Topic: The Music Thread

@nessisonett They're another band I always feel I should have listened to more than I ever did. I only have "Do You Like Rock Music?" which is a pretty great album and never listened to anything else.

I'm just impressed that they're still going!

@Thrillho The Decline of British Sea Power is a really great album as well. One of those bands who were totally passed over at the time in favour of blander alternatives like Bloc Party and Elbow. The sort of band who’d be in a tiny 4 line article in an issue of NME with the Kaiser Chiefs on the cover.

(I actually googled the issue that their semi tiny review of Decline of BSP appeared in and lo and behold, Bloc Party were on the cover. I rest my case.)

@nessisonett As I’m sure I’ve said on here before, I rotate albums off my phone every couple of weeks and put stuff on I’ve listened to in ages. The first Bloc Party is still a stunner but the second one I still really don’t like at all. I also had forgotten how great Franz Ferdinand’s debut was too.

Going to Leeds festival in 2005 was peak era for that lot; Kaiser Chiefs (introduced by Peter Kay!) followed by Franz Ferdinand one night, Muse headlining the other. I remember seeing the Kooks in one of the tents and it was bedlam. The less said about them the better though.

@nessisonett @Thrillho Totally agree British Sea Power are an awesome band, and Decline is a great album, shame they never quite got the exposure they deserve. In fact when I listened to 6 music more back in the day they did get a lot of coverage on Guy Garvey's show along with Doves and Turin Brakes.

Elbow though never reached higher than Cast of Thousands for my money. I saw them at a festival the year that album came out and they must have had no more than 50 people watching. Same festival years later after they went mainstream and it was packed. Just goes to show that what's good isn't always popular and what's popular isn't always good.

@Thrillho @render That was such a weird time for British music. There was a time when Kaiser Chiefs and Kings of Leon were like the biggest bands in the UK. It’s as if the public missed having bands like Blur and Oasis in the charts so just pretended that they still liked ‘rock’ music.

@nessisonett came here to say I really enjoyed The Bravery's Sun and the Moon album, which, I was thinking was also around that time but just looked it up to learn they aren't even British. Really thought they were this whole time.

Conversely, it was only a few years ago I found out Dusty Springfield was British.

Needless to say, I don't always know much about the people I listen to lol.

@nessisonett @Thrillho That seems to be the way with music, like there's a fad and all of a sudden there's a lot of like sounding bands out there. It's like they were there all waiting in the wings for just one of them to break through knowing that there would be a need to fill the space with loads more bands that sound the same.

For me that seemed to culminate with the Artic Monkeys who I never really appreciated, but perhaps I was just too old. They pretty much out Kaisered the Kaiser Chiefs and all the rest and seemed to go on to be the face of British music for a while.

@zupertramp I'd forgotten about The Bravery until you mentioned them. They were around that time and seemed to be one of those bands that were there and gone in the space of one album.

@JohnnyShoulder here’s an idea of the texture of The Pathless’ soundtrack. Probably my favourite track:

@Jimmer-jammer Cool, cheers for the share. Can't wait to hear it in game. Austin's name is a seal of quality when it comes to game soundtracks for me.

@Jimmer-jammer and @nessisonett What do you reckon of this?

@TheBrandedSwordsman Ha! I don’t generally get on with such a mocking tone but there were some genuinely funny bits in there. Perhaps Mr. Wayne could use less yes men around him and have better discernment of when to relinquish ego for the sake of your art.

@TheBrandedSwordsman I feel bad for Lil Wayne tbh because there’s a massive trope spread around by metalheads that black people can’t play the guitar. Sure, Lil Wayne isn’t a very good guitarist but Sid Vicious was a god-awful bassist and people still love the Sex Pistols.

@Jimmer-jammer Yeah, in other words give up the guitar? I'd agree with that @nessisonett What about all the great jazz guitarists of yesteryear and even the present day such as Charlie Christian, Grant Green and the present-day Jeff Parker? Plus there's the black guy in Animals As Leaders (metal group).

