My decade of surprises thus far:
1.
TOOL: Lateralus; 10,000 Days
2.
ENO: Another Day On Earth, and The Equatorial Stars (w/Fripp)
3.
faun fables: featuring Nils from SGM, I will never miss another ff show again
4.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum: (thanks to JAC, I now have their first album); In less than 2 weeks, I may very well be finally indoctrinated into their unbelievably cool live show
5. new
pearl jam: ( *can you say "Alive", again?*)
6.
Sonic Youth (have released a perfect encore album w/"Rather Ripped")
7.
HANK III (carrying on w/the torch left behind by BLACK FLAG, and then some. "Country Royalty"-? Try the Country/Punk King. \m/ yee HAW \m/ )
8.
Supersuckers (still bringin it to every live show in every podunk town lucky enough to have em .. . Eddie Spaghetti is that rarity, a true alt/punk/country rocker underground hero: and I get to see em yet again w/SOCIAL DISTORTION in a couple weeks)
9.
The Mars Volta (damn. damn. DAMN! Their egoistic tantrums aside, when these boys get down to playing their music, you can pretty much forget about everything and everyone else. This is 200 proof stuff live, right here. Long may they fly their freak flag)
10.
dredg They never have, and never will, release a bad album. Even when embracing the mainstream sensibility, this band manages to outshine 99% of the rock bands I've heard out there (as their latest album "Catch Without Arms" flawlessly proves).
11.
A Perfect Circle -- Their 2nd effort "13th Step" also proves this band is no fluke. And although it took me a while to digest it, I have found their cover album "eMOTIVe" to showcase a refreshing range of experimentation in the reworkings of these classic songs. APC's "Imagine" would have done J.Lennon proud (were he alive to hear it in its mournful, e-minor dirge -guise) *huge props for APC for pulling that off*
12.
Pigmy Love Circus -- Gotta hand it to Danny Carey for "keepin it real" with his poor man's Motorhead meets psycho motherlovin' rebels. This is pure ground in-yo-face garage rock w/wrecking - ball finesse; I've got my fingers crossed we'll be hearin' more from these angry adults after the TOOL tour draws to a close.
13.
Scissorfight - - Talk about "keepin it real", well these New Hampshire mountain men bring the rawest, most primal form of back country rock'n'roll you've heard in a dawg's age. Props to Iron Lung for living up to his name, and also to the whole band for releasing the monster that is "JAGGERNAUT" earlier this year.
14.
ZWAN -- I don't care what anyone says, but ZWAN was post-pumpkins glory in peak form. I saw their live show twice, and am
still miffed @ Paz for takin' off w/Pajo & leavin' billy & jimmy in the dust, broken-hearted. Luckily for us true blue music afficionadoes, we will have the full length album "Mary, Star Of The Sea" to listen to for the rest of our lives.
15.
bonnie Prince billy - thanks to sisyphus, I've enjoyed a whole new
world of alt/indy, goth-country -tinged music which the bonnie Prince fountainheads, a veritable plethora of music expanding to the horizon as far as the ear can hear. (thanks sisy, I owe you bigtime;)
16.
black/deathmetal: Huge decade for this genre, as it begins rearing its antisocial, hellstained head to terrify & confuse the panicky mainstream in its midst. I bypassed the 'mainstream' emergence (bands like "Cradle of Filth", dimmu borgir, children of bodom, etc are fine for the teenyboppers, but I've bypassed all that rot for the true blue black blood of the unholy underground from the genre): Salt Lake's own IBEX THRONE, THE OBLITERATE PLAGUE, TERRA NOIR, YAOTL MICTLAN, INCENDIANT, always provide a killer underground death set here in their hometown, and at the same time, their growing underground popularity in the USBM scene is drawing fellow guilty-parties to this fair city, awesome bands like SUMERIA, NOKTURNE, DEMON SWORD, CRIMSON MOON, ABYSSMAL NOCTURNE, and too many others to list here.
Then there's the resurgence of foreign deathmetal acts such as KREATOR, VADER, BEHEMOTH, and their ilk, who seem to be on heavy rotation on the underground metal route. There's the new CRYPTOPSY album which, imo, is the best thing they've released since "Blasphemy Made Flesh" and "None So Vile". And I've made some interesting "extreme technical deathmetal" discoveries such as east coast's ARSIS, Germany's NECROPHGIST, and Canada's NEURAXIS, to name but a few.
