Music Suggestions

TheLawinator

I recently decided that my music collection needed a few updates as I haven't bought anything lately and I don't feel like bringing a radio around. I figure a thread where people could post their musical preferences and maybe learn about a new band they haven't tried yet would be helpful.

My personal tastes:

Metal (none of that growly stuff though)
I enjoy power metal the most usually, fast powerful uplifting stuff.

Rock
I'm not a big fan of any of that hippy stuff. I don't really know how to describe my tastes when it comes to general rock.

Techno
Always a good choice if I want to get pumped up for something, but some slower techno is good for when I go to bed.

Lounge/Big Band
More of a recent addition to my tastes, I'm starting to love all of these lounge groups and started listening to Sinatra. Makes me kind of wish I was born a lot earlier.


So if anyone has any suggestions in any of those genres, or anything else they think I might like, feel free to post it in here! Also if anyone else has any requests for suggestions, please toss those in here as well.

Elki

Moving this to H/A.

A-Rod

Metal - Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Helloween, Edguy, Gamma Ray - I think thats a good start for power metal stuff

Rock - Acdc, Bang Camaro, Kiss, Muse, Andrew W K, Gogol Bordello - pretty wide variety here not sure if they all fill the 'rock' category, but all are very good bands.

OremLK

Metal - Metallica (not St. Anger), Dream Theater, Opeth (some growling), Kamelot (good power metal), Megadeth, Indukti (instrumental awesomeness)

Rock - At the Drive-In, Thrice, A Perfect Circle, Porcupine Tree, Weezer, Coheed & Cambria

Electronic - Massive Attack, BT, Jaga Jazzist (who are not truly electronic, but incorporate some electronic stuff into their amazing, relaxing music)

If you're into big band, how about taking it one step farther and listening to some jazz: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Mahavishnu Orchestra (fusion), Chick Corea, Al Di Meola

Use http://www.rateyourmusic.com/ for which albums to get first and for more recommendations and music exploration.

NakedZergling

DREAM THEATER

TheLawinator

My brother listens to a lot of Dream Theater. I honestly do like the instrumentals but the singer pisses me off to no end, I don't even know why anymore.

Forbe!

Ghenghis Tron - Rock, Metal, Techno all in one. Newer cd 'Board Up the House' is probably your best bet.

As far as techno goes - Boards of Canada, Richard D. James (Aphex Twin), Ratatat, Hvratsky or Kid 606, Square Pusher,


Rock - Akron/Family, Lightning Bolt (Sweet rock instrumental/noise), Older Modest Mouse (Moon & Antarctica, This is a Long Drive...), Battles (instrumental rock), Death From Above 1979

Also, Magnetic Fields has a weird loungey kind of sound, and there is always Richard Cheese (Did the Disturbed cover in the new Dawn of the Dead).

TheLawinator

Richard Cheese actually kind of started me on lounge.

Tav

For the rock category, I''d have to recommend Say Anything.

Alpine

Arctic Monkeys know how to rock it out

Chance

Snake River Conspiracy

Awesome. Just awesome.

DiscGrace

The Scissor Sisters and New Pornographers are good for some electric-y rock. Try finding some stuff by the Hard Lessons for a solid garage-band sound. I also recommend Immaculate Machine, and would second Say Anything.

If you're looking for lounge-y big band stuff I'll put in my personal "two thumbs up" for Indigo Swing, too. And maybe Royal Crown Revue as well.

An-D

On the Rock/Alternative note, I highly recommend the band 'Cake.' A band that not many people seem to pay attention to for some reason. Their music style is endlessly dynamic (They've done country, techno-ish/dance beats, rock music...the list goes on) and quite honestly I'd put them on level with the Beatles and not feel bad about saying that at all.

Random Linkage for your Enjoyment


Short Skirt, Long Jacket (Cake is the only band I've heard of that made a music video that mocks itself)
The Distance
Love You Madly
Stickshifts and Safetybelts (Live) (country-feel song)
Let Me Go (Someone made a guitar hero for it, I guess?)
Cake's cover of 'I Will Survive'
Cake's cover of 'War Pigs' (don't think this is an official video, but its good - music is whats important)




*EDIT TANGENT* I second the Arctic Monkeys knowing how to rock out.

DiscGrace

Cake is awesome and anyone who doesn't love them is a terrible, terrible person.

Silvoculous

Power metal: Rhapsody of Fire (look at their slightly older stuff when they were just called Rhapsody), Manowar, Savatage.

Rock: At the Drive-In. Maybe Propellerheads.

Techno: Daft Punk and Paul Oakenfold?

Lounge: Richard Cheese.

TheLawinator

I need more lounge! How about some swing?

