Inspired by a post that popped on lemmy world today about Weird Al it got me thinking. I listed out a bunch of names but the one that I think fits the most would probably be Surfan Stevens. Who do you all think?
Hans Zimmer? If not in pure skill then in name recognition.
I’m going to go with Steven Wilson for this. Mostly because he and Mozart have an undeniable talent, many of their fans consider them to be some type of visionary savant, and despite the broad agreement toward that perspective I still find both of their outputs to be broadly incredibly dull.
Ramin Djawadi no contest.
Dwayne Rudolph Goettel (Skinny Puppy) Peter Christopherson (Psychic TV, Coil, Throbbing Gristle)
If we change this question to generational, instead of “modern times”, those two would fit into Gen X.
Richard Wright (Pink Floyd) Ray Manzarek (Doors) Elton John
For the “Boomers”.
Tori Amos Trent Reznor Atticus Ross
For the Millenials.
I’m sure there’s many more from those 3 generations. But they have my vote.
You ever seen that post about how classical music is closest to metal? Well Kerry King is our modern day Mozart.
Kerry is a great player, but I think the shredder who embodied the spirit and the form of Mozart was Alexi Laiho.
His solos were a such distinct take on the neoclassical sound
\M/
Dude can definitely shred and definitely plays some complex licks. Dimebag and Randy Rhodes are definitely up there too, but then again, so are many heavy metal guitarists.
I’m a shitty guitarist and whenever I just sit back and listen to the guitar tracks on most heavy metal albums I’m always amazed by the complexity, speed, precision and just overall sound of the tracks, especially when it comes to the solos.
Controversial, but Muse is up there in the great composers list.
Also Shaka Ponk, whole other story
I wouldn’t say that controversial. Muse are pretty varied in their output, The Exogenesis Symphony is fantastic, and then they also have stuff like Plug In Baby, which is amazing. Matthew Bellamy is very talented.
Yeah the entirety of revolution manages to traverse several sounds and styles while maintaining a cohesive mood and feel. It and the second law were just amazing albums
Maybe someone like John Oliva
ITT: people who have severely underestimated Mozart’s musical capacities and contributions.
Mozart is a musician that is studied by nearly any professional musician. There are historians, musical scholars, and museums dedicated to him. He’s a household name across the world. He established a period of music. As a teenager, he deciphered a 12 min choral piece with multiple groups and solos after hearing it once and by memory wrote it down later that night (he heard it a 2nd time a few days later for minor corrections). When he presented the score to the clergy, they said he got one note wrong. After investigation, Mozart heard it right. The musician’s score was off by a note. Could any popular musician mentioned here decipher just a 6 min song of 4 instrument band after hearing it once with pen and paper ready? Imagine telling any music legend now, “Hey, you’re off by a half a step on the 3rd note of bar 28 of your own song.”
Comparing an awesome popular singer, guitarist, or band to him is like comparing your friend that got a job at NASA to Einstein. There is no modern Mozart. There have been greats since Mozart, but there haven’t been any Mozarts since Mozart. I say this as a Beethoven fan. Mozart was the only Mozart. He was so good, that his name became a title for great musician: Mozart. No one listed in this thread is anywhere near being a Mozart.
Likely the closest I could picture in a modern sense is Jacob Collier, who can indeed perform these types of musical feats. But the crux of the issue is that while Collier is much loved, he isn’t a dominant force of popular music like Mozart was.
I agree, and this is easily my favorite post of the month.
Honestly, I could see Jacob Collier doing just that.
What if some or most of those details were made up to sound nicer / more impressive?
Yeah, that’s exactly my first thought while reading this. If I rewrote the list of achievements above to sound like I was claiming they all happened to me, and then posted it to twitter, it would be indistinguishable from most other “🙄 that happened” posts.
People will be saying similar stuff about Taylor Swift in 100 years; by definition being legendary means being unreal.
When you put it that way, the list of candidates thins out and the one figure I see still standing is John Coltrane, who in his day was running circles around fellow jazz musicians, they couldn’t wrap their heads around how Coltrane’s chord progressions and jumping between keys from note to note made any sense… yet it did, and beautifully.
EDIT: typo
No offence but I think you’re forgetting about Fred Durst.
He literally broke stuff
King Gizzard. They love weird-ass time signatures (look up the ridiculousness that is Crumbling Castle for an example), polyrhythms, unconventional tuning, and such. They hop from one genre to another, they probably have one of the highest album-to-year ratios in music (not including live and demo albums), sometimes they’re serious, sometimes they’re silly, sometimes they’re silly-serious. The biggest blow to them however, is that nothing they make is truly a “masterpiece”. It all ranges from “good” to “great” but nothing they’ve made is really a “masterpiece”. Maybe in time they’ll make a true masterpiece, but nothing yet quite qualifies imo.
The other nomination I’d make is Devin Townsend. Where King Gizzard is extremely prolific but doesn’t make masterpieces, Devin Townsend takes his time and makes masterpieces. Despite its silliness, Ziltoid the Omniscient is one of the best, if not the best, metal albums, period. It’s an album so good that even my parents, who don’t like metal, have songs they enjoy from the album. Empath is a stunning blend of metal, electronic, prog, praise & worship/gospel,^1 and god knows what else. The man just does things and they come out amazing.
^1 Afaik Devin Townsend’s not a Christian, sorry to any Christian peeps hoping for good Christian music. He just incorporated that sound into the album.
Love Sufjan. He has a Mozart mind in his own right.
If Mozart was raised with an accordion and looney tunes he might Weird Mo, if he had parents like Carrie and Lowell he might be giving LGBTQ+ and Christian Conservatives a Christmas album to agree on.
Trying to compare a Mozart of our times to the original is like comparing an apple to the tree it grew from. There are obvious similarities but fundamentally are just different things of different times.
The fact that Miles Davis or Duke Ellington haven’t shown up yet makes me question the musical diversity of Lemmy.
Ben Folds. He’s got classical, jazz and rock chops, with a full helping of the wit and mischief in his lyrics.
Those that like him, like him a lot. The rest of us will walk over fields of lava to hit the skip button.
If you are going to compare you should add the context of each, and by adding the context Mozart was a genius and cannot be compared.
David Bowie, few have his range and talent.
Ummm
Prince.
Music fell out of him. He accidentally walked by a bass and it exploded from the funk.
Talent for days. (See also RRHoF playing “while my guitar gently weeps”)
Second vote would be Trent Reznor or Danny Elfman
Plus the moment he made it rain during his Superbowl show whilst playing purple rain.
I don’t care what anyone says, it rained because of prince.
Don’t care if it is apocryphal but when it started raining, he said “make it rain harder. “
Yes. He did make it rain that day.
