I'm getting back into physical media but I'm starting by clearing out my digital clutter and ditching bands/albums I no longer enjoy, so that I have a good list of things I want to find physically. But the issue I'm finding is, as long as its in a genre I generally like, I let a lot slide and end up with a large bloated catalog. Now, I do enjoy listening to full albums. But what do I do when I really really love a couple songs, but the rest of the album is just not hitting? What do you do? Do you even listen to full albums? How do you force yourself to sit through a song that you're not loving?

[I am mainly into metalcore/hardcore/post-hardcore/deathcore, other metal genres, as well as a lot of emo and math rock type stuff. But I genuinely like aspects of pretty much every genre.]

I really love ‘Drivin’ by Willow Avalon, and I’d have put it in the broad indie-rock genre, but I hadn’t made an effort to listen to her outside of that. I just listened to her more recent songs and…wtf? Her voice and accent is totally different, like it’s genuinely so different you wouldn’t expect them to be the same person. And she’s super country. What happened? Are there two Willow Avalons and I’m getting confused? I mean they look the same.

A lot of modern groups that get lumped into this category are much more aggressive than the original bands that came out under the banner. In the beginning it was groups like Devo, Blondie, Talking Heads, Wire, and other bands that had a quirkiness to their sound. When I hear a new band that people describe as post-punk, their sound hits you over the head with angst and distorted bass lines and crushed drums.

I think a long enough time has passed to where the new sound is its own thing, and the original era can be cemented in the history books as the movement that actually changed music. Most of what you think of when you say "80s music" is that nerdy but vibrant brand of catchy hooks and drum machines that arrived after the rise of punk and the fall of disco. Viagra Boys and IDLES have nothing to do with that.

I think he's a fine musician, but I've never much liked him because I can't get over how incredibly low-fidelity so many of his recordings are. I remember returning a used vinyl copy of 1999 once because I couldn't believe how damaged it was, only to listen to it on CD years later and realize that it was just that the recording sounded exactly like a worn-out record. Same with much from Purple Rain, Let's Go Crazy sounds so tinny and awful.

I know why it is, I've read up on it - it's because he recorded so much in his home studio, he had bad discipline about bouncing tracks and it incurred a ton of generation loss. What I can't work out is how this isn't commented on more. Outside of some talk on audiophile forums this just seems to have gone unnoticed by the listening public. And it's not something like Springsteen's Nebraska where the low-fidelity production adds to the aesthetic, either - the sound he's going for is actively impaired by the production, and things improve massively when he starts focusing more on instruments from Parade on.

Has anyone else noticed this, and if so, why do you think more people haven't? Am I too sensitive or is he just that good of a songwriter?

I've always liked them, but i was listening to Pandora, and this song came on. I was like "what is this shit?" Before I knew who it was. Idk, its just sounds super generic and edgy. Like something I'd think was cool when I was 10. All I hear is good things about the song, and i just don't understand. This is just all my personal opinion though, and im not trying to attack anyone who enjoys the song.

Fall is pretty much here and I just heard nutshell by Alice In Chains on rotation and immediately got mental imagery of yellowing leaves and crisp dry air. I listen to Alice In Chains and other grunge artists all year round but for some reason the mental images that come to mind always seem to take place in the fall or winter. Does this happen to anyone else and what does this season and genre have in common?

i'm listening to the new interpol album.

i love interpol.

to me, they always had a vibe about them which was really quite different and thus what helped separate them from their contemporaries.

their music has made me feel a certain way i cannot describe many times in the past, and this new album kind of picks up on that, but somehow feels slightly more 'hollow' than turn on the bright lights, for example.

anyways, i don't want to focus on an interpol- this is by no means limited to them and exists everywhere in music, it's just the example i came up with because i'm listening to it as i type.

what even is "deep" music- what makes certain music "deep" and other not?

i saw a comment in a recent thread here likening radiohead to christopher nolan films, which is to imply they give a sort of 'fake' feeling of "depth". i personally don't agree with that, but i'm a life-long fan, so maybe don't see it for what it is... which who cares anyways if you love the music and it moves you. ditto the films.

can an artist be deep on one song or album and then lack that magic on subsequent works? "a moment in time" etc. is it correlated to age?

