What are you listening to?

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I’ve love people to post links to the songs you’re currently listening to (and like :upside_down_face:). If it is a lesser known band, it would be great if you could tell us something about that band and what makes their music great!

I’ll start with Eefje de Visser, a Dutch singer who sings in Dutch (which I usually don’t care for). Her music is quite atmospheric and relaxed and she had a great voice. I found out about her via Spotify’s recommended songs feature.

Here are some of my favorite songs:

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Most recently I’ve been listening to the Billy Joel channel on Sirius XM.

I particularly like some instrumentals from his Streetlife Serenade album.

The Mexican Connection is easy to listen to.

Root Beer Rag is good for when I’m typing fast. :laughing:

I also like how the cover art is kinda Edward Hopperesque, but getting into art is a whole other topic.

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Root Beer Rag got me thinking about Scott Joplin and my favorite song of his. Not Maple Leaf Rag, although I like it, but Solace, A Mexican Serenade.

Listening to it then has me thinking of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance, Opus 72, Number 2 in E Minor, which I love to listen to.

But I can’t listen to that without thinking of another great Slavic composer, and one of my favorites, Prokofiev, and his Field of the Dead, which is among many pieces of music I love by him.

To wrap it up, this all leads me to the Pavane by Fauré which I find soothing to listen to.

Okay, sorry, maybe those were all kind of a downer. Here’s one a bit more upbeat that I can sometimes listen to repeatedly. Title taken from a short film by the poet Frank Stanford. It Wasn’t a Dream, it Was a Flood

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I used to work on a community-access FM station and thus was exposed to a wide variety of music from classical through to Songs of the Humpback Whale.

I have a few private collections of songs at SonicHits. I’ve also got a short playlist on SoundCloud of world music (mostly from South America but some from Europe.)

I do appreciate thoughtful lyric. Words that encourage me to cheat on my wife and other such idiocies I studiously avoid.

If you like mostly instrumental music of recent invention, you should check out SoundStripe. This site also permits personal collections.

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Well this will probably be pretty far of from the current responses. But I listen to alot of hiphop and rap. I also like pop but I like hiphop more. I usually listen to Eminiem or swedish hiphop.

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Polyphia and Avishai Cohen Trio. I don’t stick for a long time with the same genres / bands but these are the current ones that I’m enjoying the most

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Some of my favorites at the moment:

Maya Hawke’s Moss album–I like South Elroy, Therese, Over and more.

Amber Mark’s Mixer.

David Bendeth’s Feel the Real.

Chateau by Djo.

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I’m really enjoying a lot of these recommendations (all pointing to Spotify FYI)

More recently I’ve discovered…

All of the above sit in quite a chilled, moody genre that is acoustic and cinematic almost.

Some of my absolute go-to albums that I would say I listen on a weekly basis include:

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I enjoy listening and spending time with Chuck Van Riper, when I can. A local artist, long time friend, and awesome all around person.

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Hello :grinning:

I enjoy this topic very much, always nice to find some new music tips…

Lately I like to listen and discover about Reggie Watts here is a link if you want to know more:
Wiki about him
and:
YouTube channel

I find it hard to explain his style and music.

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I have these on heavy rotation right now:

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I’m going to check these tracks out this week.

I’m really enjoying the variation in decades that these artists come from - 80s, 90s and more recent.

Thanks for sharing!

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When I hear this ‘88SmilesPerHour’ mix, it doesn’t matter how dark my mood is that day, it will be better after putting this on(very loud) :smiley:

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The Bends is great! It’s my go to when I’m feeling chill and I am working on my computer.

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While I’m coding I’m nearly always listening to 8-bit chiptunes composed for the NES and C64. It inspires me because the music is code, written entirely as 6502 Assembly instructions!

For the past few years my goto is the High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC), which is so huge that I might never even hear all of it.

It’s admittedly an acquired taste, the music has a limited sonic spectrum and sounds quite harsh compared to other music, but I’ve gotten quite used to it and I suppose I’m heavily biased by an appreciation for the great lengths the composers had to go through to program it in such detail complete with its own sound driver, and also its simplicity from a music theory and acoustical perspective. The SID chip only has 3 channels and the “instruments” are built using nothing but raw sound waves.

