Active Member
Almost every album since the 90s could lose 2-5 songs and be a superior listen, the amount that actually warrant being over 40 or so minutes and don't have same-y or repetitive songs that drag it down overall are in an extreme minority and I'm happy so many artists from mainstream to obscure are starting to focus more on quality over quantity.
Throbbing Member
Cause on the internet everyone is equal so you can read every little trivial shit someone has somehow decided to talk about for days and days, annoying to everyone but himself.Originally Posted by ziltoid
On the other side you got some impressively great contribution to a discussion sometimes, because some person decided to try his best to contribute something very rewarding to everyone involved.
Gotta move the conversation ahead while it's possible I guess. Can be hard. When in drought of content, there is a need of a core of users bringing quality content themselves. Oh well, whatever, let's just go outside.
Last edited by StockAvuryah; 05-26-2018 at 05:53 PM.
Active Member
I don't find this controversial at all. Once the CD era was in full swing, many albums fell victim to the tendency to make them bloated and overindulgent simply because the time constraints of vinyl had been subverted. This resulted in self-editing going out the window a lot of the time. I can think of many albums from the 90s that would have been better with some tracks removed, even albums that are already brilliant. Not sure what time period it was when people finally realized that albums needed to be shorter again, but I'm glad it happened.
Last edited by piggy; 05-26-2018 at 11:13 PM.
Throbbing Member
I agree too. I like that so many of bands I like keep it to 9 to 10 songs on the album because there's less room for filler and mediocre songs. It feels like each song counts and that the artist really put thought and time into the song to include it on a short album.
Throbbing Member
If an album is already brilliant I don't see the point removing anything. If it works, perfect, but if too much harms the quality of the whole that much, well yeah that's a real problem. All boils down to taste, and maybe it's more easily consumable if it's shorter for you. But I don't feel like that personally and prefer to live an experience with all the added content, when it's still good and not forced.
Active Member
Yes, I know my statement was a bit goofy. Here are some good examples of what I mean:
Superunknown and/or Down On The Upside by Soundgarden
No Code by Pearl Jam
Priest = Aura by The Church
Satyricon by Meat Beat Manifesto
New Adventures In Hi-Fi by R.E.M.
Mule Variations by Tom Waits
All brilliant albums, but all could use a little trim in my opinion. There are a couple of tracks on each one that, while they add variety, feel like throwaways or they interrupt the flow and vibe of the albums.
I also hate when albums have segues or interstitial pieces, like Fantastic Planet by Failure, Boys For Pele by Tori Amos, and Outside by David Bowie. For me, all of those would be better without the extra stuff. I know they are all basically concept albums and the extra stuff is meant to further flesh that out, but I feel like they still have plenty of narrative or cohesion without them.
Last edited by piggy; 05-27-2018 at 11:14 PM.
House Always Wins
The Cult are shit.
she/her/hers
really? i feel like every single piece on there is fantastic, and the album flows perfectly. it's on the longer side but i feel like i've really gone on a proper journey by the time i finish it.
Throbbing Member
I just discovered this album last year and am bummed I missed out on 20 years of listening to it. The video promo/EPK shots of her recording in a church are amazing, too.
Active Member
I guess I just hate that songs like "Mr. Zebra", "Way Down" or "Agent Orange" are too short to really go anywhere, so they just kind of bug me. I've always been annoyed by super short songs. Don't know why.
Banned
This may be controversial.... I feel as though Tori Amos copies way too much from Kate Bush at times... I can’t respect that.
Active Member
I feel you on that. It's part of why I'm not really into Tori anymore. I mean, right down to photos in the UTP booklet echoing photos from HOL.
she/her/hers
it's always so interesting to me how music affects people differently. i've never been able to get into kate bush because i can't make an emotional connection to her music, whereas tori has always pulled me in and not let go (well, up until about 2005).
Active Member
That's a very valid point. Tori used to make some incredibly emotional music and no one can take that away from her. I guess with Kate Bush, it was more that people were drawn in by how odd or different she was, or how she was part of a seismic shift in how women in music were perceived (alongside ladies like Joan Jett or Patti Smith, etc.)
