Music

[Dïscfärm]

For those that like rock, The Darkness seems pretty ok.

Well, methinks they are a bunch o' wöösies.

 

[The JoJo]

Älgarnas Trädgård?????? Swedish?

 

[The JoJo]

AC/DC for me, anytime, anywhere. My favourite. Iron maiden is pretty good also.

 

[Fushigi]

Hayashibara Megumi and Namie Amuro lately on the j-pop side of the house. Why do I think few forum members will have even heard of them?

For US music, my wife recently got me the Billy Joel 1973-1997 Comeplte Hits set, which is pretty decent. Radio in the car, when not news, is classic rock on The River.

I haven't been in the mood for classical music much lately.

 

[Jan Kivar]

Iron maiden is pretty good also.

Bruce, Blaze or both?

Oh, and has anyone ever heard Royal Hunt?

Cheers,

Jan

 

[timwhit]

Hmm, I've been listning to the soundtrack from the movie "The Rock", and I like it.

Also been listning to Andrew W.K. This fella seems to have som psyco words...Perhaps they wouldn't sound so negative if I'd bother to get the lyrics and read through them (or then the music will get REALLY weird in, that's the other possibility...).

Damm this "rock" music is good!

I've been listening to that soundtrack since the movie came out in 1996, still as good as ever.

 

[GIANT]

Älgarnas Trädgård?????? Swedish?

Yes, Swedish!!! Back in the '70s, I had their first album (vinyl LP). Later on, I got the CD reissue.

They are not exactly a Top 40 band by any stretch of the imagination! They are sort of a Nord "tribal" band actually, with some electric guitars present here and there.

I've had other Swedish albums (vinyl LPs) in the past, and, as far as that goes, some other Norwegian, Danish and Finnish albums as well (i.e. -- the 1970s and some in the 1980s). One of my favourite Swedish albums that has yet to be reissued - and probably never will -- is from a group called Anna Själv Tredje ("Tussilago Fanfara").

I had, for a period, some other albums on that same record label, Silence Records, from a group called Samla Mammas Manna, as well as a few Bo Hansson albums, but I don't really care for them anymore. On the other hand, I have long since replaced all of my old Terje Rypdal vinyl LPs and a few Jan Garbarek LPs with compact discs.

I could go on and on here, but I'll cut it short with a few Finnish albums I had -- once again in the 1970s -- from some people like Pekka Pohjola, Jukka Tolonen, Wigwam, er... (taxing my memory here), and er... I can't recall what else I had, but I did just remember that I received a promo from a Finnish group called Panasonic (!) back about 6 or 7 years ago -- not that good, actually.

 

[Mercutio]

Passages. Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar. Very exotic and atmospheric.

While I'm thinking about it, has anyone else noticed a huge increase in middle-eastern and Indian themes in movie/TV soundtracks lately? A couple of examples off the top of my head are the scoring to "the Hulk" and HBO's "Carnivale", but it's something I've been picking up all over the place just in the last year or so. I'm hearing more sitar and arabic-influenced vocal lines that remind me of Adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, even in places where there's really no reason to score in that type of music.

 

[.Nut]

The eBAY Song...

http://www.gary-hendershot.com/flash/

(requires Macromedia Flash for audio playback)

 

[Mercutio]

Why don't people like classical music?

 

[.Nut]

Once upon a time, I liked "Roll Over Beethoven."

 

[Mercutio]

At least you didn't say "A Night on Disco Mountain".

I was asking a serious question. Try to tell someone that you don't know who xyz top-40 flavor of the month is because you only listen to classical music, and you get a look like you have 3 heads.

Try to explain the appeal of, say, a Beethoven symphony, and the number of heads grows to five or six.

This reaction in my experience is damned near universal.

 

[ddrueding]

At least you didn't say "A Night on Disco Mountain".

I was asking a serious question. Try to tell someone that you don't know who xyz top-40 flavor of the month is because you only listen to classical music, and you get a look like you have 3 heads.

Try to explain the appeal of, say, a Beethoven symphony, and the number of heads grows to five or six.

This reaction in my experience is damned near universal.

Well, not around here. The blues festival is massive, KBOQ (k-Bach) is one of the more popular radio stations (at least of the people that matter).

Then again, I'm currently listening to "The Who" doing Pinball Wizard....

