en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices http://www.last.fm/user/Circuitous/journal The Last.fm journal for Circuitous. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. http://www.last.fm/user/Circuitous/journal/2007/01/07/4pve_i_dislike_tool. Sun, 7 Jan 2007 03:01:20 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Circuitous/journal/2007/01/07/4pve_i_dislike_tool. I really dislike Tool. Sorry, Tool and its fans.

Having known some Tool fans in my life I'm going to assume anyone stumbling across this who likes them will be cool enough not to call me a fag for this. So anyone calling me a fag will henceborth cease to be a Tool fan.

That's how this works.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Circuitous/journal/2006/05/30/4pvd_emo_rating%3F Tue, 30 May 2006 16:16:42 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Circuitous/journal/2006/05/30/4pvd_emo_rating%3F This emo rating thing has got my curiosity piqued, so I'm gonna go ahead and try it.

Let's see... take the top 10. I'll assume this is "Overall" and not "This Week." See how many times they've been tagged emo. This should be good.

Rammstein: 29 times*
Daisuke Ishiwatari: 0 times
Linkin Park: 74 times
Rhapsody: 2 times*
The Black Mages: 0 times
Turmion Kätilöt: 0 times
System of a Down: 95 times*
Metallica: 42 times*
Taproot: 15 times
Sonic Mayhem: 0 times

* ARE YOU PEOPLE INSANE? THESE BANDS ARE NOT EMO. THEY'RE NOT EVEN CLOSE. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Get the average, which is wrong because people mark things emo even when they're not, because they're stupid: 25.7

Divide that by 911.5 which is apparently the average of the top emo bands right now, I don't feel like looking it up to verify, then multiply it by 100 to get your percentage: 2.819% emo, because some people don't understand the concept of a genre. Great.

Edit: Haha, I'm bad at math.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Circuitous/journal/2006/05/30/4pvc_a_couple_things! Tue, 30 May 2006 14:41:38 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Circuitous/journal/2006/05/30/4pvc_a_couple_things! Alright, this is my first journal, so it's gonna suck. Just preparing you for what lies ahead.

This will be, essentially, a list of things that are true, for me, at this moment in time. You may or may not agree with me, and that's awesome because I probably don't agree with you either. It's that sort of synergy that makes the world go 'round, providing much-needed assistance to things like gravity and magnetic fields.

So here we go.

First off, Daisuke Ishiwatari is a genius. Fantastic artist, excellent gameplay developer, and gifted musician. If you've ever played Guilty Gear, this is the man to thank. The music, which is fantastic, is also available on a series of CDs. I can't recommend the "Vocal" albums (because the few songs I've heard from them are pretty bad, unfortunately!) but the rest are great. Favorite songs? Glad you asked. In no particular order:

Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead) - awesome track, a churchy organ mixed with Daisuke's excellent guitar.
Blue Water Blue Sky - this song NEVER fails to brighten my mood. Honestly.
Drunkard Does Make Wise Remarks - same for this one, except add some awesomeness alongside.
Riches in Me - and again with the awesomeness and mood brightening and whatnot.
Awe Of She - dunno who "She" is but she inspired a damn fine song.
Drumhead Pulsation - this one's great. A tribal beat, whistles, clacking, all this stuff mixed up with some hard rock.
Writhe in Pain - I keep forgetting how badly Millia beats the crap out of me when I hear this song.
The Cat Attached to the Rust - Starts off slow and finishes hard as a rock.
Sheep Will Sleep (, If You Become Fatigued) - Okay, I don't get the title at all, but the song rocks.

Gonna cut that list a bit short before I end up reading off every single song.

Moving right along, I recently was introduced to a few new bands (well, new to me) in the epic metal category - at least, that's one they all seem to share. In order of rocktitude:

Kiuas
DragonForce
Kamelot

Dragonforce would probably be above Kiuas if I had more of their albums, but Kiuas rocks pretty hard so it's sorta tough to judge right now. Dragonforce has the speed and melody on its side, but Kiuas appeals to my "harder," I guess you could say, nature.

Kamelot's pretty good, but the early albums have really terrible vocals, so I've been systematically removing them from my playlist. The later stuff, however, is a lot better.

Vocals are quite the hang up for me. When they're good, they can make the song. When they're bad, they can ruin it. It's this hinging point that causes me to avoid most bands I'd otherwise be all about: I'm a huge fan of the music involved in genres like black metal or death metal, but I can't friggin STAND "growling" vocals. I don't know why I can't just treat it like another instrument, as I know many do. I guess I just can't get over the sound. It's just... needlessly angry, with an extremely limited range. I don't know why it's used so much. When it's used in moderation, at certain points in songs, it can be great, but when that's all that's used it's really god-awful.

Despite that, I have quite a few songs that are mostly "growling." The difference is, it's not as intense, and there's some tone behind it. The lyrics are understandable, instead of half-frothed gibberish. I can actually get into it and see what they're saying, instead of just getting the abstract idea that they might be angry, or perhaps rabid. Turmion Kätilöt is a good example. The lyrics are sung harshly, throatily, but they're understandable (or would be if I knew Finnish) and have tone to them. The one song I have by Hatebreed, This Is Now, is primarily growling, but it's comprehensible and fits the song well.

Let me break off and get into Turmion Kätilöt for a bit. This stuff's awesome. It's industrial metal by definition (apparently! I've never been good at genres), combining synthesizers and heavy metal very nicely. The topics covered in the songs vary from things like loneliness and maybe insanity (Lepositeet), to some sort of Satanist butcher madman guy (Teurastaja) to a parody of a militaristic government (4 Käskyä). It's awesome stuff, but the subject matter makes me wonder: would I like it so much if I knew Finnish? I showed a clip of 4 Käskyä (search for "turmion" on Google Video if you wanna see it) to a Finnish friend of mine, who claims to be a fan of metal, and he thought they were Neo-Nazis (or at least pretending to be). It makes me wonder.

Another band I have this "problem" with is Rammstein, easily one of my favorite bands ever. I originally avoided them, under the entirely ignorant pretense that they were depraved Neo-Nazis (then again, my friends that listened to them sorta forced these beliefs upon me, so they're partly to blame I say!). Then one day I'm watching internet TV via Winamp, and "Sonne" comes on. I'm immediately hooked. In no time I had every Rammstein album I could get my hands on, and I'm still on the hunt. But after listening to so many of their songs, and getting translations and figuring out what they're talking about, it all seems a little odd. Since it's in German, I can forget what the lyrics really mean and just enjoy the music, but I wonder if my sensibilities would let me enjoy Rammstein to the extent that I do now if I actually understood the language fluently. I just don't know! I certainly hope it wouldn't, because they rock out loud, but the possibility definitely exists, I think.

I think I've stuck to the main goal pretty well here. I kinda went from "opinions disguised as universal truth" to "just opinions," but that's life sometimes. If you bothered to read all this, hopefully you don't feel the time was wasted. I probably would.]]>