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I've listened to a couple of singles from both Blur and Oasis (Former: Song 2, Girls and Boys, Coffee and TV, latter, Wonderwall, Live Forever, Roll With It), but never listened to the full albums of either, where do I start with both of them?
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Apr 8, 2019 03:35
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Junpei posted:I've listened to a couple of singles from both Blur and Oasis (Former: Song 2, Girls and Boys, Coffee and TV, latter, Wonderwall, Live Forever, Roll With It), but never listened to the full albums of either, where do I start with both of them? Blur's first great record is Parklife, my personal favorite is 13. Pretend Oasis doesn't exist after their first 2 records.
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Apr 8, 2019 03:51
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Junpei posted:I've listened to a couple of singles from both Blur and Oasis (Former: Song 2, Girls and Boys, Coffee and TV, latter, Wonderwall, Live Forever, Roll With It), but never listened to the full albums of either, where do I start with both of them? Parklife (their third full-length) probably is the best spot to start with Blur, even though I generally dislike not going chronologically. It's kind of a melting pot of ideas. If you like the Kinks-ish numbers, go back to their second album (Modern Life is Rubbish) after that. If you like the big-guitars stuff, skip ahead to the 1997 self-titled. If you like it weirder and dronier, skip to 13. If you like it almost exactly like Parklife but slightly less good (apart from a couple all-time great tunes) and a bit more depressing, go directly to the next album after it, The Great Escape. Pretty much everything else can wait until after you get through those records. They're one of my all-time favorite bands, but there's not much you can debate about as regards how you approach them.
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Apr 8, 2019 06:17
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El Gallinero Gros posted:Blur's first great record is Parklife, my personal favorite is 13. Be Here Now had some good poo poo too... hell, Fade In-out is my favorite thing they ever did.
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Apr 8, 2019 13:02
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hexwren posted:Parklife (their third full-length) probably is the best spot to start with Blur, even though I generally dislike not going chronologically. It's kind of a melting pot of ideas. Personally, I'd give The Great Escape the edge over Parklife, and I'd say that The Great Escape is only really depressing once you're into it enough to start listening to the lyrics (and then it is quite depressing indeed). But yeah, those two and then Modern Life is Rubbish & Blur are the 4 best albums by most sane evaluations. I'd also rate Think Tank and The Magic Whip as better than 13, but that's definitely YMMV territory.
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Apr 8, 2019 22:55
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Where to start with no wave as a genre
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Apr 9, 2019 01:01
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AverySpecialfriend posted:Where to start with no wave as a genre No New York compilation and work from there.
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Apr 9, 2019 07:41
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El Gallinero Gros posted:Blur's first great record is Parklife, my personal favorite is 13. As someone who is nowhere near a hardcore Blur fan, I agree with this completely.
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Apr 9, 2019 18:11
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Van Halen?
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Apr 18, 2019 15:40
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Kvlt! posted:Van Halen? The debut for the classic sound and 1984 for when they started experimenting with synths (it also has some of their biggest hits). I wouldn’t bother with Van Hagar.
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Apr 18, 2019 15:47
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Also, would it make sense to sticky this thread? I always thought it was kind of weird that it wasn't and it only just occurred to me that I could simply make it so.
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Apr 18, 2019 19:00
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Henchman of Santa posted:Also, would it make sense to sticky this thread? I always thought it was kind of weird that it wasn't and it only just occurred to me that I could simply make it so. Yes. This is the best thread on the forums.
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Apr 18, 2019 19:17
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Kvlt! posted:Van Halen? 1984 is one of the greatest albums of all time and is really worth checking out. If you like that, anything before it is a good followup.
