Minor Confession Thread

Music is music to me and there is a reason I can't use spotify. All of their predetermined playlists are too bland.

I enjoy having 760hours of music in my Winamp playlist that is going to shift through genres and eras of music on shuffle. 

I always wanted to learn to dance, was decent at country 2 step (and dance that fundamentally stays the same but can be drastically different depend on the speed) but I lack a partner to dance with so I stopped worrying about it.

Beer Baron said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Put me down on the "dancing is useless" side.  Other than horizontal folk dancing...

So is driving a car around cones in a parking lot.

I don't do that either

DjGreggieP said:

I enjoy having 760hours of music in my Winamp playlist that is going to shift through genres and eras of music on shuffle. 

It really whips the llama's ass!

barefootcyborg5000 said:

Now folks, let's not be dismissive. It IS an art. Just the same as any other performance art. I wouldn't expect the masses to line up to watch a jazz drummer, or shred guitarist. Dance just is lost on me. 

Thank you for saying it. As an art, I don't get it, and I would die of embarrassment if forced to perform any sort of social dance for the sake of "fun", but that doesn't mean other people shouldn't enjoy it. Dance, I mean, not my embarrassment. 

It's kind of like the watch thread. I don't get it, and my initial assumption was that it was just a way for rich guys and showoffs to seek attention and congratulate themselves on their own greatness. My own insecurities and modest means make me uncomfortable with that. And maybe that is part of it for some, but after reading through the thread, it looks like some people just enjoy having nicely made stuff. It's for them, not me. Knocking it down doesn't bring me any higher.

For everyone who says they can't appreciate/enjoy performative dancing...

DarkMonohue said:

Thank you for saying it. As an art, I don't get it, and I would die of embarrassment if forced to perform any sort of social dance for the sake of "fun", but that doesn't mean other people shouldn't enjoy it. Dance, I mean, not my embarrassment. 

I think dancing is a lot like singing. Everyone sings. You may not be practiced at it. You might not be "a singer". You might not want to perform or anything. But when "Bohemian Rhapsody" comes on... you berkeleying sing.

Do you move your body rhythmically to music? That's dancing.

Appleseed said:

In reply to Duke :

It would appear that you and I have very different tastes in music. And that's OK.  That's why music rules. If you push far enough, you will find at least one song to like together.

Of course it's OK.  That's why they make more than one kind of music.  I don't really know what you like, but take a cruise through the What are you listening to right now? thread to see some of the wide range of things I listen to on a daily basis.  That's really a fairly incomplete sample, because I tend to post there from work, and at work I tend to listen to mostly instrumental music.

I actively enjoy classical, funk, electronica, blues (acoustic and electric), prog metal, trip hop, minimalist and experimental stuff like Sonar or Brian Eno, industrial, bluegrass, genuine country, krautrock, surf, acid jazz, post rock and neopsychedelic, sludge / doom / stoner, rockabilly, loungecore, and a whole bunch of relatively uncategorizable stuff.  Where do you put Cibo Matto, for instance?  I even like Vaporwave and Darkwave, for pity's sake.  In a given week I will listen to all of those and more.

About the only kind of music where I cannot find a single thing to like is show tunes.

DarkMonohue said:

Minor confession: I don't dance. Never have. Never wanted to. But over the last decade or so, I have started to not hate disco. Some of it is surprisingly interesting. 

I still don't get EDM.

That's a solid it depends from me.  I don't like most disco, but there can be a fine line between disco (pointless dance music product) and funk (awesome danceable music) and other kinds of music that are truly danceable and were often played at discos, but avoid being disco.  KC and the Sunshine Band and MFSB and The Ohio Players are all technically disco bands, but they somehow stay on the right side of the equation.

EDM has so many miniscule subgenres that it is impossible to make a blanket statement about.  I'm no expert, but in general I dislike trance, house, drum-n-bass, and dubstep.  Anything with that generic "BOOM tish BOOM tish BOOM tish BOOM tish BOOM tish BOOM tish" beat is just never going to do it for me.  The same with that overused Oughties hyperspeed "Doot Doot DAT Doot Dootle Doot DAT" beat (say that in your head, you'll know the one I mean).  That's the kind of EDM that I will never get.  It's dance music that has no function or relevance outside of the actual dance floor of a packed club.

But I really like Big Beat and Chillout (there's a whole bunch of great music that can be put in this genre).  I like Electro Swing from time to time.  One of my favorite DJs has been described as making "sampledelic easy listening breakbeat tracks".

Streetwiseguy said:

Put me down on the "dancing is useless" side.

Not at all.  I don't usually enjoy dancing myself, but I can understand the appeal.  I'm just not that physical a person (I have no interest or ability in sports, either).  I can't even begin to imagine expressing myself through dance like Beer Baron can, and I don't receive that emotion from watching dancers, either.  Not ballet, not classical dances, not swing or ballroom.  But I absolutely do NOT think dancing is useless.

