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Quote from DJGrenola:
the japanese attitude to music is kind of interesting, it's like they lack the cynicism and irony that's so prevalent in the west, I don't think they're constantly looking over their shoulder thinking "is this too cheesy" or whatever
Heh, maybe that's why I like Japanese creative media?

Quote from DJGrenola:
like jazz and fusion are quite popular there I think, but they're generally treated sneeringly by westerners
Dunno about fusion, but isn't jazz considered a high art in the west these days?

Quote from DJGrenola:
I dunno, I remember the soundtrack to street fighter EX+alpha and how some of the tracks are like 80s daytime TV music

like nobody in the west would dream of making stuff like that, soundtracks all need to be this omggrimdark hans zimmer bullshit

japan doesn't care, it's happy to break out the saxophones, doesn't give a fuck lol
Western TV/movie soundtracks are also frequently more about ambience and less about memorable melodies than stuff like anime soundtracks and some Hong Kong TV show soundtracks I've heard, so probably much of east-Asian TV music in general.

Quote from arkarian:
ugh dude modern pop is garbage.
isn't this like, everyone's opinion about all modern music :P

Quote from arkarian:
man i honestly wish i could find europop cool, i almost can but not quite

i'm just too american, that shit is so lame lol
not sure what "europop" is specifically but I unironically enjoy trance and eurobeat.

then again I'm like, totally not in synch with the usual American tastes.  Not really into mainstream American pop nor country, nor even rap nor various more obscure subgenres of rock or whatever.  I'm basically just on classical, J-pop (by which I actually mostly mean anime theme songs), and basically whatever stuff happens to show up in game and anime soundtracks.  Which is actually quite a varied bunch of stuff, from chiptune action rock to folksy stuff to ambient noise to...probably including the latest bunch of stuff I got into, which is trance.
Sounds like a late teenage nerd phase to me.
red chamber dream
or it's just his taste in music.
Edit history:
DJGrenola: 2018-11-15 02:07:29 am
Quote from Glenn Magus Harvey:
Quote from DJGrenola:
the media is such a universally biased partisan piece of shit across the board now that I think I might get better news reports just by staring at the stock markets

Assuming you're talking about the news media, the fact that they get flamed from both sides might mean they're doing something right.

That said, I think the problems vary from program to program -- the half-hour evening news programs that my family likes to watch, for example, barely have any time to cover issues to any reasonable depth, which is why I prefer the PBS News Hour, where they get ~50 minutes to present reports that last longer than a few sentences summarizing what happened, and also get people to sit down and talk in-depth about stuff, exploring lots of angles that can't be covered in the ~20 minutes that your CBS Evening News or whatever dedicates to like 10 different stories and only ever asking questions for the first three at most.

Plus, PBS News Hour wastes a lot less time doing things like asking people how they feel about stuff and showing their reactions.  They do still sometimes do "human-interest" feelgood stuff but it's definitely not every program.

On the other hand, stuff like CNN that basically needs something to talk about as "breaking news" all day long, they basically just have people talking about the news over and over again and it's kinda pointless when all they do is make it seem like stuff is constantly happening.


I think a lot of the stuff you put forward in these posts can probably be explained by the fact that I'm in the UK rather than the US and culturally things are a bit different here. I'll pass on discussing specifics but in order to get a common sense outcome you need a balanced set of views in the media, and I don't think we have that. Lunacy abounds in the absence of intellectual competition.

I think part of the problem actually is the terrible quality of online news services. I'm projecting, but I get the impression that the people in charge of the networks decided maybe fifteen years ago that online news should be the domain of "trendy young people", so they put a load of idiot graduates in charge of it all, without actually bothering to consider whether installing a load of idealistic kids to look after this stuff might potentially not be the smartest move in the book.

Quote from Glenn Magus Harvey:
Quote from DJGrenola:
the japanese attitude to music is kind of interesting, it's like they lack the cynicism and irony that's so prevalent in the west, I don't think they're constantly looking over their shoulder thinking "is this too cheesy" or whatever
Heh, maybe that's why I like Japanese creative media?

Quote from DJGrenola:
like jazz and fusion are quite popular there I think, but they're generally treated sneeringly by westerners
Dunno about fusion, but isn't jazz considered a high art in the west these days?


It is, but only by people with a brain (often musicians themselves); it's not popular music by any stretch of the imagination.

Quote:
Quote from arkarian:
ugh dude modern pop is garbage.
isn't this like, everyone's opinion about all modern music :P


adam neely's take on this was interesting. I only half agree with him though. he essentially argues that old music always sounds better because the brain has an inbuilt tendency towards musical nostalgia, but ignores the fact that a lot of pop songs are literally composed by committee nowadays, whereas that was never true in the past.

the fact that kids nowadays can literally listen to anything, whereas in the past they were limited to buying records which were new at that time, also kind of throws a spanner into this argument. "the music I used to listen to as a teenager" could mean literally anything now, rather than being framed by the zeitgeist as it always used to be.



