[Lamora]

Folk - I'm not sure if Joanna Newsom counts as folk but you should definitely check out her album Ys anyway.

Blues/Blues Rock - My favourites are Fleetwood Mac (The Peter Green stuff, not Stevie Nicks) and Gov't Mule.

Funk - Curtis Mayfield - Superfly

 

[Davey]

Today it would be the latest from Shearwater. Rook. Won't hear anything better or more adventurous this year. Beautiful record. Important music. Sadly, don't get a chance to say that very often anymore.

But 15 years ago, and influenced by that same genre defining moment in musical history as this Shearwater record ... that time in the late 80s when Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene and the rest of Talk Talk holed up in an abandoned church with an assortment of musicians, often recording their new mix of ambient jazz and modern classicism in the dark, crafting one of the most beautiful records ever in Spirit of Eden, the beginning of what later became known as post-rock ... Tim Friese-Greene joined up with Catherine Wheel for something very different in the early 90s, rocking hard like Pink Floyd, but with a different sound, more of those Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine walls of guitars. It's called Chrome. Their second record. Classic.

Davey's Music Reviews

 

[Kilane]

Well if you haven't poured through the old blues stuff yet I recommend starting with Muddy Waters and working forward.

In no paticular order you may also like these folk artists.

Gordon Lightfoot
The Jayhawks
The Chieftans
Derek Webb
Fleet Foxes

Metal is hard to recommend for and a lot of it hinges on what you think of growly/screamy vocals. So you may have to clarify a bit.

 

[MaZa]

For soft start, here is some Symphonic Power Metal, older Nightwish when they still played Metal. Nightwish - Sacrament Of Wilderness.
YouTube - Nightwish-Sacrement Of Wilderness

And here is a ballad song from them. Nightwish - Sleeping Sun. Fantastic and beautifull song, while not exactly Metal by long shot but still...
YouTube - Nightwish - Sleeping Sun

*edit* Some more Power Metal, but this time with male singer. Stratovarius - Destiny
YouTube - Lord of the Rings - Stratovarius: Destiny


And now to purer forms of Metal. I left the extreme stuff out for now.

Judas Priest - Painkiller. Pretty much epitome of newer Heavy Metal. Dont worry about the singer, his high pitched voice gets on my nerves too.
YouTube - Judas Priest-Painkiller

Iron Maiden - Aces High. Probaply most overrated song, but thats just me. Iron Maiden is still legendary and a must when trying some heavy metal.
YouTube - Iron Maiden - Aces High

Metallica - Master Of Puppets. This song THE epitome of Thrash Metal.
YouTube - Metallica - Master Of Puppets With lyrics

Metallica - One. A Thrash Metal "ballad". I love the breakdown at 4:30.
YouTube - Metallica - One

 

[vladvlaz]

Classical: don't know if you're into this kind of thing but you can try Rachmaninoff's 2nd or 3rd piano concerto.. Rach used to be a big passion of mine. I think the 2nd concerto would be more accessible to start with. You also get the advantage of having both a piano and an orchestra playing which i think is one of the most exciting combinations possible in classical. looks like you can get an idea of it on youtube too. - if this is something you come to like i can recommend Richter's performance of the 2nd. 3rd by Van Cliburn or Horowitz's 50s recording is magical.. on youtube they have videos by weissenberg and byron janis which are definately more than decent performers also

The slow (2nd movement) of the 2nd concerto was used in the song "all by myself" by whoever was the first one to write it i forget, although i was quite surprised to find this out as i'd known both the concerto and song for ages and never realised the tune was the same

goes to say something about my ability to hear and remember tunes

)

do let us know how your'e getting on

Metallica Nothing Else Matters and No leaf clover rule!!!

 

[nickdawg]

Avenged Sevenfold for metal/hard rock.

 

[BloodSugar00]

Hey, thanks everyone for the responses, tips etc!! Very much appreciated

Shame about pandora.com, steve, but I'll check out last.fm?, dvessel! Sounds like a fantastic facility to expand your musical stratospheres.

Cheers, everyone else for your recommendations! I'll get checkin em out!

 

[E.B.M.Head]

For checking out new sounds the best I've found so far is the "Not alone" 5 CD sampler (Durtro / Jhana 1963). It's a very weird mixture of apocalyptic folk, acid folk, japanese avantgarde, industrial, indie pop, indie rock, triphop, non music and other weird stuff. You won't like everything as I don't like everything on it, but you will certainly find a hand full of songs that you will love and if you check out those bands you wil find some unknown pearls of music. And if you even don't like a single song on it (which I doubt): All proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders, so you have done at least something good

 

[MaZa]

Forgot to mention that if some form of metal caught your attention, I can start digging up bands and albums you might want to check out.

 

[dvessel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by E.B.M.Head /img/forum/go_quote.gif For checking out new sounds the best I've found so far is the "Not alone" 5 CD sampler (Durtro / Jhana 1963). It's a very weird mixture of apocalyptic folk, acid folk, japanese avantgarde, industrial, indie pop, indie rock, triphop, non music and other weird stuff. You won't like everything as I don't like everything on it, but you will certainly find a hand full of songs that you will love and if you check out those bands you wil find some unknown pearls of music. And if you even don't like a single song on it (which I doubt): All proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders, so you have done at least something good

I tend to listen to that type of music. The really strange stuff taken on it's own can be hard to take in but juxtapose them just right then a new appreciation comes out of it. Almost like the freeform radio around here (WFMU). And it's one of the reasons I don't tag most of my songs. Just set it at random and I often get surprised.

 

[dvessel]

Add one more to this list for funk: The Meters

Very influential New Orleans group from the 60's - 70's. The anthology release covers most of the bases.

 

[TheAnomaly]

read 6moon's world music section.

 

[tator]

Something I did recently, was go to the "Last 5 albums you bought recently" thread, went through about 10-15 pages, and looked at what everybody put down. When I saw somebody that had an album I liked or had, I wrote down the others, then I sampled them online. There was a lot of stuff I didn't care for, but I did find a few gems. It's a real crapshoot, but it works.

 

[argentum]

Folk : Cat Stevens 70's stuff, Karen Dalton, James Taylor, Sufjan Sevens falls also in this category .
Jazz : Johnny Hartman, Mark Murphy , Bob Dorough, Abbie Lincoln
Funk: Prince, Stevie Wonder, Sly & the Family Stone

 

[BloodSugar00]

Thanks everyone for even more offerings!

I'm a bit swamped at the minute but I'll get checkin out as soon as I can!

Regards,

Steve