The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

What is your favourite kind of music, bands, performers or composers?


I am mostly a metalhead, but I do listen to quite a variety of different kinds of music.

Here's a few favourite albums of mine:

Cirith Ungol - King of the Dead
Rainbow - Rising
Manilla Road - Crystal Logic
Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus
Agent Steel - Skeptics Apocalypse
Jag Panzer - Ample Destruction
Razor - Executioner's Song
Anvil - Forged in Fire

And some non metal:
Agent Orange - Living in Darkness
Yes - Fragile
Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds
Rush - Hemispheres
Misfits - American Psycho

Mostly hard rock old country and folk.

Some of my favorite artists:
Townes Van Zandt
Hank Williams
Black Sabbath
Pentagram
Roky Erickson
AC/DC (with Bon Scott)
Neil Young
Credence Clearwater Revival
Dead Moon
Jimmie Rodgers
Woody Guthrie
The Carter Family

Newer stuff I listen to
Graveyard
Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats
Dead Man
Witchcraft
Radio Moscow
The Gates of Slumber
High on Fire
Chatham County Line
The Sadies
Fleet Foxes
The Tallest Man on Earth

For me almost all rock:

Rob Zombie
Papa Roach
My Darkest Days
In This Moment
Halestorm
Pop Evil
Saving Abel
Five Finger Death Punch
Godsmack

Not all super hard rock, some a little on the milder side actually, much like reading, I enjoy want I do...

Alexander: Some cool stuff, I also really dig Pentagram and Sabbath. Love me some Gates of Slumber too.

Jim: I used to really be into Godsmack, I saw them open for Metallica and they blew them off the stage. They did a duel drum solo with Sully also bashing the skins, and they were throwing the drumstick between each other and just taking off.

Boy a lot of the preceding stuff is unknown to me, never heard of it. Which probably means I never listened to it, either. I eschew commercial radio - can't stand the obnoxious DJs and the shouting car salesmen. For years the only non-commercial radio was our local public broadcasting station which played classical music. I like classical music, (I'm a Beethoven groupie) so I listened to it. Which means for nearly fifteen years I heard very little popular music. And I don't watch much TV either (can't stand the commercials and the banality.) When my local public radio station went all talk, I had only my classical CDs to listen to. All my old rock records were LPs. Never got into file 'sharing' or iTunes. Eventually I discovered Pandora, which doesn't do classical well. So I listen to the popular music of my day, before I tuned out.

Paul Simon & Simon and Garfunkel
The Beatles
Eric Clapton
The Rolling Stones
Fleetwood Mac
Buddy Holly
The Mamas and the Papas
Mark Knopfler & Dire Straits
Jefferson Airplane
The Kinks

I was lost in time. Pandora has been a time machine to bring me into the present. I've discovered a lot of newer artists, still probably not the in-crowd though. It's hard to know what's popular when nobody else feeds it to you. So, these are the newer artists I enjoy:

Norah Jones
Jack Johnson
Ingrid Michaelson
Jason Mraz
Lenka
Amy Winehouse
Madeleine Peyroux
and can't forget Vampire Weekend (my spouse's obsession)

I also enjoy Swing, the jazz of the 1930s and early 40s.

I wonder if tastes in music are related at all to tastes in literature. And I wonder if anybody in this group even comes close to sharing my musical tastes.

i listen to literally only music made from a computer or analogue synth. My favourites which are all primarily very fast dance/acid/electro and a couple of chilled artists:

Aphex Twin
Squarepusher
Hardfloor
Ellen Allien
Modselektor
µ-Ziq
Authechre
Ben Sims
Benn Jordann aka FlexE, Human Action Network
Boards of Canada
Future Sound of London
Joel Mull
Joey Beltram
Josh Wink
The KLF
Kruder and Dorfmeister
Leftfied
LFO
Luke Vibert
Orbital
Prefuse 73
Sun Electric
The Orb
Tetsu Inoue
Underworld
Venetian Snares

There's probably a few ive forgot.

PS ive started getting into Drum & Bass/Jazz with Courtney Pine

Buck wrote: "Boy a lot of the preceding stuff is unknown to me, never heard of it. Which probably means I never listened to it, either. I eschew commercial radio - can't stand the obnoxious DJs and the shouti..."

I share your taste in classic rock from those you mentioned I like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks.

I listen to mostly rock and metal, but I like different stuff.

Breaking Benjamin
Chevelle
Avenged Sevenfold
Scar Symmetry
Amon Amarth

I would have to say those are my top five.

