Is electronic music emotionally bland or do I have a problem?

markk

@LinearLineman said:
A better question might be what prevents people from crying when they hear music that, without that inner resistance, would certainly touch, or even break, their hearts.

I don't think there is music that could be written that would be guaranteed to get an emotional response from everyone. One man's Danny Boy is another's maudlin fluff.

markk

@espiegel123 said:

There won't be any song that has the same impact on everyone. Connections are personal.

I couldn't agree more.

Samu

I don’t know but I still get chills over this truly marvelous C64 tune…
Think Twice III

Svetlovska

About once a year, I have a few hours of utter narcissism, reviewing and updating my Death Disc: a playlist of songs I intend to be given, on whatever format is then most distributable, (probably a USB stick currently), to any attendees at my memorial event. Every single track on it relates to a moment in my life; every single track has me in floods of tears, as I mourn the death of the one person I really care about above all others:

Me.

Most of those tracks have lyrics, I grant you, which is a kind of cheat. Lyrics evoke specific memories and emotions. In the hands of masters like Leonard Cohen and Scott Walker this is almost too easy.

But the whole reason I got into Dark Ambient was precisely because of the complex unarticulated emotions the best of it evokes in me, light years away from the cheap Halloween spooks of Goth that I entertained in my youth. Electronic music, yes, but the very opposite of bland. The best of it provokes in me something literally unspeakable about the awe and terror - and ecstatic beauty - of existence. Tracks like this:

Moves me to tears every time, Allseits’ The Moment Before You Fall Asleep is an electronic counterpart and equal to my mind of something like this:

Hint to new listeners- you have to give Allseits time to reveal their dark wonders. It is the power of accumulation. By the end The Moment… is - overwhelming. For me, anyway.

knewspeak

@LinearLineman said:
A better question might be what prevents people from crying when they hear music that, without that inner resistance, would certainly touch, or even break, their hearts.

I can cry at the drop of a hat listening to music. Even my own music can do it to me once in a while.
It’s not sad that makes me cry, it's beauty,

I’m not certain what you mean by electronic music, though. Btw, none of the posted music reaches me in the slightest, but I can see how some of the sounds could in the proper context.

Music…. Stuff like Amazing Grace, for example has almost universal (Western) heart tugging appeal. Danny Boy is another great example… can be created to express the deepest feelings of loss, nostalgia, sentimentalism. The bagpipes doing a rendition of either of the above can bring many a tear, yet the bagpipes were created, in part, as a weapon of war… to scare the shit out of the enemy. Similarly, I think there is no emotional boundary that electronic sounds cannot break as well. I’ll know it when I hear it… I might even have done it myself.

Soul bearing words

JanKun

@espiegel123 said:
@markk : try Jon Hopkins’ album Singularity. It is one of the few electronica albums that find takes me on an emotional journey.

+10000. I know OT is not after recommendation, but just wanted to show some love for Jon Hopkins, and not only Singularity even if this one is one of his most emotional.

sevenape

I think electronic music is the opposite of emotionally bland. There are electronic songs that make me sad, make me happy, nostalgic, or whatever.

I much much prefer electronic music to anything else, but I was 14 when acid house broke so I came of age with happy hardcore, techno, ambient house, IDM, trip-hop, and most importantly, jungle.

Perhaps a lot of the emotional response for me also came from experimenting with drugs in the 90s, but I believe that they only really provided the push and it is electronic music that was and remains truly transformative. Even before the acid and ecstasy I had wired up a makeshift aerial around my bedroom so that I could pick up Kiss Fm and the strange music played by Colin Dale and Colin Faver.

Traditional forms of music seem a bit bland and limited in their emotional scope to me tbh, Lyrics and singers are overrated.

What follows are a few electronic songs that make me a bit emotional. ( I only cry watching movies).

Amongst many many more. Including a lot of ambient drone. It’s the best!!!

JanKun

@Svetlovska said:
About once a year, I have a few hours of utter narcissism, reviewing and updating my Death Disc: a playlist of songs I intend to be given, on whatever format is then most distributable, (probably a USB stick currently), to any attendees at my memorial event. Every single track on it relates to a moment in my life; every single track has me in floods of tears, as I mourn the death of the one person I really care about above all others:

Me.