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Apr 18, 2019 23:47
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Kvlt! posted:Van Halen? I'm gonna go  just because they're my favorite band and I feel like it.If you want the quick, TL;DR, "I know absolutely nothing about this band" level introduction, start with Best Of, Vol. 1. It's a one CD, goes chronological from their debut up to 1996, about evenly split between the Roth and Hagar years, and so you'll get a good idea of most of their biggest songs. The downside of it is that it is just one disc, so you are going to miss out on a bunch of stuff, as a bunch of their biggest/most notable songs (Hot for Teacher, Jamie's Cryin', You Really Got Me) aren't included. They do have a two disc best of, 2004's Best of Both Worlds, but the majority of it alternates between Roth and Hagar songs, so it's a bit of an uneven listen. Both have the downside of them using almost entirely just songs released as singles, so a ton of great songs aren't included on either compilation (Mean Street, Ice Cream Man, 5150, I can go on). Really, the best thing you can do is just start with Van Halen I and go chronologically. The original six Roth albums are all fairly short (The longest topping out ~35 minutes) and are usually start-to-finish excellent. Their 1978 debut and 1984, the last Roth album, will probably have the majority of the tracks you'd have heard a billion times from classic rock radio (Runnin' With The Devil & Panama come to mind), but both are legitimately among the greatest albums of all time and have some amazing album cuts that need to be listened to at least once (I'm The One, Atomic Punk, and Girl Gone Bad being a few personal favorites). The other Roth albums are also very good, with 1981's Fair Warning usually being the album die hard fans cite as their favorite (Mean Street and Hear About It Later being phenomenal), while Diver Down (1982) usually gets a bit more mixed reputation because Eddie has trashed it on a few occasions because it's cover heavy, but it's a generally fun, upbeat album and has a few songs (Hang 'Em High, Cathedral, Little Guitars) that really deserve a listen to. Van Halen II (1979) and Women and Children First (1980) are also both worth checking out, particularly if you enjoy the sound and style of the first album, and also have a number of great songs (Women in Love, Light up the Sky, Romeo Delight, In A Simply Rhyme). If you go through those and want to keep going, the first two Hagar albums, 1986's 5150 and 1988's OU812, are pretty good. The production on them is different from that done on the Roth albums, and honestly they can be a bit more hit and miss than the Roth years on first listen. You'll get some very synth heavy, power ballad level stuff (Dreams, When It's Love), but it's not like every single track is based around keyboards, like say, mid-80s Rush became. You'll also get some fantastic guitar work and really awesome songs (5150 and Mine All Mine being probably my favorite songs, regardless of singer), and I really think the singles tend to be some of the weaker songs on these albums, so they are worth listening too if you have the time. If you like them, they'll probably really click for you. After that, the band goes back toward a heavier sound in 1991 with For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, which has some excellent singles (Poundcake, Right Now, Top of the World), but how you feel about the rest of the album really will depend on how much you enjoy EVH's guitar skills with Hagar's word choice (Which can vary quite a bit). Very much an album towards the middle of the pack. The last Hagar album, Balance, from 1995, stays with a heavier sound, but is a very uneven album, so YMMV quite a bit. The singles (Can't Stop Loving You & Not Enough) on it are obvious as hell and tend toward blatant commercial stuff, while the rest of it alternates between excellent (The Seventh Seal, Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do), Balchitherium) and mediocre (Take Me Back), so take it as it goes... After that, if you are somehow still interested in all this insanity, I'd say go right to 2012's reunion with Roth, A Different Kind of Truth. About half the songs on began life as demos prior to their debut (Which you can no doubt find on YouTube if you want to compare them) and some people seemed to use that to dismiss the album when it came out, but Eddie's playing remains excellent, and most of them are very good and close to the quality of their original albums, with a few of the newer songs (China Town, As Is) being down right great IMO. The sound is also more in key with their first few albums (Meaning it tends to be heavier stuff), which can be a plus if you liked that. The downsides are Dave has obviously aged a bit, and the lack of Michael Anthony contributing to their signature backing vocals becomes obvious. Coming up towards the end here are their two live albums, 1993's Live: Right Here, Right Now and 2015's Tokyo Dome Live in Concert, with Hagar and Roth respectively. The former was heavily edited up during production, with several of the tracks being totally done in studio. It's not very representative of how they sounded live with Sammy, with too much crowd noise in the mix, and little to no improvisation from Eddie that normally made listening to (Or seeing) them live worth while. If you want to see that, look for the Live Without a Net video, from their 5150 tour. It's an excellent performance and will really give you an idea why the Hagar version of the band actually worked out as well as they did. Tokyo Dome is from their 2012 tour and is basically just a slightly cleaned up soundboard recording. Musically, it's