Forum Member Album Reviews

[Frownland]

Damn. That last track is the best one on the album you big cheater baby.

It was supposed to be an opener to the album, but in an editing fluke, I accidentally opened up with all of the tracks playing at once. I liked the outcome so I kept it and made the original the closer, hence 'stripped'. Also, please get an acoustic guitar and make some not music, I'll be the first to buy your album if you think you can do it well.

Thank you for not inventing positive things to say and keeping it honest though.

[Plankton]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

First, thanks for sorting the picture on your album review. Second, sorry but I also lost the little graphics you gave me, so I just saved your avatar and worked with that. Think it came out ok in the end.

No problem. This rating system is by far the best yet, since it shows support for GOAT©!

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Well then you can certainly sing too. What's a BT? I am unfamiliar with these terms you musicians use...

BT = Backing Track. Usually consisting of only drums/bass/keys so one can wank over it.

...and thanks.

Originally Posted by Trollheart

This is interesting. What is the voice shouting?

That's Bernard Purdie shouting to a (presumably) student.

"Remember those, those quarters?"

"Remember that twelve eighths?"

He's talking about percussion time signatures. I looped the track a few times since it was quite short.

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Without question, one of your most beautiful and heartbreaking tracks. I realise now what you were going for. My god man: your soul, heart and your pain are etched in those notes!

Thank you, kind sir.

Originally Posted by Trollheart

You're more than welcome, though I should mention it's impossible to find the link: it's not on your website. For any others I could find, I've taken your advice.

Happy New Year man!

Fixed, and you have a good new year too!

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by Frownland

Damn. That last track is the best one on the album you big cheater baby.

It was supposed to be an opener to the album, but in an editing fluke, I accidentally opened up with all of the tracks playing at once. I liked the outcome so I kept it and made the original the closer, hence 'stripped'. Also, please get an acoustic guitar and make some not music, I'll be the first to buy your album if you think you can do it well.

Thank you for not inventing positive things to say and keeping it honest though.

Well now, considering you thought I'd only have a problem with track 1, I'll just say you may have been underestimating my potential for not liking your album. I will say though, I was tempted to go downstairs and leave it playing, but I resisted that impulse and listened to it all, bar the last track. TBH, if I hadn't been facing another fourteen minutes of music I hated maybe I would have done the closer, but a man can only take so much.

As to the guitar, I couldn't; I know, I tried. Couldn't even press down the strings without wincing in pain. But I managed melody of a sort on my synth, and in fairness, mine is terrible but it is recognisable. It relies on the inbuilt sequencer and the rhythm patterns that came with the machine but it does sound like music. To me, what you did just sounded like someone messing around who didn't know how to play. I'm not saying you don't --- there's probably deep meaning in their somewhere that a musician or someone into this sort of thing would get --- but that's how it sounded to me.

I hate putting down people's music: I really wish you would write something I could praise, or at least enjoy. But at the same time I won't pretend to like something I don't. I'm sure you put a lot of love and time into your music (or maybe you just got drunk/high/both) and it means a lot to you, but I could get nothing out of it. I've put my "music" (and it's really, really stretching the term to call it that) on the forum members' music thread, if you want to check it out. It's awful, it's derivative, it's a few chords played over with a melody and a few different instruments. You'll hate it I'm sure. But it is music. If you played it to the average man/woman/thing from the black pit in the street, they would probably laugh and say it was terrible but they would have to admit it was music. Have you ever tried yours out on people you didn't know, like strangers? I'd just be interested to know what people in a neutral standpoint think of it.

Not that any of this will stop you making music, nor should it. But I doubt there's ever going to be any chance I would get it. Sorry.

Am I banned?

[Frownland]

It may not be a pop song, but it's music. I don't know how to explain it any further but I think it's pretty foolish to deny it that label just because you don't like it.

Maybe if you saw it in person you'd understand it better. I know that's the case with a lot of my local jazz bands: bland records, amazing shows.

[Trollheart]

As I think I explained before, when I say it's not music I mean that it's not what I think of as music. I'm not putting down what you do, or at least I'm trying not to. I'm just saying there was nothing there for me to write about. There could be music in the wind, or the sound of cars on the road, or my cats fighting, but it would be hard to put into words, which is why it makes it so difficult to review. I couldn't even break it up like I did with YD and PV's music. There were elements there I could detect and speak about --- here's a horn, here's a piano doing a solo, there's some bouncy percussion. I couldn't hear anything like that in yours. Maybe it's my failing, I don't know, but all I could hear were unrelated sounds which did not please my ear.

But sure, we knew we'd be back to having this conversation/debate/argument again once I listened to one of your albums, didn't we?

Incidentally, why the different artist names?

[Frownland]

What you think of as music is foolish then. It being hard to review and it being music are pretty different things. The name change was because it's different from the rest of my solo records in that it's all acoustic and that it's consistent genre wise all the way through. Also, check my edit.

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by Frownland

What you think of as music is foolish then. It being hard to review and it being music are pretty different things. The name change was because it's different from the rest of my solo records in that it's all acoustic and that it's consistent genre wise all the way through. Also, check my edit.

Well it's hardly your place to tell me what I should and shouldn't think of as music. That's my own taste, and if someone loves grindcore but I don't consider it music, it doesn't make it not be music. But just the same, it doesn't make me think of it as music. I'm entitled to my opinion, which is what you get here. If it doesn't suit you, then that's not my problem. Come on: you knew this when you threw your album my way. I've hated everything else you did, so the odds were stacked against you. I understand you don't like it, but that doesn't invalidate it as my opinion. And I will continue to consider music as being something I find pleasurable, or that moves me in some way. Merzbow? Still not music to me, and you can tell me it is till you're blue in the face, but it won't change my perception of it.

And ... seconds out for round two. As expected. Why can't you just accept that I hate, and always will hate, your music, and just leave it at that? Why do you have to keep telling me my viewpoint is wrong and trying to convince me of something about which I am unlikely ever to change my stance? The fact remains (and I notice you avoided the question): play your music to anyone you don't know, and I'm sure there's a high percentage of people who will give you a very negative reaction.

[Frownland]

I never said anything bad about your opinion on the album, just talking **** on your definition of music since it's close minded.

The second point: I don't think people would outright say it's not music. Whether or not they like it is beside the point.

My edit was more in the way of saying that you would see it less as "someone just messing around on the guitar", not that you would enjoy it.

[Trollheart]

Just going to wrap up the debate here, as whenever we discuss your music or my definition of music we end up fighting. I don't want this review or its fallout to take over the thread, so let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that. But I don't want to review any more of your music. You may remember, you asked me to be as brutal as I wanted to be. I wasn't really, but you obviously didn't truly mean that. Anyway, let it go and so will I.

Moving on: 2016 project submissions now open. If you have an album that's being finished at the moment, or is finished but not released, and you want it reviewed, post here and let me know. Make sure you provide a link. Any genre.

[Frownland]

I said be brutal, not ignorant. The only qualms I had with your review is the not music bit (and the pussying out).