I am in the mood for som new music, but don’t really have a preference as to what kind and am feeling a little adventurous, so I present this thread, which is nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt to find new artists. That said, I don’t want this to be a “Recommend Me Music” thread, and really am interested in what the rest of you listen to, so explain in as little or as much detail you like your favorite musicians and genres of music.
Mine are
Sarah Fimm. A singer-songwriter that plays keys and sounds something like a cross between Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos. Criminally underrated. I paid $40 and drove 100+ miles to see her open for Delerium last fall, and she only played a half dozen tracks, but it was worth it and I would do it again. She also released an EP to download free this past Christmas and it was literally my favorite gift this year.
K’s Choice. A Belgian alt-rock band and one-hit wonder. The lead singer, Sarah Bettens, has a distinctively husky voice that really draws you in.
Tool. Progressive metal, and my favorite band for years. These are the guys that made me realize music is something more than background noise.
4.** Vienna Teng**. A chamber pop pianist, but she also has noticeable folk influence. She’s about to release her fourth album and one of the tracks, Grandmother Song, sounds like a ragtime spiritual chant. Her music is gorgeous without fail.
Charlotte Martin. Another pianist. She’s more singer-songwriter-y than Sarah and Vienna, but is also a little more heartfelt and earnest. She’s the only one of my top five I’ve not seen and I am very annoyed with her for not touring in support of her latest album.
Female vocalists. A woman singing automatically makes me more curious about an artist or band.
Piano or keys. As you can see above, I love keys. A ton of my favorite musicians either have them as their central focus, or at least showcase them regularly. Outside the human voice itself, this is my favorite instrument and is also a huge selling point for any new musician.
Gothic metal. I really love Lacuna Coil, Charon, Type O Negative, and on the poppier end, even Evanescence. Most of my favorite music is a little morose and the vast majority of gothic metal is outright depressing. Very cathartic.
Dark Cabaret. Related to the last, but minus the metal and with punk influence. Think Dresden Dolls or Emilie Autumn.
Industrial. The combination of the electronic influence and the heavy thumping bass really gets to me.
It’s been a long time since I bought any new music. After a while it just got to be sad to buy a CD and play it a few times and then put it on a shelf and forget about it.
YouTube has been my place of choice lately, except for listening to a local jazz station online. Even that is something I don’t do all that much these days.
Warren Zevon - I’m not sure what genre to put him in. His music runs the gamut from folk to country to hard rock - whatever turned his fancy at any given time. Perhaps his own description - “Music Noir” is the best. Hard-boiled characters, dark themes told in humorous ways, evocative imagery.
Zevon was the total package. As a musician, he was brilliant. A great piano player, he actually studied under Igor Stravinsky informally for a while. He was capable of arranging complex string pieces, and his music is always complex yet very ‘catchy’. As a songwriter, he was one of the best who ever lived. His lyrics are amazing. His vocabulary gigantic (not too many songwriters will use words like “Brucellosis” or “Naugahyde Divan” into their songs).
While there are many other artists I love and listen to regularly, most of them fall in and out of my rotation and sometimes I don’t listen to them for months or even years. But not Zevon. I never seem to tire of his songs no matter how many times I hear them, and I’ve probably heard each one hundreds of times. The Beatles are the only other group that have stayed that firmly in my radar over the decades.
There are two definitive Zevon albums: His eponymous major debut, and Excitable Boy. Listen to those, and if you like them, there are other geat Zevon albums. But if you don’t like them, you probably won’t like the rest of it. But these two albums were both considered among the best albums of the 1970’s, and should really be in every music lover’s collection, in my opinion.
I like what I can only call “generic Jewish music”.
Generic Jewish music gerenally follows strict conventions. The “lyrics” consist of a prayer or biblical verse, chosen more or less at random. The verse is devided into two or thee parts (I can’t remember what the musical term is), which are sung over and over agin. There is usually a wordless interval in the middle. Very simple, easy to sing along to. Some prime examples are the Chevra’s Yehai, Shalsheles’s Esa Enai, Lev Tahor’s Lev Tahor, and Yehuda!'s… well, take your pick from his website, I can’t search him on YouTube.