Wiz Khalifa

I don't want to sounds like a hipster, but I've been listening to Wiz Khalifa long before he was on the radio... and I must say he is terrible now.  "Rolling Papers" is just an overall horrible album and Black and Yellow and Roll Up both make me cringe whenever I hear them.  However, I do believe Wiz has come out with some pretty decent mixtapes in the past.  My favorite one being "Kush and OJ."  K&OJ is Wiz Khalifa's "stoner album,"  all of the songs and beats made are perfect when under the influence of a certain herb.  A few of my favorite songs off of this mixtape would have to be Spotlight, The Kid Frankie, We're Done, and Pedal to the Medal. But there isn't one song on this Mixtape that I do no like.  I'll post a couple sample songs from the mixtape, and if you like it you are able to download it legally and for free at this link.

Spotlight-

Pedal to the Medal-

The Kid Frankie-

In other news: I haven't been updating this blog as much as I would like to, so I am definitely going to either post daily or every two days.  Also, I have another fresh original dubstep track in the works and I am very excited to post that too.  Thank you!

Spor/Feed Me

Lately I've been getting into a lot of drums and bass, and I must say my favorite producer so far is spor.  Drums and Bass is a genre of electronic music that features fast drum loops, heavy basslines, and just overall awesomeness.  DNB is usually at a higher tempo(around 160 BMP) compared to a lot of other genres.  Anyway, Spor is pretty sick, here's a few sweet songs by him.

Spor is also produces some really sick dubstep/house songs under the name Feed Me.  I really admire the production quality on all of his tracks, they're just superb.  Anyway, here's the song Cloudburn by Feed Me.

Trance!

Trance is great!  I don't know a whole lot about the genre, but I know some pretty cool songs!

My first awesome trance song is called Crying Soul by DJ Splash.  I really love the build-up in this one, and the synth leads sound so peppy and cheery and awesome.

The second song I choose is the Pure Imagination Trance Remix.  It's seriously one of the coolest songs I've ever heard and definitely one of my favorites.

Lastly, I choose Children by Robert Miles.  My favorite part about this song is the intro.  It sounds so relaxing and uplifting and when the beat kicks in this song surely kicks ass.

That's it for this post!  I think for my next post I'll review some rap mixtapes or cover another genre of music. Any suggestions?  I'd love your input.

Dubstep song I made

Yeah, I've been making dubstep for about a month now and I'm still learning and improving.  I still think this is by far the coolest song I've made so far though.   I need a new name because funeral is kind of dumb, any suggestions?

Skrillex is awesome.

I've been a Skrillex fan for a little while, but I just now realized that this video existed.  It's the freaking best, just watch it.  I can't wait to see my boy Skrillex at DEMF this year, it's going to be orgasmically good.

Shpongle

In this post I am going to write about Shpongle, more importantly the album Tales of the Inexpressible.  If you have never heard of Shpongle they are a collection of people who make downtempo/ambient psychedelic trance music.  Shpongle consists of Simon Posford, who composes and produces most of their music, and Raja Ram who plays the flute among other instruments.  I would say that Shpongle is best listened to while under the influence of "psychedelic" substances, but don't get me wrong, I completely enjoy them sober as well.  My first idea of what Shpongle would sound like was completely off of what they actually sound like.  I thought that they would be very trippy and out there,which they are, but they are much more than that.  Shponge has a very worldly sound which is demonstrated in their song Dorset Perception.

Furthermore, Shpongle uses the voice work of many artists, and also samples from other songs.  In the song "A New Way To Say Hurray," a sample from an African tribe song is used.  The production quality and composition of Shpongle's music blows me away each time I listen to them.  

All in all, just check them out, they're amazing.  If you are into said "psychedelic substances" listen to them while under the influence and you will not regret it.  I leave you with another great song, the Star Shpongled Banner.

200 Followers and other stuff!

Hurray! Got 200 followers, thanks everyone!

In this post I will post misc songs that I enjoy and that I hope you will enjoy as well.

First song: Home Again- Disco Biscuits

The Disco Biscuits are a psych-trance jam band.  They started as a Phish(another great band) cover band.  This is their track Home Again off of their album "They Missed The Perfume."  I rather do enjoy this song, it's very catchy and relaxing, definitely a great song to toke to.

Second song: 1979- Smashing Pumpkins

The Smashing Pumpkins are a pretty well-known band from the 90s.  My favorite track from this band, actually probably one of my favorite songs period, is 1979.  It's a very chill and mellow song with a hypnotic drum line.  The chilled out sound of the guitar matches this song perfectly.

