XTC ought to be remembered as one of the great bands of the eighties.
And birds might fall from black skies (Woo, woo)
And bullies might give you black eyes (Woo, woo)
And buses might skid on black ice (Woo, woo)
But to me they’re very, very beautiful (England’s glory)
Beautiful (A striking beauty)
Oh man I love Selah Sue! She’s got some really good songs.
For me this week, it’s Dialing In by Thom Yorke.
For the last few days I’ve been listening to Julie London. She’s one of my favourite singers. I wish I could sing like her. XD
Nice cover of Sweet’s original.
Pat Benatar - No You Don’t
We don’t get enough harmonizing in music today.
Little River Band - Lonesome Loser
Failure have never failed to make incredible music…
The Pineal Electorate - Failure
This song has great sea shanty vibes…
The Real McKenzies - Barrett’s Privateers
Another notable song from them is Chip.
New single from Failure’s upcoming album, Location Lost, just dropped. I am so excited for the album. Apparently Hayley Williams from Paramore is featuring on a song? I don’t know the details but I think it’s gonna be awesome…
My understanding is that Red Sleeping Beauty has some member connections to the better known but mostly defunct Acid House Kings … even though they both date back to the 90s.
Anyway …
Today I learned about this artist who sings in Toki Pona:
Of course, I have no idea what the song’s about. Maybe I should start playing anpa ma in the hopes of learning enough to figure it out.
Not really what I’m listening to, but since this feels like the closest thing to a music general active on any of the forums I frequent, I’ll ask here and beg forgiveness if its considered too off topic…
So, most modern music, across a wide variety of genres is built around the quartet of vocals, lead guitar, bass guitar, and drums, something I’ve come to think of as the guitar quartet, and sometimes there will be a fifth person on rhythm guitar or keyboard(usually piano for acoustic bands, synth for electric bands). Or at least, that’s the impression I get.
But given the ubiquity of acts built around guitar and drums, it’s got me wondering about less common instrumentation. I’ve already come across a number of YouTubers who adapt pop, rock, metal, etc. songs for violin or piano, but I find myself wondering about songs, albums, and acts with say, woodwind, brass, or melodic* percussion heavy instrumentation, especially if they are using instruments you wouldn’t find in a Classical European Orchestra.
*Is this the correct term to distinguish percussion instruments that play many different notes from those used primarily for rhythm or to keep a beat?
I’m not too picky on genre or song language, my music library includes, among other things rock, metal, country, pop, classical, and baroque and Songs in English, Japanese, Chinese(probably Mandarin, but can’t rule out Cantonese), German, Italian, Latin, several I can’t recognize(I own a few Eurovision compilation albums)… Actually, while I’m curious about instrumentation beyond Guitars, drums, Violin, and piano, I’ll also take recommendations for Non-English, Non-Japanese acts in general…
My first thought is Bei Bei & Shawn Lee which features a guzheng
Next is the brass group The Budos Band
Then Shaolin Afronauts
Brass just opens up to both ska and funk in general but I’ll start with some Argentinian ska from Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
I’m not sure what The Cat Empire qualifies as
There’s also genres that don’t typically have instruments at all like electronic and a lot of hip hop and their various sub-genres and off-shoots. What do you think of those?
My musical taste usually lies in rock music, but some bands that feature non-traditional instruments include:
Note: Each of these links are to a song in a playlist of the respective album, so you can check out more from that artist easily.
Men At Work - Saxophone → Who Can It Be Now?
Wild Child - Shit Load of Instruments → Crazy Bird
Arcade Fire - Shit Load of Instruments → Power Out
And if those sound too much like regular radio play music, there always those crazy Norwegians…
Wardruna - Bones, Animal Hides, Rocks, Tree Bark, Dirt → Helvegen
I thought of another one. Funkrust Brass Band doesn’t even use a traditional drum kit and sings their lead vocals through a megaphone. Here’s a live version of my favorite song so you can see the instruments.
Listening to Chic for the last 3 days. I got up to Risqué. 6 more albums in the folder, lol.