Quote:
Quote from arkarian:
man i honestly wish i could find europop cool, i almost can but not quite

i'm just too american, that shit is so lame lol
not sure what "europop" is specifically but I unironically enjoy trance and eurobeat.

then again I'm like, totally not in synch with the usual American tastes.  Not really into mainstream American pop nor country, nor even rap nor various more obscure subgenres of rock or whatever.  I'm basically just on classical, J-pop (by which I actually mostly mean anime theme songs), and basically whatever stuff happens to show up in game and anime soundtracks.  Which is actually quite a varied bunch of stuff, from chiptune action rock to folksy stuff to ambient noise to...probably including the latest bunch of stuff I got into, which is trance.


Trance was hugely popular in the UK in the late 90s but it just became overdone, and kids turned their back on it. Much of that stuff was coming from continental Europe and we've historically been pretty snobby about music that wasn't invented here. Those kinds of soaring electronic melodies were binned and replaced by the bass lines and breakbeats of speed garage, which had a much more urban thing going on, being produced originally by black kids on the council estates of south London. That also led directly to things like dubstep and grime which of course have enjoyed their own day in the sun.

Music journalists would probably attribute some of these changes in taste to changes in drug culture as well, but of course I wouldn't know anything about that. >_>

Eurobeat / eurodance / europop / whatever is a similar story I suppose. It's samey and repetitive and lacks any nuance nowadays. That wasn't always the case. ABBA had an unironic eurocheese thing going on, but they get a pass because their arrangements were usually well thought out and on the whole pretty fabulous.
Quote from Glenn Magus Harvey:
Quote from DJGrenola:
the thing about JRPGs is interesting, I wonder whether there are any similarities if you could be bothered to sit down and do modal analysis and what have you
What was this a reply to btw?  I'm curious because I like throwing music theory at vgm too.


We were talking about the plini album I think, and ark said some of it reminded him of JRPG stuff.

https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry

cool article.
@DJGrenola I'm just gonna reply in bulk because I can't be arsed to multiquote on a tablet.

You're right to say that I was thinking about my experiences with U.S. news media; thanks for pointing out my mistake.

With regards to tastes in music, and in reference to that video as well as your comments, I can see some merit in the notion that the early teens are a formative period for tastes in music, though it's certainly more fluid -- I definitely wasn't listening to the trancepop stylings of fripSide as a young teen, though I did have a background in classical music already at that point and video games were also my hobby.  Perhaps it's more accurate to say that those early experiences shaped some more fundamental aspects of my music, such as harmonies I enjoy -- I rarely listened to pop music on the radio so I rarely encountered the I V vi IV progression, while what I did listen to regularly included V-to-I cadences and (rarely in classical music) "modal" natural minor (e.g. bVII to i), and both of these have continued to figure prominently in my tastes today.  As for trance, I felt back then that I enjoyed something that I had called "techno" even though I wasn't sure of it's actual name, but my experiences with this were few and far between so I can't say how formative if they were.  That said, what I listened to was very definitely not part of the "zeitgeist".

As for music "composed by committee", I've never quite agreed with that as a criticism (though as a consequence of my tastes I only rarely encounter it).  I can't tell whether something was "composed by committee" (I have sort of a "death of the author" perspective on this, and besides, I've seen this description generally just used as a criticism that something felt undistinctive), and while I can certainly feel that a body of musical works feels "samey", I don't think this particularly impedes my enjoyment of each work alone, only perhaps if I listen to it all at once.

Anyhow, trance and eurobeat are still genres I'm relatively new to.  So much so that I am some kind of hesitant use genre labels for fear that I might be using them wrong, but I think these two are likely accurate.  I know eurobeat from internet memes and indirectly from stuff like Initial D, and that has a pretty distinctive style so I'm pretty sure I've named it right.  But it did take me awhile to realize is that trance is not the same as techno, but appaeently something with a "smoother" feel from my perspective.
Edit history:
DJGrenola: 2018-11-16 03:24:36 pm
DJGrenola: 2018-11-16 03:23:36 pm
no, I don't particularly enjoy the stuff I was listening to as a teenager, either.

but I suppose this is one of the many dangers of generalising people based on the results of studies. we have taxes on high sugar soft drinks in the UK now based on the notion that the population as a whole is becoming overweight. but I'm actually underweight, so in order to consume something that would actually be a healthy option in my case I would need to pay extra. "X is true for the general population so it must be true for you" is obscenely dangerous and sadly seems to be becoming more and more common. but anyway.

