I’m looking for ideas for some new (released in the past few years) music to listen to. I typically listen to all manner of rock, hip hop/rap or electronica or combinations thereof so anything along those lines. I just don’t have time to sample the thousands of artists out there.
So that’s pretty much it. What CD’s are out there that I MUST listen to?
Amy Winehouse
Nexus, Cocooned, and A Perfect Dream by Sarah Fimm. She’s an independent downtempo/trip-hop artist from New York and my most favorite musician.
I don’t have two more.
I came in specifically to mention her. Back In Black is the best album I’ve heard so far this year.
Also Speak For Yourself by Imogen Heap is excellent – lovely, ethereal female vocals that would appeal to any fan of lighter electronica or trip-hop.
These are all fairly popular so you may have already listened to them, but some of my personal favorites are:
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
The most recent albums I’ve liked are
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Decemberists - Picaresque
Fountains of Wayne - Traffic & Weather
Wonderful, and I liked their most recent album, The Crane Wife, perhaps even more.
With audio links for your pleasure…
The Brothers Martin - self-titled. Jason and Ronnie Martin have been two of the most consistently strong pop songwriters for the past decade in their respective bands (Starflyer 59 and Joy Electric), but now they team up and make a record heavily informed by their long-standing influences; the Smiths, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, and so on. One of my favorite records in quite a while. That song “the harsh effects of time” is THE JAM.
Patrick Wolf - “The Magic Position” - Young UK songwriter’s strongest record to date. Heavily influenced by Bowie, with laptop electronics and his own live strings mixed in.
J Dilla - “Ruff Draft” - Also known as Jay Dee, this swan song collects stuff that he was working on at the time of his untimely death last year. One of the weirder and more interesting beatmakers of the past decade, this is a fine send-off.
Sarah Nixey - “Sing, Memory” - Formerly the headmistress of the sardonic English trio Black Box Recorder, Sarah’s gone solo and gone pop. It’s a pretty slick dance-pop record, but if you’re already a BBR fan and you love her voice, you’ll dig it. If you don’t already know/love Black Box Recorder, go pick up all of their records TODAY.
I love her voice in BBR! How dance-poppy is her solo stuff – would a fan of the snarky darkness of BBR enjoy it? I don’t even know what she looks like, but I always imagined her as very sexy in a cold, bitchy way, with knee-high riding boots and a ruler she’d happily spank you with.
EDIT: It was easy enough to just check out her Myspace, sorry.
Thanks VCO3! I loved Black Box Recorder back in the day, but had no idea what Sarah Nixey’s been up to lately.
Happy Rhodes - Many World Are Born Tonight. You can download and listen to over half the album here. If you like what you hear, you’ll like the rest of the album too (with the possible exceptions of “Roy” and “Proof”). If you like it enough to buy it, it’s available at either CD Baby or iTunes. If you like it enough to buy it, you’ll probably like just about anything else she’s done. If you like her voice but not so much the “electronicness” of that album, try the next album down on that page, The Keep. It’s mostly acoustic. Ish (there are some electric guitars here and there, but it’s a very beautiful and quiet album).
Amy’s very cool, yes, and Imogen is a goddess (partly because of her voice and music, which I’ve liked since her first album, i Megaphone, was released in 1998, partly because she’s really really nice in person, partly because she puts on a great live show, and partly because she adores Happy Rhodes). Her blog on her MySpace page is adorable and is always fun reading.
Turns out I have this on my iPod already but haven’t listened to it all that much yet. I’ll start here.