Album of the Year So Far
 

The Introduction thread isn't working very well so I thought I could make a thread of something I love, music from 2012. I have been on a bit of a kick of listening to music made in 2012. I like the thought of being 'in the now' so I have a few 2012 albums. But enough of me, to the point!

In this thread post the best album from 2012 so far, along with the album art, and a short description. Maybe if it picks up I can make a poll and we can have a community accepted album of the year so far.


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151a-Kishi Bashi
Orchestral, Dream Pop, Happycore

Kudos for joining in and contributing new threads to the community, but it looks like there's a similar thread here:
http://www.musicbanter.com/general-m...way-point.html
It'd be cool to get your input :)

I had no idea there was such a thing as happycore, let alone Orchestral dream pop/happycore. May have to look that album up.

Wellllll, happycore isn't an actual thing. You can put 'core' at the end of anything to describe it. For example: sexycore, ragecore, catcore, MBcore.

No you can't. That's how all this [insert genre here][insert sub-genre here]-core nonsense got started. What makes something "core", huh? What are Iron Maiden? If a "core" metal band, are they metalcore? If not, why not? Marillion? Progressive-core rock? It's ridiculous in my opinion to think you can just add -core to a genre/sub-genre and make a new sub(sub?) genre.

It's getting out of hand: what are we, ameobae??

I accept that some "core" subgenres do exist --- metalcore, deathcore, grindcore etc --- but you can't just keep making them up because you want to. What the hell would happycore be, anyway??

A more upbeat version of hardcore techno.

All of these "-core" types of music are derivative of the styles of music that were labeled "hardcore" in the 80s and 90s:

• Hardcore punk (though it's evolved so far away from punk that it's really its own genre now, which is why the "punk" was dropped from the name long ago)
• Hardcore techno
• Hardcore rap

Hence we now have things like metalcore (metal mixed with hardcore punk, theoretically), horrorcore (hardcore hip hop with horror themes), and happycore (upbeat music descended from hardcore techno). There actually is sort of a logic to it, though I agree it's gotten out of hand, and having the "-core" referring to three totally different things doesn't help.

I don't think I'd associate Kishi Bashi with electronica, let alone techno. Art/chamber/dream pop for sure though.

Ok, the reason for me using things like ''happycore'' and ''whatevercore'' is simply for a lack of better sub-genre names. I don't know every sub-genre that has ever existed, so for a lack of knowledge I just put ''happycore.'' It describes the album in that it has a very happy sound. I on the other hand (supporting my first point) had no idea that happycore was already an established genre.

For the Iron Maiden part, I think my first agrees with this in that I did the ''-core'' thing from a lack of actual sub-genre names. I would never call Iron Maiden a metalcore band, because metalcore is an established genre so it wouldn't make sense to call them metalcore.

I am not trying to create new genres here. This kind of thing should only be used for artists that are so unique that the current genres and sub-genres do not do them justice. This doesn't apply to Kishi Bashi. I will try to use ''-core'' as sparingly as possible for now on.

Ohhh. I didn't realize happycore was a techno subgenre. I thought it was some sort of cheerful, upbeat hardcore punk. Which I would love to hear.

Now we all know what happy hardcore or whatever it is I'm closing this.