Soundwave menu
Art by Roland Winkhart I thought to write about something else today, but I’ll stick to music and keep it light (and no, I have not been singing karaoke again). Music is one of those universal things that are part of cultures as self-evidently as food and clothing among other things. I am not going to ponder about different uses of music, what one’s preferences in music might tell about oneself, why music can move us so much, or any other interesting dimensions of sonic magic. I might do some of that later, though. Maybe you will do such pondering in the comments section in addition to telling what those soundwaves that you have been putting your fork and knife (or spoon or sticks if it wasn’t all fingerfood) into have been called?
During the last week my soundwave menu (served to needs of all floors of my house of consciousness, more or less) has been dominated by these artists and their cookings (not in any particular order): Kate Bush: Lionheart, Laibach: Wat, Ovro: Gegendurchgangenzeit, Niko Skorpio: The Hidden Nameless, Cosine Nomine: Electric Deer Fiends, Pixies: Surfer Rosa, Keuhkot: Minun käy sääliksi bilharzialoista, Wesley Willis: Greatest Hits, Vol.3, Bad Sector: Plasma, and des Esseintes: Les Diaboliques.
posted by Tapio Kotkavuori at Monday, February 20, 2006
10 Comments:
I'm a rather unmusical fellow. At school music was the only thing I hated and scored super low at.
I haven't played any music this week or the one before.
I like to listen to music, but I rarely put on anything of my own choice (I mostly listen if there is music somewhere). Music tends to work somehow "bipolarly" for me. I love simple, stupid, commercial music like Roxette, Belinda Carlisle, Celine Dion, you get the picture. It makes me happier than I already am. That it's simple and light unburdens my usual mode of over intellectualization and seriousness. It doesn't bother me in the least that people thing I listen to shit, quite the contrary.
I also love sisters of mercy, especially the album _First and Last and Always_. The dark semi nihilism in it pops me into the other extreme of inspired elation and joy. It makes me very happy, too, but stirs a little deeper emotion than the happy go lucky department. This album is one of the few I may put on on occasion, mostly when driving a car.
In short I'm a dilettanta and an idiot with music. I have no aspirations to become a cultivated listener or to learn to appreciate something "difficult". Most of my friends are pretty cultivated in music and have refined tastes. Music is much more a part of their identity and life than mine. I like them that way but have no intention of changing this aspect of myself. I'll also keep skipping the fine wine and stick with beer, heh. ;)
Hail, Bro! :-)
And thanks a thousand times for your thoughts. I was kind of hoping that you would drop something like this :-)
I like very much the way how you put (maybe indirectly) forth questions about why music might mean so much to someone's identity.
I guess I drop into those of your friends who have that "refined" (with Tenkanen and Wesley even, huh?) taste in music.
Music has always been a huge mirror for my identity. There have been times when I have really stupidly identified (in the Fourth Way sense) with the music I have been listening to (stereotypical reference: teenage) then there have been times that I have gained completely different dimensions into the whole subject.
Nowadays I "just recognize" what makes me (and others) happy and gives me Keys to various levels of inspiration via music. And I recognize that this is something pretty idiosynchratic, nothing to do with much anything else.
In my ultimate point of view it is ultimately as cool to listen to Celine Dion as it is to listen to any stuff I do. It is all about idiosynchratic Keys to various aspects of emotions and levels of inpsiration and their use.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago - Nokia; Connecting people! :-)
Rock hard!
Sometimes I am like Petri, I don't listen to any music of my choosing. Those times I just want to BE in a music free environment with my own thoughts, in a state of meditative awareness, book or something.
I generally like music that creates a sense of wonder, energy, power or happiness. I also dislike most songs that have someone complaining about how they lost their job, how the world is unfair, etc.
As you know Wesley Willis is also one of my favorites. His purity of intention always inspires me. And I can listen to his records 24/7 when I'm in the mood. "I'm going on a world tour, I'm going on a world tour!" This is a guy who really enjoyed doing music.
