The Official Pop and Rock Music thread

[The Score Cleaner 8,494]

Anyone listen to the new Synchronicity box set?

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

1 hour ago, The Great Gonzales said:

Anyone listen to the new Synchronicity box set?

 

I contemplated buying it, but there's neither a Dolby Atmos, nor a 5.1 mix, so...

I might get the 2-cd set.

At last, it has 'Every Bomb You Make'.

[The Score Cleaner 8,494]

16 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

I contemplated buying it, but there's neither a Dolby Atmos, nor a 5.1 mix, so...

I might get the 2-cd set.

At last, it has 'Every Bomb You Make'.

And Loch.

 

Pretty neat alternate version of King of Pain too.

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

I have to admit, that I don't get the adoration for SYNCHRONICITY.

After GHOST IN THE MACHINE (probably their most mature work), it seemed a letdown.

Side 1 sounds like it's concocted from outtakes.

Still, I'll get it, if only for the four (or five, if you count 'Murder By Numbers') tracks on Side 2. My goodness, 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' is fucking brilliant, and 'Tea In The Sahara' is so atmospheric.

[A24 4,925]

For the units that call themselves Thor and Naïve Old Fart:

 

 

- Did I understand correctly that David Gilmour has removed all the '80s production elements from A Momentary Lapse Of Reason? 

- I'm curious to hear the upcoming Pyramid release.

- I'm glad to hear Vulture Culture is not Parsons' favorite. 

[A24 4,925]

I'm not a fan of The Boss but he genuinely seems like a nice guy.

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

I like The Boss, although I don't adore him as some others do. This is a genuinely touching story... and one that could definitely not happen now, mores the pity.

 

 

 

On 04/08/2024 at 5:29 AM, A24 said:

For the units that call themselves Thor and Naïve Old Fart:

 

 

- Did I understand correctly that David Gilmour has removed all the '80s production elements from A Momentary Lapse Of Reason? 

 

As far as I understand, Gilmour and Guthrie have removed certain elements from AMLOR (excess reverb; some drum parts) and have had them replaced with more "modern" sounds, to bring it in line, sonically, with THE DIVISION BELL.

Personally, if you don't know AMLOR very well, you wouldn't notice, but the remix, especially in its 5.1 format makes it obvious that the album has had a serious makeover.

 

 

On 04/08/2024 at 5:29 AM, A24 said:

For the units that call themselves Thor and Naïve Old Fart:

 

 

- I'm curious to hear the upcoming Pyramid release.

 

I'm currently saving my pennies for a Dolby Atmos system. I'll let you know how it sounds. The box set isn't cheap (£132.99 on Amazon), but it's my all-time favourite APP album, so it's an essential purchase.

 

 

On 04/08/2024 at 5:29 AM, A24 said:

For the units that call themselves Thor and Naïve Old Fart:

 

 

- I'm glad to hear Vulture Culture is not Parsons' favorite. 

 

I remember reading somewhere that VC was recorded at the same time as AMMONIA AVENUE, and that it was meant to be released as a double album, but that Parsons and Wolfson were persuaded to ditch it. It then got remixed heavily, and released one year later.

I don't like VC much. Thankfully their next record STEREOTOMY was much better 

[A24 4,925]

25 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

The box set isn't cheap (£132.99 on Amazon), but it's my all-time favourite APP album, so it's an essential purchase.

 

 

That's a lot of money. I have the old release on vinyl and, of course, it's available on the streaming services.

[A24 4,925]

 

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

Rick Beato! Yea!

Alan Parsons! Yea!

You just can't go wrong.

[A24 4,925]

It took a long time before Beato found a frame for the thumbnail where Alan is smiling. 

[Thor 9,323]

Wow, what an enormous missed opportunity.

[A24 4,925]

For those who just can't get enough ...

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Thor said:

Wow, what an enormous missed opportunity.

 

It kinda was. I don't think Beato is a fan. Unknown bloke above somehow makes a better connection. 

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

Beato may not be a fan (I wouldn't know), but at least he respects Parsons, and he knows his contribution to popular music. Could you say that about Leno, or Fallon, or Norton, or Conan, or Corden?

I'll watch "unknown bloke" asap.

[bollemanneke 4,138]

Once again, listening to OSTs leads to great discoveries.

 

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

Lots of great stuff on that record: 'We Didn't Start The Fire'; 'I Go To Extremes'; 'Leningrad'; 'That's Not Her Style'; 'And So It Goes', plus the above-mentioned song 

It seems that after THE BRIDGE, a break from Phil Ramone did Joel some good.

 

 

 

A heads-up: Rick Wakeman is on EARLIER... WITH JOOLS HOLLAND, on BBC Radio 3, today, at 12pm BST.