 

[ddrueding]

But don't listen to me...I have bad taste. Current playlist follows:

Cassius - Music Sounds Better
CJ Bolland - Electro Power
Collective Soul - Gel
Collective Soul - December
Cracker - Low
Craig David - Key To My Heart
The Cranberries - Salvation
The Crystal Method - The Crystal Method Dubiliscous Groove
The Crystal Method - Magic Carpet Ride
The Crystal Method - Wild, Sweet And Cool
The Crystal Method - Name of The Game
Danny Tenaglia - Music Is The Answer
Dave Brubeck - Take Five
David Gray - Sail Away
DJ Shadow - Building Steam With A Grain of Salt
Don't Look Down - Still The One
Dynamite Hack - Anyway
Eagle Eye Cherry - Save Tonight
Elvis Presley - A Little Less Conversation
3 Doors Down - Better Life
311 - Amber
4 Non Blondes - What's Up
The Who - Pinball Wizard
The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
Violent Femmes - Blister In The Sun
Veruca Salt - Volcano Girls
US3 - Cantaloop
Unified Theory - Breathe
U.N.K.L.E. - Eye 4 An Eye
Twisted Pair - Vampyros Lesbos
Tracy Chapman - All That You Have Is Your Soul
Tool - Opiate
Tokyo Ghetto Pussy - I Kiss Your Lips
Tom Cochrane - Life Is A Highway
Toad The Wet Sprocket - All I Want
Texas - Say What You Want
Sublime - Saw Red
Stroke 9 - Little Black Backpack
Stone Temple Pilots - Wicked Garden

 

[timwhit]

Why don't people like classical music?

That's all I used to listen to when I was younger, because that is what my parents listen to.

My Dad was seriously pissed when 97.1 (Chicago station) changed programming a couple years ago.

I don't listen to any real classical music, but I listen to a lot of movie scores, if that is any conciliation. Just picked up The Hulk soundtrack, after you mentioned it in another thread.

 

[Howell]

Why don't people like classical music?

I listen to it occasionally. I prefer songs that tell a story. Poetry set to music. Music that's personal. That's not to say classical music doesn't fit those criteria just that its not easy to see it.

If its any consolation, I bought the Samuel Barber double CD you recommended and I didn't throw it away.

FWIW, I don't know any top-40. For three years I didn't even have a radio in my car and even now that I have a new one I don't listen to the radio.

I have immpecable taste:
Beth Orton
Catie Curtis
Cristine Kane
Cindy Morgan
Cowboy Junkies
Frente
Gillian Welsh
Jan Krist
Jill Phillips
Kate Wolf
Kelly Willis
Kim Hill
Kristy MacColl
Loreena McKennit
Lucinda Williams
Mary Chapin Carpenter
Merril Bainbridge
Over the Rhine
Patty Loveless
Sam Phillips
Sara Groves
Shawn Colvin
Innocence Mission
Suzanne Vega
Victoria Williams

FWIW, I only recognize 7 groups in David's playlist (as in have any idea what they sound like):
The Cranberries
David Gray
Elvis Presley
The Who
Violent Femmes
Tracy Chapman
Toad The Wet Sprocket

 

[Mercutio]

Toad the Wet Sprocket was the name of a band that kept changing its name in a Monty Python routine.

It isn't like I made some kind of conscious effort to be different on the matter of music. My brothers have musical tastes that run to mainstream (80s stuff, techno and depresso-alterna-whatever, I guess).

Movie soundtracks are probably as close as I get to mainstream-anything, if only because I can say other people have heard them, unlike most of the stuff I listen to.

So for movie soundtracks, the ones I listen to most often:
Last of the Mohicans
Solaris (2003)
The Hours
Cider House Rules
The Lord of the Rings movies
Schindler's List
Glory
Koyaanisqatsi
Blade Runner
The Thin Red Line
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Kundun
Punch Drunk Love
The Red Violin


Probably no surprises on that list. Basically classical-type scores, to a one.

For the rest, I have to ask if classical music is something that people just aren't exposed to, or if there's real distaste. Too stuffy? Dispassionate? Several folks here have copped to at least an occasional foray into classical music. I don't think it's entirely foreign to people.

When I get my broadband connection back, maybe I'll set up a slimserver. I'd love to share some of the music I enjoy.

Howell, you really bought "Secrets of the Old"?
I learned all those songs (really, all of them. They were collected in a single folio edition) when I was seriously studying voice.
Several of those are real favorites for me: "The Crucifixion", "Un Cygne", "Beggar's Song", "Nuvoletta".
I don't remember the origins of all his songs, but I found a lot of joy in moving from the linguistic contrariness of Joyce to the descriptive beauty of Agee to the stark prose of the medieval Hermit Songs (the whimsy of "The Monk and his Cat", in particular).

