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Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
New 1975 album is out. I dunno if it’s being talked about in another thread but this is definitely the most appropriate one. It’s good

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DC Murderverse
Nov 10, 2016

"Tell that to Zod's snapped neck!"

Escobarbarian posted:

New 1975 album is out. I dunno if it’s being talked about in another thread but this is definitely the most appropriate one. It’s good

all of the singles that have been out for a while range from great to amazing (special notice to It's Not Living If It's Not With You which a happy song about heroin on par with Semi-Charmed Life), and the rest of the album is good with a few songs working up to great (that last one in particular is something special).

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
Yeah the singles are definitely my favourite tracks and I’m less into the ballads like Be My Mistake but the last track and that Siri interlude are real good

less laughter
May 7, 2012

Accelerock & Roll
Why didn't anybody tell me this happened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpJ8CbrWX_Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES9hM2fgyAA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qPrCQOcUKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsJzY12lZos

Rageaholic
May 31, 2005

Old Town Road to EGOT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNMDaJcUKMs

:eyepop:

I love how something this weird can make it onto loving Fallon ahahaha

^burtle
Jul 17, 2001

God of Boomin'



[elon musk blunt face]

Mr Ice Cream Glove
Apr 22, 2007

https://mobile.twitter.com/AvrilLavigne/status/1072914789582565376

New Avril single

https://youtu.be/g5wseA6HoNs

Spiteski
Aug 27, 2013



That new Avril is pretty good.

The new grimes song is pretty stellar though. Really really like that one.

Sai-kun
Feb 6, 2011

Is it ever going to be enough, to love another and be loved?
https://twitter.com/MarinaDiamandis/status/1073281006713618432

A tease of a new Marina song. This album will kill me.

101
Oct 15, 2012


Vault Dweller

Sai-kun posted:

https://twitter.com/MarinaDiamandis/status/1073281006713618432

A tease of a new Marina song. This album will kill me.

I want it now

Superrodan
Nov 27, 2007
I've always been a huge sucker for the three note progression she uses in the words "enjoy your life" at the end there. It's why I also loved Taio Cruz' Dynamite and a bunch of other pop songs.

Does that set of three notes have a name?

Automatonic Water
Jul 8, 2012

dig thru the ditches
and burn thru the witches
and slam in the back of my.........
.........DRAGULA


Yams Fan
The grimes song is good but the whole "subjugate humanity to the tech overlord" theme stops being a cute shadowrun thing when she is literally supporting that in real life

Siivola
Dec 23, 2012

It's a song about the shared Twitter joke that brought the two together, which is kind of sweet. :shobon:

101
Oct 15, 2012


Vault Dweller

Siivola posted:

It's a song about the shared Twitter joke that brought the two together, which is kind of sweet. :shobon:

Just called chief, this ain't it etc.

Siivola
Dec 23, 2012

They hooked up over a joke about Roko's Basilisk, which is the stupidest "thought experiment" I've read this past month and also basically the entire plot of the song "We Appreciate Power". :shrug:

Sudbina
Mar 17, 2009
Christina Perri is back with a new song and an album being released next month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqbvW29_WOQ

Too bad it's an album for children.

Good point keep talkin
Sep 14, 2011


Is it though?

Mr Ice Cream Glove
Apr 22, 2007

Really digging the new Miley Cyrus

Athletic Footjob
Sep 24, 2005
Grimey Drawer
JoJo has rerecorded and uploaded 2 albums worth of older material.

the truth
Dec 16, 2007

Where? I don’t see it on iTunes or Spotify.

Athletic Footjob
Sep 24, 2005
Grimey Drawer

the truth posted:

Where? I don’t see it on iTunes or Spotify.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/jojo-2018/1447538384

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-high-road-2018/1447539460

the truth
Dec 16, 2007

Fuuuuuuuuck yes. Thank you. I see them now, but they weren’t on her page on either service late last night.


Mad Love had some fun songs (Vibe and FAB) but was kind of blah overall, but she is so drat talented. Her version of Take Me Home on her free LP was great. Hope she continues to find success

the truth fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Dec 21, 2018

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
It's official: in a surprising upset, this year's UK Christmas number-one is a novelty song about sausage rolls.

Proceeds go to charity so it's all good.

Superrodan
Nov 27, 2007
I've always loved We Built This City, regardless of how many "these songs were bad but still were big hits" list it ends up on. so more power to them.

Sudbina
Mar 17, 2009

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Really digging the new Miley Cyrus

Yeah, I really like it too. It's a lot better than any song from her previous album.

trash person
Apr 5, 2006

Baby Executive is pleased with your performance!
Hello pop music people. I have a general pop music question.

Pop music in the late 90s/early 00s sounded less 'produced'. That's probably not the correct word, but the songs sounded more sparse/less full in their musicality/complexity. Not the lyrics, but more specifically the mix surrounding it.