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

  DIAMONDS AND PEARLS, by Prince And The New Power Generation.

His last truly great record.

[Thor 9,323]

Upcoming Gilmour album sounds really good. Hoping I can at the very least afford the normal CD at some point.

 

 

[Marian Schedenig 10,849]

I only just noticed that Matt Bellamy heavily uses the Knight Rider ostinato in this song (but Reddit is full of people discussing it):

 

[Jay 43,914]

Busta Rhymes did it first

 

 

[Edmilson 11,002]

I don't post much here, but aside from film scores I do listen a lot to indie music - particularly the "sad, reflexive" variety.

 

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Daughter on Spotify. They're an indie band with lots of sad songs. I discovered them thanks to this song that played in a soap opera that aired in 2017/18:

 

 

And over the last few months I've become obsessed with this song. It is so sad and melancholic. I love when the choir joins in 2:52.

 

 

If anyone knows more indie bands that make this kind of sorrowful indie music and wants to recommend it to me, I'll be grateful  

[Marian Schedenig 10,849]

14 minutes ago, Jay said:

Busta Rhymes did it first

 

And Stu Phillips did it originally.

 

 

 

[The Score Cleaner 8,494]

@Edmilsonnot quote as dark and woody as that:

 

 

 

Just a note: they started as a religious band, so most of their early work, and other songs have some religious under and overtones, so just be aware.

[Sweeping Strings 3,033]

Was at a Foo Fighters tribute band Times Like These gig last night ... it was awesome, almost as good as the real thing (and for about a quarter of the ticket price, too). The 'cherry on the cake' was a gorgeous little blonde who got such a kick out of how much I was enjoying it that she bought me a beer (OK, so she was with her boyfriend but it's the sort of thing that VERY rarely happens to me so I was still ). 

[Thor 9,323]

On 30/08/2024 at 8:19 PM, Thor said:

Upcoming Gilmour album sounds really good. Hoping I can at the very least afford the normal CD at some point.

 

 

 

So no reactions to this, eh?

 

Anyways, the album was released today. I've had one listen-through so far. It's pretty good, but relatively low on memorable melodies. It's more earthy, down-to-ground - even moreso than RATTLE THAT LOCK 9 years ago.

 

Looking forward to having a few more listens; it might grow on me. Of course, I need to buy the CD also, down the road. But the list of items to buy is so long, and the wallet is so empty, so might take years.

[Edmilson 11,002]

Been listening to a lot of Coldplay recently. I don't really care for their most iconic hits, can't stand Clocks and Viva La Vida is meh, but I'm digging some of their "less iconic" songs.

 

Like this, which I discovered at age 13 when it was used in a very popular soap opera from 2006 called "Páginas da Vida". I listened to it again now 18 years later and I liked it even more as an adult. Kinda similar to RPM's Losing My Religion though.

 

 

This one also from X&Y has been living rent free in my head for the past 24 hours:

 

 

But this might be Coldplay's most underrated song... ever?

 

 

[Tom Guernsey 3,450]

6 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Been listening to a lot of Coldplay recently. I don't really care for their most iconic hits, can't stand Clocks and Viva La Vida is meh, but I'm digging some of their "less iconic" songs.

 

Like this, which I discovered at age 13 when it was used in a very popular soap opera from 2006 called "Páginas da Vida". I listened to it again now 18 years later and I liked it even more as an adult. Kinda similar to RPM's Losing My Religion though.

 

 

This one also from X&Y has been living rent free in my head for the past 24 hours:

 

 

But this might be Coldplay's most underrated song... ever?

 

 

I think I like Coldplay more than I should. But not enough to actually listen to them so I guess that’s ok. Funnily enough, the thing I got from Coldplay more than anything is the clocks time signature, 3+3+2/8 which I just love and wrote quite a few things in it and similar odd metered time signatures.

 

Of course I can’t mention Coldplay without posting this piece of Mitch Benn genius… guess it’s a bit dated now but it was broadly true at the time. He did a great parody of Viva La Vida but I can’t find it.  

 

 

[Thor 9,323]

Stop derailing my David Gilmour news with other, less interesting stuff! ( )

[Edmilson 11,002]

20 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Of course I can’t mention Coldplay without posting this piece of Mitch Benn genius… guess it’s a bit dated now but it was broadly true at the time. He did a great parody of Viva La Vida but I can’t find it.  

