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Ask HN: Underrated music, books, movies?

51 points by galfarragem ↗ HN
Underrated music, books, and movies that you'd like to share? This thread may be highly biased, but I'm confident that we'll find some great discoveries for a lazy Sunday.

I keep two eclectic lists of "interesting" stuff:

https://www.slowernews.com/s/underrated

https://www.slowernews.com/s/timeless

88 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 146 ms ] thread
TheAceOfHearts
One of my favorite songs is called Art of Life, by X Japan. It's a ~30 minute masterpiece. It features a long chaotic piano solo in the middle, representing the author's descent into madness.

Every album by Ayreon is amazing, but The Human Equation has always stood out as one of their best works. It's about a man that falls into a coma for 20 days and is forced to confront his personalized memories and emotions.

robviren
I have a YouTube video I always consider underated for helping the engineering minded understand being correct is only on variable in an argument with your company.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY&pp=ygUXbWl0IHByZXN...

As for an actual movie for fun I would say Pumaman riffing by the MST3K crew, but that is for a specific crowd. I'm not culture enough for this discussion.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GnRxbH5Ay4I&pp=ygUHcHVtYW1hbg%...

climb_stealth
I have never heard of the MST3K crew before. Just watched the first 13 minutes and it's hilarious! I will come back to this to finish it.

What is the specific crowd this is for?

robviren
Those that would watch old people riffing on even older films. IDK. Me and my dad used to watch them which always holds a special pla e in my heart. The creator is local to my state, Minnesota and it started as public TV which I find interesting.

Another golden one of these is space mutiny and "Why study industrial arts?"

https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=industrial+educat...

climb_stealth
Hah, right, I see what you mean. It is oddly well done for what is really just a bit of riffing on an old movie. And to be fair that Pumaman episode is as old as I am. I watched the whole thing in the past couple of days though and quite enjoyed it. Will have a look for the other ones you mention as well. And then maybe just start from the beginning.

Good stuff, thanks for mentioning it!

duduzeta
Just watched the youtube video. Absolutely magical. I was sad to hear that the lecturer died recently. Already shared with lots of friends and colleagues.
mrkeen
I was listening to Gang of Youths the other day and was surprised to see they only had 6k fans on Deezer.

I'd maybe compare them to Kings of Leon (2.2M fans) or Mumford & Sons (0.9M fans).

grujicd
Hard sci-fi books by Daniel Suarez. Former IT consultant, so tech details in books are pretty realistic. And since these are relatively recent books, tech and humanity challenges are up to date. Currently reading Daemon, a book about all-powerful A.I., nowadays seem more plausible (hopefully we're not there yet!) then in 2009 when it came out. I can also recommend two books about space travel - Delta-V and Critical Mass.
simonjgreen
He's great, like a modern Michael Crichton
aufeld
Great author. Checkout AG Riddle when you're done with Suarez. I've read Quantum Radio and the Long Winter series, which are pretty good reads as well.
tomatocracy
On the movie side, I'd suggest "Dark City", the 1998 neo-noir sci-fi film directed by Alex Proyas (more famous for The Crow). Not sure why it isn't more widely known - I think in some ways it got overshadowed by The Matrix which was released not long afterwards but I like it a lot.
2716057
The nineties brought forth some great cyberpunk. I can also recommend "Strange Days" (1995).
CalRobert
I feel like the nineties managed to combine the great optimism and worry about the future the internet (and our technological advancement in general) would bring.

I really do miss the optimism (the internet will bring the world's peoples together!), and feel like the cyber noire could help with a lot of the naivete about our surveillance state and the enormous amounts of power wielded by a few companies.

defrost
I'm a fan of Proyas first film, the uneven and weirdly chaotic Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds - the soundtrack (soundscape?) for which is sublime.

(OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWYGHqum5xE&list=OLAK5uy_lsQ... )

Speaking of music, Tabaran is a lesser known gem from that era (it's both an album and an eponymous track): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdvNFKL8h2U

Instrument wise I don't mind banjo+didgeridoo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr3iI8gg2fo

the Kora: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSD_amb-l9Q

and the occassional bit of upside down back to front guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyppTLuJm14

drunner
Likewise "Equilibrium" which also got heavily overshadowed by "The Matrix"
mikhailfranco
I do not wish to recommend Virtuosity (1995), unless your are a hardcore Matrix fan or ravenous cinephile. It does contain some influences on plot and handling of action sequences.

The fight scene in the Japanese restaurant seems directly Matrixesque. The second half of the film is unwatchable. It's often overlooked as an influence, but not underrated as a movie.

RichardCA
I just got through watching Johnny Mnemonic with my wife (she likes Keanu Reeves movies as far back as "A Walk in the Clouds").

It plays much better today, as retro-futuristic nostalgia, than it did during its run in theaters in 1995.

It triggered a discussion my wife about William Gibson and how his visions play out a lot better on the page than on the screen.

Then she mentioned, without any input from me, that it seems like all the current Metaverse hype comes from people who must have watched and read all this stuff in the 90's and wanted it to be real, but never figured out how to actually make it work.

dysoco
From the same year, another sci-fi film from Cronenberg himself: eXistenZ one of my favourite films ever
flir
Define "underrated". But I'll throw something into the pot.