Classical music... I've always liked Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King, Sibelius, Beethoven and Bach (C.P.L and J.S.) all have their moments and my wife has been trying to get me into Russian classical piano music.
Metal. Almost anything from trash to doom as long as it is played with feeling and dedication, the exception being nu metal. Old Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Venom and Celtic Frost are always on my playlists now.
I also like to listen to "macho music", metal or not, such as Manowar, Motorhead, Glenn Danzig and some of the songs by W.A.S.P.
Japanese pop. Shonen Knife, Puffy Ami Yumi, Orange Range! Man, I could almost move to Japan! It's not just the music, which is worlds apart from Western Pop, but almost. Women singing about collecting insects and cats dreaming about catnip, cool stuff.
I think I forget alot of things I've been listening to, but that's a start!
I have fairly diverse tastes in music. I like light opera such as Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman. I like world music, in particular the middle eastern types, Egyptian, Greek, etc. Celtic music, too. I like pop such as the standard radio plays.
I like most classical except 'modern' which is too dissonant. I think the variety is good. Music makes a good background. And sometimes it is very inspiring in a magical sense, but it's as you said 'various levels of inspiration' all useful.
Harry, my man! Where is your blog? ;) Would be nice to hear from you and your cats...
I LOVE Japan. Just for creating PRIDE (www.pridefc.com) they are God (although Fedor is actually God). ;) The future has already happened in Japan and nobody even noticed. I will get there.
Hi Harry,
Ah, Japan... :)
I guess I need to mention here a wonderful japanese band called Ex-Girl (http://www.exgirl-kero.com/). I totally fell in love with the band when they visited Turku some years ago.
They are something as wonderfully creative, positively nuts, plus as original as Nina Hagen, Frank Zappa, or Devo at their best ever. I think seeing them live is still one of the best live-experiences I have ever had. It was something totally out of this world, in a very odd way positive and happy, and definitely from planet Kero-Kero.
When it comes to surfing web, one of the regular sites I visit is www.engrish.com -- some brilliant japanese stuff there! :-)
Let's Kancho! :-)
http://www.outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher1.html
I just bought the first four KISS studio albums. KISS were the first band that literally rocked my perception of the world, at the age of seven or so. :-)
I was curious to re-obtain these albums that had a huge influence in my childhood, in order to explore (and perhaps re-experience?) those first impressions from an old fart's point of view.
It's somewhat enlightening, mostly in a non-embarrassing way I might add (mr. Simmons if you read this you can thank me with a sack of dollars). The songs I used to like as a kid still sound pretty good; whether they really stand the test of time or if it's just me & my memories, remains to be heard. It's too late an hour (and probably a wrong forum) to go any deeper on this now, though...
Yet, one thing that amuses me is how on earth the fundamentalist christians back in the day managed to see KISS as "satanic". I'd rather bet my sack of dollars on it was another marketing plot... ;-)
Japanese culture is awesome, the religions are interesting, they have adapted many ideas from the Western world while avoiding the pitfalls.
The martial arts, funny gadgets, a language as strange as Finnish, weird foods, outrageous esthetics, non-Western perception of sexuality, misspelled English! It's all there waiting for us!
Kancho!
skrp said:
(...)
"Yet, one thing that amuses me is how on earth the fundamentalist christians back in the day managed to see KISS as "satanic". I'd rather bet my sack of dollars on it was another marketing plot... ;-)"
I think that no black metal or any other such band can appear so wickedly and twistedly sinister than a band who was the only one at the time wearing the kind of clothes, boots and mask-painting they did, their bass-player spitting fake-blood and fire on stage... while they might have been singing songs like "Hard luck woman", "Comin´home", and "Love her all I can". Not that´s evil! :-D
Or maybe it was just another marketing plot... :-)
Listening to music is generally much more beautiful an experience than listening to one’s many ‘I’s. One way to remember oneself is to listen to others when they speak.
- Robert Earl Burton
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