Yes, its easy to see that USBM/death is undergoing a massive resurgence, and there is quite obviously nothing on this earth to stop it. Which is fine by me
17.
post -rock : ok, this musical movement is HUGE, and for a life-long ENO/PINK FLOYD-fan such as myself, it is an enormous relief bordering on sheer JOY to have discovered such a boundless genre of rock music. There's GODSPEED YOU!BLACK EMPEROR, who, imo deserve the "crown" for this movement (although, unluckily, mine ears have never been graced w/their live presence); japan's MONO (pronounced "Moe-no", which means "thing" in Japanese from what I've been led to understand) who are my personal "favorites" of the genre; Scotland's MOGWAI who veer dangerously close to stealing the crown (always an excellent live show); EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY from Texas are doin' their thing, and as far as I'm concerned, they can keep on goin' at it); then there's the "heavier" post-rock bands (arguably to be classified as something else, such as "post -metal" or "post -core"), such as ISIS and PELICAN and RED SPAROWES, all these bands bring to the table their own unique, worthy take on the rock deconstruction route.
In any case, the post -rock movement ALONE is striking and worthy enough to make this decade of music truly unique, and allow it to rise above most (if not ALL) past decades entirely.
18.
Tom Waits - - ever since MULE VARIATIONS (which was released in '99, actually), Tom has continued to prove himself worthy with every album dropped that features his name on the cover. Whether it's the baroque & raw "Blood Money", the smooth & lyrical "Alice", or the dropped-dirty bomb "Real Gone", the man is in peak form, and quite obviously ain't gunna be stoppin any time soon. This is Tom Wait's decade. Slowly building upon a foundation of gutter blues/folk music featuring his distinctive vocals & lyrical abilities that rival the great Dylan himself, the man is an avatar of post-jazz/gritty blues who easily earns the moniker of "genius" *koff*/rit/*end koff and may actually be the single human being who could arguably be giving Bob Dylan a run for his money.
19.
Porcupine Tree - ok, if you haven't noticed this band's name being dropped a lot lately, you may be tuning in to the wrong radio station - - or you may just need to give the radio a break, period. Steve Wilson carries on Pink Floyd's tradition of constructing amazing, thoughtful, lucid, and post-psychedelic neo-trance music that actually, defies categorization and should just be listened to. They have a vast repertoire of music originating before the start of this decade, but "In Absentia" came out in 2002, and it (along w/their latest "Deadwing") showcases why this is a band to be taken seriously.
20.
OPETH: God bless Mikhael, I love this man to death. Not only does he bring an awesome personality (that of your favorite uncle) to the stage each and every time they perform, but he and his bandmates deliver the most impeccably -played, classical "death metal" your ears will ever hear. Bringing the genres of classical, death metal, and progressive tendencies to the table, OPETH is unlike any other musical entity alive. Their classic album BLACKWATER PARK is the watermark for such beautiful, heavy music, and it was released sometime in 2002, and they're continuing to wow the rock world with each and every effort that comes out under their name. For those of you who just can't tolerate the heavy "deathmetal" growls or music, please, PLEASE do yourselves the favor of making an exception for their album DAMNATION, which features not a single metal guitar chord, nor scream from beginning to end. Rather, it highlights the band's incredible elasticity & musicianship with a moody, downright beautiful assortment of thoughtful, somber songs to enjoy during the twilight hours of the day, or of life. (I am particularly excited about the upcoming merger between Mikhael of Opeth, STeve Wilson of Porcupine Tree, and the drummer from Dream Theater: talk about a rock'n'roller's wet dream cum true... should be out in the near future)
21.
KORN : LIttle did we fukkers expect that losing their co-founding, formerly integral guitarist Brian Head Welch to Jesus would be the best thing that ever happened to this band, well it did happen, and the results are a trimmed -down, but far more creative & expansive sounding band. Their latest release "See YOu ON The Other Side" is an explosive array showcasing these musician's diverse talents with track after track, proving the four remaining members from this Bakersfield, CAlifornia band to have remained that rarest of exceptions in the music world: Somehow embracing the totality of the spectrum by having one foot firmly placed in the mainstream, and the other firmly established amidst the alternative crowd and/or metal- /underground-/ goth- / industrial - , eclipsing all these various genres and demarcations into one bombastic (not to mention volcanic) force. Korn have grown up, and still retain to this day their legion of fanatic supporters in tow. It's been eleven years since my music -loving life was Nuked into a billion splintering pieces by this volatile band, and my love for them has done nothing but grow with each and every album, until today I can honestly say I place KORN up on the same plateau as PINK FLOYD, LED ZEPPELIN, and any other "classic" band you'd care to name. Hell yes Korn is here to stay and if you don't like it,
HAha, ya best step back then, cuz we fukkers will flock to each & every show these awesome guys still have it in em to put on. \m/ Long Live KORN and hard rock music \m/
- - - -
Well, that's it for now, all off the top of my head.
If those 21 reasons aren't enough to convince you that the current decade is by far the most exciting, original, diverse, creative, and plain jawdroppin AWESOME decade of music this curious species known as
homo sapiens have thus far produced, then I'm afraid you
may just be "stuck in the __'s" (*insert decade of choice*
