What type of music do Ascend aficionados listen to? Hoping to poll...

[Asliang]

I think "anime" based music is like 90% of my sound collection. Many of the top orchestral composers make songs for Japanese animation. It's kind of funny how I found my way here, I was a hollywood movie soundtrack (orchestral score) nut and I looked at some of the other works in their resume.

Great instrumentals, professional singers, epic movie sound-track style scores (think The Rock, Gladiator, etc). You can keep this kind of music on whether you are doing critical listening or sitting back and reading--it's all very nonfatiguing.

[Trench]

I think "anime" based music is like 90% of my sound collection. Many of the top orchestral composers make songs for Japanese animation. It's kind of funny how I found my way here, I was a hollywood movie soundtrack (orchestral score) nut and I looked at some of the other works in their resume.

Great instrumentals, professional singers, epic movie sound-track style scores (think The Rock, Gladiator, etc). You can keep this kind of music on whether you are doing critical listening or sitting back and reading--it's all very nonfatiguing.

Can you recommend a couple? What are you favorite ones?

[Asliang]

Can you recommend a couple? What are you favorite ones?

Hmm...without knowing your musical tastes its hard, but I'll take a stab...

The most popular anime composers are Yokko Kano and Yuki Kaijura. I think a couple of American composers have composed scores for anime before, like Mark Macina.

Yoko Kanno has a bit of electronica and pop rock, jazz, vocal harmony, male and female ochestral music, pretty demanding instrumentals. Her songs are designed for action-based shows, there's a mix of high energy songs and introspective songs. She herself has a pretty singing voice, and goes under the pseudonym "Gabriela Robin" when she is singing, probably to add mystique to the "Gabriela name" because she sings with a hodgepodge mix of about 7 languages simultaneously. As far as I know her works aren't liscensed in the US so bit torrent and isohunt can be your friend, but if not, forget I mentioned that and go into pandora.com, they have thousands of sample songs of all genres there. Kanno is pretty popular because she has a large group of singers from several countries and they all sing in different languages.

All her works are awesome, but her best are (as I would list them):

(1) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST 2--(18 tracks)music of all types, the instrumentals and vocals are off the charts. Probably her best work.

(2) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST1 (16 tracks)--Mostly instrumentals. Her song "Inner Universe" as well Propellerhead's "Her Majesty's Secret Service" are often used as speaker workouts to test a loudspeaker's abilities under demanding instrumentals.

(3) Wolf's Rain OST1 & 2 (18 tracks and 23 tracks)--I think the second OST one is slightly better, but like the the Ghost in the Shell OSTs, all of her works are very similar in nature--demanding instrumentals, angelic female singers of various nationalities, some great solo guitar & vocals from Steve Conte of the New York Dolls. There's more introspective "in the meadows" type music these OSTs, because Ghost in the Shell is a show about a SWAT team, so it has several tracks that are heavier in electronica (nothing like heavy metal tho).

(4) Cowboy Bebop OSTs--There's something like two hundred songs in this sound track. The best ones are "Goodnight Julia" (jazzy), "Space Lion/Jupiter Jazz Pt.2" (Jazz, bass, and some chanting natives), "What Planet is This" (jazz), "Ask DNA" (jazz and chorus vocals), "PAPA Plastic" (young female vocals, some bass guitar), "Words that we couldn't Say" (Steve Conte doing his thing), "Call me, Call me" (Again, Conte wonderfully doing his thing), "The Real Folk Blues" (jazz and rock mix, Kanno singing), and the best song in their lineup in my opinion, "Blue", which is "Gabriela" singing (Gabriela sings with a high voice using a bunch of languages, Kanno sings in a deeper voice, usually in English) with some light electronica. The show Cowboy Bebop is about a bunch of ex-cons turned into bounty hunters in the 22nd century, and the sadder, introspective parts of life. I think MTV ran this show nonstop for like 5 straight years, and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim ran the show for 5-6 years, because it was so popular, so that's a hell of a lot of re-runs for one show. Kanno tends to partner up with the same show producers, kind of like a James Newton Howard with summer blockbusters. There's probably a dozen or more songs that are excellent that I missed, but trying to find good ones out of 200+ songs, many of them remixes or mood pieces, is a little hard =P

Yuki Kaijura does a lot full orchestra pieces, while Kanno tends to reserve the full orchestra for set pieces like ending themes or for pivotal spots. Yuki Kaijura is very well known for her excellent use of violins, and strings done well do add a pang of sadness to the pieces.

