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 don’t know if there’s an official term, so I call it the vocalsynth genre, which includes things like vocaloid, UTAU, deepvocal, enunu, diffsinger, etcetera.
One thing I love about it is that they- especially utau because it’s free and there are a lot of voicebanks, tutorials/guides, and other things designed specifically for it- allow you to be able to create a song that would normally never be made by a famous or up-and-coming singer. At least the vocals, though, because you still need to make the backing track (or outsource that to someone else). It kinda evens the playing field when you have people who are not good at singing making songs/covers that are just as good as songs from the music industry.
Plus, there are so many original songs out there and usually covers of said songs that if you don’t like one version, you can always find another version that might sound better. That definitely holds true for the biggest songs and even various lesser known songs. All the songs are made from people across the globe, so you end up with a lot of different songs of different genres, themes, etcetera.
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.
Drum N Bass
Yup, you’ve got everything from chilled liquid, to pop-like anthems, to full on neuro and dark step. Love it.
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
’80s (new wave, synthpop, post punk) – unadulterated nostalgia
“We don’t search for old songs,
we search for old memories.”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.
’90s*
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
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.
I love many genres of music, so the open ended creativity in the downtempo electronic scene is where I usually find myself regularly being rewarded with something that feels new. Any genre or mix of many can be worked in and explored with the gloves off. And I love deep groovy bass work.
I also can’t get enough of electronic downtempo/chillout/lounge music, mainly prefer instrumental stuff but if it’s gotta have vocals then make them female. got any artist recommendations? I love all the old Pork Records stuff (Fila Brazillia, Baby Mammoth, Leggo Beast, Bullitnuts), and Elektrolux records (Fresh Moods, Guardner, Index ID, Naoki Kenji, The Sushi Club), Tosca, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Peace Orchestra, Nightmares On Wax, Bonobo, etc.
I usually lean more into the psychedelic side as I went deep into the psytrance scene in my twenties, like Ott, Shpongle, Bluetec, Ishq then had a major trip hop phase with Morcheeba, massive attack, Portishead, RJD2 and many artists you mentioned. Supertask has been one of my recent finds that has been impressive. Mostly I am song to song not heavy into particular artists. Here is a small platter of artists you haven’t mentioned.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4kFtWXruto5D6tbFDaMMXq?si=ei3olPlcT8i3vKs0mCAe1g&pi=u-cqsPkzARTy2G
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.
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)
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?
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”.
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!).
Folk music. I love the sound, obviously, but I also love the way it’s not so much about writing songs as learning them, taking something from the past and carrying it into the future.
Great description.
What are some of your favorites? I adore folk and am always looking for more recommendations
I would recommend The Arcadian Wild
Blues, because it has so widely influenced other forms of music.
“The blues has become the basis for nearly every form of American popular music over the past 100 years: jazz, R&B, rock, hip-hop.”
My favorite new blues tune:
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.
