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What kind of music do you enjoy?

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AshRyan

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From the mid 80's to present I had subscriptions to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as well as to local opera productions. As a result I saw many operas by many composers, including modern ones.

Even though it can be argued that the best composers might have been Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner (I liked Die Valkure), I have a real weakness for Jacques Offenbach and his Tales of Hoffmann.

It's a lively, picaresque musical whose theme revolves around loves won, lost and imagined. There is a blend of uplifting joy, irony, comedy, and a sense of life that is dynamic. It is the most romanticist opera I've yet seen. And its musical passages are very memorable.

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I also listen to pop music. I prefer jazz over rock, and the only hip-hop group I like is Outkast, since they seem to have transcended that genre.

Jazz: Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Pass, Chuck Mangione, Miles Davis, Weather Report, Diana Krall, Ella Fitzgerald, early George Benson, Herbie Hancock (especially his acoustic stuff), VSOP

Rock/R & B: Cream, Rolling Stones, Buffalo Springfield, Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, Creedence/John Fogarty, Bo Diddley, Jacksons, Most Motown, Most Stax/Volt

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\- Camille Saint-Saens:  Symphony No.3 "Organ Symphony," Danse Macabre is fun, and I love the violin solo in "Introduction Et Rondo Capriccioso."

Saint-Saens opera "Samson and Delilah" was fantastic, a mesmerizing blend of drama and music. If it comes to a theater near you don't miss it.

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Verdi (Great Verdi, the god of opera--this guy had a particular knack for shaping the orchestration to the human voices which were to be the focal point.  His instrumental accompaniments compliment and buttress, rather than detracting from, the vocal lines they're played with.)

You'll get an argument from us Wagnerphiles :pimp:

Wagner is a thrilling, uplifting experience of both sound and sight. I recommend Der Fliegender Hollander, Tannhauser(my personal favorite among his operas), and the very visual Lohengrin. In the Ring Cycle, I'd suggest Die Valkure including that very uplifting Ride of the Valkyries.

That being said, I do like Verdi, especially Aida and Otello. I know both are tragedies in a sense but both are outstanding examples of Romanticism.

Still, I can't help but mention the picaresque nature of French operas in the 19th Century. My favorites are Tales of Hoffmann and Faust

I really am entertained by Bel Canto melodies, but am put off a bit by the shallow plot-themes. I did enjoy Rossini's Barber of Seville; who could forget Figaro's memorable aria? Maybe I should not have liked Mozart's Don Giovanni but I found it very entertaining.

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I like all classical music. I have been listening to Christina Aguilera's "Stripped" CD. A lot of her lyrics are inspiring and uplifting. Whether she practices what she preaches on her albums remains to be seen, the lyrics nonetheless are uplifting. I also enjoy her voice.

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Christina Aguilera's voice is fantastic. It's refreshing to finally see a successful commercial artist who has the talent to back it up.

The trend of popular music these days is to select or *manufacture* perfomers that have little to no real talent or dedication to their art. Instead, record labels sign artists that conform to what the public already knows and is comfortable with, then copy techniques from lesser-known artists who are the true groundbreakers. Granted, it is the record label's right to do business in this manner. It is just a shame that the public buys into it.

It is the same method Peter Keating uses to obtain critical acclaim for himself in "The Fountainhead." He created buildings he knew would have mass appeal, and then stole ideas from a true visionary (Roark) to give himself the appearance of talent.

Shouldn't we try to seek out artists who have talent AS artists, not as artistic figureheads?

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Christina Aguilera's voice is fantastic. It's refreshing to finally see a successful commercial artist who has the talent to back it up.

I agree that Christina Aguilera is a very sound musician with a good voice and sexy movements. Why shouldn't this type of talent make it?

Before he got unraveled in his problems, Michael Jackson showed sound musicianship and dancing and choreography talent as well. His downfall is, in my opinion, tragic in a sense, but then, mainly of his own doing.

Thriller was a great album.

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I agree that Christina Aguilera is a very sound musician with a good voice and sexy movements.  Why shouldn't this type of talent make it?

Before he got unraveled in his problems, Michael Jackson showed sound musicianship and dancing and choreography talent as well.  His downfall is, in my opinion, tragic in a sense, but then, mainly of his own doing.

Thriller was a great album.

I think you misunderstood me on Christina Aguilera. I was saying she SHOULD be successful b/c of her talent. Michael Jackson is another commercial success who has the talent to deserve it. Some musicians who, IMO, do not deserve their success are Brittany Spears, Justin Timberlake (although his producers, The Neptunes & Timbalin, are amazing), Third Eye Blind, Jay-Z, J-Lo, Beyoncé, and others of the same "studio-manufactured" strain.

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I think you misunderstood me on Christina Aguilera. I was saying she SHOULD be successful b/c of her talent. Michael Jackson is another commercial success who has the talent to deserve it. Some musicians who, IMO, do not deserve their success are Brittany Spears, Justin Timberlake (although his producers, The Neptunes & Timbalin, are amazing), Third Eye Blind, Jay-Z, J-Lo, Beyoncé, and others of the same "studio-manufactured" strain.

