Let's Bring Back Essential Listening

[Jarvis]

A decade ago (feeling old yet?), when I first starting posting on...the old place...there was an awesome feature called Essential Listening, run by Shakerandy. A few years later, in my tenure as the Music Forum Mod, I ran it myself, and after I left, I believe ZFG ran it for a while.

For those who aren't familiar with it, here's a rundown. It was a weekly feature, firstly you nominate a band or artist that you think EVERYONE should be hearing. After a few days to a week of nominations, the nominations go to a poll. The winner of the poll is deemed Essential Listening for that week, and gets its own thread. We had reached 100 "Weeks" of Essential Listening or so before the TFFalypse.

So here's what I'm putting to you. Do we bring it back? Do we try to get back to where we were with it or treat this as a reboot? I'd happily put myself forward to run it, but if one of the others wants to get involved, that's cool. Also, we had a severe bias towards rock orientated acts in the original. Is there some way to balance it up? Maybe have themed weeks?

Input people?

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

imma down. rock week, electronic week, rap week, r&b week, errything else week?

 

[Jarvis]

imma down. rock week, electronic week, rap week, r&b week, errything else week?

This was the idea.

I always found Essential Listening great for hearing new music from genres outside of my comfort zone (which was just Heavy Rock, Punk and Metal when I first signed up). It's thanks to EL that I'm now a big fan of Nick Cave, and I'm pretty sure Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip were nominated.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

nick cave is a boss. higgs boson blues man <3

 

[HertsWolf]

A decade ago (feeling old yet?), when I first starting posting on...the old place...there was an awesome feature called Essential Listening, run by Shakerandy. A few years later, in my tenure as the Music Forum Mod, I ran it myself, and after I left, I believe ZFG ran it for a while.

For those who aren't familiar with it, here's a rundown. It was a weekly feature, firstly you nominate a band or artist that you think EVERYONE should be hearing. After a few days to a week of nominations, the nominations go to a poll. The winner of the poll is deemed Essential Listening for that week, and gets its own thread. We had reached 100 "Weeks" of Essential Listening or so before the TFFalypse.

So here's what I'm putting to you. Do we bring it back? Do we try to get back to where we were with it or treat this as a reboot? I'd happily put myself forward to run it, but if one of the others wants to get involved, that's cool. Also, we had a severe bias towards rock orientated acts in the original. Is there some way to balance it up? Maybe have themed weeks?

Input people?

Go for it. Sounds good.

 

[SUTSS]

I think me and my mate actually played a part in bringing it down by nominating ridiculous acts and trying to get them to win. We succeeded with Wing. It ended shortly after that I think.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

^
To be honest, it never recovered from the week Jarvis got Lamb of God to win. Don't feel bad.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

if it'd make things easier i can just tell people what to listen to i have impeccable taste in music

 

[Jarvis]

NOW
YOU'VE
GOT
SOMETHING
TO
DIE
FOR!

 

[Jarvis]

Seriously. LOG are mint.

If you like dirty thrashy American noise.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

let's have a tuareg theme. best of the sahara

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

even better if u dislike this u have no soul

 

[Jarvis]

If we'd like to go with themed weeks, how about these?

Electronic (Not sure on all the subgenres so there might be a better name for this)
Hip-Hop & Rap (Likewise)
Pop/R&B (Quite a wide and vague catagory)
Rock, Punk, Metal
Wildcard (An anything goes week for everything else)

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

rap one category r&b/pop another. if you're doing hard and soft rock diff categories hard/soft electronic should be in diff categories too

 

[Jarvis]

Edited.

 

[Tilbury]

I like this. Don't really listen to that much outside the rock/metal/punk spectrum but willing to give it a go.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

i think rap one category and hip-hop another they are totes different

 

[Jarvis]

i think rap one category and hip-hop another they are totes different

Trying to keep the number of categories down, man.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

delete the hard rock category and just have rock then

 

[Jarvis]

I have.

 

[Jarvis]

If we have any genre squabbles btw, Imma gon slap da shit outta ya.

 

[Jarvis]

So what are your thoughts on starting afresh?

 

[Nilsson]

Talking of Nick Cave, I watched 20,000 Days on Earth recently. Thought is was brilliant.

 

[Stevencc]

I didn't take part in this the first time round, but I'll gladly educate you all this time round *

*That's me doing a cool gangsta pose and feeling unsure about it.

 

[IanH]

I'm only playing if LazyLinePainterJamie returns.

 

[Techno Gypsie]

Yeah I'd be interested in this. Electronic is fine as it there are far to many sub genres.

 

[IanH]

Can we make spotify playlists to accompany the short-listed artists?

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

i assumed we were gonna

 

[IanH]

technology these days, eh.

 

[Jarvis]

I'm only playing if LazyLinePainterJamie returns.

YES. We need to find that guy. He was on my MSN years ago.