Listen to an album you've never heard by an artist you never listen to and then tell us about it!

what could be simpler? bonus points if you have NEVER listened to the artist or even heard them or heard them much. or if its a genre you almost entirely avoid. lots of people only know some things because of the radio or other "in the wild" experiences.

i'm actually putting my cart before my dumb horse because i haven't decided on an album. no bigs if i'm the only one who does it. i'm pretty good at amusing myself. but i am always interested in hearing what people think of new things. to them. first impressions. i already like that tom petty listening thread a bunch but most on there are pretty familiar with the music already.

i'm thinking i might try taylor swift. never listened to an album. i've never listened to a beyonce album! the possibilities are endless. or i could really hit my discomfort zone and try a smashing pumpkins album....*shiver*.

if i do taylor should i do nu-1989 or olde-1989 or do i have to do both? decisions....

anyway, if you are bored, try something and then jot down some thoughts. you don't have to write a book. you could go modern classical!

think of all the country records you have never heard. pretty much all of them!

i'll report back when i have something.

Sure, tell me what to listen to. I bought albums based on your recommendations, Scott! Was it you who told me to get A Salty Dog? that Procol Harum album. I bought Lansing-Dreiden but I didn’t like them and sold them. I love A Salty Dog tho.

I’ve never listened to Linda Ronstadt. Or A Tribe Called Quest. Or much country music at all aside from Willie and Dolly.

just close your eyes and pick one! the world is your unheard oyster. i'm still trying to decide myself.

i don't know if i want to go bad or what. i mean i'd probably enjoy a t-swift album just fine based on the the hits i know. she's super-catchy. though its possible that it ends up being a harrowing journey filled with haters and men who stab her and shoot her and stuff. okay you can probably guess which four songs i know...

Scott, listen to No Borders Here, The Speckless Sky and then The Walking all by Jane Siberry

Tell me what prog I should listen to. I only know Canterbury stuff like Charles Hayward This Heat Family Fodder. I have never listened to Yes or Genesis or any of that. I know Queen and Rush obv.

FGTI -- I'd be really curious what you get out of Jethro Tull album.

Yes - Close to the Edge
Genesis - Foxtrot
Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Van der Graaf Generator - H To He Who Am The Only One
King Crimson - Red

Gentle Giant's Power and the Glory I think is a good place to start, think you may find it more interesting than 10-20 minute tracks by Yes or Genesis

As a starter anyway. Cue rival posters denigrating my picks

xpost lol

I am listening to Fly by Night by Rush

I have never knowingly heard Rush

nah Matt those are good picks, kind of the same that got me into prog. that's definitely the VdGG album you wanna start with, Genesis it's either that or SEBTP, as for Yes...for me it was Fragile which is a lot more digestible, but CTTE *is* like the greatest prog album ever, so it can't be wrong

for me I'd like to hear some stuff that would sound cool in DJ sets, preferably something kind of exotic and available on vinyl

I know and like VdGG. I like Red and Discipline but not a tonne of other KC. I will listen to those vanguard other prog albums! I’ve never listened to any of them.

I am obsessed with Mark Leckey’s sets on NTS. I have been listening to one a week and then investigating all this new music I’d never heard of. Everyone should listen to Mark Leckey’s sets on NTS. He is amazing

"I have never knowingly heard Rush"

awesome! okay, i think i have a good one. its indie rock which isn't out of my comfort zone but i have only briefly scanned this album in the past and never listened to it and its indie-famous.

i did kinda mean to put "well-known" in the thread title but i forgot. i feel like it should at least be something that fans of a genre are well aware of. don't want to be too obscure. but people can do whatever they want.

I'd be willing to bet you've definitely heard Rush before, the thing with them though is it's generally the instrumental bits that are famous so it's harder to place them. they get sampled a ton (including by Saint Etienne) - once I started actually listening to their albums there was a lot of "oh, it's *that* song"

Fgti, if you've never listened to the debut King Crimson record, that one is definitely worth knowing.

