Jamming Your Thumb to the Pulse
Since I’ve decided to become a heavy metal reviewer/publication I’ve learned a few things. It’s best to stay current but don’t hesitate to comment on things you’ve heard years ago. Try to always cite everything you use in your articles. I personally use APA format because that’s what I’m used to from school. I even wrote a story about various extensions for browsers that take all the labor out of citations.
You can find that little article here:
I find that using something akin to these useful extensions helps you increase your productivity and worry less about unintended plagiarism. It’s also nice to know you’ve done everything you could to direct people to useful places that make what you do possible.
Don’t be afraid to give things away for free! I have a (semi) nightly series in which I analyze lyrics from various songs with emotional tones. The trick here is that every song is about emotion in one way or another. Doing something like that gives me an excuse to always be writing something.
Try to stay busy. Between work and whatever else you’ve got going on (For me it’s Live Streaming and school) try to always be producing whether it’s for work, school, or your “side hustle.” I wrote a story today about Isgalder’s newest album The Red Wanderer but you know what? I really didn’t find my appetite to produce sated.
It’s strange to me that I’ve sort of come full circle in my life. I had convinced myself that this (writing) isn’t something I really wanted to do in life. I’m currently getting a STEM degree, but I’ve found in writing for school that it comes rather naturally to me. It’s very easy for me to do this kind of work so I might as well market that, right?
Let’s take a look at why I’m really here: to shill for Bandca.. I mean discuss how I try to stay current with music. There’s the obvious stuff like Spotify. I use that to review older albums that I’ve owned before. When it comes to new music though, I really like the idea of buying a physical copy. Thanks to places like Bandcamp and even more mainstream places like Amazon you can easily get the best of both worlds with one purchase. Typically on Bandcamp you get the digital album in mp3/FLAC as well when you buy a physical copy. Amazon has a similar feature dubbed “Auto-rip”
I’ve spent some time on … certain imageboards, and these places have pointed me to last.fm I haven’t ever used last because I didn’t know what it was. I had heard of it here and there but didn’t really get into it. That is the point tonight. Let’s go on last.fm and see what new stuff we find! Upon first glance, I feel like this site isn’t really for me. I’m more of a hard rock guy but let’s dig a little further than the repetitive pop music “K” or otherwise.
I went up and clicked on “Music” in the top right and was greeted with a grid-style presentation of various genres. The biggest most prominent of these grid pieces was electronic. The list contains groups like The Prodigy, Depeche Mode, and Bjork. I genuinely like these producers, but I really want something more rock-related. Scrolling down I was treated to a square labeled “Hardcore” This really sounded like it was more my speed. I clicked on it to see what was up there. Believe it or not, up until now I never listened to Hatebreed. Pretty decent, kinda reminiscent of Napalm Death. (I know I’m “old”) I like the punk rock influences on Metal. I was a bit of my punk back in school.
The next band on their top tracks was by a band called “Eftos” I’ve never heard of them. Pretty creepy experimental industrial shit they have going on. I’m not really for or against it so far even though it’s like noise all the way through. The track Aleph-null is kind of like channel surfing through static laden stations while you rot at the center of the earth in Hell. Kinda sounds like KMFDM for more of the more palatable parts of songs like “Kill Your Parents” Not really my thing though. I was going to say I like more melodic things but that seems to contradict what I said about punk influences I guess. I do like pretty much all music because I feel like I have an empathic connection to the artists no matter what the product is.
The next song I tried out was Prayer of the Refugee by Rise Against. I dig it. I heard this song back in the day. I like it. Pretty standard punk rock affair though I’ll probably get called out for them not being “real” punk rock. I get it that there is a vast ocean of different genres and I am really not intimately in on it all. Pop-punk I guess you could call it.
This section seems to be more focused on the avant-garde and more punk rock side of things. Like I said I don’t mind. I like punk but let's see if we can find some more melodic dark stuff here. I played the hardcore tab and I was treated to another band I’ve never heard of (Nice!) It was a metal core affair called Miss May I and the song was “Hey Mister” I really liked the distorted bass booms to kick-off a couple of the sections. I’m also a sucker for double bass which they display a lot of. I think I might actually look this band up and listen to more of their stuff.
In my more recent life, I’ve been stuck more in a rut I’ve discovered. There’s a lot of metal to be had out there. It may not be exactly what I like but it is there. Hard rock isn’t really getting any play on radio stations at least not around here. The rest of the stuff I found on this tag is newer sounding stuff that can be described as a mix of Numetal and grunge. I don’t mind really. I just don’t think I’ve found what I’m here to find.
I searched for Deafheaven thinking that maybe that would yield a black metal tag. I instead found Parkway Drive’s “Smoke ‘Em if Ya Got ‘Em” Kind Djent, kinda rap metal, kinda deathcore. There were some nice blast beats. I love that about them. There’s good lead play too! This is another one I think I’ll look up later even though they’re really not what I call my main interest when it comes to metal. Don’t get me wrong it goes through some great progressions and is melodic. I like that but I’m more of a black metal fan.
It really doesn’t seem to be suggesting what I really like, but I feel like if I spend more time with it I’ll get things that are more in tune with what I really enjoy. It’s all great jams though. That was never the point of all of this anyway. As the article suggests this is my way of checking the pulse of the industry, and I feel like Last.fm is a great tool to do that. Go ahead and check it out, but don’t expect to find anything truly underground there. Above all have fun with it! I certainly enjoyed my time with it tonight.
Music examined and image used retrieved from:
Home | Last.fm. (2020). Last.Fm. https://www.last.fm/home
