Posted on 01/07/2014 7:02:12 AM PST by Notary Sojac
This thread had its genesis in this one -
Millenial's Music Taste (vanity). Whats wrong with your generation?
- where a few of us made the case for really good music being made in the 21st century by artists who aren't retreads from the boomer era or earlier. It's a mission of mine to try to get my fellow boomers to break that fixation with the "oldies station" and listen to some new stuff.
I plan to make the case for a few artists here, and hope that more Freepers will chime in.
Please do so!! Give us a little info about the contemporary artists you like, with an album or track recommendation.
My tastes run to bluegrass, blues, swing, and what's now called "Americana", but any genre is welcome here. Except techno. Post any dance/techno recommends and you'll earn the Sojac raspberry!
To kick off:
Eleni Mandell is, like many of my favorite artists, not easily slotted into a genre. She has done country, pop, straight ahead rock, and classic '40s style lounge singing. But in every style her hooks are memorable and her lyrics witty.
Recommended album to start with: Miracle of Five, tracks "Moonglow, Lamp Low" and "Somebody Else".
Chatham County Line is a bluegrass outfit out of North Carolina. Straight up, tight bluegrass harmonies with a minimum of twang.
Recommended album to start with: Speed of the Whippoorwill, title track and "Coming Home".
Dave Alvin was, with his brother Phil, a founding member of The Blasters, the greatest roots rock group you've never heard of. Although his career with that group goes back to the eighties, most of his good solo material is post-2000. Dave perfectly rides the boundary between garage rock and country, a real sweet spot for me.
Recommended album to start with: Blackjack David, tracks "Abilene" and "New Highway".
An excellent point. I did the same along with a number of my friends and listened to a lot of new wave, punk, the Clash ( a favorite ), the pogues and so on.
Having had an interest in American history I started looking for music that would have been heard during certain time periods I was studying.
So, I've listened to a lot of great early music including a ton of jazz, big band, motown and so on.
Trying to find music that would have been listened to by our founding fathers was not easy. I was looking for something they might have heard themselves rather than music from the time period. Have had very little luck finding music from the period of WWI but did find some great stuff from the Roaring Twenties and even the Great Depression.
I do a lot of digital restoration of photographs and try to play music from the time period of whatever I am working on. Listening to Glenn Miller and his contemporaries while restoring an old photo of an LST or a B-17 is a lot fun.
I had thought about trying to find a small collection of German music from WWII as I thought it would be fascinating. I've only heard snippets and of course its pretty nationalistic but I would be interested in hearing what they listened to at the time.
I think doing so gives us a better idea of any time period.
- and while still on subject, thanks to Pandora, I have discovered I really like the Spanish guitar. Would not have ever guessed that but thought I'd give it s try. Its pretty darned nice.
I second the Tame Impala recommendation, especially their album Innerspeaker. That is some brilliant, or near brilliant, stuff.
I also like some of the songs on the latest Queens of the Stone Age album.
The Gorillaz album Plastic Beach has some super catchy and in some cases beautiful pop songs. They are also brilliantly produced.
Sneaker Pimps had a great album that seems to have gone totally under the radar back in 2002 called Blood Sport. The singer’s sense of melody is unusual and very cool (which is something I like about Tame Impala too, btw).
Doyle Bramhall III had an album around that same time or maybe a little earlier that is squarely in the classic rock vein but is actually on par with some of the better stuff from the ‘60s and ‘70s. I’m blanking on the title but it has a song called “Green Light Girl” (not the best song on the album, only one I can remember).
Anything early and mid period Radio Head is pure genius. Of course, that’s been a while now.
I’ve actually been having more success going backwards in time to find good music. I think we truly are in the doldrums right now. I don’t think it’s just the standard intergenerational complaining to come to that conclusion this time.
I don't know. Maybe we're just running out of good ideas and talented people.
Don’t forget Teddy Thompson, guys!