And I am offering the argument that Christina Aguilera is indeed successful.

Misunderstanding? Hmmmm!

:o

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I must, in all seriousness, take issue with your statement on studio-manufactured artists, dondigitalia.

It is a great and rare gift to possess a head empty enough for the studio personnel to fill it with exactly the kind of unartistic music that many people love to have assault them. The emptyheads you cite above deserve all of the riches showered upon them.

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Danny Elfman is awesome. IMO, his best is "Nightmare Before Xmas" (I just watched it on HBO last night, it's my favorite movie even w/o the music). He does the scores for all of Tim Burton's movies, and also wrote the theme for "The Simpsons." Back in the 80s, though, he was the lead singer/songwriter of Oingo Boingo.

...

Other favorites... Jeff Buckley

Yes, I quite like Grace. If you like Jeff Buckley, you should check out Ours, which is a band started by a former guitar tech of Buckley's named Jimmy Gnecco, who is in my opinion (especially after seeing him play a solo acoustic show live) perhaps an even better singer/songwriter than Buckley was.

Other stuff I've been liking lately: Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and I've recently heard a couple of songs by a band called Muse that I've quite liked (although I'll have to hear some more of their stuff before I come to a full judgment of them).

And yes, Danny Elfman is a genius, including a lot of his stuff with Oingo Boingo. Songs like "Capitalism" and "It Only Makes Me Laugh" ("Darkness can never last too long / when you laugh in its face") are brilliant.

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I've recently heard a couple of songs by a band called Muse that I've quite liked (although I'll have to hear some more of their stuff before I come to a full judgment of them).

Which songs have you heard? I quite liked them a couple of years ago when they released an album called "origin of symmetry", but now I really can't stand them. Their style is extremely repetitive and they blatantly rip off Radiohead circa 1995.

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Which songs have you heard? I quite liked them a couple of years ago when they released an album called "origin of symmetry", but now I really can't stand them. Their style is extremely repetitive and they blatantly rip off Radiohead circa 1995.

Concerto - Yeah, the two songs I heard by them the other day were both from The Origin of Symmetry. Since I made that post, I have heard their newest album (Absolution) in its entirety, and you're right: it's not as good. There are a couple of pretty good songs, but overall it is kind of repetitive. And while there are some differences between them and Radiohead, the influence is so strong and blatantly obvious that it does at times border on being a rip-off of them.

Dondigitalia - I'm glad you like it. And if you think the album is good, see him live if you ever get a chance--his singing, playing etc. are even better in concert (I know, it's hard to imagine, but true).

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Duncan Bohannon on the forum at Danny Elfman's MFADP has created a sort of amateur "suite" of clips from scores spanning Elfman's career--a sort of "twelve-minute history of Elfman." Download it here. If you're not already familiar with Elfman, it will give you a good sample of some highlights of his music. You may not like some of the early stuff (it's arranged chronologically here), but stick with it and I think you will like some of the later stuff. Oh, and you'll probably only want to download it if you've got a high-speed connection to the internet, since it is a nearly twelve-minute mp3 about 10.7 MBs.

The suite includes selections from (in order):

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

Beetlejuice

Batman

The Simpsons

Edward Scissorhands

Batman Returns

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Mars Attacks!

Men In Black

Sleepy Hollow

Planet of the Apes

Spider-Man

Red Dragon

Men In Black II

He left out a few things I would have put in (Black Beauty, Dolores Claiborne, Sommersby, Mission: Impossible, a few others), but this is a decent selection and should give you a pretty good idea of what Danny Elfman's music is like. Check it out!

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Music I enjoy:

1)A Perfect Circle - I enjoy APC due to the fact of pure musical goodness that can be found in the band. Just look at who makes up the band (they are like a modern rock dream team).

You have Billy Howerdell (guitar tech for NIN), James Iha (former Smashing Pumpkins Guitarist), Jeordie White (Marilyn Manson's old bassist), and Maynard.

Not too shabby.

2)Pink Floyd.

I enjoy some of the instrumental stuff (anyone dig Relics?) such as "Signs of life." I also enjoy Wish you were here and The Wall. Another cool song is "high hopes" from The Division Bell album.

3) Kill Hannah (www.killhannah.com you can listen to the media player).

4) AFI (very cool stuff musically speaking)

5) Weezer

6) Camera ... I recommend "Breaking Point" and "Lie to me")

7)Mynis

I recommend listening to all of their songs on that page. I really like the mood of "Maybe Solar" and the Doors cover is just cool.

8) Jason Rhein

I'm curious as to what you guys would think about the song "Cello."

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My music tastes are quite varied.

1. The "New World" Symphony (and other works by Dvorak)

2. Evanescence - Bring Me to Life, My Immortal

3. Robert Cray - Bad Influence, etc.

4. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

5. Reba McEntire

6. Natalie Merchant (and 10,000 Maniacs)

7. Enya

8. The Cranberries

9. Weird Al

10. BB King

This is just a drop in the bucket, in no particular order. My tastes of movie music is also rather expansive. I won't get into that now.

