Pinning down your personal taste!

Interesting.

Bluesaga wrote: song_of_copper wrote: MikeDupont wrote: How could I have forgoten? Perhaps the most diciplined band of them all.. CAN!  Another very perceptive suggestion...  I have to say that I've rather avoided Krautrock up till now - there seems to be so much of it, and I get weary thinking about the vastness of it...  Still, at least now I know where to start, if the urge takes me! Can are fantastic indeed.  I started with Tago Mago, which may or may not be a good choice.  Now that I am more experienced, I think that Soundtracks might be the best starting place.  It demonstrates the styles of Malcom Mooney and Damo Suzuki Can, which are very different.  It's also relatively accessible compared to the rest of their discography, Future Days would be good if you want something more mellowed out and electric.  Tago Mago is one of my favorite albums ever though, so many musical horizons packed in the double LP, I believe they could have expanded any one of those songs and made it into an entire album in itself.  From the ominous chanting on Augmn, the psychedelic landscapes of Paperhouse, the pure weirdness of Peking O, etc.... don't want to ramble. Helpful detail - thank you!  I must say that where 'musical entry points' are concerned, I'm steadfastly of the 'plunge right in to the most outrageous/representative/best stuff first' school... 'easing in gently' doesn't work too well for me, somehow.  Still not sure whether I'm going to like this, though... we'll see! Neu! and Amon Duul II are other obvious recommendations.  Neu! is more electronic sounding, Amon Duul II is more psychedelic.  Avoid Neu! 2 at first, since the debut and 75 are much better.  For Amon Duul, I find Phallus Dei to be their best work, Yeti and Tanz der Lemminge contained a bit too much improv jamming for my liking at first, plus as double albums they took longer to digest.  Wolf City is accessible, catchy at times in fact, that might be a good place to start although Phallus Dei is a better idea of Krautrock. Coincidentally, I downloaded Neu! just the other day.  My first impression was something like, "hmm, this is quite pleasant... now, what's with all these water-gurgling noises..." - note to self: next time, concentrate, don't try to read, think and listen to unfamiliar music at the same time! [snip!] Anyway, that's enough typing for now, I don't think I've typed that much in a single post in ages. :P Thanks again, it was an interesting read!

Still thinking...for now let's just say my taste is whatever James and Dylan tell me to listen to.  

song_of_copper wrote: MikeDupont wrote: How could I have forgoten? Perhaps the most diciplined band of them all.. CAN!  Another very perceptive suggestion...  I have to say that I've rather avoided Krautrock up till now - there seems to be so much of it, and I get weary thinking about the vastness of it...  Still, at least now I know where to start, if the urge takes me!

Can are fantastic indeed.  I started with Tago Mago, which may or may not be a good choice.  Now that I am more experienced, I think that Soundtracks might be the best starting place.  It demonstrates the styles of Malcom Mooney and Damo Suzuki Can, which are very different.  It's also relatively accessible compared to the rest of their discography, Future Days would be good if you want something more mellowed out and electric.  Tago Mago is one of my favorite albums ever though, so many musical horizons packed in the double LP, I believe they could have expanded any one of those songs and made it into an entire album in itself.  From the ominous chanting on Augmn, the psychedelic landscapes of Paperhouse, the pure weirdness of Peking O, etc.... don't want to ramble.

Neu! and Amon Duul II are other obvious recommendations.  Neu! is more electronic sounding, Amon Duul II is more psychedelic.  Avoid Neu! 2 at first, since the debut and 75 are much better.  For Amon Duul, I find Phallus Dei to be their best work, Yeti and Tanz der Lemminge contained a bit too much improv jamming for my liking at first, plus as double albums they took longer to digest.  Wolf City is accessible, catchy at times in fact, that might be a good place to start although Phallus Dei is a better idea of Krautrock.

