MicShazam

(starting really well with a spelling error in the thread title... *facepalm*)

2017, while only halfway over, has already proved a very important yeah for me when it comes to music. Not only have I found a LOT of good artists, but many of them squeezed their way into the favorites section of my CD shelves. It used to be that in a good year, I'd maybe find 2-5 new artists that I would consider among my favorites, but in 2017 it's been absolutely amazing. I partially give credit to a few good websites and partially to me realizing I don't give much of a **** about metal anymore, so I've started looking after different kinds of things instead.

Anyway, here's all of my current favorite artists, along with a note for all the newly discovered ones.

I feel like I'm going through a personal musical revolution. Apparently I really dig a lot of world music and singer-songwriter stuff. Even a tiny hint of jazz, perhaps.

I'd like to know where everyone else is right now, personal musical discovery wise - as well as what your all-time favorite artists are.

My favorites, alphabetically:
- 88Kasyo Junrei
[NEW]- Alsarah & the Nubatones
- Arc Iris
- Arkona
- Artizan
- Arven
- Barbra Streisand (Really only for the 'Classical Barbra' album)
-[NEW]- Bebel Gilberto
- Be'Lakor
- Bent Knee
-[NEW]- Beth Gibbons
- Bryan Ferry
-[NEW]- Camila Meza
-[NEW]- Carly Simon
-[NEW]- Carole King
- Céu
- Charlotte Martin
- Christian Mistress
- Crisis
-[NEW]- Cristina Branco
- Crystal Viper
- Depeche Mode
- Dir En Grey
- Doughnuts
- Dreaming Dead
- Esperanza Spalding
- Faith No More
- Faun Fables
- Fiona Brice
-[NEW]- Flavia Coelho
- Gorod
- Ihsahn
- Indica
- Islaja
-[NEW]- Jane Birkin
-[NEW]- Jane Siberry
- Jenny Hval
- Joan Osborne (because of the 'Relish' album)
- Joanna Newsom
-[NEW]- Joni Mitchell
-[NEW]- Judie Tzuke
- Kate Bush
-[NEW]- Kendrick Scott Oracle
- Kittie
- Kobra and the Lotus
- Kylie Minogue
- Kärtsy
- Loreena McKennitt
- Lydia Ainsworth
- M.I.A
- Madder Mortem
-[NEW]- Madredeus
- MasterCastle
- Megadeth
- Midnight Oil
- Mike Oldfield
- Nneka
- Non-Fiction
- Olga Bell
- Pharaoh
- PJ Harvey
-[NEW]- Rickie Lee Jones
- Roxy Music
- Sarah Slean
- Stam1na
- Sukekiyo
- Suzanne Veja
-[NEW]- Teresa Salgueiro
- The Agonist
- Tori Amos
- Vashti Bunyan
- Velcra
- Waltari

I can't see a real pattern in my own musical preferences yet, so finding new music is always hard. I can see I like female singers, but other than that, I feel like my list is a mess.

Trollheart

Bolded: I never ever thought I would meet another Judie fan here!
Carly and Carole rock too. And Kate, of course.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

MicShazam

I found her only like a month ago and I've already got 3 albums. 'Shoot the Moon' is a great disc. 'The Cat is Out' is an impossible album to find on CD it seems, but holy crap do I want it! The first track on that album, 'How Sweet it Is', turned me into a Judie Tzuke fan right away when I first heard it on Youtube.

Trollheart

Ah yes, I've been there from the start. Welcome to the Cruise and on. You know I once met and interviewed her? She's a whole lot shorter than you would think: really tiny. But a lovely woman. Mike Paxman was really nice too. Solid people.

I'd probably rate the albums as follows, best to worst (of what I've heard; a lot of her newer stuff, post UTA I have not yet heard but I do have)

Welcome to the Cruise
The Cat is Out (have this on vinyl)
Turning Stones
I am the Phoenix
Sportscar
Road Noise
Left Hand Talking
Wonderland
Under the Angels
Ritmo

(I haven't actually listened to Shoot the Moon: somehow I never got the album when I was collecting originally. I have it now but again, have yet to listen to it)

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

MicShazam

Cool! I am at least a little bit jelly of you having met her.

