TOP TEN TOPIC: BANDS, MUSIC GROUPS, ARTISTS

I could not possibly name ten but my one of my favourites would definitely be wierd Al. The rolling stones aint that bad either.

You should split up Bands, Groups (string quartets or jazz bands), composers, and songwriters so that you have a month's worth of good top-10 topics and not just one week. Seriously man.

So I'll just list my favorite bands and hope that like composers come next week or something. This might be tough because I always follow songwriters more diligently than bands but:

10. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - I think of these guys as a band rather than Tom Petty as a songwriter (I think the label views them this way too and that Tom Petty albums are not the same as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers albums). Anyway, it's pretty unremarkable music but it's so catchy that I can't deny it isn't some of the best music ever.

9. Beatles - I think we all know why the Beatles are an important band. Some people think they are overrated but I have never met anyone who does not like them at least a little bit (unless of course you discuss people who haven't really heard their music).

8. The Doors - I think the Jim Morrison is sort of an elevated, god-like and stupidly overblown fake tragic hero and that really pisses me off. People claim that he never wanted to be a famous musician? Yeah right. He could have always stopped touring, you know. Anyway, the Doors are a brilliant group with incredibly well-written music. The keyboard parts are seriously awesome. I think it's odd that people always talk about Pink Floyd when discussing keyboards in rock music, because in my opinion the Doors had a much more clever and probably more impactful use of them. Also, the Doors didn't have a bassist which is awesome.

7. Death Cab for Cutie - Millions of middle school girls agree that Death Cab for Cutie is the best band in the world. I love these guys so much. Their latest album from a year or two ago is pretty awful but they have a solid discography behind them.

6. Coldplay - Another band like Death Cab that actually gets worse with every album. However, they started out incredibly strong, and their downhill decline has been very slight, so they keep putting out awesome music. Their strong jazz influences which were what set them apart continue to be stripped from their music as they get more popular but man they're still pretty awesome.

5. The Flaming Lips - Another group frequently written off as a novelty band. However, their songwriting is astonishingly good. Also, they have the best stage show I've ever seen. Unlike the previous two bands, the Lips started out pretty terrible (like 30 years ago!) and continue to get better and better as they get more popular. I particularly like their newest album.

4. Muse - These guys are basically a crappier and more goth version of Radiohead but that's fine by me! They really only have brilliant album (Absolution), but it's such a good album that I continue to have faith that maybe they'll do something just as awesome again someday. Absolution is probably my favorite rock album ever written.

3. The Strokes - It's weird to hear the strain between intentionally bad audio production, country riffs, punk rock power chords, and a sort of garage-rock mentality, but it all comes together beautifully. I don't think The Strokes get enough attention as being good at really academic music (like Radiohead or Coheed and Cambria do) because their music is subtle and minimalistic rather than in-your-face-million-riffs-per-second, but I guess that's fine by me. The next time you listen to The Strokes, try to pay attention to how the rhythm guitar and the lead guitar lines weave in and out. It's as delicate as choral music -- this is music written by people who know good music. Every Strokes album is better than the last and I can't wait to see what their next album will be like.

2. Styx - They are probably my personal favorite band. Ridiculous in exactly all of the very best ways. Their music is the kind of music that makes you feel nostalgic about things that have bever happened even the first time you hear it. Dennis DeYoung has the most awesome and most annoying singing voice I've ever heard. However, I will be the first to admit that a full 2/3 of Styx's music is completely 100% unlistenable. I recommend that you stick with their Greatest Hits releases and their singles because their albums can get prety bad. Trivia: When Styx broke up once and for all somewhere around 1990, the rest of the band sued the frontmand, Dennis DeYoung, for the rights to the music (they all hate him and want him to die). This is ridiculous becase DeYoung wrote all but a tiny handful of songs and especially wrote all of their huge hits and the band might as well have been called Dennis DeYoung and the Styx. However, since his lawyers were not as slimy as the other band members', he lost, and now does not own the rights to the music that he wrote. The other band members continue to tour under the name Styx and earn all money off of royalty sales, while Dennis DeYoung, who wrote all the music, has to tour with a cover band and explain to the audience that he wrote the music but that he cannot claim to have been a part of Styx.

1. Radiohead - Regardless of what you think of the band, history will look back at Radiohead as the defining rock group of the beginning of the 21st century. Their influence on what happens not only artistically in the world of music but also their influence on the business of music is enormous. Not only that, but they are probably the very best rock band in the world.

The categories needn't be mutually exclusive. One could classify them multiple times. I tend to think, for instance, that Leonard Cohen (who is both a singer and songwriter) is a great songwriter but an awful singer. So I'd put him in one list but not the other.

author=kentona link=topic=833.msg11096#msg11096 date=1206636724
I can do a songwriters Top 10, because that is something distinctly different. Same with composers. I'm not splitting up Groups, Artists, Singers and Bands because they are essentially the same thing.

Well I think you disagreeing in terms of language because I didn't write very clearly and we still agree actually.

Anyway the difference between a group and a band is that a group writes and performs their own music, while a group is something like a string quartet or big band or orchestra that plays existing music and probably doesn't write anything new.

