What genre of music are you into?

[GaryE]

I forgive you (righteously) for Vangelis because of Massive Attack, The Smiths, Eno, and the others. I'm 64, of the punk and post punk era. This week I've been listening to Fontaines DC, Massive Attack, a rockabilly compilation, Lankum, Tom Waits, Julia Lee and her Boyfriends, Roy Milton and his Solid Senders, old Rancid, and King Tubby. Now that I'm retired, I get to listen to stuff. I've swung back around to some jump blues from before I was born. There have been and still are a lot of brilliant musicians. So much music, so little time. It's like fish...

 

[JuiceBox52]

Country girl, in a country town, who doesn't like country music... I too, am disappointed

 

[Back in the fold]

Not a music fan . Could be my deafness .

 

[connorlindeman]

I listen to a vast spectrum of music. Excluding country. Not a huge fan of that.

 

[ClownLurch]

I saw The Cure in 1979, as an opening act. A lot of stuff to check out in that list. I'll get to work...

I saw em pre gothic make up when they were wearing jeans n trainers touring their first album in 78 or 79 supported by The Associates (Club Country* & Party Fears Two*) and The Passions (I’m In Love With A German Film Star* & Hunted*). They were all superb.
Saw em next time when promoting their second album and the support act was a movie of a mini robot that barely moved for 20mins. Maaaann was there a rush to the bar 5mins after that nonsense started.

* All UK top ten hit singles iirc for those posting from elsewhere who may be interested in listening. The Associates finest moment though is a song called “Breakfast” that for some reason they didn’t want to release as a single. A weird band with a superb Bowiesque vocalist who took his own life years later after the band split up.

 

[ClownLurch]

Admittedly, quite a mix of unusual stuff there. I am 50 and have an 11 yr old son and a 13 yr old daughter, so I've been through quite a bit with music. From growing up listening to the likes of human league and adam and the ants in the glorious early 80s period of british pop, to finding my feet in my teens with likes of U2, and then being sucked into the UK Indy scene in the early 90s, then grunge, goth, metal, ambient. I do like more mainstream stuff as well, and as I say, there's almost no genre that I can't find something that appeals,

You will most likely have heard some of it, even without knowing. Perhaps the following notes will jog your memory and/or give you some steer on what to check out, and you never know, you might like some of it. I used to take music far more seriously, but these days I am pretty chilled and just listen to whatever when making my kids dinner. They laugh when i start singing along.

Air - Great french synth duo - Album: Moon safari, single: Sexy boy
Brian Eno - the father of ambient - Album: Apollo, single: deep blue day
Buckethead - you may not have heard of buckethead, but you may well have heard buckethead. Virtuoso guitarist with over 100 albums to his name, was guitarist with guns and roses for a few years. Album: Monsters & Robots.
Bill laswell - producer in the fields of ambient and world music. Fair enough, weird stuff. Hear no evil.
The Cult - Album: electric, single: She sells sanctuary
The cure - massively popular on both sides of the pond - Compilation Album: Staring at the Sea, single: boys don't cry
The Smiths - massively popular in UK, but also had an impact in the USA (included on the soundtrack to Ferris Buellers day off) - single: how soon is now?
Estradasphere - weird stuff. Album: Buck fever, single: meteorite showers
Future sound of London: Papua new guinea is the track that initially hooked me, but a huge catalogue of excellent tracks.
Groove Armada - singles: at the river, I see you baby..,shakin' that ass!
Goldie lookin' chain -very offensive in parts, although massively tongue in cheek and satirical, but probably best avoided for most people. Single: your missus is a nutter.
Jesus Jones: - Album: liquidizer, single: never enough
KLF: started out as record company owners, band managers and producers but then decided to release their own music and were surprisingly successful on both sides of the pond, albeit quite briefly. Album: the white room, single: no more tears
lemon jelly - Album: lost horizons, single: nice weather for ducks
massive attack - album: blue lines, singles: unfinished sympathy, teardrop.
Pop will eat itself - single: karmadrome
Sisters of mercy - album: vision thing, single: more
stone roses - come on, you must have heard of these guys! Album: The Stone Roses, singles: fools gold, I am the resurrection.
Oasis - come on, you must have heard of these guys!! Album: What's the story, morning glory, single: Wonderwall.
The Prodigy - come on, you must have heard of these guys!!! Album: fat of the land, singles: breathe, firestarter
Swci Boscawen -Album: Couture C'Ching, single: Adar Y Nefoedd
Sepultura - Roots, bloody roots! Rattamahatta
Super furry animals - album: rings around the world, singles: rings around the world, the end of the world.
secret chiefs 3 - weird stuff, best avoided...maybe book M
Mr Bungle - mike Patton's (singer from faith no more) original band and side project, albums: disco volante, california, singles: merry go bye bye, pink cigarette
Utah saints - Album: Two, singles: lost vagueness, something good, power to the beats
Vangelis - bladerunner soundtrack
William orbit - madonna's producer for the ray of light album. The single ray of light is really just a william orbit track with madonna singing. Album: Strange cargo III, single: water from a vineleaf
chemical brothers - come on, you must have heard of these guys!!!! Album: We are the night, singles: we are the night, the salmon dance, block rockin' beats.