I've always wondered was that simply the stylistic choice at the time or was there a change in music production/technology that enabled pop music writ large to be more 'full' in its sound/mix?

e: It's also possible of course it's just anecdotal in the (many) songs I've heard throughout my life, but I feel like I've had enough of a sample size to see some sort of trend.

Rageaholic
May 31, 2005

Old Town Road to EGOT

trash person posted:

Hello pop music people. I have a general pop music question.

Pop music in the late 90s/early 00s sounded less 'produced'. That's probably not the correct word, but the songs sounded more sparse/less full in their musicality/complexity. Not the lyrics, but more specifically the mix surrounding it.

I've always wondered was that simply the stylistic choice at the time or was there a change in music production/technology that enabled pop music writ large to be more 'full' in its sound/mix?

e: It's also possible of course it's just anecdotal in the (many) songs I've heard throughout my life, but I feel like I've had enough of a sample size to see some sort of trend.
Loudness war. It can get pretty technical, but essentially as digital music started becoming more and more prevalent and fewer things were recorded analog, producers would try to maximize the amount of volume in a song without distorting it, leaving less room for dynamics like there used to be. Not everyone did this, but a lot of pop artists did.

Also the rise and availability of Digital Audio Workstations led to more tools being available at a producer's disposal. It also eventually meant that anyone could make music if they wanted to, which is why you see so many artists emerging from SoundCloud (and to give an older example, MySpace) nowadays.

Rageaholic fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Dec 23, 2018

Sir Lemming
Jan 27, 2009

It's a piece of JUNK!

Rageaholic Monkey posted:

Loudness war. It can get pretty technical, but essentially as digital music started becoming more and more prevalent and fewer things were recorded analog, producers would try to maximize the amount of volume in a song without distorting it, leaving less room for dynamics like there used to be. Not everyone did this, but a lot of pop artists did.

It's basically this. But because this always risks sounding like meaningless audiophile stuff that doesn't actually make a noticeable difference, I like to use sandpaper as an analogy. Imagine a fully mixed recording of a song as a wood carving. The volume fluctuations that naturally happen in any recording -- in fact, volume fluctuations basically are what a recording is -- are the bumps on the wood. Occasionally there might be a stray bump that's undesirable, so you can use sandpaper to grind it down a little, resulting in a more attractive product. However, if you use it too much, you end up with just a shapeless block of wood.

Time works the same way Audio compression = sandpaper, and digital audio compression = a power sander, I guess. It makes it trivially easy to fix a mix where there are one or two parts where the snare drum and guitar accidentally get in each other's space and create a volume spike once in a while. Or fixing a single track -- such a the vocals -- where there are a lot of volume fluctuations due to mic positioning or whatever and you want to make it stand out better in the full mix. But used too liberally on the whole mix, it makes a recording sound "blocky" and indistinct. You can turn up the volume as much as you want but you can't pick out any more details.

Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Dec 23, 2018

Siivola
Dec 23, 2012

Sampling’s also matured a lot as a technology. You just plain couldn't do today's soundscapes back in the day. Now you can rap over the sound of wind on Mars, how cool is that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iovUGHuuIyo

Rageaholic
May 31, 2005

Old Town Road to EGOT

Siivola posted:

Sampling’s also matured a lot as a technology. You just plain couldn't do today's soundscapes back in the day. Now you can rap over the sound of wind on Mars, how cool is that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iovUGHuuIyo
It's true. Future's Mask Off (which currently has 340 million views on YouTube and was loving everywhere for a while) samples a flute section from "Prison Song" from the 1978 musical Selma. Like...who would have ever thought something like that would be the basis for one of the most popular songs of last year?

Lazlo Nibble
Jan 9, 2004

It was Weasleby, by God! At last I had the miserable blighter precisely where I wanted him!

Sir Lemming posted:

Audio compression = sandpaper, and digital audio compression = a power sander, I guess.
“Digital audio compression” = codecs (MP3/AAC/etc.); “audio compression” = dynamic compression. I don’t think “digital” plays into the latter at all, except that performing dynamic compression in the digital domain might give you more control/flexibility. And digital has an actual top level you can push towards but not beyond, which might contribute.

The Loudness War definitely plays a big role in the increased use of dynamic compression in pop music but dynamic compression can also just be an intentional technique to get a certain production “sound”, the same way you’d hear Auto-Tune in tracks by artists who can actually hit notes without its help, or intentional use of distortion, etc.; it became part of the toolbox.

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002
What is an example of late 90s/early 2000’s pop that sounds less produced and modern pop that is over produced? When I think of late 90s pop I think Backstreet Boys, Brittany Spears, Spice Girls... not exactly minimalist poo poo. And I can think of a lot of modern pop music that‘s lo-fi/bedroom hip hop influenced. Well produced but spartan compared to Backstreet Boys.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
The common denominator between the Backstreet Boys / Britney Spears and, say, Katy Perry or Taylor Swift since she stopped recording country music is clear: Max Martin. Max Martin is one of those figures who's interesting to me because of his own musical roots: he was in an obscure heavy metal band in Sweden before he became a superstar songwriter / producer.

