Pillar Bands (bands that form the framework around which you listen to all music)
- Sunny Day Real Estate (specifically, Every Shining Time You Arrive, off of Live. This song opened my ears)
- Tom Waits: Rain Dogs, Ghost of Saturday Night, Real Gone
- Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights, Antics
- Radiohead: OK Computer, Kid A
- The Notwist: Neon Golden
- The Getup Kids: All of it
- Sparta: Wiretap Scars
- Godspeed, You Black Emperor: Lift You Skinny Fists..., specifically the first 3 minutes of Dead Flag Blues.
- Better than Ezra: Deluxe, Friction, Baby, How Does your Garden Grow, Live at the House of Blues.
- 10,000 Maniacs / Natalie Merchant (specifically MTV Unplugged and Tigerlily)
- Guns 'n Roses: Use Your Illusion Pt 1 and 2
- Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings
- Weezer: Blue Album. That's it.
Sunny Day Real Estate's Every Shining Time You Arrive is the song that opened my ears up to a whole different genre of music my freshman year of college. I heard that song on my 6am radio show (tuesday mornings, yeah, it was Grrrrreat) and it made me realize a few things: first, music is music and despite what music labels and mainstream radio tells you, they are a business and their business is telling you what to like. You don't have to like what they tell you to like. Second, things that they don't like are sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes amazing--frankly, just like everything else on the radio (or not). Third, it made me realize that there was a shit-ton of music out there i hadn't heard. Like i said, this song opened my ears.
Tom Waits is a visionary. Disagree at risk of sounding like an idiot.
Interpol is probably my favorite or second favorite band from the last 10 years. I like dark driving beat-based songs with lyrics that makes you feel something. Refer back to Mr. Tom Waits.
Radiohead is genre defining and genre creating. They have changed the game of how people sell and market music. They have introduced and removed musical elements. And they've done so while continuing to craft beautiful, complex songs that keep me interested and challenged.
The Notwist would be my other contender in favorite band from the last 10 years. Neon Golden is a top album of a decade--maybe 2 or 3.
The Getup Kids were making pop-punk before there really was pop-punk. My sophomore year of college roommate still belts out the whiney, LAST NGIHT ON THE
Sparta is four fifths of At the Drive-In. Well... was. it is now 3/5th. Anyway. It is solid rock. It is the shining beacon of achievement of what can happen when a band "goes on hiatus" and people do their own thing... together. minus the guy who was the problem. Whatever. They're great. They're solid rock with texture and layers and a certain sonic blending that does it for me.
Godspeed, You Black Emperor is what the Polyphonic Spree were good. They compose orchestral rock anthems and they are mind blowing.
Better than Ezra is a band i have seen no less than 7 times. They were the second concert i paid to go to (Bush was the first). I would drive down to Providence and Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel and see them play there. They were fantastic. It's sad to see where they're at now.
10,000 Maniacs, slash, Natalie Merchant. Listen to the albums listed. They're beautiful sad songs played by talented artists. They are what happen when you have a magical night as a group and you then realize you can never again achieve that level. You burn out. You sink. You're done. You have to go your own way. It is sad, but it generated two fantastic albums.
Guns 'n Roses is the definition of anthem-focused stadium rock. Period.
Sumuel Barber's Adagio for Strings is the single most heartbreaking work of music i have ever heard. Sorry Jeff Buckley, you're a distant second.
Weezer. The Blue Album. It is a perfect Album (capital A). It was made by teenagers and it is full of simple songs played perfectly. I cannot think of a better single album. They did themselves a disservice (musically, but, uh, obvioulsy not financially) in making any albums after Pinkerton that were not financially irrellevant. This is easy for me to say, but, just saying, the Green album onwards have been commercially successful and soulless, uninteresting rehashes of everything they did on the Blue Album. It's like listening to rehashed war stories from a grandparent as they fade into senility; the words are there but every time you hear the story it's a little fuzzier, a little less well fleshed out, a little emptier, and every time you hear it you feel awful that your grandparent has been reduced to this.
Well that's an up-note to end on!
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