I've never listened to a Pavement album. Or a Fleetwood Mac album (though I at least know a few songs from them). Probably have never listened to a complete Rolling Stones album, though I definitely have heard a ton of singles.

fgti, in my opinion King Crimson is the best of the best prog - they had a few distinct phases: early 70s psychedelia, mid-70s hard rock, early 80s new wave, and then a sort of mishmash of these going forward:

Red is really really good, and a great starting point. If you're not into 'Fallen Angel' or 'Starless' then I wouldn't proceed further really.

For the earlier phase, you could do worse than listen to either of their first two albums: In The Court Of The Crimson King (the canonical fave) or In The Wake Of Poseidon (my fave, but not disimilar to the former). I rather like the jazz-inflected Lizard album too.

For the eighties stuff (that sounds not too disimilar from Talking Heads' expanded work, especially since Adrian Belew is the singer), maybe start with Discipline or listen to the live album Absent Lovers which gives the material a nice bit of metallic grit!

Jordan: I love most Pavement and I like all their albums for different reasons, but I'd say give Crooked Rain Crooked Rain a go; it's all killer no filler

So my thoughts on Rush are:

Well, I guess I assumed they'd be a bit widdly, a bit overstuffed, but this is sorta punk by comparison to most "prog" (if I'm going to compare it to prog). I seem to recognise a lot of the riffs, but as far as I know Rush aren't a big going concern in the UK. I'm gonna listen to 2112 now

2112 title track suite is all-time.

Rush, especially early on, has way more hard rock (Cream, Zep, Who) than most other prog bands.

god foxtrot is theeee greatest

Haha no I know some King Crimson. I know Court and the second one. I know Red and Discipline and weirdly Thrak. I like Belew as a singer. I haven’t listened to Aspic or Perfect Pair or Islands or whatever. Maybe I should. I’m not an immense fan.

I am a big Art Bears/Slapp Happy fan. But I never got into Henry Cow. Listened to Unrest once and didn’t like it. The album, not the band; I love the band Unrest.

Some of my favourite music is “the stuff they did in the late 70s, before they became famous and popular”. Scritti Polliti early recordings. Cabaret Voltaire. But still lots of gaps in that realm. I need to listen to more Coil and more TG-related stuff beyond the famous albums.

I’ve realized that romantic new wave or whatever you call it isn’t for me. Tears For Fears and that other band, “The King Of Rock n Roll”. Prefab Sprout. No thanks

I am, at some point over the next couple of days, going to listen to this:

https://www.discogs.com/release/1142199-Asha-Bhosle-The-Best-Of-Asha-Bhosle-The-Golden-Voice-Of-Bollywood

Which is a random comp Discogs threw up. Seems all the tracks are on Youtube so I'll hear them that way. I have never knowingly listened to any Bollywood playback music, other than what I've heard in the background of things or in clips, so I'll start here!

Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

And so I hear The Ballad of April Ludgate in its entirety for the first time. I definitely remember the first song and I think that’s about how far I got long ago on Youtube. It sounds vaguely Modest Mouse to me. I don’t hate it! It’s approachable. Tuneful. I just assumed it would immediately start up with the barnyard lo-fi racket. The “I love you Jesus Christ” part next is kinda lame. Jesus after Spaceman 3 or Jesus shooting heroin in indie rock feels too cutesy dumb and I blame the Velvet Underground. I’m still expecting campfire singing saws and I do get high school trumpet. The dude is no worse than any other non-singer indie dude. The yelling is too yell-y for me though. For the record, I do agree that it is strange to be anything at all. I think that’s what he says. It feels like the song “Two-headed Boy” probably influenced generations of people that I don’t listen to. Is that what The Decemberists sound like? I can envision a sad crusty pit bull having to hear that song on a street corner somewhere for eternity. Poor pup. Then we get dreary marching band. I knew it would show up. The dude’s conversational voice is pleasant. But then in comes the shouting. In general, the guitar + voice on this album works best for me. Like a cracked Irish folk singer. Or a Scot like Dick Gaughan. (I’d rather listen to Dick Gaughan…) With indie-people it can often feel like mock-gravity though. You really have to sell that theater of suburban cruelty. The first song on side two feels like the centerpiece of the album. The most accomplished/successful alt folk-rock. In my opinion. It is blessedly horn-free for most of its length. I really want to blame this guy for punk-folk. They do take you somewhere on this album. It isn’t really where I personally want to go but I can see young people being swept away by it. It makes sense. The production sounds like mush except for the vocals. I guess I expected singalongs! My apologies. I guess I can’t blame this band for the future inane campfire indie to come. It really is one person’s voice. These are my first impressions of an album that I first heard less than an hour ago.

