Humor Random Comments Thread

[kamaz]

And pop music is now a bunch of girls who all sound similar, sing about the same inane stuff, and use the same software to make up their forgettable dance-beat backing tracks.

It's worse than that -- the mainstream music industry is actively destroying talent. It has managed to take a very talented Quebecois jazz singer

singing exactly like another pop star

Despite the fact that the latter is 20 years younger and from Barbados, so you'd expect some difference in style just on just that. But - no. A pop singer nowadays is completely devoid of both their individuality and cultural heritage. It's all the same stuff, formatted to appeal to the lowest common denominator worldwide.

Meanwhile, the metal scene thrives on cultural diversity:

 

[mojoey]

No...but you don't need anti-virus software if you have it, which is just as good

That is literally what people with Macs said. Look what happened.

 

[jedidia]

Meanwhile, the metal scene thrives on cultural diversity:

Two things that highly amused me:
1. That waylander is still a thing,
2. That pirate metal is a thing. I prophesied the emmergance of the genre some 15 years ago :lol:

 

[Artlav]

Hm, while we talk about music...
What do you think about that one?

The lyrics are the main part, of course.

I remember back when i knew no english, i liked a bunch of western songs just for the music in them.
Some of them no longer sound right, now that i can understand them.
Vice versa with the local ones - it's usually the lyrics rather than the music.

So i wonder what does it sound like when you can't hear what is it about (and what do you think he is singing about?)

 

[Urwumpe]

Two things that highly amused me:
1. That waylander is still a thing,
2. That pirate metal is a thing. I prophesied the emmergance of the genre some 15 years ago :lol:

you are some years late then after Running Wild, 1987. :lol::lol:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZUN6-JwwMA"]Running Wild - Under Jolly Roger - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Bibi Uncle]

Quote:
Originally Posted by kamaz

It's worse than that -- the mainstream music industry is actively destroying talent. It has managed to take a very talented Quebecois jazz singer

Celine Dion - J'irai ou tu iras - YouTube

and convert her into a run-of-the-mill American pop star

Celine Dion - Because You Loved Me (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Speaking against Céline Dion is a crime here in Québec. No, just kidding :lol: Even if her career is very pop oriented, her singing talent is still amazing. My girlfriend really likes her, so I know a lot of her songs. I personnaly prefer her French songs :

 

[Urwumpe]

After bearded ladies, the next surprise: Australia will take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. :blink:

 

[C3PO]

In 1959 [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Show_Jumping_Championships"]Uruguay[/ame] was European champion.

 

[jedidia]

So i wonder what does it sound like when you can't hear what is it about (and what do you think he is singing about?)

How important the lyrics are for me is often rather dependant on the style of music. For ballads like this, which often have a very similar feel to them, the lyrics are mostly what makes or breaks the song. So hearing this specific song in russian doesn't touch me very much (which is not to say that it's bad... they sound a lot like the scorpions, actually).
Since I am fluent in some south-slavic languages I even understand a word here and there, but I'm not sure about it. He seems to sing something about freedom, though I'm not sure, because the grammar of the chorus suggests that it's used as a verb, which would be startling, so I'm probably just confused by the phonetic similarity to "sloboda". About the only thing I can clearly make out is "...what fear means", but again I'm not able to catch the context. All in all I assume that it's either a love song, a lament of some kind or another emotional expierience.

In the end, how much I can enjoy a song without understanding the lyrics (or understanding them and not liking them) really depends on how lyric-centric the music is. I can enjoy many great pieces of Metal without understanding the lyrics, though understanding them can either add or take away from the enjoyment (it's really hard to listen to a Venom song, no matter how cool the riff is). And when it comes to something even less lyric-centric like Jazz, I couldn't care less about what they're singing. This is of course expounded by the fact that Jazz is perfectly well aware that the lyrics aren't very important and are often very tongue-in-cheek, and even uncomfortable lyrics are easier to bear if you know that they're not meant seriously.

 

[C3PO]

After bearded ladies, the next surprise: Australia will take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. :blink:

I had a lot of fun after that drag act won. Every time I heard someone talk about how fantastic it was, I asked them to hum the melody. So far a grand total of ONE have been able to. (and I don't like to count him in because he can tell if a single note is in tune or not by ear) So much for ESC being a competition between composers. (BTW is that still in the rules?)

 

[Urwumpe]

So much for ESC being a competition between composers. (BTW is that still in the rules?)

Not really as far as I remember. But they still mention the composers in the subtitles, which is sadly often showing the creative monopoly, when four countries got their song written by the same song writer team.