 

 

Clocks was like everywhere during my youth in the 2000s, I think I first heard it on the trailer for the Peter Pan live action. Though only years later I discovered the music played on the trailer alone and not on the movie itself because my childhood memories had somewhat confused watching the trailer with watching the movie and the piano thing from Clocks with JNH's theme 

 

These days I grew tired of the song, it doesn't have the same impact. For my adult mind, Speed of Sound does the Clocks schtick of a catchy piano tune but better, more epic and haunting.

[Tom Guernsey 3,450]

37 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

 

Clocks was like everywhere during my youth in the 2000s, I think I first heard it on the trailer for the Peter Pan live action. Though only years later I discovered the music played on the trailer alone and not on the movie itself because my childhood memories had somewhat confused watching the trailer with watching the movie and the piano thing from Clocks with JNH's theme 

 

These days I grew tired of the song, it doesn't have the same impact. For my adult mind, Speed of Sound does the Clocks schtick of a catchy piano tune but better, more epic and haunting.

I think clocks was used for some BBC trailer or other thus making it even more ubiquitous than it was already. A bit like when they used Hoppipolla (sp?!) by Sigur Ros for the trailer for the original Planet Earth (or Frozen Planet) series. Back when George Fenton wrote the music for the shows. Happy days. 

[Marian Schedenig 10,849]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

Anyways, the album was released today. I've had one listen-through so far. It's pretty good, but relatively low on memorable melodies. It's more earthy, down-to-ground - even moreso than RATTLE THAT LOCK 9 years ago.

 

I didn't realise it was out "already". I'll get it at some point and listen to it, but I'm not in a particular hurry. What I know so far of Gilmour's solo stuff has rarely stood out enough to me for repeated non-background listening.

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

I haven't heard LUCK AND STRANGE, but ABOUT FACE is my go-to Gilmour solo album.

[GerateWohl 6,199]

Coldplay became unlistenable when they started that happy mood dancefloor stuff.

[Thor 9,323]

Coldplay was always unlistenable to me.

 

9 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

I didn't realise it was out "already". I'll get it at some point and listen to it, but I'm not in a particular hurry. What I know so far of Gilmour's solo stuff has rarely stood out enough to me for repeated non-background listening.

 

Interesting. You're perhaps more into Waters' camp (musically, I mean)?

 

2 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

I haven't heard LUCK AND STRANGE, but ABOUT FACE is my go-to Gilmour solo album.

 

Same here. It's brighter, slightly more 80s poppy (while still being prog, of course) and more melodic. I like the first album too, but it's really as dreary as the cover. It's a toss-up between ABOUT FACE and ON AN ISLAND as my fav. METALLIC SPHERES with The Orb is very nice, but really its own beast that stands somewhat apart from the solo albums. I like RATTLE THAT LOCK too, but you can already hear he's moving more towards a more earthy colour, which he takes more or less all out in LUCK AND STRANGE.

 

By the way -- goosebump moment in "Scattered" on LUCK AND STRANGE when Rick Wright's unmistakable keyboard playing comes in (recorded several years ago, of course). Oh, and Romany really has an angelic voice, much like her father.

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

Waters might be "camp", and even a little bombastic, but both RADIO K.A.O.S. and AMUSED TO DEATH are great records.

I really must check out ÇA IRA one of these days (see what I did, there?).

[Thor 9,323]

I don't like CA IRA. I have it, because I'm a completist, but I think I've played it all but twice in the years since I got it. Overbearing, and the mix of contemporary opera and fairly simple, rock-like orchestrations doesn't work for me. He's better when it comes to purer rock operas, obviously.

 

Meanwhile, AMUSED TO DEATH is one of the first CDs I ever got, period. Played it to death (no pun intended), and as such it towers over any of the other solo efforts by Waters for me. When I studied media at uni, we refurbished the end of a hallway for party purposes, and painted "Amusing Ourselves to Death" on the wall - while everyone else obviously thought about the Neil Postman quote, I always thought about Roger Waters.

[GerateWohl 6,199]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Coldplay was always unlistenable to me.

I know, it's a band that people love to hate. And I agree, that they are probably the uncoolest band in the world, which makes every attempt of them to behave or look cool rather embarrassing. 

 

But even those should admit that The Scientist or Swallowed In The Sea are good songs.

[Thor 9,323]

The "uncool" part doesn't bother me - I grew up having some of the most uncool bands in the world as my absolute favourite (like Supertramp), and was as such completely at odds with my contemporaries who were into hip hop and grunge and britpop and whatever, all of which I hated. No, it's more the whiney indie-cum-pop sound I can't stomach.

[Marian Schedenig 10,849]

5 hours ago, Thor said:

Interesting. You're perhaps more into Waters' camp (musically, I mean)?

