music

April 26, 2007 6:04 PM

I want to expand my familiarity with contemporary music. Where do I start? [More Inside]

I've realized recently that I am not all familiar with most of the bands/artists of the last 50 years or so. I blank when people mention a band to me because I most likely don't know it. Anyhow, I am looking for some listening recommendations.

If it helps to know, what things appeal to me, I'll list some stuff. I used to like really melancholy stuff, like Carly Simon's Coming Around Again, Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis, and some of the songs by the BareNaked Ladies and Matchbox 20. (I don't like Bob Dylan though, judging by one or two songs of his that I've heard.) Recently, I've heard some music at a café that I never thought would appeal to me but it did: groups like Neutral Milk Hotel, Dreamtheater.. I should also mention that I do like classical music a lot and listen to it often, but I am really looking for tips about popular music.

Now, I know I've dropped some names here and there, but what I know of music is still very limited and I do want to hear some new stuff and get to know new artists. Hopefully I can get some good tips here.

posted by gregb1007 to media & arts (25 comments total)

Boy, that's a diverse starting point you've got there. I'd recommend an equally diverse next-step, something like Radio Paradise or the always-excellent Paste Magazine (worth a subscription if only for the free CD in every issue).
posted by jbickers at 6:09 PM on April 26, 2007

I like Pandora. There is also LastFM (lots of Mefites there).

You might want to make your tags more descriptive so people with similar questions can find your question. As it is, even people searching for posts tagged with "music" won't find it.
posted by Methylviolet at 6:13 PM on April 26, 2007

Find a couple of online radio stations that play those artists you have identified, then listen to what else they play.
posted by fire&wings at 6:15 PM on April 26, 2007

Musicovery is a great way to explore genre's by time period and mood. Very fun thing to play with.
posted by kimdog at 6:15 PM on April 26, 2007 [2 favorites]

You'll get plenty of indie rock recommendations since you threw out Neutral Milk Hotel. I'll latch onto Dream Theater, though...

Dream Theater is progressive rock / metal. If you like their heavy riffing, try Metallica and Megadeth. Or maybe you like the complex songwriting: try other prog acts like Rush, Genesis, and Pink Floyd. Those are popular bands that influenced Dream Theater. On the off chance that you're a prog nerd and don't know it, I personally recommend The Flower Kings, Porcupine Tree, and IQ. They tend towards the melodic and poetic, which I'm guessing is more what you're after than metal.

I think progressive rock what classical composers would write if they were alive today. It's got a similar mix of beautiful music and stellar musicianship.
posted by Khalad at 6:20 PM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

According to Pitchfork (not without controversy), here are the best albums of:

the 70's
the 80's
the 90's
2004
2005
2006

Start with the top 10 of each list and start listening!
posted by PercussivePaul at 6:22 PM on April 26, 2007 [2 favorites]

Oh, and seconding Pandora. The best thing to do is to just starting listening to popular music, lots of it. Throw it at the wall and see what sticks.
posted by Khalad at 6:22 PM on April 26, 2007

PercussivePaul, that is a very helpful link... Thank you...
posted by gregb1007 at 6:29 PM on April 26, 2007

I'll third Pandora, but if the RIAA gets their way, Pandora will be shut down by the middle of May, along with most other popular internet radio sites.

If you like the piano, you may want to look into:

Jack's Mannequin
Something Corporate
Gavin Mikhail

If you need to familiarize yourself with modern music of the last 50 years, you need to listen to some Prince, some Cure, and umm..

Maybe some Dave Matthews Band?
posted by Industrial PhD at 6:35 PM on April 26, 2007

Well, since at a certain point in time Dave Matthews Band was played on the radio every other minute, I got to know them.. other than that.. The Cure, Prince.. haven't listened to them, so that might be worth a try...
posted by gregb1007 at 6:38 PM on April 26, 2007

I think progressive rock what classical composers would write if they were alive today.

But classical composers ARE alive today! There are oodles and oodles of them making amazing music -- it just doesn't sound like symphonic or chamber music of the pre-20th century common-practice period.

Anyhow, for prog rock that has that pre-20th century etc vibe, you might also try early Jethro Tull. Thick As a Brick or A Passion Play in particular. Minstrel in the Gallery is pretty good too.
posted by treepour at 6:39 PM on April 26, 2007

