User:Zouavman Le Zouave/Stuff

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Hi, here is my stuff page. This will help you learn more about who I am.

Contents [hide] 1 Musical philosophy 1.1 On albums and songs 1.2 On artists 2 Favorite artists 2.1 Statistics 3 Library 3.1 Mosts 3.2 Classification

[edit] Musical philosophy

[edit] On albums and songs

I have a pretty complicated way of analyzing how much (or simply "how") I appreciated an album or song. First of all, there is the category Good & Memorable. I'd pretty much say it's the most appreciable category, since it's enjoyable (you find it conform to your personal criteria) and memorable (it stays in your head and makes you enjoy it all day long). Examples of an album from this category, for me, would be Karaboudjan's "Sbrodj". I find the music very creative, melodic, and complex (even though that might not be a criteria for everyone), and the music often comes back in my head when I am in a musicless environment. Another album I think I should include there is The Funeral Album, by Sentenced. Right now, at the present instant, I could, in order, sing you the tunes from almost all the songs from that album. Of course I'm not going to, because I do not want to make you jump out the closest window, but I think you get the point. The second category is Good & Not-memorable. The music is good, yes, but it is not memorable. You will therefore rarely (if at all) hum the song to yourself and think of listening to it since it has been a while since you last did so. To me, Bucketheadland, by Buckethead, belongs in this category. I sincerely love the music, the concept, the samples, everything. However, I hardly ever think about it and even if I tried, I wouldn't be able to hum you a tune from that album. Another album that is, to my opinion, good but not memorable is Versus The World by Amon Amarth. I greatly appreciated that album, but apart from "Death In Fire", I do not think the songs from this album are that different, and it is thus different to remember specific tunes, although I remember the specific style and mood of this release. The third category won't take too long to explain. It's Not Good & Not Memorable. The good thing about this category is even though the quality of the music (if you feel like calling it music) is horrible, the music doesn't stay in your head, so once it's over, it's over! Now the last category is Not Good & Memorable. It is logically the worst of all. It is bad (in your opinion): you hate it, you hate it, you hate it; yet you have it in your head all day long. It is pure mental torture. For me, songs like Oops! I Did It Again and Chihuahua fit well in this category, for they are so simple and require hardly any musical skills to get it stuck in your head forever. Anyway, I'll let you with this little paragraph to help you think about how you interpret the great art that is music.

[edit] On artists

There are several ways to look at an artist, whether it is a band, a musician or a side project. The first relationship you can have with an artist is admiration. In this relationship, you are more or less in awe to most of the artists work and although you don't always understand what a certain verse means or what the composer was trying to do at a certain passage, you are amazed at the result. It is relatively how I look at Mike Patton's work. For Pranzo Oltranzista, for example, I rarely understand what Mike Patton was trying to do, and I think that this part of mystery around the music's purpose gives it its charm. Another way to look at an artist is respect. You don't necessarily like the artist's music or agree with what the lyrics say, but you believe that the artist has merit and that even though you don't appreciate the artist's creation, you respect the fact that it is there. Although I don't really like Coldplay's music, I have a lot of respect for them. I think that they didn't get their fame unjustly (like some artists do nowadays) and that if their music is appreciated by people and that it doesn't harm anyone or anything, then it's great! Another relationship is appreciation. In this situation, you might like one or more songs by a particular artist, but not like the artist itself. You wouldn't buy the artist's album, but you would download a couple of songs by the artist. The songs give you pleasure, but according to you, they are nothing close to a masterpiece or a talented composition. I would consider Soulfly's songs as being great for easy headbanging and simple neo-thrash, but I have to admit I don't really like the band itself. Another relationship you can have with an artist is compassion. You might not necessarily like what the person/band is doing, or what the result sounds like, but you feel very close to them in an unknown way and feel that you really understands the emotions that are supposed to be transmitted through the artist's music.

