Chandra, the pre-teen who released a post-punk record in 1980 | Hacker News Reader

Chandra, the pre-teen who released a post-punk record in 1980

dangerousminds.net

73 pointsevo_919 comments

While we're on the subject of young musical prodigies, I'd like to shine a light on the influential metal band Windir. At age 16, Terje Bakken wrote, arranged, and performed everything on the first album (with the exception of drums): Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards, and Accordion.

His second album, Arntor, also a solo work, was released 2 years later, and is considered one of the best albums ever of the genre. At age 18.

I wasn't familiar with Chandra. Just listened to a few songs. I think she sort of has a Siouxsie and the Banshees vibe. Now I want to go listen to Cities in Dust but it's too late for that today.

Also Pete Shelley just passed away, if anyone on HN cares.

Yeah I care. I saw them years ago in brisbane. Good band.

Sad to hear that. Didn't know about it.

Interesting. There's a kid on YouTube with over 5 billion (!) views on his music videos and he's been putting them out since the age of 7 https://www.youtube.com/user/MattyBRaps

She was two years behind me in college and we played together in a group. She played keyboards and never mentioned that she could sing, or anything about this album.

She was incredibly nice and very quiet. I think she transferred the next year.

Reminds me of Shuggie Otis, who used to play in his father’s band wearing a fake mustache to disguise the fact that he was only eleven. Went on to make some great music, putting out his first album when he was 17.

I listened to it and it definitely belongs on soundcloud.

Agreed, I'm a big fan of post-punk but this work is very amateur. A modern day soundcloud-esque production, where thousands of similarly talented young people post music.

It's not that hard to come up with a vanity project that mimics a style wave that just happened, especially if you are from a wealthy family. This is also a common criticism of the Beastie Boys, who were the first white rap styled act not to be ridiculed as copyists. (Vanilla ice being a failed earlier example of cultural appropriation...)

more positively the Avalanches have sampled one of chandra's tracks https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9avnqy/the-avalanches-cha...

Vanilla Ice's first album came out in 1989. The Beastie Boys released their first single in 1983.

I'm a bit baffled by this, on a few counts. First, many kids from wealthy families have tried and failed to produce great music, c.f. The Shaggs. Second, the Beastie Boys didn't get big because of money, but because they actually produced some novel stuff; their early music had great flow, despite being very rough around the edges with quite poor engineering. Third, as noted in a sibling comment to mine, Vanilla Ice came about more than 5 years after the Beastie Boys.

fair point. I wan't knocking the BB's - I bought licensed to ill' in 86 at the tail end of the golden era of rap. Vanilla ice was arguably exploiting the rap era after the fact although he was a dancer earlier in that era.

My main point was that it's not that hard to produce music emulating what has just happened stylistically, much harder to originate and innovate regardless of where you are from, rich or poor

Whoa whoa there who says the Shaggs didn't produce great music?!!!

On this one, I gotta disagree with Zappa. It's great in the same way that Captain Beefheart is; which is to say, it's amazing how much awful can be packed into such a small space. "My Pal Foot Foot" never ceases to amaze me, with the depths of fail it accomplishes. For those who have not yet had the pleasure: https://youtu.be/XR9d4ESlpHY

Are you suggesting that the Beastie Boys, the second single ever released by Def Jam records in 1984 (DJ002 in their catalog) and trailblazers in the NYC hip-hop scene, were copyists?

I was mentioning that is a common criticism of the BB's, yes

Only by people who don't know anything about the history of hip-hop, and quite frankly if they can't even learn that much of the history they have no opinion worth hearing.

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