"SpaceMEN 3"

I also found myself thinking: "How rich is Mac from Superchunk...?""

I am going to listen to a whole Pavement album for this thread. I have only ever heard the Pavement song that Beavis & Butt-Head made fun of, but they are emblematic of so much that I hate about "indie" "rock" that if I find myself liking what I hear, I may be forced to reconsider my entire existence.

i love pavement so much. its weird almost how much i like pavement. those guitars are to die for.

pavement records sound good no matter how you listen to them. streaming. tape. LP. doesn't matter. i don't know how they did it. just the most ruling guitar sounds. they broke up and then never did it again kinda.

but if the voice bugs you there is nothing to be done about that. kinda like rush! right, fcc!?

but also, listen to Terror Twilight.

Hmm… that’s not the Pavement album I would advise anyone to start with!

Also they unfortunately messed up the S&E mix on the expanded reissue (IMO), I would advise against listening to that version…

(I mean it doesn’t ruin the album or anything, but you want that thin wild mercury trebel-kicker sound, not some weird bass boost)

Terror Twilight has some jammage with heft and i thought that might make an appropriate gateway drug for some skronky metalhead like unperson. but lord knows with him. he can be an enigma of sorts when it comes to likes/dislikes.

Haha no I know some King Crimson. I know Court and the second one. I know Red and Discipline and weirdly Thrak. I like Belew as a singer. I haven’t listened to Aspic or Perfect Pair or Islands or whatever. Maybe I should. I’m not an immense fan.

In the Court, Red, and Discipline are the main ones IMO - once you've heard those three I think you get most of what the band has to offer. I like Larks' Tongues a lot, IMO it's their most interesting record, though it's not as metal as Red (except for certain sections which are incredibly metal). I dig Lizard too but it's not exactly a record I like recommending to people. Three of a Perfect Pair has some excellent pop songs on Side 1 but they're kinda like Belew solo material.

Personally when it comes to prog I like to recommend Gentle Giant and Van der Graaf Generator. GG I think is a good starting point because they appeal to people's inner band geek and their songs are generally short. They're not trying to summon demons or invoke fantasy landscapes they're just trying to put wonky melodies together in odd ways. VdGG on the other hand are pretty dark and theatrical and in Hammill they've got a true rockstar persona which the other bands don't really have. At prog night (which coincidentally I am DJing tonight) that's the band that gets the uninitiated to pay attention, for better or worse.

Pavement are two bands to me. Westing and S&E, then the latter albums. I like both modes. There’s something smarmy about SM’s songwriting voice that keeps me from loving them, but I like them, I like him.

It’s funny, when I was young (20? 21?) I recorded with my friend James. He had IAAOTS and Moon Pix out, on CD. He talked to me about how much he loved both albums. I borrowed them both and listened to them on the same day. Moon Pix became a landmark album for me, I always want drums and guitar to sound like that. One time I recorded with Shahzad, he brought Jim White’s snare with him, I was so excited. NMH left little impression in comparison, good band good album tho. It felt in retrospect like a moment of choice, “choose NMH or choose Cat Power to define your young brain” and I chose Cat Power.

gentle giant are so awesome. van der graaf i would think might be a challenge or a chore depending on someone's tolerance for a LOT of words. so many words. but they were awesome.

depends which track you play - I find "Arrow" and "La Rossa" get a lot of "what the fuck was that" reactions, which I think is what you want

i love Nektar. both early and late. i would recommend them to anyone. they rocked so hard. i'm a big Barclay James Harvest fan - and a big fan of that pastoral/rural Harvest prog stuff - but for some reason i never push them on people. they might be underwhelming if you aren't into them. but also a band i like early and late. i feel like people see them as an afterthought. 3rd tier. whatever. but they could be so beautiful.

