Special shout-outs to a few of my all-time favorite tracks, beyond just video games:

TESV: Skyrim: Kyne's Peace
Hands down my favorite Elder Scrolls track, a series brimming with great music. A phenomenal, emotional piece that really drives home the tone it wants to convey. This tune is perfect.

Half-Life: Vague Voices
My favorite Half-Life track, a series which has its own fair share of great music. It's the one that plays at the very beginning of the game, and is easily one of the most atmospheric and tone-setting pieces I have ever heard. I didn't get to play Half-Life when I was a kid--I only first played it in 2013--but hearing this track for the first time was incredible.

Quake 2: Descent into Cerberon
If this doesn't get you pumped for action, I don't know what to say. I really wish the soundtrack worked automatically for my version of Quake 2, as tracks like this would have amplified the already great gameplay, but still I have played this track too many times to count.

Unreal Tournament: Foregone Destruction
Unreal Tournament was also another boat I unfortunately missed out on when I was a kid. Thus, I've never really gotten to experience UT's true potential. But it has some fantastic tracks, although the original single-player Unreal is my all-time favorite video game soundtrack.

Edenbridge -- Skyline's End

That is my favorite track from Quake 2. It was always great for background music during combat in the old pen and paper RPG days.

I loved me some Unreal Tournament. Some friends and I would get together every couple of weekends and drag all of our computers over to one of our houses and we would have lan parties for 8 - 12 hours straight. UT was always the highlight for me. Facing Worlds (the level in the pic for that song) was one of the all time best multiplayer levels ever made. Love the nuke in it.

I have always loved the Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack. It is just packed with great atmospheric music from start to end. Arkham Bridge is my favorite song in it. I love the beginning.

Khajiit has only heard a couple songs by Edenbridge but one of them is called Paramount, and this one likes it a lot.

That's a pretty good tune!

Tarja Turunen -- Lost Northern Star

Yeah that one has been a favorite for a while along with Dark Star. A shame she's not with Nightwish anymore, but oh well.

Dat is also a good one. It's on my Symphonic Metal playlist.

Elysion -- Our Fate

How the hell did Khajiit miss this comment?! Verily, MW2's dost rocketh!

Leaves' Eyes -- Tell-Tale Eyes

Heard Euphoria by Xandria on Nightwish Radio Pandora earlier. Good tune!

Looks like I will be listening to Linkin Park a bunch for the next couple weeks.

You know, while I find many of these celebrity deaths sad to hear whether I actually was really familiar with their work or not, few times has it actually had some sort of impact on me. I haven't cried at any of them (although I'm not going to chastise or make fun of somebody if they do) and I haven't this time either, but it does sting to hear about Chester Bennington's death. Linkin Park was a huge part of my childhood. I didn't really get into them until one of my best friends got me listening to them back in middle school. I don't listen to their music nearly as much as I used to, but I come back to it from time to time. A lot of their stuff is still legitimately fantastic, and I honestly don't know if any other band has as many songs that I like. I'm not much into their newer stuff (although to be fair I also haven't listened to a lot of it; I can also appreciate them wanting to try new stuff and make something fresh), but a fair amount of their older tracks hover around the top of my favorite tunes. On their own the songs are still great, but many of them also had a relatability factor to them. Plenty of other people could still relate to them much more than I can, but I still find a great deal of personal meaning to some of them. It sucks that it ended this way for Chester.

I'll give a few of these tracks a shout-out in particular, although it is by no means a comprehensive list of great Linkin Park songs. Even if Linkin Park isn't your type of music, I encourage you to give them a try. You may find a track or two that you like.

Leave Out All the Rest

Somewhere I Belong

Lost in the Echo

Faint

Do we know what the c.o.d. was?

Looks like it was confirmed to be by hanging according to the coroner.

Damn.

I had actually been intending to ask about Linkin Park, not having listened to anything of theirs, so thanks for that, I'll give 'em a listen.

