"Obscure" Music Tastes?

[Vasco]

They were no more awful than a lot of the acts who did better than us. Certainly years prior to now.

If you honestly think it's not politically driven, you are delusional.

I LOVE Eurovision. But, I sort of love it because it's awful...?

I don't, but the UK media & Terry Wogan make a big deal out of it.

When the UK does badly, it's a political contest, "everyone hates us", Europe is racist (I shit you not, Wogan cited this as a reason for them being last in 2008) etc etc. Now that Jade gets a good result they claim the contest is starting to "heal", real music is coming back.

I find it funny that the quality of Eurovision is based on how well the UK (or other western countries for that matter) does basically. Like the days before televoting.

Of course there's a lot of political voting. But there are hundreds of enjoyable songs every year (many of them are lost somewhere in the national finals). And I don't see why anyone should say it's inferior music. Because it's not.

Oh wow, that's off-topic. xD

Edited August 23, 2009 by Vasco

[Patticus]

Do you really think it's just a coincidence that the Baltic bloc nations all vote for each other (or their large neighbour)? How about the Balkan states, is it pure coincidence that they vote for each other too and ignore everything the west has to offer? They may or may not be racist, I don't know about that, but the amount of political voting that goes on is blindingly obvious.

[Arrow]

Terry Wogan was amazing. He was intentionally over-negative and sarcastic and it was hilarious. I'm sad he doesn't do it anymore.

And again, there's a difference between "enjoyable" and "quality. I realise it's more common in eastern Europe to use "real", established musicians, but they are very, very, very rarely famous outside of their own nations. And there is a REASON for that. Because they aren't any good.

[Vasco]

Do you really think it's just a coincidence that the Baltic bloc nations all vote for each other (or their large neighbour)? How about the Balkan states, is it pure coincidence that they vote for each other too and ignore everything the west has to offer? They may or may not be racist, I don't know about that, but the amount of political voting that goes on is blindingly obvious.

Nor did I ever say so. I don't know why my post came across as an attempt to deny that, because it isn't.

Terry Wogan was amazing. He was intentionally over-negative and sarcastic and it was hilarious. I'm sad he doesn't do it anymore.

And again, there's a difference between "enjoyable" and "quality. I realise it's more common in eastern Europe to use "real", established musicians, but they are very, very, very rarely famous outside of their own nations. And there is a REASON for that. Because they aren't any good.

Why did Andrew Lloyd Webber do it then?

If there's a reason international established acts don't do it, it's the fact they don't need to show the world their music, because they already have. Besides, Eurovision is always gambling. There's a chance however small that your song is going to bomb. And they don't want to be put to shame in front of a worldwide audience. Why would they?

And then there's the fact you do need to sing. No vocal playback is allowed (yet).

[Ebby]

Or why not "Brown Paper Bag" by Roni Size Reprazent and "Pull the Plug" by London Elektricity, which "Skyscraper Scamper Day" is based of?

I have NEVER been a fan of Roni Size. Really, one of my LEAST favorites. As well as Aphrodite. Bleh, to the both of them...

But is this so? I LOVE Skyscraper Scamper Day!!! I need to look this song up!

[Sarge]

Ha! I remember for awhile I was the only person in my circle who would admit they love Michael Jackson. Then he died and suddenly everyone wants to listen to "Billie Jean" XD.

Hm, I'm not really sure what I would classify as obscure in for myself. I personally listen to everything and all my friends are pretty open to different music.

But for some reason, I'm the only person who likes The Outlaws and Aerosmith. I think both have to do with Rock Band, but screw them, I love their music <3.

