GUSH TIME, baby. Also, real talk to the Cowboy Beboop getting people into jazz, because before I even knew about Bebop, the first jazz song I ever really, REALLY liked was Tank.
My friends tell me I have dad taste in music, and it's sad, but true. :c I listen to mostly 80s rock and metal - mostly the harder stuff - with some few genre exceptions, like the aforementioned jazz, electro swing, and HATSUNE MIK- *cough* I mean, J-pop and SOME J-rock. My life is very Mundane :tm: and Boring :tm:, so most of the excitement I get out of it is just... listening to music - so I value high energy songs, ideally with lots of variation and a healthy, small dose of strangeness (like opera choirs in metal songs, for example, not anything TOO crazy) to keep me upbeat and engaged! I get into music first and foremost for the instrumentation itself, so things that are too reliant on vocals (a lot of rap, for example) just... don't really do it for me. Similarly, lyrics are kind of an icing on the cake rather than a be-all-end-all. I've never liked a song just for its lyrics, and a song with bad lyrics but good music is still just as enjoyable to me as it would be with OKAY lyrics.
That's just kind of a general overview, though, I guess? There are definitely exceptions - like, there's no reason in the at all why I should like Marina and the Diamonds, but here I hecking am - and part of that has to do with, like, association, so if I hear a song first when its paired with a rad as heck video, I might be more inclined to liking it, but sometimes, it's just... MEANT TO BE, I GUESS... WHILE MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS STARE AT ME AND SHAKE THEIR HEADS WHILE I LOOP HIBIKASE FOR THE FIFTEENTH TIME... RIP... I dunno, some favorites and why????
SONG: BELIEVE BY SAVATAGEI don't actually listen to this song all that much, mostly because I feel like I need to reflect on it for an hour after it's finished playing and everything that plays after just... doesn't sound as good... Admittedly, in isolation, I don't think this song is anything all that fancy - like, it sounds good, yeah, and I love Savatage lyrics to death, so I won't say anything bad on that front - but as the closer to a rock opera rife with "Oh, BIG, painful mood" songs where the protagonist gets his not entirely GOOD, but hopeful ending, sung in such a way that it could as easily be interpreted as sung to the protagonist as the listener, it just has a lot of emotional payoff. Way more than any other song for me, anyway. You could easily make the argument that this song has Christian tones, and you'd probably be right, but I've always viewed it in a more broad sense - that no matter where you go, or how low you stoop, or how horrible you feel, there will always be someone out there who supports you and cares for you, and so long as you can believe in the them that believes in you, things can still turn out okay.
ALBUM: OPERATION: MINDCRIME BY QUEENSRYCHEFollowed up by the rock opera Believe is from, but if you know me and have heard me talk, this answer should be of no surprise to you. Mindcrime is the perfect blend of good story, interesting story-telling
technique, and music that's better as a whole than the sum of its parts. Every time I listen to this album, I focus on a different instrument and get blown away all over by how intricate and wonderful all of the parts of the instrumentation is. The mysteries the story leaves you with keeps you thinking about it long after the final words have been spoken, and it's so fun to explore the different possibilities of Mary's death or X's motivations. If you want a good story, Mindcrime's your album. If you want boppin' metal, Mindcrime's your album. If you want BOTH in ONE, you better BELIEVE this sucker's gonna deliver. Hot DANG.
ARTIST: MANOWARSometimes, I kinda doubt this one, since I don't actually listen to as much Manowar as I used to, but then I pop a Manowar song, and I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's why they're the best." I DIDN'T MENTION IT ABOVE, but my number one favorite SOUND in music is
triumph, with a heavy dosage of punch-you-in-the-gut energy (perhaps most easily described with the start/ending of
this song), and when 35% of your library is about being a biker and 60% of your library is about being a viking and killing for glory and honor, like, HECK yes, these guys' music makes me feel like I could supplex a dragon into submission, and it's so SATISFYING and EMPOWERING. I may be a scrawny little twig, but listening to Manowar makes me feel like the most powerful person alive, and when I listen to music to feel pumped up, they deliver every hecking time.
Songs that used to be my favorite song before being usurped by something else, in tentative order:
Distortion Sleep by Soilwork,
Carry On by Manowar,
Mehr by Rammstein,
I Don't Believe In Love by Queensryche (which, like, isn't even top three Mindcrime songs anymore, I just got SUPER into this one for a while before realizing that there was a whole ALBUM of this -)
Albums that are good top-down, no bad songs: Mindcrime, DUH,
Streets: A Rock Opera by Savatage,
Warriors of the World by Manowar,
1984 by Van Halen,
Extreme II (warning about the full album title) by Extreme,
Rust in Peace by Megadeth,
Dystopia by Megadeth,
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son by Iron Maiden,
Somewhere in Time by Iron Maiden,
Painkiller by Judas Priest,
39D by Mitchie M, except YOUTUBE doesn't have all the SONGS ANYMORE. I dunno, there are probably more, I'm just straight up forgetting them.
Honorable shout out to Megadeth for taking up 75% of what I listen to these days, thank you for coming to my seminar on why my music taste is trash and why you shouLD LISTEN TO ROCK OPERAS.