Most of those tracks have lyrics, I grant you, which is a kind of cheat. Lyrics evoke specific memories and emotions. In the hands of masters like Leonard Cohen and Scott Walker this is almost too easy.

But the whole reason I got into Dark Ambient was because of the complex unarticulated emotions the best of it evokes in me, light years away from the cheap Halloween spooks of Goth that I entertained in my youth. The best of it provokes in me something literally unspeakable about the awe and terror - and ecstatic beauty - of existence. Tracks like this:

Moves me to tears every time, Allseits’ The Moment Before You Fall Asleep is an electronic counterpart and equal to my mind of something like this:

(Hint to new listeners- you have to give the track time to reveal it’s dark wonders. It is the power of accumulation. By the end it is - overwhelming.)

This Allseits is gorgeous, thank you for the discovery @Svetlovska !

I was about to do the same as everyone here and share things that at some point or still make me cry, but I found out it is useless because by recollecting all those tracks, I realised they all share the same element : human voice and lyrics that at certain point resonates with my life. No matter the genre, electronic or not. This is obviously extremely personal. This also doesn't mean that instrumental music including electronic music doesn't move me or provoke emotions or mood swings, but I can hardly remember any instrumental track without human voice that made me cry. Another thing I noticed, is that the type of voices that touch my soul to the point of crying are always voices with "imperfections" and mostly in the higher register (but the song Alice from Tom Waits made me crying dozen of times).

Sergiu

@Samu said:
I don’t know but I still get chills over this truly marvelous C64 tune…
Think Twice III

Yes! Check this polychrome music
http://legowelt.org/golemXIV/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/polymusic-clip-03.mp4

Svetlovska

@JanKun: I’m definitely with you on the power of ‘imperfect’ voices. Johnny Cash’s age worn, grief stricken voice on ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, from American IV; Leonard Cohen’s on ‘You Want It Darker’ ; Tom Waits (on just about anything, but actually on my Death Disc) doing ‘I’m Still Here’, from Alice, even, surprisingly, Neil Diamond, on the very ‘American’-esque, Rick Rubin produced ‘Evermore’, from 12 Songs…

JanKun

@Svetlovska said:
@JanKun: I’m definitely with you on the power of ‘imperfect’ voices. Johnny Cash’s age worn, grief stricken voice on The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, from American IV; Leonard Cohen’s on ‘You Want It Darker’ ; Tom Waits (on just about anything, but actually on my Death Disc) doing I’m Still Here, from ‘Alice’, even, surprisingly, Neil Diamond, on the very ‘American’-esque, Rick Rubin produced Evermore, from ‘12 Songs’…

Impossible not to cry for me when Cash is singing NIN's "Hurt" or Tom Waits signs "Hold On"...

Svetlovska

Indeed.

lasselu

I've never actually cried when listening to music (well, not because of the music anyway) but there are certain classical pieces that make me choke up...
Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance is one of them...I have no idea why, I'm not even British...

FastGhost

I'm loving this thread. I used to play a game with the kids in the car where we'd put on classical / opera and the kids would try to explain what possible narrative the music might have, and what feelings it was trying to evoke. Interestingly, they were often "right", even at ~ 4 years old. There's very little that would actually produce tears in me, but the previously mentioned Bridge Over Troubled Water would be up there, mainly because I used to rock my eldest to sleep to it when she was a baby and lyrically that's essentially what it's about. This though, I find it hard to imagine a sadder piece of music...

My eldest now plays both of these on the piano and the sum of the historical resonance is sometimes quite powerful.

shinyisshiny

@markk said:

@shinyisshiny said:
electronic songs that resonate with me on a deeply emotional level :

My question is is there any electronic music that can make you actually cry those old salty drops and make you breathe weirdly, if you are the kind of person who is likely to cry at music at all.

Also, I'm not after recommendations at all.

yup... the songs i posted

[Deleted User]

Gavinski

@Samu said:
I don’t know but I still get chills over this truly marvelous C64 tune…
Think Twice III

Great one Samu!

