Top 5 greatest bands of all time

[Nilsi]

2 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

I'm saying most great musicians are semi-famous, because being actually famous requires the famous action of "selling out" or being an average basic band for the masses.

Thats mostly true I would say, but historically the greatest musicians were also the most famous. Granted, nowadays the big record labels look for the most marketable knuckleheads, suck them dry and then move on to the next shiny thing; but of course being a great musician and selling a lot of music can still have significant overlap and we still see some great musicians coming to prominence from time to time (although the quantity and quality of those specimen is still significantly decreasing, by virtue of market forces and peoples intellect and creativity being stunted in general).

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

I'm saying most great musicians are semi-famous, because being actually famous requires the famous action of "selling out" or being an average basic band for the masses.

Zappa said it the best

6:57

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[AtheisticNonduality]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Zappa said it the best

6:57

 

There's a grammatical error at 7:48! The programmer will only play it unless it's totally safe!? He will only play unsafe music, not safe music!!?!?

Anyway, Zappa's cognitive IQ could probably be 135. His musical IQ could be 150, if Beethoven was 200+.

Jaz Coleman's cognitive IQ would be around 158 (just short of genius, because of his frequent associations/beliefs with paranoid conspiracy theories like chemtrails and a nuclear war that happened on the Indian subcontinent 2000 years ago). 

There is his book Letters from Cythera:

Quote

Letters from Cythera traces the author's various metaphysical and philosophical ideas and their influence on his music.

Also outlined in the work is the Supersynthesis, a Renaissance principle that has enabled and facilitated Jaz Coleman's many accomplishments, spanning acting, conducting, singing, composing, geomancy, architecture, music production, occult history and Hermetic systems.

Letters from Cythera was written from the isolated perspective of the author's residence on a South Pacific Island.

His musical IQ might be 170.

EDIT: Also Jaz Coleman was / is an eater of mushrooms.

Edited September 18, 2022 by AtheisticNonduality

[Cireeric]

I strongly recommend listening to this  

[Nilsi]

1 hour ago, Cireeric said:

I strongly recommend listening to this  

The whole album is pretty good, but that's the kind of music I listen to once and never actually go back to.

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

There's a grammatical error at 7:48! The programmer will only play it unless it's totally safe!? He will only play unsafe music, not safe music!!?!?

I didn't catch that even after watching it 3-4 times lol. I still understood perfectly what he was saying though  

 

5 hours ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

Anyway, Zappa's cognitive IQ could probably be 135. His musical IQ could be 150, if Beethoven was 200+.

Idk man, the way he applied the concept of nested tuplets was just beyond genius, both cognitively and musically.

 

[Carl-Richard]

Last Zappa thing I'm posting, I swear . Steve Vai won a grammy for this live performance of Zappa's "Sofa", played at his tribute concert just after his death: 

 

[devjo]

Pink floyd

Beatles

MUSE

RHCP

Scorpions

[Nilsi]

i just thought about how much my views on this have changed over the years.

nowadays, it would probably be something like:

• sonic youth
• swans
• the velvet underground
• kraftwerk
• portishead

i wonder if your guys' views have changed as well.

Edited May 25, 2024 by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

peak sonic youth is in a league of their own; the creative output and influence they had over 30 years of releasing music is insane.

Edited May 25, 2024 by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

this is one of the most criminally underrated records of all time (by casual listeners and critics alike). such a transcendent musical statement, which 15 years later is still way ahead of its time and will go on to be extremely influential in the realm of experimental/industrial/post rock for a long fucking time.

Edited May 25, 2024 by Nilsi

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

i just thought about how much my views on this have changed over the years.

nowadays, it would probably be something like:

• sonic youth
• swans
• the velvet underground
• kraftwerk
• portishead

i wonder if your guys' views have changed as well.

Ah, I remember this thread 

I gotta say the question has become not necessarily harder but even less clear-cut. We did talk about the problem of defining "best", etc. But I can list a few bands of the top of my head that I really like (and why), and for some reason, I feel like listing bands that I think are "true originals":

• Cynic. They're truly an original band. I've never heard anything quite like them, and there are aspects of their music where I don't know where it "comes from" (what could have inspired it). You have other bands that come close in terms of style, but there is a Cynic "soul" that is undeniably Cynic.
  
  Speaking of coming close in terms of style, Exivious is one example, only in reverse order (Cynic is roughly "technical death metal with jazz fusion influences" while Exivious is "jazz fusion with technical death metal influences"). That said, to reduce Cynic down to just those two genres does not bring their sound any justice. There is like a spiritual essence and authenticity to their style which I don't think is derived from anywhere but their hearts and minds.
   
• The Mars Volta. They're similar to Cynic in that they have their own distinct sound, but it's a bit clearer to me exactly where the sound comes from. They grew out of a post-hardcore base and then incorporated various progressive rock and jazz fusion elements, distinctly Frank Zappa at times, but they also make it their own.
   
• Gentle Giant. Progressive rock which borrows heavily from classical music themes (e.g. counterpoint). And the rest is just a hilarious combo of wackiness and virtuosity. Most of the band members are brothers, which is interesting.
   
• Jethro Tull. There is something about the wild chord changes and medieval LOTR feeling (and Ian Anderson) that is unmistakenly Jethro Tull.
   
