Favorite musicians/bands?

[Australis]

I didn't mention Oyserhead, because I've only heard one thing from them, a DREADFUL live version of 'Immigrant Song'. It was totally ruined by the singing, these guys are a long way from Robert Plant. But Claypool and Copland are a monster rhythm section, it has to be said.

I've been re-listening to the Police and Sting's solo stuff lately, and I can see why Sting did it, giving him more control over his material, but yeah, it doesn't have as much of an individual sound as the Police did. The band is Sting's backing unit, where as the Police was three guys.

PKTG, there's a song on the first AL album which should have been a single, 'I Still Feel For You', great upbeat song, with the Copeland trademark double snare beat. It's the main reason to track that album down.

<runs off to teh interwebs... runs back>

Here y'go, a starting point:
http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Logic/dp/B0009NG9BM/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1295232059&sr=1-1

 

[RandyS]

I like Journey and Dan Folgelberg. Christopher Cross put out some good stuff back in the 80's too.

 

[Lookingglassman]

Journey (the one with Steve Perry, not the crappy singer they have now)
John Legend
Pink
Eminem
50 Cent
Beethoven
Bon Jovi
Christina Perri
Motley Crue
Duran Duran
Early Madonna
Michael Jackson the most talented child molester ever!

 

[warpmephaseme]

You know, at the time they were popular, The Police were like no one else - they had a new and unique sound that no one else had. And while it is true that Sting wrote the lion's share of the songs, Sting was not the ONLY reason that band was what it was.

I was talking about Sting, and how he was with The Police back in the day... My friend said, "Gosh, I didn't know Sting was a policeman!"

This is a girl who graduated with a 4.0 double major in math and comp sci. Hehe.



Just ordered my vinyl version of Live on Ten Legs for my fellow Jammers.

 

[Pingfah]

^ I was toying with getting the vinyl release myself, but the cheapest I can find it in the UK is 40 quid, and that's just the normal vinyl, not even the collector's set.

Don't want to get it from the US, had some bad experiences with LPs coming over the atlantic.

Plus I just bought 2 Queen vinyl remasters at the weekend, so i'm feeling like i've spent too much.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

You know, at the time they were popular, The Police were like no one else - they had a new and unique sound that no one else had. And while it is true that Sting wrote the lion's share of the songs, Sting was not the ONLY reason that band was what it was.

I was talking about Sting, and how he was with The Police back in the day... My friend said, "Gosh, I didn't know Sting was a policeman!"

This is a girl who graduated with a 4.0 double major in math and comp sci. Hehe.

This right here is just sad. Please, send her to YouTube and get her to watch the videos for "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic", "Wrapped Around Your Finger", and "Synchronicity II", at minimum. Although "Roxanne", "Every Breath You Take", "Don't Stand So Close to Me", and "Message in a Bottle" should be findable in good quality too.

Tell her that this is essential viewing, as these videos pretty much dominated MTV in the early 80's. Especially those videos from the Synchronicity album were played by MTV, like, hourly in the 1984 timeframe. I know, because I had MTV on all the time back in those days.

To this day, when I think of MTV in the early 80's, the first mental picture that enters my mind is Sting, running up and down among all those candles.

Just ordered my vinyl version of Live on Ten Legs for my fellow Jammers.

You know, I have read that Eddie Vedder is a huge vinyl freak. But I'm just curious - do all bands put stuff out on vinyl again now? Or is it just PJ because of Ed's obsession with vinyl? And is it easy to find turntables now? Because I sure don't have one!

Given this little resurgence, I wonder if all my old vinyl albums are worth anything. I think I have all the Police's albums, for example, in pristine condition on vinyl....I have a ton of albums from the early 80's in that category - I took very good care of my stuff...and I collected a ton of albums back then.

^ I was toying with getting the vinyl release myself, but the cheapest I can find it in the UK is 40 quid, and that's just the normal vinyl, not even the collector's set.

Don't want to get it from the US, had some bad experiences with LPs coming over the atlantic.

Plus I just bought 2 Queen vinyl remasters at the weekend, so i'm feeling like i've spent too much.

Wow - that's a lot of money for a record! I have not looked at the vinyl price here in the US....I was just planning to go and buy the CD tomorrow...but I'm really curious to hear the case you guys might make for purchasing PJ vinyl - is it to actually listen to? Or are you buying the vinyl as a collector's item, and also buying the CD to actually listen to/load to an MP3 player?

I must be WAY behind on this whole issue of vinyl - can one of you guys enlighten me?

Either way, I am so excited about LOTL! PJ live is just the BEST.

Part of the reason, in fact, Pearl Jam and Springsteen are my two favorite bands is because they both are REALLY, REALLY truly awesome...and REALLY, REALLY care about their fans - all of which is made abundantly obvious at live shows.

