Music What Are You Listening To?

[Shinmaru]

I listen to a lot of music, but tend to get stuck in my ways. Last year I tried to venture out and listen to a bunch of artists I never listened to before for whatever reason (the reason is I'm bad at trying new things).

Bad Brains: This is mostly listening to their amazing first album again and again, but man is that a great album. The first five songs are my go to whenever I need a quick burst of music before going out.

Kanye West: Yeah, that's basically how much of a shut-in I am -- I listened to all of Kanye's albums for the first time last year. They're all fantastic! Yeezus ended up being my favorite; its core aesthetic is right in my musical wheelhouse.

R.E.M.: I feel like I had this weird idea of what kind of band R.E.M. were for the longest time and then I listened to Reckoning and was like "oh wait I'm just an idiot." 

The Replacements: I've been spinning Let It Be, Tim, and Pleased to Meet Me a whole bunch lately. The Replacements made perfect driving around music.

Gang of Four: As a huge fan of Au Pairs, I can't believe I went so long without listening to Gang of Four. That mix of punk rock and funk those two bands excel in is 100 percent MY JAM.

I listened to a bunch more music, but those are the acts I liked most.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Shinmaru
I botched the name of an album! :(

[Annie]

I've been stuck in my roots for years now. I still adore Manson, and had the pleasure to see him in May of last year! I must confess I don't particularly care for much of his newer tunes, and wish I could've seen him "back in the day", but it was a great show nonetheless. I am still a huge fan of Slipknot, and I think even more so as the years have gone on. The Gray Chapter is pretty BA, and I also got to see them perform in Virginia Beach during the summer. I have never been so happy!

Now, the band that has really taken me by storm is Bullet For My Valentine (who I saw perform with Slipknot over the summer). It's a little bit of a story. I first heard of them back in 2006 when I worked for Hot Topic and we had to prep the store for their USA debut. At the time, I thought they were okay, and didn't really care too much for "screamo" music so I didn't really follow them. I followed other music and then back in 2014 I stumbled upon them while looking at band merch in a store, and saw they had just wrapped up their Temper Temper tour. I started researching and found out that they had continued to make music--and it was not just ok, it was AMAZING. They took their music in a more classic metal direction and broke away from that main stream screamo/emo stuff. Each album has been better than the last---except for Temper Temper (their 4th). I felt that this album is their weakest; it just didn't have any kind of life to it. And you can tell their hearts just weren't in it.

And then comes Venom, the 5th and most recent album. I'm am blown away. Sometimes, and especially in the metal world, bands just can't make a come back after a weak album. But so far, BFMV has made it back with so much strength and passion in this album. I am so very excited to see these guys continuing to kick some serious tail, and to keep to their roots. They make the music for us, but they really have stayed so very true to who they are. They are amazing live, and really cool guys! I got to meet them before the show, and I was such a n00b, but it was an experience I'll never forget!

[John]

 

Kanye West: Yeah, that's basically how much of a shut-in I am -- I listened to all of Kanye's albums for the first time last year. They're all fantastic! Yeezus ended up being my favorite; its core aesthetic is right in my musical wheelhouse.

Yeezus is actually the only Kanye album I've listened to, and I think that was just to see how close it was to Death Grips like everyone was saying at the time of its release. It was pretty decent.

[Boo]

Silversun Pickups - Better Nature
Amazing album.

Boris - Noise
Amazing album.

Glen Hansard - Didn't He Ramble
Pretty amazing album.

Marvin Gaye 
Several live and hits albums, including the duet-albums with Tammi Terrell. 

Bob Dylan
Finally wading through his oeuvre. Keep landing at The Essential Bob Dylan, though. *shrug*

Edited January 17, 2016 by Boo

[John]

Aside from running through David Bowie's discography front-to-back, I've been listening a lot to Lil Ugly Mane's swan song LP, Oblivion Access. 

If you know Ugly Mane from anything, it's almost certainly his last LP, 2012's Mista Thug Isolation, which was  the culmination of his efforts paying homage to Memphis-style gangsta rap and horrorcore. The grim subject matter and disingenuous boasting on the album worked because, like any good Southern rap album, it didn't take itself too seriously. But in his scattering of small releases since then, Ugly steadily evolved into a more idiosyncratic style and left most of the trappings of Mista Thug Isolation behind, including almost any trace of levity.

Oblivion Access is as uncompromisingly bleak as hip-hop comes. Its opening lyric is a sample from an audio recording of "The Hollow Men", and as Ugly has long made it clear how over this project he is, the idea of going out with a whimper (in a few different ways) was clearly on his mind. However, the album is made easier to endure through his production, which, though very different from most of his previous work, is as original and beautiful as it's always been. The level of care and thoughtfulness that clearly went into it acts as a welcome buoy when the lyrics have you chin-deep in death-wish and entropy.