The Essentials: Number 10-6
Everyone has them. The bands they cannot live without. Everyone thinks his list is the best, quintessential, beyond compare.
I don’t think of my list that way. These are the artists whose music has changed my life, outlook or perspective. Without them, I would probably think that Motley Crue is classic rock …
Therefore, I present my essential artists, the artists that must exist for my soul to live. These are Nos. 10 through 6, and why. Nos. 5 through 1 will be coming soon...
10. The Dave Matthews Band – Okay, I know what you are thinking. It was a fad that I got caught up in. On the contrary, I first heard Dave in 1998 during a most turbulent phase of my life. Initially, there was this intriguing sound: a violin, a horn, no distortion. It wasn’t pop but it really wasn’t jam either. It seemed to exist in a world all its own. While that was the first attraction, Dave's lyrics about pain, love, addiction and complication began to make me feel something that I hadn’t in years: my soul.
9. Miles Davis – Everyone knows the name and most know a song. For me, an admitted jazz novice, its about being able to experience the very essence of a music genre through the life spanning genius of one man. Pick any era of his career from the Gil Evans recordings, the “Cool” or “jazz fusion” and it is arguably the best available at that time. He influenced everyone and played with the legends: Coltrane, Corea, Hancock. I can sum it up by saying this: no one doesn’t like A Kind of Blue but Miles taught you to love Bitches Brew…
8. Tool – Grunge was obviously a much needed sound that saved us from manufactured metal sung by performers, not artists (ever wonder what will save us today?). What it lacked was the perversion and darkness that can only be expressed by depravity. Tool filled this void. This is the band that is just like that horror movie that you can’t watch but can’t make yourself turn away. Tool is the exorcism of what we call metal. So intelligent yet so reprobate. It makes you question the darkness of your own soul and the real reasons there is no light there…
7. REM – There always is this song or band you hear for the first time that changes the way you hear or appreciate music. That song was “Can’t Get There From Here”. It didn’t sound like anything else. It wasn’t New Wave or radio friendly. This was an “alternate” sound. Guitars not quite blue grass but nowhere near blues. Does it actually sound country? What was it? And for fifteen years, that was made REM great, you couldn’t quite describe them and you could never classify them.
6. U2 – I’m not going to tell you what you already know. A band from nowhere who took over the world. For me, it wasn’t about that; it was about emotions they felt along the way. In one moment, express the pain of betrayal and the very next, the sacrifice that only love can provide. U2 expressed anger at the world without judging it or claiming to have every answer. Unlike so many brilliant bands, U2 paid homage to the pioneers and hoped to honor them in a way only they could, by creating perfection.
Now, are you racking your brain trying to figure out 1 through 5? Yeah, that's the idea...
I don’t think of my list that way. These are the artists whose music has changed my life, outlook or perspective. Without them, I would probably think that Motley Crue is classic rock …
Therefore, I present my essential artists, the artists that must exist for my soul to live. These are Nos. 10 through 6, and why. Nos. 5 through 1 will be coming soon...
10. The Dave Matthews Band – Okay, I know what you are thinking. It was a fad that I got caught up in. On the contrary, I first heard Dave in 1998 during a most turbulent phase of my life. Initially, there was this intriguing sound: a violin, a horn, no distortion. It wasn’t pop but it really wasn’t jam either. It seemed to exist in a world all its own. While that was the first attraction, Dave's lyrics about pain, love, addiction and complication began to make me feel something that I hadn’t in years: my soul.
9. Miles Davis – Everyone knows the name and most know a song. For me, an admitted jazz novice, its about being able to experience the very essence of a music genre through the life spanning genius of one man. Pick any era of his career from the Gil Evans recordings, the “Cool” or “jazz fusion” and it is arguably the best available at that time. He influenced everyone and played with the legends: Coltrane, Corea, Hancock. I can sum it up by saying this: no one doesn’t like A Kind of Blue but Miles taught you to love Bitches Brew…
8. Tool – Grunge was obviously a much needed sound that saved us from manufactured metal sung by performers, not artists (ever wonder what will save us today?). What it lacked was the perversion and darkness that can only be expressed by depravity. Tool filled this void. This is the band that is just like that horror movie that you can’t watch but can’t make yourself turn away. Tool is the exorcism of what we call metal. So intelligent yet so reprobate. It makes you question the darkness of your own soul and the real reasons there is no light there…
7. REM – There always is this song or band you hear for the first time that changes the way you hear or appreciate music. That song was “Can’t Get There From Here”. It didn’t sound like anything else. It wasn’t New Wave or radio friendly. This was an “alternate” sound. Guitars not quite blue grass but nowhere near blues. Does it actually sound country? What was it? And for fifteen years, that was made REM great, you couldn’t quite describe them and you could never classify them.
6. U2 – I’m not going to tell you what you already know. A band from nowhere who took over the world. For me, it wasn’t about that; it was about emotions they felt along the way. In one moment, express the pain of betrayal and the very next, the sacrifice that only love can provide. U2 expressed anger at the world without judging it or claiming to have every answer. Unlike so many brilliant bands, U2 paid homage to the pioneers and hoped to honor them in a way only they could, by creating perfection.
Now, are you racking your brain trying to figure out 1 through 5? Yeah, that's the idea...
posted by Unknown at 11:44 PM
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