Pickle wrote: "i listen to literally only music made from a computer or analogue synth. My favourites which are all primarily very fast dance/acid/electro and a couple of chilled artists:

Aphex Twin
Squarepusher..."

whoa!
i don't know why there are so few electronic music listeners here on goodreads. but at least i am not alone in this group now :)

I've done a lot of exploring in music over the years. Musically I grew up in the late 70's and 80's, so my base is 80's alt rock. My favorites from that era are
The Fixx
Simple Minds
FM
China Crisis
Early REM
Early U2
Midnight Oil
Juluka and Johnny Clegg & Savuka
Icehouse
Roxy Music
Split Enz/ Crowded House/ Neil Finn
Pearl Harbor and the Explosions
Strange Advance

In the 90's after Nirvana alt rock pretty much disappeared and meshed with mainstream rock, so I was kind of lost. I liked Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots but everyone else just imitated them. I did some music reviewing for a webzine in the late 90's and wasn't listening to much radio once everything was owned by Clearchannel. I started getting into World Music (which is really only called that in the US, so I hope I'm not offending anyone) and Europop and a bit of JPop. From that stuff I like:
The Cardigans/ A Camp/ Nina Persson
St. Etienne
Bonnie Pink
Kent
Floraline (who are from the US, but really fit more into a Swedish Pop sound)
Eggstone
Ivy
Angelique Kidjo

More recently I've been getting back into collecting vinyl, so I've been getting into Prog rock and Funk. Favorites from these genres are:
Yes
Glass Hammer
Kansas
Rush
The Brothers Johnson
Rufus and Chaka Khan
Nile Rogers produced stuff

I just started buying some new stuff on vinyl. I got Nina Persson's Animal Heart and Neil Finn's Dizzy Heights on vinyl. It's really a pretty good deal because they come with a download card and the vinyl sounds a lot better. You get the best of both worlds. Both albums are fantastic.

I also like harder rock like UFO. One of my all time favorites is Steely Dan. Dire Straits and Fleetwood Mac are old favorites too.

I've been studying music for the past few years and I've gone through many different musical phases. Here's some of what I listen to:

Big Big Train (Steam punk prog)
Led Zeppelin
mewithoutYou
The Beatles
16 Horsepower
Spoon
Starflyer 59
The Impossible Shapes
Radiohead
John Martyn
Elton John (70's)
Ralph Vaughan Williams

I listen to a lot of obscure music and often try to find anything that strays from the generic and tries to for something different.

On a more science fiction related note, I don't know if any if you have read The Difference Engine (I haven't) but I think the album The Difference Machine by Big Big Train was inspired by that book. I Robot by Alan Parsons Project is also a good instrumental worth listening to.

Dan wrote: "What is your favourite kind of music, bands, performers or composers?


I am mostly a metalhead, but I do listen to quite a variety of different kinds of music.

I have Sad Wings of Destiny on vinyl and CD. Naturally, I ripped it to MP3 when that became feasible. I have a first pressing of Iron Maiden's Live After Death as well...and Bowie's Ziggy, and The Beatles Sgt Pepper (including the inserts). Sadly, I no longer own a turntable, or even a stereo. All of the music I listen to is ripped from CD. I use a crap desktop with Winamp as a player and a pair of M-Audio AV40s for sound, and my phone. Ah, technology. I've zealously held onto my vinyl out of sentimentality. I also have the first CD I ever bought back in the mid to late 80s when they first became available, Rush, Fly By Night. It still plays.

As to what I listen to -- well, it's always been simpler to list what I don't listen to. I have a strong dislike for Hip Hop founded mostly in the crass disregard for humanity Gansta Rap musicians have shown over the years. Any man who can casually refer to the women around him as 'his whores' and brag about killing makes me want back slowly away and scurry home to hug my guns. I don't have much use for country music for similar reasons and I hate pretty much anything meant for one to dance to in a club setting. I find most electronic music of that sort insipid...and boy bands give me hives. There are always exceptions to any 'all' statements, but --

What I do listen to most nights is the 1000+ track playlist I've been adding to and deleting from for the better part of ten years. It's a scary thing called 'Writer's Block' that would probably make most of you cringe. Right now Anne Lennox is singing 'Why' live. When the next track plays, it could be anything from Tori Amos to ZZ Ward.

Recently, I've been impressed by Dead Sara. Dearly love that band. I'm psyched that S|K is back together and L-Seven has been making similar noises. I've been enjoying The Pretty Reckless because they make me want to pull out tracks by Joan Jett, The Runaways, Pat Benatar, Blondie and Heart.

Nope, but I was close. The next track is A Perfect Circle, By and Down (Live from the Red Rocks set). I have a strong affection for the music of Maynard Keenan too. It goes back to the early 90s when Prison Sex premiered on Headbanger's Ball. I caught the video and ran out to pick up Undertow the next day. I've been listening ever since. The man can be kind of an ass, but he and his have managed to put out some interesting music. I even enjoy a bit of Puscifer.

