Musical Range

[kate_nepveu]

The iPod tossed up Pink's "Get the Party Started" today on shuffle play, and then after that an Old 97s song, which contrast amused me and then got me thinking: what two songs represent the widest range of my current musical taste?

I think "Get the Party Started" holds down one end pretty well. I have some other hip-hop-ish stuff (such as the

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

I was going by genre; what's the further apart in terms of "this song sounds kinda like that song" you can get?

I haven't got the foggiest what Jessica Simpson sounds like, actually.

[kate_nepveu]

GAAH!

Smite you with thunderbolts for reminding me of that commercial!

(Sorry. Been booklogging _Small Gods_.)

[aor]

Not counting ultra-obscure things like e.g. Amiga Shock Force...

Say, Lyle Lovett on one end, and maybe Big Black on the other.

[kate_nepveu]

Don't know Big Black. What genre?

[aor]

Indie Noise-Rock, maybe? Here's part of AMG's description:
While punk rock was always supposed to be about pushing the envelope, few post-punk bands seemed willing to go quite so far to creatively confront their audience as Big Black. The group's guitars alternately sliced like a machete and ground like a dentist's drill, creating a groundbreaking and monolithic dissonance in the process. Their use of a drum machine, cranked up to ten and sounding a tattoo that pummeled the audience into submission, was a crucial precursor to the coming industrial music scene while creating a sound which was far more challenging and organic than what groups such as Ministry and Nine Inch Nails would achieve with similar ingredients.

Which is close enough. The lead in the band, Steve Albini, went on to produce (in the being-a-producer sense) a number of well-regarded rock albums, and start another good band called Shellac.

[kate_nepveu]

Wow. Despite liking a few Nine Inch Nails songs (very few), I have to say that sounds . . . not at all appealing to me.

I'm always amazed at the range of musical tastes. And their unpredictability.

[ckd]

London Symphony Orchestra to Run-DMC?

[kate_nepveu]

That'd work, though do you really listen to a lot of classical?

[ckd]

Oh, I was being silly, since the LSO I have is actually the LSO doing Sting and Police tunes.

I have a fair amount of folkish stuff, though, which is similarly distant IMO from the hip-hop end of things. So, substitute Beth Orton or Peter, Paul & Mary for the LSO.

[scalzi]

Harold Budd on one end, Journey on the other.

[kate_nepveu]

*googles* Ambience? Not a genre I know much about. But if Journey's on the other end then I guess you're not much for harder rock?

[scalzi]

No, I have harder rock in the catalogue. but you go far enough in the direction of harder, dissonant rock and you start bending back toward ambient (for example, dark ambient).

[kate_nepveu]

Learn something new everyday, then. Thanks.

[kate_nepveu]

I believe you!

IIRC there's less rock in-between?

[kate_nepveu]

Not at all--but your response made me realize that I mostly see my musical taste as a range, shading out into blues, R&B, country, and folk around the edges, but mostly a pretty identifiable thing. (As edited above.)

Classical is different enough for me that I wasn't sure whether it could usefully be put on a _spectrum_, if that makes sense.