@TheBrandedSwordsman Well yeah, there’s plenty of fantastic guitarists of all backgrounds. Nile Rodgers never comes up because certain sections of metalheads never look outside their own genre, and he’s one of the most influential guitarists of all time. I’m one of the approximately two people that quite liked Kid Cudi’s Speeding Bullet 2 Heaven though, despite it being a mess. I like when artists actually try to do something new even when it doesn’t completely pan out. I respect Kid Cudi a lot for making a weird grunge album because that’s the sort of music that he loves instead of the music he’s expected to churn out an album at a time.

@TheBrandedSwordsman hey, if he had the respect for the craft to put the hours of hard work and dedication into learning it, I’m sure he’d be fine up there. All I’m seeing here is a mega star who thinks whatever he touches turns to gold, forgetting that those are paying guests in there, not your bro’s house party.

@nessisonett. From your posts on here, you strike me as a very smart person but I feel that bringing race into this was unnecessary and unwarranted. In the interest of progress, it’s a step back, not a step forward.

@nessisonett I think the trope is less "black people can't play the guitar" and more "rappers can't play guitar" which kind of links to what @jimmer-jammer said where there's people who are willing to put in the work and those that aren't and it's really really hard not to view much of the hip hip community* as mostly uninterested in "the craft" of it all, so not really trying to put in the finger-bleeding hours it takes when they can make way more money mumbling out half-assed bars over well produced beats.

Edit: probably don't need to say this but in the interest of civility I'd like to clarify that I know we're talking about a very diverse community of artists and I don't mean to paint them all with the same brush.

@zupertramp @nessisonett to be clear, my intent was also not to be quarrelsome. Quite the opposite actually. I think we all want the same thing, and @nessisonett is very passionate about the subject. That’s excellent. It doesn’t mean that we never go off track in our pursuits. And I just feel in this particular instance, that’s what happened. If for whatever reason I’m off base, I’m open to criticism.

@Jimmer-jammer I didn't take it that way but then, it wasn't directed at me.

I'm somewhere in the middle here where I could see there being a 'rappers aren't guitarists' trope but not one based solely on race. I mean there's Gary Clark Jr, Michael Kiwanuka, Leon Bridges etc. But then it'd be a tad disingenuous to act like there's not a racial slant to even the modified trope I proposed.

Guess I mean I don't see any harm in bringing it up.

@zupertramp “Guess I mean I don't see any harm in bringing it up.”
After re-reading his comment a few times, perhaps I jumped too quick in an attempt to stop the discussion from going where I (maybe wrongly) assumed it was going. I initially had the overwhelming feeling of, “here we go…” in an exchange that I just didn’t think warranted going there. There was no racist intent in the video, and the trope is something I’ve never even heard of. My head wasn’t remotely in ‘racism’ territory until it was guided there, a trend I’ve found on the internet. There are more than enough legitimate sources of true racism all around us worthy of dismantling than to invent them where they don’t exist. It’s counter productive.

I love Kid Cudi’s work but didn’t overly enjoy SB2H and can assure you that it had nothing to with his blackness. In fact, I’ve never even heard this argument. The insinuation that not enjoying that album is the result of racist motivations is absurd.

The fact is that some of the most obvious and offensive recent displays of racism, anti-feminism…you name it, are often masked by the overt boasting of standing against such things (looking at you, Mr. Trudeau).

Anyways, this was the method to my madness, and I hope it was well considered and presented gently. Again, if I’m off-base, I’m open to criticism. I’d rather say something I believe is meaningful and be corrected than never really say anything at all.

@zupertramp as you’ve already alluded to, I have mistakenly and rudely “talked past you” with a message that is really directed towards @nessisonett. I’m sorry for that. It’s not fair to you. Maybe he’s tied up or something.

What I should have said to you was simply, I’ve never heard of that trope, and carried on with our own discussion.