[Vasco]

edit: WOW!!! Vasco likes M

Edited August 26, 2009 by Vasco

[Draco 2.0]

Heh, well, compared to the fools at my school, I'm very obscure, considering that most of what comes out of the tinny little speakers on their phones is club music and hip hop...My RL friends are, like me, mostly into rock/metal/whatever else you want to call it, but while one of my friends (Duffy, and no, nothing to do with the singer) has got a ton of obscure bands on his iPod, I have the strangest out of the group. For a start, none of my friends have songs by Alestorm (YARR) on their phone, whereas I have pretty much every song from the album 'Captain Morgan's Revenge' other than a couple that I DO NOT WANT or are hard to find online. I also appear to be the only one who likes Sonic music, songs from F-Zero GX and, the one that would shock my overly-masculine friends, the ending theme to Bolt, 'I Thought I Lost You'. Most of my music is from games that my friends don't play, for example, Test Drive Unlimited and Need For Speed Most Wanted, so they probably wouldn't have heard of these bands anyway.

Yep, that's all I can think to say....at least I got a paragraph down, right? right?

[Pelly <3's U]

edit: WOW!!! Vasco likes M

[MizukiMoon]

I have a very odd music taste, my favourite's video game and anime music, seriously I love it! I spend hours every day listening to my favourite songs from video games (preferably from the Mega Drive/ SNES era) and anime opening, endings and music found in them, I'm not the slightest bit interested in any other 'normal' kind of music, I only listen to the latest songs on the radio at weekends, and while every normal 17 year old loves this kind of stuff, I hate it. NOTHING's as good and catchy as the music found in anime and video games IMO. I'm so weird, I must be about the only 17 year old girl on Facebook and Bebo who has retro game and anime music as their favourite music!

[Meow]

Just a little band from a city north of me that I listen to

Really, literally nobody but me that I know actually listens to this guy (used to be 'these guys' but the rest of the band is out AFAIK) and I think he makes awesomely delicious music.

I also started listening to some Apoptygma Berzerk, a band that seems to have its following, but is not really known I guess. Other bands that might fit under this would be Machinae Supremacy I guess, but they seem to be well known in certain circles

[RichoKidd]

People who listen to Blitz N' Pieces know that I'm an insane Oz Hip Hop fan (Australian Hip Hop). Now I'm sure your wondering whats the difference between regular hip hop and Oz Hip Hop. There really is no way to describe it. Its simply amazing. The beats, the rhymes, the way everything flows. My friends never got it. They all thing its shit. But I love it

You can always check youtube for a sample if you'd like

[LATER BUDDY]

I sing and listen to a lot of animated movie soundtracks, ^^". I'm pretty embarrassed by it when people are around, but I can't help but love it. My friends just raise an eyebrow, and dad just thinks I'm weird, XD. Most of the time, as you can imagine, I listen to the soundtracks of All Dogs Go To Heaven, Bolt, Balto, and Oliver and Company. However, I've been known to listen to The Lion King and Aladdin too, =3.

Speaking of soundtracks, it's about all I listen to anymore. Whether it be a movie or game soundtrack, I'm usually caught listening to a soundtrack in some form or another. I think it's something to do with the imagery when I listen to soundtracks as being why I like them so much. Gives me something to picture and think about. Either this, or soundtracks really give me those "heart-sinking" moments where you get a lot of emotion out of it.

If I were to put soundtracks aside though, I usually look for music tied-in with what I'm interested in. For example, I listen to a real unknown power metal band called Timeless Miracle, since the writer really loves werewolves, =X. So with this in mind, you can probably imagine how much OCRemix and music of the sort I have, XP.

Music is fun. I just wish people would be a little more accepting of people's tastes. I can't stand when someone turns on their music that they like, and another person storms over it with whining and bitching about how much they hate it, =/. Just my opinion, but I think there is at least good thing in every type of music that a person can appreciate.

-Blur

[Arrow]

The whole idea of real music is and trying to rate music is just a concept that I can not understand the logic of at all. I mean we do it with things like video games and movies but that makes sense in the way that at least we can have consistent points to review those on. With music it's like..........well I don't know, what makes a good song?

