I'm hurt. I was never the hugest Mobb Deep fan but I just got into that tape with Alchemist not even like two weeks ago. Plus, The Infamous is a classic album with an enormous amount of influence.
I'm gonna break the no-embed rule because this is important.
"Shook Ones Pt. II" is one of the most important hip-hop songs of all time and everyone reading this should take some time to listen to it. Still really sad P is gone.
I only just remembered that Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was indeed a composer who existed, and a fascinating one at that. Basically, Sorabji was an English mixed-race composer, music critic and piano prodigy who started writing atonal music in his teen years which managed to impress Busoni and Berg and went on to spend the rest of his life constructing the sort of incredibly long and demanding keyboard pieces which are known to make grown men cry trying to play them. And by "long," I mean some of his piano and organ works go on for several hours.
Clams Casino issued the fourth of his Instrumental Mixtape series and it is amazing to me how this dude manages to take a hodgepodge of beats he did for other rappers and new instrumentals and make it blow every other instrumental release this year out of the water.
What is even going on on "Worth It". The beat constantly starts and stops and there's a sample of a glass being broken and like 4 seconds of acoustic guitar and then a sample from some movie???
There's something about the Killers' cover of Shadowplay that seems...off.
Like, it's a skilled cover. But it's missing the raw emotion of the original. It feels like they're just performing it, while Ian Curtis was feeling it. And the Killers aren't exactly bad at conveying raw emotion - hot damn if Mr. Brightside isn't iconic for nothing.
Orbital's Snivilisation is so clearly a transition between the "rave goes ambient" of Orbital II and the "journey to the center of your mind" of In Sides, it's not even funny. It's got some very good songs—"Kein Trink Wasser" is among Orbital's best—but the album as a whole is too awkward and indecisive to really resonate for me.
I can't help but think that the good reviews it got on release were because it sounded innovative at the time, and because nobody could have known then that In Sides would blow it out of the water.
Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and James McAlister wrote a song cycle about the solar system a few years ago. They're finally releasing it this June.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
So...is Linkin Park going to continue to be a thing?
I guess they've still got Mike Shinoda and the others, but like...I dunno. Something would always feel missing without Chester.
^^ That oversimplifies things, I think, although I don't disagree with you essential scepticism. He also seems to entirely overlook the melodic strengths that a lot of these bands had, particularly Yes and Gentle Giant, which is frustratingly narrow-minded to me.
^ It could be worth a look. I have really mixed feelings about progressive rock as a movement in the Anglosphere (and to a lesser extent Western Europe), honestly.
the bedlam in goliath is the first album where i had never heard it/heard of it until i heard it in the music store, then i listened to the little 20 second album snippet and KNEW i had to buy it...
progressive music, at least initially, was absolutely a natural progression from the earlier psychedelic scene; at their most far out they can be near indistinguishable really
may I ask for thee to elaborate on those mixed feelings? 'cause I think I can guess the reasons
It's kind of a hard sell cuz I don't really know what genre this is. Synth...stuff. It's framed as being related to a fictional monochrome RPG in some of the packaging stuff and it's tagged as vaporwave on Bandcamp which seems super wrong to me, I don't know. It's cool, kinda abstract, knocks in some places, and I really love the cover (eyeball friends are my aesthetic). Also the digital version is PWYW, I recommend checking it out, for serious.
"Toxic Sword", "Memory", "Erasure" (which has an interesting trapkit drum set up), and "Infinity Gate" (which earns the fuck out of its title) are highlights for me.
progressive music, at least initially, was absolutely a natural progression from the earlier psychedelic scene; at their most far out they can be near indistinguishable really
may I ask for thee to elaborate on those mixed feelings? 'cause I think I can guess the reasons
A lot of it, mainly the modern revivalist stuff but a lot of the original stuff as well, draws heavily on what I consider to be the less interesting, more superficial aspects of classical and jazz composition in a way that feels more like what rock musicians *think* a fusion of classical and jazz and rock ideas would be than an organic adaptation of those concepts. There is too little taken from high modern or even impressionist or late romantic composition, or from modal and freeform jazz. Where The Beatles and The Grateful Dead learned from Gesang der Jünglinge, I feel like a lot of lesser prog acts never got past Beethoven's Ninth.
Not that there weren't plenty of progressive rock bands who earnestly embraced more radical ideas, particularly in the Canterbury scene and Europe, nor is this to say that conservative mainstream prog bands couldn't be great or, well, progressive in their own ways, but I feel like the lessons learned from prog within modern rock haven't been the right ones.
