Best Of MetaFilter

Fire dancing by Scrap Pile (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter: "It's one or three or ten centuries ago. Somebody's ancestors gather around a fire and pretty soon, spontaneous music breaks out, a few people start dancing, everybody winds up happy and breathless. But what I need to know is, if the songs aren't from the US, Canada, the UK or Ireland, or from Western Europe, what does the music sound like? I'm making a YouTube Music playlist to write a fun cozy fantasy novel to and I need help finding instrumental music from different traditions."

Wintersweet asks about antique party tunes outside the Anglosphere / Western Europe.

gingerbeer points out Richard Thompson's "1000 Years of Popular Music" in this week's free thread. "Playboy asked a select group of musicians to choose their ten favorite songs of the past millennium. Richard Thompson, believing what Playboy REALLY wanted were only songs from the last 20 years, took them literally. He gave Playboy EXACTLY what they asked for. He chose the best songs of the last 1000 years. Thompson never heard from them again."

Will Wilde video screen cap

A truly astonishing Free Bird harmonica solo, plus interesting insight and context from msbrauer.

By Wednesday - https://wednesdayband.bandcamp.com/album/i-was-trying-to-describe-you-to-someone-2

The New Wave Of American Shoegaze - "While there're so many revelatory new sounds coming out of Philly, the reason we're on the crest of a New Wave of American Shoegaze, not just one city's worth of cool shit, is that there are several other distinct styles coming to fruition in tandem. One of them is country-gaze ..."

Radio on. by Howdy, I'm HMK (cc by)

carrienation posted Bent by Nature, a podcast from LA's KCRW about the legendary DJ Deirdre O'Donoghue and her influential radio show SNAP, with available live music archives from the show (1982-1991). As eschatfische notes in the comments, "not only are the Bent by Nature archives great, they're also a labor of love of Metafilter's own mykescipark."

photo via loc.gov

adamsc links to a super secret stash of cunningly hidden Library of Congress cultural treasure in the Lizzo LOC thread

The Songsmiths Quartet

Great detective work to chase down a vintage musical mystery in Ask Metafilter!

Chiac guide to eating an Acadian lobster from the site petitpetitgamin.com

Shepherd with a fabuleux sélection of divers flavors of Chiac tunes.

spoonful of diamonds...... by Rolf Dietrich Brecher (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter, jeszac is looking for your favorite not-widely-known versions of songs that are themselves widely known? Great answers here.

Country Girl 13 by martinwcox (cc by)

"What's it like to be a girl in a band?" Box posts about the women who built grunge.

Histories by Aldaron (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter, ordinary_magnet says, "I'm looking for popular songs that relate events or profile people from history in a straightforward, informative way. Can you help me add to this weird playlist?"

Diverge by Marco Nürnberger (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter, What songs reference their music in the lyrics? "Can you give me examples of songs where the lyrics reference what is happening in the music?"

Expect Mayhem by Brian Blythe (cc by-nc)

"What music sounds most to you as if it were written/performed by/for goblins?"

What music for New Year Party? by margycrane

I fucking love ranting about this topic because it makes me feel smart and it's taken me decades to learn a lot of this stuff and debunking audiophile woo. Loquacious with an epic "extended play" on music audio.

Boogie by roberlan (cc by-nd)

In Ask Metfilter: One Night in Bangkok makes a wee baby boogie (what other songs will?), and by the way, what the heck was that (South Korean) song "The Boogie"? (and why was it so funny?). Hey now, don't tell me those boogies are dated — tell me HOW DATED ARE THEY?