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How this channel has fewer than 500 subs is beyond me. Great content!

Two big reasons: the musical skill of the musicians was top notch and also even if the lyrics are schmaltzy we wouldn't know.

3:21 Harry Hosono and Tatsuro Yamashita started to write their own songs and tend to more western style music after watching the famous Budokan concert in 1966. Thus the Happy End was born.

Hey I really like these videos and your channel. I was thinking recently about how I don't like live music and feeling a little excluded because all my friends who are into music always talk about how they're excited to go to shows. Perhaps it's a broader psychological thing and therefore not appropriate for the channel, but if there's a chance, I'd be interested to see a video on how to shake these feelings and be more comfortable liking the things you like and disliking the things you don't, even if it seems like everyone else enjoys it.

Brown Jason Williams Barbara Thompson Donna

Lydia pence and coldblood🥰

great intro to the genre, I've heard maggot brain but never dug into any of the other albums so thanks for the recs!

Plastic love literally just popped into my feed one day. That was a great day.

Some people just don't have a deep connection with music. As a (unsuccessful) musician, I like finding new songs and artists, because you never know how many good songs are waiting for you to discover. Maybe even from small artists.

My journey with City Pop began with a Japanese artist who brought the genre sounds to Korean in recent years: YOKIKA. She's brilliant.

I do believe that "NPC Music" lacks the emotional depth and artistic integrity that I look for when listening to music. When I listen to music I want the artist to communicate a feeling to me or transport me to another world. When I hear music on the radio it just feels so bland and without any purpose but getting money. The music is often optimized to be as non-offensive and listenable as possible which just takes away the soul from it in my opninion.

Speaking of music my wife abhors, but I find delightful: I’d love to see your take on Eurobeat.

I’ve been hooked on Miki Matsubara, Anri, Mariyah Takeuchi, and Tetsuro Yamashita songs the last few months. Thanks for this video.

I listen to a lot of experimental music, some free jazz as well as punk, post-punk, hardcore... etc. But when I was 11-13 I couldn't give a flying a f about music and only listened to top 40 radio, my favorite artists at the time were Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Chainsmokers... etc. I still find vapid 2010s pop music kind of endearing, so yeah I can see how people develop an "npc" taste in music, you just don't have to really care about music that much, it's only when I got into the Beatles and Pink Floyd that I started to really care about music and explore more, those bands were gateways to me to a bunch of other genres, but people might have other gateways. When I was a kid I just liked a song if it had a good catchy chorus that got stuck in my head, there was no point delving further, you were already satisfied with top 40 radio and have other things to do so why go find other music?

Fascinating video! I kind of am a musical NPC myself (calling people NPCs is gross, I agree with you there, but I don't mind doing it for myself in this case). The funny thing is I'm the opposite of that in all other media: Movies, video games, books, ect. I seek out strange and fringe elements, new experiences, experimental works. I also have a high "Openness to Experience" score every time I take a 5 factor personality test. But...I don't tend to seek out music. I love music. I find it very powerful. But I don't enjoy sampling new, random music to find things I like. I tend to hear something in a TV show or movie or something, and then I'll dive into it from there. I also don't really enjoy just sitting and listening to music. I listen to audiobooks most of the time. I had a period in middle school where my life was mostly about finding new music, but I moved past it and never went back (I'm 42 now, BTW). It's a little frustrating to me because I really am very, very moved by good music. I just can't engage with the process of finding it.

I got into jazz because my friends are amateur jazz musicians. Because of them, I went to some jazz clubs and jam sessions. At the beginning, I really disliked it because it sounded to messy. I thought it was only music for old rich men. As time went on, I started to appreciate it and found out some standards or sub genres I like. The people who are into jazz are just nerds and genuinely nice. I met some gatekeepers, but that’s more the exception than the rule.

