[Saddam Hussein]

Springsteen is great.

[xasop]

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-03/stairway-to-heaven-lawsuit-demands-jimmy-pages-casette-tapes

A handful of Led Zeppelin's songs were certainly ripoffs, but "Stairway to Heaven" was not one of them.  About two to three seconds of the chord progression on the acoustic guitar sound alike, as you'll notice:

I never understood why people get up in arms about musicians "ripping off" other material. No artist is without external influence, and some of the best music out there was created by putting together established ideas in new ways (take most of Weird Al's discography, for instance).

What makes a song great isn't that its composers came up with it from scratch. If that were so, there would never have been any great songs, except perhaps the first time Homo erectus found they could tap sticks together to create a rhythm. Rather, great songs are made by people with the ability to take what's already there and rearrange it in a way that nobody else ever thought about.

[Foxbox]

Swans - To Be Kind

[Eddy Baby]

I never understood why people get up in arms about musicians "ripping off" other material. No artist is without external influence, and some of the best music out there was created by putting together established ideas in new ways (take most of Weird Al's discography, for instance).

What makes a song great isn't that its composers came up with it from scratch. If that were so, there would never have been any great songs, except perhaps the first time Homo erectus found they could tap sticks together to create a rhythm. Rather, great songs are made by people with the ability to take what's already there and rearrange it in a way that nobody else ever thought about.

The words of truth


Pisses me off when people get upset about that, like, if I write a riff in a song that sucks, nobody's allowed to use my idea and make an awesome song out of it?

[Snupes]

Well, now that I have beautiful Sennheisers, it's music time again...


Leandra - Metamorphine: I loved this album to death years ago and suddenly stopped listening for a good while, until I recently listened to “Lie to Me” again and remembered how much I loved it. So I decided I wouldn’t listen again until I could afford to buy it and had good headphones to appreciate it with, and that time has now come. It is marvelous and beautiful and omg. I love this album so much. Nearly every song is wondrous, but the best one is definitely “Lie to Me”, and my other favourites are “Coloured”, “Angeldaemon”, “Lullaby” and “Inverted Mirrors of Decay”. Just a magnificent album.

The Beach Boys - The Smile Sessions: I’m not sure where this falls in respect to the expectations I had for it (which were extremely high since it’s kind of a legendary album), but it’s definitely really good and I think I like it more than Pet Sounds, which I loved. These guys harmonize like no other, and some of the more experimental stuff on here is wonderful. I’m really sad we’ll never hear the original mix of “The Elements: Fire (Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow)”, which Brian Wilson was convinced had pyrokinetic abilities and was terrified and driven over the edge by and eventually destroyed. I really really wanted to hear it, and it’s sad to see that (based on the descriptions of the original) the version on this album was substantially toned down and lightened. But anyway, all the songs are really wonderful, my favourite being “Love to Say Dada”, followed by “Wonderful”, “Surf’s Up”, “I wanna Be Around/Workshop” and “The Elements: Fire (Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow)”. What a wonderful and extremely pretty album

[Saddam Hussein]

Warning, potential trigger words ahead:

