Dying for inspiration . . . recommend new music?

Cafe Society
41

I am 100% positive that “Sons and Daughters” will be right up your league. They’ve got the driving bass of a band that knows where it’s going and the hard hitting rock of everything good about music, combined with a hint of old scottish folk. It’s a band from Glasgow and it shows. They recently had a song featured on the show “Weeds” (Blood, from the season finale).

Check them out. You won’t regret it.

I’m partial to The Decemberists to myself. Get a nice surround system, crank it up, lay down on the floor and get ready to dig in, and I don’t mean that in a Pink Floyd meaning. Their songs, or more stories, really, have the most amazing texture and ability to completely suck you into another world.

42

I always recommend The Hype Machine for discovering music. Subscribe to the podcast and you’ll always have something that you’ve never heard before, whether it’s new or old. (Just be careful with your settings–there’s a lot more music there than any human can consume, so if you are careless and inattentive, you could accidentally fill your hard drive.)

In the grunge/metal vein, I’ll second Temple of the Dog and add Paw. Imagine a combination of Helmet and 38 Special, or Pantera and The Allman Brothers.

If you like Sons and Daughters, also try The Magic Numbers. (They’re in adjacent pigeonholes in my mind, but that may have more to do with the fact that they were given to me on the same MP3 disc than any intrinsic similarity.)

Have you tried much mash-up music? A lot of it is rock/hip-hop hybrids. The Best of Bootie collections and The Kleptones’ Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots are good starting points.

I can’t believe someone else has heard of 2 Skinnee Js. I bought their CD for three dollars, but I didn’t like it much. That’s another fun way to discover new music: go to a used record store that has a $4 or cheaper bargain bin, and buy a few CDs based on their covers. Many of them won’t be any good, but I’ve picked up some of my favorite CDs that way, and they’ll seem even cooler because they’re obscure and exclusive.

As I was composing this, songs from Temple of the Dog, Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots, and Best of Bootie 2006 all came up in my shuffle. I would have recommended them anyway, though!

43

I am going to put my asbestos shielding on and recommend a band that seems to bug a lot of musos: Jet. Their first CD, Get Born, is a perfect, perfectly derivative combination of AC/DC, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Exile-era Stones. If you are looking for the ideal pair of pre-washed jeans - new but they feel just-right broken in - look no further.

But their second CD, **Shine On ** - ah, this is just plain good. There’s a bit more pop in this one, not as much straight-up rock (but still plenty to satisfy). Incredibly good melodic hooks and consistently solid end to end. It didn’t have the single that made it onto an iPod ad like the first CD did, but a more…mature? overall CD. Very satisfying - and a perfect fit with the Likes you listed…

44

My 15-year-old-niece highly recommends **Rob Zombie.**I myself have fallen in love with **Vanessa Mae,**a violinist who has no right to be thattalented.

45

I agree with WordMan. If you like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and the White Stripes, Jet is probably for you.

46

Meh. Might as well have mentioned Lenny Kravitz.

47

Hopefully these haven’t already been mentioned in this thread.

Re: Oasis, get ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory’ and ‘Definitely Maybe’, they’re easily the best of their albums.

I just started listening to Muse a few months ago and agree, brilliant.

If you want old style hip hop (no biatches references) then try De La Soul, their ‘Best of …’ album has the, erm, best stuff on it. There’s also Arrested Development’s ‘3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In The Life Of’ (and maybe even look at the Young Disciples too).

And here’s another, but you’ve not got any music like it and may not have heard of him. He’s called Rob Costlow and he plays the piano and that’s it. No singing, dancing or other instruments, just a piano. If you can listen to ‘True Gemini’ off the album ‘Woods of Chaos’ it’ll give you a good idea if you’ll like his stuff.

Oh, hang on I forgot Kasabian, good (guitar-based) rock & roll.

48

You and I share quite a few bands in common, so I’ll just throw out a few I’ve been listening to and like–if it helps any, I infinitely prefer music I can shake my butt to than anything which is cerebral, ethereal or primarily head driven.

