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Friday Fun Thread for May 19, 2023

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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Music Thread?

Been on an old-timey country kick lately, including new songs that sound old and actually old. Though I'm prone to putting on stuff like The Dragonfather and The Stupendium too, depending on the mood.

What's everyone here been listening to?

I also had a question about trying to track down an old (possibly 1950s or 60s?) country song. The overall "sound" is similar to Crockett's Man from Waco, slightly higher tempo. There's a sort of... almost valley girl uptilt at the end of the lines of the song I'm thinking of. The husband is traveling, meets a woman at the hotel bar, never makes it home to his wife. Of course, this being country music, infidelity isn't enough to narrow it down for me or I haven't stumbled onto the right search terms. I think the new woman's name might've been slightly Spanish (Maria?), and Amarillo might've played a role somewhere in the lyrics, but that might be bleeding over from other songs. It is not Is this the way to Amarillo but that bizarre Comic Relief video was worth sharing anyways.

The weird jazz-electronic group Knower is teasing a new Album. Louis Cole is an insane drummer with a unique sound and style which I particularly love.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=O2F0oTqfL3E

I'm also on an opera binge for music reasons. Cosi Fan Tutte is one of my perennial favorites but getting myself interred into italian operas is always helpful.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aJIpVj_YkNo

That Stupendium guy is quite excellent, thanks for that!

Lematrie - Closer is my jam of the moment. The video cracks me up as well: who among us has not felt this way?

Been on a Mastodon kick lately. Pretty consistently great 00s metal band, their 4 records based on the elements are quite diverse. Good blend of sludge, thrash and prog metal. Leviathan, the water record, is an interesting concept album about Moby Dick.

For another Moby Dick concept album, try The Call of the Wretched Sea. It’s more funeral or doom than anything like thrash.

I've been enjoying the work of Farya Faraji. A lot of Mediterranean and Balkan historical folk pieces, mixed with some other stuff.

Currently listening to the Charley Crockett album you posted and am liking some of this, especially Clown. If you like folk, I'd recommend you have a listen to Sufjan Stevens' Carrie and Lowell, which is a masterpiece of songwriting and one of the more depressing albums I've listened to.

I've been listening to a lot of electronic music recently. For a link to some of it, I posted a list of the electronic albums I've been enjoying not too long ago, and have been updating it as I go along for future reference in these music threads (at the time of this post, it stands at 35 entries). It is basically the antithesis of the music you've posted. I’ve bolded the albums that I think might confuse and/or outright annoy people, which makes up 20 of the 35 albums (and some of which are among my favourite albums of all time, with Exai in particular being my favourite album of any genre). You can take the bolding either as a warning or a challenge.

I've had a soft spot for Monster Magnet's Powertrip album lately.

It's not high art. Honestly the guy isn't even that good of a singer. But the lyrics are audacious and spacy, and I kind of love it. I also have a special place in my heart for rock acts that might be C-list at best, but perform with all the gusto and swagger of an S-Tier act. Especially when they just keep going decade after decade. Like this one Iced Earth album I used to listen to where they are trying to do some crowd work, and I swear only a single guy is yelling back.

Ooh, flashbacks from 20 years ago! I ran into Monster Magnet’s Dopes to Infinity album and liked it enough to buy it (remember when people used to actually buy physical albums?). I even saw them live when they made it to Finland two years later although that gig wasn’t particularly memorable (probably not helped by the fact I spent the entire festival suffering from sinusitis). Still, good times when I was young and naive enough to be affected by just one or two songs from an artist I’d never heard before.