Post a controversial music opinion

pomenitul, that is an amazing post thank you!

You're articulating ideas and connections that I've felt intuitively but have been unable to adequately verbalize and you're doing so very well

Thank you very much, fgti!

pomenitul, I don't know anything about Ustvolskaya's music. There's a bunch of it on Spotify, though. Can you recommend any specific pieces (or even specific recordings, as I am a person who still buys physical music)? I'm more interested in large ensemble works than chamber music right now, generally (the opposite used to be true).

I didn't realize I was interrupting an ongoing smart discussion. Sorry for stinking up the place.

unperson, the Megadisc series with Oleg Malov is suitably austere, and was my introduction to her music. Earlier orchestral scores (the 1st symphony, the piano concerto), for all their eccentricities, tend to be conventional in that they exhibit a relatively maximalist understanding of the orchestra, so you can clearly hear the influence of Shostakovich (this goes both ways, incidentally, as his late style is very much informed by her first compositions). I'd suggest starting with symphonies 2-5, as long as you're willing to accept that 'symphony' is a bit of a misnomer here (the 4th, for instance, lasts approximately six minutes and features nothing but voice, trumpet, piano and tam-tam, but the 2nd and 3rd mostly match your criteria). If you want to go bigger (and assuming you're not familiar with her work), I also strongly recommend checking out Sofia Gubaidulina's sole symphony (only one recording, with Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting, is freely available as far as I can tell) and, of course, the understung Ștefan Niculescu's, though physical copies of his music are almost impossible to locate.

'undersung' rather than 'understung', of course. He committed no unforgivable crimes against bees in his lifetime.

The production on a lot of Bowie's Berlin-era output (and Scary Monsters) is absolutely horrible and ruins any semblance of what might have been good music. Station To Station (apart from 'Stay', which is all-time) is a sludgy, unlistenable mess

― Scritti Vanilli - The Word Girl You Know It's True (dog latin), Monday, October 15, 2018 8:25 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

noooooooooo

I goddamn love early Ustvolskaya

And the "sludgy" production of Berlin-era Bowie (which I would myself describe as "brittle") is part of its appeal. "Station To Station" (the song) sounded like oh no David what are you doing on first listen and is now my favourite Bowie track by a long shot

I was at a friend's house once and they put on Station to Station, dropping the needle about 1 minute into the first track, they said they always did this. Maybe I should take this to the 'irrationally angry' thread.

Nothing irrational about such anger tbf.

Saying someone is otm is just a way to wax your own ego and say "i feel the same, therefore you are right" - is it not?

Seems unfairly cynical

Haha - Ross, you say "___ OTM" on here all the time!

Ross otm, Moodles otm, morrisp otm

unregistered otm

when I otm people it usually amounts to "I agree with your long, well-considered, articulate post, and I would have written it myself if I weren't such a lazy, thick-headed failure of a writer". it's egotistical in the sense that I'm praising my own viewpoint but humble in the sense that I'm acknowledging my inability to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation beyond "uh yeah, what they said"

tl;dr LBI otm

I'll take Donald Fagen The Nightfly over Gaucho or Aja any day.

Women (band) blatantly combined idiosyncratic qualities of Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, Wire, and Sebadoh's music on Public Strain... and it did so successfully. it's one of the finest albums of the decade.

MBV's self-titled 'comeback' album is a lame pastiche of My Bloody Valentine's music. It (its release / existence) doesn't warrant all of the hype and reverence it's received.

I'll take Donald Fagen The Nightfly over Gaucho or Aja any day.

― kornrulez6969,

No offense, but not controversial? Most critics averred this at the time.

MBV's self-titled 'comeback' album is a lame pastiche of My Bloody Valentine's music. It (its release / existence) doesn't warrant all of the hype and reverence it's received.

the one that blows my mind is "in another way"

not totally music, but my controversial opinion is that bob dylan deserved his nobel prize

Nightfly over Aja, Gaucho.... No offense, but not controversial? Most critics averred this at the time.

Yes but not anymore and certainly not on ILM where Gaucho is practically fetishized

but my controversial opinion is that bob dylan deserved his nobel prize

The only Pink Floyd era worth a stuff is the Waters era. The Barrett- and Gilmour-led eras are disposable.

Hm I have heard Division Bell playing twice in public places over the past couple weeks and was blown away by how much more space there might be in my life for that music today, compared to when I poo-poo'd it as a teenager

100% agree. Pink Floyd weren't shit until they shoved Barrett out the door (and it still took them a couple of years to have more than one or two good songs max per album), and without Waters they were nothing.

I say that as someone who bought Momentary Lapse of Reason as a 16-year-old and enjoyed it quite a bit. I even saw them live on that tour.

unperson: are you agreeing with my post, or with fgti's? My controversial opinion is that Pink Floyd under Barrett were shit.

I agree with anagram, not fgti. I liked Momentary Lapse when I was a child, but don't like it anymore, and I never liked anything pre-Meddle.

ah, I see – you're saying "weren't shit" to mean "weren't any good", whereas I thought you meant it as "weren't terrible"

Controversial opinion: shit may be good

pharoah sanders karma is pretty good but not that good

I've never enjoyed Pharoah as a leader but that's not especially controversial

Agree that Floyd was better post-Syd, not so sure about the rest. I love The Division Bell

Karma is nowhere near Sanders' best album. His stuff from 1971-72 is when he was really in his glory. But really, everything he did for Impulse!, and Izipho Zam (which was on Strata-East) is essential in its own way.

Women (band) blatantly combined idiosyncratic qualities of Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, Wire, and Sebadoh's music on Public Strain... and it did so successfully. it's one of the finest albums of the decade.

I gotta listen to this!

good album, way more interesting than the records they've gone on to make in Preoccupations

They sound sort of like a (much) mellower Abe Vigoda

whoa, Preoccupations used to be Women??? I remember that first record, "Black Rice" right?

You are right that it is not really anything new but it definitely isn't lame. One reason being that Only Tomorrow is about the most amazing piece of music they have ever made. Of course you should listen to it on full volume!
― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan)

m b v was one of those albums I thought I loved at the time but rarely (if ever) feel like listening to it now. What's the opposite of a grower? (don't say 'show-er.' Actually, maybe that's apt)

is that track two?

I like to listen to m b v on flights. Somehow that makes it even more difficult to hear the melodies as they are not only buried in the guitar distortion but also covered by the flight noise. And I like that challenge.

not sure if it's controversial but unless i'm in a bar most electric blues are boring as shit

I think that's fairly uncontroversial on ILM.

Oh, and m b v is the best thing they've ever done and the only album of theirs I still listen to on occasion.

you made me realise is the best thing they've ever done

not sure if it's controversial but unless i'm in a bar most electric blues are boring as shit

― marcos, Wednesday, October 17, 2018 2:25 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's my least favourite music in or outside of bars

Acoustic blues ftw, by a Delta country mile.

One Bad Son's cover of "Psycho Killer" is good.