I mean people like different instruments in their music, people like vocals, people don't like vocals, some people like 20 minute songs and some people like 3 minute ones, some people want music they can dance to, some people want music they can sing to, some people want it with a lot of depth, and some people want it to be relatable. I mean what is a real song? You could probably tap your hand against a table and there will be people in the world who find that enjoyable to listen too.

I guess the point is that those who specialise in an area have better experience of it. This does indeed fall flat with music, as people rarely tend to just be sound appreciators. They tend to be appreciators of specific sounds, which I guess was your point.

But quality and enjoyment are separate things with which there is rarely correlation outside of enthusiasts in a particular area. I always think of wine when making this point. Wine tasters by whatever default will prefer more expensive wines, perhaps because they are so used to dealing with wine that only wines of exceptional quality (whatever that means) or originality stand out. Same undoubtedly applies to music, with classical and pieces which bare the most similarity (which I'm going to guess is less about sound and more about structure? I don't know though, music is not my thing) to it, being the highest "quality" and with original ideas gaining praise along the way. The arts are not free of this structure of judgement. They may behave differently to something like the game industry, but they are still tied to it. You can judge things by the level of enjoyment you gained from it (which is personal)or by it's quality. How well it performs based on it's category (which is still personal, but more restrictive and fact based).

Edited October 3, 2009 by Arrow

[RhikoruFa-La-La-La-♪]

I started out pretty plain, just your average Rock, really.

Now I've tried to expand myself musically, so I have anything between Rock, D&B, Instrumental Rock, Instrumental Video Game music, some Folk (can't really get myself to listen to the stuff that's REALLY slow), Instrumental Latin, some Math Rock, Chiptune, a little J-Rock/Pop, and some Electronic as well as some small dabbling in Jazz, which has some pretty phenomenal stuff.

Some of my favorites lately include Apocalyptica, Nightmare, Anamanaguchi, Pendulum, Stemage, Anberlin, and on occasion, Sufjan Stevens and Jon Foreman. Really depends on what mood I am and what time of day.

[a bad poster]

[Sean]

And...? Even if you just want to post a link to an example of music you like, you should at least provide a one or two sentence explanation behind it so it doesn't look like total spam. Thanks.

[Chile]

That song's a total shredfest. Not into Cannibal Corpse as much as I used to be though. Thir last 2 albums are only good sometimes.

But here's a few relatively obscure bands that I love...

Dismember

Atheist

Death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47oETjbKMe0

Megadeth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVa_iAzOiwg

old Cannibal Corpse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N1wUFlwNWo

Razor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LJ18VWpSY

[bcdcdude]

:Another group I'm heavily into that most of the people around here don't "get" (loads of club music lovers around here) is Sigur R�s.

I'm a big fan of Sigur Rós - Samskeyti (Untitled 3) is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever. And Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa is probably my favourite song of theirs. I'm sorry to say though that I didn't think much of their last album Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust.

I won't say that my taste is more obscure than yours or whatever, because a lot of what I've read is damn obscure (bonus points for Godspeed You Black Emporer - not my bag really but I don't mind them!). A band i'm quite into is Boris (or BORIS or boris depending on their album). For those who are interested they are a Japanese band who deal in NOISE! I've no idea what they say, but it's just the noise they make which is so damn cool! I would show you youtube video of Feedbacker, but it's 45 minutes long and I couldn't find part 3 which is the best part so i'll give you another song -

As for other stuff. 80's hair metal is just so damn good But hell i'll listen to practically anything from Busted (own everything they've done ) to The Twilight Sad (epic Scottish miserable rock) -

(This is Walking For Two Miles - my favourite song of theirs). Finally The The: One of my favourite bands ever - listen to this and weep over the last 3 1/2 minutes...

At the end of the day my favourite bands/artists are Bruce Springsteen, Rush, The The, The Arcade Fire and Jimmy Eat World and I wouldn't say they're obscure (more cult).

[Chooch]

I wouldn't say that I listen to anything particularly obscure up until you compare my musical tastes to the typical person that I regularly come in contact with where I live. They aren't going to listen to music from video games, music with Japanese lyrics, or music without lyrics at all.

