Music listening: Frenchuary and other themed months

[Onder]

Heya kind folks.

Since there's so much shit to listen to and never enough time, I thought some focus needs be applied. Hence my creation of themed months. I intend to have a clearly defined focus for my listening for each month starting now. It is not the first time I attempted to apply some system into my music listening - I remember doing shit like focusing solely on finnish death metal demos from some period of time and things like that. I found it makes one explore the area more thoroughly and it's basically a way of discovering new music.

Last year I did stuff like Italian month, I think it was March, when I listened mostly to Italian contemporary composers, then I did a month when I focused mostly on John Cage - he's a composer I'd been neglecting before and a one whose body of work calls for at least a month of listening. Then I think I did a month of listening mostly to one label, etc etc.

I find these really satisfying. Has anybody ever tried something like that?

This year I'm doing Frenchuary (frech classical, mostly modern), only Stockhausen - some other month, and then a label I wanted to do for a while - NEOS.

I think I should do a NWN productions only metal month some time.

Maybe let's talk about how we organize our listening time and shit like that? Dunno.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I don't do this except on the scale of a day or two, because I'm kind of an impulsive listener and just go for whatever I feel that I'm in the mood for. Not shitting on the idea though.

 

[CiG]

Sounds fun. Closest thing to this that I do is focusing on whatever year the GMD Top Ten Poll game is on. A good chunk of this month will be spent on non-metal from 1989 for example.

 

[Bloopy]

The majority of my listening goes towards coming up with some kind of list, eg. ranking for a poll thread or making a playlist or whatever. But I don't put any deadline on myself other than the ones the threads already have. Currently listening to non-metal from 1989 myself, and before that I was catching up on metal from 2016 since that was the O.G. top ten thread which I didn't do a list for yet.

My overall top 3 on Last.fm have quite a disproportionate lead, so sometimes I binge on the discographies of other favourite bands in an attempt to help them catch up.

At some point I'm gonna revisit ranking my top favourite songs. I did it once but beyond about 30th place it started to get a bit approximate. It's weird listening to one song I like and then another and finding it nigh on impossible to decide which one I like more. It's even weirder that 3 years later I have just 5 more songs to mix into the list. I should binge listen to potential candidates and see which ones grow on me.

 

[no country for old wainds]

j-pop january
futurism febuary
minimalism march
avant-folk april
musique concrete may
jug band june
jangle pop july
adult contemporary august
soukyoko september
oi! october
NSBM november
darkstep december

 

[Onder]

j-pop january
futurism febuary
minimalism march
avant-folk april
musique concrete may
jug band june
jangle pop july
adult contemporary august
soukyoko september
oi! october
NSBM november
darkstep december

This is hardcore mode. Maybe in 2021.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Never done a "themed" month but what I've been doing of late is full, or close to it depending on what's out there, discography breakdowns. So many bands I like but there are major gaps in my listening and so far this has proven to be a rewarding venture.

 

[CiG]

oi! october
NSBM november

Your favourite part of the year?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

They do NSBM November on /mu/ iirc

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I'm trying to think of how we could turn this idea into a series of album ranking polls, since the band/year polls have been such a great discovery resource for me, and it'd be nice to keep a stream of polls going after we "run out" of years and well-known bands.

I'm especially interested in a recommendations-oriented series of polls, i.e. something like this:

1. Each participant requests a recommendation (i.e. "I want an album that sounds like X").
2. OP compiles the requests into a list, and each participant must recommend an album for each request in the list.
3. Everyone gets a month to listen to the albums submitted for their own request (as many or as few as they want), and to award a "like" to whichever albums satisfied their request.
4. When all the "likes" are submitted, the OP posts a list of the "liked" albums, along with a leaderboard showing the number of likes each forum member got. If the game survives for multiple rounds, the leaderboard could be carried over as a cumulative total for all rounds. One lucky member will be crowned the Master of Recommendations!

Thoughts?

 

[CiG]

I think you're optimistic about the state of this site. The 2019 Mixtape Game is dead as fuck and that was easy, just submit a song from 2019 lmao. If someone does it I'd obviously join in though, it sounds interesting at least.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I think you're optimistic about the state of this site. The 2019 Mixtape Game is dead as fuck and that was easy, just submit a song from 2019 lmao. If someone does it I'd obviously join in though, it sounds interesting at least.

I hear you there, and I don't necessarily have high hopes for it. One advantage over the mixtape game though is that my idea guarantees each person gets to listen to something relevant to their interests, whereas with the mixtape game one person might pick a theme that others don't like.

 

[Bloopy]

I'm trying to think of how we could turn this idea into a series of album ranking polls, since the band/year polls have been such a great discovery resource for me, and it'd be nice to keep a stream of polls going after we "run out" of years and well-known bands.

