Adventure Gamers - Forums

Jabod - 03 October 2022 09:57 AM

I think you missed the part about Andean music where I said about strings being involved but had never heard of a ukulele, even though it has strings, ever being used. I do agree about pipes only within that genre as being boring. It may well sound beautiful high up in clear mountain air but it sounds somewhat atonal to me hearing it some way out of context/natural environs.

Yeah, that’s probably right. I know it would horrify some guitar/uke enthusiasts but I tend to see the uke as a mini guitar. I doubt I’d be able to tell the difference between something played on the upper 4 guitar strings and a uke.

Don’t enjoy much that isn’t modern!? I qualify as a genuine old fart these days and my musical taste to younger ears is very far from modern. True “modern” popular music, as it were, is very not to my taste at all. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t recent music that I dislike as the human voice didn’t stop sounding beautiful at the end of the Seventies nor were poets/lyricists banned from humanity. As I said to a friend a week or so back some of the rap artists are seriously good poets but they insist on that dreadful, repetitive, music to lay it against. It’s like listening to a jack-hammer going continuously. Put those words to a true rhythm folks.

Rap gets a bad rap about repetition, and I just don’t see it. Let’s face it, modern music (which I’d label anything after WWII) is in essence repetitive music. Sure there are instances where it’s not but they are by far the exception. It’s something I find interesting and which I’ve got my own theories about, but to put it this way: if a time-traveler from the 19th century came to our time and back again and someone asked them to describe today’s music in a word, then they’d be hard pressed to find one better than “repetitive”. That can be said broadly across most of the genres and rap is no better or worse in that respect. I’ve got my own criticisms about rap music but if you’re going to criticize it for being repetitive, most of the songs you’ve posted are culprits too.

another shout out to Jabod: while ghosting, i really enjoyed your contributions to this thread.

Here’s a break-up song (and maybe what it’s like to genuinely love adventure games)

here’s a song called CRUZIFIED, with a Z.

here’s another banger in a different ball park. got a little Front 242/D.A.F. vibe going on.

I can relate to “Expert in a Dying Field”, VP.  The other two are just too heavy for my taste.

Jabod,
That version of “O, Fortuna” is quite spectacular.  Years ago I got to see the Pennsylvania Ballet Company perform a wonderful Carmina Burana with chorus, soloists, and dance.  Carl Orff did torture his soloists, especially the soprano.  Even when my voice was at it’s best, those top notes would have been a strain.

I’m glad this thread has been revived.  I missed quite a few of the entries.

Here’s three solid discoveries I made in recent months.


Back in November, I went to Paris just to see Lord of the Lost perform (it was more or less the closest to me they had a gig). One of the bands that opened for them was Nachtblut. Their opening song was a thing of beauty (and my German was just good enough to let out a solid chuckle at the lyrics the first time I heard it):

Nachtblut - Multikulturell

I also (re)discovered a lost gem by Neil Young, from his 1972 Harvest album. Never mind the sexist track title, the song exudes loneliness and a fear of getting heartbroken (again). The second the London Philharmonic Orchestra came in, the song completely blew me away. Neil Young at his absolute best, imo.

Neil Young - A Man Needs a Maid

Young Belgian band Meltheads released this track last year and put themselves on the map, at least locally. Their only song in Dutch seems like a protest against fake news, and they definitely come across as modern-day “angry young men”...

Meltheads - Naîef

Nice jams!

I got that Neil Young album as a gift a good two decades ago, i should try to dig it up from my humble collection.

also: very German sense of humour in the first video.

how about some death punk disco?

this is a song that lodged itself into my mind the first time i heard it.

not sure if i posted this here before.. anyway, this is a jam.

Vegetable Party - 23 January 2023 02:44 PM

how about some death punk disco?

I approve!



So… what happens if I don’t follow things up for a while?
Well…

Then The Smashing Pumpkins drop a brilliant new song, and I’m going “didn’t they disband 20 years ago because Billy Corgan formed Zwan?”, only to find out that this song is the prelude of their sixth studio album since reforming… 

And another “WTF?” moment when I realized that Billy Corgan is 1m90 (6’3”) and thus a LOT taller than I pegged him for.
But damn, that riff is a marvel!



So… what happens if I don’t follow things up for a while?
Well…

I’ve been calling Nick Cave “my favourite artist” for decades, yet I hadn’t heard the album he made three years ago!!!
Turns out that of course it’s another masterpiece. The loss that man has experienced made him write an album that practically gives me a religious experience when listening to it. Especially the 12-minute title track:

So… what happens if I don’t follow things up for a while?
Well…

I noticed that Godsmack was performing in Brussels, and since I love those guys but never saw them live before, I got tickets and then quickly had to catch up on not one but two studio albums they released that I hadn’t heard before.
One of them contained a ballad that was rather powerful. They played it as the first encore at the gig even, with a long intro by frontman Sully Erna who talked about the band’s Scars Foundation to help raise awareness of mental health issues. Goosebumps moment.

Excellent gig, btw.

wow that came out of left field, especially the Godsmack song.