I'm listening to Slanted & Enchanted because it's the shortest Pavement album. I don't hate the vocals. They don't make me feel anything at all. Fucking Lou Reed. He and his enablers in the rock press (and at the three major labels that subsidized his lame ass for 40 years) convinced multiple generations of white dudes that if they couldn't sing they could just recite their lyrics and it would be fine. It's not fine. My biggest fear with this record, honestly, was that the drumming would be as limp and dead as 99% of "indie" "rock," but this guy actually seems to be awake and aware that he's playing a song and that it should have energy and dynamics. The songs are unmemorable, but at least they're alive while they're happening, which is more than I can say for Radiohead post-2001, to pick one example.

Aw man that’s not fair. I listened to In Rainbows again after years away from it, literally yesterday, and it’s even better than I remember. I get what you mean about Lou Reed though. I think with Malkmus it’s more about The Fall. “Two States” he’s even doing the MES thing

"I like Belew as a singer."

my tolerance is pretty low. and he makes things into his own image and it doesn't sit right with me. too bad fred frith didn't join KC. or derek bailey! hahaha!

i know for a lot of people S&E is the best but i think they got way better as they went from album to album. i love that last album. i like them all though.

omg the thought of Bailey and Fripp working together

i love Nektar. both early and late. i would recommend them to anyone

curious what the good late-period Nektar albums are. I've gone up to Recycled.

my tolerance is pretty low. and he makes things into his own image and it doesn't sit right with me. too bad fred frith didn't join KC. or derek bailey! hahaha!

I get what you're saying but on the other hand he's kind of the only guy who could've made it work, both in that he could keep up with Fripp and also write songs which you kinda needed by the 80s. I don't think Frith or Bailey could've done that. the downside is 80s KC sounds absolutely nothing like they used to, outside of maybe parts of Side 2 of ToaPP. Yes and Genesis at least retained *some* aspects of their prior sound.

someone listen to a City Boy album. i love them. the poor man's 10cc.

What's wrong with reciting lyrics, Lou Reed (or MES) style? Anyway, who taught all those metal dudes who can't sing that it's "fine" to tunelessly bark or growl lyrics? It's not fine! (lol)

if they couldn't sing they could just recite their lyrics and it would be fine

we're talking about pavement? melodies are kind of their thing.

It's not fair to drugs to blame them for Grateful Dead

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Sunday, 31 March 2024 20:18 bookmarkflaglink

lol I thought the same

I'd never heard the Grateful Dead anywhere before although I knew someone who liked them at uni, but he was also the only British person I've ever met who liked Phish, tbf he was quite into drugs. he did play me some Phish once which I did not enjoy although no memory of what it actually sounded like. I listened to a double CD best of once and I did like a few songs on it but not that many out of 2 CDs worth so never bothered to follow up on them

i like the grateful dead! here is their first trip to England!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H-CW12fBNA

I'll just keep playing this new Playboi Carti/Camila Cabello track over and over again. Gives a lot more than it asks. Alphonse Pierre called it "some good ol’ fashioned expensive nonsense" and that sounds about right.

― mr.raffles, Friday, March 29, 2024 8:03 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

mr raffles listen to whole lotta red challenge

Been listening to Carti since Magnolia.
WLR was good, as was Die Lit. I kinda never really get the album I'm hoping for from him though. Which is fine.

Thanks for pointing me to this Carti/Cabello new song.

Ahh... enjoy!

El Guincho has really made a lot of nice records at this point. Maybe there should be a thread or something?

there is!

oh nice!