very good, with the Van Halens (Eddie, Alex, and now Wolfgang on bass) being all in perfectly fine form, but Dave is... not. Now, granted, DLR was never exactly one to give 100% effort into his vocal delivery, even in his prime, but he's showing his age and it can be kinda rough. If you want to hear how Eddie's guitar has sounded live over the past ~20 years, that covers it, but it can be a bit rough at first due to Dave. The final piece of all this is 1998's Van Halen III, with Gary Cherone on lead vocals. It's actually not a terrible album! ...it just doesn't sound like anything else Van Halen ever did. Eddie basically had unfettered control, and so you get more overdubbing and wildly different guitar tones in one hour than probably all their other albums put together. Cherone's delivery is somewhat mixed and could have been better, while lyrically he is an obvious change from Dave and Sammy (Make of that what you will). Eddie does more of the backing vocals (And lead on the final track, How Many Say I), which is a negative. Only one song (Fire in the Hole) is really close to the sound found in their other albums, and a bunch of them are longer songs than on any other album they did. A few of them remind me of a tone more closer to early 80's, Discipline-era King Crimson, and really the whole album is simply not what most people expected when they grabbed something with Van Halen on the label, which is a big reason it has the reputation that it does. Honestly, I'd say it's a fairly mediocre album that is really failed by its mix and production quality (Or those in control of those aspects). That said, if you are really curious about how the album should have sounded, check out some of their live performances from 1998. Ironically, the III Tour was excellent because the new songs were done in a more traditionally Van Halen-style (Eddie using a single, heavy guitar sund and Michael Anthony doing backing vocals) and Gary was willing to play basically any song from their back catalog, so it had a great setlist and is worth exploring more, particularly if you like live material (This show being a personal favorite of mine). Lastly, for the related vein of material: If you do happen to enjoy the appropriate albums, David Lee Roth's first solo album, 1986's Eat 'Em and Smile, is similarly styled, fantastic, and worth your time. How you'd view his later stuff depends on how much you enjoy that and his overall schtick, hitting on some varying styles and production quality. Hagar's many solo albums come in varying shades of quality, particularly prior to ~1979, so those are a case where one of his Greatest Hits albums or randomly going through YouTube or such will really give you all you'd need. 1987's I Never Said Goodbye is worth checking out if you do like the Van Hagar stuff, as Eddie helped produce it and played bass so it's got a similar sound. His post-Van Halen solo albums tend to be one or two solid songs mixed with a lot of forgettable filler, although his stuff with Chickenfoot (Him, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Chad Smith) is very good.
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Apr 19, 2019 02:00
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fartknocker posted:Awesome Van Halen guide Hey just wanted to say I really appreciate the writeup, tons of awesome info and stuff in there. It's a great guide! I'm going in the order you wrote but I did skip a little ahead to the live stuff bc I'm a sucker for live albums and holy poo poo that show you posted is tasty. Thank you!
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Apr 19, 2019 03:15
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Listened to a lot of Billy Idol singles, any hot tips for full albums?
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Apr 19, 2019 03:50
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I don't have great Idol advice beyond "definitely check out the Generation X stuff" and "absolutely check out the track he does on Tony Iommi's solo album because it's awesome and hilarious at the same time" but I think they're important enough to mention. e: seriously, Idol proclaiming that vampires can suck his dick is one of the greatest/dumbest/best moments in rock.
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Apr 19, 2019 07:47
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hexwren posted:I don't have great Idol advice beyond "definitely check out the Generation X stuff" This is great advice actually. The Gen X albums were all pretty solid, particularly Valley of the Dolls. If you have heard the solo singles, you've heard his most notable solo work. He doesn't have very many good deep cuts, and "Blue Highway" is probably the best of those.
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Apr 19, 2019 15:25
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hexwren posted:I don't have great Idol advice beyond "definitely check out the Generation X stuff" and "absolutely check out the track he does on Tony Iommi's solo album because it's awesome and hilarious at the same time" but I think they're important enough to mention. The track in question. Absolutely must-listen.
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Apr 19, 2019 16:05
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Junpei posted:Listened to a lot of Billy Idol singles, any hot tips for full albums? In addition to the Gen x stuff, Rebel Yell is an amazing pop album. Eyes Without a Face, Blue Highway, Flesh for Fantasy, the title track. Tons of great tunes on that one.
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Apr 20, 2019 00:41
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Nine Inch Nails?
