šŸŽ§ DiS Musical Primers

mineā€™s about 480 words so not that much longer. i was worried it was too rambly and chopped out a few pointless sentences before submitting. donā€™t want it to be too tl;dr

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Iā€™m going to take The Residents

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I like a lot of the wireā€™s primers, but cut some of mine out too because it seemed to have a Wikipedia-y/ Patrick bateman on Robert palmer energy and probably is still totally like that. honestly fair doā€™s to anyone here writing in that style. maybe hard not to, when writing about music.
might fully lean into this and do a Robert palmer one.

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Was thinking about maybe songs ohia but there are probably people way more qualified to talk about him /them than me

felt shamed into adding to it, now about 490, you slacker :wink: wasnā€™t trying to be petty, honest. like those new tallest buildings adding spiral with an extra metre. youā€™re welcome to do the same to me though :grinning:

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Tbf this is what Iā€™d done, theyā€™ve got so many eraā€™s of high quality though that you still run into the issues I mentioned! Like I said, I wanted to try and cover most (certainty not all) eraā€™s of Sparks but at the same time i didnā€™t just want to pick 9 songs from the island trilogy + beat the clock

Not complaining about the 10 track limit at all though and totally get the reasoning behind it. one of the reasons I offered to do it was because it may actually get listened to. I probably wouldnā€™t have bothered if it was 15 - 20 tracks.

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Would love to do one on Down I Go, but I doubt anyone would be interested in a band that sing about disasters, robots, dinosaurs, tyrants, Icelandic folklore and godsā€¦ OR WOULD YOU???

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@furryfan, @shrewbie

cheers fellas, I was thinking roughly of a handwritten side of A4 (sorry, old man here!) which memory tells me is about 450-500 words so Iā€™ll try and aim for that.

Never seen any of those Wire primers so reckon Iā€™ll check them out today.

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was listening to Robert Palmerā€™s ā€˜cluesā€™ album a few weeks back, really enjoyed it but itā€™s all I know so Iā€™d be well up for a primer.

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Iā€™ve finished my Joni one. Iā€™ll send it to @shrewbie. itā€™s probably far too long - if so just let me know and Iā€™ll have another think. I approached it by writing a brief explanation of what I think her value is, followed by a brief biography. Iā€™ve then written a chronological account of her key albums, referring to the songs on my playlist in more detail as they crop up in the chronology. Ten songs is not much so Iā€™ve focussed on what I think is the key period of her career (1970-1976) with just one song each from the periods before and after as bookends. I really enjoyed doing it, hope itā€™s of interest to someone.

Thanks for everyone that volunteered to help with the Spotify playlist but in the event it was easy to resurrect my old account and use that.

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a) that sounds awesome anyway

b) Iā€™d be far more likely to read something about a band I donā€™t know much about than someone doing a primer on established DiS faves like Radiohead or Arcade Fire

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That sounds great.

I think it would be good if these primers had a mix of obscure things and more ā€˜canonā€™ things, old things and new things etc.

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They are so fun live, but this goes beyond just ā€œfunā€. Possibly my favourite live recording of all time. I go through a whole range of emotions whilst playing it:

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Cool, thanks @bornin69x and @riverwise Iā€™ll put something together! :grinning:

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I just realised my write up of The Residents spends a fair amount of time saying how awful a lot of their music is :smiley: I dont think Im cut out for this (also trying to get a band with 70 albums down to 10 songs is impossible) I migth make a 2nd playlist that covers more eras. If shrewbie allows

I feel like there was a particular t-shirt I kept seeing people wearing years back but I canā€™t see it online.

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I think a warning of which albums to avoid is as useful as the opposite

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Okay wellā€¦ where do I begin XD

Not sure how far you have got, but I found the most useful thing to do was to start with the playlist and then build the text around it, putting the songs in context and explaining why you have chosen them and how they fit into the broader story. The same thing might not work for every subject of course.

I wish you well because The Residents are one of those bands I know nothing about and have always been curious about. The size of the discography is a powerful disincentive for the casually curious.

In terms of the playlist, if you doing more than one have you thought have doing them in the ā€˜Essentialsā€™ and ā€˜Next Stepsā€™ format that Apple uses? The first being the absolute best stuff that you would use to draw people in and the second for those who you have won over with the first?

Iā€™ve already done it all :slight_smile:

Iā€™m gonna make 2nd playlist and put it in the eventual thread.

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