New music you've recently found but can't believe you never to listened before!

I thought i'd start this discussion because one of the greatest things about lurking on forums like this for me, is the wealth of new music that I get introduced to by reading other peoples recommendations and thoughts.

I'm thinking of an album in particular right now. The Flaming Lips, The Soft Bulletin. I was aware of the band for years, some songs and the albums reputation but it just passed me by for so long as there was always other things to listen to. Now i've listened to it, I can't believe how much I love it, and how long I've missed out knowing how good it is!

What albums/bands that have been around for a while have you recently discovered and love?

 

I'm a big prog rock fan and manged to miss - not quite sure how, in retrospect - Camel for about 30 years.

 

A Tribe Called Quest, T. Rex, and Armageddon....

NJB

 

Robyn Hitchcock I Often Dream of Trains
Bruce Springsteen Nebraska

Both of these are right up my alley. But I'd never heard them until recently.

 

Bruce Springsteen The River

 

I started listening to Lou Reed/The Velvet Underground very late in the game (probably around 2005) and was stunned that I never discovered it earlier. The fun thing, though, is I suddenly had 40 years of incredible music to catch up on that was all new to me. Now Lou Reed is in my top 5 favorite singer/songwriters. I mean, now I understand that between the Velvets and Big Star, you have virtually all the big influence on the punk, post-punk and alternative music I love and grew up with in the 80's.

 

This happened a few years ago, but I suddenly discovered the Pogues just before Shane was fired. How could I have missed them?

 

I'm glad this thread came up, because there's an album I just discovered in the last week which came out four years ago - LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver. I was thinking of posting this in the only Sound of Silver thread (which amazingly has accrued only 15 posts over four years) but then sadly all too many of those kind of threads get buried pretty quickly and thought maybe this would be better noticed here.

Before then I had been becoming a little disillusioned by the state of newer music (ie from 2000 onwards). Whilst I've long since broken out of the mentality that I'll readily admit having that "all new music = crap", apart from Kid A and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, comparatively few of the albums released in the last 11 years have consistently entertained me from beginning to end or have had that awesome impact the way so many of the classics from the 60s-90s have. I was concerned maybe it was just me putting older music too much on a pedestal or becoming over-critical of music in my premature old age.

This all changed when I listened to Sound of Silver. Wow! This was seriously music that had a real revelatory effect on me. I hadn't enjoyed dancing much since my early teens (always prefer bars to clubbing), and although I enjoy some forms of dance music, I hadn't listened to much of it over the years, because most of it in its purest form (like disco, house and techno) is primarily singles-oriented and at the risk of sounding terribly "rockist" I much preferred the album form with single artists, mostly in non-compilations. I hadn't heard any album that literally made me want to get up, rock and tap my feet to it from start to finish throughout its 50-60 minutes of music - there was clearly something about it that awakened a primeval urge in me that previously I was only vaguely aware ever existed. The style was kind of neo-disco meets punk with a real sense of fun and energy lacking from so much of the supposedly better stuff from the last decade, and with a genuine emotional depth that alludes a lot of dance music and was literally like no album I'd heard from the last 30 or so years (perhaps Gang of Four, early Talking Heads and a bit of late-70s David Bowie in the vocals would come closest to describing it, but the sound and production is clearly 21st century).

The lines of the title track, although some could call it dumb, couldn't sum it up better for me:
"Sound of Silver talk to me
Makes you want to feel like a teenager
Until you remember the feelings of
A real live emotional teenager
Then you think again"
Direct and straight to the point - which perfectly encapsulates this music and what it did to me.

 

Elvis Costello. I went from "Oh, that guy" to "Oh, I love that guy" this year.

 

McCartney's Tug of War - it was so good that I actually created a thread here about it. "Ebony and Ivory" had turned me off to him so much that it took me almost 30 years to really listen to that album. And I was VERY happily surprised.

I have also enjoyed Klaatu's S/T and the first two Emitt Rhodes' albums this year - these were artists mentioned here, so I had picked them up in garage sales as cheap "blind" buys. Very happy with that decision.

I love that feeling! I'm on verge of that with Neil Young - another artist I virtually ignored for 30+ years, other than "Rust Never Sleeps". Now I have four LP's from him (more cheap blind buys) and am looking forward to re-introducing myself to his music a little at a time.

 

The Decemberist's. After hearing Down by the water i really started liking their music.

 

Great find! I thought that "Someone Great" and "All My Friends" were two of the best songs to come out in 2007.

 

I'll second Elvis Costello. Had never bothered with him before, thinking he wouldn't interest me. A friend recommended I give him a try as he thought I'd really like him, so I picked up a copy of Armed Forced on vinyl. I've since bought about 6 or 7 more of his records and absolutely love his stuff!

 

Warren Zevon's first album. So many great lines that invoke a LA that's long gone. And what a smart-***! Some of the lines crack me up every time. Can you ask for a better closer than ""Desperados Under the Eaves"? I can't believe I missed this album for so long.

Oh and agree with "Tug of War" above. That was the one I was hoping they would give the deluxe reissue treatment, not Mac I & II.

 

Sandinista!

Knnillssonn

Big Bamboo - Lord Creator

 

King Crimson.

A_L

 

Great Days: The John Prine Anthology

Amazing.

 

Frank Sinatra. Dabbled in the early 90s with some releases but it didn't really do anything for me. Started checking his stuff out again after reading so many Sinatra posts on the forum. This coincided perfectly with a weird relationship I was in with a woman who I thought might be it. Put on "In The Wee Small Hours" one night and it all clicked. You have to do some living before you can really understand Sinatra's music. Now I listen to him almost daily.

 

Felt. I had their two 'Absolute Classic Masterpieces' compilations a decade and knew they were both classics for years, but couldn't really get past them. Now I'm of the opinion that everything they released was a classic. I don't even mind their cocktail jazz album that doesn't include Lawrence.

 

I could fill a book with the great music I have only become aware of, or maybe more accurately paid attention to, due to this forum. This from someone who spent more than 20 years in the trenches of music retail, from punching a cash register to buying for a large chain. But I digress so I will post my most recent "discovery"... Al Stewart

Sure I remember Year of the Cat from when it came out. Back then I was only interested in music that came out of mountains of Marshall stacks. So I didn't notice the fact that the guy is a freaking genius. Oh yeah the records sound pretty good too.

Other lightbulbs that have lit for me thanks to you guys: Camel. Caravan. All things Canterbury. CSN. Yes, really. Greenslade. Curved Air. A million 2nd tier prog groups that are the core of my listening today. Been an expensive experience but actually this place got me back into music...

 

Biggest impact in recent memory: Judee Sill.

 

ned doheny

 

I'm still on the young side (28) so I'm discovering great stuff all the time, but nothing has left as big impact on me in the last couple of years as "Fun House". I can't listen to it without going mental in my bedroom and it's now among my top 3 favorite albums (with Exile and Abbey Road). Other mentions are The Cure, Motörhead, Ramones, T.Rex, Bill Withers and Lucinda Williams...

 

In the last year....

Pixies
Built to Spill
R.E.M. (the I.R.S. recordings)
Television

 

I owe this lovely forum my current love/discovery of Fleetwood Mac and Lindsey Buckingham.

I started with "Rumours", then their 1975 S/T LP, then the excellent "Buckingham/Nicks" album and now "Tusk". I also bought Lindsey Buckingham's 2006 album "Under the Skin" and the early 80's "Law and Order".

I know I still have a long way to go, but it's been fun so far.