5 Horse Johnson(LOVE the band name!) sounds like the perfect bar band. Rocks well, sounds good. A bit gritty/ZZ Top-ish in spots.

Backyard Tire Fire is Southern style rock sort of stuff, but less twangy than most. I dunno, I just like it.

Shriekback is alternative, almost eighties techno style in spots and gets better the more I listen. I’ll listen to “Nemesis” over and over just because it’s so damned catchy.

Los Straitjackets is Hispanic style surf music. Did I mention I really like surf music? So, also The Torquays, Blue Stingrays, Psychofreud (surf? rockabilly? what the hell?) Man or Astro-Man? (double ditto to WTF?) and the Cramps (more psychobilly really.)

** Control Machete,** Hispanic rap band, featured heavily in the soundtrack of “Amores Perros.” Samples of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass occur, good stuff.

Soul Coughing. Listen to “El Oso.” If you don’t like that album don’t go further. If you do, work out on anything, and don’t miss Mike Doughty’s solo work.

Morphine, and the singer Mark Sandman solo, is my favorite band ever, all time. Dirty jazz/blues with three piece drum, two string bass & saxophone backing Sandman’s incredible voice. Earlier band Treat Her Right is about the same but with harmonica instead of sax and it’s more blues/country.

Floater is definitely hard edge rock, but I actually like their acoustic albums better–the lead singer’s voice is fabulous when he isn’t trying to Cookie Monster. Even the CM vocals (usually a complete dealbreaker for me) don’t turn me off this band.

**Cornershop **is Indian (as in subcontinent) flavored alternative rock. I like.

Early Radiohead gets a hearty thumbs up from me–I’ll listen to “National Anthem” all day long. Other dittoes previously mentioned in the thread:

Primus, Decemberists, Kings of Leon, Rob Zombie, Modest Mouse, Gorillaz, White Stripes, Beck, and a whole bunch of others…

49

Hey man, everybody needs a bosom for a pillow.

50

I usually don’t stray too far from mainstream, so I’ll not be recommending anything waaaay out there.

For funk, I listen to Commodores, Earth, Wind & Fire (naturally), Gap Band, Jamiroquai, Stevie Wonder, Tower of Power, The Jacksons, Sly & the Family Stone, and, of course, Prince. He’s a funky mo-fo. I can give you specific funky Prince songs if you like (he has a bit of a catalogue to wade through), although from what you’ve specified, it sounds like you’d like most of what Prince has done.

I’m not much of a jazz fan - it’s got to be very accessible for me, too, and I like The Cat Empire from Australia.

Some Canadian bands that sound like they’d fit your requirements would be Bedouin Soundclash, k-os (very accessible hip-hop), Philosopher Kings, Amanda Marshall, and Colin James. He’s a rock/blues/big band guy who is one of the best rock guitarists alive, who I can’t believe isn’t an international superstar yet.

General artists that you haven’t mentioned but I think you’d like would be Stevie Ray Vaughan (perfectly blended rock and blues), No Doubt, and Johnny Cash (really - I hate country, too). I recently discovered that I really do like Moby. You might like Hothouse Flowers (an Irish band). They aren’t very straight-ahead rock; they’re much softer and melodic.

My guilty pleasures (I’m not very guilty about them, though - I’ve liked Top 40 for a long time) are Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Kanye West and Diddy.

I’ll third (fourth?) The Strokes. I love 'em. Have you got the “Supernatural” album from Santana and friends yet? It might be the most perfect album ever recorded.

51

I’ll give another voice for Gorillaz. I kept listening to Demon Days over and over, and the vids for their songs ain’t bad either.

If you’re looking for some jazz, there’s an anime called Cowboy Bebop that really does some interesting things with it. Some of it is big band, which I’m usually not a huge fan of. Most (all?) of the music is composed by a woman named Yoko Kanno, who has done a wide variety of genres. See if this does anything for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6zDfxZ4NcE