I’ve had discussions about music with a few team members, but I thought I’d cast a wider net here and ask everyone: what music do you listen to? Share some music that you love!
I collect, listen to and enjoy a very wide range of music genres. On a typical work day, I’ll start my morning with death metal (like Cannibal Corpse, early Entombed, Suffocation, Full of Hell), then move to smoother stuff mid-day. I’ve listened to hardcore punk and metal music more than any other genre in my life, and for some reason heavy/noisy music helps me focus
On the other side of the spectrum, I also love jazz, afrobeat, electronic music, funk, soul, early hip hop…and the list goes on. I just don’t listen much to pop music or mainstream stuff - though the older I get, the more “classic” pop and rock records I buy.
Hey there, nice thread, last time we discussed this it was about two years ago.
My workday usually starts with a podcast based on Buddhist retreats from a Brazilian lama (teacher) and some meditation. Seems @gabriel and I are exactly on opposite ends of a spectrum Just kidding, that’s just my preparation.
When I sit on my computer I usually switch gears to a Progressive House playlist. If you are into this I highly recommend thegrandsound.com and their playlists/mixes in Soundcloud, Spotify, Youtube and their website. I find the rhythm, upbeat melodies and lack of vocalization excellent to get me motivated and start my workday in a positive vibe.
Later in the day I usually switch to lo-fi hip-hop, jazzy beats or deep house to get me to the end of the day with a calmer mind. Those are just examples, there are multitudes of playlists in YouTube and Spotify.
I have a few MPB (popular Brazilian music), pop and classic rock playlists to listen on my car with my family during trips and for exercising nothing beat uplifting trace mixes, with at least 170 BPMs.
@gabriel That’s a nice compiled list of death-metal bands! Not specifically death metal kind but my favorite metal bands are definitely: Converge (probably the best band I have every saw in concert) and Neurosis.
@paulo I listen to a lot of lo-fi hip-hop radio too. Clearly the easy way to go when you want a chill and easy thing to listen (don’t get me wrong, easy doesn’t mean cheap sound :)).
When I really need to motivate myself I usually listen to hip-hop, like Kate Tempest or Death Grips (very explicit and weird).
For chilling stuff like writing some React, I prefer to listen to some techno/IDM like Aphex Twin.
Bonus, why not sharing something like “stuff you like but you are kinda ashamed of”
Anyway, I will share mine Kero Kero Bonito , please don’t judge me
@toxinu I’m also a big fan of Converge! I saw them live a few times - the first time I ever went to a hardcore show in Montreal (11h drive from my hometown!) was to see Converge, actually. I was 12 years old and the set is still on Youtube. Good times but scary times My favorite album is one of the “recent” ones, Axe to Fall. I mean, Jane Doe was a groundbreaking album but it annoys me to see young posers wearing the Jane Doe tshirt at the mall, not knowing what the band is
I also like Neurosis but never got to see them live. I listened to A Sun That Never Sets quite a lot when it came out.
On my side, it has gotten harder to pinpoint specific genres or artists, as I find my way of listening to music has changed recently. While a few years ago I would typically have a set of artists and radios I would come back to - usually high beat electronic music like the Chemical Brothers, with elements of acoustic like Gotan Project, or radios like the Progressive channel from Digitally Imported, or the French eclectic radios like Radio Nova and FIP.
But Spotify and their machine learning algorithms have changed this. Building upon my previous tastes, and the ones of people I liked the music of, I now use mainly the Discover Weekly playlist to add music to my main playlist – which is what I then listen to most of the time. And thanks to this, I now listen to a much broader set of music genres. The tempo has also slowed down a bit - maybe an effect of age :p Or maybe a consequence of the exploration having changed what I enjoy in music a bit - it’s more contemplative now, while in the past it was a lot about the rush I get from high tempos.
Since it’s harder to describe, I’ll put the list of my most played songs this year, which gives a good sample:
That said, for specific activities, I still have higher tempo lists - here is my ski playlist ;p
I’ve begun adding my modest collection of vinyl records on my Discogs profile (Discogs is a crowdsourced database of information about audio recordings, a music collector’s dream). Since I need to identify the exact release copy of each record (popular records can have 10s or even 100s of different release versions, each with unique identifiers), I must spend time analyzing little details on the album covers and on the records themselves . I have ~400 LPs and lots of spare time because of the lockdown, so this has become a hobby that I enjoy quite a lot The process also made me relisten to a bunch of good records that I own. I’m sharing a few that I’ve listened to this last weekend:
Charles Bradley - Changes
The title song is actually a soul/funk cover of a Black Sabbath song… that’s genius. I love this guy. His life story is very interesting, too. His career only took off in the 2010s, when he was around the age of 60 - before that he earned money on the side as a James Brown impersonator! Unfortunately he passed away in 2017.
