Recommend my next CD purchase

Cafe Society
1

Bad lyrics will ruin a song for me. In the last Nine Inch Nails album I bought, one of the lines included the lyrics “…down the path we have chose” and it literally made me turn the CD off on the first play-through and seriously contemplate not even listening to the rest. If an album has even ONE major, blatant violation of language rules that can’t be just attributed to artistic license, I’ll have a hard time liking it.

Simple lyrics aren’t as bad, but I much prefer mind benders that seem to mean something, but are too subtle to ever really get. I loved the lyrics of almost every A Perfect Circle song I heard, even though I’m not entirely sure that they were deep or meaningful. They were powerful, even though they didn’t have an obvious meaning.

Lyrics in general are probably the most important factor for me. I don’t like most country music simply because of the straightforward, direct, unsubtle lyrics. It’s the reason I don’t like bands like Greenday or Linkin Park, but I like Breaking Benjamin.

Also, I have almost no exposure to music made before 1990. I was old enough to listen to it, but I had no interest in it. If it wasn’t new wave pop being played on every radio in the 1980s, or featured in a major motion picture like Top Gun, I didn’t hear it. If there is an exceptional album I missed from this time, I’d love to try it out.

I like songs that display extremely competent musicianship, like Audioslave. Exceptionally competent musicians can make up for some lacking lyrics, like Dragonforce (yes, I like Dragonforce). Songs like the one George Clooney pretends to sing in “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” (I think the song is called “Man of Sorrow”) where an old genre like Bluegrass does something surprising and fresh are really exciting to me. I like music that pushes the envelope far enough to be almost unrecognizable in its genre.

Female singers usually don’t have what I’m looking for. There are exceptions, but I’m having a hard time thinking of a song sung by a female that I’d place in my top 20 favorites. I hate, hate, hate the soft and whiny nasal voice of the guy from Smashing Pumpkins, and the band that did “Wonderwall” (Oasis?).

Okay, that’s a pretty comprehensive explanation of my musical taste. Subtle lyrics are good, things that are difficult for good musicians to play are good, and “different” music that stands a bit separate from its genre (or might be too hard to actually label with a genre) is good. Based on that info, what album would you suggest I buy next? I don’t know much more about music than what comes on the radio, so if it’s an artist that hasn’t been played on your local “rock” stations recently it’s a really good bet I haven’t bought the album yet.

2

I’m sorry but I can’t really recommend any post-1990 male artists I like without whiny vocals :slight_smile:

3

I’d love to try something pre 1990, I just wanted to point out that I have almost no exposure to it.

4

Red Hot + Blue – various artists covering Cole Porter. There’s a man who could write some lyrics.

5

It sounds like you might be interested in Talking Heads and Dream Theater. Check out Fear of Music and Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.

6

You’d be surprised how many non-musical things turn up when you type “red hot + blue” into google.

7

Pre-1990, the Smiths have great music and often intriguing lyrics; their album God Save the Queen is outstanding. The band I like most with the weirdest lyrics is the Cure (though I like almost nothing they did after the mid 90s). My favorite album of theirs is Disintegration, although Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is great, too. I just don’t know if you will like Robert Smith’s singing; it doesn’t sound whiny to me but some will think it so.

8

Even reading your disclaimer, I’d assume you’ve heard Pink Floyd? They are in the Top 2 in my list of a combination of intelligent lyrics and rock chops. In case you haven’t heard anything by them except off the radio, get The Wall. Even it’s non-radio songs have more musical talent on them than most full-length albums by average bands (and it rocks hard, when it’s not doing an audio montage, or a beach boys-esque dirge, or a WWII-style march. Even its multiple solos straddle the line between classic rock and ethereal otherworldliness, even as they define the genre itself.)

The other band that’s in my Top 2 is Steely Dan. Now, they do break grammatical rules once in awhile, but since they are nearly always writing from a deliberate “point of view”*, I accept this as artistic license. Their musicianship is impeccable, too, although they aren’t as hard as most bands you mention (sort of a smooth jazz/rock fusion.)

*And unlike most bands, often takes the point of view of a different race, orientation, or gender, at least from my interpretation of the lyrics. Then again, most of their stuff is also about drugs, so maybe that can explain the lyrics too :slight_smile:

9

Heh. Try this.

ETA – or, yeah, Talking Heads. Speaking in Tongues is another good place to start.

10

Silverchair’s Young Moderm is amazing. I never cared for them until this album and I love every single song.

You can listen to the entire album for free on the main page of their website.

http://www.chairpage.com/

The third song “If you keep losing sleep” and fourth song “Reflections of a sound” are sticking out as my favorite right now.

11

The Clash, London Calling
The motherlode. Having seen a bit of the world, Strummer & Jones decided they wanted everything to be fair game, mixed up punk with ska and R&B and rockabilly and all kind of tasteful (mostly borrowed) musicianship, remembered to write the best songs of their career, remembered to universalize their political concerns into a language Americans could understand, remembered to have a sense of humor about it. A long CD (was 2 LPs) with no filler (but for the bass player’s Ringo moment, anyway).

And bongo jams a speciality.

The Replacements, Tim
Released in 1985, a progenitor of many of the 90s-era punks you may know, great lyrics (the singer is at party ruing his uncomfortable transition into adulthood – “Water all around / Never learn how to swim now”), a nice mix of loud angst plus a few ballady things, the singer has a very gravelly voice, and the musicianship is decent – there’s some fine guitar solos, although this is not a band known for their chops, but rather a band known for getting so drunk at gigs they would just play bad covers halfway through until people begged them to stop. Their previous one, Let It Be, has (in my old-ass opinion) higher highs but lower lows.