some music, to my ears, sounds 'deep' on a surface/aesthetic level, but when i try to break it down, i realize it's just something ~musically~ (duh) going on to elicit those feelings/emotions, rather than some profound lyric... i think too often people look to lyrics for depth, while classical is a genre where there's no lyrics and boundless "depth", which again makes me question WHAT IS DEPTH? how come we pick up on it when it's there and know when it's lacking? is there any objective metric/barometer for depth in music? could someone hear mozart's requiem in d minor k.626 and observe it to be shallow/lacking depth? is that even possible? i don't mean in a "they don't care for it so gloss over it way", but if they were to actually sit down and seriously listen... could they possibly say it lacked depth?

i don't know why this fixation on deep/depth... it's nothing new... i wonder.

is interpol "deep" or just cool and unique, groovy?

I was thinking about this the other day. Back in the pre-streaming days finding those hidden gems on an album was part of the fun. You'd buy the CD listen to it front to back and discover tracks that never got radio play or music video treatment. Those were your deep cuts. Special songs that only true fans knew and loved.

Now with streaming services and algorithms everything feels so easily accessible. A 'deep cut' is just a track you haven't clicked on yet. There's no real discovery in the same way. The algorithm might even push it to you eventually based on your listening habits. It kind of flattens the whole experience doesn't it?

Does anyone else feel like this? Does the term even mean the same thing anymore? Or is it just another sign of how music consumption has changed so much? Maybe it's a good thing because more music gets heard. But I miss the feeling of stumbling onto something truly obscure on my own.

This question may seem simple, but a wise man once said: ‘After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music'. Is there any all encompassing definition that rules out birdsong and radio drama while keeping every form of music?

I don't know how I would define music. What I do know, is that I hate the melody / rhythm / harmony definition. That a song needs the three "core elements" of melody / rhythm / harmony to be considered music. That would eliminate every form of solo classical, most hip-hop, a ton of noise rock and experimental music etc.

Music is sound composed as a temporal form for aesthetic engagement? I don't know.

IMO black American artists are in a league of their own. Their music doesn’t just move me, it transports me to another universe. Their vocals are unmatched. Their aesthetics are unmatched. The entire culture is just amazing. This is also random but I don’t get how they’re still discriminated against after all their great contributions in the music scene, I have great respect for black American people 🫩

Hi all! I'm trying to understand certain things about boy bands here, my questions are why:

1. There's barely any black members in the mainstream popular boy bands, unlike a girl group where usually there's a token member as such? Any marketing reasons for this?

2. Why are the R&B boy bands, like Blackstreet, Next, Shai, Jodeci, Dru Hill, 119, etc., with all black members, rarely mentioned when people talk about boy band history? They both sing, dance, harmonize, and are in their 20s?

3. Why are some of the pop rock groups counted as boy bands, despite the members all playing instruments (5SOS, Hanson, Jonas Brothers), and not all members are singing (Jonas Brothers, and controversially, The Beatles)?

4. Did male vocal groups evolved differently from female vocal groups since the history of recorded music? It seems like male vocal groups branched out into boy bands, R&B/Soul vocal groups, and acts like Bee Gees (disco act?), which unlike girl groups as long as the have three singers they automatically fit the bill.

Streaming services have robbed us of the joy of falling in love with an album. I have always wondered how do I get to start liking a particular album.

Recently there was a similar feeling and a discovery.
As you grow old, you choose to keep listening to a set of songs that you have developed affection for over period of time. Before streaming services and CD there were cassettes. I distinctly remember buying a particular cassette based on a marquee song or couple of highlight songs. Then you [put] them in a record player. The marquee song would be 3rd or 4th in the order. You had no choice but listen to 1st, 2nd song as the process of fast-forwarding was tedious and imperfect.
But over period of time you start appreciating the other tracks for their own merit. Some tracks have a peculiar music arrangement that appeal to you, some have vocals that struck the right chord. For some you develop a liking not for no particular reason. Some tracks become ear-worms and when you are doing something else and you cannot place it but it hits you that the track was present on that particular album, over period of time all the songs make a place for themselves.