But then... does somebody still remember the winning song of 1975? Or 1985? Or even 1995? Even 2005 is a tough one to hum :lol:

(Only 1974 is really a song to hum automatically)

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Hm, while we talk about music...
What do you think about that one?
Кипелов - Я свободен (Клип) - YouTube

The lyrics are the main part, of course.

I remember back when i knew no english, i liked a bunch of western songs just for the music in them.
Some of them no longer sound right, now that i can understand them.
Vice versa with the local ones - it's usually the lyrics rather than the music.

So i wonder what does it sound like when you can't hear what is it about (and what do you think he is singing about?)

Sorry, I did a bit of a search for the lyrics . They did not surprise me, really, as the "complexion" of the song's delivery telegraphed the general drift of the theme. BTW, where are those mountains? Hindu Kush?

My mother and I used to play a game of trying to figure out what were the themes of songs in a foreign languages. She eventually learned the basis of Spanish that way - mostly through Roberto Carlos, which I grew sick of eventually - and went on to pefect it with practice. And I got a grasp of Hindi (her co-mother tongue, as she was born and grew up in India), though I did not go on to perfect that language :lol:. No necessity, as there was in her case.

Injecting incongruity between a song's lyrics and the style makes for a humorous song. Think of Cheech and Chong's rendition of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", sung Sex Pistol's punk style.

---------- Post added at 12:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:25 AM ----------

That said, and thinking about it a bit with the aim to shoot down my own conjecture;

I would hardly have expected the song in Russian to be about a guy going out looking for trouble at night with a baseball bat in hand, but it is because its delivery is similar to, for example, Lynard Skynard's "Free Bird", of which it is practically an analogy.

I do believe that this "predictability" is based on experience, and is what makes some lyrics/style combinations incongruous, as they would be out of our scope of experience. I would hazard to guess that similar learning of behaviour patterns through external manifestations or indicators of them is employed by people with non-disabling levels of autism who manage to integrate with little problem, cases in which detection of mood nuances are not intrinsic. Similarly, teaching the "emulation" of fear to someone who has damage to their amygdala, and thereby no "true" fear (there was at least one known case of that).

In the case of the "music mood guessing game", it was subliminal learning of these patterns while using music as an instrument of andragogy to another end, which made them eventually familiar; learning a language.

So yeah, I do not think I am at all right in the first instance of the post. Say there was an alien race that made music; we would most probably get it all wrong, where attempting to determine what they were singing about was concerned. Different Machina.

 

[SolarLiner]

All this debate on music and "how it was better before" could use someone young, that loves EDM, and more precisely Trance and its subgenres.

"Before you had performers on stage, now not only they don't even bother getting there, but the singer also sings in playback"
Don't be fooled by the little boy that makes all the ladies cry (or the 5 boys, depends on who you look at). Those clearly not only sing in playback, but also have pitch-perfect version of their vocal performance so they don't ruin it with their bad singing.
However this is not true for everyone. I mean look at Armin Van Buuren's Armin Only tour:

As you can see, no dancers (except the ones from UMF), no nothing except Armin in his DJ booth.

But I agree with one thing: It's not the talent that counts, it's the whole "package"; the graphics are as important (if not more) than the gameplay, to make a parallel. You don't see Taylor Swift around singing because her voice is amazing; you see her around because some fans like her (and maybe her songs? who knows) and there is $$$ to be made on this. If you want to find the good music you'll have to dig for the indie labels; and there are quite a few. In fact, there are almost no big labels in Trance, but rather several ones. And quite a few of them were created by the artists themselves (Armada is AvB's own label, Anjunabeats is Above & Beyond's, etc.)

After that, you like Trance or you don't. I don't judge that, as much as i don't like to be judged because "I like the music that goes Umph umph umph all the time", or "those noisy things that can make a deaf man cry". I could say the same to you, the hard rock and death metal fans

 

[C3PO]

You couldn't have proven my point better if you tried. :lol:

I watched the Armin Only video twice and I didn't hear a single note during the whole thing that wasn't sampled or synthesized. The only exception was the random old woman playing drums in a window. Even the guy basking with an acoustic guitar was dubbed over with a synth. The climax of the video was the trampoline artist dislocating her ankle. Not the best example to demonstrate "live instruments" IMHO.

Trance is much more about the experience then about the music. If you removed everything but the sound, the music would be quite forgettable, and in five years time you will be hard pressed to find anyone able to even identify it.

I'm NOT saying that the experience isn't important. I just think that musical talent should at least play some part in the show. I like fast open-tuning strumming when it's well played and it "fits" the melody, but that shouldn't be the "party piece". My own guitar can play in fully synthesized mode and I love it, but I still have to play it like an instrument.

