Category Archives: Opinion

Visual Kei

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English: Kyo, vocalist of Dir en grey, perform...

Kyo, vocalist of Dir en grey, performing live at Maquinaria Festival in Brazil. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Visual Kei is not a genre of music.

Granted, you’ll see music tagged as visual kei. It is related to music, and is very easy to confuse as a genre. It is a concept, or a lifestyle that encapsulates a handful of music genres. I’ve heard various forms of rock, punk, and darkwave music listed as visual kei.

All it really means is ‘visual style.’ I lump it all together with Japanese rock, but there are also bands outside of Japan that maintain the aesthetic as well. Continue reading →

Videogame Music (No, Not More Chiptune)

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Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack

Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack (Photo credit: bdcrlsn)

It’s no secret that I’m into video games. For instance, my blog is called “Black Flower Music.” I end up writing more about video games there, and all my music articles end up here. My free time is largely comprised of playing video games.

I’ve written articles on chiptune before, explaining how some people make music based off of the specialized sound chips from vintage video game consoles. This is not what I mean.

At around the time of disc-based gaming consoles began to use PCM instead of synthesized sound from a specialized chip. PCM is a technology that streams audio over a chip instead of using the on-board chip. As sound chips got more complex, you’d hear more complex music from video games.

This allowed for better sound quality in games. The spike in technology lead to fully orchestrated music and allowed for voice acting via the CD format’s ability to play Redbook Audio. Continue reading →

In Honor of St. Patrick’s Day

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Dropkick Murphys at the 2011 Cisco Ottawa Blue...

Dropkick Murphys at the 2011 Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest. By: Brennan Schnell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Although a little late, I’ve always been looking for an excuse to share with our readers some rather under-appreciated punk music.

I’ve never been a big fan of the old Irish sea shanty sort of music. I’ve been in my friend’s car enough times with the Irish channel open on Pandora. Some of it is pretty boring. However, when mixed with punk music some of it can be pretty interesting. Continue reading →

Christian Music? Yeah!

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Biblical Band I was raised in a Southern Baptist household where much of my music purchases were always scrutinized before they were allowed to happen. I wasn’t always allowed to buy what I wanted, which probably explains why I’ve tried to seize everything I can get my hands on since then.

Suffice it to say, I had a large sampling of Christian music growing up. We made frequent stops to LifeWay Christian Bookstores and I’d always browse the music. My mother always had a fair amount of compilations and popular ‘contemporary Christian artists’ (read: praise pop music that isn’t gospel) sitting around. Car trips were always a blast.

There was a teen-friendly Christian club in Hendersonville called First Rock or perhaps it was First Planet on the Rock. Either way, I learned that just about any secular genre had a Christian counterpart. Not unlike the South Park episode, always replace ‘baby’ with the word Jesus, and you’ll have a hit.

I saw nu-metal, rap, ska, grunge, pop, and other sorts of music that were popular with the kids back in the early 2000s.

I was a master at the fooseball table, but always loathed the prayer sessions before the concerts.

I no longer identify as a Christian, but I still find some of its music entertaining. Let’s start out with something most people have heard of:

Stryper! This was actually the song that convinced me to make this post. I had never heard this band up until last week when my girlfriend and I were just groping around YouTube looking for music. She showed me this, and I was like, “Hell yeah!” No pun intended.

It’s just like the rest of your 80s hair metal, possibly even a bit better. It still talks about being bad, sin, hell, and Satan too! Continue reading →

Support Your Local Music Scene

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I’ve been feeling somewhat out of place lately when it comes to writing music reviews.

One can find and listen to almost any album they want these days. Far be it from me to pick one and suggest you listen to it. Who am I to know your tastes? I don’t.

What I do know is that music comes from somewhere. Generally from small towns and big cities. Unless it’s pop music, then it comes from a factory. I heard peaches come from there too.

I was sitting in a bar a few days ago listening to a rock band from an hour north of where I live. I can’t remember their name, but they rocked. They weren’t anything special, but I stroked my imaginary beard and said “not bad.”