Svetlovska

@FastGhost : Beautiful, beautiful. This is the music that (still!) makes me want to learn to play the piano. Worth checking out the de Hartmann/ Gurdjieff compositions for something similar:

Apparently, the guru Gurdjieff, untrained, a non musician, hummed or whistled fragments of a tune, which his acolyte De Hartmann, an accomplished composer, then worked up into full pieces:

“ Gurdjieff, although not a proficient instrumentalist, variously attempted the piano, the mouth-organ, the guitar, and the portative organ on which, particularly in old age, he extemporised. He could score sufficiently to indicate the key signature and the fundamental melody… Although de Hartmann generously insisted, 'It is not "my music". It is his. I have only picked up the master's handkerchief ', it was he who arranged, scored and first played, the compositions which Gurdjieff inspired and indicated in essence.“ -

James Moore, Gurdjieff’s Music https://www.gurdjieff.org.uk/gurdjieff-s-music

“Believe nothing. Not even yourself.”

bygjohn

Kind of in direct response to the original question, I have an imperfect memory of a Bjork quote, so this may be more of a paraphrase:

“If the music has no soul, it’s because whoever made it didn’t put it there. It’s not due to the instruments.”

Gavinski

Bright Eyes (theme from the Watership Down movie) certainly made me cry as a kid, but that's definitely also due to the connection to the movie. At other times I cried when a song had a particular personal relevance for me at the time ('Practise' by Common on his latest NPR concert) or because a particular performance was very touching (the last track on Tank and the Bangas NPR performance) and made me feel sorry for the singer.

Definitely can't recall electronic music that made me cry but can think of so many that are very far from bland

Boards of Canada:
Pete Standing Alone
A Beautiful Place Out in the Country (even more poignant when you know what it's about)

Aphex Twin:
Windowlicker

Instrumental music that I find very emotional:

Theme song from Polanski's Chinatown
Theme song from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie
Bill Evans Peace Piece
Miles Davis Blue in Green

Samu

Röyksopp's Alpha Male is simply beautiful

Sergiu

ChimmyChungaFace

Even without looking at the title, this piece is quite moving:

ChimmyChungaFace

Another:

ChimmyChungaFace

This too, and a nice job on the video, which seems to capture the distant longing in the music:

timforsyth

@Samu said:
I don’t know but I still get chills over this truly marvelous C64 tune… Think Twice III
Röyksopp's Alpha Male is simply beautiful

Nice! A fav C64 tune and my fav Röyksopp track - those arpeggios at the end

Geir Tjelta's Smile to the Sky, although not a classic back in the day tune is an amazing SID:

Sergiu

U can't go wrong with Monk

lukesleepwalker

@LinearLineman said:
A better question might be what prevents people from crying when they hear music that, without that inner resistance, would certainly touch, or even break, their hearts.

I can cry at the drop of a hat listening to music. Even my own music can do it to me once in a while.
It’s not sad that makes me cry, it's beauty,

Totally nailed it.

lasselu

@Svetlovska said:

Hint to new listeners- you have to give Allseits time to reveal their dark wonders. It is the power of accumulation. By the end The Moment… is - overwhelming. For me, anyway.

Thank you for this one. Hauntingly beautiful...

szczyp

interesting thread!
I never cry to electronic but to classical „Warsaw Quinted Accordion” 30 years ago yes I did.
Not to this piece but this is style of music that I like

electronic was for me more loke fashion. was, but nowadays I use electronic less and less often. even melodica acouatic inatrument is not as much important like 3 months ago. I found all this „pleasure” with music was little fake inside me: at age 6 it was kind of drug for my pain in life. then at age 15 I wanted to shine, be in fashion, copycat jungle dub, so I discover marihuana… and I stopped to listen classic music and cry, I started to be collectioner of samples, equipment, gas illed.

this „pleasure” is paunfull, I quit smoking drinking 7 months ago, and my „drive” for sequencers is much less powerfull. possibly Im like snow ball which still is going somewhere but speed is decreasing.
I dont attack anybody. I was in electronic smoked music by over 25 years. Its still on my deep mind but I dont use drugs anymore, so if I really need to play in sequencer planned music (track by track recording) there should be new strong reason. I still not found it. before , for example last year when I smoked, I used sequencers everyday. I hope it was somehow in subject of topic.