Next week's topic: Top Ten Conductors (train or orchestra)

I'll just do a top 5, although there's actually 6! There seems to be a tie at 5th.

5) Ennio Morricone - I consider this dude the best thing to ever happen to movie soundtracks, he did the soundtrack to all Leone films, including The Good The Bad and the Ugly!

5) Radiohead - Ok Computer is certainly one of my favorite albums of all time.

4) Jeff Buckley - Best vocalist ever? Maybe. Check out the song Lover you should have come over.

3) Iron And Wine - This dude is getting better all the time... His latest album is among the best I've ever heard. He has a very unique style! Also one hell of a songwriter.

2) Elliott Smith - I tend to stay away from his earlier stuff, but Figure 8 is beautiful!

1) The Beatles - Not much I can say that hasn't been said, other than that Revolver is my absolute favorite album.

author=BlindMind link=topic=833.msg11118#msg11118 date=1206655426
I am afraid to post a list because I will be made fun of. :-[

Dude I put up Styx.

10 .Ghost Mice- It's cheesy, but I love it. Freedom. Being poor, being different, disliking how the world works, refusing to take park in bullshit, but... being free. Good folk/punk. I'm especially liking the Andrew Jackson Jihad split nowadays.

9. The Broadways- Not the Lawrence Arms, the previous band, the Broadways. Broken Star has lyrics that are amazing in their imperfections. Early 20 fuckers learning about the bullshit in the world, about how they are the problem and their drinking sucks and how the city they live in sucks. Reading the amazing books for the first time. Frustrated, confused, angry, and hopefully. Writing songs that are honest.

8. Jawbreaker/Jets to Brazil- Blake Schwarzenbach's bands are so poetically beautiful, and so depressing. Jawbreaker made four punk albums, all sounding very very different, with their final album- the destructive major label debut- Dear You possibly their best. Jets to Brazil was one of the late 90's bands that sometimes like mislabelled emo (along with Braid and the like), and all the albums have beautiful beautiful lyrics.

7. Screeching Weasel- The kings of pop/punk. BoogadaX3 was simple, snotty and loud. My Brain Hurts had great lyrics that weren't just about being stupid and having some fun. The later releases weren't as good, but the Lookout releases were amazing.

6. Alkaline Trio- The Asian Man releases are easy to relate to with tales of love, depression and alcoholism. The Vagrant releases have cheesier and cheesier lyrics (about devils and such, alas), and the music gets more poppy, but I can't help but love it all. The split with Hot Water Music on Jade Tree was amazing. The Hell Yes EP aswell. Both their singles/B-sides albums are some of their best. Amazing.

5. Against Me!- They're really only here because Reinventing Axl Rose is the defining punk album of this decade. The others are good (including all the singles), but Reinventing Axl Rose changed perspectives, gave people hope and inspired people against this shithole world.

4. Bomb the Music Industry- Free albums. 3 albums with only one guy. Ska/punk? With synthesizers? Why does it sound like it'd be bad and not that special when it sounds better and more refreshing than all things in this decade's punk scene.

3. Fugazi- Given. 13 Songs was straight forward and raw with emotion. It broke the label of punk into meaninglessness and reminded us that it was about not falling into ruts and traditions and to constantly challenge. It wasn't about playing the same music played 20 years ago. All bands connected like the Evens, Embrace, Rites of Spring etc. are also amazing.

2. The Weakerthans- John K left Propagandhi to form this band. He is Canada's best poet. His solo material is great, and the albums he makes with the Weakerthans are all masterpieces. The last on Reunion Tour was very experimental in sound, and each song was done through a unique perspective, and it didn't come off like a writing exercise. Night Windows I listened to on repeat many many times.

1. Propagandhi- The greatest political punk band. Less Talk, More Rock was a foundation for all ideas. Today's Empires and Potemkin both expanded in different contexts, and musically were both amazing in different ways. Purina Hall of Fame makes one shiver.


Honourable mentions: Hot Water Music, The Queers, Eastern Youth, Dresden Dolls, Get Up Kids.

In alphabetic order, since as always I don't really care to rank them.

Boston
Cake
Elton John
matchbox twenty
The Pillows
Pink Floyd
Queen
Rush
Styx
Yasunori Mitsuda

Beat THAT, nerdy hippies! Although I realize it would've been more of a challenge to hippies if I'd included some of my honorable mentions like Cat Stevens and Jimmy Buffet. Does Journey count as hippy? It might count more as nerd....and way in the "Ha! You like JOURNEY?!" category.

These are my favorites, since I never listen to much popular music, my opinion doesn't mean much.

Count Basie Orchestra
Chicago
Weird Al
Spice Girls
Steely Dan

I have heard everysingle one of those bands dude, mewithoutyou is incredible, amazing lyrics, and Five Iron Frenzy, just pure classic man. Grew up on them. And Anathallo! Amazing, you know a band is good when they sing in a different language for a song, yet it speaks to you...

Not in any order, and this list changes all the time.

Damien Rice
David Crowder Band
mewithoutyou
Bruce Springsteen
Coldplay
U2
Switchfoot
The Beatles
Jimmy Eat World
Underoath