• Camel. Similarly wild/mystical chord changes and medieval LOTR feelings at times, but it's more chill and tranquil. Some of their songs (e.g. "Fritha") literally sound like RuneScape music when you're walking in and around Lumbridge lol. I tend to listen to their songs while falling asleep; they're that chill. Their song "Nimrodel" is actually about LOTR and it probably contains some of the best examples of the mystical chord changes  

[Carl-Richard]

On 17.9.2022 at 2:09 PM, Carl-Richard said:

So Zappa is in many ways a main node in rock music history and was definitely one of the great influences on modern virtuosos.

Speaking of being a main node in rock music history: arguably the most famous rock song of all time ("Smoke On the Water" by Deep Purple) is literally about a Frank Zappa concert in 1971 where the concert hall caught fire and burned to the ground because of "some stupid with a flare gun" (hence the title "Smoke on the water").

Edited May 26, 2024 by Carl-Richard

[Nilsi]

7 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Ah, I remember this thread 

I gotta say the question has become not necessarily harder but even less clear-cut. We did talk about the problem of defining "best", etc. But I can list a few bands of the top of my head that I really like (and why), and for some reason, I feel like listing bands that I think are "true originals":

• Cynic. They're truly an original band. I've never heard anything quite like them, and there are aspects of their music where I don't know where it "comes from" (what could have inspired it). You have other bands that come close in terms of style, but there is a Cynic "soul" that is undeniably Cynic.
  
  Speaking of coming close in terms of style, Exivious is one example, only in reverse order (Cynic is roughly "technical death metal with jazz fusion influences" while Exivious is "jazz fusion with technical death metal influences"). That said, to reduce Cynic down to just those two genres does not bring their sound any justice. There is like a spiritual essence and authenticity to their style which I don't think is derived from anywhere but their hearts and minds.
   
• The Mars Volta. They're similar to Cynic in that they have their own distinct sound, but it's a bit clearer to me exactly where the sound comes from. They grew out of a post-hardcore base and then incorporated various progressive rock and jazz fusion elements, distinctly Frank Zappa at times, but they also make it their own.
   
• Gentle Giant. Progressive rock which borrows heavily from classical music themes (e.g. counterpoint). And the rest is just a hilarious combo of wackiness and virtuosity. Most of the band members are brothers, which is interesting.
   
• Jethro Tull. There is something about the wild chord changes and medieval LOTR feeling (and Ian Anderson) that is unmistakenly Jethro Tull.
   
• Camel. Similarly wild/mystical chord changes and medieval LOTR feelings at times, but it's more chill and tranquil. Some of their songs (e.g. "Fritha") literally sound like RuneScape music when you're walking in and around Lumbridge lol. I tend to listen to their songs while falling asleep; they're that chill. Their song "Nimrodel" is actually about LOTR and it probably contains some of the best examples of the mystical chord changes  

so you like progressive music infused with jazz and classical elements?

i'm surprised you didn't bring up king crimson - they would have been the first band i thought of if i only read your descriptions of what makes you like those bands.

especially their more avant-garde (avant-prog, as they say) stuff, I can really get behind.

also, what do you think about john zorn? he should also be in the ballpark of things you like, yet i've never heard you discuss him or his band. probably the greatest of all the avant-prog artists, if you ask me.

 

Edited May 26, 2024 by Nilsi

[Carl-Richard]

8 hours ago, Nilsi said:

so you like progressive music infused with jazz and classical elements?

i'm surprised you didn't bring up king crimson - they would have been the first band i thought of if i only read your descriptions of what makes you like those bands.

This thought actually passed my mind (about King Crimson specifically). I think the reason I didn't bring them up is because their sound was so influential on all other music I listen to today that when I think of "true original", it doesn't actually register.

But of course, for their time, King Crimson were definitely true originals. It's just that some bands kept being true originals (at least for me) all up until today, either because they remained obscure enough to not be widely emulated, or their sound was subtle enough to not be emulated without sounding like a carbon copy. King Crimson had many novel ideas or memes that were incredibly innovative but also easily emulated (e.g. odd time signatures and atonal melodies in a rock frame), not that I'm reducing their entire sound to those things, but still, they had some catchy memes.

Another example of this phenomena: Meshuggah was incredibly original for their time when they first started doing their trademark sound around 1995 (essentially a stylistic reduction of technical thrash/groove metal, focusing heavily on abstract rhythms and percussive elements; in short, djent d-djent d-djent d-djent). But today, you almost don't go one song in the progressive metal sphere without hearing some elements of Meshuggah. Even bands like Metallica were considered pretty original for their time, but today, their footprint is in all of metal.

So to summarize, it's not that bands like King Crimson are not true originals. It's that their sound didn't occur to me as original, mainly because their memes became so successful. This is also partially why making such lists is so futile unless you want to approach it like writing a thesis, because as you know, our minds rely on heuristics.

 

8 hours ago, Nilsi said:

 

especially their more avant-garde (avant-prog, as they say) stuff, I can really get behind.

That's a fun song and a good example of some of their catchy memes (especially the atonal stuff). I once tried to learn the guitar stuff from 4:56 to 5:05. Let's just say it's hard. I can play it at like 80% speed without being too sloppy 😅

 

8 hours ago, Nilsi said:

also, what do you think about john zorn? he should also be in the ballpark of things you like, yet i've never heard you discuss him or his band. probably the greatest of all the avant-prog artists, if you ask me.

 

I haven't heard of him. I'll check him out

Edited May 26, 2024 by Carl-Richard