Amberian Dawn -- Sons of the Rainbow

Folk bemoaning lack of recent thunderstorms ( ) put me in mind of this piece, which might provide something of a substitute.

Heard one of my favorite Nightwish songs on Pandora today.
10th Man Down

Sleepwalker's Dream -- Delain

Leaves' Eyes -- Swords in Rock

Within Temptation -- Our Solemn Hour

Just heard Angel by Massive Attack on Pandora and the Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodlines memories came flooding back!

I don't do a heck of a lot of music listening any more due to hearing, but occasionally can't resist the urge to revisit favorite pieces and performances and hear what I can of them. My latest such foray focused on two works of Johannes Brahms, his Academic Festival Overture and the Second Symphony. For the former I listened to maybe six different interpretations at YouTube, liking several quite a lot. In the end, I choose this old video live performance by the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein despite me having trouble adequately hearing some of the softer passages. For the latter I settled on an interpretation new to me, again a live "filmed" performance, this time by the Deutsch-Niederländische KammerPhilharmonie led by Otis Klöber. Here is the final movement from that performance.

Don't remember this one from the game. Is it revamped* there perhaps?







*Pun SO intended!

Lol, it's the song being played on the start menu. Strangely, it doesn't show up on the list of licensed songs in the game.

Lunatica -- World's Unleashed

Not sure why YouTube recommended this video to me, since I've had no interest in "pop" music since the mid-late 1960s. To my surprise...I found much of the discussion both informative and at times fascinating. I therefore present, Why is Pop Music So Terrible? Good stuff.

Very well done. One thing the guy left out is how much more important looks are to singers now than before. In the 60s and 70s you could be ugly and still be a star. Not today, because people watch music as much as listen to it. Now it is all about how pretty you are. How you sound has nothing to do with it whatsoever. Take Britney Spears for example. She cannot sing at all. What you hear at one of her concerts is pre-recorded and produced, because her real voice is horrific. But she looks pretty, so she was hugely popular. Tbh, I don't think anyone would know who Taylor Swift is if there was not a video of her to look at whenever her songs played.

Going to be honest, I don't even think Taylor Swift is even that attractive. To be fair, I can't stand her music--or her--but I really don't get why people think that highly of her.

Anyways, with some exceptions I find pop music in recent memory to be absolute garbage too, or at the very least pretty meh.

Khajiit saw (on tv) Taylor Swift sing live once at a New Orleans Saints football game. It was not good.

All this talk of the sad state of modern pop singing got me yearning to hear the real deal. Amongst what I heard tonight was this concert performance of Glitter and be Gay from Leonard Bernstein's Candide, sung by Natalie Dessay, about as fine a singing-actress as we've been blessed with these days, and a personal favorite.

Wow, not sure why but when Khajiit read the title of that song he was thinking it would be more akin to 20's jazz but it's totally operatic!

A cool version by Apocalyptica of an old classic:
Hall of the Mountain King

She's not what she used to be. Also; she's not Japanese or Korean...

Well the time Khajiit mentioned was like 2010, well before her current "I can make even more money doing pop stuff!". The move was kind of brilliant actually. Build a fan base of preteens with your relatively wholesome country music and make millions. Then use millions to market yourself as a pop star and put out stuff for a wider audience. Oh and a feud with Kanye West didn't really hurt her either.

Star Wars - Danger Zone = I wonder if it will ever be updated with Rogue One dogfights?

Your recent discussion of modern day singers put me in mind to hear Charles Ives' World War I era patriotic song, "They Are There!". This is the master himself, singing and accompanying himself at the piano. The recording is from 1943, and not of the best quality. If you have trouble making out the words ... they're worth hearing ... expand "SHOW MORE" to see them written (typed) out.

After the above I decided on a change of pace, so returned to a favorite composition, Beethoven's String Quarter Op.95, of which this is the final movement. Yes, I link this once before, long ago. But for me it's one of those piece that easily withstands frequent repeated listens.