18:11   Saddam   Parsifal: I have heard that song before
18:11   Saddam   It isn't very good
18:11   Parsifal   >mfw sadaam
18:11   Saddam   And I'm sorry to say this, but it seems to be a thing for Zappa:
18:11   Crudblud   Foxbox: Yes, there is also a starfish called Bawmmmmm
18:12   beardo   Saddam: Saddam
18:12   beardo   lore
18:12   Saddam   Many of his songs don't really have anything going for them beyond their outrageous lyrics
18:12   Foxbox   ok
18:12   Crudblud   Saddam is a dumbass dick
18:12   Parsifal   Saddam: Have you only been listening to the few that get radio airtime or something?
18:12   Saddam   Not even particularly good lyrics, just creepy ones
18:12   Saddam   No
18:12   Foxbox   I don't believe sadaam
18:12   Saddam   The only one I ever heard on the radio was "Dancin' Fool"
18:12   Crudblud   No one should
18:12   Foxbox   Mr. Singles Only
18:12   Snupes   To be honest, I'm still not a huge Zappa fan. I'm more interested in his later stuff that was a bit more out there, because honestly I don't find him particularly funny.
18:12   Parsifal   Most of his best works are instrumental, so I have no idea where you're getting that impression from
18:13   Saddam   I actually quite liked that one
18:13   Snupes   Or not necessarily his later stuff
18:13   Saddam   I agree with you that he's at his best instrumentally
18:13   Snupes   But yeah, his instrumental stuff. Or more musically-interesting ones.
18:13   Parsifal   Snupes: There's plenty of that stuff on Guitar
18:13   Snupes   oic
18:13   Saddam   I'm just saying that his more conventional songs are basically just "lewd lyrics here, hey aren't I super-edgy and controversial"
18:13   Crudblud   It depends, I mean, in general I agree his lyrical works tend to be throwaway amusements
18:14   Crudblud   But I think there's plenty of stuff that's also good satire
18:15   Parsifal   Saddam should listen to You Are What You Is
18:15   Snupes   There is no such thing s good satire.
18:15   Parsifal   It has some very good lyrics, most of which aren't lewd
18:15   Crudblud   Not to mention, even in his worst songs, there's usually something interesting going on in terms of the instrumentation
18:15   Parsifal   The track "Mudd Club" also includes my all-time favourite Zappa lyric
18:15   Foxbox   The Love Club
18:15   Snupes   What lyrics is that?
18:15   Crudblud   Gun Club
18:15   Snupes   Foxbox: That is a magnificent song
18:15   Crudblud   What am potatoes?
18:15   Foxbox   Snupes: I like it
18:16   Parsifal   Snupes: Lyric, singular, and it is this, which is said all in one breath:
18:16   Crudblud   Saddam: Have you listened to Läther?
18:16   Snupes   That is a weird lyric
18:17   Foxbox   It is
18:17   Parsifal   And all the rest of whom for which to whensonever of partially indeterminate biochemical degradation seek the path to the sudsy yellow nozzle of their foaming, nocturnal, parametric, digital, whole-wheat, inter-faith, geothermal, terpsichorean ejectamenta
18:17   beardo   Talk about something else.
18:17      *** beardo was kicked by Parsifal (Parsifal)

[Snupes]

Regina Spektor - Songs: I’ve been seriously looking forward to this because I absolutely love what I’ve heard of Regina Spektor…but…to be honest, I didn’t like this album a whole lot. I mean, overall it was good, but there were really only a few songs I really liked more than ‘pretty good’. Some like “Consequence of Sounds” are interesting in theory (she kinda rapped it) but don’t work out (her voice is way too thin and her flow is not very good), or like “Aching to Pupate” where she went a cappella but overall I didn’t enjoy the song very much. “Lounge” was weird. Most of the tracks were like that, where I either didn’t really like them or just thought they were better than “okay”. The tracks I did like, however, were great. My favourite right now is the final track, “Ne me quitte pas”, which is really catchy and fun and simple but still really nice. “Lulliby” is gorgeous, “Oedipus” is bizarre but wonderful and “Prisoners” is vulnerable and beautiful. Everything else other than “Samson” (which I found quite good) I probably won’t really listen to again, to be honest. I’m glad I heard it for those songs I do like a lot, but the album was kinda a letdown.

[Snupes]

Owl City - Ultraviolet: The first of apparently many EPs Adam is gonna release under Owl City this year, it has me kind of hopeful. The first single to come from it was the first track, “Beautiful Times (feat. Lindsey Stirling” which is…ugh. It’s not absolutely horrible and the start of it even had me hopeful, then the heavy drums kick in and it becomes just…not very good. Lindsey makes it even more generic with her mediocre violin-playing. She was unnecessary. The second track, “Up All Night”, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I liked. It’s silly and has a fantastical story, but out of his newer tracks the past few years it’s probably one of my favourite “new” sounds. “This Isn’t the End” is easily my favourite from the EP. It’s cheesy and hamfisted but it’s such quintessential Owl City optimism and dreaminess and his vague way with words that drew me in in the first place, so it’s very welcome. The final track is “Wolf Bite”, which is very pop-EDM and would be fantastic if it was half its length, because it gets kind of repetitive by the end. But for the first half, it’s wonderful. So basically, pretty happy with this, hopefully the EPs will get better.

