Wanta, I feel like you buy too much into the artist sometimes and not enough into the music. I get why you do it, it's just hard for me to personally do that.

When I first heard Grace my initial thought was "this guy sounds really out of place in the world, almost like he's a ghost or something". Maybe it's just because I'm FUCKING AWESOME but probably not because I suck but I think that the album has a really haunting and ghost-like quality (that's honestly adopted from his father's work) that translates through the music without even knowing who Buckley is. It's the way the music creeps in on "Mojo Pin" or the reverb on "Hallelujah" or the ending punch of "Eternal Life" and "Dream Brother". Joy Division is kind of the same way. The music and lyrics are pretty upfront that they were written by somebody that was fucked up. Most people would point to "LWTUA" as the pinnacle of their music but I would honestly say it's "Disorder". There's so much desperation and longing in the music and Ian Curtis sounds like he's afraid of the sound of his own voice and afraid of actually meaning the really dark things he's singing about.

Great artists are able to translate their life stories into their work, like Buckley and Joy Division. Then there are bands like Korn and Tool that have a backstory of sexual and child abuse but that kind of fear and anger and confusion doesn't really translate through their music because they just don't have the chops.

That's my two cents anyway.

eh, i feel like i care about the artist and their work and the two become inseparable to me once you look into what you experience. Of course I can connect without knowing who an artist is, but that tends to be established by musical tropes I'm naturally biased to (ie pop structures, repetition, etc). I don't really get a full on connection until i can make up my own meta-experience story consisting of my experiences with the work, my knowledge of the artist, how he and it relates to my own life, the aesthetic properties, and the point in time in my life. It's just a relationship with everything all at once really, and that ratio of each ingredient varies from artist to artist. Jeff Buckley just happens to be one of them where I think about stuff outside the music.

The Eversons - Summer Feeling
Somehow I've found myself listening to a 2012 album by a hip New Zealand band. This is great stuff, just really simply-constructed melodic songs, kinda like a looser, less self-conscious incarnation of Weezer, with an exposed kiwi accent delivering the vocals. And with extremely charming youthful lyrics. In fact, the entire album employs a lyrical style in which the lead singer and the backup band represent a protagonist and his peers respectively, in fact at a few points the two groups literally argue - "We thing he's creepy/No I'm just crazy about her and I'm not sorry". It never gets old. 9.0/10

Anyway, y'all should listen to it. It's a short and easily-digestible album. Spotify it. Or at least check out this song:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szqcw27236Y[/youtube]

I am not even done listening to it yet, but Buena Vista Social Club's At Carnegie Hall is just unbelievable. It may help to be familiar with the classic studio album from 97, but honestly this live version is even better; so much concentrated intensity of emotion running through every second of this music. They don't go on any huge departures from the studio versions here but there is an extra sense of looseness and spontaneity here that makes it required listening for fans of Latin music.

Is it a live performance of their S/t studio album? If so then it sounds like something I need to check out soon.

yeah, Im a huge fan of the studio album, so definitely sounds like good stuff right there

Basically, yes.

Evanescence - Evanescence

There are some good songs on this, my favorite being "My Heart is Broken", but nothing at the level of "Lithium" or "My Immortal". I enjoyed the album, though. Some of the songs have a desperate, tortured quality I like.

8/10

what year are you living in???

That album came out last year.

oh burn rashed, but burn for him too for listening to evanescence

oh shiit

All by John Lennon

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
10/10

Imagine
10/10

Mind Games
8.7/10

Double Fantasy
8.4/10

ooh that reminds me

has there ever been a more ecstatic john lennon guitar workout? this could have been from germany and no one would have guessed. very underrated track.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnIWJ2CI2Qw[/youtube]

Last night I had a little get together and we were listening to music, and then one of my friends invited some shady folks over and they were hella ghetto and annoying, and Swimming Pools came up on my shuffle, and this kid flipped shit and sat down on the floor in front of my laptop and played the damn song 3 times in a row and wouldn't let anybody near the speakers/laptop to change it. It was hella weird and I kind of don't like that song now.