As you were.

I’ve about 90% of those artists on my shelves in one form or another.

 

[GaryE]

You got me there. They were the opening act for Siouxsie and the Banshees, who were very boring. The Cure were still moving their feet. It was also the first 2 albums, I believe. 79. I fell asleep during the Banshees.

The price of having seen these bands is that we are obliged to be old.

When I finally got back to my safe North American home, there was nothing happening here. No interesting new bands - nothing that could be compared to the dynamic scene I'd left behind. Very few of the really good bands in the UK ever got played anywhere here. Not long after country, never popular in my urban world, became kitschy, and there was an explosion of really good 'cowpunk' bands, few of whom were ever recorded. There were some entertaining bands, and they laid the foundation for an ongoing local live music scene in Montreal. To bring it around to genres, you never know what a mixing of musical traditions will get you.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Classic and newer rock...

 

[ClownLurch]

You got me there. They were the opening act for Siouxsie and the Banshees, who were very boring. The Cure were still moving their feet. It was also the first 2 albums, I believe. 79. I fell asleep during the Banshees.

The price of having seen these bands is that we are obliged to be old.

When I finally got back to my safe North American home, there was nothing happening here. No interesting new bands - nothing that could be compared to the dynamic scene I'd left behind. Very few of the really good bands in the UK ever got played anywhere here. Not long after country, never popular in my urban world, became kitschy, and there was an explosion of really good 'cowpunk' bands, few of whom were ever recorded. There were some entertaining bands, and they laid the foundation for an ongoing local live music scene in Montreal. To bring it around to genres, you never know what a mixing of musical traditions will get you.

I gave up on The Cure around that time too. Listened to the third album for a week solid after its release then swapped it for another album. Robert Smith played guitar for The Banshees on a tour that The Cure were supporting them on after their original guitarist and drummer walked out mid tour. Probably as bored with em as you were.

Siouxsies started touring again recently after 10+yrs living a country life in SW France. Probably needs the money.

 

[GaryE]

I make a rule of never going to see bands that are past their due date. No nostalgia tours. I could never like Siouxsie as much as she liked herself on that stage. But it was the tour where Smith played with that shambles of a band. I think I was the only person there not wearing black that night. It was a very early Goth affair.

There's always a new, young band that needs the money to do something new and young with. Bands that become tribute bands to themselves don't interest me. I've stopped going to shows though, as I've retired to a place no band ever visits. Plus I am too old. I can still have a lot of fun, but I was scaring the kids and getting stared at all night. I stood with the sound men or else they all thought I was security, a cop or someone's grandad chaperoning.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

The last gig I went to was last month, The Winery Dogs. They were brilliant even in their old age, Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan and Mike Portney on drums

We've seen a few of the oldies now, Blue Oyster Cult and Black Label Society to name a couple

 

[GaryE]

Not a music fan . Could be my deafness .