It's a rare band that sounds as good live as they do on studio albums - but Pearl Jam and Springsteen are both in that category. And I consider that a sign of a really good band - I mean, some bands rely way too much on studio mixing and retake after retake to make them sound talented when they are really not.

In fact, I would argue that Pearl Jam sounds BETTER live than they do on their studio albums. Because it's only then that they kick out the jams. And not only on the song by that name, either!

 

[warpmephaseme]

I buy the vinyl to collect, and then CD/Mp3 to listen. I'm too young to really be comfortable putting needles on things that scratch easily. It's indulgent, but it's cheaper than heroin.

I've got all the Fan Club Christmas Singles, most everything they've done on colored vinyl (except Benaroya ), and the Ten basketball picture disc. I also collect the posters, I have the California/Catholic Trio from Binaural framed in my living room, and am trying to figure out which one(s) I can put in my office without scaring my boss.

 

[Pingfah]

I do play the records I buy, I have a pretty decent record deck. Typically though I buy older records, I only buy the LPs of my very favourite bands brand new and chances are i'll buy the CD too if I like them enough to get the record. But I don't play them every time I listen to the album, so i'd listen to the CD regularly and just break the LPs out occasionally.

To answer your question PK, lots of bands put out albums on vinyl. Probably a lot more now than 10 years ago. Queen have just re-released their whole back catalogue on top quality vinyl, and I just bought the new STP album on vinyl, the new Alice in Chains record and the album you see in my avatar too.

Most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a record on a good deck vs a CD I think, but in some cases the vinyl is noticeably better. The new Alice in Chains CD for instance suffers from a lot of frequency clipping and compression problems because they have tried to ramp all the levels up to make the CD as loud as possible, whereas the vinyl comes from a different master where the levels are lower and it subsequently sounds a lot better than the CD.

 

[1001001]

Porcupine Tree routinely releases albums, in limited quantity.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

And is it easy to find turntables now? Because I sure don't have one!

I know they're around - I've heard of USB turntables, where you can play your record and make an MP3 of it. I've thought about getting one, but I don't really have any place to put it in my entertainment unit, with all the other electronics in there.

Plus, what I really need is some way of transferring cassettes to MP3s - I have a few that I'd like to be able to listen to on my iPod, and a few of them are going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to buy on CD or from iTunes. (I don't have as many cassettes as I used to, unfortunately - my ex-husband hated the fact that I liked Jethro Tull, and so he would occasionally take one of my tapes with him when he went out and "forget" it on the subway or at the library. )

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I buy the vinyl to collect, and then CD/Mp3 to listen. I'm too young to really be comfortable putting needles on things that scratch easily. It's indulgent, but it's cheaper than heroin.

I've got all the Fan Club Christmas Singles, most everything they've done on colored vinyl (except Benaroya ), and the Ten basketball picture disc. I also collect the posters, I have the California/Catholic Trio from Binaural framed in my living room, and am trying to figure out which one(s) I can put in my office without scaring my boss.

Your comment about being too young to be comfortable putting needles on things made me smile. As someone who grew up with vinyl in the time before CDs, it never occurred to me before now that the younger crowd might be afraid of inadvertently damaging an LP. For people my age, handling vinyl would still be second nature, I think...even if we have not handled one for 20 years.

Your collection is pretty impressive though. I don't have any PJ stuff on vinyl, colored or otherwise. And I have the Christmas singles in mp3 thanks to a certain friend who shall remain nameless ( ), but not in any sort of 'hard' format. I have a few of the official bootlegs on CD...but tons of official/unofficial bootlegs in mp3 format on my computer. No posters or anything like that.

As for bringing a PJ poster to work...I don't recommend any scary stuff. If it was me, I'd be sneaky (passive aggressive even?) about it and try to find a stage photo from the 2002 - 2003 or so time frame, when Ed went through what I jokingly refer to as his "Preppie Phase". I mean, for people who have not kept up with PJ over the years, until Ed opens his mouth on this video here, they probably wouldn't even know it was him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ0w0HwoMxQ

I mean, for a few months there, Eddie looked downright respectable. Thank god THAT didn't last! I mean, what was next? The four horsemen of the apocalypse?


(can one of you guys PLEASE teach me how to embed a YouTube - I'm embarrassed to say I've never learned and can't seem to figure it out now)

I do play the records I buy, I have a pretty decent record deck. Typically though I buy older records, I only buy the LPs of my very favourite bands brand new and chances are i'll buy the CD too if I like them enough to get the record. But I don't play them every time I listen to the album, so i'd listen to the CD regularly and just break the LPs out occasionally.