Two pieces in particular that move me emotionally moreso than any other pieces of music are:

1. Spencer Brewer - Wonderland

2. Enya - From Where I Am

VES

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On top of bands you guys have already named, I also like:

Queens of the Stone Age (especially the latest album)

Led Zeppelin

Velvet Underground

Guns N Roses

Temple of the Dog

Soundgarden

Nirvana

I'm just now beginning to get back into classical and jazz so I can't say I have any favorites from those genres right now.

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5) Weezer

What kind of Weezer? They have such a wide array.

The sugar-poppy Blue album (Buddy Holly et. al.) is how most people think of Weezer.

Die-hard Weezer fans (like myself) are usually partial to their second album, Pinkerton. It has a much harder, more raw sound. Rivers Cuomo put a lot of himself into this album; the lyrics are very personal and really lay out a lot of the changes he was going through before he went on hiatus to attend Harvard.

The Green Album was weak. They had a different producer, and were trying to sell a product rather than make music.

Last year, they released a fourth album, which most people haven't even heard of, called Maladroit. It's a bit of a return to classic Weezer, falling somewhere between Blue & Pinkerton. You can hear a lot of Ramones influence.

Weezer Rules

=w=

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My favorite music is the jazz and dance band music from the 1920s and 1930s. It is completely unlike anything that is out there today. The music was extremely melodic and, at the same time, was highly rhythmic - and a lot of it can only be described as exuberant and even downright hyperactive. Unfortunately, most of the music from that era has been all but forgotten. One of my hobbies and passions is trying to introduce the music to the modern audience I think it deserves. Towards that end, I have a website and an online radio station devoted to the music. I have a huge 78 rpm collection (currently over 10,000 records) as well as a large collection of CD reissues of recordings from the era. If you are not already familiar with the music, check it out sometime by tuning into my online radio station mentioned in my.sig.

As an aside, the service that I use to stream my station is called Live365.com and there you will find thousands of other online radio stations featuring just about any musical genre you can imagine. Two stations that I particularly enjoy there are Weimar Rundfunk which features popular European recordings from the 1920s - 1940s and Elite Syncopations which is a station that plays ragtime music.

I also like certain types of classical music - mostly the lighter stuff from the late 19th century. In recent years, I have become a big fan of operetta music, particularly Viennese operetta by composers such as Franz Lehar, Emmerich Kalman and Oscar Straus. While I have always been familiar with the existence of the genre, it was Ayn Rand, of all people, who more or less reintroduced it to me and I subsequently became hooked. Because of my interest in both Ayn Rand and collecting vintage phonograph records, I was immediately fascinated when I learned of Ayn Rand's love for a certain type of vintage music which she called "Tiddlywink Music." It was while researching Ayn Rand's musical interests that I discovered Emmerich Kalman (one of her favorites) and rediscovered operetta in general. For those who might be interested, I have a website of vintage recordings that have, in some way or another, an Ayn Rand connection. See: http://dismuke.org/aynrand

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My music tastes are quite varied.

1. The "New World" Symphony (and other works by Dvorak)

You should check out his cello concerto in B minor, if you don't already know it. I recently bought a recording on the Sony label with Yo Yo Ma and the New York Philharmonic. This recording is incredibly good. The concerto itself has a well-deserved reputation as one of the top five concertos of any type in classical music.

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You should check out his cello concerto in B minor

Thanks, I'll put that on my list.

My particular "New World" was performed by Sir George Solti and the Chicago Symphony. It was recommended to me by a friend and I have been very happy with it. About a year ago I misplaced it, thinking it was either entirely lost, or I loaned it to a friend (whom I couldn't remember) who failed to return it. I looked high and low to replace it finally finding it at Planet Music locally. A couple months later my original CD was located and then I had two copies. :) I gave my son one. If you have the opportunity, you should listen to that version and see how it compares to what you may have heard before.

VES

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My love for music goes back a long way. I am not a musician (i'd like to change that, want to learn the guitar) but never does a day go by without music.

My taste in music is a bit eclectic, though most of it is contemporary music. I think there are quite a few bands, that have created some great music, but done so only in a few songs. How great one song can be, the next could be equally bad.

If i were to choose an all time favourite band, it would have to be Guns n' Roses, because of the songs like Sweet Child of Mine, Don't Cry, November Rain Patience etc. Most of the stuff i like could be classified under the genre of Rock.

I'd like to ask you guys what your'll think about Rap? I'm not talking about the pop based crass rap, but the intense one's. To name a few Eminem's Lose Yourself & 8 Mile Road, Nas's One Mic & Nas is Like. I just love the beat and the intensity of these songs and in eminem's case some of the words too.

I'm expecting a bit of flack from you guys over rap, since most people tend to beleive it's brainless. But i don't care, i love those songs and thats that.

Would love to hear your comments

dinesh.

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