An-D

I would classify a lot of Reel Big Fish as having that lounge-music feel.


For your enjoyment:
Reel Big Fish's Cover of 'Hungry Like The Wolf' (one of my personal favorites)
Good Thing (Definitely one of their more rockish songs, but still have some lounge elements. Especially the brass. I love the brass.)
Sell Out
Take On Me
Reel Big Fish's cover of 'Another Day In Paradise' (Only found this gem recently. I approve.)

Flying Couch

Power Metal: DragonForce. How am I the first to suggest?

Rock: The Datsuns, The Strokes, The White Stripes, AC/DC, Buckcherry

TheLawinator

Lots of band that I either forgot about, or never heard of in here. Thanks so far!

KVW

Dropkick Murphys is one of my favourites. Irish, punk, metal, grunge or some other crazy hybrid of genres you can think of. If you have Guitar Hero 3, you can download a free 3 pack of their songs. Although, they aren't what I'd call their best, they're still a good indicator of whether youd like it or not.

DiscGrace

Django Reinhardt, Benny Goodman Stray Cats, Bobby Darin, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Cherry Poppin Daddies are my other swing-ish recommendations, in that order. Especially Django, because swing guitar = teh awesome.

NakedZergling

Flying Couch wrote: »

Power Metal: DragonForce. How am I the first to suggest?

Rock: The Datsuns, The Strokes, The White Stripes, AC/DC, Buckcherry

wow i know music is like religion to people and it shouldn't be talked about like politics and religion, because people take it personally and want to defend it. Proof being that i know it's up to opinion but aside from dragon force you just named a powerhouse of bands that fall into my personal "they suck huge balls" list. If i hear that "sorry" song one more time i think i'll scream.

TheLawinator

How about some funk?

Treeloot

TheLawinator wrote: »

How about some funk?

Get Curtis Mayfield's album Superfly.

jotate

Your tastes sound almost identical to mine. Might as well just list off my favorites.

It's been said by a few people, but Dream Theater is great stuff. If you hate the singer (James Labrie), the other members have a separate project that's basically Dream Theater without vocals called Liquid Tension Experiment. LTE has two albums out, both are great.

The Mars Volta is pretty great if you can deal with the fact that they get wayyy too progressive on some of the earlier albums. I highly recommend the newest album "The Bedlam In Goliath" though. They did away with all the "4 minutes of a bird chirping before the song starts" crap that they'd done on the previous albums. It's pretty solid all around.

Check out Avenged Sevenfold's newest album, self titled "Avenged Sevenfold", and the one before it called "City of Evil". Very awesome on that edge of popular rock and metal.

It's a little niche but definitely check out Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys to see if you like that style. In my experience with Celtic rock, people either hate it or absolutely love it.

I haven't been into techno on a band/artist level, mostly just random songs. Go find Happy Hardcore's "Tetris Techno." It's fantastic.

Big band stylings, you can't go wrong with anything from the Rat Pack. And there's an ass ton of stuff out there.

Most of my funk exposure has been George Clinton. He's got a ton of stuff out there. And if you can avoid all the stuff that actually got radio play, Prince was pretty funky every now and then. "Sexy Motherfucker" is a good example.

And one last one, since I've mentioned everything that's in the CD player in my car except this one: Franz Ferdinand. Pretty solidly alternative, but I love 'em. You might too.

Seydlitz

Check out "Blue Eyes Meets Bed Stuy", a Sinatra / Notorious BIG mashup. It's classic.

Narian

Blind Guardian, Demons and Wizards, Angra, Dionysus, Dragonland, Firewind, Gamma Ray, Kamelot, Iron Savior, PowerWolf, Sonata Arctica, and I guess Savage Circus and Persuader would be some suggestions for Metal.

Forbe!

Flying Couch wrote: »

Power Metal: DragonForce. How am I the first to suggest?

Because art is subjective and not everyone likes the music you do.


Also:

Mr. Bungle for interesting experimental rock whatever there heck it is.

OremLK

Ah, yeah, Mr. Bungle is good, mainly California.

y2jake215

i wholeheartedly second mr. bungle, battles, and death from above 1979


killswitch engage is good if you like metal that isnt growling (with new singer)
and if you appreciate good metal, if you can try to get past the growling, listen to meshuggah incredible musicianship

MC Mystery

Theres only one band that matters:

THE AQUABATS!


http://www.theaquabats.com

http://www.myspace.com/theaquabats

FASHION ZOMBIES!
SUPER RAD!
POOL PART!

They are one part super hero, one part rock n' roll, and 3 parts TOTALLY AWESOME! So that makes them have FIVE PARTS RAD AS HECK!

