Music

Here’s a collection of artists and genres I like or have liked. Maybe you’ll find something to your liking too. Disclaimer: I do not collaborate or otherwise collude with the marketing departments of these artists. They just make music cool enough that I can proudly display it on my website.

Electronic/Dance/Dubstep

Big Gigantic

These guys are pretty new on the scene, but they are doing it big! The Colorado duo’s style weaves live jazz saxophone and percussion parts into electronic beats. It sounds weird, but you’ll totally get right into it. They are in the promotion/touring part of their career, so you can get most of their tracks FREE! So far, they’ve released four studio albums and a few hip hop remixes and I’m hungry for more.

http://soundcloud.com/biggigantic

Daft Punk

These guys need no introduction. This Grammy-winning French duo achieved mainstream success in the turn of the century and is still producing and touring. Their style varies but can be generally described as melodic electronic beats and patterns, sometimes incorporating words. They’re considered one of the fathers of modern house/electronic. There are more intense beats today, but Daft still grooves me hard.

Deadmau5

Here we get into more adventurous electronic music. Joel Zimmerman hails from Toronto and makes progressive and electro house music. His style emphasizes drums as well as “darker” melodies in the minor scales, with the definite touch of dubstep. Since 2005, he has won and been nominated for a number of festivals. Deadmau5 is breaking into new frontiers of electronic dance music, and as such he’s bound to get some haters, but there’s plenty more breakthroughs for him ahead.

Nutronic

This independent producer is so small that it doesn’t have a wikipedia page! I first found Nutronic as featured music on a youtube video. Their style is a fast-paced synthetic and electronic beat with melodic male vocals and dubstep. They have very few released tracks but I really like the 3-4 that I’ve been able to get to. Once again all these tracks are for free on SoundCloud. Hopefully one day they’ll get big and I’ll get to say “I liked Nutronic before they were popular.”

 

Pendulum 

These guys hit the sweet spot between several musical genres. Starting out as a drum & bass group, they gradually incorporated metal, dubstep, electronica and rock into their style, such that it’s difficult to give this band a proper classification. The roots of the group definitely come from very fast drum & bass beats, melodic minors and heavy metal/rock vocals. Without further ado, here’s Slam!

 

Joe Satriani

Joe makes wicked cool electric guitar riffs for being 56. He toured with Mick Jagger among others, was the mentor to a creed of popular guitarists and is hailed as one of the most skillful electric guitarists alive. His style is almost purely instrumental guitar riffs and solos, and he’s had five decades to hone his art. You can hear through the spectacular guitar solos that he’s mastered his instrument and that he’s enjoying himself above all. Just watch this man and be amazed!

 

METAL

 

Nightwish

I’d never heard of Symphonic Power Metal before Nightwish. I found them on Pandora and two days later I had their entire discography. The Finnish Metal band skillfully mixes powerful folk, mythical and epic melodies with gothic-sounding symphonies and leading, operatic alternating female and male vocals. That sounds complex, but this is one of the bands you’ll be proud to blast on your car system for everyone to hear. They summon the cinematic epic feel in you to make you feel dwarfed and enveloped in primeval, mythological energy at once. Tack on the metal part and mother of God, this is a beast of a band!