If you like more electronic, check out Popol Vuh's first two albums or Tangerine Dream.  If you want more psychedelic, look into Ash Ra Temple or Agitation Free.  I LOVE Faust's debut, but it's one of the weirdest things I've heard, check out the sample "Why Don't We Eat Carrots".  So Far is still weird but not nearly as much, the sample represented on PA is sort of Velvet Underground-esque and catchy (to me, but I find weird things catchy and pop stuff easy to forget about mostly).

A.R. and the Machines are another one of my favorites, but they're a bit more obscure.  I reviewed their first two albums if you want to check them out (I don't review much - my earlier ones are embarassing), I actually have Die Gruene Reise on vinyl which costed around $35 but was well worth it.  Echo is my favorite kraut album along with Tago Mago.  I think Die Gruene Reise is their only album with a legit CD issue, you'll probably have to download them illegally (unless you buy a non-legit CD copy or the LPs, which isn't likely since they go from $50-$250 (Echo).

Discovering Krautrock was one of my favorite periods in musical exploration, and I've had quite a few.  But like a lot of smalelr music genres, once you reach a certain point, there becomes little to find besides obscure bands, which generally are obscure for a reason (some pleasant exceptions arise, of course).  Interestingly enough, there are quite a few modern "kraut revival" type bands that I plan on looking into soon.

Anyway, that's enough typing for now, I don't think I've typed that much in a single post in ages. :P


Edited by Bluesaga - June 17 2008 at 19:16

MikeDupont wrote:  After giving it some serious thought....I have come back now to describe why it is that I truly like what I listen to.  I've come up with the theory that people base their music tastes mainly on how the music reflects upon ourselves......let me explain...   When you listen to music...I come up with a few different things that people think about while listening to it   1: to picture the band playing, with their instruments, perhaps live, simply visualizing the guys...   2: Imagining yourself perhaps performing the peace,....playing the instrumets, singing, whatever, and imagining what the audience's reaction would be to you....   3: picturing an image or scene that has nothing to do with say a live performance or the musicians at all...this is were people let the music make them have a "cosmic" experiance or whatever....   Something I totally forgot to mention is that if something doesn't make me want to sing, then forget it - it's not for me - and that doesn't mean that I only like music with singing already in it, or straightforwardly-tuneful things...  So I sometimes daydream a little bit as in your second description! Basically though..music is a translation for people to express their own feelings where words simply can't. This is why people like to share their music with other people, they hope that people will understand them better...which often works.   One of my favorite film directors, Stanely Kubrick, once said that words were a terrible straitjacket. By this he means it is extremely difficult to ever say something you REALLY mean...some emotions simply can't be turned into vocabulary.  However...he did also say that some things can express emotion to another dimension that words can't, and one of these was music. I firmly believe that 'language' is not restricted to words alone... the mind ascribes meaning to all sorts of things-which-are-not-words, and those units of meaning form part of the endless ocean of *relevance* that we are floating about in... music is a huge component of that... yes, I'm aware that I am rambling... pay no attention... lalalala...   So when I don't feel like trying to explain something with everything coming out as a mumbly mess, I use the music to help sort my thaughts...for myself and others.   And than of course some poeple listen to music cause it sounds good and they want to dance :P Oh, yes!  Dancing.  Absolutely!  Just try and stop me.  And that goes for wedding reception cheese as much as it does for epic 'suites' in oddball time signatures...   Share your thaughts.....forgive me for any bad spelling :P

TGM: Orb wrote: Hm... a few key factors: 1. Atmosphere and imagery. If it doesn't handle either of those, I usually don't get that interested in something. 2. Lyrical content and delivery. As a pretentious banker with a w who occasionally puts his own poems onto paper (or, worse still, the internet), I find a lot of interest in cleverly phrased, interesting, atmospheric and intelligent lyrics. Van Der Graaf Generator, thus, were love from the instant I heard Arrow. Not to say I won't listen to music with bad lyrics, but lyrically strong material usually gets the biggest reaction.