You can find plenty of compilations on YouTube, etc. but for the best experience I recommend using the JSIDPlay2 player which runs in Java, knows how to automatically download the entire HVSC collection, and has a nice random feature for an endless stream of unpredictable blips.

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It’s admittedly an acquired taste

Amusing to hear this confirmed by @iHiD today :sweat_smile:

I was like “if you give it a chance, I swear the brain adapts and you start to hear the bleeps and bloops as actual instruments.”

I was thinking it’s kind of like that episode of The Simpsons where the students got those special new posture-correcting chairs that were giving them back spasms, and the teacher said ‘don’t worry, eventually over time your spines will change shape’".

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For the best possible introduction to chip music, it is imperative to check out the maestro, Rob Hubbard. This is where I’d personally start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIA_0cvS2gQ

Keep in mind that every attribute of every note had to be input in hexadecimal machine code!

This one is a cover of one of my favorite classical compositions, Sergei Prokofiev’s “Dance of the Knights”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dDk8SiXToQ

On today’s call I mentioned an inspiring presentation he once gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1gFc1sWp30

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I listen to too many different artists to decide what to share, so I’ll only share music that I listen to while programming. I prefer easy listening while programming, so it’s quite a bit of pop and mostly English, because lyrics in my native language often distract me when I try to do deep work.

Albums that where running on heavy rotation the last year during my programming sessions:

  • the girlhouse ep by girlhouse
    Amazing bedroom pop. IIRC the EP was written as a goodbye to LA, as the singer felt very out of place there and move away.
  • Bless My Psyche and Rhombithian by Sincere Engineer
    Energetic pop-punk with female vocals, really helps me to get into the zone.
  • From Caplan to Belsize and Fixed Ideals by Muncie Girls
    British punk rock band with female vocals. You maybe would expect otherwise, but Muncie Girls have a really cozy sound to me. Lande Hekt, the singer, also has a cool solo project.
  • How to Socialise & Make Friends by Camp Cope
    I’ve listened to this album soo many times, not only for coding. Indie rock with feminist lyrics, what’s not to love about that? Georgia Maq, the singer, also has a solo project. Sounds quite different but I also enjoy it.
  • Open Door Policy by The Rock Steady
    I found The Rock Steady after seeing a video of Craig Finn, the singer of the band, playing live with The Mountain Goats (the video - look how happy he is! <3). Craig Finns story telling is such a joy to listen to, great lyricist. I really love his solo work but prefer the latest The Rock Steady for programming, I think because the sound is more dynamic, gives me more energy.
  • Plesiosaur by ME REX
    ME REX is a super group with members from 3 other bands that I all don’t really enjoy, but ME REX is one of my favorite new discoveries, a bit unusual. Very energetic indie rock with male and female vocals and I’m a sucker for bands with female+male mixed vocals.
  • Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish
    If you’re hesitant to give this a chance because it’s super mainstream I think you should give it a chance, it’s a good album. As Rick Beato said in his review: “This is music made and sung by actual people, not overly edited.” (paraphrasing him)
  • Actual Life 3 (January 1 - September 9 2022) by Fred Again…
    Usually this would be too poppy for me, I usually prefer more “serious” dance music, but Fred has something special about him, I have a strong emotional connection to his music.
    If you enjoy his music, definitely check out his studio sessions and his boiler room appearance.
  • Jazzy Village, Vol. 2
    I found this by accident because I wanted to proof to a friend that there are still labels that release music on cassette. Nice laid back old school hiphop beats.
  • Allie Sherlock (2017) by Allie Sherlock
    Street performer from Ireland, she’s big on the Youtubes. I think her voice is great.
  • Nie Verliebt by Paula Hartmann
    Up and coming german singer. The beats are made by a hip-hop producer, it’s nice, easy to listen to. The only german album that I can listen to while programming rn.
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Going back to SoundCloud for a sec, here’s my latest playlist, all instrumental: Google Apps Script

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I’m currently addicted to listening to Bill McClintock’s mashups channel.
He expertly combines two (sometimes three!) songs into something that sounds awesome.
Some highlights:

p.s. I love the video titles :slight_smile:

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Those are hilarious :D

Feeling inspired to share my favorite mashup albums:

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