New song with Jup-8 V4 to check out! Will return the favor!

I put a new song in my music website called “Say About That” (it is the song on top). It has some Jup-8 V4 (not Jup-8000 V) synth and some non-Arturia synths. Please tell me how you like the song and how it can be improved, and I will return the favor (leave me a link). Here is my link:

https://www.soundclick.com/aaronaardvark

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Hey @aaron_aardvark

Just listening through now mate… Intro is VERY Vince Clarke! Particularly around the Erasure period.

Ok, now that’s a bit of a contrast now 🫨
Defintely strains of early Adam & The Ants, there’s something familiar from the dark and distant past that i can’t quite put my finger on too…Primus is in my mind, but it’s not them… A touch of Bowie/Bolan with the vox for sure, maybe even a bit of Zappa.
Later synth part definitely along the lines of early Ultravox/John Foxx…

Hope that’s of some use :sunglasses:

matjones,
Thank you for listening and commenting! I really appreciate it!

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Nice chord progression, not linear. (= predictable) You’ll end up doing jazz some day :sunglasses:
The guitar stands out and comes out very well. The drum sounds dirty which balances the cleanliness of the synth. The voice is unique though the phrasing reminds me of Bowie.

Mat knows better than me and I hope more people will give their opinion.
Adam Ants and Zappa? I’m not sure but he’s probably right.

Re early Adam & The Ants, before they hit the big time, they were more of an ‘Art house Punk’ sort of band, some of the guitar work reminds me much of that.

I think it’s the general ‘sensibility’ of the track that reminds me of Zappa in places, if that makes sense :thinking:

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Nice! I didn’t know about their punk era!
I was away in the country without Internet. I survived! :crazy_face:

They were certainly one of the more musical and interesting acts at that time, they had some really quirky musical idioms and some rather ‘interesting’ lyrical content too.
I think their stuff was probably a bit too left-field for the mainstream and not fast or thrashy enough for most of the punk crowd at the time, until they discovered Burundi beat of course :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

There was a recent op-ed in the NYT stressing the need for a new punk era:

The kind of upending humor: “Long live the queen,” then “her fascist regime”.

I was listening then to contemporary music (Varese, Xenakis, etc.). I discovered the New Wave. My younger brother was listening to the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks.

I have to admit, i was a HUGE Sex Pistols fan at the time.
Believe me when i say there was nothing humorous about their God save The Queen track, it was as direct as it could have been with no innuendo or subtleties at all. It was GENUINE anger at the political and class system here in The UK. It was visceral and i can remember it well.
The UK was in the middle of some serious socio-economic issues at the time with mass unemployment of the young and poorer sectors of society and, at least here in The UK, the whole punk thing was a backlash against that, as well as the likes of prog rock bands.
The whole ethos of punk at that time was that ANYONE could just pick up a cheap instrument and thrash it, it was ALL about attitude and had very little to do with talent, it was about ‘letting off steam’ as we say in The UK. Whether that was/is a good or a bad thing is another topic entirely.

I’d argue that there have been more than a few ‘punk’ eras if we take what i’ve just said as the basis for The Punk ‘ethos’, if indeed there is one. Hip-Hop, The UK Garage scene, the current ‘SoundCloud’ scene etc to some extent, although the aim these days seems to be one of wanting to ‘sell out’, or to become an influencer/famous etc, so it’s somewhat ‘misguided’ from that perspective.

I’m not so much a fan these days, many decades later and after learning how to actually play, it changes one’s perspective on these things and i’d argue that we NEED to get back to people actually learning at least SOME music theory and learning to actually play an instrument as it seems to be a rapidly dying art.

Any opinions there are purely my own, as i do not actually work for Arturia, just to make that clear. :+1::sunglasses::+1:

“Any opinions there are purely my own”, and clearly you know what you’re talking about.

The label “punk” was self-mockery, like “the losers”. It was anti-conformism in the Thatcher years (Thatcher’s legacy on the music scene) with devastating social movies by Ken Loach (I’m a fan). I fully understand what you mean; I read a lot on what was going on in the UK and Europe then. I think conformism is prevalent now and it stifles creativity.

You enjoy music, you do it. You try things and you learn your style. I’m more familiar with jazz. Some students play complicated things like virtuosos but without substance or style.

“God save the queen” was a chauvinistic stance, then came “her fascist regime”. Anger led to a very punchy reversal.

In a social or musical movement you have many variants reflecting the individuals. There was a politically oriented stand (The Clash?) a self destructive nihilistic one (Sid Vicious) and a more tame current (the post punk). I’d say the punk anti-conformist attitude was felt in the birth of house (24 Hour Party People).

francoise,
Thank you for listening and commenting! I appreciate it! I like that song “Ghost Town”; I never would have guessed that was in reference to Margaret Thatcher. I also like David Bowie, Elvis Costello, The Clash, and Spandau Ballet.

matjones,
I had never heard that song “Physical” before; I thought it was surprisingly good for early Adam & The Ants. The Sex Pistols: I thought “God Save the Queen” was their best song, though the last third of it (no future) was a bit too negative for my taste, lyric wise. I actually like Public Image better. I recently heard Sid couldn’t play the bass when he started in the Pistols, but Rotten wanted him in the band. The guitarist said the original bassist (not Sid) was the one with the most musical talent in the group.

@aaron_aardvark

You might want to check out some of their other early work too, i think some of it’s genuinely interesting both musically and lyrically, some of it is ‘rather adult’ in nature though, so if you’re easily offended…

As i mentioned in a previous post, The Sex Pistols pretty much reflected and summed up how MANY young working class and people from, at that time, ‘minorities’ felt at the time, i was one of them and remember it only too well… this isn’t really the place to go delving into politics though so we’ll leave that one there :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
Nope, Sid COULD NOT play bass AT ALL, they used to refer to him as a ‘coat hanger’ apparently, you can see in live videos that he didn’t know one end of a bass guitar from the other, even when he wasn’t high as a kite. His life was incredibly tragic, though, so there are myriad reasons for him being the way he was.
Yeah Glen Matlock was the most competent player The Pistols had, Paul Cook was no Buddy Rich, but he was definitely one of the more competent drummers on the punk scene and did gel with Matlock quite well.

Side note… Jah Wobble ‘PIL’s original bass player’ is actujally called ‘John Wardle’, but apparantly once when introduced by Sid to someone, Sid was so out of it that he could only say ‘Jah Wobble’… and it stuck. 🫨