To answer your question PK, lots of bands put out albums on vinyl. Probably a lot more now than 10 years ago. Queen have just re-released their whole back catalogue on top quality vinyl, and I just bought the new STP album on vinyl, the new Alice in Chains record and the album you see in my avatar too.

Most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a record on a good deck vs a CD I think, but in some cases the vinyl is noticeably better. The new Alice in Chains CD for instance suffers from a lot of frequency clipping and compression problems because they have tried to ramp all the levels up to make the CD as loud as possible, whereas the vinyl comes from a different master where the levels are lower and it subsequently sounds a lot better than the CD.

Okay...so is 'new issue' vinyl better than 'original' vinyl? Because, for example, I have a LOT of old Queen albums from the 'old days' that I bought when they first came out - I would assume the 'new' vinyl would have better sound quality, yes?

And since you brought up Alice in Chains....I guess you have kept up with all the new stuff.... Sadly, I have not. I just loved Layne so much that I have been resisting getting into the new guy (see! I don't even know his name!). I don't know...maybe it's because Layne was basically the center of all their old videos...but to me, he almost WAS AiC, and I never knew as much about the other band members as I did about, say, the non-Vedder members of PJ or the non-Cobain members of Nirvana. I need to find a way past this though, because I really liked that band back in the 90's before Layne went into non-functional seclusion... What are their best songs from the post-Layne era? I do NOT want to listen to the new guy singing Man in the Box - I really still can't face that. But maybe the best of the new stuff could re-hook me. I don't know....

Thanks to all of you guys (including Digits) for the comments about vinyl. I appreciate the education. Maybe us girls buy music like alot of men by clothes - we go on 'commando missions' to get a specific thing...and don't hang out in the music section of Best Buy for hours on end like guys tend to.

 

[TheBrew]

I need to grab LOTL. I regularly play the bootleg of the show I caught last year at DC which has amazing versions of "Black" and "Better Man" as well a performance of "The End", a beautiful song.

I plan on joining 10 Club this year, I am just deciding between Analog and Digital. The T-Shirt sounds sweet as well as the Vinyl (though I don't have a player).

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I need to grab LOTL. I regularly play the bootleg of the show I caught last year at DC which has amazing versions of "Black" and "Better Man" as well a performance of "The End", a beautiful song.

I plan on joining 10 Club this year, I am just deciding between Analog and Digital. The T-Shirt sounds sweet as well as the Vinyl (though I don't have a player).

The End is indeed a beautiful song. In fact, when the list came out of what was going to be on LOTL, I was a bit disappointed that that song and Force of Nature (my own personal favorite off of Backspacer) were not on it. I mean, how many live versions of Jeremy do we need, exactly?

I know...I know....bring in the casual fans, blah, blah, blah. And I do love Jeremy. But I would love to have seen The End and Force of Nature on this album (in addition to Got Some, The Fixer, Just Breathe, and Unthought Known, which did make it on there).

I also would have liked to have seen a bit more stuff from Avacado. I think the only song from Avacado on LOTL is World-Wide Suicide. But I gotta say, I have heard brilliant live versions of some of the other songs. Come Back immediately springs to mind - what a GREAT song that is, live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClUBNI8H7_E

Practically brings tears to my eyes, it's so full of soul.

I guess I'm greedy, because if it was up to me, this would have been a double album.

As for Ten Club, I would love to join that too - I'd love to get ahold of some of those 2009 and 2010 bootlegs. Plus, I'd really like to be able to post on their boards occasionally, groupie that I am and all.

I saw they have those two levels of membership now...but I don't know. I doubt PJ will be doing any shows in my area over the next year, so the good seats benefit won't help me this year. So is it really worth it this year, just to be able to post on the boards and get the Christmas single? And be able to buy boots when I can afford them? I don't know.....

 

[M'Sharak]

(can one of you guys PLEASE teach me how to embed a YouTube - I'm embarrassed to say I've never learned and can't seem to figure it out now)

Without the spaces, do:
[ yt]YouTube vid URL here[/ yt]

Note: Previewing first, then hitting Submit will cause the tags and URL to disappear - hitting the Back button out of Preview before submitting the post is a way of getting around this. Editing a post which already contains an embedded YT vid will also cause the vid to disappear - just keeping the vid URL on your clipboard so you can easily paste it back into your post is the best bet.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

(can one of you guys PLEASE teach me how to embed a YouTube - I'm embarrassed to say I've never learned and can't seem to figure it out now)

Without the spaces, do:
[ yt]YouTube vid URL here[/ yt]

Note: Previewing first, then hitting Submit will cause the tags and URL to disappear - hitting the Back button out of Preview before submitting the post is a way of getting around this. Editing a post which already contains an embedded YT vid will also cause the vid to disappear - just keeping the vid URL on your clipboard so you can easily paste it back into your post is the best bet.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

Man, I have tried about every combination of html nonsense, both here and at YouTube, to post a frakkin' video here, with zero success!!!