Khalad, the reason I liked some Dream Theater songs is because they manage to combine everything I like in music.. The atonal or complicated melody lines of classical music are there, plus there's also lyrical interludes that remind me of melancholy music. The heavy riffs lend the music a very powerful quality that kinda makes the lyrical/melodical stuff way more intense so that it sweeps you away with the music and doesn't let you tune it out. If you were to take out the lyrical/complex melody aspects of DreamTheater and leave just the metal, I wouldn't like their stuff... I do like the heavy riffs, but only as a part of a combination with the other stuff. On the other hand, if you were to get rid of the riffs, the melody lines and the lyrical interludes would be much weaker and would not leave much of an impression at all.
posted by gregb1007 at 6:52 PM on April 26, 2007

nthing Pandora. Without specific reasons as to why you like these bands you've mentioned, neither I nor anyone else can hardly give you any viable sort of list of band reccomendations, But with Pandora, you can sort of coach the engine to only play songs with the elements that you liked. Additionally, I think a free service like Pandora or Last.FM is a much better way of simply familiarizing yourself, rather than just going out and getting a buch of albums that you probably won't like but a third of, if that. If there's something you are digging , by all means start amassing a music colllection, But I think it's sort of overkill to start with but a few names.

Additinally, If you have a good independant record store around you, odds are that there's at least once guy that is a music encyclopaedia. Talk to him. He can help. (or she, naturally.)
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 7:10 PM on April 26, 2007

Based on what you've just said here, I'd say you ought to go into a record shop and listen to "OK Computer" or "Kid A" by Radiohead. Actually, go into a good, independently run record shop and tell whoever's behind the counter what you just told us. If they're any good at their job, they'll be at least as good as anyone here at recommending something - and you'll be able to listen to it there and then.
posted by bunglin jones at 7:20 PM on April 26, 2007

This is an enormous question, really- there are so many different kinds of music that have been made in the last 50 years, and Neutral Milk Hotel and Dream Theater are very dissimilar bands.

My personal experience has been that when it comes to discovering new music, nothing beats just sort of exploring. Find out what genre(s) the stuff you like fits into, and then look up information on those genres, look up other bands in that genre, and so forth. last.fm is a very good starting point for this, as is allmusic.com- I haven't really used Pandora, but it looks good.

On the Pitchfork lists, note that those are pretty genre-specific- Pitchfork reviews indie rock and stuff indie rockers tend to like. Neutral Milk Hotel does fall into that category, so I imagine you'll find stuff you like there, but probably not much that's like Dream Theater, as indie rockers don't tend to like prog metal. I'm a metalhead, but I never got into prog metal that much- nonetheless, I think I know enough about it to say that Khaled's suggestions are good ones if you want to find more stuff along those lines. Some other relatively popular prog metal bands that haven't been mentioned are Queensryche, King's X, Savatage, and Fates Warning- prog metal is a term applied to a pretty broad range of bands, but those are all fairly close to Dream Theater in their sound.

On preview- reading your description of what you like about Dream Theater, you might want to check out Nightwish, who aren't really prog metal (more power metal), but they definitely have the mix of sounds you describe. Or had it, anyway- I think the stuff they put out after their third album, Wishmaster, ranges from mediocre to absolutely awful, but that's my personal opinion. I would check out their second album, Oceanborn, first- I don't listen to them much anymore, but that album was basically the one that got me into metal.
posted by a louis wain cat at 7:27 PM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

In addition to these great suggestions, try Sirius radio.

It's 7 bucks a month, and you get online radio with (in most cases) excellent djs. Free for 3 days.

Check out the Channel Giude here.

Here's what's playing now.

And don't get discouraged. Staying up on great music is like a full time hobby. But, what's better than a new favorite song every weekend?
posted by four panels at 7:36 PM on April 26, 2007

This amazing site, Take Away Shows, was linked on MeFi a couple of weeks ago. It has videos of short live performances on the streets of Paris, by a couple dozen of up-and-coming indie bands. Arcade Fire and the Shins are probably the best known of the ones on there - the Arcade Fire one is exultant and very fun. Also try the one of the Hidden Cameras, just for starters. Lots of fun stuff to check out and see who you might like.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:37 PM on April 26, 2007

Hm, so you like everything about Dream Theater... groovy! They're my favorite band for all the reasons you gave. First thing to do is just to get everything they've done, really. Scenes From a Memory is their masterpiece, so get that album for sure. It'll blow your mind. "The Dance of Eternity" is one of the most complex songs ever written (I don't think I'm hyperbolizing...).

Unfortunately, there's not (m)any that can keep up with DT. Orphaned Land's album Mabool stands out—it's got a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian stuff mixed in, since the band members are Israeli, and it's got really good heavy and soft songs both (something DT is weak at; their ballads are usually pretty boring). They use a lot of uncommon instruments, very orchestral in a non-traditional sense.

