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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1737 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 30, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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What new music have you been listening to recently?

My favorite band dropped a new album last week! It has been five years since Marianas Trench released their last album, and Haven was well worth the wait. It continues the cinematic 80’s-inflected pop-rock the band first perfected on their 2015 album Astoria.

What I love most about Marianas Trench is that they are determined to keep album-oriented rock alive; Haven is a thirteen-song semi-autobiographical meditation on Joseph Campbell’s theory of the archetypal literary/mythological hero’s journey, with each song representing a specific juncture within that journey as it applied to frontman Josh Ramsay’s own life. Ramsay was inspired partly by the impending birth of his first child, and what this means for the small-scale “hero’s journey” of his own life.

While many of the album’s songs are long, epic, and complex (including the opening and closing tracks, both of which are between six and nine minutes long) others are tight and incredibly catchy pop songs - Ramsay wrote and produced the bubblegum-pop mega-hit “Call Me Maybe” for fellow Canadian Carly Rae Jepsen back in 2011, and his ear for melodies and musical textures is unimpeachable - elevated by Ramsay’s powerful falsetto and the band’s multi-layered vocal harmonies. Several of them sound like they were lifted straight from the height of 1980’s dance-pop; Ramsay channels Prince and Michael Jackson on the infectious “Remember Me By”, and the bouncy love song “Ancient History” contains a saxophone solo that I assume was recorded by the ghost of The E Street Band’s Clarence Clemons.

I get the vague sense that many people here have little interest in new music - particularly new pop music - but for those who want to see rock bands continue to release full-length albums with thematic and narrative through-lines, perhaps my recommendation might inspire you to give Haven a listen. You could find worse ways to spend 52 minutes. I’m seeing Marianas Trench in concert (for the sixth or seventh time - I can’t keep track) in two weeks, and I can’t wait to see how they recreate this thing live.

I've been listening to it today, I'm enjoying it! Reminds me a lot of 30 Second to Mars.

That’s a good comparison! I think both bands have a similar flair for the cinematic and bombastically-expressive. I saw Thirty Seconds To Mars in concert years ago, and they had an ensemble of taiko drummers playing massive drums onstage while Jared Leto went far out into the middle of the arena seating to perform. Really great live act.

I stumbled across joji and have been listening to him a great deal, but I had this nagging feeling that I recognised him from somewhere... Only to Google and realise that this is not only what filthyfrank pivoted to after stopping YouTube but that he's been majorly successful as well.

Still waiting for the day he comes out onstage and launches into a spirited rendition of "Weird McDonald's Rap".

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