Music recs?

[quarter_to_five]

Anyone have a favorite band or artist to rec?

(I feel like i've been listening to the same ten Leonard Cohen and Gaslight Anthem songs for a year. My taste in music is both eclectic and terrible (really, i'm completely tone deaf and the only thing I can sing so people even recognize it is the Internationale. And I have to accompany that with hand gestures) and it's pretty good odds I've never even heard of that really famous artist everyone has heard of. I mostly listen for the lyrics, but my idea of good lyrics stretches from Cohen and Springsteen straight through to Lady Gaga.)

Anyone? Literally anything?

Comments

[sasha_feather]

My current favs are Neko Case and Dessa, both of whom have thoughtful, poetic lyrics. Neko is alt-country and Dessa is sort of hip hop/pop.

[quarter_to_five]

Neko Case it is! and more hip hop is always welcome.

[yasaman]

If you like Gaslight Anthem, try Augustines, formerly We Are Augustines (there was some legal dispute over the name Augustines that they won apparently, hence the two different names). My favorite song of theirs is "Book of James." Also try Phosphorescent if you're into alt-country. And I always rec my favorite band The National to whoever I can, but with the caveat that they're famously a "grower" band who take some time to sink their hooks into you.

[quarter_to_five]

I like the sound of "Augustines"...

[allochthonous]

Vienna Teng for me, with subjects ranging from gay marriage (City Hall) and migration (No Gringo) via unwanted grandparental advice (Grandmother Song). She writes beautiful lyrics, and there's not an album of hers I haven't loved (although the most recent took a while to grown on me).

[quarter_to_five]

I think I tried listening to Vienna Teng as a teenager and...didn't quite make it, but it may be time for another go.

[hannah]

Neko Case! The National. Death Cab For Cutie. Thea Gilmore. July Talk. Sufjan Stevens. The Lumineers. The Divine Comedy! Great Big Sea. Cowboy Mouth. Crowded House. Andrew Bird. Buck 65. Aimee Mann. Nick Drake. Soulsavers. The Weepies.

Mostly, though, Neko Case.

[quarter_to_five]

...Neko Case, would you say? :-)

Definitely going to have some fun youtube time with the rest of these as well though...

[laurajv]

Hah, I was also going to rec Neko Case.

So I'll change tack! I have a playlist called "bastards". I call it that because it's full of musicians who, to me, have a...thing in common. I don't know what the thing is, but it's some combination of lyrics, a kind of...shade of darkness to the music, and a bunch of handwavy things.

Cohen is heavily represented on that playlist, so here are some of my other favorite artists from it:

Richard Thompson
Johnny Cash
Belly (esp the album King)
The Old 97s
Rasputina
Sugar/ Bob Mould
David Bowie
Iron & Wine
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

There are a LOT more -- it's a HUGE playlist -- soooo I'll stop there.

[quarter_to_five]

...I think I want your playlist. Bastards indeed.

[oracne]

Counting Crows. Indigo Girls. For fun lyrics, They Might Be Giants.

[quarter_to_five]

I really like They Might Be Giant's Constantinople cover...how have I never heard anything else by them?

[ceitfianna]

My current favorites at the moment are Jakob Dylan, he has two solo albums and then his work with the Wallflowers. I've used his lyrics as titles for a lot of fics because they work for me.

I happen to like country music so another favorite of mine is Mary Chapin Carpenter who's been making music for decades and so has a lot out there, also the Dixie Chicks.

A recent gift of music I got and loved was Patty Griffin, who has songs that leave me thinking and singing along.

That's all I can think of start with, I'm pretty eclectic as well and some albums that work for me are compilations or soundtracks which don't always have lyrics. I hope this helps.

[quarter_to_five]

Ooh, thanks. I quite like country music - it has a lot of...sense of place.

[ceitfianna]

It does, its my comfort music and I love the stories in the songs. Lately I've been buying cheap cd versions of artists I loved when I was younger.

Some of my favorites are Kathy Mattea, Faith Hill, Patty Loveless, Ryan Bingham, Roseanne Cash and also compilations of older music can have some great stuff in them.

[gwyn]

My playlists lately have contained a lot of: Lord Huron, Bon Iver, The Decemberists (especially The King Is Dead), the xx, MS MR, Josh Ritter, M83, Janelle Monae, and the Young Romans, with quite a few other artists splashed in. But that's a really wide music type there.