And the Deep Dark Woods, New Country Rehab, Carrie Rodriguez, Catherine Mclellan, Dustin Welch, Imelda May, Pokey LaFarge, Aaron Embry, Amy LaVere, the incredible Brooke Annibale,Brown Bird, Danielle Miraglia, Grant-Lee Phillips, Danielle DeCosmo, Ida Jo, Julia Nunes, Neoga Blacksmith, Martin England, Sahara Smith, Sol Ruiz, Sons of Fathers, the Bus Driver Tour, the Farewell Drifters, the Flanks, the Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, Wayward Vessel, Will West & the Friendly Strangers, Yes Ma’am.
Yes, ma’am, all found on that newfangled thang called the Internet, where I found them. (I’ll need a bigger hard drive to store all the great contemporary music I’m downloading. Unfortunately, I don’t have any so-called classic rock on it to delete and make space, never cared for the pretentious art progressive rock.)
You call it a rut. I call it a GROOVE!
Here’s Sahara Smith, better than most of that 70s ‘classic rock’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16cCkDmZRRQ
Got that right! They can keep that new junk.
Agreed. Anything beyond that just makes me want to lit my wrists. Both of 'em. Pablo Honey is just flawless IMO.
Queens OFTSA does the intro to Anthony Bourdain's new show on CNN. (yeh, I know but Bourdain is a guilty pleasure of mine. Snark, sarcasm, food and travel--) It's really good but I guess it's not a whole song just that little blurb.
Some people wouldn't know good classic rock if it jumped up and bit them on the butt.
I remember commenting to an old gal at church about the drums they added at worship, “...but I guess the kids like it.” She said it has always been that way. “My parents couldn’t stand the music I listened to. I liked Big band, they thought anything with a horn in it was the work of the devil!”
RUSH came out with their Clockwork Angels album a couple years ago, and toured with a small string section. They have changed over the years in their music, so I can still enjoy “modern-classic rock”. (Although I guess most RUSH songs would not be considered classic rock!)
Headlong Flight is a pretty good one off the album with a bit more of the hard rock edge to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcFGrWjOX0E
Why don't you just name those "some people" and "good classic rock" instead of posting empty assertions. Oh, and when listing "good classic rock" support it by referencing known, reliable and objective rock critics.
Nope tons of good ideas and talented people. You’ve just lost the will to explore, and you blame everybody but yourself. Basically you’re just counting the days until you die, doing the same thing over and over and over. You’ve got all the classic signs, insisting everything new sucks, being a curmudgeon to anybody that suggest otherwise, fleeing from new knowledge. Might as well crawl in your casket because you’re already dead. I was raised to see the world as a place for constant exploration, there’s always something new and exciting out there. My grandmother started watching college basketball in her late 60s, all her life she’d hated sports, made fun of them, complained when they pre-empted her favorite shows. Then one day she said “people get a lot of fun from sports, maybe I’m missing something”, started watching, found there were plenty she didn’t like but grew to love college basketball.
I picked up some beer I’ve never had today, variety packs are great for that, probably won’t like at least 1 of the 5 new (to me at least) flavors, but I’m sure to like at least 1, and who knows 1 could be so great it replaces Fat Tire as my favorite. The only way to find that new favorite is to try new stuff, life is for exploring, why waste your finite laps on the same thing over and over.
I think you know who those “someone people” are.
One of the great joys of trying new stuff all the time is rediscovering old stuff. A couple years ago I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I heard Beggars Banquet, put it on and was blown away all over again.
"It’s a shame how some decide to age ugly."--YOU, post 140
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3109216/posts?page=140#140
Yeah, but most of them are old now and no longer performing.
Speaking of The Who, there are some real early gems that only the most die-hard Who fans would know.
Of course everyone’s heard Tommy, Who’s Next and Quadrophenia a zillion times, but “The Who Sell Out” with the extra tracks is just amazing classic power pop. Who knew a song about deodorant (Odorono) could be so catchy?
I think you know who those “some people” are.
(fixed typo in my earlier)
Are you really that out of it that you need me to provide you PROOF that good classic rock exists?
I like Bourdain’s show but I can’t say the intro does much for me. Here are some tracks from their newish album Like Clockwork:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjYZToXuJaM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kzKfwwDFRc
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