The "Oh my god, there is so much good music out there" - thread

I know I won’t ever be able to listen to all of it. So this is about which bands/artists you plan to check out more closely and/or who really impressed you and you are looking forward to release more stuff.
On my list it are (only a small excerpt):

Leonard Cohen. I ignored this guy for way too long. Got into him when listening to his last album, it’s on par with David Bowie’s “Black Star” . I know there is a lot of great stuff waiting for me.

David Bowie. Pretty much the same as with Cohen, I never appreciated him that much during his lifetime. Of course I knew songs like “Starman”, “Heroes” or “Life on Mars” and liked them, but to me he was some strange guy which indeed he was. I think I was just too young for his greatness, I regret that I didn’t get into him earlier. “Black Star” for sure is in the Top 5 of the best albums ever released, what a way to say farewell!

Anyone. I would be surprised if anyone (haha) knows this project. It developed from the earlier band “Sylvia” which consisted of Riz Story, later “Foo Fighters” drummer Taylor Hawkins, guitarist Sean Murphy and Jon Davison, later member of “Yes”. When the lineup splintered in 1994 this led to the name “Anyone” and is almost a Riz Story solo project with changing band members. They play a mixture of psychedelia, hard rock and progressive rock and released 5 studio albums to this day. Only 52 people follow the band’s channel on YouTube which is such a shame. Hopefully there’ll be more music released in the future.

Johnny Cash. I guess not needed to write much about him, a legend. His catalogue is huge and well worth listening to it and not only his country stuff.

The Hu (yes, this, don’t confuse it with “The Who” who are another great band). A band from Mongolia that mixes traditional Mongolian music with rock, all band members studied music, so for sure they know what they are doing. The band’s name means as much as
“the humans”, they got me into hunnu rock. Only 2 albums released so far, but they kick ass, really looking forward to more.

Lou Reed. Of course I knew 'The Velvet Underground", but I never followed Lou’s solo career. What a big mistake! He was such an innovative musician and I think he really didn’t get the public appreciation he would have earnt. Very talented, very diverse, just great stuff.

Aerosmith. I finally listened to all their studio albums and don’t get the hatred their later releases got. Sure, there were 2-3 more pop oriented songs on them, which got them the commercial success they deserved, but they still composed really good rock songs. I don’t think there are any new releases to be expected by them (although it would be hilarious if they’d accompany their “Peace out”-tour with a final album. What a badass move that would be), but there is still a lot of live stuff to be listened to.

Iggy Pop. When you listen to David Bowie and Lou Reed, you sooner or later stumble over Iggy Pop (apart from him being a member of “The Stooges”).
Listened to his first 2 albums “The Idiot” and “Lust for life” by now. I expected it to be good, but I didn’t expect that level. While he doesn’t show it too often, on songs like “Tonight” or “Turn blue” Iggy really proves he can sing. You can clearly hear the influence Bowie had on Iggy, but also the influence Iggy had on Bowie in their songs, such a good thing those two guys met each other.
Very impressive that he is still performing at the age of 76 with such an energy and - for his age - in pretty good shape, half naked as always.

There is much more on my list, but for now that’s it. Now I’m curious which artists are on your list.

2 Likes

I have a bunch but I can only think of one right now.

The Velvet Underground: When I first heard the debut I really wasn’t into it and the few times I’ve tried since I also wasn’t feeling it. That said, over time I’ve found a decent amount of VU material from other albums that I love. Who Loves the Sun, Candy Says, Jesus, After Hours, White Light White Heat, Sister Ray, etc. I don’t know what it is but I never get around to getting deep into it. I really have to push myself to get into it. I’m sure I’ll love it.

2 Likes

This post is nuts, I was thinking about the same concept the other day, about how there are just SO many good artists and how we’re so lucky to live in a time where they’re all about a serendipitous search away, which makes it so hard to prioritize listening to “classics”.

Thanks to this forum I finally decided to get into Prince (the prince appreciation thread) - and it’s everything I didn’t know I needed from music. I grew up on Michael Jackson and listening to Prince gives me that child-like wonder, but with the not-so kid friendly themes that come with his gorgeous songs. What a visionary. LOVE me some prince. Working through his albums on spotify from oldest to newest to get a sense of the phenomenon.

Next one after Prince will probably be Van Halen!

Doing a deep dive into 13th Floor Elevators/Roky Erickson at the moment. I’ve only ever been a casual listener, so it’s cool to read up on them and listen more methodically to the three original Elevators releases and I’m trying to do Roky’s solo stuff. (And it’s turning me on to other Texas psych, like Doug Sahm and The Red Crayola.)

Satellites, thanks to the Album club thread.

The next band I’m due to look into is Nucleus, some British jazz fusion.

The thing about TVU is how drastically the lineup changed over time, and most people tend to agree that it was downhill after White Light/White Heat.
Loads of their best progressive discordant sound came literally from band members having different approaches and not being able to co-operate, which was just not sustainable. By the time Lou left and Doug took over, it was only The Velvet Underground by name, and no one would blame you for not including it as canon in a deep dive.

Then again, if the debut never really grabbed you then maybe you would just naturally disagree with everything I just said anyway.

My own list of ‘artists to get into’ tends to be mostly be Jazz these days. If I’m really digging something it doesn’t take long at all to process 10-15 studio albums, but that doesn’t really cut it with many great Jazz musicians. Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, and many others I have enjoyed bits of but struggled to get a bigger picture due to how much material there is, and how focused on obscure live recordings it can be.
I feel like I’m only barely grasping the whole arc of Miles Davis and I’ve been listening to him for years.

All that and The Grateful Dead of course. They only truly clicked for me in the last few months, so I’m sure there will be many years of that to come. I’ve barely even got up to anything from 1980 onwards yet.