[Snupes]

Various Artists - The Music of Grand Theft Auto V (Volume 1): This was a pretty astoundingly great collection of music, even on its own. All of it was pretty different and alternative for its genre, in particular some very interesting rap and electronic tracks. My absolute favourite was “Stonecutters” by Flying Lotus, which was just amazing. Tied for second are two wonderful synth-full tracks, “Old Love/New Love” by Twin Shadow and “Change of Coast” by Neon Indian. A$AP Rocky raps over an awesome beat in “R. Calì”, and Marion Band$ has amazing flow in “Hold Up (feat. Nipsey Hustle)”. Those are my highlights, but really there isn’t a track on here that isn’t good. This is the first of three CDs (this one, volume 1, is original songs created for the game’s radio station, volume 2 is the game’s actual soundtrack, volume 3 is more radio music) and I don’t expect to be getting around to those two any time soon, but one day hopefully. For now, this is enough new wonderful music.

[Ghost of V]

Various Artists - The Music of Grand Theft Auto V (Volume 1): This was a pretty astoundingly great collection of music, even on its own. All of it was pretty different and alternative for its genre, in particular some very interesting rap and electronic tracks. My absolute favourite was “Stonecutters” by Flying Lotus, which was just amazing. Tied for second are two wonderful synth-full tracks, “Old Love/New Love” by Twin Shadow and “Change of Coast” by Neon Indian. A$AP Rocky raps over an awesome beat in “R. Calì”, and Marion Band$ has amazing flow in “Hold Up (feat. Nipsey Hustle)”. Those are my highlights, but really there isn’t a track on here that isn’t good. This is the first of three CDs (this one, volume 1, is original songs created for the game’s radio station, volume 2 is the game’s actual soundtrack, volume 3 is more radio music) and I don’t expect to be getting around to those two any time soon, but one day hopefully. For now, this is enough new wonderful music.

Chinatown Wars has a better soundtrack.

[Snupes]

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Mandatory Fun: Definitely one of Al’s strongest albums, and I’ll be damned if the best ones on this weren’t laugh-out-loud hilarious. As per usual, the originals are generally funnier than the parodies, but in a nice change of events the best song on this album is actually a parody. “Word Crimes”, a parody of the date-rape song “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, is amazingly wonderful and a masterpiece. It might be tied with the album’s closer, the nine-minute long Cat Stevens style parody “Jackson Park Express”. Any time Al makes a long song, you know it’s going to be a masterpiece. It’s brilliant, funny, weird and creepy. Perfection. The other highlights are “Mission Statement”, a Crosby, Stills & Nash style parody about corporate synergy; “Sports Song”, a generic sports chant; “Handy”, a parody of “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea, sheerly because of how spot-on it is as a parody; and “My Own Eyes”, a style parody of The Foo Fighters that’s just straight-up bizarre. Also the polka medley is called “NOW That’s What I Call Polka!” which amuses me. TL;DR: Love this album.

[Roundy]

Have you seen the video for the Pharrell parody "Tacky"?  It has a lot of funny people in it.

[Snupes]

Have you seen the video for the Pharrell parody "Tacky"?  It has a lot of funny people in it.

Me not being up to date on anything related to Weird Al? Don't be silly.


