The Great HTF Music Challenge (1 Viewer)

[JohnRice]

I had to look it up. It got a US release in 1975. It didn't really do that well in the UK which is pretty much what held it back.

I picked it up on CD some time back on the basis of it including "Lady Samantha" as a bonus track. I'd not realized he wrote that song until I purchased that disc. I'd always know it as a Three Dog Night song but never looked to see who'd written the track. It's likely due to me always hearing it from TDN but it just doesn't sound like an Elton John song.

Elton John - "Lady Samantha":



Three Dog Night - "Lady Samantha" (with an almost identical arrangement):

Nothing on Empty Sky has that distinctive Elton/Bernie sound.

 

[jcroy]

Leaves' Eyes, "Chain of the Golden Horn" - Still has that Celtic sound to it with the melody and structure coupled with parts that invoke Vikings. The "Demon voice" bit is cute... and the video is rather cheesy...

This is what I thought too at first. Watching it a few more times, I realized the depiction was not in scandinavia or the british isles.

The first "oddity" was the outfit the blonde singer was dressed up in, which doesn't look like what a stereotypical viking or medieval british woman would be dressed up as. The outfit looks a lot more like what a Byzantian empress from Constantinople would be depicted in.

Looking more at the story of King Harald Hardrada, it turns out he served as a mercenary in the byzantine varangian guard which consisted of "northerners" who didn't have any personal/familial loyalties in the byzantine region.

Varangian Guard - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Harald Hardrada - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The cheesy depictions in the video made a lot more sense, knowing the historical background.


Even the title of the song is about a defense system in Constantinople, where a long chain was laid out in a water estuary called the "golden horn" to prevent invading forces from sailing boats into the city.

Great Chain of The Golden Horn: Constantinople’s Impenetrable Barrier

For all large capital cities in ancient and modern history, protection was one of the major survival strategies. And what historical capital was bigger than legendary Constantinople?

www.ancient-origins.net

 

[jcroy]

You would think so but, as a former musician I can tell you there is a very strong bond between a conductor and his/her orchestra or ensemble. It's hard to explain but I couldn't imagine playing in an orchestral session without my conductor back in the days. It's scary even thinking about it now.

I've had conductors do that - orchestra and choirs. They got us started and walked away - intentionally - to see just how well we'd learned a piece. They never did it in concert but I never understood why as by then they were mostly not needed outside introducing a piece.

I also sang in Madrigal groups where you only use the conductor in rehearsals and performances are done completely without them. The "conductor" would introduce us, we'd get our first pitch before coming on stage, and we'd start. If the piece called for us all to start together there'd be a quick glance at the Soprano 1 or Tenor 1 (depending on piece) for a starting nod. It was all done so the audience saw no indication of a "leader" of any type. Starting pitch for a following piece would be inferred from the ending pitch of the prior piece - a pitch pipe was never heard by the audience or used on stage.

In the absence of a conductor, in practice I've found that the "glue" which kept the music going forward was the drummer/percussionist.

 

[jcroy]

Oddly enough, there are alternate non-metal versions of these two songs. Though I haven't been able to find them on youtube.

Leaves' Eyes, "Swords in Rock" - Celtic metal... hmmm... this is interesting. I'd listen to more.

There was a non-electric version of "Swords in Rock" played with only acoustic instruments, which was on the 2xcd special edition version of the "King of Kings" cd. The second disc had three songs re-done as purely acoustic or piano, along with the entire album remixed without the lead vocals.

Leaves' Eyes, "Dark Love Empress" - This one definitely has that "Symphonic Rock" sound to it and is missing the Celtic influence. Still quite good and I like a metal band having a female singer. It's a nice change and she's good.

There was a different version of "Dark Love Empress" on the special edition re-released cd version of the "Black Butterfly" ep, which had the lead vocals with a piano.

 

[John Dirk]

In the absence of a conductor, in practice I've found that the "glue" which kept the music going forward was the drummer/percussionist.

Absolutely. That's especially the case in marching bands and Drum Corps, both awesome by the way.

 

[jcroy]

Here's something which sounds almost like a metal version of a celtic or viking "drinking song".


Leaves' Eyes - Varangians

 

[BobO'Link]

In the absence of a conductor, in practice I've found that the "glue" which kept the music going forward was the drummer/percussionist.

