If you could only listen to 10 artists for the rest of your life...
 

...who be them? AND WHY?

What do you mean, if? :D

You can limit it to -10 if you wanna be that way.

I think my all time top 10, and my top 10 after the rules of this thread would have to be slightly different from each other. If it's all the music I can hear for the rest of my life, it would have to cover a fair bit of ground in terms of variation.

Dir En Grey
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv...hom2o1_500.jpg
This is my first choice. They're my favorite band, but they're also very ecclectic and interesting. Hands down the most interesting metal act I've ever heard - by some distance, even. Now, some old-schoolers wouldn't even call them metal but... pfffft! Whatever...

The band also cover several bases in terms of expression and intensity. Plus there's an interesting sonic diversity to the band, great hooks, some weirdness, some freaky vocals... and more. This band has honestly had a pretty huge impact on me. Easily my biggest musical discovery of the last 10 years.

Tori Amos
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/f8/53/50/f...nniversary.jpg
A pretty necessary inclusion as well. It's a big and varied discography, and I connect very strongly to a lot of this material. Life wouldn't feel complete without her music.

Madredeus
https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JP...er=allrovi.com
I love their mix of Portugese fado and some more modern musical influences.
There's a good amount of ground covered by their discography and Teresa Salgueiro's voice is pure magic.

Waltari
https://blog-001.west.edge.storage-y...9_m?1504769478
Because they're so weird, fun, unique, ecclectic. I'd never have to be bored if I had their music around.


After these 4 picks it's a bit less obvious to me who I would simply have to include, so I don't know... maybe these?:


Suzanne Vega
I do have another singer/songwriter already, but Vega has a distinctly different style and some of the best lyrics in the genre. Sometimes her music hits me like nothing else can.

Kylie Minogue
I'd need some straight up pop music from time to time, so who else than Kylie?

Arkona
Unique sounding folk metal and a sea-deep discography.

Megadeth
There's no escaping the fact that this band means a lot to me. They've got 15 albums so far, so there's a lot to chew through as well. Seems like a solid choice.

Judie Tzuke
I haven't been into her music for very long, but it's a fairly substantial discography and there's just this feeling to her music that I'd hate to be without.

Depeche Mode
Big discography, most of it good, plus I have a lot of history with this band.


NOTE: Stam1na is a band I'd normally put in a top 10, but Waltari sort of covers their ground, and more, so for this particular type of list I'd have to prioritize some variation. Not sure Depeche Mode would have been in this list under different 'rules'.

I guess Kylie saves it a bit.

Captain Beefheart
Tim Buckley
Shabazz Palaces
This Heat
John Coltrane
Morton Feldman
Sun City Girls
Gorguts
Keiji Haino
Slayer

The B-52s x10

Do you even know half or more of those artists all that well?
Not that I expect you to do your homework just for me, of course :laughing:

Leah
Sleeping Romance
Epica
Guns N'Roses
Bon Jovi
Aerosmith
Lacuna Coil (early stuff)
Within Temptation
Lindsey Stirling (because who doesn't love violin solos?)
Kamelot

Ignore me, I am a bit drunk. I'm sure they are all fantastic.

Miles Davis
Tom Waits
Tim Buckley
Talking Heads
Swans
Creepoid
Frank Zappa
A Tribe Called Quest
Songs: Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co.
Kayo Dot

Beethoven
Mozart
Coltrane
Elliott Carter
Tim Hecker
Bach
Stockhausen
Cecil Taylor
The Ramones
Miles Davis

These aren't the same as a top ten but a list of artists I think I could still get a lot of mileage out of, too.

Question: can I make my own music out of them?

Grimes
Aesop Rock
Lana Del Rey
EL-P
Danny Brown
Kitty
Death Grips
The Fall
Kanye West
Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat

Converge
Sonic Youth
AJJ
Kitty
Ceremony
Cloud Nothings
Eric Dolphy
The Smiths
Regina Spektor
Burzum

that's off the top of head, 10 isnt many though like that was hard to come up with.

I'm still very much in an exploration phase, but if I had to choose right now...