Sparks - Kimono My House: Oh my lord. I expected I would probably like this album, but I didn’t think I would absolutely love it as much as I did. At first it was “ah, this is nice”, then how much I liked their style of writing—eccentric, sort of bizarre, verbose and often funny—started to grow and dawn on me. By “Here in Heaven” (which is a dark song about a pair of lovers who agreed to commit suicide together, in which the girl didn’t go through with it, and the song is a lament of despair and mild annoyance from the boy’s perspective), I couldn’t get enough of their odd musical style. The singer’s meandering falsetto, the peculiar instrumentation and aural placement of sounds and instruments, all of it was impeccable to me. Then “Talent Is an Asset” came around and for God’s sake it’s just a weird song about a young Albert Einstein being bullied or something but it’s magnificent. However, it was the final song, “Equator”, that really had me in awe and is what really solidified how much I love the album. It sounds like some demented broadway melody, but it marches on with their trademark weird lyrics, and at the end it drags on with strange, distorted horns and repeated lyrics and I just could not get enough. The three tracks I mentioned are my favourites, but the whole thing is worth a listen for sure. I love the writing, I love the music, I love the singing. It’s all wonderful. I definitely need to listen to more Sparks.

[Ghost of V]

Kimono My House... Ah. I forgot about that album. I have to listen to it now.

[Saddam Hussein]

Me not being up to date on anything related to Weird Al? Don't be silly.

Weird Al Yankovic - Running With Scissors

lol@markjo

[Snupes]

Kimono My House... Ah. I forgot about that album. I have to listen to it now.

This is what made me want to check them out, a style parody of them Weird Al did years ago:



Having now heard them, I think I can say he nailed them pretty well with this. It even sounds like an exaggerated version of lyrics they might write.

Also:


Sparks - No. 1 in Heaven: A hell of a departure from Kimono My House, this one sees Sparks collaborating with Giorgo Moroder to make a disco/synthpop album. And my damn is it amazing. I think I prefer their synth/rock style, but this album is overall superior. Every song is wonderful and electronically-experimental and just great. My favourite is either “My Other Voice” for its electronic experimentation, “Academy Award Performance” for the sound and wonderfully sarcastic lyrics, or the closing track, “The Number One Song in Heaven”, which is just heavenly. I am glad to have discovered Sparks.

[Ghost of V]

Kimono My House... Ah. I forgot about that album. I have to listen to it now.

This is what made me want to check them out, a style parody of them Weird Al did years ago:



Having now heard them, I think I can say he nailed them pretty well with this. It even sounds like an exaggerated version of lyrics they might write.

Also:


Sparks - No. 1 in Heaven: A hell of a departure from Kimono My House, this one sees Sparks collaborating with Giorgo Moroder to make a disco/synthpop album. And my damn is it amazing. I think I prefer their synth/rock style, but this album is overall superior. Every song is wonderful and electronically-experimental and just great. My favourite is either “My Other Voice” for its electronic experimentation, “Academy Award Performance” for the sound and wonderfully sarcastic lyrics, or the closing track, “The Number One Song in Heaven”, which is just heavenly. I am glad to have discovered Sparks.

No thanks.

[Snupes]

Kimono My House... Ah. I forgot about that album. I have to listen to it now.

This is what made me want to check them out, a style parody of them Weird Al did years ago:



Having now heard them, I think I can say he nailed them pretty well with this. It even sounds like an exaggerated version of lyrics they might write.

Also:


Sparks - No. 1 in Heaven: A hell of a departure from Kimono My House, this one sees Sparks collaborating with Giorgo Moroder to make a disco/synthpop album. And my damn is it amazing. I think I prefer their synth/rock style, but this album is overall superior. Every song is wonderful and electronically-experimental and just great. My favourite is either “My Other Voice” for its electronic experimentation, “Academy Award Performance” for the sound and wonderfully sarcastic lyrics, or the closing track, “The Number One Song in Heaven”, which is just heavenly. I am glad to have discovered Sparks.

No thanks.

ok

[Ghost of V]

I got into Sparks after I read an interview in which Morrissey said "Kimono My House is the best album of the year". He was probably right for '74. It's crazy how old that album is, especially considering the style of music. Way ahead of their time, almost. Its funny because years later they wrote a song called "Lighten Up, Morrissey".

[Snupes]

I agree. I was blown away when I realized the album was from 1974