Absolutely. That's especially the case in marching bands and Drum Corps, both awesome by the way.

The vast majority of my "classical" music experiences are with choral groups. You must rely on your inner rhythm to keep the proper beat. "Dummers? We don' need no steenkin' drummers!"

 

[John Dirk]

"Dummers? We don' need no steenkin' drummers!"

 

[JohnRice]

I wrapped up the week by spending the evening with one of my all-time favorite albums. Definitely an example of Prog. Metal at its best. I just love long-form music. Especially when it cranks as good as this. It is long-form though. You have to give it time.

Just a leeetle beeet bit of drumming in these.

Dream Theater - Outcry

 

[JohnRice]

One more.

Why not?

Dream Theater - Breaking All Illusions

 

[JohnRice]

...and while we're on the topic of drumming.

Holy &#$@!!

 

[JohnRice]

How 'bout this?

Game of Thrones - Metal Version

 

[TravisR]

...and while we're on the topic of drumming.

Holy &#$@!!

You could replace that clip with pretty much any Tool song to showcase Carey's talent. All of those guys are world-class musicians.

 

[BobO'Link]

An aside: Would it kill you guys to put the name of the band and track in your posts? If nothing else it makes searching for past posts of stuff much, much, easier.

OK... got that off my chest...

Dream Theater, "Outcry" - This one was "just OK" with rather bland vocals. I liked most of the rest but it felt a bit repetitive by the end.

Dream Theater, "Breaking All Illusions" - Much better track - possibly because it has, or feels like it has, fewer vocals. Lots of good things going on in this track. I don't know why I've never heard anything from this group - likely the name as it just doesn't say "Prog Rock" to me. I'll be listening to this album in the near future.

 

[BobO'Link]

Danny Carey (Tool), "Punema" - I guessing this is a Tool concert with focus on the drummer for this song? It finally began to be interesting at around the half way mark though the toms were out of tune for my tastes. Other than that small complaint that's a fine example of a quality percussionist at work. On the basis of that one track I'd put him in the "World Class Percussion" status.

 

[JohnRice]

An aside: Would it kill you guys to put the name of the band and track in your posts? If nothing else it makes searching for past posts of stuff much, much, easier.

OK... got that off my chest...

Dream Theater, "Outcry" - This one was "just OK" with rather bland vocals. I liked most of the rest but it felt a bit repetitive by the end.

Dream Theater, "Breaking All Illusions" - Much better track - possibly because it has, or feels like it has, fewer vocals. Lots of good things going on in this track. I don't know why I've never heard anything from this group - likely the name as it just doesn't say "Prog Rock" to me. I'll be listening to this album in the near future.

Will do, Howie. An obvious thing that didn’t occur to me.

I updated those last posts.

 

[BobO'Link]

How 'bout this?

It's "OK" and makes for a nice Fender commercial, but I much prefer the orchestral version:

Film Symphony Orchestra - "Game of Thrones, Main Title":



Just hearing the theme makes me want to watch the series again. In addition to a mostly great story it has an incredible soundtrack - and one that doesn't intrude when it's not needed.

 

[jcroy]

I listened to Dream Theater back in the day.

As time went on, I found their later albums tended to sound kinda repetitive, in spite of being written and performed quite well. Kinda like a highly technical version of Iron Maiden, where later maiden albums also had the same issue of sounding repetitive and less interesting as time went on.

(Dream Theater and Iron Maiden both had the same producer/engineer Kevin Shirley on many albums).

 

[jcroy]

Even though none of these bands is from an English speaking country, the songs are usually in English. They perform all over the continent and English is the most common language.

This is has been a common thing for many decades, where bands from non-english countries/regions sing in english in order to get a larger worldwide audience. Essentially english becoming a "lingua franca" of international pop/rock music in many non-english speaking places.

This goes back to ABBA, and likely even further back in time.


The perception for a long time was that if one only writes in their non-english native tongue, the potential audience will be largely restricted to countries/regions where that particular non-english language is spoken.

For example, such as french lyrics written pop/rock which is largely unknown outside of France and other french speaking regions (such as quebec in canada). As a prominent case, I would be quite surprised if Celine Dion would have became an international worldwide rockstar/superstar singing only in french. (Her early albums were sung all in french).

 

[TravisR]

Since they're singing about remembering Halloween, this is a good day for The Misfits "Halloween"