If a piece of music can't start you humming or tapping your feet or (insert whatever you like to do) by sound alone without the stage production, it isn't good music.

 

[Urwumpe]

If a piece of music can't start you humming or tapping your feet or (insert whatever you like to do) by sound alone without the stage production, it isn't good music.

Exactly... Thats the fun of the German ESC song "No no never" by Texas Lightning... it sticks in you brain quickly, despite not even slightly winning the ESC in 2006 (But Lordi was extremely great as well) in only made the 14th place, but its still a favorite here.

---------- Post added at 10:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 PM ----------

Yeah... a 1.0 grade in English... thank you Orbiter-Forum.

 

[SolarLiner]

You couldn't have proven my point better if you tried. :lol:

I watched the Armin Only video twice and I didn't hear a single note during the whole thing that wasn't sampled or synthesized. The only exception was the random old woman playing drums in a window. Even the guy basking with an acoustic guitar was dubbed over with a synth. The climax of the video was the trampoline artist dislocating her ankle. Not the best example to demonstrate "live instruments" IMHO.

Trance is much more about the experience then about the music. If you removed everything but the sound, the music would be quite forgettable, and in five years time you will be hard pressed to find anyone able to even identify it.

I'm NOT saying that the experience isn't important. I just think that musical talent should at least play some part in the show. I like fast open-tuning strumming when it's well played and it "fits" the melody, but that shouldn't be the "party piece". My own guitar can play in fully synthesized mode and I love it, but I still have to play it like an instrument.

If a piece of music can't start you humming or tapping your feet or (insert whatever you like to do) by sound alone without the stage production, it isn't good music.

Of course everything is dubbed with a synth, sounds are synthesized, samples; it's what makes the signature of the genre! So, no, this isn't live instruments but this is the same, maybe even more complex and has better artistic control, since you can tweak about everything. If you think synths are not real music then you surely don't have an open mind to listen to any of the electronic musics.

And yeah, Trance is about the experience, but as much as seeing The Beatles live, or a rocket launch. When you're there it is the most beautiful thing ever, and then you will have lifetime lasting moments to remember. But it is also about the sounds; it's just that those are different in nature. For example you very often hear supersaw pads and leads during buildup of Trance songs. The sound in itself is quite classical but done right it can produce amazing progressions.

I understand what you mean and I see how you think. Electronic music is NOT rock, or pop, or classical; and it goes deeper than the music itself. The culture is different, the meaning is different. Don't try to apply the rock music's logic on Trance music; things work different over there.

 

[C3PO]

This one got stuck in my head for ages even if it's not the kind of music I usually listen to at home. :lol:

And I'm not tired of it by far.

 

[Artlav]

Yeah... a 1.0 grade in English... thank you Orbiter-Forum.

Neat.
It's not something you realise at home - that grading systems can be so different.

Here it is 5 for perfect, 2 for fail (and 1 for epic fail, but it's not used that often).

In Germany it's upside down, in USA it's letters, and in UK it's something weird.

 

[C3PO]

If you think synths are not real music then you surely don't have an open mind to listen to any of the electronic musics.

Do you really only hear what you want to hear? Because I don't like music that only features synth loops and samples you conclude that I don't think synth music is "real music"? Why then did I spend all that money on everything from Jx3P, DX7, E-Max to M1, before I settled on my trusty old Triton EX? Not to mention the hundreds of soft-synths I've used through the years.

Synths can be used for other things than a solid wallpaper of indistinct sound behind a stage performance.

 

[SolarLiner]

Do you really only hear what you want to hear? Because I don't like music that only features synth loops and samples you conclude that I don't think synth music is "real music"? Why then did I spend all that money on everything from Jx3P, DX7, E-Max to M1, before I settled on my trusty old Triton EX? Not to mention the hundreds of soft-synths I've used through the years.

Synths can be used for other things than a solid wallpaper of indistinct sound behind a stage performance.
Casiopea - Swear *Perfect Live 1986* - YouTube

Whoa, hold on there; I didn't write that for you, it was more of a general statement to those who thinks that way (and IRL I know quite a few, and that's annoying). I don't say that you specifically didn't like synths or anything And quite the synths indeed.
Synths are instruments as well, it's up to people to use them, whatever they want to make. It happens that in electronic music, the synths are primarily used, as opposed as pianos and guitars in other genres. I don't quite know why or how does that make the genre any good or bad.

In a parallel universe ...
"Hey mom take a listen to this!"
"Whoa there son what's this instrumental noise? Is there even any electronics in what they use? Get outta here with this noisy-nonsense !"