Wild. It's all super old stuff, predating the work w/ Rosalia.
Ok. I'll stop hijacking the thread now.

I’ve been sampling some Django Reinhardt / Stephane Grapelli tunes. Never listened to them before. They cook. What’s the place to start? (I think this fits the thread though any album by them is likely to be an after the fact comp)

All of Reinhard's recordings are from the pre-album era (he died in 1953), and there are a fucking ton of them, so try The Essential Django Reinhardt as an entry point. It's a two-CD set that should cover all the bases.

^hey thanks 2 discs is perfect

yep that one is great

i owe this thread for helping me get over my jane siberry fear. i'm listening to her last album Ulysses' Purse from 2016 and its lovely! not typical. dreamy. in some ways she reminds me of a lost Mcgarrigle sister. my favorite Mcgarrigle Sisters album is Matapedia and i can only imagine that Jane Siberry is a fan of it as well. i like the meandering qualities of these songs. not stream-of-consciousness exactly but conversational while still poetic. she isn't all about rhyme which i appreciate. i think i'm going to go backwards and listen to her Three Queens Trilogy next. Three albums from 2008/2009/2011.

Ulysses' Purse was revamped and re-released as an album called Angels Bend Closer which I only heard last year. My main complaint was that she hires a small army of musicians who she somehow manages to make vanish behind walls of synth pads. I didn't think much of the "conversational" lyrics either.
I would recommend her debut though that might strike some listeners as standard 1981 art-folk.

the walking will change your life scott. or it won't!

someone should listen to one of those 70s Dory Previn records on here. talk about unloved art pop. i can't give those records away and they're cool!

okay i don't know if i can handle the trilogy. its a lot and a lot of spoken word so i am skipping those and the xian song cycle and the xmas stuff and going all the way back to the album Teenager from 1996 which so far seems about right for me.

I thought I would maybe do Astral Weeks for this, since I've never listened to a Van Morrison album and it has Richard Davis and Connie Kay on it. But I bailed halfway into the first song, just wasn't feeling the vibe (despite the great bass playing) but will take a shot some other time.

I have tried and failed with Astral Weeks on a number of occasions now.

yeah you have to sink into it. its a beauty if you are in the right frame of mind.

Moondance is the (mega-normie, I know) Van album I was into as a youth... I never go into any of his others.

i can get not being into his voice though. and it hits you straight out the gate on the title track. i honestly believe - and i know i'm gonna sound like a big chill guy here - that that album is a...work of art. in the same way that What's Going On is a work of art. like, as much as any painting or poem is a work of art. and he was, what, 22 or 23 when he made Astral Weeks? that's insane to me. I could barely get out of bed when I was 22.

Wow, Van Morrison is, and always has been, an insufferable douchebag, but Astral Weeks is, to me, an unquestionable classic. Very interesting.

Honestly I'd never really heard them. They're not so much of a UK thing so they were hardly turning up on the radio. Anyway this was completely tedious, I was skipping through to the next track by side 2. People who haven't heard The Band think they sound like this, and are pleasantly surprised to find they don't. This is why I always avoided drugs. Maybe it's not a good album to start with? Therefore I moved on to...

Aoxomoxoa
Not much better, this band is not for me I now realise. Too much dum-diddle-dum-dum-diddle-dum-dum. And the 8-minute droney vocal thing would have worked better in the hands of Yoko Ono. No doubt I should be listening to Dick's Pick's Vol. 137 or whatever instead, but you know what I think I'll pass.

― continue without dissembling (Matt #2), Sunday, March 31, 2024 12:28 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

If I were going to try to get someone to Give The Dead A Chance with an album, I'd probably give them either American Beauty, Europe 72 (live comp but official album), or maybe Blues for Allah. Or maybe Wake of the Flood. But I get it. I hated the Dead for years and I'm still pretty hot and cold on them.

American Beauty is precisely the one that was "completely tedious" though!

I'm so glad you're digging the Siberry, scott. Debut through Maria is basically unimpeachable, lots of moments of brilliance on subsequent releases.

