Shot Gun

Which genre of music made primarily by queer musicians do you prefer?

Queercore is ostensibly an offshoot of hardcore punk. It began in earnest during the '90s, but bands like the D*cks and Big Boys which featured gay members lent influence. Here are three great songs in fairly different styles of the genre:

Grizzly Gizzard - God Is My Co-Pilot (noise rock with some no-wave influence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q_YEe2qLdw

Does Your Daddy Know? - Limp Wrist (straight up hardcore, if you can handle it. It's not the best representation of Limp Wrist, because it's longer than most of their songs, and the lyrics are sort of intelligible, but it's awesome.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5xUn0mV7sU

Fagetarian and Dyke - Team Dresch (more melodic, riot grrrl type stuff)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xceNTy-yNhA

I don't know as much about sissy bounce, but it's a subgenre of bounce, a style of southern hip hop which is pretty chant-heavy. I've only got one example here, but it's pretty perfect.

Gin in My System - Big Freedia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhYjYvvPNlk

BQ: Favorite all-purpose hardcore punk and/or southern hip hop release?

http://twitter.com/RollingStone

"Very sad news: We've confirmed with his management that Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, has died. More details to come."

Share a song, I guess.

Fun comparisons... go! (You may have to depend on baseless (and unbased) generalizations, but just go with it.)

Vampire Weekend/Eagles: You know, because the people who like them don't seem to realize that everybody hates them (even if no one knows who everybody is). Fans might to think that by listening to them, they show how advanced and superior their taste is, without acknowledging the popular backlash against those bands.

Or, in another way, they're the easiest targets in the world for showing how cool you are for not liking classic rock or indie rock. Kiss works their too.

BQ: Vampire Weekend or The Eagles?

If not: What's wrong with you?

Don't miss out on the icons of the golden age you were born into and live in without choice.

BQ: Last great album you discovered?

There are a bunch I can think of, but I think the biggest one is the mindless, rampant anti-disco mindset. Now, I listen to almost no disco (and what I do listen to is fake, hipster, 2008 disco - Hercules and Love Affair, who do you think you are?) but it doesn't really make sense to me why disco is such an accepted punching bag. People always say things like "there was always bad music; just look at disco in the '70s." Why are these assumptions made? Obviously the offenders don't listen to disco (I'd hope so, at least), but there are plenty of genres they don't listen to. Why disco? What did it ever to to you?

Provide another example of such a stigma, or just share some disco favorites.

BQ: How about Whitney Houston? (Not that she's disco - just asking.)

On the RYM database, there are eight releases under the genre of sacred harp music. Obviously some stuff goes un-genre-tagged, and plenty of stuff hasn't been added, and most importantly, many (or most) of the sacred harp groups from way back when didn't actually record anything, or only released one or two commercial singles that no one's heard in seventy or eighty years, but it's still frustrating, because damn, it's good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSARf0oHPrY

That's Present Joys by the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers, one of the best known groups and tracks to the general public due to inclusion on the Anthology of American Folk Music.

So far, I've been able to track down an Alabama Sacred Harp Singers compilation and a various artists compilation from Dust-to-Digital called I Belong to This Band. Both are really good.

Anyway, beyond that personal anecdote, all I'm really asking is: What are some genres which have a frustratingly small output available?

BQ: Do you like shapes in your notes?

Just some rappers I've been thinking about/listening to based on an answer I gave about non-traditional hip hop that's not based on intricate lyricism, whatever, who cares.

ODB

Kool Keith

Divine Styler

MF Doom

Lil Wayne

Lil B

BQ: favorite album from any or all of those six

People are always going on little tirades about how without the innovations inherent to The Beatles' abstract existence, music would be so different, and Hitler would be president. Well, who gives a ****? (about the Beatles, not about Hitler being president.) Give some love to the best, and the most ultimately irrelevant music you know. (Though is anything irrelevant if you love it? Think on that.)

BQ: Harlem or Brooklyn? (Manhattan's too big (culturally, not size-wise) to be the whole choice.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bHWaSpAiXI

BQ: Favorite release of 2007?