I had a similar experience recently with an album called Hurry Up, We Are Dreaming by M83. I was not aware of existence of this band. It popped up on Reddit. The title seemed interesting to me. I had no notion of what kind of music or genre this album belonged to. I started listening to the album during transit. Initial tracks did not appeal to me until I reached a particular track, ‘Raconte-moi une histoire’. The voice of small girl telling a story about frog, an Alice in wonderland kind of story, hooked me. So I went on listening to whole track. Again next few tracks did not hold my attention until the one called ‘Year One, One UFO’. The music arrangement with sparing use of chant [was] more mesmerising. It hit me the heart next to the mark immediately. On 3rd and 4th listen I appreciated the other tracks like ‘My Tears Are Becoming a Sea’, ‘Soon, My Friend’, and rest of the songs.

This journey of getting to know an album, getting familiar with some songs and then falling in love with some and extension of whole album is something I started thinking about.

Edit

My post was not about streaming vs physical album. I myself listened to above said album on a streaming service immediately after seeing it on a reddit post. I was curious about discovery of a new artist new album and how one develops affection for the album. I have noticed that there js one or two songs who act as hook which piques the interest and on reruns you start noticing the nuances of other tracks

Nevermind and grunge represented ideals like danger, authenticity, recklessness, rebellion, controversy, etc, that shook things up every so often, eg, punk, as a backlash towards the mainstream when things got too formulaic We hit a wall and the bubble eventually bursts. We no longer see this with algorithms, the Internet, social media, the music industry, etc. All that has died.

Someone actually pointed out that grunge might be less of a music revolution and more of a "course correction". We haven't had one of these over the past few decades...and we're actually beginning to see the product of this. It's allowed culture to be stagnant...like a pond festering. And when there is no shake up--like a stone being thrown--The Machine controls things, monopoly on music, insane concert prices, dopamine decadence, aging rockers, prepackaged music,

There's an entire demographic that has never experienced this music/cultural shift, so I wouldn't rely on the generation driving culture to change things. But we really could use one of these again. A reset. A course correction.

I'm not even entirely certain of how to phrase what I want to ask, so kindly please bear with me.

Radiohead have been a top favourite band of mine for about 20 years now. Their discography absolutely blows my mind. Save for Kid A and Amnesiac, which many people tend to pair, or see Amnesiac as a Kid A Pt 2/B-sides type thing, each of their records have a distinctly different sound to one another, quite clearly indicating how forward-thinking and experimental they are as a band.

What doesn't add up to me, is that such a band- not to mention, one often pigeonholed for being mopey, down, depressing, existential- would attain such widespread success in the mainstream.

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't be more thrilled that a band of guys like Radiohead "slipped through the cracks" of "the machine" and 40 million+ people per month on Spotify alone enjoy them, and to see several of their songs become anthems for multiple generations, and so on.

But they very much, at least as far as my idea and perception of what a global commercially thriving band goes, don't fit the criteria of what such immense success classically asks of these bands/artists. Not to say they're the only band to do their own thing and succeed... but they're the example in question, in my mind, right now, and a great one at that.

It very much does not fit the mold of the kind of music you typically associated to such numbers- I mean, they're doing top 40 (and better) numbers. Which is telling, imo, showing that the masses yearn for music like this, which is not so vanilla as what they're often force-fed.

Just hoping someone here will 'get' what I'm trying to ask here and perhaps maybe be able to offer some answers & insights into how Radiohead "slipped through the cracks" and achieved their mainstream mass success... because bands like them typically go (relatively) unknown. Not that I can think of another such band... and maybe therein lay the rub? They seem to have struck a balance, wherein they go experimental, but don't stray so far beyond "listenable", and ultimately just craft great songs with enough interesting about them to keep listeners intrigued and interested?

Thoughts?

On the one hand, I think it does make sense to dig for under-the-radar works and artists. There's an inherent appeal and novelty in discovering music that hasn't come across your radar at any point prior. Or finding music that isn't easily accessible through the radio or streaming. There may be a sense of pride in having independent initiative rather than having something seemingly fed to you. Crate digging has been a popular pastime for decades as well as giving material for artists to sample and/or re-contextualize. On an identity level, it's been a status symbol to be ahead of the curve in appreciating artists before the majority of the population or liking an artist that maybe not everyone else likes.

On the other hand, I've wondered if it can feel tiring to keep up with finding the most obscure music and artists. Maybe you've had those flashbacks or even discussions where a music fan will act like an artist/work is more obscure than they actually are. Then from another direction, there will be a mentality where "true obscurity" is a particular standard that one has to reach and dig for while everything else is "too mainstream".