This got me thinking. Often times we’ll go see a local band, and it won’t be the best music ever. However, where does music come from? With a little polish, some of these local bands could be great. What do they need to get that extra polish? They need fans attending their shows.

Some of these folks just play for a hobby. Some play because they want to make it big. Being so close to Nashville, many folks tend to have stars in their eyes.

Time and again, I hear complaints that everything sounds the same. Go to a local show. Try something new. Give a young (or old) creative mind some support in doing what (s)he loves.

Support your local music scene. Help keep creativity alive, give musicians a reason to not be stale. Give yourself a reason to get out of your house with your fancy surround sound. Go listen to a terrible band. Better yet, go listen to a decent band. Either way, you’re helping dreamers dream.

Isn’t that what music should be about?

2012 – A Year In Musical Memes

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Seeing as I did not listen to very many new albums in 2012 that I haven’t already reviewed I decided to go in a different direction with what stood out to me, musically.

A meme is a term thrown around that is a fancy way of saying something that is virally spread to common culture. Sure, some songs get popular, but some songs become memes. The ones in this list stood out most to me. Whether it was image macros, video parodies, or seeing everyone lambast their poor quality all over my Facebook wall. These are a few of the top memes this year relating to music. Continue reading →

Revisiting Witch House Part 2

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In the first part of the Witch House review, I covered two artists that were relatively recent. However, neither were really the sort of Witch House I’ve come to really appreciate engaging in.

This time, we’ll be focusing on two groups that may not be considered Witch House either, but tend to draw many influences from it. In fact, Bruxa’s tags on bandcamp identify them as post-Witch House.

I must admit, I’m still rather confused by this genre. There really isn’t a clear cut definition, but I suppose it’s better that way. Homogenized music is a killer.

With that in mind, take any of these songs as examples of what post-Witch House would sound like. You have more glitch, hip hop, and dubstep elements mixed in with what traditionally makes Witch House. Bruxa provides the same effect any other band in the genre would albeit with a different approach.

Honestly, I find this approach much more entertaining. Whether I’m listening to the dubstep track Paperweight Pt. 1 or the more rap oriented track Trill Witch I’m still finding those choppy and dark landscapes forming.

This leads me to conclude that Witch House is STILL not a genre. It’s a gag. It’s an idea. It’s a tag. Saying that Witch House was a genre would be like saying ‘sad songs’ were a genre. Perhaps they are, but the distinction is that any song can be a sad song. It doesn’t have to be house music to be a Witch House track. There are no lines drawn here, no judgments. Continue reading →

Revisiting Witch House Part 1

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Veins You may recall an older article I wrote about a genre called Witch House. It was a gag genre of “House” electronic music that gave the joke a middle finger and kept making music.

According to the comments of that article, I only looked at older Witch House.

I really had little idea of what bands to look up. All I had was a keyboard, a search engine, and a heart of gold.

I’ve found some newer stuff to share. There are things a little bit more indicative of its more modern sound. Continue reading →

I don’t like…

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I’ve never been a big fan of judging others’ music tastes, so it always bothers me when people critique my own.

I like what I like because I have an inquisitive nature. I want to listen to as much as I can. I don’t always enjoy all of it, but that doesn’t make me a lesser person.

For instance, I will always tell you that I don’t like The Beatles and Elvis. Verily, this does tend to enrage the everyman. I don’t respect you any less for enjoying these two, and I don’t see why you shouldn’t do the same for me.

Truth be told, there are a handful of Beatles songs I do enjoy, but they are few and far between. I’m not discounting their importance, but I simply do not like listening to them much.

Apparently, it is a great travesty to not like certain musicians. If you don’t like them, then you obviously have horrid tastes because, well, everybody listens to that group.

It’s like trying to explain to a bunch of gamers that Final Fantasy VII isn’t the best game in the world. You could use Maya Angelou as an example as well. Gosh, there are some things that are just wrong not to like.