See also: Dann Huff and Mutt Lange, who were the most powerful country music producers of the late 90s / early 00s, and both of whom had backgrounds in hair metal to varying degrees (obviously Lange made his name recording AC/DC but it's those Def Leppard albums he did that he was leaning on when he started recording Shania Twain).

Sir Lemming
Jan 27, 2009

It's a piece of JUNK!

Lazlo Nibble posted:

“Digital audio compression” = codecs (MP3/AAC/etc.); “audio compression” = dynamic compression. I don’t think “digital” plays into the latter at all, except that performing dynamic compression in the digital domain might give you more control/flexibility.

My bad, I didn't mean that type of compression, to get the file size down. I just meant with digital mixing tools it's easier to slap a dynamic compressor on the whole track.

BigFactory posted:

What is an example of late 90s/early 2000’s pop that sounds less produced and modern pop that is over produced? When I think of late 90s pop I think Backstreet Boys, Brittany Spears, Spice Girls... not exactly minimalist poo poo. And I can think of a lot of modern pop music that‘s lo-fi/bedroom hip hop influenced. Well produced but spartan compared to Backstreet Boys.

Late 90s is probably too late. That's right around when compression was getting really crazy. Think mid 90s -- like Alanis Morisette, which I guess is "alternative" but really, that was pop at the time.

I do think things have been scaling back since around 2010 as there was a bit of a pushback to these trends. Obviously digital production is still very very much a thing, but people are getting smarter about how to use it. In a good way. Plus, of course, the more independent artists that don't have a huge budget.

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002

Sir Lemming posted:

Late 90s is probably too late. That's right around when compression was getting really crazy. Think mid 90s -- like Alanis Morisette, which I guess is "alternative" but really, that was pop at the time.

Alanis Morrisette isn't the first name that comes to mind when I think of 90's pop radio. Ironic got a little bit of crossover play but Madonna and Whitney Houston and Michael/Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey...that's what was getting played on top 40 radio stations.

Even 2010 was almost a decade ago! I think there's some very "overproduced" sounding pop music right now, and some very intentionally sparsely produced pop music (think songs like Justin Bieber Sorry, or Hotline Bling).

If anything, producers and engineers are probably better at producing songs to sound good when they're listened to on youtube or spotify.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Whatever happened to Duffy?

Athletic Footjob
Sep 24, 2005
Grimey Drawer
Sophomore slump.

DC Murderverse
Nov 10, 2016

"Tell that to Zod's snapped neck!"

Wheat Loaf posted:

Whatever happened to Duffy?

me and my friends were joking about buying dumb failed blockbusters in 4k at work and it just devolved into remembering all of the big movie bombs from the last like, 7 years.

Duffy is like, the pop star equivalent of one of those movies

edit: or maybe Adele defeated her in hand-to-hand combat and was the British Soul Singer releasing their debut in 2008 that was allowed to take the Winehouse British Soul Crown

DC Murderverse fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Dec 30, 2018

DC Murderverse
Nov 10, 2016

"Tell that to Zod's snapped neck!"

oh poo poo i almost forgot

I got tickets to see Gaga in Vegas next October!!! It's basically a birthday/"sorry we're going on vacation without you" present from my parents but I got GA Floor tickets to the Enigma show and really, really far back tickets to the Jazz and Piano show. I've never seen Gaga and never been to Vegas but i feel like the two will go together well. I'm not watching the videos of the performance so I can be surprised by how it happens but she does Shallow (obviously) and covers David Bowie's (makes sense) I'm Afraid of Americans (oooooook?) with Government Hooker which means I'm gonna be really happy because that just sounds lovely.

now I just need to see her on a broadway stage and i'll be able to die happy.

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somnambulist
Mar 27, 2006

quack quack



DC Murderverse posted:

oh poo poo i almost forgot

I got tickets to see Gaga in Vegas next October!!! It's basically a birthday/"sorry we're going on vacation without you" present from my parents but I got GA Floor tickets to the Enigma show and really, really far back tickets to the Jazz and Piano show. I've never seen Gaga and never been to Vegas but i feel like the two will go together well. I'm not watching the videos of the performance so I can be surprised by how it happens but she does Shallow (obviously) and covers David Bowie's (makes sense) I'm Afraid of Americans (oooooook?) with Government Hooker which means I'm gonna be really happy because that just sounds lovely.

now I just need to see her on a broadway stage and i'll be able to die happy.

I’m so jealous. I think late next year is a good time to go too, by then new music will be out, things will get refined, concepts tightened up etc. The first few dates at any tour/residency are usually not the best. I’m gonna try and see Enigma too.

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