mercredi 27 Fév 2008, 17h21m
I like this meme chain letter I found on ainurel's journal, but let's modify it just a bit…
I also will not go beyond top ten – my time is limited. Also the list is still quite alive in the middle, the top ten seems quite settled after over 30000 tracks played.
Also included: a semirandom video for each artist. To win your heart.
Johnny Cash
First song you heard: Must have been I Walk The Line or some other overplayed classic Cash song.
Favourite song: Wichita Lineman
Favourite album: Unearthed
Comment: The one and only Johnny Cash – but to me, the entity called Johnny Cash is a duo. Cash himself, naturally, is the Voice, but one should not forget the producing genius Rick Rubin – the man also behind Slayer's most classic records and other notable recordings (and bunch of some not-so-notables). This team spans of course only small part of Cash's humongous discography, the very last part, but still, it's five albums of American Recordings and the often forgotten, but magnificent, box set Unearthed.
Old man and his guitar, what else do we need? His wife, Tom Petty, Joe Strummer, Nick Cave and some other guest musicians, of course. Most of the songs are covers, but remember, Johnny Cash didn't cover songs, he showed how they should have been done in the first place.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go
Pink Floyd
First song you heard: I blame radio play, for year I had only heard Another Brick in the Wall and something for Ummagumma, so no wonder I somehow missed the entire band for yours. Luckily vesapai showed me the light ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the soundtrack replaced with Echoes and I was sold.
Favourite song: Wish You Were Here
Favourite album: Wish You Were Here
Comment: I listened a couple of weeks mostly Pink Floyd. Most likely the best progressive rock band ever – most likely to the most unoriginal progressive rock opinion ever. But why people tend to especially praise Dark Side of the Moon, I personally rank Wish You Were Here and even Animals higher than it.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8ioavsW0tgI
CMX
First song you heard: Pelasta maailma, Ruoste, something like that?
Favourite song: Palvelemaan konetta. Maybe.
Favourite album: Talvikuningas
Comment: The opposite of my Pink Floyd experience. I was not lost, the band was. CMX's very beginnings as a hardcore punk band are worth a sidenote, and I still don't get the 90's CMX - I am not female nor an art major.
But then came the massive Talvikuningas loaded with megatons of Alastair Reynolds. The song do not dominate my Top Track Overall -list for the sole reason I first "found" the mp3 files from the Net and only later bought the genuine overpriced cardboad box edition set myself – and people are not having a very great consensus on how the tracks should be tagged, some people wanted to included the Roman numerals or even the albums title. Nonsense, says I, both ogg and mp3 formats have specific tags for both album title and track number.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FXQJnsS9Wq4
Morrissey
First song you heard: Album openers have a tendency to be also the first artists you hear on an artist, and the same goes here: America Is Not The World. But I must add that when I got to First Of The Gang To Die, I had to repeat it three times before proceeding to the rest of the record.
Favourite song: Come Back To Camden
Favourite album: You Are The Quarry
Comment: Morrissey is my soft, emotional, loveless side. We all have these moments.
By the way, I can't understand what purpose Robbie Williams has, because somehow it think Morrissey is Robbie Williams squared. (and yes, Robbie Williams > 1, like any artist with a video featuring 70's Formula One cars).
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KKoS5X4SMrY
The Decemberists
First song you heard: Can't remember
Favourite song: Randomizing… ready: Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
Favourite album: The Crane Wife or Picaresque
Comment: This is the way like my indie rock, acoustic and powerful, full on folk music influences. No whiny singers, no too much guitar effects, no too much everything (yes, I'm talking about a lot of bands including but no way limited to The Arcade Fire), just beautiful melodies and compositions. I recommend the before-mentioned albums to about, well, everyone and their dog.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tK3Ce9md96g
Einstürzende Neubauten
First song you heard: Strategies Against Architecture III begins with Zentrifuge
Favourite song: Architektur Ist Geiselnahme
Favourite album: I still like that best of -double disc
Comment: I am total wuss, the early Neubauten is experimental music, and to my opinion, more experiments than music. SAA III spans the years 1991-2001, during which they incorporated melodies and other sell-out stuff into their music.
These strange Germans are most likely not everyone's cup of tea. Some of us even like… coffee.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PBP57yI-jmY
Mastodon
First song you heard: Seabeast
Favourite song: Blood And Thunder
Favourite album: Leviathan
Comment: It feels strange, doesn't it, you are reading my list, and this is where we run into the first metal band – and it's not a very traditional metal band – it's albums are usually reviewed in indie music magazines and website like Pitchfork. On the liner notes, the drummer Brann Dailor is listed first and for a reason. His heavily fill-loaded jazz-influenced drumming makes a lot of Mastodon's appeal.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZKw2s_AxUIw
Blind Guardian
First song you heard: Old favourite, no idea.
Favourite song: Lord Of The Rings
Favourite album: Imaginations From The Other Side
Comment: The wold's best power metal band to be taken seriously. Yes, you can take power metal seriously. No, you don't even have to be a live action role player.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=u_tORtmKIjE
Covenant
First song you heard: Where did I even run into this band?
Favourite song: Call The Ships To Port
Favourite album: Skyshaper
Comment: Wouldn't be my list without synth-pop of some kind and Covenant is as good as it gets.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rg7HRcRvpxQ
My Dying Bride
First song you heard: I tried to listen Like Gods Of The Sun as a teenager and did not undersand it at all.
Favourite song: The Cry Of Mankind
Favourite album: A Line of Deathless Kings
Comment: How and when did My Dying Bride get here? One of my musical loves has "always" been dark, melodic, romantic gothic, doom or death metal, but somehow traditionally I myself would have thought Paradise Lost or Type O Negative get here. Oh well, Bride's not a bad choice either.
(Funny how bands of this genre go the certain classes depending on their take on love and sexuality: In My Dying Bride songs, there is clearly some first hand experience of love, but it always goes terribly wrong. Saturnus does not get even there, no wonder one of their albums is titled For The Loveless Lonely Nights – in the end the maid will drown herself in the lake, depressed by the unsatistied need for love. Type O Negative, on the other hand, is loaded with pure lust. Paradise Lost
is not even interested in the subject as whole.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FwixeppJBBQ
So, is this list accurate? No. My very all time favourite band Iron Maiden is missing somewhere – and the reason is of course vinyl media and lack of any connectivity between my turntable and Last.fm. On the other hand, I don't even have a CD player anymore (except a portable one which i sometimes use due the lack of a pocket-sized vorbis/mp3 player), so all my music goes into the music directory and is played by Amarok (I enjoy how conviently I can throw any album on the playlist and seamlessy let the player play random tracks from the collection once the album is played). This means basicly all music in my possession and in some digital format will be submitted to Last.fm when played.
But that aside, I think I've got quite openminded during the years of my adult life. These days I can listen almost anything except what they play on the radio. And on the MTV. Fuck contemporary R'n'B.