"techno" for a long time was I think a US shorthand for what we over here have always called "dance music". techno had a more specific meaning in europe. now I think the term "EDM" is becoming more common on both sides of the atlantic, which is probably better anyway, although as usual there are snobs in britain snickering about it. ironically, these are the same type of people who would rail against traditional conservative values. which is satisfyingly ironic.

yeah, perhaps I approached complaining about modern music from the wrong angle. there was a study done by some boffins a few years ago that looked at chord progressions and the general complexity of hits over the history of pop music, and they concluded that music was getting simpler. I suppose that's what I was driving at and it feels to me like that's the case. on the other hand, though, I suppose chord progression complexity isn't everything. it doesn't take into account things like timbral changes that are possible by electronic means (i.e. filters and so on) which didn't really exist in older times and which can be used to add variety in a way that couldn't be done in the past. I'm also reminded of 50s rock 'n' roll in which everything was either some I-IV-V variant or the I-iii-IV-V alternative one. so I don't think one can claim modern pop music is less varied than it was in the 50s. the beatles put a stop to that nonsense, anyway, being unafraid to use modes and modulations and that sort of thing, not to mention all the drug-fuelled mucking about with tape effects in the studio.

genre labels often seem to suffer from creep too. the earliest dubstep records don't sound anything like what dubstep eventually became. I suspect the earliest "trance" records probably sound quite a bit different to what you'd call trance now. some commentators have suggested that this was the first real trance record, but so many of the cliches which plagued late 90s trance (ubiquitous, relentless snare drum rolls) are completely absent:



if you asked me I'd call it acid house, but I can see why the trance label was attached here.

moral of this post: generalisations are stupid and dangerous
red chamber dream
i still like basically all the music i liked as a teen. i like other music too, but my love for that stuff never went away

i mean fuck i'm getting into ratm more than ever, and they were literally the first band i ever got into
Edit history:
Glenn Magus Harvey: 2018-11-16 11:34:23 pm
Glenn Magus Harvey: 2018-11-16 11:33:38 pm
Glenn Magus Harvey: 2018-11-16 11:31:48 pm
Quote from DJGrenola:
there was a study done by some boffins a few years ago that looked at chord progressions and the general complexity of hits over the history of pop music, and they concluded that music was getting simpler.
Honestly, I think it's sort of a constant in the communication of meaning that simpler things are easier to communicate, so it's not really a surprise that simpler musical ideas are more popular.  And that's not necessarily even a bad thing.  Meanwhile, more complex music continues to exist anyway, because simpler musical ideas don't cover everything and can't communicate as wide a range of meaning, and so there's always room for more complexity and experimentation and development and so on.

So as a result everyone (who has bothered to get into music to a greater depth than just no-dedication casual listening) likes some simpler things and some more complex things.

That would explain why both "simpler" music -- be it the much-lambasted pop songs du jour, or just traditional folk tunes, and so on -- continues to coexist with more "complex" music.

As for myself, I know there are sometimes when I want the nuanced complexity of a three-subject Bach fugue, and sometimes when I just want a straightforward sweeping splash of a passionately melodic anime theme song.

FWIW I don't think my music tastes have changed much from my teen years.  I've always sorta had the stuff I like, in vein that just runs sorta oblique to whatever the latest trends are anyway.

And thanks for sharing that song!
I like most of the rock and electronica I liked 25+ years ago when I was a teen.

Some of the harder industrial is just crazy sounding to me today.  Same with some of the 'techno'.  I swear I hear some of that stuff today and wonder 'WTF was I thinking?'  Then I remember the drugs I was doing back then lol
red chamber dream


this never gets old lol
I like turtles.
Pumpkin bread + pie in the oven! I do love the season of dirt cheap pumpkin for use in baked goods.
What should I do with my evening?

* play more of Operation Abyss, a dungeon-crawler RPG with a sci-fi horror story
* play more of Trails in the Sky SC, a story-intensive JRPG with intense political intrigue elements
* watch more of Beatless, a drama about artificial intelligence
*opens box of old stuff*

oh hey here's my CD-ROM version of Mega Man X, with manual

box was discarded long ago though, sadly



oh hey here's my friend's burned copy of FF7 PC



also a Red Scarlet's 100% Super Metroid in 0:55, on a CD-R, because I burned a bunch of videos to CD-R back then for some reason
red chamber dream
hey grenola, what are your thoughts on playing downstrokes on the downbeat versus alternate picking regardless of the beat ?
red chamber dream
especially with simpler songs like rage songs, i can't decide what's most beneficial
I have no idea really ark lol

I used to strum down on downbeats more I guess, but then I got older and my wrists got bad and economy of movement became more important so I'd be more likely to do the latter now

Quote from Glenn Magus Harvey:
also a Red Scarlet's 100% Super Metroid in 0:55, on a CD-R, because I burned a bunch of videos to CD-R back then for some reason


I still see scarlet, I will inform her of the existence of this rare artifact
I still have two official m2k2 speedrun dvds that nate sent me in return for a favor lol
red chamber dream
ah ok grenola, i won't worry about it much then
red chamber dream
i change between the two depending on the song anyway
red chamber dream
if you're looking for a random anime movie, patema inverted was pretty good. thought the concept was clever and original
red chamber dream
damn, wah pedals are so much fun lol

had never used one before today
red chamber dream


ok i would usually never post this kind of thing, but this was really touching. ol' dubya always seemed like a pretty good guy, just not a great president lol
Club 27 Goals
Quote from arkarian:
if you're looking for a random anime movie, patema inverted was pretty good. thought the concept was clever and original


how about Tekkonkinkreet? I got that downloaded and debating if I wanna watch it with a friend tonight