Third song:  When I'm Small- Phantogram

Phantogram is group described best as "beat heavy indie pop."  The band uses drum loops and synthesizers plus a guitar in most of their songs.  In this track the guitarist mainly strums one note and moves along with the rest of the track.  It has a very haunting sound, but it is still an awesome song.

Yes

I am a huge fan of classic rock and one of my favorite albums is Fragile by progressive rock band Yes.  Prog rock is one of those genres that just grows on you the more and more you listen to it.  If you're a musician like myself you really come to appreciate the technicality of prog rock.  Genre switch ups and time signature changes are a hard thing to pull off, and to get them to sound nice and flow well is a difficult task.  Although I've known about Yes for quite some time, it wasn't until I listened to this album all the way through about a year ago when I really started to get into them.

One of the most famous tracks off of this album is Roundabout.  It's one of my favorite songs off of Fragile.  It starts out with a slow acoustic guitar build up and blasts into a funky and fast jam.  The vocalist of Yes, Jon Anderson, has a very distinctive high pitched voice which goes smoothly with the rest of the band.

Heart of the Sunrise is my favorite song off of Fragile instrument wise.  The intro to this song is very progressive with the fast paced drumming which transitions into a slow bass/drum breakdown.

Mood for a Day is an acoustic track off of the album.  Personally, I think Steve Howe wrote a masterpiece with this song.  It's very beautiful and relaxing to listen to.  The guitar on this song has a very classical sound.

Flux Pavilion

Flux Pavilion is another dubstep producer out of the UK.  His signature sound is a high pitched screeching sound that he uses in most of his songs.  His tracks are usual very melodic in substance, and less filthy and grimy than most other dubstep.  Flux is what some would refer to as "brostep" because of his melodies, however he is still a great producer.  One of my favorite tracks by Flux is Bass Cannon which has a very epic cowbell beginning and has a very intense drop.  Flux's Cracks remix is also a great club banger, and it features awesome female vocals.  You can tell that Flux Pavilion pays attention to the details in his tracks whilst listening to them, which is why he is one of the top rising dubstep producers.

This is a live set from Flux, the first tune he drops is Bass Cannon which is just an insane track.

Flux Pavilion- Cracks

Daft Punk

Daft Punk is an amazing electronic duo, but my favorite album has to be Discovery.  The album came out in 2001 with the hit "One More Time."  However, the whole album is filled with classic hits.  My two favorite songs off of this album are Veridis Quo and Voyager.  It's just a great album to listen to all the way through.  This album was also a soundtrack for an anime movie called "Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem"
Daft Punk has also recently done the whole soundtrack for Disney's Tron, this too is a great album, but you can't go wrong with the classics.

Here is the Veridis Quo clip from Interstella 5555:

Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles are an electronic music duo out of Canada.  The duo features Ethan Kath who does the instruments for the group, and Alice Glass who is the vocalist/lyricist.  They have a very unique sound, I would classify it as "video game-esque."  Some of their songs are very chill and nice to listen to, while some have a thrash punk sound and has Alice screaming in a very high pitched manner.  In their studio recordings, most of Alice's vocal work is heavily edited to give their music a distinct edge.  They have a lot of great songs, but empathy, magic spells, and untrust us are my favorite.

Untrust Us

Empathy

Magic Spells


I'll post more soon!  It's the end of the semester so I haven't had much free time to work on this blog, but after this week I will be free!

Deadmau5

It's been a while since I've posted, I've been really busy with schoolwork and whatnot, but here's another post!

Deadmau5 is a great producer, and his CD "For Lack of a Better Name" is my favorite.  The styles that he works with on this CD are great and range from electro house, prog house, with even some trance.  If you listen to this CD all the way through it's actually a mix and blends together very nicely.  I checked out his album 4x4=12, but didn't like it as much as this one.  The album starts out with a song titled FML which starts out with a snare intro and then turns into a very dirty and heavy synth lead.  After FML is a song named Moar Ghosts And Stuff which is the intro for his song Ghosts and Stuff which is his big hit.  I prefer Moar Ghosts and Stuff rather than the hit because it sounds way cooler and has a much nicer beat to it.  After ghosts and stuff comes Hi Friend which has a very electro feel to it.  Bot and Word Problems come next which are very trippy in nature.  They use voice samples and have very hypnotizing basslines.  Soma and Lack of a better name follow, Soma involved a lot of percussion noises and lack of a better name is a good song which brings back the synth and is a great build up for the next song which is the 16th hour. The 16th hour is one of my favorite songs on the CD.  I really like the sound of synths he used in this track, and the song merges in and out of two separate but awesome parts.  Finally Strobe is the last song.  Strobe is a beautiful song with an amazing beat and build-up, and at the end of the track you just can't help but to dance.  Overall, it's a great album and you should definitely check it out if you are into electronic music!