Maybe I'm just biased because Rush do nothing for me and neo-prog and prog-metal fanboys are the actual worst? That I like Magma and The Moody Blues more in theory than in practice? That I think Roxy Music were more groundbreaking with Eno than Genesis were with Gabriel? That I'm just a huge fucking contrarian snob? I don't even know.
progressive music, at least initially, was absolutely a natural progression from the earlier psychedelic scene; at their most far out they can be near indistinguishable really
may I ask for thee to elaborate on those mixed feelings? 'cause I think I can guess the reasons
A lot of it, mainly the modern revivalist stuff but a lot of the original stuff as well, draws heavily on what I consider to be the less interesting, more superficial aspects of classical and jazz composition in a way that feels more like what rock musicians *think* a fusion of classical and jazz and rock ideas would be than an organic adaptation of those concepts. There is too little taken from high modern or even impressionist or late romantic composition, or from modal and freeform jazz. Where The Beatles and The Grateful Dead learned from Gesang der Jünglinge, I feel like a lot of lesser prog acts never got past Beethoven's Ninth.
Not that there weren't plenty of progressive rock bands who earnestly embraced more radical ideas, particularly in the Canterbury scene and Europe, nor is this to say that conservative mainstream prog bands couldn't be great or, well, progressive in their own ways, but I feel like the lessons learned from prog within modern rock haven't been the right ones.
Maybe I'm just biased because Rush do nothing for me and neo-prog and prog-metal fanboys are the actual worst? That I like Magma and The Moody Blues more in theory than in practice? That I think Roxy Music were more groundbreaking with Eno than Genesis were with Gabriel? That I'm just a huge fucking contrarian snob? I don't even know.
now, this is a fair point, but on the other hand, I bring an avalanche of toltec bones, contaminated cravings if you choose. to play something that aches for a spill, leave out the meat for that contact high: inhale the vapors and let the hangman smile for that something to shake by roots!
i like the song where Yes spams like five billion fairlight CMI sounds? Henry Cow is pretty good. i like it when people make the guitars go woodley woodley woodley real fast like, and lyrics that make no sense.
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Like, it's a skilled cover. But it's missing the raw emotion of the original. It feels like they're just performing it, while Ian Curtis was feeling it. And the Killers aren't exactly bad at conveying raw emotion - hot damn if Mr. Brightside isn't iconic for nothing.
you know he had to do it to us
Speaking of which, here's an interview from a little before this came out.
P.S. The album is fucking amazing. Go listen to it.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
☭
B̤̺͍̰͕̺̠̕u҉̖͙̝̮͕̲ͅm̟̼̦̠̹̙p͡s̹͖ ̻T́h̗̫͈̙̩r̮e̴̩̺̖̠̭̜ͅa̛̪̟͍̣͎͖̺d͉̦͠s͕̞͚̲͍ ̲̬̹̤Y̻̤̱o̭͠u̥͉̥̜͡ ̴̥̪D̳̲̳̤o̴͙̘͓̤̟̗͇n̰̗̞̼̳͙͖͢'҉͖t̳͓̣͍̗̰ ͉W̝̳͓̼͜a̗͉̳͖̘̮n͕ͅt͚̟͚ ̸̺T̜̖̖̺͎̱ͅo̭̪̰̼̥̜ ̼͍̟̝R̝̹̮̭ͅͅe̡̗͇a͍̘̤͉͘d̼̜ 
⚢
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Funnily enough, though, the same guy wrote a pretty amusing if arch article on Owsley, so I can't entirely dismiss him.
^ It could be worth a look. I have really mixed feelings about progressive rock as a movement in the Anglosphere (and to a lesser extent Western Europe), honestly.
tired of their own shells
all those non-believers
torso in the well
Their first album is pretty good. Their later stuff is a bit much for me, but I do admire the ambition.
this art is sooo goooddddd
Not that there weren't plenty of progressive rock bands who earnestly embraced more radical ideas, particularly in the Canterbury scene and Europe, nor is this to say that conservative mainstream prog bands couldn't be great or, well, progressive in their own ways, but I feel like the lessons learned from prog within modern rock haven't been the right ones.
Maybe I'm just biased because Rush do nothing for me and neo-prog and prog-metal fanboys are the actual worst? That I like Magma and The Moody Blues more in theory than in practice? That I think Roxy Music were more groundbreaking with Eno than Genesis were with Gabriel? That I'm just a huge fucking contrarian snob? I don't even know.
i like the song where Yes spams like five billion fairlight CMI sounds? Henry Cow is pretty good. i like it when people make the guitars go woodley woodley woodley real fast like, and lyrics that make no sense.
Fred Frith is dope.
Also, while I'm still here I just have to say that judging prog by Rush is about as fair as judging punk by Green Day.