Hell, they probably won't even listen to some of the 'regular' music I have because their tastes aren't anywhere near as broad. Your typical kid my age wouldn't dare listen to something like jazz or classical, but whatev'.

Right now my one of my favorite bands is Frost*. I've been listening to them for about a year now (close to the release of their Experiments in Mass Appeal album) and I adore their music. If you haven't heard of them, give 'em a listen. Don't confuse them with the Australian band though!

[Lunacy]

I guess one might say I have some "obscure" music tastes.

The music I am into most is that of 80's and 90's Japanese visual kei bands. What is visual kei you ask? Well, this article does a good job of explaining it and it's history imo. Though I don't agree with all of the author's opinions, I still think it's a very helpful article. Basically, while I do admittedly listen to and enjoy several visual kei bands from more recent years, the majority of what I listen to is from the 80's and 90's, when I feel visual kei was at it's creative (and commercial) peak. To give you a good example, here's the music video for the song ROSIER by LUNA SEA (the band in my signature). Released in 1994, this is a classic visual kei anthem by a band who is regarded as one of the most influential in the scene. Admittedly, while visual kei is a surprisingly well known and growing scene in America, most of it's fans are into newer bands such as An Cafe or alice nine, while I stick mostly to the older stuff (though like I said, I do enjoy several newer bands).

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, I also enjoy the music of an individual named Klaus Nomi. The wikipedia article might give you an idea about him, but...it's hard to really describe the alien man that he was (he's sadly deceased) with just words. He has to be experienced. A few of his videos would do the job, such as or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFaZyHxQGYQ. Yes, right away, I know what you're thinking. If you can get past the initial LULZ factor (as I had to) though, you might come to find that his music is actually quite catchy, addictive and charming. Plus, as displayed , he had an amazing operatic voice (he often covered classical opera pieces). Weird but amazing performer, never really seen anybody like him.

Aaaand wrapping things up I must mention . Wikipedia describes their genres as: Avant-garde jazz, Free jazz, Experimental rock, Jazzcore, Noise rock, Grindcore. ...yeah. They will shift genres constantly, often in the same song (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkrfVZGmLL8). Depending on the album, they'll incorporate screams/squeals/whines/grunts/crying from vocalist or occasionally from . Their songs can be alarmingly short and violent (hardcore miniatures as they're called, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KNx4UMDEPM, or can be over 30 minutes long such as the track Leng Tch'e (over 30 minutes of pure audio torture ). They also do ambient, somewhat Akira Yamaoka-ish (Silent Hill) music as well (). Definitely the most Avant-garde, out there band I listen to, they're just really damn interesting.

...apart from all that, I listen to a bunch of British rock (The Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division, etc.), some power metal/melodic death metal/metalcore, a bit of pop aaaand some video game soundtracks/remixes, among other things.

So I hope I shared something interesting with you folks.

Edited October 4, 2009 by Lunacy

[PaddyFancy]

My musical tastes are so un-obscure (and old) its horrid. I'm told by Chooch sometime ago that "You only listen to oldies music XD". I very nearly took it as an insult.

[Aoi]

I actually get teased a lot for my obscure taste in music. I listen to indie rock, pop, and acoustic and I've been dabbling in hardcore and ska now that I miss my friends. A lot of the times, people make fun of the fact I have no recognizable artists in my playlist or that 'this song sounds weird' because it has experiemental elements in it like Crystal Castles or something. I could punch a baby. ):

[Spin Slasher]

My Obscure Music Tastes are Music from Motown and The Beatles with some Video Game Music and Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 flare around here.

[OmegaSonicX]

For music in general, I like Jellyfish, the band.

As for VG soundtracks, it isn't super obscure but Kirby's Dreamland 3 and Kirby 64 have to be two of the best videogame soundtracks of all time, right there with Sonic Adventure, but for something that's actually obscure, Plok! and Dynamite Headdy have great music too.