The Batlord

Nah nobody likes your smilies or Simpsons' gifs.

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Trollheart

Good how you can speak for the entire forum now.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I don't know why you think this is only my opinion.

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Trollheart

Maybe because you're the only one saying it?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Sorry that nobody has responded in an hour.

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MicShazam

I honestly feel like I suck at expressing how I feel about music. I wish I had some other way of sharing the music I love than writing about it, but I can't think of a good method. I might just have to take some people hostage at gunpoint and play music for them until they say they like it.

Gonna do some more of these, but ugh... motivation is low. Just posting a bunch of Youtube videos is so much easier.

Anteater

Just do a few youtube videos with a sentence or two of what you like about them. That's pretty simple.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

MicShazam

Artist: Happy Rhodes
Album title: Building the Colossus
Year: 1994
Album link: https://open.spotify.com/album/4YXpNU2es1uhSKEE67qSLf

Happy Rhodes is a pretty obscure 80's/90's artist who I only know of because a retrospective collection of some of her early material was published recently.

After hearing that compilation album, I managed to get one of her 90's albums on CD, which felt like an important event, because I get kind of carried away when I find a new artist that excites me.



Happy Rhodes


The music here is almost entirely in service of Rhodes' elaborate vocal melodies and vocal overdubs. Some songs even have some pretty 90's sounding beats, but you will find a lot of different types of arrangements on this album. Some songs feel a bit funky, some melancholy and atmospheric, some almost a bit dance-able.

Check out the awesome bass, keyboard and guitar backdrop in the song "Omar". Also notice how the music suddenly sounds like something from Bowie's "Labyrinth" soundtrack for a second just before it kicks into a vocal bridge, then goes back to it's drop-dead-gorgeous, darkly beautiful, moody verses. We also get some simple but wonderful guitar lead work a bit into the song. Not least, Rhodes' voice is ****ing amazing all the way through this song. Her lows, her highs... all just impeccable. This song is "all time favourites" material for me.

I don't think the music is all that deep in general on this album, or what I've heard from other Happy Rhodes albums, so there's no doubt that you've got to connect with her singing style and voice to find anything of value here. Personally, I'm totally on board and very happy that I found Happy. Sorry.

Highlights:
Collective Heart
Omar
You Never Told Me
If I Ever See The Girl Again

MicShazam

Artist: Beth Orton
Album title: Sugaring Season
Year: 2012
Album link: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iGGHaRS9W9FJCnEdWGjfF

Singer/songwriter material. This genre is gonna take up some space in this thread, that's pretty much guaranteed.

I started in the early part of Orton's discography. She got her start in the mid 90's, so this 2012 album is fairly deep into her career.

I like the early material, but I'm honestly pretty impressed with her progression. This album enjoys the benefits of both her more matured singing voice, that seems to have gained a whole new dimension since the album "Trailer Park", but the songwriting is also damn near perfect here.

Each song is eminently memorable and brimming with personality. I also love how the album feels perfectly consistent in vibe and texture, while the songs actually manage to touch upon quite a few genres for inspiration.



Beth Orton


Instrumentation sounds great all the way throughout and I feel like this genre, at it's best, really makes me appreciate good quality sound like few other genres. It's so much about nuance and you will get a heck of a lot more mileage out of this sort of music if you've got an appreciation for all the little variations in texture and harmony, the frequently subtle and sparse use of bass notes, the sometimes quietly skittering percussion, and of course not least the expressive nuances of the vocal performance(s).

This album is a great showcase for why I love this sort of music. If you don't get what attracts me about music (been said before by various people that they can't get a feel for what goes on in my head when it comes to music), listen to the song "Poison Tree" (link below) on good speakers/headphones and try to really listen with patience to all of the little details and the unfolding melodies. And same goes for "Dawn Chorus". That one might actually be my favourite, but it's a hard album to choose favourites from.

A really good album. Plain and simple.

Highlights:
Dawn Chorus
Candles
Poison Tree
See Through Blue
Last Leaves of Autumn

MicShazam

Artist: Tori Amos
Album title: Abnormally Attracted to Sin
Year: 2009
Album link: https://open.spotify.com/album/4MPDYyzBRzspZvv8q84S1V

This album single handedly changed my musical tastes and set off a chain reaction that led to where I am now.

If discovering Metallica was what came to define my musical tastes as a teen and a young man, the discovery of Tori Amos showed me the direction I needed to move in as I was slowly growing out of what had made the most sense to me as a teen.

One thing led to another: I discovered artists loosely related to Tori Amos; then artists related to those, and so on. Then, having adjusted to new sounds over time, I started hearing other genres with new ears and that brings me to 2018.



Tori Amos

This album approaches the singer/songwriter tradition from a pretty odd angle. The songs on here vary quite a bit in style and some of them have various slight hard rock, prog rock, blues or electronica influences seeping through the cracks. Some tracks are way more like what you might expect this album to sound like if you don't know Tori Amos, but know the genre. Amos was always pretty unique in her musical approach, so it doesn't always feel right to just label her "singer/songwriter" and let that be done with.

I'm thinking about what I love about this album. It's somehow not easier to figure out when you've known an album for nearly a decade. I think that, basically, it comes down to the songs being really solid and memorable and down to how I like the vibe of the album. Like a lot of Tori Amos' material, the songs have a melancholy tinge and that trademark voice that some describe (quite unjustly) as "shrill". I love that icy cold voice with that unmistakable Southern twang. She's got certain vocal "tics" that you will either get along with or not. But that's probably the case for most notable singers. Check out the song "Curtain Call" for a song that will confront you with Tori's voice in all of it's glory. You'll figure out then if you can get on board with this or not.

I also love how this album has generally quite full sounding instrumentation, like a rock album. Electric bass and lots of layering. A lot of singer/songwriter albums are sonically sparse - which can of course be great - but I do like the way the production on these songs envelops you like a warm blanket of sound.

Some will take issue with the considerable length (17 songs, minus one bonus track) of this album - something that is business as usual for Tori - but I don't mind. There's not any song on here that I'd like to leave off. Damn good album, and of some significance to me in terms of my personal musical history.

Highlights:
Give
Flavor
Curtain Call
Fire to Your Plain
Abnormally Attracted to Sin
Police Me
Lady in Blue
Fast Horse