Tried all of our little buttons with the URL, the embed code, etc....no luck! Tried quoting someone else's video to see the codes around it - no luck!

But I guess there never was a button at all!

EDIT: Okay...so I tried to do this in the epic song thread and it didn't work...I get the video, but also a whole lot of html gibberish. But I'm looking at yours again and there seems to be spaces in front of the "yt" bits (after the [ or the [/. Maybe that's what I did wrong....

EDIT 2: Nope. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. You use the plain URL, right? Not the YouTube embed code? Cus if I use the URL, I get the video in about a 3 inch size...and a bunch of html stuff around it relating to size, etc.

 

[tomalak301]

Did you use the embed code or the link in the location bar. Use the link and try it to see if it works.

 

[the skullcowboy]

This could take awile...

Savatage- the granddaddy of american progressive metal imho

R.E.M.- there is something earnest about them

The Cure- fun fun fun

KISS- yeah I said it...let the bashing begin

Megadeth- say what you will but Mustaine>metallica

Greg Dulli( afghan whigs/twilight singers/gutter twins )- The quintessential modern-day Roy Orbison

Thursday- just like the sound

Avantasia- Epic metal at its best

should i keep going or have I garnered enough groans

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Did you use the embed code or the link in the location bar. Use the link and try it to see if it works.

I used the link first, and got the video to embed...but it was really small and had a bunch of html code before it and after it.

So then I tried the embed code and that just gave me a white box.

I still have one of the earlier YouTubes open - I'll try again as a test, and maybe if it doesn't work properly, one of you guys can figure out how I messed up.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClUBNI8H7_E[/yt]

 

[PKTrekGirl]

This could take awile...

Savatage- the granddaddy of american progressive metal imho

R.E.M.- there is something earnest about them

The Cure- fun fun fun

KISS- yeah I said it...let the bashing begin

Megadeth- say what you will but Mustaine>metallica

Greg Dulli( afghan whigs/twilight singers/gutter twins )- The quintessential modern-day Roy Orbison

Thursday- just like the sound

Avantasia- Epic metal at its best

should i keep going or have I garnered enough groans

Oh...by all means keep going. After all, I like REM! Maybe if you name 10 more bands I might like another!

(although in fairness, I do not know who those last three are - Greg Dulli, Thursday, and Avantasia).

(Oh...and it looks to me as if my YouTube worked this time. Have no idea what I was doing wrong before.)

 

[Pingfah]

Greg Dulli( afghan whigs/twilight singers/gutter twins )- The quintessential modern-day Roy Orbison

I have every album Greg Dulli has ever even sniffed at, Powder Burns is one of the best albums of the last decade IMO.

Okay...so is 'new issue' vinyl better than 'original' vinyl? Because, for example, I have a LOT of old Queen albums from the 'old days' that I bought when they first came out - I would assume the 'new' vinyl would have better sound quality, yes?

Well, the new Queen records are better quality than the old ones because they have remastered them, I think the technology for producing records has remained fairly dormant for the last few decades, so I don't think the actual physical product has improved in that time. Recording and remastering techniques certainly have though. Also they tend to issue records on heavier vinyl these days, which helps also.

Records that have been played excessively will lose some of their lustre too, but usually because most people can't afford the sort of deck you need to really make the most of them and haven't cleaned them properly over the years. It's minimal with a good deck and a bit of care though.

And since you brought up Alice in Chains....I guess you have kept up with all the new stuff.... Sadly, I have not. I just loved Layne so much that I have been resisting getting into the new guy (see! I don't even know his name!). I don't know...maybe it's because Layne was basically the center of all their old videos...but to me, he almost WAS AiC, and I never knew as much about the other band members as I did about, say, the non-Vedder members of PJ or the non-Cobain members of Nirvana. I need to find a way past this though, because I really liked that band back in the 90's before Layne went into non-functional seclusion... What are their best songs from the post-Layne era? I do NOT want to listen to the new guy singing Man in the Box - I really still can't face that. But maybe the best of the new stuff could re-hook me. I don't know....

I fully understand, I was skeptical too but the new singer is fantastic. The new album is really beautiful though, there's some really touching stuff, but also some good rockers in there. It sounds very much like AiC, but the new boy is not trying to be Layne Staley IMO. But then Jerry Cantrell was always the main writer writing almost all the music and a good 50% of the lyrics, so it's not too surprising.

Try out Check My Brain, that's one of the best rockers, Your Decision is one of the best laid back tracks, and Acid Bubble is just awesomeness personified.