The truly great band/album you haven't discovered yet : does it really exist?

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After so many false alarms generated by reviews, after much digging around at CD stores, after taking so many chances on random CDs, after countless recommendations by friends, I have my doubts whether an awesome, obsession-worthy band or album will ever enter my life again. Do you think that the truly great band/album you haven't discovered yet is really out there?

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Thursday, 29 May 2003 17:38 (twenty years ago) link

I have perfect and serene faith in the potential that it could be. But I am starting to have less interest in finding it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 May 2003 17:43 (twenty years ago) link

I think I found it years ago in the first Pretenders & Gang of Four LPs. Someone will need to invent a new instrument & genre before I get my hopes up.

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 29 May 2003 17:46 (twenty years ago) link

i am quite certain that there is enough music out there that when i die there will still be loads of music that i want to hear

― robin (robin), Thursday, 29 May 2003 17:48 (twenty years ago) link

i am quite certain that there is enough music out there that i will never run out of stuff that i am dying to hear

― robin (robin), Thursday, 29 May 2003 17:48 (twenty years ago) link

Well, which is it?

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 29 May 2003 17:49 (twenty years ago) link

I am absolutely certain of it. I have some guesses about albums which might fit the bill, but even if they don't pan out, I'm sure there will be others.

(I never say "fit the bill" or "pan out." I'm not sure what's wrong with me.)

― Rockist Scientist, Thursday, 29 May 2003 17:51 (twenty years ago) link

(I never say "fit the bill" or "pan out." I'm not sure what's wrong with me.)

(the effect of the 'Mr.Big' thread, no? ;-)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 29 May 2003 20:29 (twenty years ago) link

Every day (nearly) I discover something new and cool. Yes, I believe there exists many truly great records I've never heard (and sadly may never hear)..

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 29 May 2003 22:34 (twenty years ago) link

Electric Six, Van Morrison (at least Moondance through Tupelo Honey or whenever) and Yeah Yeah Yeahs reaffirmed it for me this year. The latter, whose EP didn't impress me, also helped remind me that bands I previously didn't care for CAN GET BETTER.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 29 May 2003 22:36 (twenty years ago) link

i am still young and there's so much music i haven't heard, that i'm hearing great new stuff all the time. maybe a few years down the line, there'll be nothing left to excite me. i don't know. i heard the future sound of london for the first time today, wich is great.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Thursday, 29 May 2003 22:54 (twenty years ago) link

The more you know, the more you can know.

― Mike Taylor (mjt), Friday, 30 May 2003 00:38 (twenty years ago) link

i dont think the dolphins of the forest have any recordings available yet, so the answer to the question is "No."

― jack cole (jackcole), Friday, 30 May 2003 00:45 (twenty years ago) link

In the last, oh, 9 months or so, I've discovered about 30 'truly great' artists or albums. I think every single one is from at least 30 years ago, most of them being reggae. There's so much music out there, and I'm interested in so much of it, I think it'll be awhile before I run out.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 May 2003 01:17 (twenty years ago) link

Happens all the time. This week, it was Cerberus Shoal, who I only knew before from a split 7" with emo also-rans Still Life a few years ago. Just got sent a new CD of theirs to review (a split with Alvarius B) and holy hell it's extraordinary.

When in doubt, mine the past. Browse Twisted Village, Eclipse or Forced Exposure and learn something new. Ditto for checking in with ILM a few times a week. There is no shortage. Have faith.

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Friday, 30 May 2003 01:35 (twenty years ago) link

Yes.

There are so many 'truly great' bands I missed first time around - great albums released when I was into music but not into that specific genre, great bands that split up before I was even born - and have only now found out about. And I don't believe musical greatness to be a finite resource, so there must be more bands that haven't formed yet, records that haven't been made yet, that will prove obsession-worthy. But, then, maybe I just obsess easily?

This year has completely revived my faith in music, made me exciteable and hyperbolic, but even in the last fallow few years there's always been at least one band to discover and to keep.

