Any new music lately?

[hypehat]

Mate, that first Explorer's Club album is fucking ridiculous. They should have a list of lawsuits a mile long for that record.

The second one, released last year, is much better. They wrote their own songs! But it's less pop, more relaxed.

[zachrwolfe]

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[Aegir]

Foxygen is how you make a ripoff band work.

Explorer's Club just pisses me off to no end.

[hypehat]

As for new music, I'm listening to Big Inner by Matthew E White - bought it on a whim yesterday - and it's really good! Appropriates a couple of other songs in it (What Are They Doing In Heaven Today, Many Rivers To Cross, of all things) and I can't quite understand why, when his own songwriting seems pretty strong on it's own. But it's lovely stuff.

[SMiLE Brian]

I need pointers for finding new music. My tastes seem outdated and years away from what's currently popular.  Its almost like how BW listened to Spector material in the mid to late 1970s after everybody else had long moved on.

[Aegir]

You can't be on the internet without hearing about someone liking some new album. Instead of writing it off just from the band name or the genre or whatever, just take a listen. Maybe you'll hate it, maybe you'll like it. Just listen to a lot of things and see what clicks. Even dinosaur publications like rolling stone still review a number of albums from contemporary artists.

[EgoHanger1966]

I need pointers for finding new music. My tastes seem outdated and years away from what's currently popular.  Its almost like how BW listened to Spector material in the mid to late 1970s after everybody else had long moved on.

There are at least a dozen suggestions in this thread that you would probably end up enjoying. Download Spotify (if you haven't), and start going through this thread - if something doesn't click, move on to the next one, or come back to it later if you think it's a "grower".

[meltedwhiskeyinmyhand]

Jonathan Wilson - Gentle Spirit is a really amazing album that a friend turned me on to recently. I cant recommend it enough. He is also producing a new album from Graham and Nash currently.

[the captain]

I need pointers for finding new music. My tastes seem outdated and years away from what's currently popular.  Its almost like how BW listened to Spector material in the mid to late 1970s after everybody else had long moved on.

Aside from recommendations of people whose taste tends to be similar to mine or who tend to turn me on to things I hadn't liked before, I like to set aside some time every few weeks at least to go to allmusic or iTunes new releases and start clicking and sampling. Simple as that. If something catches my ear, I check it out more extensively on Spotify.  If not, move on. And of course, when you've found something cool, there is inevitably the "listeners who bought this also bought..." lists below it. The main issue is time: there is never enough time to give everything good a listen.

[Letsgoawayforawhile]

I need pointers for finding new music. My tastes seem outdated and years away from what's currently popular.  Its almost like how BW listened to Spector material in the mid to late 1970s after everybody else had long moved on.

This is always fun.
https://www.stereodose.com/

[the captain]

In my first post of this thread I just gave a laundry list. For some context, I also intended to give some more thorough descriptions and ideas that might help steer people who are interested.

This being a Beach Boys board and knowing the taste of many participants, I'll start off with an easy transition: Jeremy Messersmith.

Messersmith has an amazing high tenor and gift for melody that makes him a natural for fans of Beach Boys, Beatles, Nilsson, etc. While his most recent album, 2010's The Reluctant Graveyard, was made very intentionally with the sounds of the Beatles in particular in mind, his previous two albums preserve the beauty of late '60s pop without being so directly descended. Further, his songwriting is amazing. He's an extremely gifted musician. I can't recommend him enough--and that's not just hometown pride (he is based in my hometown of Minneapolis).

NPR Tiny Desk performance (songs from his Reluctant Graveyard album):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-RVUGjCfug

Studio track from his 2008 "The Silver City" LP, produced by Dan Wilson (Trip Shakespeare, Semisonic). This is "Franklin Avenue."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a15noIgNWgo

Enjoy!

[Letsgoawayforawhile]

THIS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75hxrSTaEUk

[the captain]

I'm listening to a new release some of you might like, though I'm lukewarm on it so far: the Norwegian band Young Dreams' "Between Places" album.

Here is allmusic's review and previews: http://www.allmusic.com/album/between-places-mw0002470932

While they compare it to an updated Zombies (and reference Beach Boys, as every reviewer of any album with harmony vocals is contractually obligated to do...), I'd say it is a more tame version of Animal Collective's more melodic music. But it has moments of those rhythmically exciting backgrounds with pretty melodies and sometimes great harmonies over them. Some of the background vocals are really nice, I have to say that.

It is up on Spotify, too, so you can listen to the whole album. That's where I'm listening now.

http://open.spotify.com/album/725YgW6Xb8hSnsdJWkHZll

[the captain]

OK, Track 8, "Through the Turnstiles," is beautiful. The first minute and a half are wordless a capella harmonies. Then the proper song kicks in. (That's as far as I am, so no comment further.)

[Allan Heron]

Might put the cat right amongst the pidgeons here, but wondering if anyone else has ear for some of the more recent prog bands?

