Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

[James]

Actually, let me try a James:


"50 Best Albums of 2015

40 Songhoy Blues, 'Music in Exile'

To find the heaviest-hitting blues-rock of the year, take a sharp left at the Mississippi Delta until you're in the deserts of Mali. Though rooted in the nation's world-famous guitar lineage and chugging with the rollicking Saharan-rock rhythms made popular by contemporary bands like Tinariwen and Terakraft, Songhoy Blues are a far harder and punkier affair: Think Ali Farka Touré's iconic desert blues shredded out by kids raised on hip-hop and Jimi Hendrix. Their debut album, produced by Marc-Antoine Moreau and Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner, is the blazing solution to a year without a new Black Keys or Jack White album, full of lyrical solos, entrancing rhythms and melancholy lyrics like those of "Desert Melodie," a protest of the jihadists who outlawed music in the northern part of their country."


Let me know if you need a higher ranking one James, and I can cut and paste for you.  (I mean, come on, you mentioned Hendrix, the reviewer mentioned Hendrix ..)

Pop music reviewers wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them right in the ass, based on the description I'm cringing. And really, another blues-rock effort? I'll sample it .. but seems like a lame suggestion in light of what has been done before, Todd.

[Madiel]

Heck, I'll even show some range in popular music with one song.

Here's the original version in 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSbSfYy2Tdg

And here's the live version in 1999: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odHOOC2uNP8

[James]

Radiohead, Tori Amos, Something for Kate (or Paul Dempsey as a solo artist), george or any of the Noonan siblings' subsequent projects (Katie Noonan being more prolific), Patty Griffin, Beyoncé's last two albums, Fiona Apple (especially her last album), Janelle Monae, Moloko / Roisin Murphy as a solo artist, and the only album by the Dissociatives. That'll do for now.

I heard of many of them, on the radio and abroad. You're going to have to do much better than this, I'm afraid.

[Madiel]

I heard of many of them, on the radio and abroad. You're going to have to do much better than this, I'm afraid.

"Many"? Name which ones you've heard. Not "heard of", "heard". Because frankly, the odds of you having heard certain ones of them are quite remote. It's very easy for you to write such a sentence, and quite hard for me to believe you.

[James]

"Many"? Name which ones you've heard. Because frankly, the odds of you having heard certain ones of them are quite remote. It's very easy for you to write such a sentence, and quite hard for me to believe you.

What are you kidding me .. Radiohead, Beyonce, Tori Amos, Fionna Apple .. this is yesterday's news. I've heard those, most people have. I quickly checked out a few of the others you mentioned, as I'm not always privy to 'names' .. and I recognized a few others, but overall .. none of this stuff is worth getting excited about.

[James]

Heck, I can get further apart than that picking items from a single band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2OmNmV3y4Y

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYmxHN4z7k

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=552CM7Syslw


are a better representation of the width of popular music than anything you would offer when you're trying to prove your own argument that it all sounds the same.

That's one band and one singer on all those three tracks.

Omg .. what is this mediocre shit, in light of this discussion .. you've got to be kidding me.

[James]

Heck, I'll even show some range in popular music with one song.

Here's the original version in 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSbSfYy2Tdg

And here's the live version in 1999: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odHOOC2uNP8

?!?!?!?

This is the kind of stuff you're hinging your argument on? I knew I was wasting my time .. 

[Madiel]

Omg .. what is this mediocre shit, in light of this discussion .. you've got to be kidding me.

Whether you like it is irrelevant to my argument.

[some guy]

Karl, you were in charge of popcorn, right?

I'd like some, please.

(Who was in charge of drinks? I could use some root beer, too, if I may.)

[Madiel]

What are you kidding me .. Radiohead, Beyonce, Tori Amos, Fionna Apple .. this is yesterday's news. I've heard those, most people have. I quickly checked out a few of the others you mentioned, as I'm not always privy to 'names' .. and I recognized a few others, but overall .. none of this stuff is worth getting excited about.

Yeah, as I thought. All the big names. None of the Australian ones which I mentioned. None of the more recent ones or ones that don't make the top 40 radio.

The odds of you being familiar with george's superb "Unity" album or the bizarre Dissociatives song "Horror with Eyeballs" are remote indeed. These aren't terribly well known pieces of music in their own country, never mind anywhere else. It doesn't bother me whether you know them. It doesn't bother me whether you like them. The issue here is the attitude that you know anything and everything there is about music.

This, from a man who regularly showed himself incapable of even writing his own thoughts on music until myself and others started calling you out on it and identifying the sources you had copy-pasted from. I can't think of any other regular poster on the forum who is LESS qualified to hold themselves out as some kind of definitive expert on the state of music. The only things you've shown yourself to be an expert in are CTRL+C and CTRL+V.

[Mirror Image]

That's right, orfeo, James is the Copy-And-Paste King. He can't express any thoughts on music because he's too busy living vicariously through someone else's.

[Mirror Image]

Karl, you were in charge of popcorn, right?

I'd like some, please.

(Who was in charge of drinks? I could use some root beer, too, if I may.)

(Slides Some Guy a root beer in a chilled mug down the bar table)

[James]

The odds of you being familiar with george's superb "Unity" album or the bizarre Dissociatives song "Horror with Eyeballs" are remote indeed. These aren't terribly well known pieces of music in their own country, never mind anywhere else. It doesn't bother me whether you know them. It doesn't bother me whether you like them. The issue here is the attitude that you know anything and everything there is about music.

Hey, I sampled the few I didn't know on YouTube as well .. you had your chance and totally blew it.

This stuff you are championing doesn't even approach the best pop music and it's (a little over) 100 year history. Never mind coming even remotely close to what the best Art music has on offer to someone.

[some guy]

Thanks, Mirror!

I know we've had our differences in the past. And probably will in the future as well.

But that was some fine, refreshing root beer. Mmmmm.

Anyway, back to the show....

(Munch, munch, slurp, slurp.)

[Madiel]

Hey, I sampled the few I didn't know on YouTube as well .. you had your chance and totally blew it.

This stuff you are championing doesn't even approach the best pop music and it's (a little over) 100 year history. Never mind coming even remotely close to what the best Art music has on offer to someone.

Excellent. Post the links.

[James]

Excellent. Post the links.

Go on YouTube .. take a few of the names you've suggestion and punch them into the search engine and sample. OR use Google Videos. I didn't save or favorite the links.

[Madiel]

Go on YouTube .. take a few of the names you've suggestion and punch them into the search engine and sample. OR use Google Videos. I didn't save or favorite the links.

ROFL. I don't need the links to hear the music. It's all sitting in my music collection. I'm sure you can figure out why I'm pressing you for specifics if you think about it.

It should all be in your recent browser history.

[James]

ROFL. I don't need the links to hear the music. It's all sitting in my music collection. I'm sure you can figure out why I'm pressing you for specifics if you think about it.

It should all be in your recent browser history.

I browse Incognito .. so no, I don't have the history. Just punch in the names, and search for perhaps an official video of a single or whatnot. Or simply sample stuff that comes up top (usually highest view count) ..

[Madiel]

Yeah.

We're done here.

[Todd]

It fits well with tons of anecdotal evidence...

I do not know if there is conclusive scientific evidence.

Lots of anecdotal evidence, no conclusive scientific evidence.  That renders the discussion nothing more than an exchange of opinions influenced by personal tastes and personal cultural/intellectual/ideological agendas. 

Something else that needs to be understood is that the "development of musical tastes" - I'm still not certain what that really means - may not even be important at all.  Why is it important, and what are the ramifications if the current stunted state of affairs continues?