Rock Bands

I love promoting and introducing new bands and new sounds to my friends and family, and obviously, to all of you! There's something great about always hearing something new and learning new lyrics and new riffs, it's fun and exciting. It's a way, at least for me, to release some stress and to feel a little more connected to a world that I come nowhere near touching in my daily life. It's a higher power in and of itself when you go to a concert and you aren't the only one that knows every lyric, or the only one that gets excited over that one song that is barely ever played off of an album.  You feel part of a larger community of crazy music people, and that can be awesome. 

I love the new stuff, as I said, but I'd be remiss to exclude some of the bands that I consider staples to my musical education and collection.  I've been inspired to share a list of the bands that I have a real appreciation for and that I think have shaped the way that I listen to music.

U2 - Don't give me crap for liking U2. I can remember being a kid in a car with my aunt and singing every word to One.  It was powerful to me then and it's powerful to me now. I've also acquired a pretty heavy love for the entire Joshua Tree album.

The Cranberries - My older cousin Emily gave me To The Faithful Departed for my 8th birthday. It was my second CD  ever, so I was pretty pumped and listened to it on repeat.  I did not understand the political significance of anything when I was 8, but I did get that Bosnia and War Child were really sad songs and that Salvation was awesome.  

Meatloaf - As stated in my previous post about "Dad" music, Meatloaf in our household was "Mom" music.  When you know all of the words to Bat Out Of Hell and Paradise By The Dashboard Light when you're a little kid, people sort of respect you/fear you. 

The Beatles - Enough said.

Led Zeppelin - Again...enough said.

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run wasn't an album that I started listening to until I got into high school, and I really only started listening to it because it was "cool" to listen to classic rock. Beyond being "cool" it was the music that I liked listening to, mainly because I couldn't really get into a lot of the Pop that was going on in the early 2000's.  Eventually I'd come into my own with music taste and would realize that I loved alternative rock more than anything, but Bruce would always be there for me to listen to on long car rides home with my windows down.

Foo Fighters - Late 2006, sort of end of high school early college beginnings, I started listening to FF because one of my good friends Ryan was listening to them.  I knew that I had heard a few songs before, but when their Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace album hit in 2007 I was all about The Pretender. Who wasn't? I just remember listening to it while I was making some important decisions and thinking, "I wish that I could be this cool."

The Black Keys - I found the Black Keys about the same time I started really listening to Foo Fighters.  They weren't grunge, they were garage band. I felt a real connection to their music, especially the entire album Rubber Factory.  It was like my friends and I jamming out in someone's basement had a chance to make music that people would like listening to because the Black Keys could do it.  Not because I thought they were bad, it was the opposite of that. It was because you could tell that they were just playing to have fun and so were we.  

There are a few more bands that I have a real musical appreciation for, but these are sort of my go to's when I feel like I need some solid sound.