If you clicked on the link for this article expecting an actual list you are about to be sorely disappointed. There is no way that we can articulate a list of bands in any kind of order and then dictate that you go off and listen to it. We believe that it isn’t possible to quantify musical enjoyment in any kind of ascending or descending order. It’s a ridiculous notion! There are countless variables that affect music and our relationship with it on a daily basis.
I have, at any one time around twenty favourite bands that consist of ‘lifelong favourites’, ‘of the moment’ favourites, ‘ones that piss me off’ favourites – and these are all subject to change on mood, location, consumed substances, my frame of mind, the quality of the cup of tea at the time. One of these favourite bands for instance is Cardiacs and there are moments where the last thing I want to do is listen to them, I put them on and it’s painful to hear because my brain craves something softer or entirely different – sometimes it can’t process music at all and so I have to retreat to the world of podcasts until my music gland has ceased inflamation.
Music should not be measured, the charts, these lists, it’s all a farce. For a start what scale are people even using? What is it based on? How many times it’s been played on Six Music? So what. These experiences are primarily individual, everything we feel and experience when listening to something is mostly internal, this changes when going to a gig and becoming absorbed into the combined sensual experience – that’s understandable, but at no point does it persuade one to apply a numerical structure to ‘how much it was enjoyed’.
Furthermore, if we were to create a list of 50, 60 or 100 bands or musicians to listen to it means that we are going to have to not include certain bands or musicians that we love and that won’t do. Likewise we wouldn’t want to bulk any list out with fluff (and we never would).
But overall the best reason to avoid these lists is because no one should be dictating to you or anyone else what you should be listening to. This is not the same as when a friend gets more and more excited about a band and they blurt out ‘you must check them out!’ – that’s an exciting and pure thing, not the same as some self-appointed music wizard compiling a list of things they decided was worth talking about.
So… go forth and explore music like always, be free and open and don’t take these lists seriously because they’re by and large bollocks. Even this, what you’re reading now is nonsense, every review on this site is nonsense, totally subjective nonsense about experiences – there for you to read, or not, to listen to, or not… for you to decide where if anywhere they sit on your scale of enjoyment. But what we won’t do is create that structure or that list for you because it’s not for us, or anyone to do.
How’s that for a list.
