Hot Take/ Musical Confession Thread!

thefsb said:
The Floating Points album Promises that got so much attention last year is worse than boring, it's infuriating. Clearly it's pretty light in terms of musical ideas, but that's not a problem in itself (I'll gladly listen to long Morton Feldman or Éliane Radigue recordings). It's an hour long repetition of C minor arpeggios that keep banging back at any attempts to improvise, forcing the soloist to conform to its mechanical insistence on RESOLVING between one C minor arpeggio and a slightly different one, back and forth in a cloying simulation of emotional tension. No wonder Pharaoh plays so little, there's nowhere to go.

And what a waste of resources. If I had access to the strings of the LSO, a grand master avant-garde sax player, and that bucket list of keyboards and synths, I'd put a bit a bit more work into it, I can tell you. Hire an arranger ffs, like Nels Cline did in his attempt at mood music.

It's actually very rare that music annoys me. If I don't like something I'm usually just, Meh! I don't care for it. Moving on. I actively hate this album almost as much as I hate The Joshua Tree. But at least I cannot find fault in U2's competence as a commercial pop group. They do the job, deleiver the goods, despicable as they may be, just like a Merc is a top-shelf product if you're into Teutonic richmobiles, U2 is top-shelf reactionary romantic bombast. But wtf even is Promises? An assembly of hipster style-points.
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I once took a date to see a performance of feldman’s piano with string quartet. It was a transformative experience. It’s a shame his music more prominent. Surprisingly the date was impressed.
 
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Dtknuckles said:
I once took a date to see a performance of feldman’s piano with string quartet.
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Oh, wow. Ballsy move.

When I was 19 I took a cute French chic who was spending a summer in the home counties to a Prom. Top of the bill was Harrison Birtwistle's Earth Dances (BBS SO under Eötvös). It was an unforgettable experience. All I can remember of my companion was that she was cute, French and I got nowhere with her. But the music was life changing. This story was briefly mentioned in the Gas Giants ep Birtwistle - A Round of Drinks with Ken Ueno.

Dtknuckles said:
It was a transformative experience. It’s a shame his music more prominent. Surprisingly the date was impressed.
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And....?
 
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thefsb said:
And....?
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I was not to invested in the date. We hung out a couple of times. I did take a cute Chilean girl to a Belle and Sebastian show one time. She was not really interested in me, I can’t blame her for going though. It was a once in a lifetime chance for her. The show was sold out. I was happy enough to be able to provide that for her. She did compliment me about the fact that I didn’t talk during the show.
 
Dtknuckles said:
I was not to invested in the date. We hung out a couple of times. I did take a cute Chilean girl to a Belle and Sebastian show one time. She was not really interested in me, I can’t blame her for going though. It was a once in a lifetime chance for her. The show was sold out. I was happy enough to be able to provide that for her. She did compliment me about the fact that I didn’t talk during the show.
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I took a girl to see The Cure once in 2004.
We’ve been married almost 15 years now.
 
Dtknuckles said:
I was not to invested in the date. We hung out a couple of times. I did take a cute Chilean girl to a Belle and Sebastian show one time. She was not really interested in me, I can’t blame her for going though. It was a once in a lifetime chance for her. The show was sold out. I was happy enough to be able to provide that for her. She did compliment me about the fact that I didn’t talk during the show.
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Viking Dan said:
I took a girl to see The Cure once in 2004.
We’ve been married almost 15 years now.
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I took a girl to Bon Iver, she took me to The Tallest Man on Earth, then I took her to Xiu Xiu and that scared her off and she ghosted me.
 
Hemotep said:
I took a girl to Bon Iver, she took me to The Tallest Man on Earth, then I took her to Xiu Xiu and that scared her off and she ghosted me.
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I like this topic! What’s the worst concert to take a date on?


My experience with the Feldman concert was “bold”, but I’m going to chock it up to my attitude of, “I like weird music and if you are gonna like me you are gonna have to deal with that.”
 
Dtknuckles said:
I like this topic! What’s the worst concert to take a date on?


My experience with the Feldman concert was “bold”, but I’m going to chock it up to my attitude of, “I like weird music and if you are gonna like me you are gonna have to deal with that.”
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I mean concerts are something you do with someone you are in a relationship with. I don’t want the baggage of a bad date ruining a concert experience. Then again, I’ve been married for 8 years now and wasn’t the most prolific dater to begin with.
 
Dtknuckles said:
I get your point, but I’d say the general population has a good grasp on the meanings of words, but struggle with understanding the circle of 5ths.
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It just so happens that this morning I was re-reading the beginning of chapter 8 of Formalized Music by Iannis Xenakis. (You can oogle up a PDF of it if you like.) I love how it explains that Pythagorean thinking (that things are numbers, or that things re furnished with numbers, or that things are similar to numbers) ended up dominating all modern thought. Although I suspect even Xenakis didn't see quite the scale of the digital revolution (the Shannon Revolution) already under way when he wrote it.

For another view, my friend Ken, who is an accomplished composer and a professor of music, tweeted this last month.

 
Ok here’s one. I was listening to Exile on Main St today (as prescribed by the 1001 albums generator) and while I don’t think The Rolling Stones are bad, it feels utterly random that they’re the band people have chosen to coronate as the kings of rock n roll. Like there’s a parallel universe where culturally we feel as strongly about Creedence or Mott the Hoople as we do about the Stones. It’s like the “Beatles vs Stones” debate (which, to me, revolves more around genre preference and one’s definition of “rock” than actual quality) generated the myth of parity when it comes to musical quality/influence.
 
Bull Shannon said:
Ok here’s one. I was listening to Exile on Main St today (as prescribed by the 1001 albums generator) and while I don’t think The Rolling Stones are bad, it feels utterly random that they’re the band people have chosen to coronate as the kings of rock n roll. Like there’s a parallel universe where culturally we feel as strongly about Creedence or Mott the Hoople as we do about the Stones. It’s like the “Beatles vs Stones” debate (which, to me, revolves more around genre preference and one’s definition of “rock” than actual quality) generated the myth of parity when it comes to musical quality/influence.
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Yeah, maybe I haven't listened to enough Rolling Stones, but Creedence is better IMHO.
 
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