Brazilian music is famous worldwide — from bossa nova, to choro, to samba.
Bossa is cool, choro is amazing, but my favorite things about samba is that despite being “pop music” it still has complex rhythms and harmonies.
My top favorite thing is the prevalence of the 7 stringed guitar and their use of counterpoints (i.e., parallel melodies).
I love how what (I think) started as guitarists just playing harmonies, turned into them improvising bass lines and counterpoints every once in a while, which eventually became them doing MOSTLY counterpoints and bass lines and barely playing the harmony lmao.
These bass lines and counterpoints, from what I understand, are often times arpeggiations of the chords and so forth, but they add such an amazing effect to the music.
Examples:
- This guy solo playing over a recording.
- This solo guitar + singer.
- Most music by Cartola which features the absolute timeless 7 stringed legend Dino. This one is a classic.
I’ll give you two:
First, what I call “shitty punk rock” (no offense to the performers). I consider it a form of folk music as it is played by people who may or may not be talented or skilled but, they play it anyway. They have something to express and they choose to express it and passionately express it with such a low level of self-judgement that I envy. Years ago, I’d be in the pit but, I’m not cut out for it anymore. I’ll still support em as I can though.
My favorite though, absolutely has to be folk-punk. Whether singing originals or covers or punkified trad or tradified punk, I absolutely love it. Some recommendations would be Days’n’Daze, Defiance Ohio, and The Dreadnoughts.
Whatever genre includes System of a Down, Rage against the Machine, Tool, and Nine Inch Nails
They have either a message or emotional rage or both at the same time. SOAD can go from pizza song to songs about prison industrial complex on the same album. Rage is uncompromisingly left political. Tool is on a journey from anger and unhealthy mental health in their early albums to embracing therapeutic ideas and healing while still feeling human emotions. NIN is just raw industrial sound and emotion.
It seems nu metal.
Ehh, SOAD maybe, and kiiiiiinda RATM but it’s a stretch, but NIN is hardline Industrial, and Tool is really kinda just heavy Prog (not a judgement against it, there’s nothing wrong with Prog!)
Shoegaze.
The waves of euphoria I feel being blanketed in a wall of melancholic distortion and fuzz makes my brain go brrr.
I just love shoes
Technical Death Metal. Depending of the band you get this ridiculously crazy and sophisticated instrumentalism and polyrhythmic beats like Archspire, other times you get more progressive, experimental groups like Blood Incantation that mix and match genres and soundscapes.
In fact, the newest album from Blood Incantation is a good example of that, one moment you’re listening to fast blast beats and then it suddenly takes a hard turn into pink floyd and slowly starts crescendoing back into fast Death Metal over the next couple of minutes. It’s an absurd aural experience to say the least, but I really like experimental music that pushes boundaries even when it doesn’t totally work.
Ok I was curious. I’m not a metal fan in the slightest but I gave Archspire a listen. That was really cool! Felt like an evolution of Polyipha. I probably won’t listen to them again but I really enjoyed hearing it for the first time - excellent recommendation!
Same. I also ended up looking into Blood Incantation. Apparently they recently released a twenty minute video. I watched some of it. Definitely cool.
Not necessarily a favourite but I have a lot of time for Drone Metal - classic example would be ØØ Void by Sunn O))). You can stick on a pair of headphones and the world ceases to exist.
I’ve seen them live! It was fucking incredible. I’m only sort of into metal but I love this kind of music. Admittedly, I don’t follow them much, listen to them often, or know a lot about their discography. But… been listening to ØØ Void for the past 20 minutes. So good, thanks.
Checkout Earth if you haven’t - Earth- Hex, or printing the infernal method
Drum N Bass
Yup, you’ve got everything from chilled liquid, to pop-like anthems, to full on neuro and dark step. Love it.
Post-hardcore. Typically 90’s old school like Fugazi and Hot Water Music, and then especially 2010s style “the wave” Touché Amore and La Dispute.
Not the 2000s style that veered into emo and Metalcore territory. Although there were some fantastic bands around that time that experimented with the classic sound, like Thrice and At The Drive In, and an obviously earlier example of that being Refused.
The combination of hardcore punk with slow and mid tempo breaks, throw in spoken sections or poetry. If it’s done right it’s just beautiful and makes you feel everything.
But if it’s done wrong, it’s so bad, don’t even bother. Honestly, for me, there’s so many 2000s-era bands that are unlistenable, and to me don’t even fit the genre as far as what came before and after them. But everything changes and people experiment with different sounds.
And it’s such a flexible genre, you have bands that take post-hardcore sensibility and turn it into indie rock, like Manchester Orchestra.
You might like Mewithoutyou
’90s*
Progressive metal.