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Apr 20, 2019 03:05
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Kvlt! posted:Nine Inch Nails? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mDQNRs5JCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ4S9ydkMG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfhkXxmnYHc Either that one or Broken. That's older than TDS by a few years but they're still playing a couple tracks from that live nowadays. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuoFiIFkdAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5-4-x_nvxI Fun fact: NIN won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance with Wish, a song in which Trent says "fist gently caress"  If you like those, go backwards and listen to Pretty Hate Machine which also has songs you've probably heard and which they're also still playing live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV2EUUF47Ms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQDEUzu7BzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXBiYFoHsOg If you really get into them after all that, go forwards after The Downward Spiral. Their stuff gets considerably more experimental with The Fragile, but it's a drat good double album. Rageaholic fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Apr 20, 2019 |
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Apr 20, 2019 03:11
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Kvlt! posted:Nine Inch Nails? This is a little tough because NIN hasn't really had a consistent sound over the years. The band is Trent Reznor and maybe a couple other people if he happened to be working with anyone at that point in time, and each album sounds like whatever he was in the mood for when he recorded it. The first album, Pretty Hate Machine, is a classic of industrial dance-ish music, but I haven't listened to it in a while and I don't know how well it's aged. The Downward Spiral is the album that got everyone's attention, and it has the most famous songs ("Closer", "Hurt"), but it's a harsh industrial record with strong heavy metal influences and may not be for everyone. If you might like that, you should definitely give it a listen and maybe check out the Broken EP as well. As time went on after that, Trent still displayed some of the same tendencies, but he started working with more atmospheric sounds. The Fragile starts to go in that direction, but overall it's just not that strong an album. The next album after that, With Teeth, sounds like a more logical progression from the early 90s stuff, but for a record that came out in the mid-2000s, it sounded pretty dated to me. I stopped paying attention after that, but I understand that Year Zero was a similar but better record, and the double album Ghosts I-IV really highlighted the atmospheric and instrumental side of the band. Overall I think your best bet is to look up a song or two from each album and see what you like best. After that, pursue the ones that interest you the most.
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Apr 20, 2019 03:25
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Broken and Downward Spiral are the two big ones in starting out, probably followed by PHM, but I'd also suggest The Slip as the starting point with their post-2000 efforts, as it very strongly encapsulates all the stuff NIN is good at into one reasonable-length record.
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Apr 20, 2019 06:37
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Everything NIN does is different in some way but yeah, The Downward Spiral is probably the best place to start. Broken is worth checking out as well, but everything on it kinda sounds the same - it's basically "NIN does really hard rock for 30 minutes." I find Pretty Hate Machine to be almost painfully dated these days but YMMV - it's very, very, very 80s.ultrafilter posted:The Fragile starts to go in that direction, but overall it's just not that strong an album. Hard disagree, The Fragile is still my favorite thing they ever did, and it's still my go-to 20 years later. Hell, another recommendation I'd give is "play disc 1 of the Fragile - if you make it through to the end and like it, play disc 2" but I'd probably do that after checking out The Downward Spiral.
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Apr 20, 2019 15:29
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Acid Mothers (and all the associated acts) have the most intimidating discography I've ever seen, where the hell does someone start with them?
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Apr 24, 2019 22:30
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internet celebrity posted:Acid Mothers (and all the associated acts) have the most intimidating discography I've ever seen, where the hell does someone start with them? Electric Heavyland is their heaviest and also the best one, I think. They did a lot of krauty stuff that's a bit less noisy.
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Apr 24, 2019 22:45
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Are you a fan of any of the bands with which the collaborate, eg Guru Guru, Gong, Afrirampo, etc? Acid Mothers SWR has Tatsuya Yoshida on drums, and will feel familiar to any fan of his. I too am intimidated their discography and only have a couple records. It’s kind of a cliche, but my experience is they are way better live than on record.
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Apr 24, 2019 22:53
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Where do I start, album-wise, with the Ramones and the Clash? I've listened to the big singles (Blitzkrieg Bop and I Wanna Be Sedated for the former, Should I Stay Or Should I Go, Rock The Casbah, and London Calling for the latter, plus Lost In The Supermarket).
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Apr 26, 2019 05:01
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I've always thought of the Ramones as a singles band. I think you're better off with a best-of collection there, and you can dig into the albums that any of the songs you really like come from. For the Clash, London Calling is their big album and is definitely something you should listen to.