Oh, and don't let me forget Ayreon. Ayreon is basically one guy, Arjen Lucassen, plus a ton of top grade guest musicians and vocalists. The Human Equation is Ayreon's magnum opus. It's a two disc concept album about a man who's been in an auto accident and is revisiting his life. What sets this album apart from others is that it's two hours long but there are no filler songs. Every song is good and stands on its own, and I can't say that about any other album I own, even ones I like more. Arjen has a great sense for orchestration, so there aren't any straight guitar/bass/drums songs—just like classical pieces will have melodies moving from flutes to clarinets to strings to brass, he'll quickly and smoothly shift between synthesizers, pan flute, guitar, didgeridoo, whatever. But it's not gimmicky, it's very natural sounding.
posted by Khalad at 8:47 PM on April 26, 2007

IMO, the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time is a good list for someone like you. Start going to the library and take out some of those albums.
posted by smorange at 8:54 PM on April 26, 2007

smorange, great answer.. I think that list has a wide variety of stuff... it seems to not be biased in terms of any specific style, so seems a good place to start exploring..
posted by gregb1007 at 9:02 PM on April 26, 2007

Dream Theater is progressive rock / metal. If you like their heavy riffing, try Metallica and Megadeth.

Those are decent enough suggestions, but there's oh so much more. Dream Theater basically spawned an entire field of copycat progressive metal bands. A couple of my favorites are Magellan and Pain of Salvation. An entire label (Magna Carta) sprang up to put out prog metal. (They don't do that any more, or at least they do much less of it than they did.) Magellan is on Magna Carta. I was particularly fond of a couple of other albums they put out, "Manifesto for Futurism" by Dali's Dilemma and the self-titled debut by Under the Sun. James La Brie (singer for Dream Theater) has some solo albums out that are pretty decent.

You may also like Queensryche's earlier stuff, particularly "Rage for Order" and "Operation: Mindcrime." There's a Magna Carta band called Shadow Gallery which sounds very similar.

You should also be listening to some Porcupine Tree ("Signify" is my favorite of theirs), King's X, and Spock's Beard.

Just randomly flipping through my collection, other prog-metal or metal bands you might enjoy are Age of Nemesis, Ark, Artension, As I Lay Dying, Atmosfear, Ayreon, Blind Guardian, Brainstorm, Cairo, Chroma Key (ex-Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore and friends from Fates Warning), Circus Maximus, Collapsar, Degree Absolute, Devin Townsend, Empty Tremor, Epica (more gothic/symphonic than prog, but still), Eternity X, Flametal (yes, flamenco + metal, and it's a bit cheesy but good), Frameshift, Galactic Cowboys, the Gathering, Gordian Knot, Green Carnation, HIM, Hourglass, Iced Earth, Jelly Jam (King's X/Dream Theater related), Lacrimas Profundere, Magnitude 9, Mastodon, Moonspell (from the land of MiguelCardoso!), Naamah, Nevermore, Nightwish, Opeth, Poundhound (King's X singer's solo project), Qwestion, Redemption, Royal Hunt, Symphony X, Threshold, Vanden Plas, and White Willow.

If what you like is the grandeur and the complexity of the music, then in the not-really-metal, more-regular-prog vein are Cast, Citizen Cain, Clearlight, Colorstar, Crime in Choir, Cyan, Discipline, Echolyn, Elegant Simplicity, Finneus Gauge, Fonya, Izz, Jadis, Karma Depth, Karnataka, Knight Area, the Legendary Pink Dots, Leger de Main, the Lens, Luminos, Mastermind, Omnia Opera, Platypus (another King's X/Dream Theater related project), Quarkspace, Riverside, RPWL, Silent Voices, Sylvan, the Tangent, Ten, Tiles, Timescape, Timothy Pure, Transatlantic, Vigilante, World Trade, and Xen. Also, you might like Yes's album "Drama;" it's not a lot like their others.

Why yes, I do have a lot of prog rock in my collection. Why do you ask?

PS -- Check out the Usenet newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.prog.
posted by kindall at 10:26 PM on April 26, 2007

gregb1007, RS' list is biased in favor of mainstream-ish rock music, but there are some terrific jazz, blues, country, and folk albums on that list, enough to get you started in the major genres. I'd be a bit wary of their recommendations from the last 5-10 years, though. They're spottier. FWIW, I was in your position several years ago until I bought and/or listened to almost every album on that list. It's a good way to figure out your tastes and to get some knowledge of the rock "canon."
posted by smorange at 10:44 PM on April 26, 2007

I listen to KEXP.org all day via iTunes and I am amazed with how much awesome stuff they play in all genres, from hip-hop to African to rockabilly. And it's all commercial-free and member-supported!
posted by mdonley at 11:59 PM on April 26, 2007

I find that VAST combines a lot of different styles of music. You should give them a try. I would start with the first album, Visual Audio Sensory Theater and then try Nude next.

Definitely give Pandora a try until the Copyright Royalt Board decision causes all internet radio to shut down in May.

Good luck!
posted by snatchos at 2:00 PM on April 27, 2007

snatchos (and everyone else interested), there's now a bill in the legislature that might prevent the shutdown. SaveNetRadio has links to call your representative and voice your support.
posted by EllenC at 4:34 PM on April 27, 2007