This shows through many of the songs on Young Team

Why are bands like Mogwai considered post-rock? Also, what else is considered post-rock? Last one I promise: Does anyone else get confused with genres and subgenres as much as I do?

Story of my life

I still much prefer the term 'Ambient Rock' which is what it is basically. We do need genre classifications to help with descriptions but I TRY to equate bands who are similar or at least narrow the genre tagging down if possible. Some of the musical genres on wikipedia are unbelievable!

makes you want to say "fiddlestix!", huh?




c wat i did thar?

LOL


yeah. it does

Nothing better than the term fiddlestix! It just suits...

Yep, thats why i used it :D

I don't think Mogwai really sounds ambient much though. Action Rock is definitely better post-rock I think has a bit of a pretentious feel. Like ohhh we're so past rock.

Mogwai really aren't that great. I find them really inane and boring compared to other popular post-rock bands.

of what other bands do you speak?

EitS, Sigur Ros, GY!BE etc.

I love 'em so if there is stuff out there that is even better... I'd love to hear it too!

Of those I also like Sigur Ros .... don't know enough godspeed... but I'd also like to add Isis as another band mining similar territory to Mogwai - at least thats how it sounded on their Panopticon album from a few years ago now....

While I believe Sigur Ros and Godspeed to be better than Mogwai at their high points (well, all of the time when it comes to Godspeed), Mogwai has so much consistently good music churning out, and are one of my favorites. EITS was nice when I first started listening to post rock, but now I really just find them to be the Coldplay of the genre.

EITS and Sigur Ros tend to put me to sleep. i do like godspeed a good deal tho.

I wouldn't put Mogwai and Isis into the same genre. Have you heard Isis' latest - Wavering Radient? Even if you haven't Panopticon doesn't remind me of Mogwai at all, really. Nonetheless, both bands are brilliant.

Yeah I just listened to half of Panopticon and I can't say that it's anything like Mogwai.

Not my favorite album, but I guess if we're going to discuss Isis any more than we already are, we should skip on over to the Isis thread.

Ok, I think I've given myself enough time to make a personal judgment about Mogwai.
I got all the albums and listened for a week or so, and personally, nothing they do is very interesting to me.
In fact, I find their music rather boring.
I guess it would be OK to use as mood music very low in the background, but nothing of theirs really jumps out at me in an inspirational way.
In fact, I find myself a bit depressed after listening to their stuff.

It's not that everything I listen to is extreme in any way, but I like to be engaged in music, and Mogwai doesn't provide that.

So I guess I'll just let the torrent seed 100 percent and delete it after that. No sense in taking up space on my drives. Sorry Mogwai.

personally i need to be in a certain mood to listen to them now. when i first discovered them i was really into them for about 6 months or so. now i rarely listen to them.

That made me a little sad for some reason.
I think it's because I can see myself having the exact same reaction if that was my experience. For me it was like: a friend recommends Young Team and I was lukewarm to it for a while but came to love it - and all their previous stuff. Then Come On Die Young came out and I remember that day well because I had a friend drop me off at a record store after work so that I could buy the CD. I had brought my discman and I walked the 2 or so miles home listening to it. At first I was terribly disappointed. I wanted those big sounds that I heard in Young Team and 10 Rapid. They didn't come. Instead it was all mellowed-out post rock bliss that I eventually also came to love (I still count it as one of my favorite albums).
Anyway, they proceeded to make a lot more music that was hit or miss and I can see writing them off as boring. But for me a lot of their music is as engaging as it gets.

I'm able to write them off because I know what appeals to me. I have never grown to love any band, as I do not torture myself with music I don't like after a certain period of time. I give myself only enough time to come to a 100 percent conclusion that I do or do not like a band.
After I've made that decision, there really isn't much to think about. I'm not missing out on anything if I don't like their music.

That probably makes me seem closed minded, but I really do give everything a chance. I just don't see the point behind trying to change who I am just so a band can acquire one more fan. :)
Edit:
Also, it's not like I'm writing off the entire post-rock genre. I just don't see what's so special about Mogwai. I like the concept of post-rock, but I'm just waiting for something to happen in the genre that breaks a little more ground than Mogwai.

It doesn't make you seem closed minded. Of course you shouldn't bother spending time listening to music you don't like.
Still, Mogwai *was* groundbreaking at one point (much so, in my opinion) but I can see how it would seem that they weren't if I had also listened to their whole catalog at once well after post-rock had become standard fare.
Not saying your experience would have been the same as mine if you hadn't done it that way. For me - a lot of my favorites took some time to grow on me.

It's just weird, because when I found out about post-rock, it didn't seem any different than the simple stuff I used to play years ago before I began learning more complicated things.
Melody itself isn't a recent development either.
I've always been drawn to melodic arrangements and thick atmospheric musical environments... but that didn't spawn when post-rock became a recognizable name.

I dunno... it just never seemed like anything new... just something people eventually started accepting as a legit style of music.

The thing is: When I heard Young Team, and then 10 Rapid soon after, I felt like I had heard something new, refreshing and just plain good. That combo doesn't come along often. Sure, there had been years of Slint, June of '44, Tortoise and such - but Mogwai felt special. Not sure what it was exactly - they just pushed all the right buttons at all the right moments.

We can settle on that. Makes sense. :)

where should i start with these guys?

ok thanks :)

Mogwai is one of my favorites.
 

Damn,
didn't know anybody listened to Mogwai. I don't know if I'd classify them in the rock category. As far as instrumentation goes, they're definitely pretty rockin', but they lack the decadence and the general rebelliousness. Plus, they're instrumental by and large.

I think we need to create a new subgenre for them called "soundtrack rock", because I can't even drive around with them on the stereo without feeling like I'm about to find myself in the grips of some apocalyptic maelstrom. Same with Explosions in the Sky, Valley of Giants, Godspeed, and all those groups.

Good tunes. "Happy Songs" and "Mr. Beast" are my favorites.

But that doesnt make any sense. I mean, I get where you're coming from, a lot of post-rock makes for pretty good background music and it's a genre of music that can be atmospheric, ambient or even outright epic in its sound but soundtrack?

He might have better termed it: Movie Rock.

Movie Rock sounds kinda OK, but to me it implies that their music is always associated with a movie or a visual element, which would not always be true!

Ok here's a better one:

Post-considerablechanceyou'dhearthisinamovie-core

awesome sub genre name! It even includes the necessary "core" and "post" prefixes and suffixes to make the user of the name / label sound really intellectual! hehehehe!

Someone should start a band and classify themselves as that so it will one day become a legit genre.

As for Mogwai, the only song I've heard by them is "I Know Who You Are bu What Am I" and it's weird because as soon as I forget about it, it comes across my iPod and I really love it. It has a weird energy without having vocals, which is awesome.

Mine. I called it.

This is why we don't speak to each other very often anymore.

As for Mogwai's genre placement. I can see how it sounds "soundtracky", but for the most part, I listen to music like this because of it's ambiance and the mellow atmosphere that comes with it. The best, though, is when it unexpectedly gets heavy and completely throws you off. When I first listened to Young Blood, I wasn't impressed at all. It wasn't until the second or third time that I began hearing things I hadn't heard before.

I love it.

Let's get a petition going and we'll try to jumpstart a legit subgenre.

perhaps we could all collaborate on it???? yeah?

I've got an idea for a considerablechanceyou'dhearthisinamovie-esque group that I'd like to call Bitchpile.....

Don't stroke his ego. He will only come back for more.