Mood: Dreamy
Listening to: Hologram Plaza by Disconscious
I've been updating my music blog more than my actual diary because I have been so into music lately. Probably the most I've ever been in my life so far. I feel like I'm learning a lot about my own taste, music genres, and music history.
So now the way I think about it is that I have four main pillars of music within my taste: Goth, Abstract, Atmospheric, and Metal. This definitely should be refined over time. At the very least I should get better terms for these over time. Abstract mostly refers to ambient music, and music that lacks structure, form, and melody. Atmospheric refers to music that has evolved from more popular styles but has been altered in some way to become dark, sad, and/or surreal.
Underneath these pillars are the scarabs, spiders, and scorpions, which are things I have an interest in getting into more, but haven't done so much yet. Like ambient techno, and a few other things that I have become interested in, like neo-psychadelia, hypnagogic pop, and just in the past few hours, vaporwave. I suppose the metal pillar could be considered as constructed out of, like..... a lot of those little critters. There's technically so few metal releases I actually love. It's under construction and should be completed hopefully within the next couple years. Well, not completed, but built into a stable shape.
Now that I am really establishing my taste and learning what genres mean, I have words to describe it. I think above all I like music that is atmospheric. I want it to evoke a mood, to sound like a place I've never been to before. I like surreal music, I like when music is otherworldly, alien. And I like when it is dark, through the sound itself but also when it has lyrics about the night, the shadows, blood, anguish, hatred. Or about the beauty of the darkness.
Am also actively interested in music history for the first time. When did this genre come about, and why? What characterizes it? What separates it from these other ones? When was it popular, if ever? Why was it popular at the time? Why did it die out? There is always more to learn here, and that makes it confusing, yet rewarding.
Listening to pop music that was played when I was young, it's so different than what's popular now. When I was a child, I would hear contemporary R&B on the radio, as well as electropop. It was before hip-hop became super mainstream. It's interesting to me how certain sounds can become so associated with the time they were born within. So many people are being born and technology and science are advancing so quickly that time is becoming increasingly special. Just a decade ago, the music scene was so radically different, and you can sometimes hear aspects of it that make it apparent it was of that time.
I have the impression that many people seem to reject labels, or criticize their usage in general, or at least call them meaningless at a certain point. It may be wrong of me, but I fucking love categorizing things. It helps my brain so much to understand things and put them on a mental map. Having said this, I try not to shift into the mindset that labels are prescriptive rather than descriptive, and I try to remember that these are just human-made concepts to help us sort things out more easily. Yes, in the end, all music is on a spectrum, but it's undeniable that certain things are definitely metal and certain other things are definitely not. There will always be grey areas, but that's just where it gets fun.
I am having the urge to listen to many different forms of music. Not because I want to be knowledgeable about them and become even more of a music snob. That would be an added benefit. I just genuinely am excited to discover sounds out there that I haven't heard yet and try to understand the value people take from them. That's another thing that has interested me lately: why do people like the music that they do? What does it say about their personalities, if anything? Why do I like this and not this? Is it tied to my very nature, or is it me tricking myself subconsciously into liking things that will form the specific identity I want others to view me as?
Anyway, apart from all this stuff, I have been drawing every day in order to finish my sketchbook by year's end. Getting very close! Only a few pages left! And I have continued to watch anime every day as well. Am watching Mahoutsukai Precure, my... seventh Pretty Cure season. Along with Teekyuu. Finally finished Revolutionary Girl Utena. Really didn't like that. I've been watching anime slower because of my interest in music taking up a lot more brain space.
The dark, dark days have been wonderful. Visiting family on Thanksgiving messed up my sleeping pattern, but the lovely thing about this time of year is that days feel like only shades of night... often grey, dismal, and always cold. After Christmas ends, this will only become more true, as the faux cheer and brightness reaches its doom, and we enter January, my absolute favorite month. My headspace feels comfortable and controlled. I love myself.
Thanks for reading! Have a miserable night.