[edit] Favorite artists

Name	Genre	Characteristics
Aarni	Avant-garde metal	Slow experimental music with folk metal influences.
Agalloch	Folk/Doom	Folkloric experimental music.
Amon Amarth	Melodic death metal	Viking-themed lyrics.
Anal Cunt	Grindcore	Very random and simplist lyrics and song titles.
Anathema	Death/Doom	Started out as Death/Doom and evolved into depressive rock.
Avrigus	Gothic metal	Very slow and depressive gothic metal.
The Beatles	Rock	To my opinion, the pioneers of modern rock.
Black Flag	Hardcore punk	Pretty simple yet powerful riffs.
Boris	Drone doom	Quite experimental drone doom.
Buckethead	Avant-garde metal	Pure virtuosity and experimentation.
Children of Bodom	Power metal with harsh vocals	Blends speed metal, black metal, melodeath and power metal.
Dark Sanctuary	Dark ambient	Mostly piano, female vocals, and strings.
Deathspell Omega	Black metal	Avant-garde black metal.
Dzhango	Pop rock	I found this totally by accident; very beautiful melodies.
Empyrium	Folk/Doom	Started out as Folk/Doom and then evolved into acoustic neofolk.
Ensiferum	Folk metal	Viking-themed folk metal band.
Estatic Fear	Gothic metal	Blends gothic metal, neofolk and Folk/Doom.
Faith No More	Alternative metal	The true definition of alternative metal.
Fantômas	Avant-garde metal	Mike Patton's experimental band.
Finntroll	Folk metal	Blends folk metal, black metal, and polka.
In Flames	Melodic death metal	Soft death metal with melodic choruses.
Insomnium	Melodic death metal	Very catchy yet serious melodies.
Karaboudjan	Avant-garde metal	Dan Swanö's Tintin-themed solo project.
Mayhem	Black metal	Pioneers of black metal.
Midnight Oil	Rock	Christian rock band.
Mike Patton	Experimental	Vocal experiments and ambient music.
Mr. Bungle	Alternative metal	Blends all musical genres together.
Muse	Rock	Great melodies and very interesting themes.
My Dying Bride	Death/Doom	Pioneers of Death/Doom.
Nirvana	Grunge	I like the more unknown songs by them, not the famous ones.
Peeping Tom	Experimental pop	Mike Patton's concept of pop.
Poisonblack	Gothic doom	Depressive lyrics and a great deal of harmonics.
Rage Against The Machine	Alternative metal	The only true mix between rap and rock.
Sentenced	Melodic death metal	Started as melodeath but then changed to a unique kind of gothic doom.
Sigh	Black metal	Started as black metal and then changed to post-black.
Sigur Rós	Post-rock	Slow atmospheric post-rock.
Sonata Arctica	Power metal	Emotional power metal with wonderful melodies and lyrics.
Sunn O)))	Drone doom	Pioneers of drone doom.
Tomahawk	Alternative metal	One of Mike Patton's numerous projects.
Wraith Of The Ropes	Funeral doom	Slow yet complex funeral doom.

[edit] Statistics

Location

• Artists from the United States: 35%
• Artists from Scandinavia: 30%
• Artists from Europe (excluding Scandinavia): 25%
• Artists from elsewhere: 10%

[edit] Library

[edit] Mosts

Artist with most songs

1. Nirvana (508 songs)
2. The Melvins (242 songs)
3. Faith No More (141 songs)
4. Sonata Arctica (127 songs)
5. [Gregorian chant] (101 songs)

Artist with most time

1. Nirvana (29 hours, 20 minutes, 54 seconds)
2. Sunn O))) (16 hours, 55 minutes, 08 seconds)
3. The Melvins (15 hours, 52 minutes, 06 seconds)
4. Sonata Arctica (10 hours, 02 minutes, 40 seconds)
5. Faith No More (9 hours, 36 minutes, 47 seconds)

