DarrenBarefoot.com

I’d never mock a person for their musical tastes. To each their own. I might suggest that you look beyond the easy listening genre though :)

I’ll make some suggestions, starting with artists I think are close to your musical stylings and moving to those which I’d guess are outside your comfort zone:

Erin McKeown - I love Slung-Lo by her.
Jack Johnson - not bad for a surfer.

The Shins - The album “Oh, Inverted World” is great.
The Constantines - brilliant band
Dirt Bike Annie - pop oriented with male and female lead singers
Dressy Bessy - also a catchy pop sound

Interpol - “Turn on the Bright Lights” is in my top ten albums right now.
Veruca Salt - edgy pop sound with female leads.
Pretty Girls Make Graves - “New Romance” is probably also in my top ten list.
Sparta - emotionally charged guitar rock. Some might call it screamo, but I wouldn’t.

Social Distortion - considered a punk bad, but more along the lines of The Ramones than Minor Threat.
Murder City Devils - “In Name and Blood” is a great album. Raw guitar rock.
Young Heart Attack - Kiss meets PGMG. High energy guitar rock. I listened to “Mouthful of Love” about 4 times in a row when I got it.

If you want to try any of these guys and want a somewhat reliable source for them, email me and I’ll set you up an account on my ftp server. As long as you promise not to abuse it.

[Reply]

Second the interpol suggestion. Other bands worth checking out:

Calla, who I checked out due to this rave, and I’m glad I did.

Cooper Temple Clause. Rocking.

Queens of the Stone Age, keepers of the riff. (See Kyuss)

Modest Mouse, who are indie hype kings right now, or something, but their latest album is _good_.

PJ Harvey. Whatever It is, Polly Jean has it.

Bebel Gilberto. Sexy Brazilian jazz. Smoooth. By the way, I’ve yet to go wrong with a Six Degrees release. I especially dig Ekova.

Low: best mormon band ever. Plus, they dig on Vancouver sushi, so.

With the more traditionally structured stuff out of the way, some stranger stuff that I just love:

Godspeed You Black Emperor. Beautiful music. Read a recent description of them as classical music for indie kids, which has an element of truth to it.

Do Make Say Think. Label-mates with Godspeed. Instrumental, jazzy, experimental.

Sigur Ros. Ok, they’re a bit precious, but there’s an emotional core to their music that speaks to me. Their live show here a few years ago is one of the best I’ve ever been to.

Apocalyptica. Four classically trained cellists playing Metallica sounds like a joke, but dammit it works I tell you!

[Reply]

duncan sheik. underrated songwriter.

[Reply]

Oh! And Seven Nations, of course.

[Reply]

We all interpret your spectrum subjectively, but it does give us a loose framework to base recommendations. Here’s what I’m picking up from your visio: Your space is very firmly defined. You have a penchant for introspective & classic rock, you’ll occasionally wander into alternative. You have little patience for pablum, and prefer strings to keyboards.

Some thoughts:

Mazzy Star: Sleepy, dreamy, poignant; Mazzy Star maps right in there with the Cowboy Junkies. I’m thinking that you’ll like this band.

Lou Reed: Hmm, what do you think? He’s so hit and miss, and liking one Reed album means hating another. Since you’re not into Cash, you might not like Reed either, they both share that whole “Leonard-Cohen-Singer/Songwriter” voice, that you seem to despise. On the other hand, the Velvet Underground is arguably the ancestor to some of your favorite bands. I got turned onto Lou after watching Trainspotting. I find the emotional connection that a good film (or any visual medium) can make to a musical artist is simply amazing. Tarantino is so best at that. I digress…

Beck: Requires at least some sort of commentary on your spectrum; To me, loving or hating Beck says more about your musical tastes than any other artist can.

Jimi Hendrix: See commentary on Beck above.

Sly & The Family Stone: If you ever expand into soul/funk, this is your stepping stone. (Pardon the pun)

Zero 7: Not sure if you got into the whole “Air” kick, like the rest of us in Vancouver, but Zero 7 maps nicely into that whole downbeat ambient electronic vibe. Again, not sure where this fits in, since you seem to be more of a “guitar” kind of person.

Lenny Kravitz (Pre “Circus” only): I really enjoy those first three albums, but he got it all out of his system too early. I don’t like how his sound evolved in the past decade, nothing left to say.

[Reply]

If you like Dylan, you might like Dan Bern. His first album (”Dan Bern”) is brilliant.

I’m also quite enamoured by the Waifs, the Aussie band that Becky mentioned. Their most recent album, “Up All Night”, is their strongest.

Great recommendations, btw, and that’s a lovely chart… Tufte would be proud!

[Reply]

Go get yourself James Brown’s Star Time if you don’t have it already. He defined a lot of what popular music has become. Plus you’ll shake your booty.

More recently, Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and Groove Armada’s Lovebox humanize electronica/dance music.

Craig Northey used to be with Vancouver’s the Odds, and is a very talented, skilful songwriter and performer. He spends most of his time now playing with Colin James and writing songs for people like Rosanne Cash. But his 2001 solo album Giddy Up, though short (8 tracks) is fabulous.

[Reply]

I second the Shins recommendation. I picked up their “Chutes Too Narrow” today and really dig it (had “Oh, Inverted World” for a couple of weeks now — good, too). I’ve also been enjoying Jesse Malin’s “The Heat” lately — this album is making the rounds, and while some people love it, others call it Ryan Adams Poser-style. I think it veers much more toward Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, and really like it. Finally, although it’s not a new artist for your list, try Warren Zevon’s collection “Genius,” which is a superb best-of collection and has a ton of great songs.

[Reply]

Darren did I miss it in the Visio list?? but what about Holly Cole. (How Diana Krall became bigger than Holly I’ll never know?)

OK here goes 150 CD’s, you’ve got a way to go to catch up but try some of these

Jolie Holland “Catalpa” and “Escondida” ex Be Good Tanyas and both superb.

“Heather Nova” if you like her you’ll fall in love

“Amy Rigby” witty literate feamle singer song writer

“Tarnation and Paula Fraser” spine tingling

Early “Walkabouts” from Seattle and still playing after all these years

Cindy Lee Berryhill “Quirky singer songwriter”

“Bettie Serveert” Dutch band with honey warm vocal courtesy of Carol Van Dijk

“Tracy Bonham” Underrated I think

“Sam Phillips” Check out “The Turning” and all her other stuff

“Drugstore” Amazing female vocalist Isabel Monteiro” sp?

“Fiery Furnaces” blew The Shins off the stage @ the Commodore and I like the Shins

“Juliana Hatfield” consistently strong hooky melodic pop songs

There’s more but that’ll do for a start

Enjoy
Nick

[Reply]

[...] survey was particularly resonant, given my regular public confessions of my shite taste i [...]

As far as new bands go..I like Tack a bunch

http://www.tackmusiconline.com/

[Reply]