Some modern day musicians who are not crap. I think it said 135 tracks make up this piece?

Cause I still got alotta fight left in me!

Can't help coming back to this one from time to time

Listened to the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony in a performance by the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Myung-Whun Chung, both yesterday and again this evening.

Also watched a well done two part discussion of the movement's orchestration, of which this is part one.

Again watched/listened to the Ariel Quartet's rendition of Beethoven's String Quartet Op.95, both because I like the performance (and piece) so well and to celebrate being able to watch YouTube video's at 1080p. Can't think of a better way to celebrate than with Beethoven.

Khajiit always feels like he should go fight something after hearing this song by Eluveitie:
Dessumiis Luge

I have been listening to The Complete Fiction of HP Lovecraft - An Audiobook. Mostly I listen while at work or in the car. It has been good. Lovecraft's 1st Person narrative lends itself perfectly to an audiobook. When you read 1st Person it feels like you are the protagonist. All the "I did this, I did that." But when you listen, it sounds like the protagonist is literally another person telling you their tale.

btw. I never realized how much the story Hypnos sounds like hot gay romance!

I have still been listening to HP Lovecraft. He has a lot of short stories that are only about 10 - 20 minutes long, which are perfect for listening to in the car. But sadly most of those short ones just are not very good. The Hound was definitely the best of those so far. There is also a short film of that story I have on one of my Cthulhu anthology dvds that was really good.

His bigger stories still shine though. I listened to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward earlier this week. That is one of my all time favorites. I loved the necromancer cult sharing the corpses of the world's greatest scientists, inventors, alchemists, and sorcerers. Plus I thought it was cool how half the story takes place in the 1770s, and the other half in the 1920's.

At The Mountains of Madness is still my favorite though. I love the aspects of exploration and first contact. In many ways it is more a science fiction story than one of supernatural horror. The story itself only barely scratches the surface of the Elder Things, their city, the unfathomable depths beneath, and those terrifying mountains in the distance which even the Elder Things dreaded. There are so many more stories that could be told there.

Khajiit has always thought of AtMoM as being sci-fi archaeological horror.

Yesterday I stumbled upon a fairly recent upload of Mahler's third symphony that is recorded, produced and uploaded such that it is very listenable even with my decrepit ears. I suspect that were my hearing better I'd consider it quite fine sounding indeed. My only real complaint audio wise is that, for some reason, every now and again there are brief sound skips so that small bits of music are lost. Sort of akin to imprecise splices back when recordings were edited on acoustic tape. Off-putting but endurable.

Visually, it's a missed bag. Excellent camera work by a crew who knows its Mahler. Closeups invariably go to the correct instrument(s) or section(s), which isn't always the case. I've mixed feelings about the frequent closeups afforded the posthorn in movement three. Mahler wrote it to be a disembodied sound, not generated within the orchestra proper, floating through the hall. Audibly, that's what we get. However, a camera is positioned near the player so that we see him at close range, sort of defeating Mahler's intent. Still, I enjoy ogling player and instrument, which for once looks as if it might be a actual posthorn variant. (It's often heard on flugelhorn, which sounds very nice indeed but is incorrect, and occasionally on trumpet, which is, in my opinion, blasphemy.)

Too, the upload is rather blurry, even at 720p. I attempted to watch full screen at that resolution, but gave up and returned to windowed 480p.

Here it is, beginning with the afore mentioned third movement, followed by the remaining three movements, Mahler - Symphony No.3. Concergebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam. Mariss Jansons, conductor.

Ellie Botterill at 12 years old (she is just 14 now)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnrPOgV8k9s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIGXjiBPo7c

My latest favourite! Reminded me a lot about Spooks and their "Things I've seen"

Linky

Oh man I haven't heard this song in like ages. Pretty Woman. Much like Mike and the Mechanics Word of Mouth I've only heard that Pretty Woman Parody song ONCE on the radio.