Brazilian music is famous worldwide — from bossa nova, to choro, to samba.
Bossa is cool, choro is amazing, but my favorite things about samba is that despite being "pop music" it still has complex rhythms and harmonies.
My top favorite thing is the prevalence of the 7 stringed guitar and their use of counterpoints (i.e., parallel melodies).
I love how what (I think) started as guitarists just playing harmonies, turned into them improvising bass lines and counterpoints every once in a while, which eventually became them doing MOSTLY counterpoints and bass lines and barely playing the harmony lmao.
These bass lines and counterpoints, from what I understand, are often times arpeggiations of the chords and so forth, but they add such an amazing effect to the music.
Examples:
- This guy solo playing over a recording.
- This solo guitar + singer.
- Most music by Cartola which features the absolute timeless 7 stringed legend Dino. This one is a classic.
Technical Death Metal. Depending of the band you get this ridiculously crazy and sophisticated instrumentalism and polyrhythmic beats like Archspire, other times you get more progressive, experimental groups like Blood Incantation that mix and match genres and soundscapes.
In fact, the newest album from Blood Incantation is a good example of that, one moment you're listening to fast blast beats and then it suddenly takes a hard turn into pink floyd and slowly starts crescendoing back into fast Death Metal over the next couple of minutes. It's an absurd aural experience to say the least, but I really like experimental music that pushes boundaries even when it doesn't totally work.
Post-hardcore. Typically 90’s old school like Fugazi and Hot Water Music, and then especially 2010s style “the wave” Touché Amore and La Dispute.
Not the 2000s style that veered into emo and Metalcore territory. Although there were some fantastic bands around that time that experimented with the classic sound, like Thrice and At The Drive In, and an obviously earlier example of that being Refused.
The combination of hardcore punk with slow and mid tempo breaks, throw in spoken sections or poetry. If it’s done right it’s just beautiful and makes you feel everything.
But if it’s done wrong, it’s so bad, don’t even bother. Honestly, for me, there’s so many 2000s-era bands that are unlistenable, and to me don’t even fit the genre as far as what came before and after them. But everything changes and people experiment with different sounds.
And it’s such a flexible genre, you have bands that take post-hardcore sensibility and turn it into indie rock, like Manchester Orchestra.
Less of a genre, more of an era, but I absolutely love music from the '60s. It's just infectious. Some of it is infectiously happy - e.g., Dancing in the Street by Martha & The Vandellas, or Dance to the Music by Sly and the Family Stone. Some is infectiously melancholy, like The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel, or Abraham, Martin, and John by Dion. And some you just can't help but sing along to, like Creeque Alley by the Mamas and the Papas, or Good Morning by Oliver. And of course all the amazing classic rock, experimental sounds, and folk music from that era! Even some of the novelty songs are super memorable (I'm lookin at you, MacArthur Park!).
I'll give you two:
First, what I call "shitty punk rock" (no offense to the performers). I consider it a form of folk music as it is played by people who may or may not be talented or skilled but, they play it anyway. They have something to express and they choose to express it and passionately express it with such a low level of self-judgement that I envy. Years ago, I'd be in the pit but, I'm not cut out for it anymore. I'll still support em as I can though.
My favorite though, absolutely has to be folk-punk. Whether singing originals or covers or punkified trad or tradified punk, I absolutely love it. Some recommendations would be Days'n'Daze, Defiance Ohio, and The Dreadnoughts.
Dubstep, proper dubstep and not the brostep sound that was popularised in the later 00s.
I love it because I love bass, I love a proper system and standing there feeling the music course through you. I also love how very diverse it is within the one genre, there are so many different styles and sounds to explore.
Hard to pick just one track for sure but I'll choose this one today :)
I love many genres of music, so the open ended creativity in the downtempo electronic scene is where I usually find myself regularly being rewarded with something that feels new. Any genre or mix of many can be worked in and explored with the gloves off. And I love deep groovy bass work.