SlickShughes

In the same sort of vein as Richard Cheese, Paul Anka of all people put out an album of swing styled covers of rock songs. They aren't as vulgar as Cheese's, but they're still worth a listen if you enjoy the style more than just the comedy.

It's called Rock Swings, I'll post a link when wikipedia gets off its lazy ass and starts working again.

EDIT: Linkage. To be clear, he's a serious musician, just did the one album like this. It's clever though.

OremLK

y2jake215 wrote: »

and if you appreciate good metal, if you can try to get past the growling, listen to meshuggah incredible musicianship

Shuggy is the heaviest metal band in existence (yes, I've listened to a crapload of many different subgenres of death metal).

But he wouldn't like them if he doesn't like growling.

thanimations

A band that has connections to Dream Theater (but you might like the singers' voices better) is King's X. They're hard rocking, melodic, and damn good musicians that don't mess around too much with prog. I'd suggest starting with their earlier albums (Dogman, Gretchen Goes To Nebraska, et cetera) as the later ones are bit harder to get into if you don't like them.

And if you do end up liking them, you're just in time for they're new album coming out May.

Flying Couch

Forbe! wrote: »

Flying Couch wrote: »

Power Metal: DragonForce. How am I the first to suggest?

Because art is subjective and not everyone likes the music you do.

Touche, though I don't listen to them.

Other suggestions:

King Crimson: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yUF5ePCaW8c

T-Rex: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5oGcfwKN5jY

OremLK

thanimations wrote: »

A band that has connections to Dream Theater (but you might like the singers' voices better) is King's X. They're hard rocking, melodic, and damn good musicians that don't mess around too much with prog. I'd suggest starting with their earlier albums (Dogman, Gretchen Goes To Nebraska, et cetera) as the later ones are bit harder to get into if you don't like them.

And if you do end up liking them, you're just in time for they're new album coming out May.

King's X has connections to Dream Theater, in the sense that the two bands know each other and have toured together, but I'm not sure it should be implied that they're very much alike musically... they're both good, but quite different.

For an insanely technical prog metal band (even moreso than Dream Theater) you might check out Spiral Architect. It's not for everyone, but if you like that sort of thing, you might enjoy it.

A couple of other good rock bands that jumped to mind are dredg and Freak Kitchen.

Also, speaking of connections to Dream Theater, check out OSI. They kind of split the difference between prog metal and art rock, and they are very good.

thanimations

OremLK wrote: »

thanimations wrote: »

A band that has connections to Dream Theater (but you might like the singers' voices better) is King's X. They're hard rocking, melodic, and damn good musicians that don't mess around too much with prog. I'd suggest starting with their earlier albums (Dogman, Gretchen Goes To Nebraska, et cetera) as the later ones are bit harder to get into if you don't like them.

And if you do end up liking them, you're just in time for they're new album coming out May.

King's X has connections to Dream Theater, in the sense that the two bands know each other and have toured together, but I'm not sure it should be implied that they're very much alike musically... they're both good, but quite different.

For an insanely technical prog metal band (even moreso than Dream Theater) you might check out Spiral Architect. It's not for everyone, but if you like that sort of thing, you might enjoy it.

A couple of other good rock bands that jumped to mind are dredg and Freak Kitchen.

Also, speaking of connections to Dream Theater, check out OSI. They kind of split the difference between prog metal and art rock, and they are very good.

King's X's guitarist, Ty Tabor, had a side project called Platypus with two of the guys from Dream Theater, but yeah they don't sound alike at all. The OP's main objection, it seemed, against Dream Theater was the singer, so I figured I'd point a band that is friends with them and have different (and ridiculously good) singers. Also, King's X is one of my favorites if not all time favorite, so I can't help but recommend them.

In other words, Dream Theater =/ King's X, but the fan bases overlap.

An-D

SlickShughes wrote:

In the same sort of vein as Richard Cheese, Paul Anka of all people put out an album of swing styled covers of rock songs. They aren't as vulgar as Cheese's, but they're still worth a listen if you enjoy the style more than just the comedy.

I looked him up, I approve. I really like this kind of music. Nice find.

RedDawn

Euphoria - Precious Time

I just started listening to them, heard them in a local record shop and was hooked. Kinda rock/blues meets electronic. They have some sample tracks on their site.

secretexhibition

Most of these have already been mentioned, but i'd reccomend:

Metal - Evergrey, Kamelot, Dragonforce, Vanishing Point (not their latest album though), Devin Townsend (Ocean Machine?)

Rock - Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, Muse, The Mars Volta, Anathema (A Fine Day To Exit)

OremLK

Ah, another Porcupine Tree/Steve Wilson fan. Good man.

I agree about TMV, they're very good. Devin Townsend is a good recommendation too although his music swims with so many layers of sound that I actually start feeling seasick listening to it.