Last edited by piggy; 05-29-2018 at 05:55 PM.
Hairy Member
I love Oneohtrix Point Never, dude's a Aphex Twin-level genius who crafts self-contained worlds. Sometimes in just a song like Chrome Country.
But I'm just not feeling the new one. I get bummed when producers try to crossover into vocal music. It also feels like he had spread himself thin and din't have the conceptual lattice in place that he usually constructs, and is just mashing what he's been reading recently in interviews, retroactively. The CCRU stuff, specifically.
I like James Blake fine, I haven't listened to him since his first instrumental singles and his first LP. I have to wonder about Lopatin handing off that much creative control.
Dunno, maybe it'll click later. His stuff usually knocks me out right off the bat, though.
Active Member
You're not alone at all. This new record is doing nothing for me and everything Lopatin has released has generally had an immediate impact with me. Garden of Delete is without a doubt one of the most intense listens coming from a guy who has had an impressive discography ... and the Good Time soundtrack was equally as great.
The "vocals" and ethereal atmosphere of the album and the sound he's going for doesn't really connect with me because it doesn't land on anything interesting throughout the entire listen. Nothing against the ideas of vocals as OPN used it to it's advantage on GOD, but this new one feels like a massive swing and a miss for me.
How the hell do you get him and Prurient on a track together and it be so underwhelming?
Hairy Member
His explanation for all the harpsichord sounds was that it's a stupid instrument seemed a little too irony poisoned for me, as well. Whereas before like with R PLUS SEVEN it felt like he was genuinely in love with some of the newer VSTs that mix FM synthesis with analog modeling. Like how he obsessed on the Juno for so long.
One thing that's interesting about him is that he leans so hard into a new sound design/instrument that it effectively blocks it from use unless you want to be a copycat. I'm not sure whether that's a conscious decision on his part or not to lay ownership over a thing like that.
Throbbing Member
Carly Rae Jepsen, Kiesza and Feist were one-hit wonders. If all the radio stations never seem to play more than one of your songs, then that DOES make you a one-hit wonder, no matter how many singles you released.
Hairy Member
I think she ows more to Joni Mitchell
Throbbing Member
I have never cared for trip hop or shoegaze because I find them boring. That music puts me to sleep. Most of the white soul/R&B movement that was started in the late 2000's by Amy Winehouse was lost on me.
Throbbing Member
I hate it when people go into a thread for a topic they hate or have no interest in just for the sake of trolling. At Hoffman's forum, you would get banned for doing that. Oops, wrong thread. I meant to put this in the things that piss me off.
grrr. woof.
pop music is so much better now than it was 20 years ago when i was a teenager. there was a ton of puff daddy, mariah carey, will smith ... it all sucked. when i'm driving i hear new shit and a lot of it has heavy disco elements and four-on-the-floor kind of vibes. like ariana grande's "no tears left to cry" or "feels" by calvin harris. it's just really great stuff.
Throbbing Member
I'm gonna say Mariah Carey in the 90s was her peak. She had an amazing voice whether or not the songs themselves were fluff or crap. Now, her voice just isn't the same.
Throbbing Member
calling musicians who create beats "Producers" is fucking stupid...
Dis-member
Throbbing Member
well duh, Neil Peart is coming up with something more complex. But i see the title producer used when a person came up with melody in Rap or a drum pattern. Its odd, why do you call them producer. its song writing no?
Throbbing Member
Everything is labeled weird in hiphop. All instrumentation is called a "beat". Composers of that "beat" are called producers. Everyone in the room is credited as a songwriter. It makes it really difficult to tell who contributed what to the song. It's possible that it's done by design to make it harder to tell when a rapper doesn't contribute to his own music.
Dis-member
“Executive Producer: Suge Knight”
^^^ lolz. I always found that one to be humorous since it was always bolded and in large font. Put my name on an album cuz I’m bankrolling it, while pistol whipping mofos in the studio.
House Always Wins
That asshole barely contributed to albums minus signing people, making them in debt to him and paying for everything related.
Suge Knight is a piece of shit but that's a whole other story.
Active Member
Don't know where else to put this, but here is a very good article on the disparity between pop music and the realities of the economic hardships of the last decade.
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