Please. If I had to roll my eyes any harder, they would fall out.

I like what I like. You like what you like. Leave me alone.

There was a point in my life where a group of coworkers and I jokingly became fans of the whole Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus venture. I ended up not minding the music so much. I recognized it for what it was and maintained ample enjoyment out of it.

Then there are some people who say: “Oh, well, you listen to Miley Cyrus, so your opinion doesn’t matter.”

This kind of mentality really gets my goat. It is annoying sometimes trying to have an actual conversation about music with someone who honestly only listens to a very small diverse section of music. Go back and read my article You don’t like everything to get some further insight on this.

Just because there are a handful of what you’d normally consider guilty pleasures doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to the things I like.

This is one of the reasons why I find it difficult to talk about music other than here on this blog. I feel like, as someone who truly enjoys music, it is not an easy task communicating with people who just listen to pass the time. I take it seriously, and it shouldn’t matter what I like.

You Don’t Like Everything

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Young lady with a stack of CDs I rarely have the nerve to talk to people about music these days.

I’m genuinely frustrated by how easily accessible music is, and how many people think because their iPod has 12 genres on it that they listen to everything. Even better is when they tell me that “Yeah, I listen to rock, rap, AND country.”

As if listening to three different things is really a big deal. You’re still consuming whatever you’re spoon-fed, I bet. Wow. Three whole genres? Isn’t that special.

Yeah, I’m ranting. I’m fed up with it. As an avid fan of discourse, learning, and trying new things, it’s very difficult when almost everyone tells me that they listen to everything.

If you’re going to say that, mean it!

For a while, once I heard you say that, I discredited anything you had to say about music. I was looking for people to say that they listen to a little bit of a lot.

Semantics, heh. I can’t always win.

I’ve grown tired of your Internet radio. I don’t like last.fm, pandora, or spotify. I don’t really find out about music that way. Last.fm gets a special nod, because it’s the handiest tool out there for finding things similar to what you like.

What if I want to find something I don’t already like? Where is the new stuff? All this Internet seems to make it so we can find a lot more of what we already like.

That being said, I think our MP3 players are being filled up with a lot of the same stuff. We’re not branching out like we used to, in my opinion. We’re just consuming more and more of the same, and trying to convince everyone we are as diverse and high-brow as everyone else who can easily click a few buttons on YouTube.

What am I trying to say? Really?

I used to enjoy conversing with honest people. I miss the days when I could chat up some people online and legitimately learn something. I miss the days when a person who said they listened to everything meant they listened to a variety of genres of all sorts of music from around the globe.

I miss the days when it was just something fun, and not something we identified ourselves by. Perhaps I’m fooling myself I ever thought it was different. I really can’t say for sure. It was different for me, and the people I chose to surround myself with.

I’m trying to say: shut up! You don’t like everything!

Sure, you listen to some folksy stuff, a classical song, pop music, pop country, and whatever rap they play on the pop stations. Good for you. Oh, you have a Japanese song? Let me guess, is it Melt-Banana, Mono, Merzbow, eX-Girl, Shonen Knife, Guitar Wolf, or some other band that’s been made easily accessible?

Man, I’m so cool. I watched this show once and there was this French band on it called Yelle. I’m so cool and worldly. I have good tastes and I’m a connoisseur of the finer things in life. Ah, you lesser men with your Top 40, I look down upon ye with great disdain because I have listened to something you have not!

This is why I can’t talk about music anymore. I can’t do it. There’s always this weird sense of entitlement people have. I can’t have a conversation where all our eyes light up when we are told about something new. Oh no, we just have to try our best to reciprocate with something more obscure.

You can’t possibly like everything!

Personally? I hoard music. I listen to as much of it as I can. I crave new experiences. I crave sharing it with readers and friends.

Maybe I just take this stuff too seriously. I wonder if I should apply to be on that music show, hoarders? Five terabytes, and all I can do is rant about it on the Internet.

We’re all just special snowflakes aren’t we?