2: Any Cheers fans? Favorite episodes, lines, characters, what have you.

Please?

Have One on Me>Ys>Milk-Eyed Mender

I was listening to 1910 Fruitgum Company compilation, and as cool as all the music was, it was all in that really fake, annoying stereo, where everything is pushed to the limit, right into one ear. Granted, that can be cool sometimes (I can't find anything by Flora Molton on youtube, but her music does that really well) but here, it wasn't.

Care to relate a similar experience?

BQ: Favorite song whose sweet and sunny nature hides dark lyrics beneath the surface (this is everyone's favorite rape anthem): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9qEA8wwvb4

2: Favorite song that sounds as if it was recorded by mental patients?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEZU2kPKctI

The songs are 1, 2, 3 Red Light and Sticky Sticky, both by the 1910 Fruitgum Company.

I imagine that this will mostly attract the populist crowd, but whatever.

For example, Mr. NatFaz's assertion to David that "You'll understand mainstream pop someday lil buddy" in this question - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aief9...

Trick question, because Al Jardine and Prince are clearly the same person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vbclu8ELDE

Can you think of any resemblance quite so uncanny?

BQ: Seriously, tho, Beach Boys vs. Prince

2: Favorite song of Friends (the Beach Boys album - those who answer "I'll Be There For You" will be shot on sight)?

I could elaborate here, but it would be incoherent and no one would read it anyway.

Have fun.

Interesting story: Willmer "Little Axe" Broadnax was an American gospel singer, who worked with a number of influential groups, including The Spirit of Memphis Quartet, in the late forties and onward. It was only upon his death in 1994 that he was revealed to be biologically female, and using his brother's name.

Hooray for Little Axe Broadnax.

Try not to choose the easy answers.

For example: "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" from Godfather Part II goes with "Your Enemy Cannot Harm You (But Watch Your Close Friend)." This version is by Edward Clayborn, who wrote it and is the original performer, as far as I know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocE_-lW5FR4

Hopefully the answer isn't making any significant changes to your list of the greatest albums ever, because here it is: The official top 150 (that's right, 150 - 50 more than last time) albums of R&P!

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/RodrickRamrod/the_y_...

Reactions? Surprises? Accolades (for me)? Let's hear it!

So, I guess the concrete question is (though if you don't answer it, that's fine): How accurately do you think this represents R&P's collective taste?

I was recently roped into playing bass for a Bye Bye Birdie production this summer. I spent the weekend learning 164 pages of music. It was a blast.

Reminded me of how fantastic "Put on a Happy Face" really is.

What are your favorites?

Try to stay away from songs like "Who Let the Dogs Out" that are essentially novelty music, and are sort of designed to exist seriously only for a few weeks.

How about Akon's "Lonely" from '05?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga701umeEXE

In retrospect, it seems sort of odd that no one noticed the ten or fifteen levels on which this song doesn't work. You've got the pseudo-gangsta posturing at the beginning, despite the painful schmaltziness to come. You've got the total misreading of the high pitch soul sample Kanye/RZA trend. You've got the relative melody-lessness in what is essentially a modern quiet storm song. And for a professional, major release single, the looping of the sample is incredibly obvious and clumsy.

Please don't make this into a forum to discuss the worst music of the '00s. "Lonely" is terrible, but so is a song like Hinder's "Lips of an Angel," which could probably get made today just as easily as it could have in '06. There's something uniquely mid-'00s about "Lonely," in all those flaws, even if I didn't really manage to explain it that well.

BQ: Rank "Who Let the Dogs Out," "Lonely," and "Lips of an Angel."

Not trying to be a snide Beatles-hater here. Please don't get that impression.

Anyway, I think the original of "Ana (Go to Him)" by Arthur Alexander is better than the cover by The Beatles. There's not too much difference really, but the original is just a little more subtle, a little more soulful, a little more beautiful. It really accentuates the gospel undertones in the song, whereas The Beatles play it sort of straight R&B.

Original - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihsfVEFvrxA

Beatles - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVJwwLcV3KY

BQ: Anyone seen Oddsac? I'm going tonight.