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Apr 26, 2019 05:06
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Junpei posted:Where do I start, album-wise, with the Ramones and the Clash? I've listened to the big singles (Blitzkrieg Bop and I Wanna Be Sedated for the former, Should I Stay Or Should I Go, Rock The Casbah, and London Calling for the latter, plus Lost In The Supermarket). The self-titled and Rocket to Russia for the Ramones.
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Apr 26, 2019 05:07
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The debut self titled for Ramones although like most punk they were a singles band so Anthology is their best album. The debut (UK version) of Clash if you want to hear their pub-rock roots or London Calling/Combat Rock if you want to hear them as pop-rock stars.
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Apr 26, 2019 05:12
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ultrafilter posted:I've always thought of the Ramones as a singles band. I think you're better off with a best-of collection there, and you can dig into the albums that any of the songs you really like come from. I’m not sure about that. The self titled Ramones album is incredible. For the Clash, I find their self titled to be similarly incredible. London Calling is also very good, but Give Em Enough Rope is only OK.
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Apr 26, 2019 05:22
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The Ramones, it's very simple. Start with the first album. Then do the second album. Then the third. And fourth. Keep going. Stop when you feel like you've got enough Ramones. The later albums can mostly be absorbed through singles comps, but, like, even as late as their eleventh, they've still got all-time great stuff. (tell me you hate i believe in miracles and i will fight you) The Clash, similarly, go 1-2-3 in order, stop after Combat Rock (maybe skip Sandinista until you're really sure about it), skip to Big Audio Dynamite's first two records, then jump to the three Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros records.
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Apr 26, 2019 06:20
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For the Class, the proper albums are all pretty good, with their first 3 being really strong. Give 'Em Enough Rope isn't merely okay, it's great with songs like Safe European Home, Stay Free, All the Young Punks. Just classics. You'll also need to get their non album tracks as well, since their singles had a lot of great stuff like White Man in Hammersmith Palais. And the B-sides early on were pretty good. Around London Calling when they start getting into dub, they become less interesting since they're not different songs. Combat Rock has unique B-sides, but the quality isn't there. Cut the Crap is a perfectly titled album that tells you what you should do with it (I don't think it's available anymore). There only exception is "This is England." That song is great. For the Ramones, their first four LPs are really good. End of the Century is a mess, but when it hits, it hits really hard. Phil Spector producing punk. It's still good, but there's some stuff that doesn't work well. Getting a decent compilation for the later stuff is fine.
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Apr 28, 2019 17:22
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Seconding that you should start with the first four Ramones albums, then keep going until you have enough, but instead of compilations check out their live albums. As much as they were a singles band they were a live band, if not more so. It's Alive is excellent and basically a best of the first three albums, Loco Live collects later stuff as well (and, incidentally, marks the point after which their album stuff really started scraping the bottom, i.e. everything from Mondo Bizarro on), and We're Outta Here is a recording of their last show. Which I personally don't like that much cause Joey's voice is quite seriously on its way out ( ).
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Apr 29, 2019 06:59
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Gonna go to bat for it and say that I real like Brain Drain by the Ramones
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Apr 29, 2019 15:47
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Einstürzende Neubauten?
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May 6, 2019 06:00
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Kvlt! posted:Einstürzende Neubauten? At a glance, their stylistic progression sort of mirrors industrial music as a whole. In the early 80s they start off with the goal of being as harsh and provocative as possible, with loose or no song structure (key albums: Kollaps and Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.). In the second half of the 80s they concentrate on rhythm and performative menace/horror (key albums: ½ Mensch and Haus der Lüge). Then as the 90s start they gradually become more subtle, mellow/melancholic, lyrical, and atmospheric, kind of resembling a Scott Walker/Tom Waits vibe (they hit their stride with that sound at Silence Is Sexy and it's pretty much how they've operated ever since). SpiritualDeath fucked around with this message at 12:44 on May 13, 2019 |
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May 8, 2019 11:50
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Fenrir posted:Hard disagree, The Fragile is still my favorite thing they ever did, and it's still my go-to 20 years later. Hell, another recommendation I'd give is "play disc 1 of the Fragile - if you make it through to the end and like it, play disc 2" but I'd probably do that after checking out The Downward Spiral. Agree on this, TDS should be checked out first but The Fragile is my great NIN love.
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May 8, 2019 20:47
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