Umm no offense taken although Hot water music is the only emo band I listed. Jets to brazil are more like rock, dillinger four is punk and luna is mellow velvet underground inspired rock.
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Shellac
Burning Airlines
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great choices and you might as well add in the VERY closely related groups Big Black and Jawbox. Also J Robbins of both jawbox and burning airlines recorded Jets to Brazil’s cd’s. And in related news Jawbreaker is an oldie but goodie to try out.
I’m noticing this horrible trend as well. However, saying “today’s music sucks” is a gross generalization. Some of my favorite bands, such as the Offspring and the Suicide Machines, are very original and very talented, but some have started to “sell out”. They’ve become trendy. The Offspring and the Suicide Machines retain most of their emotion in their music, but you can tell that their newer albums differ greatly from albums several years ago.
Also, I’ve noticed that a lot of the really good bands never get albums out. My friend’s band tried to get a CD released, but every record label they asked essentially said “try to be more mainstream”. Well, mainstream sucks, IMHO.
I’ve listened to older music, and I agree: Bands like Social Distortion, Operation Ivy, and Nirvana didn’t care about trying to be popular; they became popular because it wasn’t mainstream.
This subject has been dear to my heart for the last few days as I search for a decent radio station in LA. I like alternative and indie stuff, but I also like more mainstream stuff. Unfortunately, all the stations I’ve found that play some of the mainstream go so far as to play Backstreet Boys/Britney Spears-type crap.
Anybody have any suggestions?
I miss “Toronto’s Best Music Mix, Mix 99.9”!
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Suo Na:
Does your username mean what I think it means, and if so, shouldn’t it be Cuo Na?
Pretty cool.
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Yup, Pezpunk, that CD lives in my car and contributes to driving maneuvers that would make my insurance agent blanch.
Take my name off of the lease
You can even keep the name
It never suited me
And King Medicine… man, what an album.
And Gadgetgirl… I owe you one. Powderfinger is great.
Also try these fun new flavors:
Kingsbury Manx
Magnetic Fields
Idaho
Lilac Time
Chappaquiddick Skyline
The Ladybug Transistor
Bluetile Lounge
Godspeed You Black Emperor!
And I also love the Elephant Six folks.
Who the hell needs radio?
OK, Mr. Nugget, here’s some more good stuff:
punk/post-punk (old school)
Husker Du
Gang Of Four
The Minutemen
Buzzcocks
The Replacements
X
The Feelies
newer guitar rock:
Yo La Tengo
Sleater-Kinney and their various side projects (Quasi, Cadallaca, etc.)
Heavenly
The Orange Peels
Superchunk
The Get Up Kids
Drop Nineteens
and I’ll second Luna
pop/wimp stuff:
Cinerama
Belle & Sebastian
The Aislers Set
Go Sailor!
The Divine Comedy
The Lucksmiths
The Ladybug Transistor
The Aluminum Group
For hip hop I’d go with Handsome Boy Modeling School
And fair warning: any time you deal with indie music you’re gonna hear from snobs who’ll overrate mediocre groups. My picks for this category:
The Magnetic Fields
Modest Mouse
Neither of which is horrible, but not as great as the hype would lead you to believe.
Have fun at the record store.
Oops, MrVisible, I didn’t read your post before I wrote in. Please ignore my remark about The Magnetic Fields.
I wouldn’t have written it that way if I’d seen your post. But hey, we agree on Ladybug Transistor.
No offense taken; I like maybe five of their songs. But now I charge you to go out and listen to Wheat. Seriously. Now. Then let me know what you think.
Can you tell they’re my Current Favorite Unknown Band?
And Yo La Tengo, Belle and Sebastian, and Superchunk are ones we have in common too.
I didn’t know we were doing wimp/pop. Let me add…
Damon and Naomi
The Softies
Edith Frost
Pernice Brothers
Pedro The Lion
Josh Rouse
Rufus Wainwright
Low
Trembling Blue Stars
Field Mice
Ida
It’s a great time to be alive. And wimpy and poppy.
And, in case you don’t know…
Spinanes
Really. Find them, listen to them, love them. Or, to be more precise, her. Great stuff.
Rufus Wainwright is excellent. I would definetly recommend him.
Also in the wimpy/poppy category:
Sarah Harmer’s “You Were Here” and Gord Downie’s (Front man for The Tragically Hip) “Coke Machine Glow”. Two very good albums, albiet a bit laid back.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll try downloa- er, buying, some of their stuff tonight.