If you're deaf, you're a natural country fan. There are some bands I could suggest for you!

 

[Back in the fold]

Actually not into any particular music genre . I like oddball novelty songs like Monster Mash by Bobby Boris Pickett , just about anything Weird Al Yankovic , Wooly Bully by Sam The Sham and The Pharoahs - that sort of thing . I’m tone deaf and can’t hear so good so I never hear the lyrics . That whiny nasal country twang just about gives me dry heaves and I can kind of like some metal - Megadeth , Danzig and Slayer - but if I ever hear The Grateful Dead I stop in my tracks . Hearing Jerry Garcia do Touch of Grey and Ripple and Truckin’ makes me happy . The Dead is happy music . Lately I did start listening to some Uriah Heap and liked that . I just don’t go out of my way to listen to music anymore . I wish I had my old turntable back and some huge 1970’s era speakers . The kind that hammer you with the bass. These tinny little electronic speakers today are not cutting the mustard . Or the cheese .

 

[jaylach]

Actually not into any particular music genre . I like oddball novelty songs like Monster Mash by Bobby Boris Pickett , just about anything Weird Al Yankovic , Wooly Bully by Sam The Sham and The Pharoahs - that sort of thing . I’m tone deaf and can’t hear so good so I never hear the lyrics . That whiny nasal country twang just about gives me dry heaves and I can kind of like some metal - Megadeth , Danzig and Slayer - but if I ever hear The Grateful Dead I stop in my tracks . Hearing Jerry Garcia do Touch of Grey and Ripple and Truckin’ makes me happy . The Dead is happy music . Lately I did start listening to some Uriah Heap and liked that . I just don’t go out of my way to listen to music anymore . I wish I had my old turntable back and some huge 1970’s era speakers . The kind that hammer you with the bass. These tinny little electronic speakers today are not cutting the mustard . Or the cheese .

If you still have vinyl and a computer you could always get a USB turntable. Just as with photography digital is awesome in some ways but analog is always more accurate.

 

[GaryE]

Those of us of the ancient persuasion probably grew up listening to tinny transistor radios. If we got a little money, we got decent stereo systems that could play loud. I always considered my neighbours with how loud, but it was great to feel music as well as hear it.
When we went over to personal earphone music, we both gained and lost. Sound quality slipped for a bit, but now, systems are pretty good. Music is rarely a social thing though. It's become kind of private.
Whatever genre we listen to, we tend to listen alone.

I'm really curious about what I'll encounter next week in central Africa. Will it be all streaming, or will CDs still linger in the markets? My beef with streaming here is that it's too uniform. Too many artists I search for on spotify et al just aren't available. The biggest holes I've found are with artists who are long dead, and African music. In between fishing trips, when we arrive in the small market towns, I hope I can still find some local styles.

Nigerian hip hop has broken out into Europe, and a lot of it is interesting. Burna Boy, Mr Eazi, Maleek Berry - they are on my car playlists and are really catchy. When I was in Scotland and Ireland a few weeks ago, I heard old stuff by the late Fela Kuti booming out of a couple of stores, which really surprised me. In the digital world, a song recorded in 1979 and one recorded yesterday are on an equal footing if you haven't heard them before. So I guess that leads to revivals.

It's funny. Sound is so fleeting and in the moment. Yet the souvenirs I want are sounds - recorded music. I'd never buy a cd here, but I'm hoping one of my favourite genres is going to be something I haven't heard up to now. If it's all streaming, it'll pass on by. I wonder what Gabonese radio is going to be like? I've learned about a lot of new styles by hearing music played out in the street - I recall the fun of walking in Jamaican areas of London and hearing dub reggae for the first time, coming out of someone's front window. I hope I'm not surrounded by nothing but people with headphones and ear buds.