I just don't like like listening to dance music as entertainment.  I can't really give examples, unfortunately; it's an "I know it when I hear it" thing.  Stuff they play after dinner at a typical wedding is a good start. Miami Sound Machine.  C&C Music Factory.  Lots and lots of modern R&B that I can't name.  To dredge up some ancient history, "Funky Town" is good but "I Feel Love" is not.  "I Will Survive" is good but "Ring My Bell" is not.

Does any of that help explain my original post?

Duke said:

I just don't like like listening to dance music as entertainment.  I can't really give examples, unfortunately; it's an "I know it when I hear it" thing.  Stuff they play after dinner at a typical wedding is a good start. Miami Sound Machine.  C&C Music Factory.  Lots and lots of modern R&B that I can't name.  To dredge up some ancient history, "Funky Town" is good but "I Feel Love" is not.  "I Will Survive" is good but "Ring My Bell" is not.

I think I know what you're talking about and feel you on it. I have the same reaction to a lot of overproduced pop entertainment.

I have a philosophy that "The best art rewards attention, but doesn't demand it." By reciprocal, the worst art demands your attention, but then doesn't reward it. You get that a LOT in overproduced music, and I HATE it.

They use psychological tricks that suck your attention in, and then it's just bland and repetitive.

It's not Funkadelic going, "Okay, we're going to write a badass song for people to shake their booties to." It's some producer going, "Our research group found this rhythm resulted in 17% more head nodding, and if we use this chord progression, the chorus will be 30% more likely to get stuck in someone's head."

I hate music like that.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Yes.  You're definitely getting the drift.

Another aspect of this is lyrical content.  As I said, I listen to a ton of instrumental music.  I enjoy music with no lyrical content, or just abstract / sampled vocal snippets.

What I can't enjoy is music with empty lyrical content.  And a lot of what I'm calling "dance music" suffers from that.  That is also why some people can listen to it in their cars or broadcast it as ambient music.

As time goes on, I have more and more respect for old guys with small, well built homes on sensible plots of land. 

Working all weekend and so far my biggest responsibility is catching a squirrel that somehow got into one of the spray booths. 

I'm going to miss this job 

I'm thinking about getting a Mustang.

An elderly cleaning lady I know only tangentially just was faint here at work. I saw her sitting as I walked into the lab mopping her face with a wet towel. I asked if she was OK and she smiled and said yes. I left the lab ten minutes later and she was still there. I asked if she was sure she was okay, and she took a long time to answer. I asked, and then got her a glass of water. By the time I got back to her another colleague was there and we both sat down to chat. She is 74, has a history of afib, and just felt weak. I checked her pulse and it seemed solid at around 75. After making sure she didn't have diabetes of anything blood sugar related, I got her an ice cream sandwich from my boss's freezer. We made sure she had eaten, made sure HR knew, and my colleague took her to urgent care after making sure I could handle his tour group coming in.

I think I did everything fine, and I am pretty sure Ruth (I learned her name today) will be fine for a few more years, but I'm shaking here an hour later. I wish I was cut out for this stuff.

I'm with you guys. What's fun about a building ?

etifosi said:

I'm thinking about getting a Mustang.

Do they come with a woman?

Been watching Zyuranger, the Japanese show from which the first Power Rangers season was based. It's on youtube with subtitles. 

I think it might have been successful if it was straight dubbed like Ultraman in the 70s, the story and episodes are pretty trippy.

I confess I like the old 70's cheesy car movies like the original Gone in 60 Seconds.

Goofy hair and mustaches and real, believable car chases.  The computer generated car flips of today are stupid.  Just give me an old school '73 Ford Mustang tearing up the streets.

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

I watched The Driver a few years ago. One of the baddies as a skullet and all the cars have handling like a rowboat.

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

I remember watching all the cop show car chases when I was a kid.  Holy wheel flex and positive camber, Batman.

Me:

Puts on "A Long December" on Youtube while I do some FEA.

"Whoa, that girl is really pretty. She looks like Courtney Cox."

: Googles it:

It's Courtney Cox. Apparently the lucky guy was dating her at the time.

Duke said:

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

I remember watching all the cop show car chases when I was a kid.  Holy wheel flex and positive camber, Batman.

In reply to tuna55 :

your actions say that you *are* cut out for this stuff.  it's never comfortable.

It's Friday morning, and I can't wait for this weekend to be over. 

I watched the Marcel The Shell With Shoes On full-length movie (2021) on Netflix, and it was genuinely a very good story.  Very well produced.

It's based on some Youtube shorts from the early Tweens, which I remember watching years ago.

For the first time in 25 years my main income stream is not automotive related. I've still got some small client work in the car space, but my biggest client has nothing to do with cars. I'm nervous, but also actually kind of excited to learn new things.