and superior to everything else out there" attitude .

 

Read: i feel lonly on my high horse

Edited September 16, 2017 by goDel

Aphex himself could post something in YLC and people would still give him tips on how to improve it.

Anyone up for making a "challenging" music compilation?

We already did

 

I think the 'is music taste nature or nurture?' question is quite an interesting one. I can trace almost everything I listen to back to when I was 10. I had no interest in music until my parents bought a CD player and my dad got a CD by

to test it out. I listened to it all the time, and because of that, instrumental music kind of became a default for me - so when stuff like Orbital came on Top of the Pops, I immediately went out and bought it because it was instrumental. A lot of their pieces were intentionally evocative (quite a lot were written for films), so the title would always reflect imagery to go with the music, which definitely led to my interest in soundscapey type music. Their tracks were all richly melodic and accessible, which is how I got into pop music. 

Shortly afterwards, my dad decided to play me 'Revolution 9' by The Beatles. At such a young age, it totally blew my mind, and since then I've no longer felt that melody, rhythm or obvious structure were inherently necessary for music (in fact, I spent my early teens trying to create similar music using tapes and radio). I think only really the few years I spent listening to post-hardcore and emo stuff don't link directly back to either The Shadows or 'Revolution 9'.

 

That said, none of this explains why I gravitated towards particular songs on that first CD. My favourites were almost all the ones in a minor key rather than major, and I was immediately drawn to their cover of 'Good Vibrations', in particular the verse sections. I found the haunting, melancholic tone so, so appealing, and to this day, most of my favourite music is stuff that's either melancholic, or has a bittersweet euphoria. The few overly blues-influenced tracks on that Shadows CD were always my least favourite. To this day stuff that is rooted in bluesy, funky sounds, with maybe less overtly 'pretty' melodies, doesn't really appeal to me. I have no idea where this preference comes from. It was there on my first listen to that first CD, so it's fair to suggest it predates it, and is possible something innate inside me. 

 

 

As for 'challenging' music, it doesn't especially interest me these days. In my late teens I went through that 'it has to be difficult and weird!' stage, but otherwise I just go with what my instinct tells me now. I still like music that surprises me and does things I've not really listened to before (I'm finally getting into jazz), but stuff that genuinely challenges me, particularly on the atonal end of things, I'm not interested in. If I feel like I'm forcing myself to like something I never really end up liking it at all. That said, I did actually have a go at some 12-tone piano compositions a few years ago for fun.

 

Really though, I probably listen to more pop than overtly weird stuff these days, but my taste is as varied as it's ever been. I still pick up million-selling pop albums and obscure tapes released in runs of 25. As long as I have an emotional response to it, it's all good.

  On 9/7/2017 at 11:19 PM, joshuatx said:

I suppose it's kind of like the kids I knew in high school who would wax poetic about Tool or Radiohead but know very little else

 

Oh God yes, I studied Music Technology at university, and for a number of reasons I ended up doing a fairly shit course with low entry requirements, and every other fucker basically talked about "Aphex Twin and Radiohead" as if they're the peak of underground, experimental music. I remember a lecture we had from some woman from Universal Records about licensing music for TV, record marketing etc., and two guys sat behind me were saying "this is why I like artists like Aphex Twin and Radiohead, they'd never let their music be used in such a way". To this day I don't know why I didn't turn around and say "I hear their music on the TV all the fucking time". 

did you guys know that Beethoven is actually pronounced "beeth oven" though?