Longest songs

1. Surgical Sound Specimens from the Museum of Skin by Fantômas (1:14:17)
2. Absolutego by Boris (1:05:35)
3. Live At TegenTonen by Sunn O))) (1:04:20)
4. Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness by Green Carnation (1:00:05)
5. The Libations of Samhain by Sunn O))) (48:59)

Shortest songs

1. Page 13 by Fantômas (0:04)
2. Intro by Entwine (0:04)
3. Untitled by Fantômas (0:06)
4. Bonus Track by Anal Cunt (0:07)
5. Hurry Up and Kill Me... I'm Cold by Mike Patton (0:08)

Genres with most songs

1. Alternative (530 songs)
2. Grunge (492 songs)
3. Avant-garde (379 songs)
4. Power metal (307 songs)
5. Rock (253 songs)

Genres with most time

1. Alternative (37 hours, 22 minutes, 53 seconds)
2. Grunge (28 hours, 16 minutes, 58 seconds)
3. Power metal (25 hours, 32 minutes, 44 seconds)
4. Avant-garde (23 hours, 27 minutes, 21 seconds)
5. Post-metal (18 hours, 48 minutes, 07 seconds)

[edit] Classification

Below is my personal classifications of musical genres on my iTunes library. Some of the things might not be factually accurate, but it is how I classify the songs on my musical library.

Acoustic/Instrumental

Any songs that do not have vocals and do not seem to belong in any appropriate genre, or any song that uses acoustic or clean instruments without being folk or otherwise classifiable. Examples of Acoustic would be Nirvana's Unplugged in New York, and examples of Instrumental would be songs by Apocalyptica. Although Apocalyptica belongs in the cello rock musical genre, I do not have enough songs by them to give them their own genre in my library (one genre with 5 songs is a little odd, isn't it?).

Alternative

Artists which play music that is somehow unique. Mr. Bungle, Stolen Babies, and Faith No More are alternative metal that fuses elements of many other musical genres. The Melvins have a musical style that is somehow difficult to categorise. Rage Against The Machine plays rock with rapped vocals, but is somehow different from the other bands labeled as rapcore.

Avant-garde

All the experimental stuff. Ranges from avant-garde metal to pure musical experimentation. Artists like Orthrelm and Mike Patton (his solo albums) belong here.

Black metal

Pretty self explanatory. Black metal bands like Mayhem and experimental black metal bands like Deathspell Omega belong here. It does not, however, include symphonic black metal and post-black metal.

Chant

Chants or music based on chants. It's pretty much my entire collection of Gregorian chants and Era. I'm thinking to get more songs that belong in this category.

Classical

Anything that is or is similar to European classical music. Mozart, Orff, and Beethoven are there, of course. More modern composers like Koji Kondo and John Williams also have been included.

Dark ambient

Bands or artists that are in the metal scene but that do not play metal. Some classical characteristics, kind of a sad and dark feeling... Artists like Dark Sanctuary and Autumn Tears fit here.

Death metal

Includes pretty much all death metal artists, apart from melodeath and prog-death metal bands. It also groups experimental death metal acts like Gorguts and brutal death metal bands like Deicide.

Death/Doom

Doom metal with death metal elements, including the death grunt. Swallow The Sun, My Dying Bride, early Anathema...

Doom metal

Slow heavy metal. Includes symphonic doom metal, but doesn't include other subgenres of doom metal, such as Death/Doom or drone doom. Bands like Daylight Dies are here.

Electronic

Pretty much everything like techno, dance, or house. I don't generally like that kind of music, but since I rarely delete what I have added to my library, some electronic songs are there. Also, the remixes of my DJ friends are there.

Folk

Acoustic folk music. Although I do not have any real folk music (that is, the actually music played by the tribes), I do have bands that have acoustic folk songs or recorded covers of traditional folk songs (like the Kalevala melody, for example). The acoustic albums of Empyrium and Visor Om Slutet by Finntroll belong in this category.

Folk metal