El Guincho also did a lot of the production work on the imo excellent Sampha album from last year

xp wrong, iirc the post referred to Workingman's Dead, which to be fair is the weaker of the two

i agree that dory previn is due for a critical overhaul. she's as clever lyrically as nilsson or zevon. coldwater canyon is a slam jam.

I've never heard her!

Since live Dead seems a better bet I will possibly flick through Europe 72 (not listening to all 2 hours of it) and report back. Don't expect anything much different though!

I could not get into those Previn records at all, but I definitely know fans

One of Andre Previn's . . . five wives lol

xxp Matt just jam "Truckin" from Europe '72, I played it just the other day and it's really an ur-Dead template imho, if it doesn't work for you then they are prob not for you

American Beauty is precisely the one that was "completely tedious" though!

― The Prime of the Ancient Minister (Tom D.), Thursday, April 4, 2024 3:28 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

no, workingman's

Morning Dew from '72 - I feel like that would move anyone

(xp) Ah, you're right, my mistake.

I have never listened to Grayfolded, despite knowing about it forever, should I?

"I'm so glad you're digging the Siberry, scott"

we put on a vinyl copy of Bound By The Beauty in the store today and it sounded awesome. "Everything Reminds Me Of My Dog"!

i've given up on trying to get people to like the Dead. it will either happen or it won't. i totally get people being turned off though. they can sound lethargic to people in a way that just screams boredom. but if you hear one of those great songs like "stella blue" in the right mood...they can be so lovely to hear. they can sound very unexciting to people who first hear them. its weird. they can not hit you and then...something changes. it happens to diehard haters. my pal ilxor tarfumes is one example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKsWDyvWaL4

xxp OMG YES

Grayfolded rules, all Oswald rules

https://i0.wp.com/collector.schothans.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_001-10.jpg?fit=680%2C302&ssl=1

xp I mean I'm a big fan of Plunderphonics, I revisit it pretty frequently, and regularly see the dude around town and with CCMC etc. etc. etc. I feel like I've done the guy a disservice by not listening to it

it's one of his finest works imo, lol local connections noted, I thought abt that after I posted

Xpost I listened to the first disc of the essential Django Reinhardt. Lovely music. The guitar and violin are of course technically masterful, inventive and fun. But it kinda washed over me like it was upbeat ambient. I had hard time hearing them as individual tunes and recalling the melody lines. It is not really a complaint though. I enjoyed the music and will keep listening.

they always pick the same stuff for the reinhardt compilations, I should do a selection with some of the more off-piste stuff for you

i thought about maybe doing this with drake and five seconds later thought: yeah, i'm not listening to a drake album.

Yesterday I got three albums (bought two, downloaded a third from someplace else) by the Leaders, a jazz group from the late 80s with Lester Bowie on trumpet, Arthur Blythe on alto sax, Chico Freeman on tenor sax, Kirk Lightsey on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, and Famoudou Don Moye on drums. I listened to the third album, Unforeseen Blessings, first, and it's great. Much more straightahead than you'd expect from that lineup, though there are some short, somewhat avant-ish interludes (solo pieces by Lightsey and Moye, and a Blythe/Moye duo) punctuating the compositions. Good stuff.

currently spinning The Everly Brothers' Roots LP, it's... OK? I was expecting more overt psych moves.

I quite like some Weather Report but I've studiously avoided solo Jaco for reasons (mostly fretless bass related). Well, I listened to (most of) *Word of Mouth* and it's bonkers. It has an insane line-up (Herbie, Shorter, DeJohnette, Toots Thielemans etc) but I wasn't expecting third-stream big band fusion.

First track is kind of ugly and has lots of Jaco wibble. Track two made me think of Gil Evans in places, which is never a bad thing. It's the closing track that I liked the most. I'm not mad on the soprano sax, but Shorter is fire here. There are lots of steel drums and some quality handclaps towards the end.

I can see why Jim O'Rourke loves it: there are passages that big Jim nods to on Bad Timing and Eureka.

I love his s/t album