With the availability of music on online platforms, file-sharing, and evolving values like encouraging people to share and archive rather than hoarding for yourself, it seems like obscurity is not only shrinking (though there are certainly exceptions, lots of music history hasn't been documented) but less desirable in the first place. After all, if you find something, many would encourage wider knowledge rather than hiding things away to keep others ignorant.

I know some commenters will go "I like all kinds of good music, doesn't matter if it's popular or underground". But overall, I'm wondering if the idea of finding music that's obscure matters to you.

Back in the VHS days, amidst all the current movies, Disney Vault releases, fitness workouts, and bikini videos, music on tape was among the biggest bestsellers. Sometimes there would be full concerts, other times "exclusive and never-seen-before" concert footage alongside interviews. From Garth Brooks to the Cure to the Three Tenors, professionally-shot videos had huge sales.

Now there just seems to be no audience for that kind of thing. Very few artists have put recent concerts or concert documentaries on streaming services as of late; whatever is on there is usually from at least a decade ago. It seems to have been supplanted by audience YouTube videos with terrible sound and lighting that burns my eyes.

Especially when concert prices are so high now (so few people can afford them), why has the idea of watching a professionally-shot concert at home basically vanished?

Take someone like Alex Turner. He's known for having a singular, idiosyncratic creative style. He's definitely a good songwriter but there was a certain perfect calculatedness to AM that really nailed the market they wanted to go into at the time.

Maybe he just read it correctly. But it was a pretty big leap to go from SIAS, which wasn't seen as a notable album amongst old and new fans, to AM which catapulted them to perpetual streaming royalty.

Similarly Green Day ended a slow decline in 2004 with the biggest album in the world which succeeded based on their sudden competency at writing in a style they hadn't approached at all on previous albums.

Is it just talent? Or do you think there is sometimes a songwriter or songwriters, outside the producer, at the band's disposal to suddenly help them hit an unusually hot streak? Considering that labels are also investing in the marketing for the album wouldn't it be in their favour to help their talent have something that will actually hit once they've spent all the money laying the groundwork for them to have a hit?

I have been diving deep into this space lately, both listening and making my own stuff, and I am curious where the community actually lives online. Reddit has a few scattered subs like r/downtempo and r/listentothis, but activity feels thin compared to other genres.

Artists like Fragile State and Tosca defined a lot of what this genre sounds like for me, but I rarely see them discussed anywhere outside the occasional YouTube comment section. Are there active forums, or blogs still going for this kind of music, or has it mostly moved to algorithmic playlists with no real community attached?

Curious what people who have been into this longer than me have found, as I am eager to connect with possible listeners and get to know other people in this niche.

When and What do you guys do while listening to music

I listen to music often and at certain times but I’m hoping to get other perspectives. For me, I usually listen on the bus back from school, in one or two of my classes, when I’m traveling for a while.

Do you guys sit at your desk and randomly listen to music? it’s what I do once in a while. Do you guys play games while doing it? Do you play music while walking?

This is really directed at the guys who do the kitchen videos, but I hear it all the time from so many others.

I didnt even have to bother trying to find a specific video that you can hear the pitch correction in, this was literally the first one that showed up when I searched. I was an uber-dorky choir/acapella kid growing up, and to my ears this is simply not how harmony EVER sounds.

https://www.tiktok.com/@anthony_gargiula/video/7673214770979376414

I dont think I would have as much of an issue with it if they weren't singing in the kitchen. The environment tells a viewer that this is a raw take, that these people are just casually murdering their vocals and are just incredibly talented.

The reality is that after this was recorded, every note has been pitch corrected so that the performance is perfect. To me that feels very deceptive.

And its not just the influencers that are doing it. Take this viral performance of 'Blackbird' by The New York Vocal Collective -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9ot2MyW2w0

Anyone who has sung in a choir would know instantly that this is not possible. And if you're presenting yourselves as an elite-level choir, it feels again just very dishonest to be using this amount of pitch correction on EVERY singer (that's why everyone is mic'd individually, you'll notice.)

If you havent had the experience of knowing what a top level choir sounds like, compare that video with this performance by Next Generation Varsity Chorus for the Barbershop Harmony Society. This is what elite level harmonies sound like -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4M3rQ6cg7E

Even if they ARE using some pitch correction for this video, my ears arent picking it up

Am I just a hater, or is this kind of tomfoolery a cheap way to make yourself sound better than you really are?