Riffing off the first item on the list (Roger Miller/Waterhole #3), The Ballad of Cat Ballou (film released after Nat King Cole's death): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ghnpUNTR1I and Idle On Parade (Anthony Newley was a strong influence on David Bowie, and you can really hear it here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qbkKICmO_Q

Dunno if it's underrated (2.7m views), but while Donna Summer's I Feel Love is numinous, Venus Hum's cover with Blue Man Group is just suffused with joy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iFBXjRbVl0

Bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkRDvwsSLKY (album it's on didn't nearly get the attention it deserved, possibly because they were thought of as a novelty act)

Oh, and I did a deep dive into British cinema in the past two years, and the best little-known thing I came back with was Angels One Five (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_One_Five). There's a whole genre of British films that are obviously working out the trauma of WWII (much like America's run of Vietnam War films a couple of decades later), many forgettable, all of their time, but this one's small, quiet, and has an upper lip so stiff you could use it as a ruler. It's Brief Encounter with Spitfires. Standout performance by Jack Hawkins.

kulikalov
Jon Hopkins: https://youtu.be/sVefn-AXoZw?si=_AJMSb-vh0bMiyax

I don’t know anything about the author or his target audience, but the music he creates is the most serene and captivating thing I've ever heard.

Put on headphones, lay down, close your eyes and just dive into it.

CalRobert
He's phenomenal.

You might also like Nils Frahm.

esperent
There is only one other artist I know doing something of a similar calibre and style to Jon Hopkins and that's Max Cooper. A bit more on the pure electronic side than Hopkins.

I would say you could put Ólafur Arnalds in there as well, but he's more eclectic.

kashyapc
Yeah, Max Cooper is really nice. I just checked - I have 25 liked tracks from him on my Spotify; saw him live a couple of times too.

In terms of replay value, I seem to get more out of Hopkins than Cooper. I guess it's a bit hard with the glitchy stuff of Cooper? E.g. his track "Symmetry", despite glitches has high replay value for me due to the melodic parts. But "Molten Landscapes" - excellent as it is - I'm tired of it. Maybe I overplayed it :-)

And yes, Ólafur is excellent! Also he's fantastic live, just like Nils Frahm.

Also check out Christian Löffler. He mixes melancholy and danceability.

kashyapc
Without clicking, I guessed it would be the track "Immunity"! :-) It's an outstanding melody.

Related: if you liked it, you might like the track "Briefly" by Nils Fram. It is 27 minutes[1]. It's like a hike in the mountains. I listened to it recently when I was on a 3-hour boat ride on the fjords of Norway. It was glorious.

If you can get to see Nils live, don't miss it. He's simply superb and creates utter magic on stage.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiwpPRxVMw

kulikalov
I actually actively avoid acquiring context around this music, do you think I’m missing out on something?
kashyapc
I don't know what kind of context you mean here. The main thing that matters is: does the music resonate with you or not? The rest of the "context" is a nice-to-have.

(Also, by "this music", I'm assuming you mean this kind of electronic music and not the specific tracks I was referring to.)

jemmyw
Music: Shearwater, and probably Okkervil River too. I don't know if they are underrated, I've seen both live and there was hardly anyone there + I enjoy them a lot.

Book: The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gun_Seller not that it's a brilliant book, it's just underrated because it's funny and pretty well written for a first novel.

SubGenius
Allan Holdsworth. I wouldn't say underrated, but well, not very approachable as a first time listener. 'Secrets' is a good album to start with.
beardyw
The book I have most enjoyed reading is A Short Walk In the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby (1958). It is an autobiographical account of how he went from being a fashion salesman to climbing (without previous experience) a mountain in what is present day Afghanistan. Made me cry laughing.
thombles
Underrated by whom? :)

Movie: Baraka. It's connected to the much better-known Koyaanisqatsi and is a similar concept but IME this one was more compelling in subject matter and videography.

Music: The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown. It's a small-scale musical exploring a strained relationship through one character going forwards in time and the other backwards and I just think it's lovely.

aethr
Mentioned in another comment, but if you like Baraka, seek out the film Man With a Motion Picture Camera (or Man With a Movie Camera), it's the progenitor of both Baraka and the qatsi trilogy. There's a version with a score performed by Cinematic Orchestra that is just amazing!
throwaway743
Book - The Terminal Man, Flatland

Music - Squarepusher, Autechre

Movie - Tetsuo The Ironman, Zatoichi series, Macgruber (def the first movie, not the show)

esperent
Tetsuo is the nastiest film I've ever had the misfortune of watching. Pure gore shock horror which seemed rather pointless to me. I don't think it's underrated. I think it's massively overrated.
jstx1
Coherence (2013) is a great low-budget indie film of people in a room talking to each other.
undopamine
Seconding Coherence. One of the greatest movies I've ever watched. Primer(2004) and Triangle(2009) are often recommended with it, and rightfully so.
10729287
Was coming to mention it. It fascinated me, can't recommend enough. And indeed, it's the definition or underated.
2143
The Idea Factory by Pepper White.
tigerlily
Brazil (1985)

Ich bin dein Mensch (2021)

mihaitodor
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine was an interesting read. I was looking for a fantasy book which resembled the story of an HBO TV series I liked called Carnivale. It’s about a circus similar to Cirque du Soleil, but imbued with dark magic, which leads to some rather creepy incidents. I don’t want to spoil it too much. Here’s a link to it: https://www.amazon.com/Mechanique-Circus-Tresaulti-Genevieve...
CalRobert
It's not necessarily philosophical but Kontroll is a great movie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontroll

Books - The Lumberjacks by Donald Mackay contains a lot of phenomenal stories about and from lumberjacks in the late 19th century.

I found it while studying at the Cal Poly library and taking a break to randomly stroll through the stacks. I ended up reading the whole thing and not studying nearly enough :-).

https://books.google.nl/books/about/The_Lumberjacks.html?id=...