[sno1man]

After listening to two very different albums today. Deep Purple's Machine Head and John Coltrane's A Love Supreme I am reminded again why so much new music leaves me ( and i suspect many others) cold.

You can feel and appreciate both of these albums on a very visceral almost primal level.

Deep Purple is great air-guitar shake your fists balls-out rock. You almost get tired out from the experience.

John Coltrane is highly spiritual and almost transcendent in his music. You almost go outside yourself.

Most music today is performed proficiently, has some clever hooks in it and pleasant sounds, but you rarely experience it on more than a superficial level.

I do think that there are a few current bands that achieve that, even one that i personally cant stand, Opeth. But watching two of my friends who are big fans listen, they get to where i get with Coltrane.

Sadly I think that is why so much pop and hip-hop is so short lived. It sounds great initially but does not stick with you.

So now as i play my air guitar to "Highway Star"....

 

[asmox]

Personally, I think there are many modern artists who elicit such feelings.. it's very personalized and will vary by individual. I also think there are a huge number of modern artists who work on a level far beyond the superficial.. though that can easily be dependant on personal taste and the willingness of the listener to actually get past the initial turnoffs, whatever they may be.

Pop might be short-lived, but "new music" as a whole sure isn't.

oh, and I never really liked Deep Purple

 

[BillC]

The most passionate album I've heard in years is David Sylvian's "Blemish". As his ten or so year marriage was falling apart he went into his home studio and created plaintive, fractured soundscapes with his guitar. Then he sings very personal lyrics about his marriage falling apart over the top of these soundscapes in his haunting, resonant voice. It's a hard listen, but amazing.

 

[brian183]

I'd have to say the most "passionate" album I've heard in the past few months would have to be modest mouse lonesome crowded west. Of course this is all relative so what I'm saying may sound confusing. A specific part of a song called trailer trash is where I think the climax of the album is just amazing. Even though it's only half way through the album it just seems that during the last half of trailer trash it couldn't possibly get any louder or more intense for the rest of the album. But then you're hit with tracks like S*** Luck and truckers atlas and to end it all styrofoam boots that make you wonder what happened to that climax.

 

[Davey]

It's funny, but I find even more passionate music today than I did in the "old" days. To me, I think it's got a lot to do with the way the music business has caved in on itself and only supports a few huge artists. Almost everyone is indie nowadays, and so most artists don't really have that pressure to strip away the passion and make music that's more acceptable to the masses. So you get more music ripped from the heart. You get a lot of unlistenable crap too, but with the web at my fingers, there's a lot of people throughout the world to help me dig out the great stuff.

Like Willard Grant Conspiracy. Have you heard Regard the End from a couple years ago. Dark and passionate. Loved these guys for a few years before even though they never quite put together the classic I wanted, but they did this time. Uncut magazine named it "Album of the Month" and "Top 5" at the end of the year, saying "Regard The End is the first Willard Grant album to truly immerse yourself in. In ditching most of their traditional band ethic, they've tapped into the finest folk gothic traditions of death, suffering, misery and hardship and fashioned a paradoxically uplifting, transformative record of extraordinary power." Really long and detailed review you can read at their site ... http://wgc.hinah.com/press/?id=160 ... Lots of good songs, but "The Ghost of the Girl in the Well" is a big highlight that comes four songs in. Spacey use of the saw gives it a touch of the Black Heart Procession (another big favorite) while the mournful violin brings to mind the Dirty Three - worth it for that song alone - and Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses fame in for backup vocal duties. Golden.

 

[trains are bad]

Quote:

it's very personalized and will vary by individual.

QFT

Hot Water Music are one of my very favorite bands; when I expose other people to them they just laugh at me. I think they are honestly sincere, they think they are somewhere between cheese, noise and bubblegum.

To each his own.

 

[ken36]

You have to love this thread. I'm thinking very carefully about it.

 

[Riordan]

passion and spiritual energy can come in various guises, it doesn't have to be as obvious as coltrane or hendrix.

sigur ros and postrock bands like godspeed you! black emperor are brimming with passion and energy the way a humming and vibrating high voltage transformer does.

thinking back i guess what most of my favorite bands/singers have in common is possibly just that: passion, spirit, fire.

 

[tattoou2]

One of my favorite, "passionate" albums that comes to mind is 'Roots' by the Flamenco band, The Gipsy Kings.

 

[BillC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davey It's funny, but I find even more passionate music today than I did in the "old" days. To me, I think it's got a lot to do with the way the music business has caved in on itself and only supports a few huge artists. Almost everyone is indie nowadays, and so most artists don't really have that pressure to strip away the passion and make music that's more acceptable to the masses. So you get more music ripped from the heart. You get a lot of unlistenable crap too, but with the web at my fingers, there's a lot of people throughout the world to help me dig out the great stuff.

I think the music business realities you mention cause people to respond at the extremes of the question of "Where's the passion in today's music?" If you just listen to what's mass marketed you only hear the tepid pablum of the few huge artists that the mainstream music industry pushes. It's always been somewhat like that, but it seems even less often now when something innovative, interesting and passion filled breaks out.

On the other hand, if you're willing to dig about, there's a huge ocean of music out there. The infrastructure to record, master and distribute music is now available to almost anyone. The difficulty is to find an "arbiter of taste" that can filter out the enourmous amount of dreck for you so that you don't drown before you find the masterpieces.

 

[VicAjax]

Ween's classic anthem, "You ******** Up," is exceedingly passionate.

 

[gratefulshrink]

By defintion: Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 "Appasionata" of course.

Unfortuntalely, though, as has been said, "passionate" is hard to define, and is in the ear of the beholder.

I think:

Passionate could mean raw/sexual, like Iggy and the Stooges or Jim Morrison and the Doors.

It could mean sultry like Billie Holiday.

It could be Glenn Gould freaking out on a solo Bach piano piece (which is just like a wild Hendrix guitar solo or Coltrane sax solo anyway).

It could be early Dylan, or some similar folk singer, crying about injustice.

It could be an American blues icon like John Lee Hooker moaning about being down and out and broken-hearted.

It could be a singer from Mali, like Ali Farke Toure or Boubacar Traore, singing a traditional love ballad.

It could be a choir singing soaring/spiritual renaissance music.

It could be Donna Summer singing sexy Disco music.

It could be Thom Yorke or Michael Stipe or Bono crooning a power ballad.

It could be Ravi Shankar playing a 70-minute sitar raga.

Go figure......

 

[Riordan]

hmmmm, wonderful possibilities and examples, gratefulshrink

passion can also be cool, even cold with the fire well hidden - it could be kraftwerk...

 

[gratefulshrink]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riordan hmmmm, wonderful possibilities and examples, gratefulshrink passion can also be cool, even cold with the fire well hidden - it could be kraftwerk...

Thanks...

And the Kraftwerk comment...perhaps they represent sublimated or repressed passion? Techno/ambient/electronic/trance music is difficult to interpret in this regard. Not seemingly passionate at surface level, but as you say, the fire could be "hidden". Furthermore, pulsating/rhythmic beats do suggest passion (as they mimic the sound of the beating heart or that of bodies on the dance floor).

 

[Doc Sarvis]

For sheer uber-emotionalism, nothing beats Mahler.