OK, guys, I have a proposition. First an explanation: One of the radio stations here is asking listeners to send in their favorite 5 songs of all time. I think that would be really hard. So I’m going to start off slow. I want you to list your five favorite bands/singers/artists. No more than five! One question: Should we include solo artists and the groups they sang in together, or separately? Like is John Lennon a separate artist from the Beatles, or should all his work be considered together? What about Paul Simon with and without Art Garfunkel? To me, John Lennon is a different artist that The Beatles, but Paul Simon’s work should all be considered together. What do you think? I leave it up to you.
In future postings I will ask for favorite Beatles songs, then other artists, then perhaps favorite classical and/or jazz and/or show tunes and/or hymns/carols, then eventually, favorite five songs of all time. So be pondering….
Ok: my top five favorite bands/singers/artists (Dan's going to kill me for this)....these are the people I would drop anything to go see:
ReplyDeleteIn no particular order, and ignoring rules of reality:
Edie Carey
Stan Rogers (who is dead, but I would still drop anything to see)
Melissa Ferrick
Shawn Colvin
James Taylor
I look forward to the future questions breaking it down!
Since we seem to be referring to singers, and singers over their entire careers have ups and downs, I will choose to view the question as greatest voices. And of course, these are really just the top five at the moment, I am sure that at least 4 of these would be different if you asked me tomorrow. Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Enrico Caruso, John Lee Hooker, Geddy Lee.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to observe how we are interpreting the question differently. I'm taking a different approach: not necessarily the best voices, not people I'm dying to see, but those whose bodies of work in whole I most enjoy listening to. I have a list of about 30 I'm arranging and rearrangeing, trying to limit it to five. Naturally, given my age, most are from the 70's and 80's. The vast majority are male - does that say something about me, or about the 70's and 80's? My top two are Paul Simon/Simon and Garfunkel (surprised?) and The Beatles, but after that I have about 10 that could be 3, 4, and 5. This is really hard.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... Tricky! Interpreting the rule as "stuff I could put on loop and enjoy forever", my own empirically-derived answers are:
ReplyDelete1) anything involving Les Claypool
2) Cake
3) Soul Coughing
4) ... 5) ...
Those are the three that spew from my speakers approximately every day. Beyond that, you may have gathered once upon a time that I listen to an overly hectic variety of music, so I simply don't have the time or the guts to single out anyone else on a daily basis... Could be KMFDM and Raffi; who knows.
Just self-observation; empiricism wins again!
PS: keep up this awesomeness.
ReplyDeleteThanks, j, I will!
ReplyDeleteWell, the cliche that most often rings true is that money talks. I see no reason why that wouldn't remain true in music, so the first place I looked was my iTunes. If I spent time and/or money collecting music by a particular artist, that's a pretty good indication that I like them. I thought I'd be able to look at my most-played iTunes songs and just shoot off the top 5, but it actually is harder than that.
ReplyDeleteAs a library that has been automatically maintained for a large part of my life, scanning back over it does allow me to gain perspective on what artists and music were important to me/iconic at different stages of my life. Those that hold some emotional or sentimental value, that inform my states of mind over or conjure up images of various important parts of my life must be those that make my list, even if their whole bodies of work appear scant or shallow. So with little logical or empirical analysis, it looks like these are a few solid bets (not in hierarchical order):
-James Taylor, Blink 182 (Middle/High School)
-John Mayer (college years)
-Dierks Bentley (post-college Illinois)
-Bob Dylan (post-college East Coast)
{Runners up: Tom Petty, Steve Miller Band, Paul Simon, Ray LaMontaigne, Motion City Soundtrack, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Pain, The Hippos, Damien Rice}
You'd think I would have something to add, but not really. Maybe
ReplyDeleteBob Dylan, Tom Waits (?), The Beatles (?), Robert Johnson (?), and, why not, Kyuu Sakamoto.