 

Everything Else!

The name of my blog is "Music and Everything Else," yet I haven't posted anything that isn't music related yet!  So without any further ado, here's my everything else post!

Lately, I've been getting into this television show called Archer.  It's on FX and it's about a secret spy agency.  I really love the show's sense of humor.  Every episode has had my laughing my ass off!  The dialog on the show is what makes it hilarious.  It is a smart and sarcastic show.  The animation style is very interesting.  Each character appears very realistic yet cartoonish at the same time, producers on the show say that characters were styled after comics from the 60's.

Also, I wanted to talk about the Magic Flight Launch Box.  After some thinking, I've determined that this will be my next purchase.  The MFLB is a small handheld vaporizer that you plug a battery into.  All you need to do is throw whatever you want to vaporize into the compartment, plug in the battery, and suck through a straw and it'll be turned into vapor!  Vaporizing is a much safer method of using compared to smoking.  You only inhale the chemicals that were vaproized whilst using a vaporizer rather than all of the harmful toxins you get from smoking.  The MFLB is only a mere 99 dollars when purchased online, but a local smokeshop is selling them for 125 dollars, so I will probably just spend the extra 25 dollars to buy it right away.

That's it for my everything else post,  I plan on writing about a bunch of music in my next posts so watch out for those in the near future!

Five Awesome Dubstep Remixes

1.  Knights of Cydonia Dubstep Remix.  This is one of the first dubstep tracks that I've heard and it's still one of my favorites.  Definitely love the sound of the bass wobbles on this one as well as the epic build-ups.

2. Benny Benassi- Cinema(skrillex remix).  Love this song!  It's so catchy, but yet the drop is so distorted and filthy!  I remember when I first heard this song it wasn't released yet, so I waited patiently for it to be released and now it has over 100 plays on my iPod.

3.  Dev ft The Cataracs- Bass Down Low(Proper Villains Remix).  This is such a sick track.  I loved the original song, but this remix took it to a whole new level.

4.  Imogen Heap- Hide and Seek(Mt. Eden Remix).  Another one of the first dubstep tracks that I've heard.  It's definitely a very chill remix.

5.  The Pixies-Where is my mind(Bassnectar Remix).  Bassnectar is one of my favorite producers out there, all of his songs are remixes are amazing.  This track is very sick and heavy, and the original song is from Fight Club! So that's pretty much a double win.

Datsik

Another Dubstep post.  Datsik is another one of my favorite DJs/producers.  When I was first getting into the genre Datsik really got me further into it.  I got a mixtape with about 30 of his songs and each of them are very awesome and unique.  Datsik's music has a certain raw style to it that makes it sounds good.  His bass wobbles are very robotic and mechanical sounding, and the synths that he uses in the intros and throughout the songs have a very haunting feel to them. Datsik also tends to sample a lot of lines from rap songs and he mixes them into his own tracks.  Datsik commonly teams up with fellow dubstep producer, Excision.  Together they make insane dubstep tracks, a very popular one being "Guess I got my swagger back."  Some of my other favorite songs are firepower, jenova project, retreat, quantization error, and havoc.

100 Followers!

Woo! Got 100 follows! Thanks everyone! I'll post another music blog tomorrow!

Between the Buried and Me

I have been listening to Between the Buried and Me for about four years now, and they are definitely in my top favorite bands of all time.  When I was younger I went through a stage where I would only listen to hardcore/metalcore music, and this is the only band that I still like from that era of music.  I think what puts BTBAM above the rest is how technical and progressive they are.  Their songs are constructed masterpieces, each and every one of them.  The first album I listened to by them was Alaska, which featured songs such as Selkies: The Endless Obsession, All Bodies, and of course Alaska.  BTBAM took it to a whole new level with their next album, colors.  Colors is one of the most mindblowing albums I've ever listened to. Each song weaves in and out of genres, progressions, builds-ups, breakdowns, and everything else in between.  Not to mention half of the songs on the album exceen 10 minutes in legnth, something that is unheard of in the music world.  Colors was released in 2007, two years later the bands next album came out: The Great Misdirect.  I am going to be honest, I didn't like this album at first.  It took me until the first time I listened to it all the way through to really appreciate it, and might I say, I think this album surpasses colors in everyway.  The album ends with the song Swim To The Moon which has one of the best and most suspensfull buildups for a breakdown I've ever heard.  Overall, BTBAM is forever going to be in my heart as one of the greatest bands ever, filled with the greatest musicians ever.  I leave you with Selkies: The Endless Obsession.

