 | COOL, SWEET & CATCHY: the killer list of boundaryjams
a fairly comprehensive (but nowhere near complete!) catalogue of the music i love - every single song here is massively important to me - as of late january. if you think i'm ever going to update this you are a funny person.
WARNING: shares 11 tracks with Rolling Stone's conceptually similar list, and like 17 with "The Pitchfork 500." Created: 01/15/2014 | Last updated: 02/22/2014 | 602 items |
 | favs
let's try this again! Created: 02/26/2012 | Last updated: 12/23/2014 | 250 items |
 | futuristic music-hall
basically, pop/rock music audibly (or visibly) filtered through cabaret, vaudeville, kitsch, tin pan alley, British music-hall, classic pop, radio theater, "highbrow vocalizing", broadway, carnival music, artsong, operetta, general flamboyance, et al. in other words, massively theatrical pop music.
the term was coined by Piero Scaruffi in his Sparks reviews, and it kinda stuck with me. this is pretty much my favourite kind of music, and this list is woefully small, so please add suggestions if you have them! Created: 02/04/2012 | Last updated: 05/25/2015 | 81 items |
 | THE KITCHEN SINK AND THE DANCE FLOOR: rethinking dance-pop
dance-pop music (or pop-leaning dance music) that gleefully engages with the weird and undanceable. some of these are just bizarrely mixed/mastered italo-disco tunes; others are so far gone that they're dance-pop more in spirit than anything.
aka "bubbly laser-sound boogie shoes spasm classics"
please please suggest stuff if you have it, even if it seems obvious - this has been my favourite type of music for ages and there must be thousands of releases like this i'm missing Created: 01/21/2015 | Last updated: 05/25/2015 | 137 items |
 | tetriminos ranked
Created: 01/03/2012 | Last updated: 01/03/2012 | 7 items |
 | Let's Eat To The Beat! Bubblegum Dance Party
dance! cute! girls! boys! fun!!!
a companion list of sorts to the eurobeat list. Created: 05/01/2013 | Last updated: 11/23/2013 | 50 items |
 | O.K.! All Right! Your Guide to Eurobeat
lengthy description:
spoiler: click to readeurobeat remains an anomaly even in the vast, weird world of dance music. produced pretty much exclusively in one country (Italy) and released pretty much exclusively in another (Japan), it's the only genre i can think of whose entire livelihood and circulation depends almost entirely on one compilation - the "Super Eurobeat" series, released every few months by Avex Records, which collects the new releases by a bunch of the most important eurobeat labels (okay, there are a few other compilations that feature the stuff - Dancemania, Eurobeat Flash, Euromach, etc, but SEB basically dominates.) actual albums are very rarely released, and in fact the huge majority of its artists and singers remain completely shrouded in mystery, their identities unknown and buried under pseudonym after pseudonym. basically, the genre lives in a world of its own, and its insanely devoted fans often remain completely unaware of the existence of other music.
what does it sound like? the main thing is that it's fast. like really, really fast. well, earlier eurobeat tended to be of fairly normal speed, but it kept going up rapidly and now it's basically 160BPM at lowest. other than that, wikipedia pretty much explains it:
"Eurobeat's sound is its main link to its Italo disco origins, where it was just one of many different experiments in pure electronic dance. There are certain synth instruments that recur across the entire genre: a sequenced octave bass, characteristic are the energetic (sometimes wild) and heavy use of synths, distinctive brass and harp sounds, and tight, predictable percussion in the background. These sounds are layered with vocals and natural instruments (guitar and piano are common) into complex, ever-shifting melodies that, at their best, burst with energy."
at its best, eurobeat is blissfully cheesy hyper-bubblegum.
anyway, this list will just document some choice tunes as i continue to find them. i'm no veteran of the genre myself, but the general level of eurobeat familiarity here is really just pathetic, so this is just my way of trying to be a better RYMer or whatever and filling in a massive gap in the site's collective knowledge. most of these songs aren't actually catalogued on RYM at all, but i'm cautious about adding them to the database because i'm not completely sure myself which ones have actually been released as singles and which ones only appeared on compilations. over time i will hopefully start adding them to the database and being able to link to them here.
this list is ranked vaguely in order of goodness. the first page or so is "essential," imo, but don't ignore the other stuff if you like it! please suggest things to this list if you know of anything good! this thing is still pretty small.
a huge thanks to eurobeat-prime.com, the most ridiculously complete and helpful database for this stuff on the planet.
edit: thanks to the bootleg system, most of these are (unless they get deleted, which they might) now rateable! without covers though, so to keep the list aesthetically pleasing the tracks' rym entries will be in the descriptions. Created: 12/19/2012 | Last updated: 05/08/2014 | 67 items |
 | favs: a chronology
my favourite records for every year of my life, done pretty much entirely by memory. probably way too personal and jerkoffy a list to publish here in good conscience, but here i am!
a couple notes: i'm actually only turning 17 in a month. also, i couldn't find any pictures of me from the ages of 10 to 12, so i used pictures of spongebob instead.
(idea taken from one of joy_circumcision's old lists) Created: 10/26/2013 | Last updated: 02/12/2015 | 10 items |
 | top 100 creative pursuits/art forms
Created: 06/28/2012 | Last updated: 08/14/2013 | 100 items |
 | 99 Ways to Get People to Stop Reading Your Reviews
use any of the following "critic words": Created: 04/22/2012 | Last updated: 04/24/2012 | 99 items |
 | please recommend me singles
feeling really starved for new tunes right now. desperate times call for desperate measures. anything you recommend will be highly highly appreciated :3
singles only please!!! i'm well aware there's thousands of albums i should be listening to
(single songs not on rym, as in youtube links or w/e, are cool too)
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6/10/14 - thanks for playing nerds! see results here: https://rateyourmusic.com/collection/boundaryfuss/stag/recs/ y'all have impeccable taste, thanks so much <3
hopefully that was just round one??? hint hint Created: 08/09/2014 | Last updated: 09/27/2014 | 86 items |
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