Music
Music
We'll jump to my favorite band right off the bat. I've been a Rush fan for a good sixteen years now. Truly talented musicians with a passion and intelligence rarely matched in rock music. The homepage for The National Midnight Star is one of the better music pages I've seen. A great resource for practically everything the band has done, including interviews, tour books, and assorted trivia and tributes.
Aside from Rush, I've always been interested in bands that have a different take on music and the talent to back it up.
I've been a Yes fan for quite some time as well. Sure, some of it can be nonsense, but Steve Howe's guitar and Chris Squire's bass playing make up for Jon Anderson's quasi-mystical indulgences. Other pages I've been using recently are the South Side of the Sky and Yesoteric pages
As for experimental sorts of music, I've been interested in Kraftwerk and Sonic Youth . Kraftwerk goes one way, eliminating standard instrumentation by making all the sounds synthetic. On the other hand, Sonic Youth takes standard rock instruments and creates noise like you've never heard, and often does away with standard song structures while they're at it. For similar reasons, I really like Laurie Anderson and her use of language and sound. Not quite music nor just performance art, she creates spare but rich soundscapes and tells stories to boot.
Also worth checking out are the pages for The Orb and Orbital. Both are electronic and quite striking.
Great, slightly bent pop music is too scarce these days. I've been a fan of the work of Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders since their first record. The Pet Shop Boys take the electronic angle from dance music and create some of the best pop music I've ever heard. Both The Judybats and The Pursuit of Happiness have a slightly twisted approach to romance, and play great music too. Sometimes I think Los Lobos is the most under-rated band playing these days. Until recently, the Beastie Boys had been turning out some great/rap/funk/whatever stuff. Sorry, but I feel the same way about REM and Monster, especially after Automatic for the People, probably their best album. I'm rather impressed with their new album, though.
Now for the miscellaneous stuff. I was surprised to find a Phillip Glass page out there. I really hope he does another disc of songs. When I'm feeling retro, I listen to The Cars , a band which will never have their sound duplicated. Too bad you can only hear them on classic rock radio this day and age. When' I'm feeling really nostalgic, it is time to whip out the Kiss cds. I'm still unhappy that Living Colour broke up. I've never seen a more intense concert. Amazing stuff. Great music and passion and talent. I've really like the music and guitar work that Pat Metheny puts out. Such a lyrical player and talented composer. I almost forgot to mention Suzanne Vega and They Might Be Giants.
As for "country" music, there isn't much I enjoy. I stumbled across Nanci Griffith on the Falling from Grace soundtrack a couple of years ago and have enjoyed her recent albums very much. The same goes for Steve Earle, who vaguely remember hearing years ago but really didn't listen to until a couple of years ago.
Right now, I'm really getting into the space-age bachelor pad music of Esquivel and others of the 1960s. I've always hoped I could find some zany 60s instrumental stuff, but now it is trendy and you can hardly avoid it. I guess everything comes back into style.
When it comes to singing, I can't say no to some Sade or Billie Holiday or the great Frank Sinatra .
Of course, non of this would have been possible without my main man, Elvis . Don't laugh. Listen to the old 1950s stuff. Incredible.
I have little doubt that I've left somebody/soothing out, so this page will continue to grow and expand. Check back now and then.
Finally, here's two rather old things: a list of cds I can't understand why I own, and a rather old ranking of my favorite albums.