Beethoven
Wagner
Stravinsky
Sibelius
Richard Strauss
Liszt
Berlioz
Stockhausen
Debussy
Ligeti

1. The Rolling Stones
2. Steve Howe (early bands, solo and Yes albums)
3. Rockpile (Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe)
4. Genesis
5. The Church
6. The Ventures (>200)
7. Chet Atkins (>200)
8. Les Paul
9. J.S. Bach
10. The Beatles

My picks are mostly guitar players, guitar oriented bands. Bach is my favorite composer. I grew up listening to The Beatles, even though I don't listen to them all the time I couldn't imagine never hearing them again. 11th and 12th would be 10cc and The Trees.

Thumbs up for The Church.

:thumb: for the thumbs up

Off the top of my head:

Tipper
Liars
Secret Chiefs 3
Swans
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
Kodo
Los Lobos
Autechre
Bobby Hutcherson
Shining

La Bamba is one of my all time favorite movies. I have seen it at least twenty five times. Outside of that move I really don't know much about Los Lobos.

Well, the stuff they did for that movie is good but it doesn't begin to scratch the surface of their awesome, eclectic career.

Genesis
Marillion
Iron Maiden
Waits
Pendragon
Threshold
Dan Fogelberg
a-ha
Floyd (after Barrett era)
Alan Parsons Project

(Very hard to pick just ten)

I'd list my top ten but I'm saving them for my member's journal once I start one. Suffice to say, they're all very well known bands/artists though

So you hate Syd Barrett so much you’d exclude him from the list even if you didn’t have to?

seems weird to exclude the only noteworthy music they made

If I pick, say, John Zorn, does that mean that I can listen to the ten million albums he's been involved with or only albums under his own name?

Yeah that’s what I was thinking when I chose Miles since he played on those bebop records early in his career. So that would get you Diz and Bird.

Also, Leonard Bernstein, if you’re trying to play the system. If you got everything Bernstein recorded as a conductor that would open things up quite a bit.

At The Drive-In (Early)
Death Grips
Radiohead
LCD Soundsystem
Kanye West
Titus Andronicus
Spoon
The National
Daft Punk
Amy Winehouse

Never said I hated him. I just don't like the music he made with Floyd. Not my thing.
This is a false statement.

Post-Waters Floyd isn’t my thing but I still wouldn’t toss it out on a desert island. I can get something out of it.

Yeh, I just can't. I understand the contribution he made to the band, that he was one of the founders and all, but I suppose the fact that my first album of theirs was DSOTM perhaps colours my perception. I went on from there, and though I have heard all the albums, and Piper and Saucer both have great tracks, for me, personally, and I realise this is not a popular view but it is mine, the Barrett songs such as "Arnold Layne", "Bike" and "Jugband Blues" are the ones that let the albums down. I suppose, given that you have tracks such as "Astronomy Domine", "Set the Controls" etc, I wouldn't drop the albums but I would be skipping the abovementioned Barrett songs. In fact, I'd pass on most of Piper other than "Astronomy", "Interstellar" and "Take Up Thy Stethoscope", while Saucer I'd listen to most of it except for "Jugband". Just don't get or like Barrett. At all.

Saucerful of Stubbornness

Nothing to do with stubbornness. Some people don't like Gabriel Genesis, some people don't like Eric Bell-era Lizzy. It's just a personal preference. I don't like the guy's voice, nor his music. Sue me. Shrug.

You only have a small collections of records to listen to for rest of your life. You wouldn't even pop it on occasionally?

As I said, I would, because there are good tracks on both. But I would skip the Barrett stuff.

As a disclaimer, Pink Floyd wouldn't be in my top ten (they would be in my top twenty).

But Syd Barrett practically made the band in its early days. Who knows what might have happened if he hadn't gone nuts so to speak. As it was, he did record a brilliant album in 1970.

As for Pink Floyd, I think I like both eras equally. Sure, Piper has some, er, unusual tracks, but overall it's an absolute classic to me. Astronomy Domine alone is worth the admission.

Just seems like an odd move given the context.

I honestly don't think you have your brain on the correct settings atm. Do you really hate Syd Barrett so much that you would chuck his Floyd stuff away while on a desert island where you will have a severely limited amount of music to listen to for all the rest of the years of your life? Cause you don't have to. You could just set them aside and ignore them till you die if you really want, but they could still be there if you inevitably got sick of listening to the same albums over and over again.