Post a controversial music opinion

As it's original recordings only, the only music of that sort I hear is heavily mediated by the limitations of recording media and studios at the time, which doesn't mean there's none, but it's not in the form anyone would expect to hear it now.

György Kurtág's 12 Microludes for string quartet.

― pomenitul, Wednesday, December 26, 2018 3:20 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

somebody reads the new yorker

I always enjoy remembering that an "album" used to be a bound group of sleeves housing multiple 78s
https://strathdee.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/101022.jpg

Lol did Alex Ross recently publish a piece on Kurtág's Fin de partie or something? Nah, I'm gonna play my hipster card and say that I've been into Kurtág since the early 2000s when I first heard the Keller Quartet's ECM disc of his works for string instruments.

xp

i was mostly jk but yeah ross wrote about his new (and first) opera, which uses text from beckett's "endgame" ... which of course reminded me that i've been enjoying kurtág since, well, fine, i actually just learned about him two days ago. joke's on me :)

also yes that album shit is what i came to post about in the first place. i'm so happy CDs exist for classical music. imagine living a million hours from the nearest symphony orchestra and having to settle for the 36 x 10" 78rpm box set of, say, some brahms piece or whatever

xp

his new (and first) opera, which uses text from beckett's "endgame"

...which is called, yeah, "fin de partie"

boy do i feel dumb

I'm just happy people are talking about Kurtág. :)

And yeah, I wouldn't like classical music nearly as much if I could only attend local concerts. Because they're expensive and because their range tends to be fairly limited. We really are blessed to have access to all this stuff, and so readily. Back in the 19th century, Liszt's piano transcriptions (of Beethoven's symphonies, for instance) supposedly served a pragmatic purpose in addition to their aesthetic value, although I can't imagine many people were able to perform them given how fiendishly difficult they are! I guess there must have been cases where only a piano virtuoso was available and not a full symphony orchestra…

Tracks >>>>>>> Playlists > Albums

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, December 26, 2018 12:30 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for certain genres--electronic music, rap, pop--totally agree. I'm a huge house / techno fan, but the (admittedly self-imposed) pressure to listen to an entire house or techno album is the pits

rock and jazz, eh, not so sure

playlists are the worst

my playlists are the shit

dx7 electric piano sound is good

the mediums for techno and house is the 12" and the dj set, of course albums are going to be potty

And yeah, I wouldn't like classical music nearly as much if I could only attend local concerts. Because they're expensive and because their range tends to be fairly limited. We really are blessed to have access to all this stuff, and so readily. Back in the 19th century, Liszt's piano transcriptions (of Beethoven's symphonies, for instance) supposedly served a pragmatic purpose in addition to their aesthetic value, although I can't imagine many people were able to perform them given how fiendishly difficult they are! I guess there must have been cases where only a piano virtuoso was available and not a full symphony orchestra…

― pomenitul, 27. december 2018 01:56 (fourteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's this film called Amour Fou, and one of the greatest things in that film is that in the beginning there's this famous soprano that comes to the house of the main character and sings a beautiful piece by Beethoven, and the rest of the film the main character is seen practicing this piece and singing it to people, except that it's a much easier and pared down version of the piece. A lot of the music that existed back then came out in simple versions for people to play to each other.

Love the Beach Boys - especially their '66 to early '70s run. Listening to "WIld Honey" and its sessions right now and, much as I love Carl, maaaan -- he could not pull off these r & b vocals. My vocal cords hurt listening to him strain. The boys were fakin' the funk on this one.

Martin Hannett's famed production. . . is thin and weak, generally : \

He was innovative in some interesting ways, but the final sound just leaves me cold.

For Joy Division in particular--I almost always prefer a BBC session version of a given track to the album/EP/single versions. They may be more conventionally produced, but at least the drums and bass *hit* a little.

I think you have a point there. But Joy Division really started to make sense for me when I discovered the live versions as on Preston and Les Bains Douches. So intense and powerful. I wish I had been there.

I was into the Dead Kennedys before Joy Division so I only knew his name from "..fuck off overproduced by martin hannett, take 4" at the beginning of "nazi punks". When I saw his name later in liner notes my first thought was "martin hannett, that guy sucks!"

Ronnie Milsap is the greatest yacht-rocker of all time.

Man, I love his uptempo hits so much. "Daydreams About Night Things" and "Pure Love" - so tight, both clocking in under 2:25.