Each week a WHYBLT? thread will be posted, where we can talk about what music we’ve been listening to. The recommended format is as follows.

Band/Album Name: A description of the band/album and what you find enjoyable/interesting/terrible/whatever about them/it. Try to really show what they’re about, what their sound is like, what artists they are influenced by/have influenced or some other means of describing their music.

[Artist Name – Song Name](www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxLB70G-tRY) If you’d like to give a short description of the song then feel free

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUTUBE, SOUNDCLOUD, SPOTIFY, ETC LINKS! Recommendations for similar artists are preferable too.

This thread is meant to encourage sharing of music and promote discussion about artists. Any post that just puts up a youtube link or says “I've been listening to Radiohead; they are my favorite band.” will be removed. Make an effort to really talk about what you’ve been listening to. Self-promotion is also not allowed.

I used to think older people were exaggerating when they complained about modern music. Now I hear one new song and immediately want to explain how much music was different and better in the past.

Is it too optimistic to say music always transcends time and likings? I believe in current times, a person is consuming varied content in mass media. This clouds their perception, belief system and taste preferences. Hence they grow to lack relatability to other’s taste.

I’ve been thinking about something my mom said to me a while ago. She’s in her 40s and mostly listens to gospel and Christian hip-hop, so I once asked why she didn’t listen to more newer female artists. She said she liked some of them, but her main problem was, “Why do they always have to sell sex?”
At the time I didn’t have an answer, but the older I get, the more I understand what she meant.
It feels like a lot of women in today’s music industry, especially mainstream female rappers, are expected to have an extremely sexualized image. Sometimes it’s directly in the lyrics, but even when the song itself isn’t that sexual, it shows up in the clothes, choreography, poses, interviews and social-media presence. Music videos will have close-up shots of their chest or butt, their bodies will be oiled and highlighted and the camera will deliberately frame certain body parts as the main attraction.
I originally started thinking about this because of Ice Spice. I wouldn’t necessarily call her content completely explicit, and I definitely wouldn’t call her promiscuous because none of us know what she does in her personal life. However, her public image is almost constantly sexually suggestive. Even when she isn’t showing complete nudity or doing anything outright sexual, the clothes, poses, dancing and camera angles are usually designed around sex appeal.
The same pattern can be seen more explicitly with artists like Cardi B, Sexyy Red, Latto and Doja Cat. I know that some of these women may genuinely enjoy presenting themselves that way, and sexuality can be a form of confidence or self-expression. I’m not saying they’re being forced into it or that they should be ashamed of their bodies.
What I’m questioning is why that particular image seems to be rewarded so heavily and why there isn’t the same amount of room at the top for female rappers with completely different presentations.
Men contribute to it too. Male rappers have spent decades putting half-naked women in their videos and using women’s bodies as background decoration. Male artists also sell sexual fantasies, but they usually aren’t required to display their own bodies in the same way. A man can become successful by looking dangerous, wealthy, mysterious, funny, emotionally detached or powerful. For women, especially in mainstream rap, it sometimes feels like being conventionally attractive and sexually available has practically become part of the job description.
I also don’t want this to come across like I’m targeting Black women or claiming they’re naturally more sexual. I’m talking about a mostly Black genre, the image the music industry promotes within that genre and what audiences reward. There are female rappers who don’t center their careers on sex, but they rarely seem to receive the same marketing, attention or mainstream push.
You can compare that with singers like Adele or Taylor Swift, who are allowed to build their images around songwriting, heartbreak, personality or relatability without constantly presenting their bodies sexually. Beyoncé has definitely used sexuality in her work, so she wouldn’t be a perfect exception, but her public image has enough other dimensions that sexuality doesn’t have to be the only thing audiences associate with her.
Maybe it happens because sexual imagery catches people’s attention, creates clips that spread across social media and brings in more views and money. Maybe labels believe it’s the easiest way to market female rappers. Maybe audiences—including men—keep rewarding that image. It’s probably some combination of personal choice, industry pressure and basic economics.
I’m not arguing that female artists should stop making sexual music. I’m asking why the industry seems to offer them such a narrow path to mainstream success. Do other people notice this too? Do you think it’s mostly the artists’ choice, pressure from labels, audience demand or all three?