Best of 2016

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
My favourite song that I discovered in 2016


a short list of songs I discovered in 2016 to follow. As others have said, 2016 music was the least of what I listened to in 2016.
 

luka

Well-known member
And if someone were to say Luke that song isn't it real it's a mirage it's a simulacrum I'd be inclined to agree, probably, but I also think that ersatz quality is the defining feature of music from this decade. It's not a bug it's a feature as the tech kids say.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Do you think that this is important?

If you were marooned on an island for the last thirty years and the Solange song washed ashore alongside whatever it's an ersatz version of, could you detect that one was an ersatz version of the other?

Because I'll maroon your sorry ass in a heartbeat to find out.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's Deckard falling in love with a replicant. This was the video that clued me in, or crystallised a perception
Oneohtrix Point Never - Nobody Here [1:06:07 Edit…:
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Why is it deckard falling in love with a replicant?

actually annoyingly i know what you mean

the mistiness of the production on solange/KING adds to this feeling of listening to echoes of some other music
 

luka

Well-known member
In that it nailed the feeling of absence. None of this is new of course but I do think it's where we we've ended up. Vapourwave doesn't interest me as music but as diagnosis I do think it's perspicacious. I get the same feeling from the Haim song I'm always referencing. All the pastiche threads I try and fail to get off the ground are really about the same thing.
 

luka

Well-known member
The replica that is so real you can fall in love with it, the robot which simulates feelings so perfectly you believe it really cares for you.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
i think i need to listen to HAIM

I feel like they're some sort of ground zero of all the sort of ethereal floaty rnb/pop shit i like like Laura Groves KING Solange Kelela etc
 

luka

Well-known member
Which is why there's all these images taken from early computer games because those were the early nonspaces or simulated spaces that we were immersed in. And that feeling of immersion and hollow yearning they conjure up is so familiar
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Who is the RNB producer shaping everything these days, if any?

Like you had Jam and Lewis then Teddy Riley then Timbaland then the Neptunes etc... Everything sounds a bit like Drake's second album now, dunnit? So maybe Noah Shebib? But then he ripped off Kanye's 808 and hearbreaks right? I dunno why I even care. But the reverb-saturated melancholic sound is everywhere except of course mainstream pop which is all supper bright EDM-y.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Which is why there's all these images taken from early computer games because those were the early nonspaces or simulated spaces that we were immersed in. And that feeling of immersion and hollow yearning they conjure up is so familiar

yeah but otoh the music doesn't sound like video game music to me, it's all super 'spacious' and floaty, whereas those early games were primary colours, pixel-straight shapes

saying that i think video game music has to be incredibly influential on a certain generation (my generation really). factoring in how difficult it was to hear music you wanted to hear as a kid (expensive CDs, radio only other option), video game music must have been one of the most listened to types of music for ppl of a certain age
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
To continue to miss the point, is it also that the music is all being produced in soft synths now? I mean, that connection to 'real' instruments is more distant now. It's all digitised. It's the same with video, actually - it's super high definition, so really should feel more 'real', but it actually feels less real, less like something is being filmed than something is being generated.

OK i think i see what you're saying - the 'nonspace' of the internet means engaging with emotions and people at a remove
 

luka

Well-known member
No, that's not it. Keep trying. It might be I haven't expressed myself carefully enough
 
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