23. music recommendations



ok. so far we've had books, movies, websites, food and gadget recommendations. we can't finish this thing without some music recommendations, right?.

with music, dear friends, things get complicated, since preferred styles of music are mostly a matter of taste. nevertheless, we will provide a number of different musical flavors, so you can pick and chose.

all recommended bands will include links to their official webpages (if any). all recommended albums will include links to their pages on amazon.com. that's not because amazon.com pays us to mention their name in a frequent manner, but because on the linked amazon pages you can listen to samples of songs on the albums - clever, isn't it? (i don't know if the links we use stay permanent on amazon - if they don't seem to work, just open amazon.com and do a search). from some albums best tracks are also listed. another note before we begin: if you feel the need to get more info on a band or on an album, please use the help of another trusted friend - allmusic.com.

approach all of this stuff with an open mind. listen to samples on amazon and check out the bands' style all music. you might discover something you like.

so let's get started. what do you usually listen to? please, for the love of god, don't say oh, i like all types of music, lol; that's just not right. so does the techno/trance/dance/whatever style do your thing? then allow us to suggest orbital. quality electronic/techno music that breaks away from the traditional repetitive brainless patterns usually associated with techno, dance, trance, whatever. albums worth checking out include in sides (check out P.E.T.R.O.L., satan, the saint and the sinner) and the altogether (funny break is pure genius). while we're here - for a little more conventional, heavy bass-enhanced music, you can also try a band called the crystal method.

moving along, if you've reached such a level of sophistication that even orbital sounds too commercial, then allow us to move towards more experimental stuff and introduce the future sound of london. experimental/ambient/electronic stuff that should appeal to even the most discriminate listener. you can't go wrong with dead cities (favorite tracks include herd killing, dead cities, my kingdom, yage and we have explosives) and the even more experimental isdn (slider, kai, you're creeping me out).

while we're still in electronic/experimental territory, let us also point out recoil. their music is just too good for words, so i won't bother. bloodline (the defector, curse), unsound methods (luscious apparatus, control freak) and liquid (want, supreme, vertigen) are all damn good.

next, let's change styles and go with slower, moodier, more melodic stuff filled with female vocals and other good stuff. start with delerium and you can't go wrong. their 1997 karma is absolutely sensational - you can't really single out tracks from this one, they're all good. pretty much everything that comes after karma is good listenable material - that would be the band's next two albums poem and chimera.

another excellent band with a similar style is collide. check out beneath the skin, chasing the ghost and some kind of strange. last, but definitely not least, you need to also check out a band called conjure one and their self-titled debut.

time to change styles again and go towards really aggressive electronic/rock music. start with chemlab who released some of the best albums in the history of music - burnout at the hydrogen bar and the fabulous east side militia (exile on mainline, vera blue, pyromance). if you ever get one album recommended on this page, then make that one be east side militia. a similarly good band to try while we're here is front line assembly - check out the rock-oriented millennium, the more electronic flavour of the weak, the more polished implode, or the latest civillization.

alright, let's end this thing with some rock recommendations. if you're sick and tired of college music, latest mtv-type "heavy metal" and the forever outdated trash/death/whatever, then you might need to check out ministry and their already legendary psalm 69, as well as pretty much anything labelled 16 volt.

listen away.




that's it for today. now close this window and come back tomorrow for you next dose.