"Stranger in My House" and "There's No Gettin' Over Me" are marvelous.

the separation/dislocation of the joy division studio albums is the point which i’m sure y’all know already

yeah I mean, I cannot imagine those records sounding any other way

Joy division would have agreed with the above critique of hannett, a common one, and they too are wrong about it

Here’s mine: talk talks producer should have thrown that damn harmonica out of the window on day one

Ian Curtis: good lyrics, awful voice
Bernard Sumner: awful lyrics, good voice

I can get behind that. This happens to be why 'Ceremony' doubles as the best Joy Division and New Order song.

That is one opinion I will never understand.

I'm glad both "versions" of the band exist - the dislocation & ice cold atmosphere of Unknown Pleasures is remarkable, and they were a great rock band. it's a good thing there's as much extant material as there is considering how briefly they existed.

I definitely prefer (early) New Order to (almost any) Joy Division, so I'm biased in my opinion re: Hannett's production. And part of it probably isn't Hannet's fault, but just the fact that I don't care for Curtis' voice much in general, and also I tend to hate most of the Joy Division "inspired" post-punk bands (i.e. Crispy Ambulance and dozens more, both '78-'82 and rampant in neo-post-punk) and the pallor JD's outsized reputation casts over post-punk generally, to where it's assumed to be a genre of mopey trench-coat darkness instead of an ethos of adventurousness and an explosion of highly varied creativity.

I guess if you're the sort (like me) who thinks "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is Joy Division's best song, when it's really an outlier, you're given to preferring New Order?

In theory, I like the production techniques Hannett brings to the table--in fact, I like his production on a lot of non-Joy Division music. But I guess I agree with JD themselves that the thin/"distant" production doesn't reinforce the isolation and turmoil of JD's songs, but actually just somehow sucks the blood out of them a bit and robs them of their emotional impact a little. Hence, my preference for the nicely but simply-produced BBC recordings...

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" is Joy Division's best song

surely this is not controversial

Yeah a controversial JD opinion would be "their vers of Louie Louie is the def vers"

"Love will tear us apart" is not even a top ten song in their catalogue. But it is indeed an outlier in their output. What I don't like about it besides the fact that it has been played to death is that it misses the roughness and power of the earlier stuff, I think it sounds like a song of a band which is falling apart in beauty. And that definitely is too kitschy for my likes.

Ok here's a a JD controp for you: disorder is the weakest track on UP. Gets better towards the end of the song, though.

Crispy Ambulance slander? If anyone says a bad word about Stockholm Monsters we're gonna have words

i dunno if this is controversial but i prefer the alternate version of LWTUA, the one i think they used as a b-side -- it sounds a lot more like their other stuff and curtis is singing like he usually does, not doing the sinatra-esque croon. i actually heard that version first (it's the first track on the compilation album permanent, which was the first JD stuff i ever heard) and was really surprised when i realized it wasn't the famous one.

Yeah a controversial JD opinion would be "their vers of Louie Louie is the def vers"

― chr1sb3singer

or "their vers of Sister Ray is the def vers"

disorder is the weakest track on UP. Gets better towards the end of the song, though.

I've sat out the discussion about Martin Hannett with amusement, but when I heard Les Bains Douches version of "Disorder" the Hannett skeptics make sense.

The version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” on Permanent (which I don’t believe has been released anywhere else) is THE best version.

dx7 electric piano sound is good

― brimstead
there's been a big resurgence in FM synthesis and digital synthesizers / modules (specializing in FM/PM, for the average enthusiast) over the last few years. The Elektron Digitone, Korg Volca FM, Yamaha Reface DX are more popular examples. i've got a small modular setup--it's primarily digital, and a few of the voices use FM / phase modulation synthesis for really bright / robust / cutting sounds. ALM Busy Circuits have a few modules that use old Yamaha integrated circuits, and they sound freakin' lovely. For example: http://busycircuits.com/alm015/

controversial opinion (?) - most every track on OPN Age of > the Lexapro ep

Non controp at this point: the DX7 was and is an instrument. Like the krummhorn or hurdygurdy or oboe. Judge it as itself, not against the things it was alleged to be imitating, and all is well.

mountain goats is emo they might be giants

Ooh that’s a good one

The joy division opinions upthread are very weird to me.

mountain goats is emo they might be giants

but mountain goats is less emo than they might be giants!

kraftwerk is corny and unenjoyable imo. there are a million other german bands/artists from the 70s that i'd rather listen to

ok tour de france is cool but imo the 70s stuff for which they are very famous is not good

I agree tbh, at their best they're the best tho

My bf, over my shoulder, "ooh look at you having an opinion. Getting the opinion machine all revved up"

Die Meinung Maschine

kraftwerk is corny and unenjoyable imo

computer world is corny and enjoyable

yeah, I thought "corny" was their most charming attribute.

otm!