I love Chat Baker sings, especially „there will never be another you“

Love the inclusion of Soft Machine in the video

The way I like to think of this is that I was exposed to more complex or “elite music” (Classical, Jazz, Classical and Jazz-inspired Rock, etc) at an earlier age and have been conditioned to enjoy it more, whereas others may have not had that experience so culture and upbringing definitely play a role Secondly, specifically with regards to Jazz, the musical form has certain musical characteristics which I have come to enjoy that pop music lacks (varied harmony, sound design / tone, groove, etc.) that I wish others could pick up on and enjoy but instead of expressing that I express disgust due to how simple pop is I think what makes “Kind of Blue” such an accessible record is that it has all the predictability of pop (as does most non-post-bop modal jazz) but all of the unpredictability of jazz in the form of improvisation over the top (Blue in Green repeats the same chords, Flamenco Sketches is a two chord vamp, So What is a a two note vamp, etc.)

Pointless video tbh

My ex’s entire family only ever listened to stuff like Florida Georgia Line and Hozier. I tried showing them Nightmares on Wax and got laughed at for liking it. I’ve never understood why there are people out there who don’t branch out their music tastes

you're very animated, not a bad thing just funny

I don't think my musical taste is very adventurous... But maybe I have to face facts. Yesterday I went to a live concert yesterday that was full of middle aged Japanese women headbanging.

I can understand the concept for something like Jazz or whatever, but i just can't wrap my head around how SO MANY people can like music such as Niki Minaj. Even after 2 million years that type of music will never sound good to me.

It's engineered to sound good and be immediately appealing, if that's all you're looking for in music then of course you'll like it and have no reason to go looking farther.

this is a really well-paced video, but i'm not too convinced i possess the familiarity principle: no matter how many times the radio at work plays noah kahan i still can't stand him 😭😭

Honestly, the “deeper” into music I’ve gotten and the more open I’ve been to new genres, the more I appreciate mainstream artists. The least musically curious and open people I know personally aren’t the ones who love Taylor Swift, they’re the people who dismiss the Taylor Swifts of the world and refuse to experience popular artists on any level deeper than radio hits.

you gotta listen to melonade :)

I find the jazz standard endlessly fascinating. Find one, do a search, and then compare all the different ways the same song can be performed across time and space. Take "Body and Soul". It's been performed by vocalists, pianists, saxophonists, you name it, from the moment it was composed in 1930 up to now. Every era of jazz, chances are high some major artist recorded "Body and Soul."

I think the hardest step for me personally is context. When I listen to music, I guess I'm not really considering the context, or perhaps it's so obvious to me in the things I enjoy that I don't have to think about it, or maybe context is so broad that there are things I don't realise are "context". But often my experience with context is some friend rambling to me about a bunch of history about the artist or the production or purpose of the music, that I instinctively ignore in favour of "does it sound good?". Are the books/films still worth exploring? I'm not much of a reader. Is there anything else that might help with context?

Was looking forward to hearing what you say eagerly until you mentioned it's not a crime to like npc music... I'm kidding 😆 Lovely video. I am musician myself. Music at the end of the day what you enjoy listening to.

Speaking of Radiohead, the thing I love about them is that their discography is so diverse that it covers both pop/accessible tracks as well as esoteric and plenty of overlap. A gateway band, if you will. Come for the Creep, stay for the OK Computer, Kid A, In Rainbows…

I really appreciate this approach on why many pop listeners, well, listen only to pop. glad to have found your channel!

i always think some people are just more casual music listeners! others enjoy diving deeper or have specific tastes. It’s fun to tap into all these during your life!

I disagree with everything you said. Being a Weezer fan, an Ed Sheeran fan, a Taylor Swift fan, a Death Grips fan are all the same thing.

Thank you for this! I know nothing about Future Funk (haven't even heard of it before this video) but I'm definitely gonna listen to this while studying so I can stay extra motivated. Also, you get a subscribe from me because I first discovered you through your NPC music video and I could say that I'm def an NPC wanting to expound my mustic tastes. Great job man, keep it coming <3

great video, held my attention all the way through, perfect length. keep it up man

Colombian here, I really enjoyed the video :)

great video! I find that learning more about a band, following them on social media or listening to interviews helps me appreciate songs so much more, even if it's not something I would usually listen to.