The Gourds, Heavy Ornamentals
From 2006. People think they’re a bluegrass band (it’s the mandolin, I think), but there’s plenty or rock guitar and organ amidst the accordions and whatnot, and Kevin Russell and Jimmy Smith write great hooks, and their songs off the page always read to me like a collaboration between Roger Miller and Pablo Neruda. They have a song whose first line is “Hey, your Romulan ale is flat.” It then goes into a debate over who was the best Catwoman.

12

Miles Davis. Kind of Blue. No bad lyrics there.

13

Gogol Bordello’s new album Super Taranta is very, very good - the singer, Eugene Hütz, is Ukranian and therefore sings in some pretty growly, broken English, so you may have trouble with that, but his lyrics are quite lovely in their simplicity, in my opinion. And they most certainly “display extremely competent musicianship”, and are also putting new twists on older genres of music, combining gypsy folk with punk rock and reggae sounds.

They have a bunch of songs from their new album on their MySpace page

14

If the Talking Heads sound good to you, you must try David Byrne’s *Uh-Oh * and Rei Momo. The rhythms are hot Brazilian, but the lyrics are in English, and clever, too.

15

Seconded.

Also see their albums Multi Kontra Kulti vs Irony and Voi La Intruder.

Next up: Pre 1990’s music everyone should know.

The Pogues. Fuckin’ amazing musicians, fantastic poetic lyrics. Celtic traditional/punk. Like Flogging Molly but better. (If you like The Pogues see also Flogging Molly, “Swagger”)

See
Rum, Sodamy, and the Lash
If I Should Fall From Grace with God
and
Red Roses for Me

Then…well Bob Dylan.

If you don’t know him you should.

See
Blond on Blond
and
Bring it All Back Home
And for the musicianship (because Dylan always has the BEST backing bands)
Bootleg series #7 The Rolling Thunder Review

If you dig this style of rock, see also The Band “Music from the Big Pink”

Hmmm

How about Husker Du: “Zen Arcade”. A mind blowing post punk album.
Wire “Pink Flag”. My very favorite and arguably the first post punk album.

Back to classic folk (ok the following isn’t really classic folk, but let’s get him started on the 60’s before we throw the Carter Family at him).

Joni Mitchel “Blue” I know you said you aren’t big into women singers, but if lyrics are your thing you need some Joni.

OHH Willie Nelson “Red Headed Stranger” Willie is one of the greatest songwriters of our time.

Sheesh, I feel like I am missing all the really obvious stuff.

Oh well, I will be back later if I think of more.

16

In contrast to the OP, I’ve always placed lyrics further down on my own list of musical priorities. I’ve always focused more on the voice as an instrument rather than a means of conveying stories or ideas. That said, genuinely talented lyricists do capture my attention. Some completely random recommendations:

  • As hinted at above by the recommendation of Cole Porter’s music, you can’t wrong by checking out any of the all-time masters of American song: Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hart, George & Ira Gershwin, Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn. These people wrote a stunning amount of song standards that have been covered thousands of times by hundreds of artists. This is where to start if you want to learn about great popular songwriting.

  • The Beatles: They are absolutely essential listening for anybody wanting to understand modern rock songwriting.

  • A few singer-songwriters: Get past your bias against female singers and listen to Joni Mitchell, one of the most important female songwriters of the past 3 or 4 decades. Also, try Randy Newman, who is capable of far more than his Disney soundtrack work would suggest. His music is filled with sharp observations, oddball characters and biting satire.

  • Incredibly Talented Yet Lousy Singers: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits (my all-time personal favourite). All of them are capable of great beauty.

  • Last but far from least: Neko Case, whose music just keeps getting better and better as her lyrics get more and more abstract, plus she’s got the best voice on the current country-rock music scene, period.

17

See, I knew I was forgetting stuff.

Tom Waits! Crap, where do you start?

Try Closing Time for his early normal sounding music.
Nighthawks at the Diner for some beat poetry perfomance arty stuff
Then… I think the best be is Beautiful Malidies. Its a greatest hits of his middle period stuff. Too many great albums to make a single recomendation.

IF you dig Beautiful Maladies get *Alice * and Blood Money. Move forward from there. You may not dig Beautiful Malidies though.

Also I second **Neko Case ** (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood) and would add the **New Pornographers ** (Mass Romantic) and **Destroyer ** (Rubies) to the list.

18

This music reminds me of the soundtrack to Garden State. It’s what got my wife hooked on the Shins, but I never got into it as much as she did. It’s good music, but I think I’m looking for something different.

I want something less emotionally stable. The third (i think) track in that link you gave me had some seriously whacky dichotomy at the instrumental beginning, and it was strange and crazy enough to satisfy me. The rest of it was a little too Simon and Garfunkley, if that makes sense. I want something that challenges my sensibilities and makes me feel something powerful. I want to totally lose control.

19

You want Coil.

Or maybe Chrome.

(That’s for listening to CDs. For live shows, you want Psychic TV, Acid Mothers Temple, Chrome, or the Damo Suzuki Network.)

Speaking of the Shins, you might want to see if you can track down a copy of The Standard or August by The Standard. I saw them for the first time when they opened for the Shins in a small club in Seattle (this was before the Shins made it big). The Shins did a good performance, but The Standard really impressed me.

20

My Morning Jacket and Kings of Leon are two good, but very different, examples of the emerging genre of new Midwestern and Southern rock. My Morning Jacket, from Kentucky, are very lo-fi, atmospheric, and reverb-heavy, with great melodies and soulful singing. Kings of Leon, from Tennessee, have a grittier, louder, and more aggressive sound, and their lead singer has a very distinctive voice.

Grizzly Bear is another band that sounds kind of like My Morning Jacket and has a reverby sound and folky vocals. I always assumed they were from the South or the Northwest, but they’re actually from Brooklyn. The Yellow House is a phenomenal album.