Musical Holocron

Let me quickly tell you about a new website I learned about called Music-Map. You can type in the name of an artist and get a variety of similar artists in a simple, visual relationship cloud. The closer the two names are, the greater the probability people will like both artists.

Let's try a few examples, just off the top of my head:

Tool

Metallica

The Beatles

Jace Everett

Blue Öyster Cult

Most of the major streaming services, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, YouTube Music and so on, all have built-in recommendation engines. You listen to one song or one artist or play a playlist of your favorites, they have an additional 10 songs for you to add. As a manual music recommendation engine, Gnod's Music-Map is pretty interesting because it shows you visually the relationship between different bands and artists, allowing you click from one to the next through degrees of separation. It's more interactive and purposeful and it fulfills a research role as well. The major streaming providers could learn a thing or two here and incorporate something similar into their paid services. But regardless, check out Music-Map.com.

Found via Imgur.

Labels: music, music/artists, music/artists/beatles, music/artists/blue-oyster-cult, music/artists/jace-everett, music/artists/metallica, music/artists/tool, streaming

# posted by ArcoJedi : 22:34  0 comments

This is a pretty old comic at this point, but I saw it again (thanks Eddie!) and wanted to share it here. Thankfully, I know more about music than the dude in this comic, but it's still pretty funny.

I sound pretty knowledgeable about music until people figure out that I'm just naming bands from Guitar Hero.

Admittedly, I had never heard of some of the bands in the game and I'm not sure they would have caught my attention otherwise. The games have collectively exposed some of these bands to a larger audience than they would have gotten on their own. My understanding is that for the first Guitar Hero game, many of the bands and labels were hesitant because they didn't know how successful the game would be. For the sequel, musicians were vying hard for inclusion. I don't know if this is true, but it sounds good enough for me.

Addendum: For those who are confused, the comic came out pre-Guitar Hero II, meaning that it also predates Guitar Hero: Metallica. So there you go.

Labels: funny, music, music/artists, music/artists/metallica, video-games

# posted by ArcoJedi : 13:45  0 comments

New this week, I'm going to start publishing a top 10 playlist every Monday. Inspired by the movie Knowing (starring Nicolas Cage) that I rented this last weekend, I decided to focus the list on songs about the end of the world. I hope I'm not giving away something about the ending. Anyhow,...

Music about an impending apocalypse is not new, as one entry on this list, Eve of Destruction was originally written in 1965. And there are certainly older themes from every genre. There are psalms and hymnals, classical pieces, even the best recognized ragtime jazz of Louis Armstrong's When the Saints Go Marching In is talking about where Louis wants to be on the day of judgment. It's a much older tune than Mr. Armstrong and some of the lyrics are rather dire. Don't believe me?

And when the moon turns red with blood

And when the moon turns red with blood

Lord, how I want to be in that number

When the moon turns red with blood

Someone go wake up Ozzy Osbourne and tell him his stuff isn't dark enough. What could be more spooky than a blood-red moon?

So certainly we have lots of stuff to choose from here. But I wanted to narrow the field down to more modern rock music. The sound of bold electric guitars were needed for the right atmosphere. I started out thinking I'd be struggling to come up with 10 songs to fit this list, and in the end (as usual) I found it hard to whittle it down. Before I think of any more, here 'tis.

Couldn't start this list out without R.E.M's It's the End of the World As We Know It, which alternatively could be more a comment on the end of the Reagen Era or simply a fun string of nonsense --as opposed to something for Armageddon.

Then, for a more dire flavor I added Nirvana's rendition of David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World. Not specifically about destruction but mere insanity, it still puts one in the proper mood.

The Doors come next, with their epic The End. Again, this may stray from particularly fiery images and lean towards self-destruction, but we are building up to something here. It goes on meandering for almost 12 minutes so hang on.

Soundgarden makes their first of several appearances here with Black Hole Sun. Ooh, that's more like it.

Could we have put this list up without including Metallica? They could appear multiple times, but I'll just include one of my favorites; Blackened.

Death of Mother Earth
Never a rebirth
Evolution's end
Never will it mend

Whoa, tasty! Who else is now in the mood for barbecue?

London Calling by the Clash is one of those songs I'd only heard more than once because of Guitar Hero. I know, my friends cry in shame at associating with me. Whatever. Apparently, it's about nuclear war --or more appropriately, a "nuclear error". As in, "whoops" with all capital letters. Laugh about it if you want, but my generation grew up believing this was likely.

I could have stopped here with some excellent songs. I almost did. Perhaps we draw a footnote here indicating so and still continue. Soundgarden is back with 4^th of July. Then we get Jan & Dean to bring us back to the Eve of Destruction. Metallica also gets another appearance as they Fight Fire with Fire. I tried for a good Faith No More song, and there should be many. But I chose their angry Jizzlobber not so much for the lyrics, but for the cool pipe organ sounds at the end. It's so powerful that someone should be chanting faux Latin in the background.

To round out the list (and end up with 12), Soundgarden returns once more to Blow Up The Outside World while Helloween has an afterthought in Revelation. There's a Bible reference FTW!

If you read this far, I thank you. I also want to thank the participants on a forum thread from 2005 at Rate Your Music, specifically asking for songs about the end of the world.

Incidentally, I thought I'd conclude this ever-so-optimistic list with a reminder that the world will end some day. Regardless of where you stand on the fun and friendly science vs. religion debate, both sides agree that the world will some day be destroyed completely or be uninhabitable by Homo Sapiens. Whether we cause our own end, something cosmic happens and/or something holistic happens, in the literal end it won't matter. My soul is prepared, Dr. Jones, how's yours?

Image Credit: IMDb.com

Update

Also, there's this list of movies about the (near) end of the world: Top 10 Movies where the Earth is (almost) destroyed. My favorite mentioned above did not make the cut. I'll warn you that #1 is not a movie I've ever even heard of.

Labels: music, music/artists, music/artists/david-bowie, music/artists/doors, music/artists/jan-and-dean, music/artists/metallica, music/artists/nirvana, music/artists/rem, music/artists/soundgarden

# posted by ArcoJedi : 22:23  0 comments

You can now add a play list to your blog from iLike.com, an up-and-coming music discovery service. I made a list of Metallica-Awesomeness. It's METALLICESQUE!

Metallicesque:

1. Having the essence or likeness of Metallica.
2. Being imbued with the spirit of Metallica.
3. Possessing the might or equivalent might of Metallica.

Get one of your own at the iLike Playlist Editor.

Labels: ♫, audio, genre/metal, genre/rock, music, music/artists, music/artists/metallica

# posted by ArcoJedi : 00:08  0 comments