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?
He has a huge discography, is a talented multi instrumentalist, and is very experimental with genre and song writing in general while still effectively connecting with a growing audience. I used to know only a handful of his songs and thought, good but meh. Out of curiosity about his broad appeal between people I wouldn’t expect much over lap from, I dove into his discography and it’s something really special.
I think it might’ve been this one but it was a while back so I’ll keep looking and edit if I find something that looks more familiar. Greetings from Michigan got it’s antlers in me, after that I burned through the rest of the list pretty quickly and then it became a blur of shuffle for a few weeks.
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
I love Sufjan Stevens, but I don’t see the comparison. While I really love his lyrics (one of the few I actually like them, I usually find most artist lyrics to be plain and way too cheesy), his music is very simple compared to a behemoth like Mozart.
Mozart was able to write highly complex music very fast, that went from deep themes to silly ones, and enjoyed popularity from both critics and public, which is something quite rare.
I don’t which one would be the closest today. Maybe something like Williams or Ennio Morricone.
Stevens is more like Bach than like Mozart. Lots of repetition in his themes but layered and created in counterpoint like no other contemporary artist. Love that guy.
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.
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.
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.
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