Location Taken: Banff National Park, Alberta
Time Taken: June 2010
Some days I wonder if anyone out there has the exact same musical tastes as I do. And even more, if anyone has a musical collection even similar to mine.
You see, I like several obscure musical genres. The more common ones are game soundtracks and anime soundtracks, and those aren’t exactly playing on the radio. I also like Gothic Metal bands, especially Scandinavian ones like Nightwish, but only ones with female singers. And Classical, I have a bit of fondness for some of that. Though I do prefer more recently made music in the Classical style over most of the classics.
And those are the common ones.
I’m also fond of Filk, a form of Folk that’s heavy on science fiction and fantasy topics, though a lot of my favorite bands pull sounds from other musical genres as well. Oh, and I like Folk as well, including Irish and Celtic pieces (which edge towards mainstream sometimes), and have a weakness for buying CDs of regional music in small roadside gift shops.
There’s also Vocaloid, an interesting musical phenomena in Japan. Vocaloid itself is a voice synthesizer that allows artists to create sung music without needing to pay anyone to actually sing it. It’s also the general name for the music being made with it, which has developed a unique sound. The voices aren’t quite human, they don’t need to breathe regularly or anything like that, so there’s a touch of an uncanny valley effect. This makes horror songs especially effective. There’s also a tendency towards stories, often going across multiple songs, leading to some especially interesting sets existing, like the Kagerou Project. It’s most famous song, Heat-Haze Daze, propelled it to such a strong fandom that it’s spawned many retellings of the story, from manga to novels to even the most confusing yet compelling anime I’ve watched this season. Of course, all this is in Japanese, so it’s only a small niche genre in English-speaking lands.
And, even more obscure, I have a fondness for songs made about games. Not the game music itself (though I love it), but the creations that spawn up around games. Like this interesting song about a champion in League of Legends, which I’m certain makes far more sense if you’ve actually played the game. I also just downloaded a few songs included with one of the mods I downloaded for Skyrim, like this fantastic piece which, based on the name, seems to be connected to Zora, my new follower, and the quests related to her.
…I’m not sure if it’s possible to get more obscure than that. Not without delving into “not released to the public” territory.