Two in one: Childish Gambino and Tame Impala

I am doing this post on the two latest albums that I've downloaded, the first being Culdesac by Childish Gambino and the second being Innerspeaker by Tame Impala.

Donald Glover is a man of many talents.  He is an actor, a stand-up comedian, and a rapper under the name Childish Gambino.  Culdesac is his EP that can be downloaded here.  Gambino's delivery is very Lil Wayne-esque, but is, in my opinion, much better than Weezy.  His lyrics consist of punchline after punchline, each of which is clever and unique.  Two of my favorite tracks on this EP are Do Ya Like and I Be On That.

Part two: Tame Impala.

Tame Impala is an Indie Psychedelic rock band hailing all the way from Australia.  There musical style reflects psychedelic rock bands of the 60s, but with a modern indie twist.  Their lead singer, Kevin Parker, has a singing voice which is very similar to that of John Lennon.  The production value on Innerspeaker is amazing, each song has its own unique flavor.  Not all of their tracks are 100% psychedelic, but for the most part they have a really trippy sound.  My favorite tracks off of this album are Alter Ego, The Bold Arrow of Time, and Why Don't You Make Up Your Mind.

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd will always be one of my favorite bands ever.  I have always known about them, but it wasn't until the first time I got high where I really started to enjoy them.  As stereotypical as it seems, Pink Floyd is definitely a stoner band.  I don't know what it is about them.  I will forever think that Pink Floyd was way ahead of their time back when they were going strong.  Although I appreciate the work that Syd Barret did with the Floyd, their earliest material is not my favorite... nor is their later material which seems to be very centered around Roger Waters.  My favorite albums were from the middle stages for the Floyd.  That's right I'm talking about Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Animals, Meddle, and Obscured by Clouds.

My favorite album by Pink Floyd is always changing, but right now I would have to say it is Wish You Were Here.  I love the fact that the album starts with Shine On You Crazy Diamond, transfers into 3 different songs, then goes right back to Shine On for the finish.

As a musician, I always can find respect for the instrumentals in the band.  May it be David Gilmour's flawless guitar solos or Nick Mason's on beat drumming, I am always impressed.  I also admire them as music composers, their progressive tracks which seem like they last forever are amazingly written.

Well, that's it about the Floyd for now.  I will post on more favorite artists/other things that happen in my life, STAY TUNED!

OFWGKTA

OFWGTKA(odd future wolf gang kill them all), is a rap collective out of LA.  They are leaded by their frontman Tyler, The Creator.  Odd Future is supposedly revolutionizing modern day hip hop.  Instead of pop/dance beats with autotune, they use rawer beats, rap with rawer lyrics, hell OFWGKTA is just straight up raw.  They have many members and even a subgroup known as Mellowhype which consists of Hodgy Beats and Left Brain (song below).

Tyler, the Creator's approach to the rap game was to be as obscene, rude, and vulgar as possible.  His track VCR is about rape.  He also touches on personal matters such as his dad and his upbringing in his songs.  His track Bastard is all about that.  Tyler's main hit is labled Yonkers and it's music video consists of him eating a cockroach, throwing it up, and then his eyes get really dilated, and then he hangs himself.

Skrillex

For the past week or so I've been on a heavy dubstep binge, mostly fueled by artists such as Datsik, Skrillex, Excision, Bassnectar, and Flux Pavillion.  Skrillex is by far one of my favorite producers out there.  His style is very versatile compared to many of popular producers.  Skrillex's sounds range from prog house to electro to dubstep.  His ep Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites has been listened to many times on my iPod.  My favorite song would have to be Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites for it is a very heavy hitting dubstep banger.  All I Ask of You is his "prog house" track on the EP.  This song features a singer named Penny who gracefully sings over this uplifting track. (video of the two performing live below)

I am looking forward to Skrillex's performance at the DEMF(Detroit Electronic Music Festival AKA Tech Fest!).  He is also scheduled to headline at the Electronic Forest Festival(more commonly known as Rothbury) this summer in Rothbury, Michigan.

I was very surprised to hear that Skrillex is actually Sonny Moore who was the former singer for the band From First To Last.  I certainly think that the music he is making now is much better than what he was making before.  I just wanted to show some love for my boy Skrillex!  I'll be posting very soon with some more artists and updates!