Hmm... yes... an ebb and flow of imagery, brought on by the music and the words... engaging your imagination, not just your sense of rhythm... all pretty essential, I'd say!

Normally I can't bear to hear 'bad' lyrics (the 'bad' is a matter of opinion, of course...) unless they're 'endearingly bad'.  Moments of Sixth Form poetry and 'tortured artiste' pomposity can occasionally be forgiven, if I like the perpetrator well enough... (this means you, Todd Rundgren...!)

 After giving it some serious thought....I have come back now to describe why it is that I truly like what I listen to.  I've come up with the theory that people base their music tastes mainly on how the music reflects upon ourselves......let me explain...

laplace wrote: I'm attracted to music I find playful and what I mean by zat is zat I enjoy it when an artist or group experiments in ways zey enjoy - think of The Residents (or Mr. Bungle's!) plundering, overt nonsensicality and grotesque interpretation of rock music, or else Gentle Giant's (or After Dinner's!) jaunt anachronism. Maybe that is enough to draw a circle around most of what I enjoy but it's not to say I don't like more serious bands - Magma, KC and Henry Cow are/were very purposeful groups (no matter what Belew thinks) but they all have an obvious whimsy of their own, whether it's histrionics and apparent profound belief in quite an absurd story, relentless self-referentialism or just sheer inaccessibility to the casual. Bands with quirks, shall we say? Outside of prog I like plenty of music, but I find the most remarkable singers most memorable too - Bjork, Gruff from the Super Furry Animals and so on. That scene is good pretention.

Sheer bravado, doing something completely quixotic, being silly about the serious and serious about the silly... sincerely eccentric, rather than self-consciously so...  I very much agree with this sort of thing!  "Good pretension" - that's an interesting concept.  Sort of... taking IDEAS to the extreme, but without getting all po-faced and pompous about it.  Or maybe, on the other hand, musicians being brave enough to keep a straight face despite the inherent ridiculousness of whatever it is they're doing, rather than doing it 'ironically'...


Edited by song_of_copper - June 17 2008 at 17:17

Hm... a few key factors:

1. Atmosphere and imagery. If it doesn't handle either of those, I usually don't get that interested in something.
2. Lyrical content and delivery. As a pretentious banker with a w who occasionally puts his own poems onto paper (or, worse still, the internet), I find a lot of interest in cleverly phrased, interesting, atmospheric and intelligent lyrics. Van Der Graaf Generator, thus, were love from the instant I heard Arrow. Not to say I won't listen to music with bad lyrics, but lyrically strong material usually gets the biggest reaction.
3. Constant movement. If a bass-line is completely sterile throughout a piece, I usually won't like it. Same sort of thing with drums, guitar, etc. I also don't particularly like instances of random repeats (Rush are guilty of this, I think) to get a theme into your head without developing it. I want music to have the right space to develop, but not to overstay that space.
(4. GOOD pop-length prog songs. Get me every time. Catchy themes, clever variation, stunning soloists, clean vocals, decent lyrics)

Don't care about heaviness, jazziness and style overmuch. I find it sort of difficult to take metal seriously, though. Very fond of more 'psychedelic' improvisations.

BaldJean wrote: for me I would say "weirdness with a magic". plain old weirdness is not enough. some examples: for movies: "The Holy Mountain" by Alejandro Jodorowski, "Rashomon" by Akira Kurosawa, "Don't Look Now!" by Nicholas Roeg for paintings: Hieronymus Bosch, many surrealists for music: Johann Sebastian Bach, Mahler, Stravinsky. you may ask what is so weird about Bach, but I find his high complexity extremely weird. and he was definitely weird for his time (which is why he had to be rediscovered in the 19th century)

Ah, 'weird with magic' - that's a great combination!  Weird-for-weird's-sake... not so interesting.

I'm with you on Bosch and Surrealism, too.  I love that combination of macabre and silly!