Oooh, this fun. (Warning: Lots of embedded videos). (DBO)

by cheapLEY , Sunday, April 08, 2018, 18:48 (2448 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

What do you look for in music? What is musics purpose for you?

Anything and everything. Music is extremely important to me. I'd give up any other form of entertainment before I gave up music. Books, movies, games, television . . . it all pales in comparison to music for me. I spend a bunch of my free time in the evenings just listening to music. If I'm not doing something like playing a game or watching a movie, something that requires my full attention, I have music playing.

[*]How has your taste for music changed, if they have, through the years and what do you think caused this/these change(s)?

My tastes have changed drastically. As an angsty teen, I listened to a bunch of emo and post-hardcore stuff. Lots of screamo. I rejected pop music on its face, and if it was played on the radio, I probably hated it. Now, I'm much more open and listen to a wide variety of genres, and some of my favorite stuff (Have I mentioned how great Taylor Swift is?) is stuff I wold have outright rejected in the past.

Music discovery is something I devote a lot of time to. Spotify has been incredible for that, and beats the hell out of the old days of trolling MySpace (and then, later, YouTube). I listen to my Discovery Weekly playlist on Spotify (a playlist the algorithms create every Monday to feed you 30 new songs). I'm not really sure how the algorithm works, what it's parameters are, etc, but I like more songs it feeds me than I dislike, so it works well for me.

[*]Bonus Question: Have you ever played an instrument? If so do you still play? Are or were you any good? Is there anything you've thought about playing?
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No. Always wanted to learn the guitar or piano, but I'm just not willing to dedicate the time.

Now, I'll provide a sample of my current favorite stuff, because I love sharing and talking about music, and also I'm just self-indulgent.

Brand New has been one of my favorite bands since middle school. Every album they put out is completely different from the last, and they're all good. They put out a new one last year (probably their last) and it's incredible, called Science Fiction. It's an interesting album, in that it's different from all their others, but it still feels like a culmination of everything they've done before--there are echoes of every previous album in there.

I legitimately spent 30 minutes previewing songs to decide which one to post. This one isn't my favorite, but it is the opening of the album, and it sets the tone well.

Closely related to Brand New is Manchester Orchestra, which, if pushed, I would have to say is my favorite band. Like Brand New, every one of their albums sounds completely different from the last. They also put out a new record last year (A Black Mile to the Surface), and it's the best thing they've ever done. This record feels like a real turning point for the band, to me.

Here's my favorite song from that album:

And here's the song that got me into them, and a music video I love for reasons that should be obvious.

Julien Baker is rising on my personal list of favorites.

Pianos Become the Teeth is also great.

The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die is leading the charge of emo revival (or maybe post-emo, I dunno), and their record Harmlessness is one of my favorite albums ever.

JYOCHO is my current obsession. This is what I put on when I just want to sort of zone out and relax.

I got really into post-rock and all its sub-genres and sort of related genres within the past five or six years or so.

It started with Fang Island.

And progressed to And So I Watched You From Afar, who put on what might be the best live show I've ever seen (in some tiny dive bar in the Castro district in San Francisco). That then moved into the typical Explosions in the Sky, Caspian, mogwai, Russian Circles, 65daysofstatic, etc.

I could do this forever, but you're all bored to death by now, I'm sure.

I'd be remiss if I didn't post the pop star that is competing with Taylor Swift for me, though.

If anyone made it this far and is interested, here's a link to a few of my Spotify playlists. They are the results of my Discover Weekly songs. If I like a song from Discover Weekly, I add it to a Discovered [Current Year] playlist. At the end of the year, I add that playlist to a huge Discovered Past playlist and start a new one for the new year. Attempts to further organize those songs into smaller playlists are incomplete.

Discovered 2018

Discovered Past Years