So, recently I’ve been trying to find new music to get my teeth into. Occasionally, my search has been fruitful and I’ve discovered a load of decent new bands. It’s just nice to listen to something new from time to time, but it’s hard to find something when you don’t really know what you’re looking for. My music taste is odd, to say the least, and I generally don’t like chart toppers until they’ve officially fallen out of fashion and into history. It’s not out of any presumption of being different, or better, it’s just that I’m so out of touch with everything that goes on in the outside world that I don’t hear these tunes until they’re retro. To me though, music these days appears to be mostly just noise. What’s dance about? There’s no rhythm, no possible way that anyone could find a dance to go with it. Mostly. There are bands from most genres that I like, in all fairness.
But there has been a sort of new wave of music recently. People are taking up their acoustic guitars again, and I love the sweetness, the ring it has. It’s not just because I have an acoustic, I’ve always admired them, and it’s not that I don’t really like electrics, it’s because acoustics have character and soul. They’re more natural than those strange noises that feature in dance music, or even in some rock. I’m going through a chilled out phase, and I like it, but it’s inconvenient when I’m at parties, or in the common room, because I never know the music. I still listen to classic rock, because it’s just plain awesome, and it’s actually, in general, a lot more relaxed than modern rock, there’s a reason it’s called classic, and there’s a reason that it has survived; it’s good, great in fact. Led Zeppelin are probably my favourite classic rock band, because they’re so versatile, they had so many styles from ‘Rock n Roll’ to ’D’Yer Maker’. You can see their influences in so many areas of music, even today, especially with certain singer-songwriters. For example, Scott Matthews. He’s one of the musicians I most admire, and probably the most underrated as well.
I don’t even know whether half of the new things I’ve started listening to are general knowledge. I could be listening to the number one in the charts right now, and I wouldn’t even know. Although I doubt it, it’s usually Lady Gaga, and I’m not a huge fan. That’s another point I should make actually. She’s dominating whatever market it is that she belongs to. In some ways that’s good, getting back to the old days when bands were consistently good, and consistently topping charts, but in some ways it’s not, music is as diverse as any other media, and maybe it should be allowed to flourish in all corners. Or maybe people stopped dominating because our attention spans got smaller, we can’t focus on the same band for as long. Maybe it’s because people just download the one track they want now, instead of just buying an album. I don’t know. All I know is that music is always changing.
So, I suppose what I’m saying is; try some new tunes! You never know what you might find. Personally, I recommend the following:
Scott Matthews (Any song from Passing Stranger), Blitzen Trapper (Black River Killer), Bon Iver (Skinny Love, Flume, Re:Stacks, Blindsided), Isak Strand & the Resin Band (Josie Jo), Joseph Arthur (Could We Survive), Miike Snow (A Horse is Not a Home), Patrick Watson (Big Bird in a Small Cage), Ray LaMontagne (Sarah, Hold You in My Arms, Shelter), Thom Yorke (Harrowdown Hill), Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Y Control). That’s all I can think of for new music, but try out old bands too. Listen to songs you haven’t listened to of familiar bands. There’s bound to be something there. Also, yes it is Miike, with two ‘i’s, Snow.
Also, a tribute to my brother, bless him, the legend that he is. This is a conversation we had recently:
“MATT,” (we were shouting, as he was upstairs and I was downstairs) “LIE TO ME!”
“LOVE YOU!” I assumed that he’d misheard, thinking I’d said that I loved him. For those who don’t know, Lie to Me is a program, you should watch it, it’s one of the best things on TV.
“NO, LIE TO ME.”
“I JUST DID!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I laughed so hard, touché, Matt, touché. My mother also laughed manically. She was in the toilet, it was a little creepy, I won’t lie.
Ciao!
