Re: Now listening to . . .

Sary Wed 16 Dec - 0:40

A couple of Christmas songs. Funny, I feel the spirit a little stronger this year.
Maybe it is because of the pandemic?

We are bracing for our first Nor’easter tomorrow night, with snow fall expected to be 10-18 inches.

Sary Mon 21 Dec - 1:09

A couple more traditional Christmas songs.

Neon Knight Tue 22 Dec - 23:20

A song on the Nat King Cole & Dean Martin Christmas album my family always used to play at this time:

I always like to listen to some version of Carol Of The Bells at Christmas:

Sary Thu 24 Dec - 2:12

I was just listening to the Harp Twins rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic. They are so beautiful and talented, really nice music.

I love the oldies and the classics like Nat King Cole, my parents played this kind of music too...on the stereo/record player.
Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, they all had their Christmas albums. It is hard for me to compare contemporary singers.

The Beach Boys are so young and hip, singing Christmas music!

Neon Knight Sat 26 Dec - 15:04

I enjoyed all of those last four songs and they're all quite different. Another by NKC . . .

and one by Greek metal band Orion's Reign with a Norwegian singer called Minniva (Marit Børresen):

Sary Wed 30 Dec - 22:47

The metal sound is well suited for Joy to the World, her voice is filled with so much energy and joy, I like it!
Keeping with the Christmas spirit ...another classic song and another more modern, from the 1970’s “metal” band Angel Wink 1

Neon Knight Fri 1 Jan - 22:34

I've always liked the Sugar Plum Fairy piece of music, it sounds very magical. I've heard of Angel. The rock magazine I used to read, Kerrang!, sometimes made fun of them. They sound okay though. The frontman has a look of Alice Cooper.

I think I posted this song last year but you couldn't receive it for some reason. It's not meant to be a seasonal song, but I think it has a strong Yuletide feel to it:

Something dynamic for the New Year:

Sary Mon 4 Jan - 0:51

I still can’t see the video.
It says, this video contains content from WMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. What song is it, maybe I can find it?

The Muse song sounds like an anthem for anarchy, very fitting for the year 2021.
The giant teddy bear busting out of the ground IS very dynamic, great video!

A song by the band Mastodon. Most of their music is too heavy for me but, this song is about right. It kind of reminds me of Black Sabbath.

Neon Knight Tue 5 Jan - 3:50

Try this page for the Summoning track:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Summoning+%22Might+and+Glory%22

That Mastodon song has disappeared since you posted it but I found another post if it's the right one:
https://youtu.be/GMeAEBujd7w

It is distinctly Sabbathy in their 'stoner rock' style. I quite like it but not entirely, for the same reason I don't quite like any of that newer generation of metal bands. This might seem picky, but there's a section in the song - 1:52 to 2:22 - which has that moaning, self-pitying teenager grungy emotion to it which I call 'anti-dramatic' and I think is not in the spirit of true metal! Metal Horns

There are a few bands who follow Black Sabbath in that way, one of which is Count Raven:

Sary Mon 11 Jan - 2:49

The growling vocals in Might and Glory give a scary feeling to the music but, the song is balanced with very beautiful melody to it. I will have to listen to it again, it seems to perfectly fit the mood of the modern day.
Yes, Curl of the Burl is the Mastodon song that I posted...now that you mention it, it does sound a little “grungy”. I don’t mind a little bit of that genre of music, too much and it gets boring and depressing.
Ok then, two metal bands that were popular around here back in the 1980’s, Fates Warning and Obsession. Real head banging kind of music, with no whining at all to it!

Neon Knight Sat 23 Jan - 10:02

Yes, you pretty much hit the true metal target with those songs Smile 1

Fates Warning are one of those bands I meant to investigate but never got round to. I first came across them on the Dio tribute album Holy Diver (2000) with Sign Of The Southern Cross:

I'm not sure I've heard of Obsession before but that song is quite good - it has an earthy feel to it and that somewhat naive attitude that I like. A contemporary band of theirs is Fifth Angel who did a couple of albums and reunited a few years ago. Their songs often had Biblical/Christian themes.

Sary Wed 27 Jan - 2:56

I really like Fifth Angel, with Christian lyrics set to metal style of music. It gives a very powerful feeling.
Stryper is a band that comes to mind, when I think of that genre of music.

Iron Man, has been playing in my head lately.

Neon Knight Mon 1 Feb - 1:13

This will help you get the Iron Man tune out of your head: https://youtu.be/KTfnnbncVZQ Not!

Yeah, Stryper have a similar sound to Fifth Angel which I like. This is where they got their name from:

Isaiah 53:5 - “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” [King James Version]

“Stripes,” (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24) in the language of the King James Version of the Bible, and in some others, means “wounds,” as seen in more modern translations such as the New International Version. These stripes were administered by whipping the bare backs of prisoners whose hands and feet were bound, rendering them helpless. [From www.gotquestions.org]

A lot of Fifth Angel fans would probably have been into these next two bands, though both are a bit darker and Chastain a bit heavier:

(I might as well complete the hat-trick and post another song about an angel.)

For me, these mid-80s American bands played the ideal type of heavy metal, striking just the right balance between rhythm and melody. Some will say that style of music and lyrics is pretentious but I find that attitude cynical and boring and I think it's a reflection of our culture having become shallower in recent times.

Sary Thu 25 Feb - 2:25

Haha haha Beavis and Butthead, I almost forgot about them and their crude, rude, immature humor!

No, I don’t think the style of music you are describing is pretentious at all. You are a man with refined taste in music, nothing wrong with that.

An old Aerosmith song that I always liked, Seasons of Wither.

Neon Knight Thu 25 Feb - 22:07

One of my favourite Aerosmith songs, Cryin' . . .

The music video for the song, directed by Marty Callner, features the first of three successive appearances by Alicia Silverstone in the band's videos, the next two being "Amazing" (1993) and "Crazy" (1994). Silverstone was 16 years old when "Cryin'" was filmed. In the video, the band performs in the Central Congregational Church in Fall River, Massachusetts. The video flashes back and forth between the band and Silverstone, who plays a teen who has a falling out with her boyfriend (played by Stephen Dorff) . . . She begins a phase of rebellion and individuality and gets a navel piercing, which has largely been credited as introducing navel piercing to mainstream culture . . . The video was a smash success on MTV, becoming the most requested video in 1993 and earning the band several awards at the Video Music Awards. [Wikipedia]

"Enola Gay" . . . by the British synth-pop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and the only single from the band's 1980 album Organisation. The track addresses the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the aircraft Enola Gay . . . toward the conclusion of World War II. It was written by vocalist/bass guitarist Andy McCluskey . . . The single was an international success, selling more than 5 million copies, while the track became an enduring hit . . . The song is named after the Enola Gay, the USAAF B-29 Superfortress bomber that carried Little Boy, the first atomic bomb to be used in an act of war, dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945, killing more than 100,000 of its citizens. The name of the bomber itself was chosen by its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who named it after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets (1893–1983), who had been named after the heroine of the novel 'Enola; or, Her fatal mistake' . . . McCluskey stated he "wasn't really politically motivated to write the song", which was informed by a fascination with World War II bombers. He hoped the track "conveyed an ambivalence about whether it was the right or the wrong thing to do". [Wikipedia]

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