Here's an example of the chaos: Annie Lennox, Courtney Love, Lacuna Coil, Lamb of God, Lars Frederickson & The Bastards, Le Tigre, Led Zeppelin, Leftover Crack, Lesbians on Ecstasy, Less Than Jake, Lifehouse, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Live, Living Color, Local H, Loikaemie & Menace, Long Beach Dub Allstars, Lords of Acid, Love and Rockets, L-Seven, Lunachicks, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ottmar Liebert, and The Lone Bellow.

Yes, those are all bands or musicians. That's the 'L' directory from my music collection. I had to break the mess down at one point and start nesting alphabetically because the collection had grown too much to be manageable. I disdain Apple's desire to organize my music. I get on better without such help. I have separate directories for collections of specific types of music such as Broadway musicals. Who doesn't love Avenue Q and Spamalot enough to give them a special home? I even have a nice Blues collection my Pop gifted me with for Christmas and a couple of Classic Soul. And yes, there's Jazz, Classical, Soundtracks, Motown...

Here I said I'd try to keep this simple. It isn't. I like music a lot. I like a lot of different music.

I've been using iTunes for a long time and I have to agree, the way Apple "organizes" music, particularly on the latest versions is maddening. iTunes became nearly unusable in the last couple of generations. I mostly liked it a few years ago, but their need to alphabetized an artist like Annie Lennox under A is enough to make want to chuck my iPod across the room. I learned to live with it, but I don't like it. Maybe it's time to find another system.

I've yet to meet anyone who actually liked iTunes, although many use it. I have to pull it off of PCs at work occasionally as it causes problems. My daughter used to use it, but quit after it kept scrambling her audio books.

I've never liked any software to organize my pictures, music or any other media. I use file directories, make sure to convert all files to standardized formats & file names. That way when I change devices, operating systems, or software, I can always keep & find my media.

Jim wrote: "I've yet to meet anyone who actually liked iTunes, although many use it. I have to pull it off of PCs at work occasionally as it causes problems. My daughter used to use it, but quit after it kept scrambling her audio books...."

I listen to audiobooks on my iPhone. The app that comes with the phone, used to work okay with iOS 6, but now it scrambles the books. Most of the time, the graphic is invisible, so you can't
see what to tap on. If you have more than one audiobook, it will play part 1 of book 1 and then part 1 of book 2. very exasperating. There are other, better, player apps for audiobooks. My favorite is Overdrive and I also use OneClickDigital and Hoopla. I can get audiobooks from my library through all of them.

That sounds similar to what my daughter told me 5 years or so ago, Buck. I use a SanDisk MP3 player & haven't had any issues with it, thankfully. I also get my audio books from the library. It's a great resource & has doubled the amount of books I can get through in a year. Makes mowing, weeding, & other boring jobs a lot nicer, too.

Jim wrote: "I've yet to meet anyone who actually liked iTunes, although many use it. I have to pull it off of PCs at work occasionally as it causes problems. My daughter used to use it, but quit after it kep..."

You can tell it to leave your files alone. That's how I use it when I'm forced to. Mostly I keep the files I intend to use, or have to use through it, in an entirely different place. It can do whatever it wants to my 'mobile' directory. For my stable music library I burn CDs with it, and then rip them to MP3 for my permanent copies. It's a bit of extra work, but in the end, I have what I want in the format and location I want it in.

I've never met a software package that I haven't had to work around. Quarantining seems the best approach with iTunes now. Drive space is ridiculously cheap. I'm sure something similar could be done with audio books. I might even be tempted to use another machine or user account to quarantine them, make copies and move them to a stable location. I've never bought an audio book through the Apple Store, so I wouldn't know. I'm an Audible member with a Samsung phone and tablet and two Win7 machines.

My prefered bands are most hard rock:

Guns n' Roses
Aerosmith
Queen
W. A. S. P.
Cinderella
Skid Row (with Sebastian Bach)
Bon Jovi
Steelheart
Air Supply
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Def Leppard
Europe
Poison
Free
Mötley Crüe
L. A. Guns
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Scorpions
U. F. O.
Whitesnake

Can we direct this thread towards SF related bands and albums such as Rush' s 2112, Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, Parson's aforementioned I, Robot, Sonic Youth's All Tomorrow's Parties, Radiohead's OK, Computer, etc.?

I ask because I would like to get turned on to SF themed music that I have missed to date.

Gregg wrote: "Can we direct this thread towards SF related bands and albums..."

We did start such a discussion later here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...