TimovieMan - 23 January 2023 03:46 PM

So… what happens if I don’t follow things up for a while?
Well…

Then The Smashing Pumpkins drop a brilliant new song, and I’m going “didn’t they disband 20 years ago because Billy Corgan formed Zwan?”, only to find out that this song is the prelude of their sixth studio album since reforming… 

Wow, I’m in a slightly similar position there. Absolutely loved them in the 90’s, listened to a bit of Zwan and then even went and saw them tour Zeitgeist when they reformed but then somehow just lost track. Looks like I have a few albums to catch up on, thanks for the prompt.  

I’m gonna bend the rules a little by posting six songs, but in my defense, it’s really only three since it’s covers and their originals…


I had a major “wait, that’s a cover???!?” moment today, the third in just a few weeks. Perfect for a post here…



I’ve loved Diane by Therapy? ever since it was released in the mid-90s. I was going to post the music video but that censored one of the most poignant lines in the lyrics, so it’s the album version instead (which I’m far more familiar with):

And today I found out that Diane wasn’t written by Therapy? but was originally a song by punk band Hüsker Dü from the early ‘80s…

Good thing I still prefer the Therapy? version. Those strings add a lot to make it even more haunting…



Last week I found out that Dancing in the Street by David Bowie and Mick Jagger from the mid-80s is not originally their song…

That was released right in my childhood, so it’s the version I’ve always known, and for some reason I never heard any of the other versions (since Van Halen, The Kinks and The Mamas and the Papas also had a version of this earlier than Bowie & Jagger). The original, however, is by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas from 1964.

Fun tidbit, this was written by their drummer. He went solo later. We know him as Marvin Gaye.
I kinda dropped my jaw last week…



Belgian band Yevgueni had the following song on their debut album back in 2005: “In deze stad” (translated: In This City)

A couple of weeks ago, they played a song by Suzanne Vega on the radio, called “In Liverpool”. It didn’t take long to notice the similarities and reasonably closely translated lyrics…

The thing is: this wasn’t the first time the band Yevgueni made me go “that was a cover?”. I’ve known their song “Zo donker” (‘So Dark’) since 2006 but only found out a couple of years ago that it was a cover of “I See a Darkness” by Bonnie Prince Billy - a song that also had a great version done by Johnny Cash...



To quote Socrates: all I know is that I know nothing…

Intense Degree - 26 January 2023 05:20 AM

Wow, I’m in a slightly similar position there. Absolutely loved them in the 90’s, listened to a bit of Zwan and then even went and saw them tour Zeitgeist when they reformed but then somehow just lost track. Looks like I have a few albums to catch up on, thanks for the prompt.  

At least you knew they had reformed… 

this song got me through the holidays:

this song got me to accept a lot of people are like pinballs, bouncing between sensations, hermetically shielded from the world outside of the machine:

this is just a skate punk song that really bops:

three songs that use a particular cut and paste editing style on the vocals, essentially chopping up sentences, words, vowels - adding a level of abstraction, rhythmic excitement and a bridge between the most innate form of human expression and the kind we built with technology.

the first one is the most accessible, i think, an old uk garage hit, a proper tune:

this song introduced me to the chopped vocal technique and it immediately impressed itself on my young mind. It leans into harder drum & bass territory than the previous song:

this is the outlier: it’s not even garage/drum & bass-adjacent, it uses an INXS song as a template and i believe it was produced in Italy. There’s not that much intricate percussion going on (compared to the previous songs), but i’m not sure if it makes the song more accommodating. It has a memorable music video, perhaps a statement of intent:  a hardcore (punk) show, with sharp cuts, often playing at half speed, emphasizing the visceral nature of getting swept up in an unrelenting beat.

;

Vegetable Party - 04 February 2023 06:35 PM

the first one is the most accessible, i think, an old uk garage hit, a proper tune:

Yes, an absolute banger! Now my mind’s running to some other old UKG classics! I appreciate they’re an acquired taste but as VP started it…

Love this first one, reminds me of summers long gone.

And then of course, Gabriel. Not even written as UKG but such a huge garage anthem.

Too many others to choose from, but this next one is possibly the tune that got me into UKG. Saw Luck & Neat do this live.

very sweet.

i’ve been thinking about what’ll probably be the last post in this thread, considering what’s left of an active and interested user base.

this is a stripped-bare version of a good song. if you’re unfamiliar with Robert Ellis, this may be a little deceiving; the snippets of live performances in the video give you a better indication of what’s in store if you go browsing the man’s catalog. (i’d recommend starting with the song Houston for that)

forever

Well, I hope this thread doesn’t die, but just in case I’m going to get this one in. A friend of mine turned me onto this a couple of days ago and it blew my mind. Sometimes I fall into the trap of thinking there isn’t a lot of good new music out, but then someone comes along and proves me wrong. Be warned, themes of mental health, dark times and by an incredibly talented musician.

I’m not Scottish myself, but for a few Januarys in a row (covid times aside) I ended up playing in a band for a burns night celebration. Mostly Scottish folk music and some of it is absolutely beautiful, such as…

Finally a little known artist from the Shetland Isles who sadly passed away a few years ago. I only discovered her after visiting Shetland about 12 years ago. Virtually nothing online and hard to find in many places, but here is one of her songs on Youtube. Similar to the last one, an old poem set to music Shetland style.