Whatever albums I've gotten so far has been dictated by what I've found cheapest on amazon.uk, so what I'm getting next will probably be a double CD with 'Sportscar' and 'I Am the Phoenix'.
I am glad you say 'Turning Stones' is good, because that one also seem like it will be easy to get on disc.
I have 'Left Hand Talking' too, but I'm not sure what I think about it yet. It's getting a bit more adult-contemporary than I'd like, but I'm not hating it. Maybe a few more listens will help me warm up to it.
You should totally give 'Shoot the Moon' a go one of these days. I think there's several really solid songs on it. Not least Heaven Can Wait and I'm Not a Loser.

Trollheart

Yeah, I know both those from the Road Noise live album. Solid songs. Turning Stones is excellent: I'd definitely rate "We'll go dreaming, Sound of my sister's tears, Don't go, Everything will come" as great tracks but the standouts are the title and the anti-whaling anthem "Modern killers." Superb. If you need me to shoot you digital copies of anything you can't get or want, let me know as I have them all.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Dylstew

I keep slacking off, but currently I am supposed to explore post-hardcore bands that still sound punk. 4000 album results on rateyourmusic for the genre, yet so little albums are what I'm looking for it is really frustrating. Luckily the forums helped me out, but I stil gotta listen. Currently I'm listening to frodus and digging it.


https://rateyourmusic.com/list/dylst...pdated-6_7_17/ describes my issue with post-hardcore. It's a love hate relationship, because some of the most awesome bands I know fall under this, yet otherwise it is dominated by things I am not interested in. **** my music taste sometimes.

Way back I was exploring entirely new genres to me ( funk, jazz and hip hop) but I got lazy and forgot about it. It takes quite a while to get myself to fall in love with unfamiliar music. After a lot of trying I really dig aesop rock now, even the electronic instrumentals, and I'm not a fan of electronic music.

MicShazam

Hopefully I'll get around to that album inside a month or so. Can't wait to hear it!

And thanks! I'm still hoping I'll be able to actually get a disc of all the studio albums, but if I have to give up on a few, I may throw you a message

I'll read that RYM link after this. I can definitely relate to the task of having to listen through a mountain of albums. I tend to go a bit by intuition though. It seems to work well for me to pick out the ones that have cool covers, interesting song titles or something else that catches my attention. If it looks like completely by-the-numbers genre fare, it probably is.

About getting into new things, my experience has been that the more you challenge yourself to broaden your horizons, the easier it becomes.

EDIT: After reading the link... I'm not sure this is the kind of thing you're looking for at all, but I think these guys are sort of cool:

Dylstew

Those guys are in the metalcore/regular hardcore vein but hey, even if it's not what I'm looking for this one actually sounds quite nice. Not sure why but it has a more fun energy compared to other metalcore, Something similar I feel with Everytime I Die. Plus I like how the vocals aren't constantly in full distortion.

Anywho, I have experienced the same thing where more effort into making good or stand out album art seems to lead to the better bands. I think the bands who put more effort into the music also put effort into album art that represents them well and catches people attention to what they've created.

With every genre looking through bands can be a slog, but with post-hardcore it's even way more so because it's a big umbrella under which I'm looking for a type of band that's a small minority. I literally need to look between 4000 rateyourmusic albums. God damn. And hearing **** you don't care for over and over makes you stop wanting to listen to music, you get burnt out. So I've decided to just occasionally do some digging​.

I know get why so many normal people never dig for gold and instead wait to get fed, it's ****ing exhausting at times.

MicShazam

Oh yeah I can believe the genre is wide. I don't even really understand what separates most flavours of post- this or core- that, so I have no doubt the stuff I linked wasn't really what you were talking about. It was just the closest association that came to me.

For the moment, I kind of outsource the digging to Ted Gioia. I found his music blog with several best-of-the-year lists, featuring all sorts of genres. I have found unbelievably much good stuff here, even though I didn't think my tastes would align with his. There's jazz, world music, singer/songwriter, classical, pop, rock, and more... He just seems to have interesting taste, so I'm just along for the ride and enjoying the hell out of it. It says in his about text that he listens to around 900 new albums in a year... I can't beat that, so I'm happy to follow his lead. When that blog runs dry for me, it's back to the coal mines!

I personally stopped digging so hard in one specific style long ago. I did it with thrash metal years ago and... it really did feel like it burnt me out on the very concept of music at times.