Welcome to Shark’s Ultimate Music Research Corner!

Unveiling the Beauty of Challenging Music

While there’s no such thing as “the best music ever made” as plenty claim (even “prestigious” media through their ridiculous rankings), technically speaking and based on music theory, out there is definitely music which is more elaborated in its composition, arrangements, lyrics, and even the artwork escorting the music, which make the average listener harder to swallow, digest, and finally get hooked.

As I always say...

With Understanding Comes Appreciation

While this kind of music requires, most of the time, an acquired taste, which at times takes even years to develop, UNDERSTANDING what is behind this kind of music is one of the main reasons people do not find it appealing, catching, or at least give it a try. So… throughout all my social media corners (follow me to stay tuned), I attempt to unveil the secrets and beauty of elaborated, cerebral and challenging music, through in-depth, detailed yet condensed, engaging and even funny reviews & insights to help newbies, casual, and even some more experienced fans to understand, and eventually APPRECIATE this superb music bit better.

The Shark (your anonymous editor, here) is precisely that —an enthusiast of cerebral, elaborated, complex, uncompromising, and challenging music, which, unlike most people, he finds to be refined, sophisticated, and beautiful.

For those more demanding and technical, based on music theory, I love music that features dissonant sounds, counterpointing melodic lines, atonal/polytonal harmonies, odd time signatures, complex polyrhythms, and weird accent notations through the percussion, and all the bizarre and unearthly technical features in music you can imagine in its composition. Like Frank Zappa, John Zorn, Thelonious Monk, and other genius composers, I'm also a self-taught of music theory. While I'm far from their level of knowledge, I have developed a basic acumen for the technical stuff, which has helped me get into and love this kind of music more and more.

Some of the music styles I’ll review here include Avant-Garde, Prog-Rock/Art Rock, Experimental, Jazz-Rock Fusion, Guitar Virtuoso, Modern Composition, and XX Classical Music, along with many of their branches.

To give you an idea of the kind of music I like, my leading beloved artists & bands are Frank Zappa, John Zorn, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, John Surman, Anthony Braxton, Buckethead, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Orentte Coleman, Captain Beefheart, Henry Cow, Tom Waits, Anton Webern, The Legendary Pink Dots, Can, Charles Mingus, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Genesis, Jane, Béla Bartók, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Amon Düül, Jeff Beck, Van Der Graaf Generator, Igor Stravinsky, The Residents, Return to Forever, Eloy, Edgar Varèse, Thelonious Monk, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hiromi and way more, I’ll analyze here.

Most of the times, a lot is going on in this kind of music regarding its soundstage and instrumentation, so to appreciate most of the details, I always try to listen to it at the best sound quality available (digital or analog), so I consider myself not only a “melomaniac” of the kind of music presented above, but an audiophile as well. So I also share my two cents on this to help you listen to your music in the best possible way and uncover details you might not have noticed before.

Having said that and quoting my all-time hero Frank Zappa on Watermelon in Easter Hay, "...ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?" 😂

... but for those who don't, the least of my purposes here is to inflict or change your core musical preference, but to unveil the beauty of challenging gems you might never have listened to before or haven't listened to for a while, expecting as well, to expand your range of musical taste to some degree. If somehow I help you meet the latter, I’ll call it a day. Hopefully we can build together a great community at this corner of the web, while adding new adepts to this (most of the time) overlooked but superb music.

You are all welcome!

Sincerely,

Your Shark.