Mumford & Sons - Babel

Only made it halfway through this one. There's highs, there's lows, but generally it's just a little too repetitive and uneventful for me. Some tracks set a nice enough vibe, but I just don't think it's very interesting music.

Reminded me of some late 90's/early 2000's computer game soundtracks. I want music to be involving when I'm paying close attention, and this just sort of isn't. At least not for me.

Got a slight Joan Baez vibe from the singer, but a lot more sugary. As such, I found most of this track charming enough, but there's also a side of it that I didn't like, and the shortcut to explaining what that was would be to describe it as sounding as if a prog band had written and performed the song. I'm getting some of the melodic stylings and vocal sounds of folk, but the oddly stilted delivery and overblown, tepid orchestral indulgences of prog rock. Kind of like folk music without the soul (that was harsh, but it's what I got from it).

Pretty split feelings on this one. The first half had some lovely singing passages, but the music and the song as it progressed into the second half... ehhhh.... not entirely sold on this one, I'm afraid. Kinda made me want to go and listen to a Joan Baez album instead.

Sounds like Peter Gabriel's wife made a record.

Is that praise or a diss?

Do you think I like Genesis?

I thought I was the only one who didn't.

Kate Bush owes pretty much everything to Annie Haslam, so there ya go. You should seriously check out more Renaissance.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I've already listened to them on Spotify while I was trying to get my prog on.

I wouldn't say the Kate Bush connection is exactly super obvious based on the above track.

And whoever can dig up a better pre-Kate Bush version of Kate Bush wins the internet. There's gotta be someone.

You can hear some of what Bush would do later in stuff like this.

I can definitely see some connection there. Especially from the first key change in the main melodic line. I also like this song a lot better than the previous one, even if I'm not super happy with their use of strings. But that's a nitpick. Pretty good.

One of the singers that I feel like followed in Bush's footsteps would be Happy Rhodes:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfZa40gHkE8

Oooh yeah. I love this song.

I always throw this out first during these types of threads. Try it out.

All well and fine, you don't like Belgium beer, but did listen to the song? A simple "Yes" or "No" answer will suffice. No need to rant how much you don't like it.

Kælan Mikla - Kalt


Again a "Yes" or "No" answer will suffice. No need to go into a rant about how much you don't like it. If you want to rate Icelandic beer, go ahead be my guest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWza...A3DulmHCKyMuU4

I wouldn't listen to that even if you paid me 1,000 yen.

This isn't about you. It's about OP listening to anything.

Shots fired.

I get it. You want to torture him with that hipster drool. Sorry, didn't mean to spoil your practical joke.

Yeah. So shut up.

Quick, someone post The Lumineers.

I scratched my head, then went back and looked through this thread one more time from the beginning. It seems I accidentally skipped past a few tracks, including yours.

I'll make sure to swing past those first.

Damn right.

Actually just anything. It's a very simple premise.

But if it sucks enough, I might even like it.

First I thought this is what might happen if Andre 3000 listened to way too much Talking Heads for a month. But actually, it's very late-era Bowie in style. Maybe also like parts of the circa-Berlin trilogy output.

I liked it. Very vibrant and lively music and vocal delivery. Maybe a whole album of this exact sort of voice antics might be a bit much to take, but I doubt that's how the entire album sounds.

I wouldn't be opposed to hearing more from this dude.

I don't listen to much electronic music that gets this far into a certain end of it. The artists I like are more in the indie/electronica/pop end of things. Like Barbara Morgenstern, Depeche Mode and such. I've got a Holly Herndon album that I like, but that's a very different sort of electronic music from this track here. The only thing I have that this track might remind me of musically is the all instrumental Martin Gore album "MG".

Maybe I find Deadmau a bit too straight forward in his sonic stylings. I feel like I'm trapped in some old Playstation 1 3D sci-fi shooter, with an announcer informing me in a gruff voice that I've just gained the kill rank of "OVERKILL!!!!" or picked up an "ENERGY SHIELD!!!!".

Not bad. I kinda liked it a bit for what it was, but I'm not seeing much of chance that I'll be listening to full albums of this stuff in the future.

Well, the joke's on you, because I pretty much thought this was really good. Strong Francoise Hardy vibes going on here in more ways than one (both her voice, singing style, songwriting style and those melodramatic movie orchestrations). I could see myself picking up an album, even.

The basic songs aren't really my things to begin with, style wise. I've had a tough time appreciating gospel so far. Slather those songs in reverb and an oddly tinny, upper mids-oriented sonic gravy (with some slight distortions appearing all over the place that sound like when a super compressed record peaks) and I'm pretty much guaranteed to find it hard to sit through. And I did, even though it's not even 30 minutes long.

I'd be super interested in hearing what it is you find appealing about it. Both Frownie and any other members who know it or are willing to give it a listen.

If you liked Broken English, you might also dig this.

I'm not really into gospel either but the songwriting is great on that album in addition to the warm atmosphere and interesting explorations of harmony. I'd say it's a lot more than a gospel album too, there are psych rock, blues, Gregorian, and doo wop touches It's rare to find a neo-psych record that doesn't suck and Dang is one of them.

I shouldn't have reduced the description to just gospel, but a lot of the vocal stuff during the first half gave me that vibe. One of the latter tracks, perhaps the very last, felt a little like Beach Boys. Definitely some variation on that front, even if I feel like the sonic textures are very samey across the album - probably due to the way it's been mixed.

Ja it does feel like an extension of SMILE in a lot of ways, though it's not as technically complex.

Not reeeaaally into hip hop, but this track was a lot of fun. Kind of a rambly musical progression, but it sounded great and I enjoyed the drums big time. Very non-boring dude on the microphone, which is something I'll rarely say about this sort of music. Still, I've got a feeling the hip hop that I will eventually grow to love will lie in a different direction.

Didn't need to hear the whole thing before responding, because I'm already on board with the very first track. Lots and lots of highlights across this so far. That change where the drums and bass come in at around 14:15 and forward... chills down my spine. I'm a sucker for a good transition, so I had to rewind that bit a few times. Definitely gonna listen to this album a few times.

Maybe that's why I love it, I'm a sucker for 90's video game soundtracks. :laughing:

Deadmau5's got a really eclectic discography though with a little bit of everything that falls under the electronic umbrella. I love the trip-hop stuff he's been doing recently, if that sounds more appealing:

Yeah Blackalicious is great, actually discovered them through their song "Paragraph President" (which is another one of my favorites) on ATV: Offroad Fury 2 on PS2. If you'd be interested in hearing more, you can't go wrong with the A2G EP, Nia, or Blazing Arrow (which the posted song is from).

lol that used to be my ****. I never knew that anyone else played it, I just thought my grandpa was being an ATV dork when he got it for me.

remixed a lot of that

lol and I never thought that I'd find anyone else who's played it either, much less on a music forum.

The first one was one of the first PS2 games I had, so I ended up playing a ton of it and I soon after got the second. Honestly I still play them sometimes, I think they hold up pretty well as a couple of the best racers on the console (at least out of the ones I've played).