Musical random chat - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Spyglass wrote:

I have a challenge for BEA. Let's all go three days without posting album covers. Mr. Green

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Skinny wrote:

Man, Shaybo's flows on this are bulletproof, and her punchlines land with a pleasing confidence. One of the best things I've heard in 2020.

Yeah that was good.

RockyRaccoon
Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Maryland

Moderator

I find it kind of amazing that Eddie Vedder's voice sounds almost the exact same today as it did like 30 years ago
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2023 Chart

Early Psychedelic Rock

Electronic Chart

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

The big problem with Marshall Crenshaw is that he usually frontloads his albums and they lose their hook very easily.
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

I didn't know the Modern Lovers continued as a separate band.
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

I got to add a live Radiohead album here.
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Anyone gotten into pre-album era music? I'm talking about all genres of "popular" music (so not classical).

I found RYM's database has charts for 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and then I found this site... anyone have advice into getting into this era/have a listening list I could bum off?

https://tsort.info/music/ds1900.htm

Also do you find comps the best way to tackle this era or the singles as listed on these sites? There's a part of me that wants more than just a single to get into an artist I haven't heard much of, but then organizing it according to comps when my source isn't... that sounds like work and I just want endless instant satisfaction for free forever cuz isn't that the era we live in?

I got a pretty good start on Jazz pre-album era (plus Fischman's log) and I'm wondering if I should stick to genre or just do it all... Anyway, I want to do that before I re-assess the album era/dig deeper into the last decade/this year etc.

saltfish

RoundTheBend wrote:

anyone have advice into getting into this era?

In the US, I think you'll find a lot of 20th-century, pre-war popular music is centered around travelling bands playing for university dances, and most university kids wanted to hear jazz. Before post-war globalization, musicians inflected traditional musics and regional styles of playing onto jazz, resulting in distinctly regional styles like Texas swing. All this is to say, don't expect a lot of pre-war popular music to not sound jazzy and the best way to discover it is to pick a region and find a local cultural association that's documented this history with preserved recordings. I can't really speak to post-war, pre-album US music, but I imagine it's still centered around the jazz musicians you've already listened to and regional styles that might be documented by something like Folkways. And I can't speak to post-war popular music around the globe, but I imagine those countries occupied by US soldiers still sound jazzy because they wanted to hear the sounds of popular music from back home (I know this is how jazz got kickstarted in Japan, for instance). So, again, outside of traditional and regional musics, its gonna be jazzy. There's guitar blues too but I don't believe it was as popular as jazz. Regional concepts still apply here too; Robert Johnson is such a breakthrough musician because of his synthesis of regional styles into a new form. I can't think of much outside of jazz and blues (and the beginnings of soul, funk, and rockabilly coming from them) that could constitute pre-album popular music. Music was largely for community and ritual, traditional. I think the concept of popular music arose alongside the increasing ease of travel and globalization, which really only became feasible for the common person just before the album era. Compilations like Anthology of American Folk Music and Longing For The Past are powerful statements, but I don't think they're what you're looking for with popular music.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

saltfish wrote:

In the US, I think you'll find a lot of 20th-century, pre-war popular music is centered around travelling bands playing for university dances, and most university kids wanted to hear jazz. Before post-war globalization, musicians inflected traditional musics and regional styles of playing onto jazz, resulting in distinctly regional styles like Texas swing. All this is to say, don't expect a lot of pre-war popular music to not sound jazzy and the best way to discover it is to pick a region and find a local cultural association that's documented this history with preserved recordings. I can't really speak to post-war, pre-album US music, but I imagine it's still centered around the jazz musicians you've already listened to and regional styles that might be documented by something like Folkways. And I can't speak to post-war popular music around the globe, but I imagine those countries occupied by US soldiers still sound jazzy because they wanted to hear the sounds of popular music from back home (I know this is how jazz got kickstarted in Japan, for instance). So, again, outside of traditional and regional musics, its gonna be jazzy. There's guitar blues too but I don't believe it was as popular as jazz. Regional concepts still apply here too; Robert Johnson is such a breakthrough musician because of his synthesis of regional styles into a new form. I can't think of much outside of jazz and blues (and the beginnings of soul, funk, and rockabilly coming from them) that could constitute pre-album popular music. Music was largely for community and ritual, traditional. I think the concept of popular music arose alongside the increasing ease of travel and globalization, which really only became feasible for the common person just before the album era. Compilations like Anthology of American Folk Music and Longing For The Past are powerful statements, but I don't think they're what you're looking for with popular music.

Thank you. That is helpful.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Hot damn...

I had never heard of Josh White before. So far (maybe the novelty will wear off) I might consider him my favorite blues singer... (top 20 singers?) ever. His guitar playing is so warm and dynamic, and his voice so smooth. Timing/Rhythm... it's basically the best musical find in a while.

Enjoy some fantastic music here:
https://open.spotify.com/album/3DZlXgO5...xP2eqeUQyg

Quote:

FDR's favourite bluesman regales the listener with a brace of overtly political blues. Steering away from the safer shores of personal woes or religious testimony that other blues practitioners made their bread and butter, Josh White steers directly into inflammatory political territory. With the timely Defense Factory Blues pondering why black people couldn't get arms factory jobs at a time when the national defence was more crucial than ever, this album turns a direct light on specific and clearly enunciated injustices of its era and mercilessly dissects them.

The recording quality, alas, doesn't exactly hold up to modern standards, and as such it is of more interest from a historical perspective than for listening for pleasure.

--Warthur, RYM