 

[Mercutio]

A slightly more accessible CD of art songs is probably Long Time Ago, collecting some great American Folk Songs ("I Bought Me a Cat" and the lullaby "All the Little Horses") and Hymns ("At the River" and "Simple Gifts") and Copland's settings of Eight Poems by Emily Dickinson, along with his incidental music for the ballet "Billy the Kid", which may, in fact, have established the idiom of movie music for Westerns.

If anyone is interested, I could make a short list of pieces that might do well to expose one to classical music.

In fact, it might be fun to swap those lists for different genres, if anyone is interested in making one.

 

[Buck]

Elvis Presley!

 

[Mercutio]

I don't know if anyone saw my post about Slimserver, but this is a remarkably cool program for anyone who has any kind of decent internet connection, effectively letting you (or whomever connects to your server) browse and play anything you've got in your collection.

It requires port 9000 to be open to the world and you need to connect with both a web browser and something that supports MP3 streaming (winamp, xmms whatever).

 

[SteveC]

I don't know if anyone saw my post about Slimserver, but this is a remarkably cool program for anyone who has any kind of decent internet connection, effectively letting you (or whomever connects to your server) browse and play anything you've got in your collection.

Yes, thanks for pointing it out. A very nice program.

It requires port 9000 to be open to the world and you need to connect with both a web browser and something that supports MP3 streaming (winamp, xmms whatever).

You can change the port, password protect it, and only allow certain IP addresses under the "Additional Server Settings" (bottom of the Server Settings page).

 

[Mercutio]

Yeah. I noticed that. But the port still has to be open.

My DSL may be back tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have a few GB of stuff available by then, if anyone's interested.

 

[Howell]

I'm interested but short on time these days.

 

[Mercutio]

I have a slimserver up and running at http://mercutio.dnsalias.com:9000/

Note that you have to connect to port 9000, and you need to connect with a client capable of accepting an MP3 stream (e.g. winamp).
If you'd like to create/adjust the playlist, the login name for the server is mercsmp3s. PM me for the password.

 

[ddrueding]

Great, thanks Merc. I'll be putting mine up again tomorrow (T-1 Time!)

 

[Handruin]

Alright, I need help trying to get it to play. I have winamp installed, but when I click on "play this song" nothing happens.

 

[Mercutio]

In Winamp - tell it to "Open URL" type http://mercutio.dnsalias.com:9000 in the little box, and it should bring up an empty playlist.

 

[Handruin]

It tried. It says "error syncing tp mpeg"

I also tried the full url path to a single song and it said the same thing.

 

[Mercutio]

Try it now.

 

[Handruin]

Sorry man, I can't get it to work. I setup my own and I can't even connect to my local music using this.

After I copy the URL, I paste it into winamp and then it asks for username and password in the following format:

usernameassword

After I enter the information, it gives me the error I posted above...

 

[Mercutio]

Well, let's try it without the l.

It was working before I turned it on...


Incidently, I exposed some pop and jazz tracks as well as classical.

 

[Handruin]

I figured it out...

I need to open winamp to:

http://mercutio.dnsalias.com:9000/stream.mp3

It will begin to play silence and then once I pick songs, they will stream...sorry, I'm slow.

 

[Handruin]

I'm listening to Fanfare for the Common Man ... but it is breaking up a bit...

 

[Mercutio]

Did quality ever get any better?

 

[Handruin]

Yes, the song I'm listening to know is better, I'm going to try fanfar again and see if it is any different.

 

[Handruin]

I'm organization illiterate with my MP3's. How did you get yours in such need categories? play-lists?

 

[Mercutio]

I ripped them from the source CDs using CDex and specified the system of organization I prefer.
The pop stuff is largely scavenged from "My Shared Folders" on various PCs I've worked on.

ID3 tags are pretty much inadequate for classical stuff.

 

[Handruin]

How do you get them to show as albums, is that from the ID3 tag?

 

[Mercutio]

Sorta, I guess. On the FS level, the scheme is Composer or Performer as root folder name, with each album as its own subdirectory. I think that's the default for CDex. CDex also retreives ID3 tags automatically from CDDB, which is what gives me category names like "Classical" and "ska" (WTF is "ska" anyway?), album title and what generates the track names for the rips. CDex is a really cool program.

 

[Mercutio]

Part of the reason I say sort-of is that I end up being the person who submits about half the stuff I decide to rip. CDDB doesn't know classical albums very well.