MicShazam

I randomly got the idea of picking the best song of the last five years or so, including 2017. It's going to be a challenge, but here's my best try:

Best song of 2017: Tori Amos - Reindeer King


Best song of 2016: Cristina Branco - E Às Vezes Dou Por Mim


Best song of 2015: Joanna Newsom - Divers


Best song of 2014: Dir en Grey - 懐春 (Kaishun) [Yearning of Youth]


Best song of 2013: Cristina Branco - Alegria - Alice no país dos matraquilhos


Best song of 2012: Christian Mistress - Haunted Hunted


Best song of 2011: Tori Amos - Night of Hunters

MicShazam

Man, I really haven't been posting much during November. For whatever reason, I haven't been searching for quite as much new music as I usually do, so that partially explains it. The other part is laziness.

Mary Hopkin - Post card (1969)
Got this album in the mail just today and I'm not disappointed. Mary Hopkin is a 60's folk singer with a fairly baroque style. Some of these remind me of old Cher songs like Gypsies Tramps and Thieves, so the album doesn't always feel 100% like folk.
It's good stuff. Fun fact: The album was produced my Paul McCartney.


Sergio & Odair Assad - Alma Brasileira (1988)
I'm not sure where or when I found this originally, but I was going through some old music bookmarks of mine and this was among them. It's an album full of some pretty interesting, somewhat complex acoustic guitar pieces. They've got both a classical feel and a south European feel.


Shambara (シャンバラ) - Shambara (1989)
Some Japanese... city pop? I think it was Oriphiel posted some tracks of this style before and I was not aware that this particular sound was a thing. I quite like the vibe of a lot of these albums. This one in particular is notable for having quite and atmosphere to it and... some quite interesting cover artwork to say the least. Like, what the hell is that supposed to be?


Mor Karbasi - Ojos De Novia (2016)
I've posted a track from Karbasi before, but she deserves another nod. This one is the album from 2016 I'm the most hellbent on getting my hands on and catching up to. I know her from the folk/world music magazine Froots. I think I'd like to have a subscription to that one. I've found several brilliant things through that magazine already.

MicShazam

A Quick Tour Through My Year in New Music - part 1/4

I'm an old fashioned moron that still buys CD's, which means that I can't afford to get every single new album that I'm interested in for 2017. This is just as well, since I can't really hold all that much music in my head anyway. I've got my plate full with all of the new tracks I'm checking out weekly, the mountains of older albums that I've bought and the 2017 albums that I did manage to get my hands on.

During this 4 part series of posts, I'd simply like to briefly write a little bit about each of the albums that I've bought this year. Parts 1 to 3 will be all the 2017 albums that I have now (there's 11 of these) and part 4 will be those that I might possibly get as a Christmas present, since I did put quite a few 2017 albums on my wishlist.

Of course, these are not the only albums from this year that I've heard, but they are the only ones that I own on disc and the only ones that I've made it my business to listen to in full enough times that I can remember the whole album. It's hard to get really intimate with albums when there's so much music to pay attention to, what with all the streaming services and media news outlets, this forum, etcetera. I find that buying CD's actually helps me build that sort of close relationship with new albums that I have with those old favorites from my teenage years. Once you bought a disc, you kind of feel like you have to listen to it - otherwise, what was the point?

Moving on.

Arch Enemy - Will to Power

My enthusiasm for this album has cooled quite a bit since I first got the disc. It's pretty good. Even one of the best of the band. It's just that Arch Enemy really isn't the most interesting band on the planet. It's a good album for when I'm in a particular sort of mood, but mostly, I've got other metal albums lifting the task of being a solid melodeath album much, much better.

Basically: Non-essential.

Crystal Viper - Queen of the Witches

Rock solid heavy metal. Sounds like it could have been released in the 80's and been considered a classic by now. I don't actually think this album is getting all that much attention, but we're in 2017 and this is "just" a slab of regular, ol' no-frills heavy metal. Pretty damn good such, with enthusiastically colorful solos, soaring vocals and impressively sharp songwriting making this one a genre-favorite of mine already.

Basically: Best pure heavy metal album of 2017.

Depeche Mode - Spirit

I never gave up on Depeche Mode, but around the time they put out Sounds of the Universe, I did feel like their best days were well behind them. Spirit makes a really strong argument that it's too early to count Depeche Mode out. Basically, this album is really, really strong. Detailed, moody, well written, emotinally potent - sometimes even fun. Plus this album has atmosphere in spades. **** yeah.

Basically: One of the best albums of the year? Certainly one of the most pleasant surprises.

MicShazam

A Quick Tour Through My Year in New Music - part 2/4

A bunch more to go. I was thinking whether or not I want to talk about all of those many, many albums I've listened to this year that were not from this year. Joni Mitchell, Cristina Branco, Carly Simon, Carole King, etc. etc. etc... there are many albums that have colored my experience of this year very heavily, that were of an older date, but for now, I guess those will not be discussed. I've got some sort of weird obsession with current music, in that I really feel a motivation to keep my finger on the pusle of the current year and have an opinion about brand new music. Arguably, it shouldn't matter at all when an album is from, but I can't be the only one who find there to be some kind of extra attraction to keeping up with what's going on right now?

Anyway, I don't consider myself an above average writer, but I'd happily give my perspective on any music that I've heard, so if you want me to write about the many older things that I've explored this year, just say so. But really, I'm not being falsely modest here, I do not think I'm good at writing or at articulating my thoughts about music. I like trying to be better, so I guess that's really where some of the motivation for doing this journal comes from. The rest is just that I feel genuine enthusiasm for music, and that I would like to share that. Plus I want to challenge myself to be better at writing about music, but... It's clear to me that certain posters on this site are vastly more sharp than me when it comes to that.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm just doing the best I can. My best quality is that I really, really love music. I don't know if I'm managing to say much about this music, so if you've got some suggestions; let me know.