I'm especially interested in a recommendations-oriented series of polls, i.e. something like this:

1. Each participant requests a recommendation (i.e. "I want an album that sounds like X").
2. OP compiles the requests into a list, and each participant must recommend an album for each request in the list.
3. Everyone gets a month to listen to the albums submitted for their own request (as many or as few as they want), and to award a "like" to whichever albums satisfied their request.
4. When all the "likes" are submitted, the OP posts a list of the "liked" albums, along with a leaderboard showing the number of likes each forum member got. If the game survives for multiple rounds, the leaderboard could be carried over as a cumulative total for all rounds. One lucky member will be crowned the Master of Recommendations!

Thoughts?

Sounds quite wacky and convoluted at first but I like the idea and would probably participate. Maybe "like" could be split into two levels: 2 points if you like the album enough to desire listening to it a 2nd time, or 1 point if you at least liked it enough not to switch it off partway through.

 

[Onder]

Related meme I randomly found.

 

[Bloopy]

Inspired by @no country for old wainds, I dug up my top favourite artists then vs now:

2003
1. Bloodhound Gang
2. Anti-Nowhere League
3. Metallica
4. Big Blue Blanket
5. Mercyful Fate
6. Stratovarius
7. Black Sabbath
8. Headless Chickens
9. Sticky Filth
10. The Runaways
11. Sex Pistols
12. Diamond Head
13. Megadeth
14. Girlschool
15. Budgie
16. New Model Army

2013-ish and beyond
1. Bloodhound Gang
2. Anti-Nowhere League
3. Metallica
4. Danzig
5. Black Sabbath
6. Headless Chickens
7. Sticky Filth
8. The Runaways
9. Budgie
10. Megadeth
11. Björk
12. Plasmatics
13. New Model Army
14. Led Zeppelin
15. Dayglo Abortions
16. Pentagram

Way fewer changes, but the difference is that I was already a couple of years past high school age when I worked out the first list. Big Blue Blanket, Diamond Head and Girlschool are still top 25. Mercyful Fate and Stratovarius seem a bit exhausting to listen to in great quantity now, dropped from the ranks along with Sex Pistols. Might be about time I reviewed the ordering again.

My question is, how do any of you decide that you like one band more than another? Do you just know after listening to lots of the best and worst of both? I was overthinking it and wondering if there could be a formula to it that differs from listener to listener. Maybe using album ratings, but I've avoided that so far. I focus a lot on playlists and how many of a band's songs I rate highly.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i care more about peak and quantity of good stuff than i do about the amount of bad stuff. if you make, say, three classic albums that makes you a legendary band regardless of how many clunkers you follow them up with.

 

[CiG]

Yeah pretty much the truth.

 

[Bloopy]

Most recently I've been binging on 2010s metal and completing my top 10 album lists for the years not polled yet.

At some point I'm gonna revisit ranking my top favourite songs. I did it once but beyond about 30th place it started to get a bit approximate. It's weird listening to one song I like and then another and finding it nigh on impossible to decide which one I like more. It's even weirder that 3 years later I have just 5 more songs to mix into the list. I should binge listen to potential candidates and see which ones grow on me.

I figured out the trick to get this done. The method best named in @Pitiless Wanderer's honour. Skipping back and forth between songs listening to snippets and seeing how I feel about each. Gives a far more accurate comparison than vaguely recollecting a feeling from minutes ago when the previous song peaked (I was already doing a similar thing to finalise my album rankings for a given year, but unlike him I at least listen to the albums in full first). Anyway, it's how I came up with this wack-ass list. Ranked almost entirely on visceral feelings, although a bit of nostalgia creeps in here and there.

Pitiless wandering doesn't work so well for comparing bands in general. Too much conscious appreciation for all that a band's done comes into it, genre shifts, concerts seen etc. The negative is probably a factor for me too, eg. a bunch of overplayed songs, or a run of crap albums giving bands that still put out decent stuff a chance to catch up eventually.

 

[Bloopy]

Started to binge my way through lesser favourite artists, namely: Laurie Anderson, Falsewander, Black Boned Angel, Plastic Gods, The Wreckery, Einstürzende Neubauten, The B-52's, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Macc Lads, Throbbing Gristle, Left or Right, ZZ Top, Dupobs.

Going through all their albums (and maybe EPs) I haven't rated on RYM yet, basically. I figure how interesting/fun a band is to listen to overall is a major factor in whether I consider them a favourite. I could never name Slayer as a favourite given my thoughts on the 2nd half of their disco, but I'll binge that stuff for the lols too.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

@Onder
did your idea work out okay
did you have an entertaining music listening experience for the year of 2020??