― cis (cis), Friday, 30 May 2003 01:44 (twenty years ago) link

i too went through a period asking myself this same issue last year. then i "found" moshi moshi/melodic/superglider - 3 record labels who have completely reinvigorated my interest in modern music again. each label has its own identity and sound and are not following media friendly hype. highlights include the tex la homa album on superglider, ingo star cruiser on moshi moshi and the label compilation on melodic .. these releases have opened so many new avenues in the last year i can hardly keep up.
onwards ..
mark e

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 30 May 2003 06:55 (twenty years ago) link

I'm never, ever gonna have a band that effects me in the way that The Stone Roses effected me, or a band that I'll be involved with as much as I was involved with Embrace. Equally I don't think I'll ever find an album that will have as seismic an affect on the way I hear music and approach art and life as In Sides or Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Those things all happened to me between the ages of 15 and 18, which, I think, is probably the time when you're most receptive to seizing hold of things and running with them to that obsessive degree, that age when one album can become all important, when you can truly believe that one band are the best band evah. I'm pretty sure I'm now a; too old and b; too aware of how much is out there that I don't know of yet, to ever believe such comprehensive and arbitrary subjective truths ever again. And I wouldn't really want to. But that's not to say that I don't think there are oodles of absolutely fucking magnificently fabulous bands/artists out there; they may not change my life in a dramatic, pivotal way, but every time I hear something new that I think is great it opens a new portal of potential appreciation for me. I've only got to think back to my first listen to Manitoba or Cure For Pain by Morphien this year to know there's still stuff out there that's gonna tingle my spine and whathaveyou. There's always great new stuff to find.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 30 May 2003 07:59 (twenty years ago) link

King Kobra: if it's not too intrusive, how old are you and what kind of stuff do you listen to? I'm 22 and I buy/acquire far more records than I have time to properly digest. A situation which is about a trillion times more pleasurable than the thought of being, say, 30 and just giving up listening to new music, or interesting old music for that matter. I see it as fairly inevitable that I will eventually get round to 'getting into' jazz, for example.

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 30 May 2003 08:11 (twenty years ago) link

(I'm not sure about the obsessive part. I have hardly ever been that truly obsessive about a particular artist. It happened more in my 20's with Psychic TV--a bit of a waste of obsessiveness--than it ever happened in my teens. And I guess that ordering a UMI print of a dissertation about Oum Kalthoum could be considered somewhat obsessive, but I've never used her image as wallpaper for my PC, for instance. So I don't necessarily expect to become "obsessed" with an artist or album again.)

― Rockist Scientist, Friday, 30 May 2003 12:20 (twenty years ago) link

King Kobra: if it's not too intrusive, how old are you and what kind of stuff do you listen to?

I'm 24 and I listen to all kinds of stuff. I don't think there's a single genre that I haven't made some foray into. And I listen to a lot of music. I listen to at least 10 new albums a week (and by new, I mean new to me). And I'm not saying that there aren't good songs, or even good bands. I guess what I mean is that I just doubt that I'll ever feel as strongly about a new album as I have already felt about albums I know and love. I hear new stuff and while some of it's good, I feel like I haven't found something that completely captivates me, exhilerates me, and forces me into obsession in a long while, and I-- sadly-- question whether I ever will have that experience again. Again, I don't mean to suggest that everything sucks, and I know there's enough stuff out there to keep me busy for a long time, but my personal observation has been that 90% of the stuff is rubbish, about 9.5% is good but ultimately disposable, and .5% (actually, probably less, based on a quick runthrough of my experience) is really good stuff that I would have to have on a desert island with me. I just have serious doubts whether something I haven't heard yet could make it on my desert island list.

Some albums that have done it for me in the past:
Neutral Milk Hotel : In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Stone Roses : S/T
Labradford : Fixed :: Content
Slowdive : Souvlaki

...to name a few.

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Friday, 30 May 2003 14:29 (twenty years ago) link

I just ordered that Neutral Milk Hotel album the other day. Let's see if it sends me.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 30 May 2003 14:37 (twenty years ago) link

why wouldn't there be? Music never ends. give some dork a guitar or a sampling keyboard when he's 12 and see what happens in 10 years.

we've had a century of recorded music, and at least 2.5 decades of music since punk, so there are always new things to be found, either thru historical mining, or just by keeping your ears out.

for example, i was finally exposed to the Stone Roses this year, and Ride/Spiritualized last year. etc.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 30 May 2003 15:01 (twenty years ago) link

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