(1) Mai Hime OSTs 1&2 (24 and 32 tracks) --the first soundtrack is the better one I think, but pretty much every song in either soundtrack either is a slow piece meant to pick your heartstrings or uplift you while you are hit by the entire orchestra. Tracks #14 (Duran Shoukan--slow, then fast), # (Koi wo Shita Kara--slow piece), #21 (Yoru no Soko ni Shizumu--a lot of violin and bass, probably the best song in the soundtrack), #22 (Tokiro no Mai), #23 (Mezame) are the best on the 1st OST. For the second, I would pick out #6, #7, #8, and #10 tracks as my favorites. I think this show had something to do with a bunch of girls who were in difficult situations and were given great powers to save themselves, at the cost of putting what was "most important" to themselves on the line. They later found out that they had to kill each other (all of them were friends at school), and well, their "most precious"--family, friends--were on the line. If they lost, people would die. Kind of a depressing show; it's highlander with a twist.

(2) Mai Otome OSTs (26 and 26 tracks)--very similar to the Mai Hime soundtracks. This is basically the sequel to the other show. The music is more upbeat and European (less violins, more guitar). It has a few great tracks but the songs are all very different. The Mai Hime soundtrack's songs are all very similar, and makes them easy to play all the way through--it keeps you in this fixed mood. This show was significantly less depressing than Mai Hime though, so its obvious why there are more types of songs rather than all of them "I'm about to kill my friend of 5 years" type songs.

Anyway, both of these are pretty popular composers. Another soundtrack I would suggest is "Witch Hunter Robin" (2 OSTs, 23 tracks each). These songs are either upbeat or moody, but are all really well made. I found this soundtrack online about 4 years ago and I think that's when I really started picking up on anime music--I thought it was from a movie or something! The show seems like it was inspired from X-Men. The government is trying to catch any "witches" off the streets (and do testing on them, the normal wicked routine), but the catch is they are recruiting "witches" to do the job. There's a lot of questions about morality and reasons why witch hunts have taken place over the centuries.

Hope these 7 recommendations start you off!

[boludaso]

Great stuff. I think my best recorded CD that i have is Fleetwood Mac's "The Dance". Its a live recording. This CD gave me a audio orgasm. Yeah, too much...

Not sure if any of you download music; if so try out this site. been using for a month and love it. www.allofmp3.com.

aside from that, to the original question, i listen to everything. The oldest music going back to the 60's, but mainly 80's music, Andrew Lloyd Webber plays, country, and all of Oingo Boingos and Jimmy Buffets music.

if any of you are looking for a good intro to classical music i'd start with these cds. they have the best of the best along with some great opera scores that astonished me that a voice could do what was done.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=glance&n=5174

or

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=glance&n=5174

does anyone have any recommendations for Pavaratti or Bocelli?

[BradJudy]

Not sure if any of you download music; if so try out this site. been using for a month and love it. www.allofmp3.com.

Keep in mind that this site is no more legal than downloading via P2P, you're just paying for convenience, not a legal license to the music. The only reason it hasn't been shut down is the difficulty in suing them in Russia. The UK music copyright group just got permission to sue them, so it will be interesting to see how it works out.

[Eddie]

I've read that Ascend will reveal a bad recording for what it is. I don't listen to top-notch recordings of classical, jazz, or vocals. I like older stuff like Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Police, Eagles, Barry White...and just got new Rob Zombie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Collective Soul, Eric Clapton, Lucinda Williams.

What are the hard-core Ascenders listening to? With a playlist like mine, am I setting up for disappointment or happiness?

Mostly jazz (horns, vocals, piano), classical (strings and piano), instrumental music, vocal-dominated rock/alternative CD.

The quality of the recording is more important than the specific artist/genre. I have some ancient Zep CDs that sound better on my old Sony minisystem than on my main setup, but the newer remasters are fine. Playing with tone controls and DSP modes does patch up bad recordings somewhat though.