When was the last time you found piece that didn’t match your usual listening habits, but ended up liking it? How did you come accross it?
My taste has been mostly rock, metal and certain kinds of electroic music, but
Fallout introduced me to Billie Holiday
Youtube channel Inside the Score got me started on classical music, like actually listening and enjoying Beethoven, Sibelius and Dvorak and going even to a concert instead of just knowing the bits you can not avoid.
The jazz covers of Phoenix Wright music, especially The Dark Fragrance of Coffee, got me seeking for more of similar style.
We got the moves - Electric callboy. Popped into my recommended when it released, with me having 0 knowledge about the band or what they’re all about. Just saw this dude in a weird costume and apparently it’s techno? Not the kind of music I like, gave it a try anyway. Then it got fucking wild. Not a day goes by without at least one EC song since then.
So, I like metal. Death, thrash, heavy, doom, prog, it’s all great.
However, something like 8 years ago, I found myself really enjoying Lana Del Rey and I still can’t explain why. Then a year or two ago the same happened with Dua Lipa. They are the only artists I can’t explain and when I get suggestions similar to them I don’t like them.
Similar situation for me. Love Lana, Check out Beach House
There’s a site that gives you an album a day to listen to and review from the book ‘1000 albums to listen to before you die’. One day I got an Abba album and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had a surprisingly dense, dream-like production to it. I expected simplistic pop but was surprised by how well structured and layered it was.
People shit on Dancing Queen because of its ubiquity, but that track is an absolute masterclass in how to write a beloved three minute pop song. Benny & Bjorn know their shit.
There’s a site that gives you an album a day to listen to and review from the book ‘1000 albums to listen to before you die’.
I just found this one, in case anyone is interested.
Yep, that’s the one I used. Fantastic site.
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If you’d told me this time last year that my new favourite genre of 2023 was going to be Finnish rap, I’d have said “no I hate rap”.
Well, actually I’d have said “this is some kind of Eurovision related nonsense isn’t it?” and the answer is yes. The people’s champ Käärijä hooked me in with his party metal, got me checking out his rap back-catalogue and now Spotify has decided all my playlists should be Finnish and here we are.
“Study” playlists on Spotify.
Not all of them mind you, mostly ones where the lyrics don’t really matter. Really chill and great.
I use video game playlist when I need to get into the zone at work. Video game soundtracks are often designed to suck you in and keep you engaged without being intrusive.
Sails of Charon - Scorpions - Woah just woah this is where all those great guitar gods took inspiration from? (from Randy Rhoads to Yngwie Malmsteen). Second realization: Welp now I know why Scorpions made such a huge, they were great. Now I can deconstruct the image of those sad arena shows. Ok Germany I get it, you guys aren’t square for liking Scorpions, they were the tits. Obs: I had the same realization when I saw a clip from AC/DC playing way back when on the streets and Angus was killing it.
Buena Vista Social Club. It came up on the 1001AlbumsGenerator. It’s probably the album I’ve revisited the most.
Didn’t expect to see this, and now I have Chan Chan in my head (and I love it).
Nice. It’s a bit different from my usual listening. Plus my Spanish is very very basic.
Another that came up on the generator with a sort of similar vibe was Getz/Gilberto, more light jazz but you might like it (if you don’t already know it).
Normally I used to listen to pretty heavy rock music and metal. Ever since seeing Hamilton all I can listen to is Broadway musicals. They get shit done!
An old podcast introduced me to ‘All Day’ by Girl Talk. I thought it was the weirdest shit at first but I kept coming back to it, now I listen to it basically any time I’m doing menial/tedious work.
Miley Cyrus did a tribute to Tom Petty and it was incredible. I never thought I would say that about anything she did.
I grew up performing. Loved music of all kinds. Went and studied music at university.
Then ended up hating music. Which is so weird I know. Something about needing to perform to survive haha. I didn’t like it.
I started listening to pop music in different languages. German. Italian. French. Etc.
Was surprised and became obsessed with an obscure Italian pop band from Turin called Pinguini Tattici Nucleari. Flew there from Australia. Saw them play.
Now they are huge in Italy.
But yeh. Dunno why it took listening in a language I didn’t understand to do it for me. Probably something with appreciating the actual music, rather than a catchy pop song. I say great music “creates interest”. And it definitely does.
https://open.spotify.com/track/3V9aCzb0dOvuLHRerJ8sJI?si=a5CAgXH5SQ-ejfl6qgoEfA
Surprised by Ludovico Einaudi, as well.
I discovered a band, that I never could manage to listen to or was even interested. A while ago I got totally hooked - TOOL 🔨
And the most amazing thing the YT algo recommend - Dom whiting’s Drum’n’Bass bike ride (streams) As a fanatic cyclist I love the combo and couldn’t stop listening after the first minutes. Of course, I’m looking forward to participate to one of those.
I generally listen to a pretty big variety of music, but over the past few years I’ve really been liking jazz and big band music from the 1930s and 1940s. So much so that I made an internet radio station of public domain music from that era so I could listen to it like it was a radio broadcast then.
Note: all of my youtube links go to a Piped instance for privacy reasons (like a youtube proxy), but you can simply replace the domain name with youtube.com if you prefer
- GoGo Penguin (1, 2) - probably my biggest positive surprise in the Jazz/Fusion genre as of late. Singlehandedly re-invigorated my interest in the genre. I basically didn’t listen to this genre at all for a very long time but they changed that
- Mammal Hands (1) - I thought I didn’t even like saxophone but this band changed that. Very unexpected, very great. Apparently I just listened to the “wrong” kind of Jazz bands before. Discovered them right after GoGo Penguin.
Hey Mammal Hands surprised me too ahaha, I just wrote a comment about it