And it is indeed a good time to be wimpy and poppy. Long live the underground!
I second what blur said, the liner notes are the best way to find new bands. Look to those who you respect. And I tend to buy compilation albums with a band or two that I like.
and black 455, no offense taken, that’s the great thing about this kinda music, everyone can like what they want, no worries. And yeah, fugazi’s great, saw 'em at ISU in Normal, Ill a few years back. Did you ever hear the Pailhead stuff? pretty fun.
tired tired TIRED of Nirvana getting mentioned in the same sentence as the Beatles. Nirvana were really cool, but they were only groundbreaking in the general world of pop music (in that they got played on the radio), not the more specific world of rock music (which they also occupied). Their music was not unique, and their lyrics SUCKED. Don’t get me wrong, I liked them a lot. But they were not the second coming and Kurt Cobain was not a savior.
Now cut it out.
Wrong wrong WRONG!!!
When Nirvana finally broke into the mainstream,the music scene was comprised of hair metal,dance music and easy listening/pop.
Nirvana blew open the doors for alternative music and brought punk back in the spotlight in a way it hadn’t been since it first emerged in the mid seventies.
And for the lyrics…I think of them as freeform poetry but I guess unless things rhyme some people just don’t get it.
Nirvana fan since 1990 when she heard the song “Love Buzz.”
hardygrrl
The key to music happiness (at least in my case) is to never listen to top 40 stations. I also love making my own mix cds. Think you could stand this play list?
Matthew Good Band- Hello Time bomb
Brenden Benson- Emma J
Death Ray- Now that I am blind
Big Pun and Incubus- Still not a playa
Biff Naked- Lucky
Supergrass- Moving
Ammie Mann- Save Me
K’s Choice- Everything for free
Hippos - Wasting my life
Sublime- Date Rape
Dada- Bob the drummer
Goldfinger- Here in your bedroom
Jump Little Children- Catherdrals
G Love- Rodeo Clowns
Angie Aparo- Space ship
Cold- Just got Wicked
Self- Cannon
Sprits of the West- Bone of Contention
PJ Harvey- C’mon Billy
Phantom Planet- So I Fall Again
God Lives Under Water- Mouth
Beth Orton- Stolen Car
Kent- If You Were Here
Cat Power- Cross Bones Style
Oleander- Are You There?
Zebra Head- Get Back
Catatonia - Mulder and Scully
Long Pigs - On and On
Taproot- I
Powerfinger- My Happiness
Tantric- Breakdown
Radish- Drink Me Away
There’s a lot of good music, you just have to look for it. I miss Nirvana too, but I got over it.
Blah. Nirvana did not blow open any doors. They were chosen and signed and promoted. There were a million better bands out there, they got lucky, and I bet you anything they would be the first to admit it.
The “alternative” moniker is totally meaningless, epecially when you consider that most mainstream “alternative” bands these days are more influenced by the pop music they listened to growing up than any kind of alternative scene. Which is fine, but call a spade a spade. Nirvana was not such a band, but the record industry’s lack of loyalty to really alternative music is betrayed by the swill they play on the radio these days.
Like I said. I love Nirvana. You REALLY live Nirvana. Great. But they are not this musical savior everyone makes them out to be. Bleach was by far their best album. “Love Buzz” was not their song, though.
I know…check the I Can Stump You thread in MPSIMS.
I just have to add a few bands to the list of “definitely check out these!”
Stone Roses
Soul Coughing
The Eels
Del Amitri
Smoking Popes
Cruel Sea
Letters to Cleo
Sparklehorse
Jump Little Children
Owsley
Paul Weller
Supergrass
Spacehog
Jude
Imogen Heap
ooh, ooh, I just thought of another thing you can d. If you can, try to make it to SXSW in Austin sometime. It is so unreal. A great way to have a holiday and see TONS of up and coming bands.
And I thought of another band. If you can get your hands on the CD “Unit” by Regurgitator, snap it up, it is one of the best CDs ever. Oh, and a band called You Am I have a great sound too.
According to “The Trouser Press Guide To '90s Rock”: “‘Love Buzz’ … is a cover of a silly obscurity by Holland’s Shocking Blue–probably the only group ever touched by the hand of Nirvana to get no career boost from it.”
“Trouser Press” also says “‘Nevermind’ turned the '90s–for better and much worse–into the ‘alternative’ decade … That Nirvana–in fact, ‘Nevermind’–was a one-off explains why so much of what floated in with the subsequent backwash is so bad; that’s what floodgates are for in the first place.”