Interesting little video! I often find it really hard to go out of my way to find new music, I am the type of person who to puts a single song on repeat and listens to it for a few hours/days/weeks until I am sick of it. I find looking for new music a tough exercise. At the same time I am really into metal and folk (especially folky and metal stuff mixed with other genres, I also love different international stuff, movie scores) and most TikTok/pop songs that are currently popular annoy me - most people hate when I am responsible for the party tunes, so I wouldn’t call my tastes very NPC. I also know a few people who are into quite generic pop but they try to find new songs to listen to and/or like listening to random shuffled pop playlists - very generic NPC tastes but quite adventurous in finding new stuff. What I am saying is surely there is more to the NPC tastes than just familiarity. I would definitely tune in for your next video if you find something 😊

I enjoyed listening to your thoughts! Subscribed!

Oh wow, I just listened to Snarky Puppy's first track and had this wave of frisson. Great stuff, on my to listen list! I didn't recognize Slide Five until I heard KC Doppler (Thievery Corporation remix) which was very popular during my "Buddha Bar" years of the late 90s - could you do a review of trip-hop / downtempo / electronic lounge? My jazz contribution would be Tenorio Jnr "Embalo" album - music.th-cam.com/video/wvYwz4R-tl4/w-d-xo.html. I came across this after watching your Bossa Nova video, and stumbled onto this as Tenorio's life was turned into a animated documentary (They Shot the Piano Player). Thanks again!

Great vid! I'd love to see a deep dive on something rap related as I enjoyed checking out the country genre through your past vid

Interesting, thanks for the recommendation. Would you consider Night Tempo also as Future Funk. Love his album Ladies in the city.

You have a highly "watchable" face.... :) This is not mean to undermine the excellent research that had gone into the video amounting to outstanding content and pointed conclusions, but rather to highlight that, in addition to it all, your presentation is quite engaging indeed.

You nailed it right on the head about the dreaded Steve Dahl. Dahl was not only an anti-disco and pro rockist advocate, he was also an allegedly notorious homophobe and possible racist who knew all along that disco attracted Gays, Blacks, and Latinos. His anti-disco movement was pure overkill. It should be known that the then-forming Punk Rock movement that emerged around 1976 also disdained disco and mainstream 70's pop-rock as well.

Disco committed suicide. It sucked so hard it sucked itself into total annihilation.

Yeah, the twirling was a bit much. I do remember that event where R and R decided to make a stand. I liked the disco music, but I wasn't ready for the more feminine look (and behavior) that was transforming men.

No one killed Disco, it just ran out of gas and became irrelevant. (Sadly, Disco killed or co-opted 70s funk.) Most (straight) teens and 20-somethings totally despised Disco from the start ("Disco Sucks" T-shirts became popular). It was club music for unhip 30-somethings who thought looking like a douche in a polyester leisure suit was somehow cool. After 5 or 6 years this shallow, repetitive, unimaginative trend petered out and collapsed in on itself as punk/new wave and metal bands moved in and dominated music. In the 80s, the basic disco beat, with added electronic sound effects, became instrumental "house music" for dance clubs (mainly patronized by women and gays). This gradually evolved and mutated into present-day EDM. Musical trends are supposed to run their course in 5 years or so. Fresh ideas run out and people become bored and look for something new. The fact that rap/hip-hop has been recycling the same tired old sounds for the past 45 years is just plain sad and makes one almost nostalgic for Disco which was at least dumb fun while it lasted.

Disco never went away. It just evolved into something else. It turned into 80s freestyle music. Donna Summer was the one who started that ball rolling with I Feel Love. That song basically predicted the future. There are also certain records that have that transitional sound between disco and freestyle (which later evolved into technopop). "Its Raining Men" is the best example I know of. It's disco-ish but it has those basslines and synth lines that became a staple throughout the 80s. Disco just evolved away from its roots and became something else as fads changed. Its still here and it always will be.