Recommended Listening
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This is a recommended listening list I used to give to my students when I was teaching full time. It features music they wouldn't normally hear on commercial radio, other things I thought they should explore more fully and music that was an influence on me (or all three). This list is in no particular order.
UNCLASSIFIED 1. Frank Zappa - The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life, Roxy And Elsewhere, You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 2 (The Helsinki Concert), One Size Fits All, Apostrophe 2. Nomeansno – Anything up to and including 0+2=1, Wrong, Live and Cuddly, Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed, Sex Mad 3. Jello Biafra and Nomeansno - The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy 4. The Hampton Grease Band - Music To Eat 5. John Zorn - Naked City, Radio 6. Univers Zero - 1313, Any of them. 7. Miriodor - Elastic Juggling, Mekano (Mekano came out in 2001, it's fantastic!) 8. Violent Femmes - First Album 9. Henry Threadgill - Too Much Sugar For A Dime 10. Mike Keneally – Boil That Dust Speck 11. Captain Beefheart - Lick My Decals Off Baby, Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), Doc At The Radar Station 12. Sun Ra – Anything 13. Janet Feder – Speak Puppet, ICYIMI 14. Diamanda Galas - Plague Mass (the scariest music ever!) 15. Ivo Papsov - Orpheus Ascending (Bulgarian Fusion) 16. Anthony Braxton - So many CDs! So many formats! 17. Marc Ribot - Saints (he also does a fabulous interpretation of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on another CD of his). 18. James Blood Ulmer - Freelancing 19. Motor Humming - Musical Aluminum 20. The Bad Plus - Give RAP 1. Eric B and Rakim - Paid In Full, Follow the Leader 2. The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight 3. Ice T - It's been a while since I listened to Ice-T but anything from the late 80's will do. Rather X-Rated. 4. Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique 5. Stetsasonic – In Full Gear 6. Eminem - The first three CDs. For all the "f*** this" on these discs there is some amazing rhythmic invention in his phrasing. PUNK 1. Fear - More Beer, Live 2. Minutemen - Double Nickels On A Dime 3. Dead Kennedys - (Anything Really) Frankenchrist, Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables 4. The In'Bred - Family Affair 5. Black Flag - Who's Got The Ten And A Half 6. Minor Threat - Complete compilation CD 7. Bad Brains - Rock For Light 8. The Daycare Swindlers – New and Tasty, Testostarosa 9. Bad Religion - Suffer 10. Sex Pistol - Never Mind The Bollocks... 11. Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies 12. Scream - Scream 13. Battalion Of Saints – Second Coming 14. Shoutbus – Ain’t That America 15. The Exploder - The Sound Starts Right Now, Cut The Cord 16. The Descendents - (Anything) Somery and Everything Sucks COUNTRY & TEXAS SWING 1. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys - The Tiffany Transcriptions 2. Johnny Cash - The Sun Studio Recordings, Live from San Quenton 3. Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant - Stratosphere Boogie 4. Patsy Cline - 12 Greatest Hits 5. For a nice selection of tunes check out Columbia Records Country series. METAL 1. S.O.D. - Speak English or Die 2. Metallica - Kill 'em All, And Justice for All 3. Corn on Macabre - I & II (very heavy and intense, probably too much for most listeners) 4. Karp - s/t 5. Anthrax - Among the Living 6. System of a Down: s/t ACOUSTIC 1. Leo Kottke - My Feet Are Smiling, Guitar Music, My Father's Face, Live 2. David Grisman Quintet – S/T, Hot Dawg 3. Tony Rice - Devlin, Backwaters, Acoustics 4. John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola and Paco DeLucia - Friday Night In San Fransisco 5. John McLaughlin with Shakti - Shakti, Handful Of Beauty 6. Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundries 7. Django Reinhart - Anything with the Hot Club Of France Quintet with Stephane Grappelli 8. Ani DiFranco - Anything. Little Plastic Castle. 9. Richard Leo Johnson - Fingertip Ship 10. Sinti - Sinti 11. Keller Williams - Get a bootleg. I have one from from The Higher Ground in VT: 1-23-01. He is fantastic (if a little too cheerful for my normal taste). 12. John Fahey: The Christmas Album (There are at least 2 CDs with this title, both are great. They display all of Fahey's genius for invention on songs we've all heard a thousand times before. You've never known how cool "Jingle Bells" could actually sound until you've heard Fahey's version). 70's STYLE FUSION 1. John McLaughlin, The Mahavishnu Orchestra - Inner Mounting Flame, Birds of Fire 2. Billy Cobham - Spectrum 3. Jeff Beck - Wired, Blow by Blow 4. Larry Coryell - Live At The Village Gate, Live At Fairyland 5. Allan Holdsworth (1980's) - Road Games, Metal Fatigue PROG ROCK 1. Yes - Yessongs, Fragile, The Yes Album, 2. E.L.P. Brain Salad Surgery, Tarkus 3. King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black, Red, The Great Deceiver (4 CD Box Set) 4. Gong - Live Etc., You, Angel's Egg STRAIGHT AHEAD JAZZ 1. John Coltrane - Countdown, Gaint Steps 2. Charlie Parker - The Savoy Sessions, or anything as a quartet or quintet 3. Charles Mingus - Fables of Faubus 4. Miles Davis - Four and More ROCK 1. Rush - Moving Pictures, Hemispheres 2. Hendrix - Anything Live, Axis Bold As Love 3. Van Halen - Van Halen 1 4. Police - All 6 5. Zeppelin - All 6. The Grateful Dead - Live Dead 7. The Ventures - Golden Greats 8. Beatles - Everything 9. AC/DC - Everything before and including Back In Black 11. Black Sabbath - Paranoid 12. The Smiths - Pick one 13. Simon and Garfunkel- Greatest Hits 14. Pixies - Surfer Rosa 14. Velvet Underground - Any, All 15. The Doors - All 16. P.J. Harvey - Dry 17. Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West, The Moon and Antartica 18. Komdea - The Genius of Komeda 19. Ben Folds Five - First two CDs. 20. Third Eye Blind - s/t I LOVE this CD. Best pop record of the 1990's. EXPERIMENTAL/AVANT-GARDE This is a difficult category. Much of the music these musicians make are not what most people would casually listen to for enjoyment...at least I don't. I listen to these players and composers because they are doing new things with sound and form, which I think is as important as pure "pop" songwriting. There are lots of new musicial ideas and concepts to discover here. 1. Anthony Braxton 2. Art Ensemble of Chicago 3. Charles Ives 4. John Cage 5. Cecil Taylor 6. Pharoah Sanders 7. Harry Partch 8. Ruins 9. Eugene Chadbourne 10. Henry Cow - Western Culture 11. John Oswald - Plunderphonics (My understanding is this record no longer exsists but try your best to find a copy, it will blow your mind!) FUNK 1. James Brown - Love, Power, Peace: Live At The Olympia, Paris 1971 Most of the live James Brown CDs are excellent but this one is my favorite. CLASSICAL/CONCERT 1. Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird Suite 2. Leonard Bernstein - West Side Story: The Symphonic Dances 3. Nicolo Paganini - 24 Caprices (Itzak Perlman, violin) or (Elliot Fisk, guitar) 4. Bach - Just about anything. 5. Kronos Quartet - Sculthrope/Sallinen/Glass/Nancarrow/Hendrix 6. Anton Webern REGGAE 1. Bob Marley - Live, Rastaman Vibrations GUITAR 1. Eric Johnson - Tones, Ah Via Mucicom 2. Larry Coryell - Live at Montroeux (solo), Live at Fairyland, Live at The Village Gate 3. Pat Metheny - Zero Tolerance For Silence (Great solo guitar album. Not at all what you would expect from Metheny, very noisy.) HUMOR 1. The Smothers Brothers - All 2. Steve Martin - All 3. Steven Wright - I Have A Pony 4. Neil Hamburger - Raw Hamburger 5. Tom Lehrer - All 6. Richard Cheese - Any NOTE: s/t means a self titled CD. |