 

Some of my top favourite Pink Floyd tracks are Echoes, Wish You Were Here, and High Hopes, although as a whole, The Division Bell already has much "background" stuff, nice though it it all is. So maybe for me it's Gilmour, but in context with the rest of the Pink Floyd members. Or maybe it's an age/development thing - Rattle that Lock is nice enough (and was entertaining live), but I couldn't recall a single song from it now.

[Edmilson 11,002]

4 hours ago, Thor said:

 whiney indie-cum-pop sound I can't stomach.

That describes not only why I like them but also most of the non-film score music I listen to.

[Thor 9,323]

4 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

The Division Bell already has much "background" stuff, nice though it it all is. 

 

I understand what you mean, but I absolutely ADORE that "background stuff", as you call it (they even made a full album out of it with THE ENDLESS RIVER a few years ago). I'm also indelibly attached to that album because it came out at a time when my own musical taste was coming into its own, and I even went to see them live -- probably my first concert with a major band -- when the tour came to Oslo in 1994. The one and only time I've seen Pink Floyd live, when they were still called Pink Floyd (I've seen Roger Waters solo later).

[Marian Schedenig 10,849]

2 minutes ago, Thor said:

I understand what you mean, but I absolutely ADORE that "background stuff", as you call it (they even made a full album out of it with THE ENDLESS RIVER a few years ago).

 

Yes, The Endless River fits together with Rattle that Lock regarding what I've called "background stuff". It's nice, but rarely really grabs me. I haven't heard any if Gilmour's early solo stuff though (and none of Waters's).

 

2 minutes ago, Thor said:

The one and only time I've seen Pink Floyd live, when they were still called Pink Floyd (I've seen Roger Waters solo later).

 

I'm still kicking myself for missing Waters's The Wall tour some ten years ago. I saw Gilmour in Vienna in 2016 - open air, standing tickets, and I regret that I didn't get an seat (more expensive, and the standing tickets were already €100 or something), because the crowd in the standing area was one of the worst I've had at a live concert. First a woman who I guess had travelled all the way to Hungary just to be on the phone with a friend the entire time and hold up the phone to stream some of it to him/her in between, when she wasn't talking. Then after the intermission, when we came to the Pink Floyd stuff, there was a drunk who badly sang along with everything - including the long, slow, silent opening to Shine On, You Crazy Diamond, so loudly that he almost caused a fight.

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

Did anyone watch the live broadcast of THE WALL in Berlin, in July (was it?) 2000?

It wasn't bad.

 

In the late '70s, and whenever I had friends over at my home, they couldn't believe that the guy who had ANIMALS, WIND AND WUTHERING, A TONIC FOR THE TROOPS, I AM, and NEW BOOTS AND PANTIES, also had the OST of SUPERMAN 

[GerateWohl 6,199]

9 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Did anyone watch the live broadcast of THE WALL in Berlin, in July (was it?) 2000?

It wasn't bad.

Did you watch the live broadcast of The Wall in Berlin 1990?

That was a slight desaster. Partly you couldn't hear anything. 

[Thor 9,323]

28 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Did you watch the live broadcast of The Wall in Berlin 1990?

That was a slight desaster. Partly you couldn't hear anything. 

 

I watched that one as it happened -- on an old, fat, black/white TV in our summer house in Denmark. I can't remember any sound issues, but it's been a long time and I wasn't so picky about sound quality at that time.

[GerateWohl 6,199]

13 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

I watched that one as it happened -- on an old, fat, black/white TV in our summer house in Denmark. I can't remember any sound issues, but it's been a long time and I wasn't so picky about sound quality at that time.

There were two broadcast on the same day. One was live with really serious Sound issue where parts of the music were actually not audible. And a second one almost immediately afterwards where they had fixed some of the issues.

I talked to a few people who were directly there and said they hardly heard anything at all.

Probably you watched the second broadcast. The issues on the first cannot have slipped your attention. It was really bad. But still impressive.

[Sweeping Strings 3,033]

Upon hearing of Dave Grohl's admission that he's fathered a child outside of his marriage, I composed a little ode - 

Crikey, it's been a bit of a shock
To hear what Dave Grohl's done with his cock
Maybe instead the 'nicest man in rock'
Should've wanked into a sock

I thang yew. 

[Jay 43,914]

He's got another confession to make

[A24 4,925]

 

Bill Bruford joining Genesis in Toronto. Two of my favorite drummers in the same band! 

[Naïve Old Fart 12,157]

You get no argument from me, Alex, although, in the end, it was Thompson who was better suited to Collins' style of drumming (he was part of the MOI, fer cryin' out loud, not to mention Weather Report).

Bruford didn't do too badly, though: Yes; King Crimson; UK; King Crimson (again); Earthworks; Yes (again); King Crimson (one more time)