One of my favorite bands has a song where it sounds like everyone is playing a different time signature simultaneously, and it feels out of time and chaotic… And then snaps into focus perfectly, before breaking up again. (I can’t identify the time signatures, no. I can hear at least two, and I’m pretty sure three. I think the drummer is doing polyrhythms?) You can listen to the same song five times in a row, focusing on a difference part each time, and hear something new each time. Or take Opeth’s “River”; the same same song seems to effortless combine elements of country, blues, 70s rock, NWBHM into something that feels both classic and new. (“New” despite being originally released in 2014.) Or, shit, An Abstract Illusion’s “Woe”; it’s nominally split into 7 tracks, but the lack of breaks between songs means that the whole thing flows into a single piece. Or, or or!, “Castaway Angels” by Leprous; Leprous stretches and strains the definitions of what metal is, and is not. While some of what they do is clearly metal, are they still a metal band?
The only thing that’s a real constant in progressive metal is that the bands all have impeccable musicianship.
Same for me. I’ve been playing drums for over 13 years. And progressive bands are the most enjoyable music to play for me. Those time changes and polyrhythms seem complex when you first listen to them. But once I get it, it gets stuck in my brain. You can hear new details you never appreciated before.
I love meshuggah. And they play most of the times two songs with different time signatures. The drummer is playing both of them at the same time, bottom half playing along with the bass and top half with rhythm guitars.
I will always regret not learning to play drums; my parents insisted that I learn clarinet instead. (My brother got to play drums though. Bastard.) Oh well. I have too many hobbies to try and add another one at this point. :)
It happened to me. I started with trombone. Moving to drums was the best thing I’ve ever done. It is never too late I guess
It’s only too late because I have too many other things that I do with my time. If I had a thousand lifetimes, or never needed sleep, it would be different. Unfortunately, you need to make choices about how you spend your time in life.
It would never be more than just a hobby; I’ve seen people I know try to make a living as musicians, and I simply don’t have that kind of passion to live in poverty just to get a taste of the dream.
It is what it is.
’80s (new wave, synthpop, post punk) – unadulterated nostalgia
“We don’t search for old songs,
we search for old memories.”Murder ballads. I don’t know that it’s a genre of music per se, so much that it’s a subject that people have sung about across different genres. It’s just so antithetical to what we normally consider music, normally it’s love songs and such. Epic examples include:
- In the Pines (famously covered by Nirvana)
- Violent Femmes - Country Death Song
- Mack the Knife (Louis Armstrong version is the best)
I’m also a fan.
Of note Nick Cave has an album filled with pure brutality named “Murder Ballads” that can be a bit hard to get through for me, not for musicality or style but because it succeeds at embodying that term, “brutality”.
Check out amigo the devil - Half his songs are this subject matter. And he is VERY good.
He’s up for a Grammy this year!
Pat Boone - Moody River?
Bach. Both easy to listen to and a never ending trove of new discoveries. Emotional and yet silly. Spiritual even for an atheist. Simple yet cerebral. Occasionally melancholy yet always life affirming. Rule bound, yet jazzy.
It’s hard to pick a favorite, but right now I’m really into Funk. Funk as a whole, definitely, but the subsect that is Bubblegum Funk is just so relaxing and chill, I’ve been listening to it while working lately.
What’s bubblegum funk? I’m picturing Tom Tom Club’s Genius of Love.
Dreampop is just so relaxing to listen to. It makes you feel like you’re floating on a cloud.
Witch house is also relaxing to listen to. It makes you feel like you’re about to be sacrificed by a death cult.
You have great taste
Less of a genre, more of an era, but I absolutely love music from the '60s. It’s just infectious. Some of it is infectiously happy - e.g., Dancing in the Street by Martha & The Vandellas, or Dance to the Music by Sly and the Family Stone. Some is infectiously melancholy, like The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel, or Abraham, Martin, and John by Dion. And some you just can’t help but sing along to, like Creeque Alley by the Mamas and the Papas, or Good Morning by Oliver. And of course all the amazing classic rock, experimental sounds, and folk music from that era! Even some of the novelty songs are super memorable (I’m lookin at you, MacArthur Park!).
Any metal with growing. I don’t care for lyrics unless they are funny. This applies to music where you can actually hear them too.
Try suggesting a metal band too extreme for me. I don’t like the lo-fi black metal because of the lo-fi part.
They def won’t be too extreme for you (I mean lmk if any are I guess), and some you’ll likely know already probably, but you’ll probably like some of them just judging from your challenge (mixed subgenres):
Insect Warfare Skinless Nunslaughter Toxic Holocaust Devourment Whitechapel Cattle Decapitation Eyehategod Nails Wormrot Anal Cunt His Hero Is Gone Carcass Dropdead Infest Cryptopsy Necrophagist Magrudergrind Sete Star Sept Suppression ACxDC Lovgun (bisou, 2012)Some of those are more yelly than growly, but check 'em out! Since you didn’t call out a specific genre like goregrind or something I got a little carried away haha.
Thank you!
My theory on metal:
Metal is 90% terrible / discordant background, with 30 seconds of pure blissful harmony that you just wouldn’t appreciate if that 90% terrible contrast didn’t exist.
With time, and repeated exposure, you pick up on the small harmonies within that discord that will continue to blow your mind for the next 10 years as you recognise more patterns in the chaos.
This usually means that your least favourite song by Metal Band X a decade ago is now your favourite, and your most favourite song of theirs a decade ago now sounds like a mere nursery rhyme.
/endtheory
