Bands That I Like

 145 James Brown James Brown James Brown may never have captured the zeitgeist as Elvis Presley or the Beatles did, nor can he be said to have dominated the charts like Stevie Wonder or the Rolling Stones, but by any real measure of musical greatness- endurance, originality, versatility, breadth of influence- he rivals or even betters them all. Brown was astonishingly productive over the five decades that spanned his recording career, churning out more than 100 albums (give or take a few anthologies) as a singer, bandleader, or instrumentalist; many are great, and nearly all are worth hearing. And even though none of the 44 singles he put into the Billboard Top 40 ever made it to #1- indeed, only two cracked the Top 5- in retrospect, that reflects worse on the pop audience than it does on his music. Indeed, Brown has long boasted that his best ideas were years ahead of their time, and history has proven him out. Hip-hop borrowed freely from his catalogue, as rappers such as Rob Ba...

 146      James Taylor James Taylor Jame's Taylor's 1969 debut album was one of the first albums released on the Beatles' Apple label. Though nearly capsized by heavy-handed orchestration, it was an eye-opening collection of songs whose highlights- " Knocking 'Round the Zoo ," " Something in the Way She Moves " and " Carolina in My Mind " (the latter two rerecorded for the 1976 Greatest Hits )- point toward the path he'd pursue in the next decade. Sweet Baby James , Taylor's landmark second release, heralds the arrival of pop music's sensitive phase. " Fire and Rain " epitomizes singer/songwriter stance: acoustic-based autobiography, where the arresting musical sparseness casts Taylor's gently melodies and warm, unassuming vocals in full relief. On " Steamroller ," he effectively mocks the straining pomposity of then-current white bluesmen- though Taylor became entrapped by his own laid-b...

 144 James Blake James Blake U.K. dance music sub-genre's don't usually produce soulful singer-songwriters... but then again, there aren't a lot of artists like Blake. James Blake uses neosoul keyboards, blip beats & layers of heart-starved snippets into a sonically full yet empty space of melody. His cover of Feist's " Limit to Your Love " is what first caught my attention. James released 2009's 12" Air & Lack Thereof , 2010's The Bells Sketch (E.P.) , Klavierwerke (E.P.) and CMYK (E.P.) , before releasing his self-titled debut album in 2011. Blake is soulful, having one of the sweetest voices in modern music. Since then he has released 2011's Enough Thunder (E.P.) , & Love What Happened Here (E.P.) before releasing his sophomore effort & my personal favorite, 2013's Overgrown , with the amazing tracks " Retrograde " and the title track . Black has released two more albums since then: his third album, 2016...

 143 J Dilla J Dilla  James Dewitt Yancey, better known to the world as J Dilla, was born in 1974. He was raised on the east side of Detroit, where his mother was a former opera singer and his father was a jazz bassist. With that kind of family tree- it's easy to see how Dilla would go on to become one of hip-hops most influential producers. He first came to prominence when he formed Slum Village with two of his high school friends in 1988. Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest heard some of Dilla’s beats and soon helped spread the word. Dilla would go on to produce for the Parcyde (“ Runnin’ ”), De La Soul (“ Stakes is High ”) and A Tribe Called Quest (“ Stressed Out ”) as well as Busta Rhymes (“ So Hardcore ”), and an unaccredited remix for Janet Jackson in the ‘90s. He also did notable work with the Soulquarians , a loosely associated neo-soul collective with the likes of Questlove, Common, Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Most Def and Talib Kweli. It wasn’t until 2001’s Welcome 2 Det...

 142 Isaac Hayes Isaac Hayes  Shades, dashiki, gleaming bald pate: Isaac Hayes cut an imposing figure during his early '70s heyday. The hulking auteur behind the ultra funky " Theme From Shaft " was actually a Barry White prototype, given to steamy bedroom raps and lush orchestrations. Or maybe he wasn't: The remainder of the Shaft soundtrack is rather mundane action-movie music, spiced by the occasional burst of streetwise syncopation or vocal color. A far cry from Curtis Mayfield's Super Fl y , to say the least. However, Hayes shouldn't be written off as a period oddity. His rambling soundtracks (two of which, Truck Turner and Three Tough Guys , are available on a single CD) and full-blown cover version had a big effect on soul music in general, broadening and softening the instrumental palette. Hayes paved the way for disco; whether he deserves credit or blame is a matter of taste. Hayes and David Porter made up one of the most successful songwriting and...

 141 Iron Maiden Iron Maiden Iron Maiden may have surfed in on the "new wave of British heavy metal"- the early-'80s movement that inspired Metallica and laid the foundations for death metal and thrash- bur the band never made any claims to rock & roll revisionism. Indeed, rather than spurn the excesses of '70s metal, Maiden's early output embraces them, and though Iron Maiden and Killers are full of hyperdriven blues riffs and wank-a-rific guitar solos, they're offered with such unabashed passion that even the bands most obvious moves somehow avoid sounding cliched. No wonder Maiden were the most influential English hard rockers of their generation.  After recording Killers , singer Paul Di'anno (whose work was hobbled by too much drinking) was replaced by former Samson vocalist Bruce Dickinson. Even though bassist and founder Steve Harris continued to write most of the band's material, Dinkinson's powerful, dramatic voice opened the door t...

 140 Iggy Pop & The Stooges   Iggy Pop & The Stooges  Lies, legends, half-truths, tales of drug-fueled lunacy, and wax-museum amounts of after-the-fact nostalgia will never be able to mute the stunning, violent, visceral recorded legacy of a band that made jaws drop in both horror. The difference is striking from the get-go between The Stooges and almost everybody else at the time. " 1969 ," the opening track, isn't a call to arms or a vision of an idyllic psychedelic future. It's about being bored. " I Wanna Be Your Dog " invents punk and then destroys it in three minutes by being both dumber and smarter than any punk could ever hope to be. Of the million-plus bands inspired by The Stooges later, the ones who were most successful realized that simplicity, volume, repetition, and primitivism could be a shortcut to transcendence, but that it also takes brains to get it just right. " No Fun " is so perfect it's breathtaking: Scott Ashet...