Enough rambling. Here's another few 2017 albums that I bought on CD and what I think about them.



Dreaming Dead - Funeral Twilight

I've been into this melodic death metal act since they put out their debut album in 2009. Elizabeth Schall, the lead guitarist, vocalist, writer and composer of this band is really the one who deserves most of the credit for how great this underappreciated little band is. Her band has been through a series of band-mate changes over the years, but it's clear by now that the heart and soul of the band is in her.
I loved the first album, Within One, and the follow up, Midnightmares, was an interesting evolution of that very sound, this time somewhat more austere and moody. I loved that one as well.

This new album is... well... Somewhat disappointing. The main thing that I loved about Dreaming Dead was how the songs flowed and how they had this emotional anchor, despite being rooted in melodic death metal and even thrash metal - two genres generally more concerned with energy and aggression than evocation of any deeper emotions. This album is fast paced, short (barely 29 minutes!) and rather more concerned with speed and with referencing various death metal and thrash metal traditions. Here and there, the Dreaming Dead that I connect with comes up to the surface, but mostly, this is somewhat faceless and doesn't play to the strenghts of the band. Kind of frustrating, really, since the wait for this short album was so very, very long. There's no nice way to put it: This album is a disappointment to me.

Basically: Check out the previous two albums...

Kobra and the Lotus - Prevail I

I wrote about this album already in here and... well... it's great. Overproduced? Sure. Simple? Sort of, yes. Fun? You bet. Can't recommend it highly enough. It is probably a prerequisite that you're into heavy metal. Although sometimes it makes me feel like I'm listening to some old Lacuna Coil record. Either way, this is potent, entertaining and life affirming metal. The kind of thing that fills my tank rather than draining it.

Basically: Shake your booty or be square. This is good.

Marialy Pacheco - Duets

It's a bit of a difficult album to talk about. My opinion of it has changed several times but... it's definitely interesting. The album is centered around piano performances, although some tracks put vocals front and center. Marialy is a piano player, so that's obviously going to be the main dish. The idea, as I understand it, is that she's collaborated with a variety of musical artists that she admires. One for each track. Each track represents a meeting of her creative voice and that of one of her musical idols - thus the title of the album.
There's quite a variety of musical styles on display and my feelings about each individual track are so different from each other that it's difficult to say something about the album as a whole.
It's good.
Is that a cop-out?

Basically: Interesting for sure. I think I love it...? Your mileage may vary.

MicShazam

As a little intermission, here's a few interesting things I've dug up from the mostly barren soils of Youtube:

Kilpi - Nerokasta ikävää
Just some pretty straight forward Finnish metal. What I like here is the really classic sound of the guitars. The solo near the end is the kind of thing that made me fall in love with metal in the first place.


Lingua Ignota - All Bitches Die
Whoa! Ok, this is pretty cool. Any attempts at a description would spoil the surprice. Just check it out and be happy you did.


Sinistro - Abismo
The new single from Portugese doom betal band Sinistro's upcoming, early 2018 album. What I like about this band is their combo of musical style and vocal style. Pretty unique and very Portugese.


Burning Witches - Black Widow
Sounds like someone resurrected 80's Judas Priest in the shape of a East European, all-woman heavy metal band. I like this song. Good fun.


Anneke van Giersbergen - Fury
Ever since I heard that Vuur album earlier this year, I've been feeling pretty curious about what Anneke's older albums sound like. So far, I've found some good things and some rather boring things. This album seems like it could be worth my time. I really like this song.

MicShazam

I'm always behind in actually getting to fully listen to all of the music I'm interested in, so I thought it might be interesting to share some of all the albums I want to give my full attention eventually. Posted below are all fo the albums from 2017 and 2016 that I look forward to getting my hands on/familiarizing myself with the most.

There are of course tonnes more albums, but I choose to just show those from the two most current years.

I keep a system of folders on my hard drive with thumbnails of album covers. This is a good way for me to remember the most interesting discoveries that I've made. The pictures below are simply pictures of the contents of the 2016 and 2017 folders. As such, there will be no information about genre or any reasoning why I'm expecting good things from these albums. It's just a sort of snapshot of what I'm interested in and where my musical tastes/interests seem to be moving.


2017 albums:





2016 albums:




EDIT: I know the pictures are so wide they push the walls of the thread a bit, but I'm going to allow it for just this one page.

Mindy

only heard of one of the 2016 albums and none of the 2017 albums :/


interesting music going on in here, i listened to the top songs in 2015 and 2014

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MicShazam

I'm just finding those albums by a sort of random process of exploring a lot of different sites over the year. Then I save a cover image of all the albums that trigger my curiosity the most when I hear some samples from the album. So it kind of ends up being a mess of all sorts of things.

I must admit that I don't even have much of an idea what sort of music you're genereally into, so I can't even point you towards something that you might find worth your time.

If you mean the Joanna Newsom and Dir En Grey tracks at the top of the page, then I'd be curious what you thought of that Dir En Grey track especially. They seem to be sort of the anchovies of modern metal and rock. Most people hate them, but the few that love them, really, really do so.

Mindy

Okay, Ill have that in mind, when I listen.

That is a smart thing to do, I guess I don't give full albums a listen sometimes because of the song names. I listen to most types of music, I used to say everything but country but really there is older country artists I like a lot.

Ill check out both of those artists, and try to find songs I like. thanks for the artists to check out, I'm trying to find more new bands to listen to. I really like the 1960's and early 70's music. Not really disco, but i like some disco songs.

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Mindy

Dir En Grey, not my taste of much. the music has a lot of energy but the words are different :/

Joanna Newsom, there was only the muppets theme song on spotify :/

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