Kraftwerk - Radioactivity (German pioneers of electronic music)
Black Mountain - s/t (Great rock band from Vancouver, Canada. Their drummer has some serious grooves) cc. @braden ;)
Beastie Boys - Check your head (lots of live instruments on this one, one of my favorite BB albums)
While convalescing I’ve spent quite a long time on YouTube. There a naturally a lot of suggestions from the YouTube bot giving insight into my own mind and the minds of the various Google AIs. One particular gem was Pomplamoose
Ahhh, Gojira. What a talented and awesome band <3 You know what’s funny, @toxinu? I once toured the USA with Gojira, many years ago, as their sound engineer (doing on-stage monitors). I actually started the tour as the sound engineer for the opening band (my good friends Beneath The Massacre, from Montreal), and Gojira hired me a few days into the tour. What great fun we had! Amazing band to watch live, and they’re real nice guys too. Funny coincidence, right? I visited them in Bayonne once too, we had a good time.
With that said, here are a few samples of what I’ve been listening to in the past 2 weeks (I’m trying to compose industrial metal music these days, so I listen to a lot of it):
Woaw that’s so cool! Are you still doing some sound engineer work lately (I guess no because of the pandemic)? Or would you try to do some later? Are you still in a band recently?
I really love Gojira for their music but also because of their lyrics and their environmental engagement. The power of Metal music united with environmental activism is really doing something under my skin.
Gluch sounds nice! I don’t know if you are into “Death Metal” or not but “At the war with reality” by “At the Gates” is really dope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoJYZITMZAI
I haven’t done live sound mixing in awhile, but I mean to get back to it (on a part-time basis, maybe try working at a local club here in Québec). Mixing consoles have changed so much in the past few years, I feel like a dinosaur With that said, I’ve tried to stay in the game by doing studio stuff, which is different but similar in some ways. I’m not bad at it!
And yep, last year when I moved to Québec City I joined a very dark metal/hc band called Apes, when their original drummer left. The members of this band are childhood friends and ex-bandmates, so we’re getting along quite good! We actually just recorded a 4-track EP, and had it mixed by Will Putney (who mixes a lot of hardcore and metal bands → he actually mixed a Gojira album!). It sounds massive and I’m super proud. We’ve also signed a record deal just a few days ago, with Translation Loss Records (a subsidiary of Relapse records). They put out super nice-looking vinyls, so we’re pretty excited. I can’t share the tracks for now, but I’ll do so when we release the EP!
And yeah, I’m a huge DM fan, and At The Gates is the classic Swedish stuff! I also love early albums by Entombed (their drummer eventually left and started Hellacopters, another great but different-sounding band!).
On the metal side, I’ve generally leaned more toward more melodic stuff.
Probably known by anyone who listens to metal, but the first three Children of Bodom albums are all-time favorites of mine; after that they changed their sound a bit. Their lead guitarist Alexi Laiho died of health complications not too long ago. Children of Bodom - Children of Bodom
Bal Sagoth is another favorite of mine, although they stopped putting out new music and I haven’t ever found anything that comes close. Fun fact: one of their drummers eventually left to join Dragonforce. Bal Sagoth - Naked Steel
My final metal go-to is Archenemy; they replaced their lead male singer with a female one some years ago but continued to make great music. Archenemy - Silverwing
All of these are foreign bands/musicians so, to balance things, I’ll leave you with the portuguese Dead Combo: Povo Que Cais Descalço (roughly translates to “The people, who fall barefoot”). Esse Olhar Que Era Só Teu (“That look that was only yours”)
@joao.cabrita I’m more into death metal than melodic metal, BUT in my teenage years I’ve listened to COB’s first two albums quite a lot. I’ve listened to the Tokyo Warhearts (live in Japan) album approximately 10,000 times. It’s an epic live album, recorded during what I consider to be the best (although quite early) period of the band. Listening to it still gives me goosebumps today.
I play drums in a death metal band. Today we’re releasing our first single off our upcoming new EP, with a grim video. I’m very proud of this recording — please allow me to brag and say that it was mixed by a Grammy-nominated producer I don’t know if somebody here will actually enjoy this (maybe @toxinu haha), but anyways:
Wow! That’s sick! You know what I was just listening to “At War with Reality”, so your message just arrived at the right time.
The clip is soooo good and the track is dope! The vocals, the guitars tracks, and the drums are all very well written and recorded, amazing! I mostly hit my head on my desktop at 1:44.
@gabriel Although I’m not listening to death metal (usually), this now perfectly correlates with my feelings regarding a ticket :D Thank you for sharing it!
Just kidding, that’s just my preparation.
My favorite album is one of the “recent” ones, Axe to Fall. I mean, Jane Doe was a groundbreaking album but it annoys me to see young posers wearing the Jane Doe tshirt at the mall, not knowing what the band is 
. I have ~400 LPs and lots of spare time because of the lockdown, so this has become a hobby that I enjoy quite a lot 
)
, I’ve been transitioning to quieter music, which means mostly jazz fusion and classical:
I don’t know if somebody here will actually enjoy this (maybe 