If you fill me with a few good beers, I might make the case for SMiLE as the world's first (still-born) prog album!!

Particulatly thinking of bands like Big Big Train, The Pineapple Thief and Steven Wilson/Porcupine Tree.  

I also love most of the classic bands of the genre, and they happily reside alongside my love for many of the classic songwriters of the past 50 years.  just depends what mood I'm in at the time which direction my listening pleasures gravitate to.

[the captain]

Fill me with a few good beers and I'll argue the same thing--not because I necessarily believe it or even care, but just that I'll do just about anything for a few good beers. 

As for prog (modern or classic), 'fraid I'm not your man unless you want to define the genre really loosely to include complex, atypical (in the pop world) arrangements, and often lengthy song structures. Then maybe here and there ... but otherwise, sorry.

[Allan Heron]

As for prog (modern or classic), 'fraid I'm not your man unless you want to define the genre really loosely to include complex, atypical (in the pop world) arrangements, and often lengthy song structures. Then maybe here and there ...

I'd go for that!  There's nothing worse in the world than listening to some prog fans discussing precisely what is and isn't prog.   They come across as so narrow-minded when they should really be the opposite imo.

[GoodToMyBaby]

i'd like to introduce you all to Tyler Lyle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjs-EIOnrlc

[Jay]

I often have a difficult time trying to accept new bands and new music. I'm a fan of primarily music from the 1950's to the 1970's, with a few small exceptions, like old delta blues from the 1920's to the 40's. For some reason I just don't really want to be bothered with new music, or new styles of music(dubstep, for example). Does that make me a snob?  I try not to make it seem like I'm a snob who just dismisses any and all new forms of music. But, I guess that's kind of what I do.  I'll be only 28 in a few days, but I kind of feel like an old fart stuck in his ways. 

[zachrwolfe]

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[hypehat]

The way I see it is that you feel that modern music in the 2013 is crap, you probably would have felt the same in 1977, 1967 or 1927. We enjoy older music because of several different contexts - your parents listened to it, the critical canon, etc - that modern pop music doesn't have. It's what you make it. If anything, modern music is more diverse and richer than its ever been because there is no singular narrative that there was in earlier decades - you can now keep wholly up to date with modern music and avoid the charts!

 Just remember that, at the time, people called The Beatles tuneless rubbish too.

[the captain]

I often have a difficult time trying to accept new bands and new music. I'm a fan of primarily music from the 1950's to the 1970's, with a few small exceptions, like old delta blues from the 1920's to the 40's. For some reason I just don't really want to be bothered with new music, or new styles of music(dubstep, for example). Does that make me a snob?  I try not to make it seem like I'm a snob who just dismisses any and all new forms of music. But, I guess that's kind of what I do.  I'll be only 28 in a few days, but I kind of feel like an old fart stuck in his ways. 

I admit to the same problem sometimes, and I'm only 14. I just have this bias ingrained in me that modern music is bad...

That was my mindset from when I was about your age (1990ish) until about 2000 or 2001. What it was about was deep-diving into different genres or artists already established as classics without having to do any of the decision-making in real time (similar to what hypehat wrote). In the end, though, I found out I had missed a ton of cool music in that decade or so I had dismissed because I assume nothing could be as good as the Beatles, Zeppelin, Queen, Hendrix, and Zappa (which were my favorites in those years). I had totally missed on the Flaming Lips, Magnetic Fields, Guided By Voices, Tom Waits, the early E6 bands, Native Tongues groups, etc. On the positive side, it meant I had a lot of great music to go back and find later...

That is one really great thing about waiting for music to age before you make the effort: a certain amount of filtering has already happened and you can just go straight to what is recognized as valuable, as opposed to being caught up in the marketing and fads of the moment.

Conversely, sometimes being just so perfect in the moment is what it's all about. There is a genius for that, and a certain kind of memory works wonderfully in that context. Timelessness is great, but so is timeliness.

It doesn't matter if people don't like new music. Honestly, who cares? But I'll say this: you're not going to like anything new when you're thinking of it in the context of something old. So if you know the mid-60s are your era, you're never going to listen properly to anything other than how similar an imperfect copy of that it is, or how different from (and therefore bad) it is. Unwinnable war.

[zachrwolfe]

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[the captain]

Though hypehat, I have to disagree with your "would have thought the same thing in any other decade" proposal. I believe my generation is unique from all others previous in the way that with the advent of the internet and such insanely easy access and exposure to older music at my young age allows people to much easier exchange modern music for preferred older (or even more obscure) music.

I think you're not quite right about that. The same classic music of that era was widely available and praised as being canonical in my youth, which (as noted) primarily spanned the 80s and 90s. There is no doubt that the more obscure things are easier to find now--so sessions, unreleased material, and live boots are simpler for today's kids--but basic catalogues of the Beatles, Dylan, Doors, Stones, Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Who, Zeppelin, Queen, Hendrix, Clapton, blah blah blah were all readily available. Everyone I knew went through the same basic phases.

[zachrwolfe]

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